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 HIS PATH TO THE PRESIDENCY 
 
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 His Path, to the Presidency 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/abrahamlincoln01shaw 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 His Path to the Presidency 
 
 ALBERT SHAW 
 
 & 
 
 Profusely Illustrated 
 
 with Contemporary Cartoons 
 
 Portraits and Scenes 
 
 New York 
 The Review of Reviews Corporation 
 
 1929 
 
Copyright, 1929 
 Albert Shaw 
 
 Made in the 
 United States of America 
 
77 ; 
 
 1/ / 
 
 A braham Lincoln attained the Presidency through two processes. The second of 
 /-% these was the sequel of the first, with a totally different time scale. The first 
 ■*- -*■ was slow like the growth of a tree that has survived the buffeting of storms and 
 the heat and cold of changing seasons. The second was swift like a horse-race or a 
 football game. Through the first process Lincoln had become what is known as "pres- 
 idential timber." There are those who like to think of him as a mystical character, a 
 superman without the usual background of recognized growth, suddenly lifted from 
 obscurity to the highest place, by unseen powers guarding the fate of America. But 
 hero-worshippers who prefer a Lincoln thus enshrouded are not careful students of 
 available information. Our Presidents and other foremost leaders in Cabinets, in 
 Congress, and on the Bench, have as a rule made their way through years of gradual 
 advancement. Abraham Lincoln was no exception ; and he became a presidential pos- 
 sibility by virtue of a thirty-year period of testing and maturing, through experiences 
 that lifted him to the rank of a well-seasoned statesman, as he turned his fiftieth year. 
 The second process, as I have remarked, was a rapid and exciting one. Among the 
 many millions of American fellow-citizens in a given election year, there are a few 
 men, perhaps twenty, perchance a round hundred, who are no longer on the slow 
 upward path to recognition, but who are already inside the ring fence of what we may 
 call the "presidential field." Some of these belong to one party, some to another. Some 
 are so prominent that they and their friends have high expectations. Any one of the 
 others, all being admittedly competent, might under given circumstances be chosen as 
 a party's nominee. The field is large enough, and its envied occupants are numerous 
 enough to include — generally speaking — all those recipient though less conspicuous 
 aspirants termed in political parlance "dark horses." Lincoln, having climbed the long 
 ascent to this field of presidential candidates, must go through the further process, with 
 all its hazards and complications, that finally leaves all rivals behind, bringing him to 
 the White House in a time of great emergency. 
 
 I am defining these two processes as explaining the purpose and method of the pres- 
 ent volume and of the one which accompanies it as its companion and sequel. The 
 first volume relates to the process of Lincoln's preparation, and I have chosen to call 
 it "His Path to the Presidency." The second volume deals with the affairs of politics 
 and government in "The Year of His Election." For the purposes of this second vol- 
 ume, the year in question begins in March, with Lincoln's return from his speaking 
 adventure in New York and his tour of New England. It ends on the fourth day of 
 the following March, thus including the occurrences of the four months during which 
 Buchanan was rounding out his term, while Lincoln was waiting in the capacity of 
 President-elect. In these trying months he was planning for his administration, select- 
 ing his Cabinet, settling in his own mind the main points of his policy, noting the 
 efforts of President Buchanan to keep the peace, and watching with eager attention the 
 progress of the Secession movement in the South, as it culminated in the forming of the 
 Confederate government under the Presidency of Jefferson Davis. 
 
Lincoln's earlier career was well worth while in each successive step on its own 
 account. He had chosen in youth to take the risks and chances of public life. He 
 became a competent lawyer; but the rewards of that profession were not at any time 
 the measure of his ambition. He was an enthusiast for canals, railroads and all forms 
 of Western development. He was thinking, however, in terms of State policy, and in no 
 sense was he aspiring to be a promoter of enterprises that might perchance make him 
 a capitalist or a president of railroads. He was not impecunious; but the seeking of 
 wealth seems never to have had a place in his day-dreams. His mind, to sum it up, was 
 political; and his ambition was to represent his fellow -citizens in public office. 
 
 In view of such ambitions, Lincoln's circumstances had their advantages. A new 
 State was the best conceivable laboratory in which an earnest and eager student of 
 institutions, and of democratic government, might acquire the mental habits of a 
 political philosopher along with thorough training in our complicated mechanism. This 
 first volume, therefore, attempts to survey the influences and to recount the experiences 
 that had shaped the career of Lincoln until, in the year 1860, he had become one of the 
 men regarded even beyond the confines of Illinois as fit for the presidency. 
 
 It is hardly needful to explain, after the foregoing remarks, that my own chapters 
 are rather in the sphere of presidential politics than in that of detached biography. I 
 am referring frequently, however, to the writings of Lincoln biographers. All future 
 students of the character and career of the great President will be indebted to Messrs. 
 Nicolay and Hay, to William H. Herndon and others of the Illinois group of Lincoln's 
 associates, to contemporary authors like Horace Greeley and Henry Wilson, and 
 particularly to later investigators among whom must be mentioned with grateful 
 appreciation such biographers as Joseph H. Barrett, Ida Tarbell, William E. Barton, 
 Louis A. Warren, Carl Sandburg and, among the foremost, my friend of long years the 
 late Senator Beveridge. 
 
 While acknowledging the value of the work of Lincoln's biographers, I must hasten 
 to remark that for my purposes the lives of many other public men have been almost as 
 essential. One understands better the firm and lifelong convictions that made Lincoln 
 a consistent Nationalist, when he has studied also the lives of John Marshall, John 
 Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and several others who, like these four, 
 were among Lincoln's mentors and teachers. It is well to remember that he served in 
 Congress with Adams, was present when the "Old Man Eloquent" was stricken on the 
 floor of the House, and was one of the Congressional committee that attended the 
 funeral in Massachusetts. As a devoted follower of Henry Clay, Lincoln had visited 
 the Whig idol in his Kentucky home. He knew Webster, Calhoun, Hayne and other 
 Northern and Southern statesmen of the period culminating in 1850. 
 
 In his rise to leadership in Illinois, Lincoln's contacts were such that, for a full 
 understanding, one must read the biographies of Stephen A. Douglas, Lyman Trum- 
 bull, the Washburnes, and other Western contemporaries, including Ohio and Indiana 
 leaders as well as those of Kentucky, Iowa, and other States of the Mississippi Valley. 
 To read books about Lincoln while ignoring those relating to the lives of James 
 Buchanan, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Jefferson Davis, 
 Alexander H. Stephens, and less remembered men like Crittenden of Kentucky and 
 
Wilmot of Pennsylvania, is to come short of a rounded understanding. Besides the 
 biographies, there are the balanced judgments of such approved historians as Rhodes, 
 Schouler, Channing and McMaster, not to mention many other writers who have dealt 
 with shorter periods or particular situations. 
 
 Thus far I have made no reference to the use of the one especial form of original 
 material that the reader will immediately find to be most distinctive of these volumes. 
 Political caricature is a kind of current record that has some of the qualities of a 
 partisan public diary. It is nowadays a recognized feature of many newspapers, and of 
 periodicals of weekly or monthly issue. It uses pictorial exaggeration to express or to 
 affect public opinion. In due time it falls into the perspectives of historical material. 
 In its very nature, however, it has a tendency to be destroyed, as of merely passing 
 interest. We are slowly learning that much ephemeral material has high value for the 
 historian of social life and manners, as also for the historian of politics. 
 
 In the case of cartoons relating to public men and controversial situations, there 
 could be no serious dispute as to the interest and value that they acquire. The lapse 
 of time converts them from the status of waste paper to that of prized material for the 
 study of the history of certain forms of illustrative art. But most of all it makes them 
 valuable for their vivid and pungent comments upon the personages and issues of pol- 
 itics and social life. For several decades political cartooning in the United States made 
 use of lithography as its principal method of reproduction. The posters were prepared 
 to meet the exigencies of one party situation or another, and were widely sold (perhaps 
 more usually at ten cents apiece) and were doubtless distributed in many instances by 
 political campaign managers. Within recent years it has been discovered that, when 
 not destroyed, they had become increasingly rare, while some were unobtainable at any 
 price. For the most part, even the cartoons that found place in the pages of newspapers 
 and periodicals have not been available at immediate notice for the students who might 
 like to see them. Complete files of the earlier periodicals are seldom to be discovered 
 in any library, or in the hands of any known collector. 
 
 The assembling of cartoons relating to the life and times of Lincoln has not been the 
 task of a moment. A slight brochure of this character that I prepared many years ago 
 attracted attention, and led to the plan of the relatively extensive project that is in 
 part realized in the two present volumes. While these are complete in themselves, it 
 is well to anticipate certain inquiries by stating that volumes dealing with Lincoln's 
 career as President, and with the domestic and foreign situations that confronted him 
 in the Civil War period, are far advanced in preparation. 
 
 So much information pertaining to these cartoons is presented in explanatory cap- 
 tions that to go into further detail in this preface would be to waste space. The reader 
 will find that the cartoons in the first volume relate mainly to situations in which Lincoln 
 was actively concerned, as a Whig politician and later as a Republican. They were 
 familiar to him, and served for his entertainment and instruction, precisely as political 
 cartoons today may amuse or edify party leaders in their home States or at Washington. 
 In the second volume, on the other hand, most of the cartoons are those that were 
 issued after Lincoln had himself become a figure in the arena of presidential politics. 
 He now appears, therefore, as the familiar "Rail-Splitter," or as a champion of the 
 
Northern cause. I have hoped that the use of these illustrations would not only awaken 
 interest and afford entertainment, but that they would also help to give reality to the 
 study of American history and politics, thus serving an educational purpose. 
 
 For many posters otherwise almost impossible to find, I have been indebted to the 
 helpful co-operation of the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the 
 New York Historical Society. I have received special assistance from the Illinois State 
 Historical Society. But for the aid of the Chicago Historical Society, I should not have 
 been able to find copies of that fugitive publication of 1860 known as the Rail-Splitter. 
 Acknowledgment also should be made to the Abraham Lincoln Association of Spring- 
 field, Illinois. Many years ago I obtained generous assistance from a Philadelphia 
 collector, the late John C. Browne. Discriminating readers will be especially attracted 
 by several etchings of the late Adalbert John Volck of Baltimore. During his life-time 
 some of his unpublished plates made in the early War period, intensely anti-Lincoln 
 in their character, came into my possession through direct dealing with him. A number 
 of these will appear in the later volumes. 
 
 The reader will find numerous portraits of Lincoln, reproduced from photographs, 
 and also those of public men who were Lincoln's contemporaries. The majority of these 
 have been engraved from my collection of original photographs by the famous Matthew 
 Brady, or from various other engravings and pictures also in my own possession. For 
 certain photographs representing the work of Leonard Volk the sculptor, and his son 
 Douglas Volk the painter, I make grateful acknowledgements to my friend Douglas 
 Volk. A similar expression is due to several other sculptors, including George Grey 
 Barnard and Lorado Taft. My thanks are due to Harry MacNeil Bland of the Robert 
 Fridenberg Galleries, New York, for some Lincoln cartoons, and to several other friends 
 for similar aid. Convention scenes and other pictorial embellishments are from diverse 
 sources, including files of almost forgotten periodicals, now scarce enough to be inac- 
 cessible to the general reader. 
 
 Howard Florance, who has for many years been associated with me in editorial 
 work, has rendered invaluable aid in collecting from many sources — East and West, 
 North and South, and from foreign countries — the cartoons and other pictorial material 
 for these two volumes and for those that are in preparation. The explanatory captions 
 of some of the earlier poster cartoons have required unusual knowledge of political 
 history; and to these details Mr. Florance has given unsparing attention. I have also 
 had the benefit of the timely assistance of other members of an editorial staff that is 
 familiar with American politics, with bibliography, and with such worthy crafts as those 
 of proof-reading and indexing. Among these I should mention especially my friend 
 William Bristol Shaw. Throughout all the processes of illustration and make-up of 
 pages, Mr. Florance has been of indispensable assistance. 
 
 Albert Shaw. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PACE 
 
 I. Lincoln's Place in History 1 
 
 The influence of time upon our estimates of historical events — ■ 
 Some American statesmen whose achievements survive — Repre- 
 sentative European tributes to Lincoln. 
 
 II. The Presidential Office 13 
 
 Powers and responsibilities of the chief executive — A target for 
 criticism — Lincoln's place in history in contrast with that of 
 Buchanan, his predecessor. 
 
 III. The Education of a Future President 21 
 
 A wealth of substitutes for schooling — Lincoln's autobiography 
 of his early years — A surveyor, postmaster, and merchant who 
 liked to read books — His resemblance to Marshall. 
 
 IV. A Frontier Youth Encounters Slavery 32 
 
 Lincoln's flat-boat voyages to New Orleans — The family moves 
 from Indiana to Illinois — A period of national expansion — Henry 
 Clay and the turbulent campaign of 1824. 
 
 V. Lincoln's First Taste of Politics and War .... 42 
 
 The presidential careers of John Q. Adams and Andrew Jack- 
 son — Lincoln announces his candidacy for the Legislature, serves 
 in the Black Hawk War, and is defeated at the polls. 
 
 VI. Lincoln Becomes a Lawmaker 53 
 
 Douglas a fellow member of the Illinois Legislature — Lawyers 
 in the politics of 1836 — Lincoln a foremost Whig leader in his 
 State — He joins in a program of public improvements. 
 
 VII. A Definite Position on the Slave Question . . . . 61 
 
 The contest over slavery in free Illinois — Van Bicren the first 
 President to discuss slavery — Lincoln takes a courageous stand — 
 Crusading Abolitionists, and their persecution. 
 
 VIII. Emancipation Projects — Lincoln's Plan 69 
 
 He proposes gradual emancipation in the District of Columbia — 
 The African slave trade — British, French and Latin-American 
 methods for liberation of the Negroes. 
 
 IX. A Crisis in National Banking 76 
 
 Lincoln is licensed to practise law, moves to Springfield, and is 
 married — President Jackson denounces the National Bank — Lin- 
 coln qualifies as an authority on banking. 
 
 XI 
 
CONTENTS— Continued 
 
 ER 
 
 X. The Boisterous Harrison Campaign 
 
 PAGE 
 
 87 
 
 An Indian fighter is elected President — Harrison's genuine qualifi- 
 cations — Lincoln demonstrates ability as a stump speaker and a 
 talent for party organization. 
 
 XL Tyler: A President Without a Party 
 
 96 
 
 Lincoln warns against injurious partisanship — Tyler becomes 
 President through the death of Harrison, and abandons Whig 
 doctrines — The Cabinet, except Webster, resign. 
 
 XII. Clay Loses His Third Campaign 
 
 103 
 
 Polk emerges as the first "dark horse" candidate — Texas and 
 Oregon the issues, in an era of expansion — Lincoln explains his 
 opposition to the annexation of Texas. 
 
 XIII. War with Mexico — The Oregon Crisis 115 
 
 Lincoln is nominated and elected to Congress — Admission of 
 Texas as a State results in war with Mexico — Disputes with 
 England over the Oregon boundary. 
 
 XIV. Lincoln, the Congressman 125 
 
 He attends a great river and harbor convention at Chicago — 
 Some noted biographers of Lincoln — His personal appearance 
 — A speech against Cass for President, on the floor of the House. 
 
 XV. Washington in Polk's Time 135 
 
 Lincoln's first journey to Washington — His distinguished con- 
 temporaries in Congress, and the contacts he formed there — A 
 period of political and social revolt in Europe. 
 
 XVI. Lincoln a Leader in the Politics of 1848 . . 
 
 He advises Zachary Taylor on his campaign — A three-party fight 
 that defeats Cass and elects Taylor, the Whig candidate — Lincoln 
 speaks in Massachusetts. 
 
 . 145 
 
 XVII. Lincoln Returns to Private Life 155 
 
 He considers government posts in the Land Office and Oregon — 
 The Compromise of 1850 — The nominating convention and pres- 
 idential election of 1852. 
 
 XVIII. Birth of the Republican Party 166 
 
 The older statesmen pass on, Lincoln's contemporaries assuming 
 control — Social conditions in the South — The Kansas-Nebraska 
 bill and its important sequel. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 XIX. 
 
 CONTENTS— Concluded 
 
 The Presidential Election of 1856 
 
 The rival colonization of "Bloody Kansas" by North and South — 
 Designs on Cuba meet with Republican disapproval — Lincoln 
 takes high rank in the new party. 
 
 PACE 
 
 177 
 
 XX. Lincoln and Douglas — A Supreme Debate . 
 
 President Buchanan appeals for harmony — The Dred Scott deci- 
 sion stirs the Northern Stales — A senatorial contest in Illinois 
 results in the most famous of all political stumping tours. 
 
 189 
 
 XXI. How the Two Illinois Rivals Stood 199 
 
 The gradual disintegration of the older political parties — Douglas 
 finds himself leader of a Democratic minority faction — Lincoln's 
 speech, when named for the Senate. 
 
 XXII. Douglas Wins a Costly Victory 207 
 
 His home-coming speech at Chicago — The candidates question 
 each other thoroughly as they tour the State before election 
 — Illinois sectionalism —Immigrants at the polls. 
 
 XXIII. Buchanan Surveys the World at Large . . 
 
 A mild-mannered Expansionist, highly alarming to Europe and 
 Latin-America — Talk of re-opening the African slave trade — 
 Northern Abolitionists and their activity. 
 
 219 
 
 XXIV. John Brown Attempts Emancipation 229 
 
 Our statesmen on their travels in the summer of 1859 — Brown's 
 record in Kansas and his invasion of Virginia — Lincoln's views 
 on the Harper's Ferry raid — The martyrdom of John Brown. 
 
 XXV. Congress Meets in Bitter Dissension 242 
 
 The most turbulent session in our history — An anti-slavery book, 
 endorsed by John Sherman, causes a deadlock in the election of a 
 Speaker — Senator Davis formulates Southern views. 
 
 XXVI. Lincoln Addresses the East 249 
 
 He visits New York and speaks in Cooper Union — A notable 
 effort that makes him a national figure — His brief speaking tour 
 in New England strengthens the Republican cause. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 From a photograph made at Springfield, Illinois, in June, 1860 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Lincoln's Place in History 
 
 The influence of time upon our estimates oj historical events — Some 
 
 American statesmen whose achievements survive — Representative 
 
 European tributes to Lincoln 
 
 Written records have continued to be 
 the main reliance of historians and 
 biographers. With such facts as they 
 can find, and with inferences derived from their 
 own logical processes, they send forth their 
 volumes to supply beaten trails for succeeding 
 authors — who may, after all, try to blaze fresh 
 paths for themselves. By one means or an- 
 other, new facts come to light. Often the 
 prejudices that have blinded men — due to par- 
 tisanship, the surviving uncharitableness of 
 religious sects, false pride of race, or the in- 
 stinctive dislike of the unfamiliar in speech 
 and manners — are cast aside in the later ac- 
 counts, even as time softens the landscape of a 
 war-devastated area. 
 
 Thus it is a mistake to speak too confidently 
 of the verdicts of history. Such verdicts 
 are constantly under- 
 going modification, 
 and sometimes they 
 are quite sharply re- 
 versed. Research in 
 the fields of politics, of 
 government, and of 
 the biography of men 
 whose names have sur- 
 vived as having been 
 actual leaders in civil 
 or military affairs, 
 has been benefited by 
 the methods of mod- 
 ern science. The new 
 scholarship in these 
 subjects is more anx- 
 ious to find the truth 
 than to perpetuate a 
 prejudice or to bolster 
 up a party position. 
 
 "ALL SEEMS WELL WITH US" 
 The four-year struggle between the North and the South 
 was ended; and Lincoln when this cartoon was drawn 
 was more widely accepted than at any other moment in 
 his own lifetime. Even while the periodical containing 
 it was being printed the world was shocked by the news 
 of the President's death from an assassin's bullet. 
 
 In some cases we are justified in feeling that 
 we are probably arriving at something like 
 well-balanced and final estimates of historical 
 events. Particularly, we attain a measure of 
 satisfied agreement about individuals who have 
 played eminent parts on the stage of affairs in 
 their own periods. This remark is applicable 
 as regards some — though not all — of the long- 
 line of men who have served in that most pow- 
 erful of modern positions, the Presidency of 
 the United States. And the same thing could 
 be said of a series of statesmen, jurists, mili- 
 tary leaders, who rank with Presidents in the 
 foreground of the shifting scenes of our na- 
 tional drama. 
 
 For example, the whole world seems to have 
 arrived at settled opinions as regards the 
 high qualities of human nature, of dignity, and 
 
 of responsible leader- 
 ship that were dis- 
 played throughout the 
 career of George 
 Washington. There is 
 by no means a finality 
 of agreement as to the 
 personal qualities and 
 public services of 
 Thomas Jefferson or 
 Alexander Hamilton. 
 Benjamin Franklin at- 
 tained an amazing 
 fame in his day in all 
 countries, and he still 
 holds his place as an 
 admired personage of 
 the brilliant and men- 
 tally-aroused world of 
 the last half of the 
 Eighteenth Century. 
 I 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 But perhaps the final word will not be said 
 about Franklin for another half-century. 
 
 The late Senator Beveridge has so recon- 
 structed for us the personality of John Mar- 
 shall and, above all, has so recounted the public 
 services of that pre-eminent jurist, that it will 
 be a long time before anyone ventures to write 
 further about him, unless to add certain side- 
 lights to be derived from the study of Mar- 
 shall's contemporaries. 
 
 But it is not my purpose here to check off 
 the long list of the names of Americans of 
 high distinction, in order to deal with their in- 
 dividual progress toward some accepted esti- 
 mate in later times. Webster, Clay and Cal- 
 houn will eventually be subjected to new tests 
 from many standpoints, by future investiga- 
 tors and competent scholars. 
 
 Thanks to the researches that find a center 
 in the recent work of archivists at Jackson, 
 
 MATT MORGAN'S LINCOLN— AN ENGLISH VIEW 
 Virtually unknown to authorities on political caricature, 
 and to collectors of Lincolniana, are the American Civil 
 War cartoons of Matthew Somerville Morgan, published in 
 a London periodical called Fun. They were not complimen- 
 tary to President Lincoln, nor ever favorable to the 
 Northern cause. 
 
 Mississippi, Dr. and Mrs. Dunbar Rowland, 
 we have new material for arriving at a better 
 understanding of the services of Andrew Jack- 
 son and Jefferson Davis. It becomes evident 
 that Jackson has been to some extent the vic- 
 tim of mistaken emphasis, on the part of the 
 eulogists of contemporaries whom Jackson 
 opposed. His greatest fame is to come with 
 a new appreciation of the importance of his 
 earlier achievements as a creative nationalist. 
 Judge Winston's recent biography of Andrew 
 Johnson is a contribution toward a just esti- 
 mate of a President who is evidently destined 
 to fare better in the pages of all future histor- 
 ians than in those of many who have written 
 hitherto under the spell of partisanship. 
 
 It is plain that General Robert E. Lee's as- 
 sured position as a character of singular 
 nobility will, by common consent, increasingly 
 serve to adorn our revised American annals, 
 and will suffer no decline in the judgments of 
 critics at home and abroad. About General 
 Grant there was once much controversy due to 
 the military rivalries of the Civil War, and still 
 more surviving from the political storms and 
 strivings of his presidential period. Later 
 biographers will, it may be said, so winnow the 
 facts and so interpret them as to allay many of 
 the prejudices that have lingered, particularly 
 by reason of the attacks of the political reform- 
 ers in the difficult decade following Grant's 
 inauguration as President in 1869. 
 
 Towering above all the other successors of 
 George Washington there stands in the appre- 
 ciation of mankind the figure of Abraham 
 Lincoln. Looking back from the days when 
 these chapters make their addition to the 
 many volumes that have been written on the 
 life and times of Lincoln, we find him in office 
 at a midway point. The country through its 
 growth in territory and in population had at- 
 tained its continental grandeur, an enviable 
 place in the family of nations, and the lead- 
 ership of the western hemisphere. But it 
 had to adjust its constitutional theories to the 
 new historical and physical facts. The written 
 Constitution was one thing, while the Nation, 
 after the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican 
 War, was a profoundly altered reality. 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall was trying to stretch 
 
LINCOLN'S PLACE IN HISTORY 
 
 the Constitution to meet the sweeping changes 
 produced by the settlement of a million 
 pioneer families in what was recently Indian 
 country, and by the admission of many new 
 States. Lincoln was a product of this newer 
 America, west of the Alleghenies, that was no 
 part of the coalition of thirteen British colon- 
 ies, founded in the Seventeenth Century. This 
 was actually national domain, in the same sense 
 that later acquisitions like Alaska were na- 
 tional, and wholly subject to the nation's man- 
 date, rather than to the strict compacts of the 
 Constitution of 1787. 
 
 One hundred and forty- four years will have 
 elapsed between the election of Washington in 
 1788 and the presidential election of 1932. 
 Seventy-two years, or eighteen quadrennial 
 periods, are covered between the election of 
 1788 and that of i860, when Lincoln swept the 
 field. Between the election of i860 and that 
 which occurs in 1932, there extends another 
 like term of seventy-two years, or eighteen 
 quadrennial periods. The achievements of 
 Washington and the policies of Jefferson 
 shaped the country's history and development 
 all the way to the presidency of James Buch- 
 anan, whom Lincoln succeeded. 
 
 The historic transactions with which the 
 name of Lincoln is identified have essentially 
 controlled the national and international poli- 
 cies of the United States throughout the gen- 
 erations that have followed. The two parties 
 evolved in Lincoln's maturity were so well 
 devised and compacted as organizations that 
 each has continued until the present day, with- 
 out real loss of identity, and with less modifi- 
 cation of principles or change of constitu- 
 encies than could well have been expected. 
 
 The principal change lies in the fact that 
 party cleavages are no longer deep enough to 
 endanger the welfare of the country. The areas 
 of harmony and agreement are vastly greater 
 than those of difference. There is no virtue 
 whatever in treating party rivalry as a mild 
 form of civil warfare. Two well-balanced 
 parties, with equal patriotism, afford the coun- 
 try needed opportunity to debate pending meas- 
 ures and to test out the qualities of public men. 
 The possibility of a change of party control 
 at Washington brings freshness and virility 
 
 
 LINCOLN OF THE LONDON "PUNCH" 
 This is typical of cartoons drawn during the Civil War by 
 John Tenniel. It is Punch's first portrait of Lincoln — 
 May 11, 1861 — and the only one showing him without a 
 beard. In the smoke from the White House fireplace be- 
 fore which Lincoln meditates are what the caption refers 
 to as "Blacks." "What a nice White House this would 
 be, if it were not for the Blacks." 
 
 into situations that might otherwise tend to 
 become stale and undesirable, with power too 
 firmly grasped in the hands of certain men and 
 groups, as was the case in Mexico, for exam- 
 ple, in the days of President Diaz. 
 
 The point toward which I am making ap- 
 proach relates to the public character and influ- 
 ence of Lincoln. His birthday, like that of 
 George Washington, has become a national 
 holiday. The Republicans, naturally, are most 
 disposed to use his name as a political asset. 
 But the Democrats also appeal to him and his 
 record, and hold him up as a reproach to 
 Republicans of lesser fame or more doubtful 
 virtue, both past and present. The North has 
 accepted General Lee with warm admiration, 
 while less inclined to admit final evidence of 
 the long and distinguished record of Jefferson 
 Davis. The South, with steadily increasing de- 
 sire to know and to understand, has begun to 
 see Abraham Lincoln in a true light, as the 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 LEONARD VOLK'S BUST OF LINCOLN 
 
 Made from life in April, 1860, in the sculptor's studio at 
 Chicago, with the aid of the mask reproduced below. 
 Volk's wife was a cousin of Stephen A. Douglas, and he 
 had met Lincoln during the famous debates of 1858. Lin- 
 coln sat for this bust every day for a week and afterward 
 praised it highly. Volk later made statues of both Doug- 
 las and Lincoln for the Illinois State Capitol at Springfield. 
 
 man whose devotion was never sectional. 
 Everywhere it is conceded that it was Lincoln's 
 steadfast aim to keep the country together for 
 the sake alike of all its parts and sections, and 
 because he foresaw long vistas of future 
 greatness for a united America. 
 
 Unquestionably the world is in agreement 
 in its belief that Abraham Lincoln's place is a 
 worthy and permanent one, not only in our 
 American Hall of Fame, but in the Pantheon 
 of democratic leaders who have helped to 
 change the world since the collapse of the old 
 regime, and to make life worth living for the 
 common man. The lamented Mr. Beveridge, 
 whose posthumous volumes on Lincoln ap- 
 peared in the autumn of 1928, has presented 
 the man himself in his formative period, in a 
 more thorough way than any previous writer. 
 This was a difficult work, because the author 
 
 chose to proceed, with indefatigable industry 
 and with unsurpassed training and ability, to 
 gain and weigh fresh knowledge, and to inter- 
 pret the facts as a whole in order to arrive at 
 estimates that might remain unshaken. Our 
 accepted views of Lincoln's qualities are 
 strongly confirmed by these latest researches, 
 just as certain new facts of an ancestral and 
 biographical character, brought to light by Dr. 
 William E. Barton, Mr. Louis A. Warren, 
 and others, have helped us to understand Lin- 
 coln's backgrounds with higher appreciation. 
 Doubtless we know enough about Lincoln, 
 as matters stand, to feel confident in the favor- 
 able opinion we hold. We shall always regret, 
 however, that we have no record of hundreds 
 of speeches made by him in the Legislature of 
 Illinois. We know something of his manner 
 of reasoning before judges and juries, but we 
 are the poorer in that we shall never possess 
 
 A 
 
 01 
 
 a, ■ . :' 
 
 P^TO> 
 
 
 ■i _ £"." *- m ":' 
 
 THE LIFE MASK OF LINCOLN 
 Made by Leonard W. Volk at his studio in Chicago, in 
 April, 1860, the month before Lincoln's nomination. This 
 plaster cast is the standard upon which all accurate por- 
 traiture of the younger, beardless Lincoln is based. The 
 sculptor's reminiscences tell us that the whole process for 
 making the mould consumed about an hour's time. 
 "Being all in one piece, with both ears perfectly taken, it 
 clung pretty hard, as the cheekbones were higher than the 
 jaws at the lobe of the ear." But Lincoln worked it off 
 without break or injury, though it hurt as it pulled a few 
 hairs out with the plaster. 
 
LINCOLN'S PLACE IN HISTORY 
 
 THE BEARDLESS LINCOLN OF GEORGE GREY 
 BARNARD 
 This is the sculptor's model, which he used in the creation 
 of the bronze statue erected at Cincinnati in 1917, with a 
 replica at Manchester, England. Barnard tells us that he 
 saw "the mighty man who grew from out the soil and the 
 hardships of the earth. ... a man made like the oak 
 trees and the granite rocks." He relied largely upon the 
 life mask, for he believed an imaginary Lincoln to be an 
 insult to the American people. 
 
 the volumes that could have been compiled if 
 court stenographers had taken down his lucid 
 arguments. 
 
 His record in the Legislature was sub- 
 jected to a searching investigation by Mr. 
 Beveridge, who found in the surviving 
 journals ample evidence of Lincoln's con- 
 stant activity in the debating of questions 
 both local and general. To have read full re- 
 ports of a hundred of Lincoln's best speeches 
 in the Legislature would have made it easier 
 to understand the political and oratorical ma- 
 turity disclosed by Lincoln in the debates with 
 Douglas in 1858. Also, the Cooper Union 
 speech would not have seemed so amazing 
 if its hearers could have realized the extent 
 of Lincoln's preparation as a political student, 
 and the long training as a public speaker 
 to which he had subjected himself. As I 
 
 ©Douglas Volk, 1908. 
 
 LINCOLN THE PRESIDENT— A PORTRAIT BY 
 DOUGLAS VOLK 
 The artist is a distinguished portrait painter whose interest 
 in Lincoln dates back to his own childhood, when Lincoln 
 came to his father's studio in Chicago, early in 1860, to sit 
 for the bust reproduced on the preceding page. He has 
 made careful studies from the bust and life mask. Douglas 
 Volk's conception may well be accepted as the standard 
 bearded Lincoln of the presidential period, as later gen- 
 erations have come to portray him. 
 
 have remarked, it is a loss not to have those 
 earlier speeches preserved, except for a few 
 casual fragments. But the various samples of 
 Lincoln's early writing and speaking that we 
 actually possess are enough to convince us that 
 we should not have been disappointed with the 
 countless efforts that were never set down on 
 paper. We know that Lincoln arrived at his 
 later position of unquestioned pre-eminence 
 through continuous application, over a long 
 period, to the study of English diction and to 
 mastery of the art of logical presentation. 
 Certain young Englishmen of ardent spirit 
 had conceived a high opinion of Lincoln even 
 before the tragedy of his death had softened 
 the hearts of the greater number who had 
 spoken of him with contempt and ridicule. 
 But in England, as elsewhere in the world, the 
 historical position of Lincoln is no longer in 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ENGLAND ACCEPTS THE WASHINGTON IDEAL 
 In the caption of this cartoon from Punch of January, 
 1863, George III asks George Washington — both being in 
 spirit land — what he thinks of his fine republic now, 
 Washington replying "Umph!" The Father of His Coun- 
 try, creator of a nation out of thirteen former British 
 colonies, would not have approved of civil strife and dis- 
 union, in the opinion of this English journal. 
 
 dispute. A volume might be made of mere 
 quotations from later British tributes. There 
 appeared in 1916 a worthy British biography 
 of Lincoln by Lord Charnwood. It is a frank 
 and discriminating study, the eulogistic tone of 
 which is in full accord with the sentiment of 
 the world at large. Mr. Basil Williams, in his 
 preface to that work, characterizes Lincoln 
 as "one of the few supreme statesmen of the 
 last three centuries." Continuing, Mr. Wil- 
 liams says : "He was misunderstood and un- 
 der-rated in his lifetime and even yet has 
 hardly come to his own, for his place is among 
 the great men of the earth. To them he 
 belongs by right of his immense power of hard 
 work, his unfaltering pursuit of what seemed 
 to him right, and above all by that childlike 
 directness and simplicity of vision which none 
 but the greatest carry beyond their earliest 
 years." 
 
 Lord Charnwood, referring to Lincoln's 
 
 speeches in the debates with Douglas, com- 
 ments as follows upon their qualities of 
 thought and language : "Passages abound in 
 these speeches which to almost any literate 
 taste are arresting for the simple beauty of 
 their English, a beauty characteristic of one 
 who had learned to reason with Euclid and 
 learned to feel and to speak with the authors 
 of the Bible. And in their own kind they were 
 a classic and probably unsurpassed achieve- 
 ment. Though Lincoln had to deal with a 
 single issue demanding no great width of 
 knowledge, it must be evident that the passions 
 aroused by it and the confused and shifting 
 state of public sentiment made his problem 
 very subtle, and it was a rare profundity and 
 sincerity of thought which solved it in his 
 own mind. In expressing the result of 
 thought so far deeper than that of most men, 
 he achieved a clearness of expression which 
 very few writers, and those among the great- 
 est, have excelled." 
 
 From a much more extended comment upon 
 Lincoln's methods in statement and argument, 
 we may quote the following sentences from 
 Lord Charnwood: "Grave difficulties are 
 
 AN ENVELOPE DESIGN OF 1861 
 It carried a letter addressed to "His Exc, Abraham Lin- 
 coln, President of the United States," and was one of 
 many millions of such envelopes — with various kinds of 
 emblems, caricatures, and slogans — which were in general 
 use at the time. This particular envelope has been chosen 
 here to show how Washington was held up as an inspira- 
 tion and example in the period of national crisis, even in 
 
 the personal mail of President Lincoln. 
 
LINCOLN'S PLACE IN HISTORY 
 
 
 WHEN WASHINGTON WAS THE SOLE STANDARD 
 BY WHICH PRESIDENTS WERE JUDGED 
 
 In Lincoln's time the embodiment of all that was right and good in Presidents was Wash- 
 ington. Now Lincoln himself shares that honor. Here the bust of Washington, on the 
 pedestal that bears the names of Adams and Jefferson, looks on while Lincoln (with one 
 knee on the ground) battles with Douglas, and Breckinridge strives with Bell, in the four- 
 cornered rivalry for the Presidency in 1860. It was a Fourth of July cartoon, published 
 in the New York weekly periodical Vanity Fair and drawn by Louis S. Stephens, many of 
 whose cartoons appear in subsequent chapters. 
 
 handled in a style which could arouse all the 
 interest of a boy, and penetrate the under- 
 standing of a case-hardened party man. But 
 if in comparison with the acknowledged mas- 
 terpieces of our prose we rank many passages 
 in these speeches very high — and in fact the 
 men who have appreciated them must highly 
 have been fastidious scholars — we shall not 
 yet have measured Lincoln's effort and perfor- 
 
 mance. For these are not the compositions 
 of a cloistered man of letters, they are the (rat- 
 pourings of an agitator upon the stump. The 
 men who think hard are few ; few of them can 
 clothe their thought in apt and simple words; 
 very, very few are those who in doing this 
 could hold the attention of a miscellaneous 
 and large crowd. Lincoln's wisdom had to 
 utter itself in a voice which would reach the 
 
s 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 outskirts of a large and sometimes excited 
 crowd in the open air. It was uttered in 
 strenuous conflict with a man whose reputa- 
 tion quite overshadowed his ; a person whose 
 extraordinary and good-humoured vitality 
 armed him with an external charm even for 
 people who, like Mrs. Beecher Stowe, detested 
 his principles." 
 
 This English scholar had studied Lincoln's 
 utterances, had read the standard American 
 biographies, and had mastered the essential 
 facts of Lincoln's dominance of the diploma- 
 tic, political, military and administrative pol- 
 icies and decisions of his years as President. 
 Lord Charnwood understood the peculiar na- 
 ture of the Presidential office, which in war 
 times rises in its authority to a virtual dicta- 
 torship. He had, also, the benefit of the large 
 collection of fresh estimates and reminiscences 
 called forth by the celebration in 1909 of the 
 centenary of Lincoln's birth. Tributes in 
 speeches, articles and books assignable to the 
 date of February, 1909, show clearly that 
 
 LED BY LINCOLN'S PRINCIPLES 
 
 Homer Davenport, cartoonist of the New York Evening 
 
 Mail during the campaign of 1904, saw the spirit of Lincoln 
 
 guiding Theodore Roosevelt during his Presidency. 
 
 Southern statesmen, and leaders of opinion 
 in all professions, had reached mature conclu- 
 sions favorable to the permanence and non- 
 sectional character of Lincoln's reputation. 
 
 It is hardly less worth while to discover 
 some contemporary opinions of Lincoln as a 
 man and a statesman that have come to life 
 more recently. One finds not a few such opin- 
 ions in the correspondence of European pub- 
 licists and men of letters. To recall a casual 
 instance, I have in mind a speech made by the 
 eminent English philosopher, Frederic Harri- 
 son. He was a guest at a banquet in Chicago 
 on Washington's birthday in 1901. Expres- 
 sing the sympathy and good will of his own 
 nation for the citizens of the American repub- 
 lic, he was desirous, as he declared, "above all 
 to tell them of the admiration and the pro- 
 found homage with which the founder of the 
 American republic is looked upon by all ra- 
 tional people of Great Britain today." He felt 
 that the spirit of Washington had been exhib- 
 ited "in later years by his successors in that 
 great office." Turning to a portrait of Lincoln 
 in the Union League Club where he was speak- 
 ing, he referred to tributes paid in London at 
 a meeting held just after Lincoln's death. He 
 said that Abraham Lincoln had been to him in 
 his youth "the type of the republican chief," 
 and he looked upon him "as indeed a worthy 
 successor of the founder of the Republic him- 
 self." 
 
 Mr. Harrison reminded his hearers that he 
 had himself published in England a small vol- 
 ume at the end of the Civil War, from which 
 he proceeded to quote a brilliant tribute he 
 had paid at that time to the American Repub- 
 lic and to its leader. Speaking of the Ameri- 
 cans of the Civil War period, he had said in 
 that contemporary volume : "They displayed 
 the most splendid examples of energy and for- 
 titude which the modern world has seen, with 
 which the defense of Greece against Asia and 
 of France against Europe alone can be com- 
 pared in the whole annals of mankind. They 
 developed almost ideal civic virtues and gifts; 
 generosity, faith, firmness; sympathy the most 
 affecting, resources the most exhaustless, in- 
 genuity the most magical." 
 
 Following these sentences came a tribute to 
 
LINCOLN'S PLACE IN HISTORY 
 
 WHAT WOULD LINCOLN DO ? 
 
 With that question as the title of its cartoon, Puck in 1904 invoked the memory of Lincoln as a 
 
 comment on the activities of President Roosevelt. 
 
 Lincoln that seems to me remarkable in the 
 prophetic character of its appreciative words, 
 when one considers that it was penned in Eng- 
 land in 1865 by a young professor of Juris- 
 prudence and International Law who was 
 already a competent critic of politicians and 
 rulers. "They brought forth the most beau- 
 tiful and heroic character who in recent times 
 has ever led a nation, the only blameless type 
 of the statesman since the days of Washington. 
 Under him they created the purest model of 
 government which has yet been seen on the 
 earth — a whole nation throbbing into one great 
 heart and brain, one great heart and brain 
 giving unity and life to a whole nation. The 
 hour of their success came ; unchequered in the 
 completeness of its triumph, unsullied by any 
 act of vengeance, hallowed by a great mar- 
 tyrdom." As one who knew Frederic Harri- 
 son in his later years, and who remembers well 
 his visit to the United States in 1901, I have 
 pleasure in quoting his reference in that year 
 
 to what he had said thirty-six years earlier. 
 
 In the convention that nominated Lincoln 
 in i860, a young German named Carl Schurz 
 was chairman of the Wisconsin delegation and 
 an eager supporter of Seward. Acquiescing 
 in the Lincoln nomination, this young man, 
 who had been in America only a few years, 
 proved himself the most eloquent and effective 
 of campaign speakers, using English fluently 
 but speaking also to German audiences in their 
 native tongue. His career was long and dis- 
 tinguished, and I also knew him well in his 
 later years. On March 2, 1929, there occurred 
 the centenary of Schurz's birth and this gave 
 incentive to the publication of a volume of 
 his intimate letters early in that year, by the 
 State Historical Society of Wisconsin. These 
 letters are remarkable for the light they throw 
 upon contemporary affairs. 
 
 Some of the letters written to friends in 
 Germany are intended to convey a true pic- 
 ture of conditions in this country. The affairs 
 
10 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 of the government were not quite encouraging 
 in 1864 when Lincoln was a candidate for 
 re-election. The tendency to disparage the 
 northern cause, and to belittle its leader who 
 was a candidate for a second term, was general 
 not only in England and France but in Ger- 
 many and elsewhere abroad. Endeavoring 
 to correct the views of one of his German 
 friends, Schurz wrote of Lincoln: "He is a 
 man of profound feeling, just and firm prin- 
 ciples, and incorruptible integrity. One can 
 always rely upon his motives, and the charac- 
 teristic gift of this people, a sound common 
 sense, is developed in him to a marvelous de- 
 gree. If you should sometime find opportunity 
 to read his official papers and his political let- 
 ters, you will find this demonstrated in a man- 
 ner which would surprise you. I know the 
 man from personal observation as well as any- 
 one and better than most. I am quite familiar 
 with the motives of his policy. I have seen 
 him fight his way heroically through many a 
 terrible battle, and work bis way with true- 
 hearted strength through many a desperate sit- 
 uation. I have often criticized him severely 
 and subsequently have not infrequently found 
 that he was right." 
 
 Then there occurs, as this letter to the friend 
 in Germany proceeds, the following words, 
 surprising, as written by a recently naturalized 
 German- American in October, 1864, in the 
 sweep of their now justified predictions : 
 
 "Lincoln's personality has in this crisis a 
 quite peculiar significance. Free from the as- 
 pirations of genius, he will never become dan- 
 gerous to a free commonwealth. He is the 
 people personified ; that is the secret of his 
 popularity. His government is the most rep- 
 resentative that has ever existed in world his- 
 tory. I will make a prophecy which may per- 
 haps sound strange at this moment. In fifty 
 years, perhaps much sooner, Lincoln's name 
 will stand written upon the honor roll of the 
 American Republic next to that of Washing- 
 ton, and there it will remain for all time. The 
 children of those who now disparage him will 
 bless him." 
 
 After the completion of their ten-volume 
 biography of Lincoln, his war-time secretaries, 
 John G. Nicolay and John Hay, prepared two 
 
 volumes of "Abraham Lincoln's Complete 
 Works, Comprising His Speeches, Letters, 
 State Papers and Miscellaneous Writings." 
 While this collection is invaluable, it seems 
 scanty, indeed, as we see what the editors 
 were able to discover of documentary material 
 for the period from 1832 until we reach the 
 Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. Only a lit- 
 tle more original writing has been found 
 since 1894, when these standard volumes were 
 published. Many biographical details, indeed, 
 have been unearthed since Messrs. Nicolay and 
 Hay wrote their indispensable history of Lin- 
 coln and his times, most of their volumes deal- 
 ing with the Presidental years, about which 
 they were intimately informed, as Lincoln's 
 daily associates and confidential helpers. 
 
 Such personal contact affords a kind of 
 knowledge that can never be replaced by re- 
 search, however scientific. So true is this state- 
 ment that the men and women who delve in 
 archives would promptly reply that one of the 
 chief objects of their research is to bring to 
 light the correspondence and papers of various 
 people who had themselves enjoyed personal 
 contact with a leader like Lincoln, and had set 
 down facts and impressions in private letters 
 or diaries. Thus we are obtaining many new 
 sidelights on Lincoln, as the biographers of 
 literally hundreds of other people discover 
 family papers that are contemporary rather 
 than reminiscent. 
 
 We learn much of ancient times from the 
 pages of classical historians; but even more 
 that is illuminating, and that is giving us fresh 
 knowledge of early civilizations, we gain from 
 the discoveries of archaeologists. On the walls 
 of tombs are found pictorial records of extra- 
 ordinary value to the student. Even those pre- 
 historic men who lived for protection in cav- 
 erns made sketches — and in some cases elabor- 
 ate and well-authenticated drawings — on their 
 rocky walls, that give us new ideas about our 
 remote ancestors. Written words are, indeed, a 
 main resources in studying more recent centu- 
 ries. But we rely also upon works of art and 
 architecture, and upon objects excavated, as in 
 the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, 
 in Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, that throw 
 light upon public as well as private affairs. 
 
LINCOLN'S PLACE IN HISTORY 
 
 ii 
 
 It may be said, too, that portraiture, 
 caricature, and illustrative art have 
 given us much knowledge of the per- 
 sonages of more recent history, while 
 also revealing gusts of feeling and 
 trends of opinion. From the very 
 beginning of the art of printing, the 
 illustrators took an appreciable part 
 in the new methods of spreading 
 knowledge, affording entertainment, 
 propagating doctrines, and defaming 
 or glorifying individuals. 
 
 The chief purpose of the present 
 work is to bring before the reader 
 the issues in the sphere of American 
 politics about which Abraham Lin- 
 coln was concerned, and to make use 
 — with great profusion, if not ex- 
 haustively — of the cartoons and 
 caricatures with which Lincoln him- 
 self was familiar in his younger 
 days. As we proceed, however, we 
 find the cartoonists making Lincoln 
 a central figure when at length, in 
 i860, he was cast for the leading 
 part in the drama of American poli- 
 tics and government. 
 
 Lincoln's face and form are not 
 infrequently reappearing in the car- 
 toons of later times, as representing 
 in some sense the accepted standard 
 by which to test the political actors 
 of today. It is to be noted that the Lincoln 
 drawn by cartoonists of the present time is 
 always beneficent and dignified, making an 
 appeal to our feelings of regard and veneration. 
 Nothing could be in greater contrast than the 
 cartoons of his own lifetime, which afforded 
 him so much amusement, though at times 
 doubtless, causing him passing annoyance 
 Caricatures that belittled him or grossly mis- 
 represented him were likely to create impres- 
 sions unfavorably affecting public opinion, and 
 thus to make his tasks the more difficult to 
 perform. 
 
 A great school of caricaturists had arisen 
 in England; and this form of political satire 
 had become well-known and much practised in 
 France, Germany, and other European coun- 
 tries. It had been taken up in the United States 
 
 DOWNFALL OF THE IDOL OF '76 
 A cartoon by Matt Morgan, published in Fun (London), November, 
 1863. An effigy of George Washington is being burned by President 
 Lincoln, who mocks the Father of his Country — in the original cap- 
 tion — with the following words: "I'll warm yer ! Your old Constitu- 
 tion won't do for U. S.!" The fire is being fed by decrees which 
 are stigmatized as destroying principles of American liberty. 
 
 at an early period, out was of slow develop- 
 ment. Washington seems to have been ex- 
 empt from the attacks of the caricaturists, but 
 this was due to the lack of artists and wood 
 engravers, rather than to respect for the man 
 or the office. The lithographers were more 
 successful than the wood engravers, and rap- 
 idly throughout the VJnited States the political 
 draughtsmen learned to put their pictures on 
 the smooth stones of the lithographic press. 
 Perhaps the reproduction of a number of the 
 earlier lithographed political posters may help 
 us to understand one of the sources from 
 which Lincoln himself, through seven or eight 
 presidential elections prior to his own, derived 
 amusement as he pursued his continuing 
 studies in current politics and in the personali- 
 ties of public men. 
 
12 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 A SOUTHERN CARICATURE OF LINCOLN IN THE WAR PERIOD 
 This is one of the Confederate caricatures of Adalbert J. Volck, here published for the first time. 
 They were engraved on copper plates, in Baltimore, and buried to prevent seizure. The President 
 and his players "come to play a pleasant comedy, a kind of history." Chase, Secretary of the 
 Treasury, is at the window. Cameron, Secretary of War, is the puppet whose wire runs through 
 the highest hole. Welles, Secretary of the Navy, rows the boat, and back of him is General But- 
 ler. The three other generals, in the foreground, are Fremont, Scott, and McClellan. 
 
THE FATE Of THE RAIL SPLITTER-ABE LINCOLN 
 
 Northern boasts of hanging Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree were matched by Southern resentment 
 
 toward Lincoln as the embodiment of opposition to the course that the Southern States had chosen 
 
 to pursue. This wood engraving was printed in Richmond in 1861. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Presidential Office 
 
 Powers and responsibilities of the chief executive — A target for 
 
 criticism — Lincoln's place in history in contrast with that of 
 
 Buchanan, his predecessor 
 
 That which, for short, we may call 
 "America's success" affords the basis 
 upon which some great political repu- 
 tations are built. To move with the tides and 
 winds of manifest destiny is to reach the quiet 
 havens of secure fame. The combined efforts 
 of millions of people confronting hardships 
 and difficulties — but for the most part seizing 
 opportunities in a buoyant spirit under con- 
 ditions of unprecedented freedom — have 
 brought about our national aggrandizement. 
 This thrilling epic of a people's rise to great- 
 ness has reached universal recognition since 
 the display of its resources and power at the 
 climax of the World War. 
 
 Conquest of forest stretches and trackless 
 plains ; growth in population, industry and 
 social well-being; rapid attainment of economic 
 and political power — all this unrivalled story 
 of progress within the compass of a century 
 or two is an ever-fascinating study. Not only 
 have these millions of people in a few succes- 
 sive generations made the country what it is 
 by their labors, in courageous pursuit of their 
 ideals, but it is they who have, generally speak- 
 ing, made the decisions which constitute the 
 turning points in our history. Leadership has 
 not been superimposed: the country itself has 
 trained the leaders, appointed them, and used 
 them for its resistless purposes. 
 
 13 
 
14 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 We may sympathize fully with 
 the idealization of a national 
 heroine like Joan of Arc, or with 
 the romance that associates the 
 Ferdinands and Isahellas with 
 the discovery of America and the 
 creation of European empires. 
 We may he indulgent rather than 
 critical when we read the fervent 
 pages that glorify Queen Eliza- 
 beth, the heaven-ordained de- 
 struction of the Spanish Armada, 
 and the world-wide dominion 
 that resulted from Britain's con- 
 quest of the oceans. But Wash- 
 ington's leadership was not that 
 of a superman or a miracle- 
 worker. Neither was Lincoln's 
 that of the humble and obscure 
 child of the frontier cabin who 
 had heard mysterious voices call- 
 ing him to rise, receive endow- 
 ments of transcendent wisdom, 
 and save his country for the glory 
 of God, through the freeing of 
 the slaves and the elevation of 
 mankind at large. Washington 
 was simply the best represen- 
 tative of the combined wisdom 
 and energy of the American col- 
 onics. Lincoln was a tried and 
 tested character, trained for the 
 exigencies of his time, and chos- 
 en by hosts of determined and 
 competent people to take the lead 
 in a crisis. 
 
 Public opinion has been the 
 dictator more truly in the United 
 States than elsewhere. Yet we 
 have so devised our institutions 
 that prevailing sentiment must 
 express itself through represen- 
 tatives and chosen agents. The 
 Presidents have been from the 
 first, as they remain today, the 
 people's Agents-in-Chief. His- 
 tory and biography, following 
 traditions to some extent but 
 also deferring to an instinct 
 which demands that mass move- 
 
 M 
 
 yifcM 
 
 m. 
 
 ...^ 
 
 LONG ABE A LITTLE 
 LONGER 
 
 A drawing by Frank Bellevv, 
 published in Harper's Weekly 
 in 1864, after President Lin- 
 coln's re-election. 
 
 ments shall be typified or person- 
 ified in the names of leaders, 
 have usually concurred in the 
 easy and convenient practice of 
 setting our political agents on 
 pinnacles. 
 
 The framers of the Constitu- 
 tion of 1787 were deeply con- 
 scious of all that the country had 
 suffered during and after the 
 Revolution from the lack of a 
 strong central government. They 
 created the office of the Pres- 
 idency, having in mind first of all 
 George Washington, and then a 
 succession of men of character, 
 capacity, and training who 
 should have stood the tests of 
 experience, and grown in the es- 
 timation of their fellows into 
 fitness for the chief executive 
 office. They devised the electoral 
 college, as a means by which a 
 small body of representative men 
 from all the States could from 
 time to time choose a President 
 with their superior knowledge of 
 individual candidates, of public 
 wishes, and of permanent con- 
 siderations as distinguished from 
 momentary controversies. The 
 machinery has not been operated 
 in the precise manner that was 
 in the minds of those who built 
 it. But it has always been avail- 
 able, and the Electoral College 
 might conceivably function again 
 at some future time in accord- 
 ance with its original theory, 
 
 The important thing was the 
 creation of the Presidential office 
 itself. Its range of authority 
 clothed it with as much dignity 
 as lay in human nature to assume. 
 The President was made wholly 
 responsible for the executive bus- 
 iness of civil government. He 
 became, ex-officio, for his term of 
 office, the commander-in-chief of 
 both army and navy. Executive 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 
 
 15 
 
 A POLITICAL RACE 
 
 Price 10 certCs 
 
 "IN HEIGHT SIX FEET, FOUR INCHES, NEARLY; LEAN IN FLESH" 
 Such was Lincoln's own description of a figure that lent itself to the imagination and skill of the 
 caricaturist. Douglas was as short and stocky as Lincoln was tall and thin. Leonard Volk, who 
 measured both of them for statues in 1860, told Lincoln that he was just one foot taller than Douglas. 
 The opportunity was irresistible to the cartoonist who favored Lincoln. In 1860 there were four 
 candidates for the Presidency. Lincoln and Douglas are in the lead in this race to the White House, 
 with Breckinridge third and Bell in the rear. 
 
 departments were created, and provision was 
 made for appointive heads of these depart- 
 ments. But there was no suggestion of a Cab- 
 inet in the British or European sense of the 
 word. The President was not to depute or 
 share his authority. 
 
 In England, there was the King, with his 
 privy council; the Parliament, with the House 
 of Commons gradually winning prestige over 
 the House of Lords as modern democracy 
 made its slow gains. But the American Presi- 
 dency did not imitate a king possessing inher- 
 ent prerogatives ; nor did it set up a prime 
 minister, who, under the British system, is 
 merely the chairman and chief personage of a 
 ministry that carries on the government 
 through majority influence in the Houses of 
 Parliament. There are, of course, certain 
 constitutional and legal analogies ; but the dif- 
 
 ferences of structure are quite fundamental. 
 The American convention of 1787 was de- 
 liberately working out a plan of union for thir- 
 teen States, which were destined to become far 
 more numerous. It had to distinguish, both 
 legally and practically, between the so-called 
 sovereign authority of the States and the sov- 
 ereignty of the nation in the exercise of its 
 delegated authority. In recent years many 
 students of the history and the science of gov- 
 ernment have criticised our constitution-mak- 
 ers for their attempt to establish the legislative, 
 executive, and judicial functions as separate 
 and co-ordinate branches of government. 
 There are some who would have the legislative 
 power over-ride the opinions and decisions of 
 the higher courts of law. And there are many 
 others who would subordinate the executive to 
 the legislative branch. 
 
i6 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 There are others, approaching from an op- 
 posite standpoint, who would seek to increase 
 the practical power and efficiency of the execu- 
 tive by giving the President and his department 
 heads more influence in legislative programs. 
 They would favor a more pervasive leadership, 
 and would provide seats for our so-called Cab- 
 inet in the Senate and House of Representa- 
 tives. Nevertheless, the framework of Ameri- 
 can government, as erected in the Eighteenth 
 Century by a convention made up of men re- 
 markable for ability and foresight, has now 
 survived well into the Twentieth Century, and 
 it bids fair to resist assaults, so far as its 
 essential features are concerned, for a long 
 time to come. 
 
 At the very apex of the system there con- 
 tinues to stand the office of the President. 
 
 asmfci- iwr>sirfi*ttjj« 1. 1 
 
 (■smn'xe » mwaaet 1 
 
 THE IDEALIZED LINCOLN OF FRANCE 
 This title page of a French periodical dated November 23, 
 1873, shows Lincoln so much greater than Uncle Sam that 
 a magnifying glass is used by the one to see the other. 
 
 While its essential nature is fairly expressed 
 in the Constitution itself, its real character had 
 to be worked out in experience. The feeble 
 kind of central government that we were carry- 
 ing on during and immediately after the Revo- 
 lution made very slight appeal to the ambition 
 of those who sought distinction. It was not 
 viewed with favor by men whose motive it was 
 to render the highest public service. Such men 
 preferred to hold office in their respective 
 States. It was no small mark of wisdom on 
 the part of the Constitution-makers of 1787 
 that they should have established in the Presi- 
 dency a position of such high prestige, and 
 such wide range of authority and discretion, 
 that it should have continued from the first to 
 stand alone and quite unrivalled in the whole 
 world of politics and government. It was also 
 remarkable that this untried office should first 
 have been filled by a man of such qualifications 
 as George Washington. 
 
 Men in politics who attain lofty position, 
 whether they seek it or not, are quite certain 
 to find themselves praised at one moment and 
 blamed at another, often losing the support 
 and confidence of friends in times of emer- 
 gency, and always exposed to the attacks of 
 partisan or personal enemies. Those who reach 
 the high places have usually come up by process 
 of survival. They have fought political battles 
 and camped on the fields of strife. They have 
 learned to receive hard blows, while by long 
 experience they have acquired the arts of attack 
 and defense. Few of them, it is true, are 
 indifferent to disparagement or criticism, but 
 they do not quail or retreat under fire. 
 
 The Presidency carries with it such a burden 
 of responsibility that those who attain the 
 post have almost invariably tried to rise above 
 narrow views, to see ahead, and to pursue 
 courses that would commend themselves when 
 the petty strifes and controversies of the day 
 had been forgotten. But the very fact that the 
 Presidency is so conspicuous a place makes it a 
 shining mark. No President has ever escaped 
 the harsh and unjust attacks of opponents, the 
 libels of poisoned pens, and the innuendo or 
 malice of whispered slander. 
 
 Each President of the United States has had 
 to do his work exposed to storms that could 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 
 
 i/ 
 
 "YOU HAVE SWOLLEN THE EARTH WITH THE BLOOD OF MY CHILDREN" 
 
 A London periodical called Fun printed weekly caricatures during our Civil War, by Matt Morgan 
 and other artists, which ranked well with those of Punch not only in draughtsmanship and virility 
 but also in their disparagement of Lincoln and the Northern cause. 
 
 This cartoon, published in December, 1864, is Fun's comment on the result of the presidential 
 election. Columbia is speaking: "Lincoln, you have brought me to this, yet I have not flinched to 
 perform my part of the contract. I still cling to you that you may fulfill yours. You have swollen 
 the earth with the blood of my children. Show me what I am to gain by this, or look for my dire 
 vengeance in the future." 
 
 Almost to the very end Fun portrayed Lincoln as the leader of a lost cause. But when the news 
 of assassination reached London "the veil was torn from all eyes," and Fun paid graceful tribute. 
 
i8 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 not always he anticipated. He might well ex- 
 pect to be buffet ted by winds from every quar- 
 ter, rather than to enjoy smooth sailing for a 
 single season. He could hope to be vindicated 
 by posterity, but it was hard to believe that the 
 abuse of his enemies might not permanently 
 blacken his reputation, remembering that a 
 great analyst of human nature in an unhappy 
 moment had declared that "the evil that men 
 do lives after them ; the good is oft interred 
 with their bones." However, it was not for the 
 President to be too self-conscious, or to pose 
 for the place he fancied he would like to 
 occupy in the pages of biographers and his- 
 torians not yet born. 
 
 Thus the personality of our Presidents en- 
 ters importantly into the subject matter of 
 American political history. A President can 
 not answer attacks because of the position he 
 holds. For that very reason he is likely to be 
 more sensitive than he had been when, in some 
 other political capacity, he had been contending 
 upon an equal plane with his fellows. The very 
 loftiness of the position gives to the President 
 at times a sense of painful isolation. He alone 
 must bear the burden of momentous decisions. 
 
 It is fitting therefore that our students of 
 politics and history should concern themselves 
 with the manners and characteristics of Presi- 
 dents, as well as with their official acts and 
 utterances. As the position of our country be- 
 comes more significant in relation to world 
 affairs, there is an increasing interest in the 
 study of our foreign policies and relationships. 
 And since the making of treaties and the con- 
 duct of negotiations is a strictly presidential 
 function, our historical students are studying 
 the careers of former Presidents with increas- 
 ing care, especially in view of occasions af- 
 forded by many new opportunities to inspect 
 secret archives, collections of letters, and 
 various papers and documents that had for- 
 merly been inaccessible. 
 
 When one has considered our history from 
 this Presidential standpoint, he is likely to use 
 addition rather than subtraction in revising 
 his estimate of the character and ability of 
 most of the men who have filled the office in 
 lengthening succession. At least it may be said 
 that no other country — whether in modern 
 
 times or in any historic period — can present in 
 unbroken series a similarly long list of men 
 holding positions of authority who could for a 
 moment be compared with the American Presi- 
 dents. 
 
 Undoubtedly some Presidents have far ex- 
 ceeded others in ability and in wisdom. That 
 a revision of estimates should be going on 
 from time to time is quite inevitable. The in- 
 tense prejudices of contemporary partisanship 
 are sure to survive in some quarters. As I 
 intimated in the preceding chapter, the very 
 name of Jefferson has, until lately, been odious 
 to dwindling numbers who have inherited the 
 prejudices and dislikes of the Hamilton- 
 Jefferson feud. New England's view of Presi- 
 dent Polk had been so firmly established by 
 reason of opposition to the Mexican War that 
 even yet the more impartial verdicts of history 
 are not accepted. Although George Washing- 
 ton was much reviled at times, he was too far 
 above partisan or sectional controversy, and 
 too obviously a distinterested public servant, 
 to suffer any damage in historical reputation 
 from the calumnies that so infuriated him 
 while President. It has been easy to set him 
 on a pedestal, from which he will never be 
 dethroned. Personal and partisan controver- 
 sies, as I have shown, long raged about the 
 name and memory of Andrew Jackson. But 
 through the perspectives of history Jackson's 
 fame grows brighter, because he was insepa- 
 rably associated with transactions that have 
 had momentous consequences. 
 
 In Buchanan's time, impelling forces that 
 President Buchanan had done little or nothing 
 to evoke, and which he did little or nothing to 
 guide or control, were shaping the immediate 
 movements of history. He was greatly blamed 
 by the South for his pro-Northern attitude, and 
 at the same time he was execrated by the North 
 for his lack of the Jacksonian qualities of im- 
 petuous boldness, as the Secession cause was 
 gaining momentum. It makes a great differ- 
 ence in the reputation of a man in political 
 authority whether or not in his own period the 
 course of affairs reaches a favorable turn. 
 Thus Lincoln was even more execrated than 
 Buchanan, and for much the same reasons. 
 But the war that Buchanan was trying to avert 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE 
 
 19 
 
 "MR. LINCOLN, WE HAVE FAILED UTTERLY" 
 Disparagement and ridicule of Lincoln in England lasted throughout the war. This is a cartoon 
 from the London Punch, by the famous John Tenniel, published in September, 1864, just before 
 the presidential election. Mrs. North is talking to her attorney: "You see, Mr. Lincoln, we have 
 failed utterly in our course of action; I want peace, and so, if you cannot effect an amicable arrange- 
 ment, I must put the case into other hands." 
 
 by temporizing methods, and that Lincoln was 
 blamed for precipitating, came to its successful 
 conclusion a few days before Lincoln's assas- 
 sination. 
 
 And thus the name of the martyred Presi- 
 dent was destined to be forever identified with 
 the dramatic climax of a struggle that he had 
 led on to a successful termination. Buchanan's 
 name became historically associated with fail- 
 ure, and Lincoln's with success. Mr. Buchanan 
 spent several years, following his retirement 
 from the White House, in study and reflec- 
 tion. He wrote a volume of self-justification. 
 Undoubtedly he had reached a firm theory as 
 to the course that history would have pursued 
 
 if he himself had been elected for a second 
 term in i860. 
 
 Lincoln, slowly developing, had attained 
 national prominence in the sharp controversies 
 of the Buchanan period. Senator Douglas of 
 Illinois was the leader of the Democratic 
 Senate; and, in the test of local experience, 
 Lincoln had come forward as the one man in 
 Illinois who could successfully cope with 
 Douglas in the platform discussion of great 
 issues. The East then seized upon certain 
 personal characteristics, and never quite under- 
 stood the later Lincoln. The South did not 
 discriminate much, but regarded Lincoln as 
 essentially opposed to the spread of slavery, at 
 
20 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 a time when slavery must either extend its 
 domain or accept defeat and face its decline 
 and fall. Foreign countries, notably England, 
 had various reasons for seeing Lincoln through 
 the eyes of prejudice and bitter dislike. 
 
 Nevertheless, within the years of the Twen- 
 tieth Century there has been witnessed the re- 
 markable growth in world-wide appreciation 
 of Lincoln as a lofty character and a great 
 statesman to which I have already alluded. 
 The prejudice of the South has slowly but 
 surely abated. The New England attitude has 
 grown less apologetic of Lincoln as untutored 
 and uncouth. A school of English admirers 
 finds in Lincoln one of the great historic lead- 
 ers of an expanded Anglo-Saxondom. 
 
 This new appreciation of Lincoln which has 
 at last made its way South of the Mason 
 and Dixon Line, and which is increasingly ex- 
 pressed in eulogies on Lincoln's birthday, is 
 deeply gratifying, not only because it honors 
 the memory of an American embodying the 
 nation's best traits, but also because it testifies 
 to the essential right-mindedness of our gen- 
 eration. We honor ourselves in paying tribute 
 to those who have shown unflinching courage 
 while bearing heavy burdens, often in sorrow 
 and in pain, with the result of great and per- 
 manent good to the republic. 
 
 Few people of the present day, however, are 
 even faintly aware of the added embarrass- 
 ments that Lincoln suffered, through attack 
 and misinterpretation. The prestige of a pub- 
 lic man counts not a little in times when 
 anxious business is on hand. Ridicule and 
 disparagement of Lincoln in England rendered 
 it far more difficult than it should have been to 
 deal with a number of serious controversies 
 that required delicate diplomatic handling. 
 
 John Bright, writing to the American his- 
 torian Motley after the assassination of Lin- 
 coln, remarked : "The shock produced in this 
 country was very great. All your friends were 
 plunged into sorrow, and all your enemies into 
 shame, and from that time there has been a 
 rapid change of opinion and of feeling here 
 on all American questions." Mr. Bright 
 added that having followed Lincoln's career 
 with growing interest he had "seen in all his 
 speeches, and in all his public papers and ad- 
 
 dresses, something different from, and some- 
 thing higher than, anything that has ever be- 
 fore proceeded from the tongue of president 
 or potentate." 
 
 That the President should have been hated 
 and ridiculed in the South after his election, 
 and especially after the outbreak of the War, 
 could not have been otherwise in view of the 
 intensity of Southern resentment and alarm. 
 Thus President Lincoln was treated in the 
 Confederate States precisely as President 
 Jefferson Davis was treated in the North. 
 
 But it was the constant criticism and nag- 
 ging of Northern politicians and newspapers 
 that served chiefly to hurt the President's pres- 
 tige and to embarrass his leadership. There 
 were many dissensions in his own Cabinet, 
 which were reflected in the press. He had to 
 deal on the one hand with Congress, and on 
 the other with military leaders who had 
 political views. Then there were the politicians 
 who kept thrusting themselves with selfish 
 aims into the military situation. 
 
 How Lincoln dealt with all these difficulties 
 and pursued his way through the stormiest of 
 political weather can only be appreciated as one 
 turns back to the period itself. It is evident 
 that it would be quite impossible to understand 
 the character and career of Theodore Roose- 
 velt without a study at short range of the bit- 
 ter controversies through which he passed, the 
 modes of attack used by his enemies, and his 
 sturdy championship of causes and principles. 
 How the clouds of detraction disappeared, and 
 how Roosevelt was duly revealed as the typical 
 American of his own period, representing the 
 country's highest standards, and waging an 
 ever-courageous fight for what seemed to him 
 the best courses to pursue, affords an inspiring 
 object-lesson for young citizens. In like man- 
 ner, we can best understand Lincoln by study- 
 ing his career in its contacts with current public 
 opinion, and in the drastic ordeals of the most 
 crucial of all presidential administrations. The 
 subjects at issue, and the personalities of the 
 Lincolnian period, are susceptible of a vivid 
 kind of presentation in the cartoons of that 
 epoch. It is well to perceive, meanwhile, that 
 Lincoln's fame is due to his use of opportuni- 
 ties afforded by the unique presidential office. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The Education of a Future President 
 
 A wealth of substitutes for schooling — Lincoln's autobiography of his 
 
 early years — A surveyor, postmaster, and merchant who liked to read 
 
 books — His resemblance to Marshall 
 
 It was always assumed, until a good while 
 after his death, that Lincoln was inferior 
 in education when compared with all his 
 predecessors — with the possible exception of 
 Andrew Jackson. Lincoln himself had done 
 much to give currency to this impression. Like 
 many other successful men who have risen by 
 their own efforts, he had always estimated too 
 highly the advantages to be derived from long 
 years spent in school and college. Those who 
 differ about the nature and processes of educa- 
 tion do not, as a rule, analyze closely their 
 definitions. To those who regard education 
 as the exclusive concern of schools, and relig- 
 ion as non-existent apart from the observances 
 and the authority of churches, Abraham Lin- 
 coln was sadly lacking in education and in relig- 
 ion. But judging him by results rather than by 
 methods and processes, Lincoln was a man 
 whose mental power was highly developed in 
 relation to the subject matter with which an 
 American public man of his day had to deal. 
 
 He was unusually well educated, just as he 
 was deeply religious. As a boy he had the 
 intellectual eagerness that would, indeed, have 
 led him much farther along paths of general 
 or special scholarship if his opportunities had 
 been those of Thomas Jefferson or John 
 Quincy Adams. But men who attain leader- 
 ship have grown strong through a conquest of 
 obstacles. They have converted their seeming 
 disadvantages into positive assets. The test of 
 real education lies in the equipment that has 
 been gained at a given age — let us say twenty- 
 one or thirty-five— through the use of available 
 opportunities. The man himself is so much 
 greater than the varying accidents of his en- 
 vironment that the question of his standing in 
 the community, when he has reached the years 
 of mature manhood, depends as a rule almost 
 wholly upon his aims and ideals, and the cour- 
 age and energy he shows in the pursuit of his 
 
 chosen objects. Among leaders in any field of 
 activity, the great questions that ultimately 
 arise have to do with attainments in wisdom, 
 in power, and in responsible character. 
 
 Thus the distinction between the man trained 
 in schools, and the man who has found his own 
 means — apart from the exactions and routine 
 of schoolmasters — for keeping alive the pro- 
 cess of intellectual growth, tends to disappear 
 in later life. 
 
 In the case of a boy on the frontier, like 
 young Abraham Lincoln, everything depended 
 upon his actual use of time, upon his ability to 
 concentrate, upon his memory as an aid to the 
 
 "Amy slews Down T* TK VPllfl6e,e2Bv<?* / 
 
 *weii, souiec McievWs eons t' WAsmN'-fioN 
 t' see maoison swore in, AiioC speuinAN' 
 Ten. 5 Me This BoiSARaeTe fplla has 
 
 CAPTURED MOST 0' SPAIN. Vl/hAl"S N£w 
 
 our HeRe,rteiGH8oR?" 
 •nuthin' a tall. nuthin atall, 'cept Fee 
 A rtew 8abv down t" Tom L|nColn\Sj 
 
 NUTHtN* eveR HAPFV^J OurHEBf." 
 
 ■ GEPR'fNTeD By(?e<?ue*T- 
 
 :i# 
 
 A 
 
 A NEW BABY DOWN AT TOM LINCOLN'S 
 
 Lincoln's birthday, in each year, sees the publication of 
 cartoons that reflect some phase of the President's career 
 and carry some lesson for the current generation. This car- 
 toon is by H. T. Webster, drawn for the New York World 
 
 21 
 
22 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 accumulation of knowledge, and upon his atti- 
 tude toward the neighborhood, as determining 
 whether or not he was fitted by nature to lead 
 rather than to follow. 
 
 The hardships of frontier life in Lincoln's 
 time were great, but they were for the most 
 part borne easily because poverty was not of 
 the hopeless, stagnant kind that was so preva- 
 lent in Europe. As Lincoln was fully aware, 
 we had been engaged for two hundred years 
 in the creation of a great nationality upon 
 wholly new principles. We had our own dif- 
 ferences as regards the relative value of 
 National authority and local or State self- 
 direction. But these differences of view were 
 hardly distinguishable when in both theory and 
 practice our democratic institutions were com- 
 pared with the social and political institutions 
 of Europe. Everybody believed in equality, so 
 far as opportunity could make men equal. This 
 feeling of equality gave hope, zest, buoyancy, 
 to pioneer life. Schooled or unschooled him- 
 self, every public man was helping to lay foun- 
 dations for a universal school system to make 
 our future democracy safe in its sense of fit- 
 ness for its privileges. 
 
 It was inconceivable that a lad in an English 
 
 THE LOG CABIN IN WHICH LINCOLN WAS BORN 
 Now preserved inside the memorial building shown on the opposite page. 
 Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married in 1806, living at Elizabeth- 
 town, Kentucky, and then moving to a farm previously bought in what was then 
 Hardin (now LaRue) County in the same State. Abraham, their second child 
 and first son, was born in this one-room log cabin, or one similar to it, on 
 February 12, 1809, and it was his home for eight years. 
 
 farm laborer's squalid hut a century ago should 
 have remarked to his neighbors that he ex- 
 pected some day to be Prime Minister of Eng- 
 land or Lord Chief Justice. In all of England 
 not a single boy so circumstanced could have 
 broken through the social, political, and legal 
 barriers. Yet there is testimony to the fact that 
 Lincoln as a lad was wont to remark that he 
 would some day be President. And there were 
 boys in each of more than two thousand counties 
 who could reasonably hope for honorable ad- 
 vancement in public life. Lincoln merely meant 
 that he had read the life of George Washington 
 and the speeches of Henry Clay ; had studied 
 the Constitution of the United States and the 
 Constitution and statutes of the State where 
 he lived; and that he knew enough about the 
 facts and the personalities of American politics 
 to see that there was nothing like miraculous 
 intervention required to level the obstacles 
 along the pathway between the western log 
 cabin and the White House. 
 
 How men rise to the task of community- 
 building and nation-making is marvelous evi- 
 dence of certain high qualities inherent in 
 human nature. When they are consciously en- 
 gaged in organizing the institutions of a com- 
 monwealth that is to grow 
 stable, populous and cultured 
 and to hold an enviable place 
 in the esteem of mankind, 
 the task has its notable reac- 
 tions upon their own devel- 
 opment of dignity. The 
 youthful Lincoln came in 
 contact with men who were 
 substituting the forms of law 
 
 and order for the rough and 
 lawless ways of the back- 
 woodsmen of the new North- 
 western States. He was im- 
 pelled to express himself, 
 and to play his part. He 
 listened to itinerant preach- 
 ers, and himself began to 
 practice the art of oratory. 
 He walked many miles to 
 hear lawyers argue cases at 
 the court house ; and thus, 
 hearing one of the Breckin- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT 
 
 23 
 
 ©Canfield and Shook, Louisville 
 
 THE MEMORIAL AT LINCOLN'S BIRTHPLACE, HODGENVILLE, KENTUCKY 
 Erected by popular subscription to mark the birthplace and to shelter the log cabin. The cornerstone 
 was laid by President Roosevelt on February 12, 1909, the centenary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. 
 
 ridges, he came to the definite conclusion 
 that he would be a lawyer and a public per- 
 sonage. But he had also learned much else 
 that was valuable throughout his entire life, 
 before he took up in a definite way the study 
 and practice of law. 
 
 We are concerned in these pages with Abra- 
 ham Lincoln in relation to American politics, 
 and to those larger issues of statesmanship 
 with which he was occupied in his last years, 
 as he had climbed the ladder of political suc- 
 cess until he had attained the place of chief 
 magistrate and supreme executive authority. 
 With various matters belonging strictly to his 
 private life we are not here occupying our- 
 selves, except as they have a bearing upon his 
 preparation for the public career. 
 
 There are, however, many details of interest 
 that have justified the explorations of recent 
 biographers. As we have already intimated, 
 we are now much better acquainted with Lin- 
 coln's genealogy than he was himself. Thous- 
 ands of American families, pushing westward 
 in the restless, irresistible movement that drove 
 back the Indians, and overcame almost in- 
 credible hardships in establishing settlements, 
 
 lost the threads of ancestral connection. Lin- 
 coln's own case was marvelously like that of an 
 immense number of people who were building 
 up the States west of the Alleghenies. He 
 knew that his grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, 
 was a settler in Kentucky, who, like so many 
 others, had directly migrated from Virginia. 
 This earlier Abraham Lincoln was stealthily 
 murdered by an Indian, while his son Thomas 
 was a small boy. 
 
 Thomas's father, grandfather, and great- 
 grandfather had partaken of the average op- 
 portunities for education and prosperity that 
 had become the common lot in Massachusetts, 
 in Pennsylvania, and in Virginia, the Lincoln 
 forebears having lived in these three original 
 States of the Union. But Thomas Lincoln 
 was too young at his father's death to have 
 acquired accurate knowledge of the family his- 
 tory. One must know a good deal about actual 
 conditions of life in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, 
 and Illinois during the period between the 
 Revolution and the Mexican War to pass judg- 
 ment upon Thomas Lincoln. His lot was a 
 hard one, and his life — like that of the great 
 majority of his neighbors — was humble and 
 
24 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 obscure. He had inherited enough of accept- 
 able personality, however, to have secured 
 Nancy Hanks for his wife, and thus to have 
 endowed the future President with a loving, 
 sympathetic and capable mother. After her 
 death when the lad was nine years of age, 
 Thomas Lincoln gave another evidence of his 
 worth as a man, and his wisdom in a matter of 
 crucial importance, by providing Lincoln with 
 a step-mother of rare native intelligence and 
 consistent Christian character, and with the 
 maternal qualities that enabled her to supply 
 some of the most desirable things in home life, 
 regardless of mere poverty. 
 
 Such conditions within the circle of family 
 existence far outweigh the trivial facts about 
 discomfort in log cabins with no electric lights 
 but rather with tallow candles and the glow of 
 wood fires on broad open hearths. Since almost 
 everyone in the United States, except those 
 descended from recent immigrants, belongs to 
 families that have lately or more remotely lived 
 in log cabins, there is nothing strange or sig- 
 nificant in the outward circumstances of Lin- 
 coln's youth. 
 
 WHERE LINCOLN LIVED BEFORE HE WENT TO THE 
 
 WHITE HOUSE 
 In his eighth year the family moved from Hodgenville in Kentucky 
 to Gentryville in Indiana. There Lincoln grew up. When he was 
 twenty-one the family moved again, and he helped his father to 
 settle in Illinois, near Decatur. In the following year, 1831, Lincoln 
 began his own career, at New Salem. He was elected to the Legis- 
 lature in 1834, and in 1837 moved to the New State capital at Spring- 
 field, as an advantageous location for a young lawyer and politician. 
 
 It was not, then, these supposed privations 
 of the frontier that should cause us surprise 
 as we contemplate the rise of Lincoln to his 
 firm place among the immortals of history. 
 Rather it is worth while to note the opportuni- 
 ties that such a life afforded. To counter- 
 balance the lack of the discipline of schools, he 
 had the discipline of labor and the freedom to 
 seek directly the things that his soul craved. 
 
 In a somewhat casual statement that Lincoln 
 wrote for a fellow politician in Illinois, when 
 he had attained national prominence, are the 
 following brief notes. Few autobiographies of 
 public personages are so lacking in egotism: 
 
 I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin 
 County, Kentucky. My parents were both born 
 in Virginia, of undistinguishable 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, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois. 
 My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emi- 
 grated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to 
 Kentucky, about 1781 or '2, 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 County, Pennsyl- 
 vania. An effort to identify them with the New 
 England family of the same name, ended in nothing 
 more than a similarity of Christian names in both 
 families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, 
 Abraham, and the like. 
 
 My father, at the death of his father, was 
 but six years of age, and he grew up literally 
 without 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. If 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 
 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 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT 
 
 25 
 
 IN ILLINOIS, WHEN LINCOLN WAS A MEMBER OF THE LEGISLATURE 
 Illinois became a State in 1818, but its early development was slow. This drawing, published 
 in 1844 as the frontispiece of Wilkey's "Western Emigration," sets forth the experience of one 
 Illinois settler in the Lincoln period who gave up and came out of the state with "a broken-winded 
 horse, a broken-hearted wife, a broken-legged dog, and the broken constitutions of three fever- 
 and-ague sons." Fourteen years earlier than the date of this cartoon, Abraham Lincoln, then just 
 turned twenty-one, had gone into Illinois with his father, leaving the older State of Indiana. 
 
 have picked up from time to time under the pres- 
 sure of necessity. 
 
 I was raised to farm work, which I continued 
 till I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I 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 
 Captain of Volunteers — a success which gave me 
 more pleasure than any I have had since. I went 
 through the campaign, was elated, 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 afterwards. During this legisla- 
 tive period I had studied law, and removed to 
 Springfield to practise it. In 1846 I was once 
 elected to the Lower House of Congress, but 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 gen- 
 erally on the Whig electoral tickets, 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, I 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. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 If Lincoln's vanity had been greater, he 
 would have been at more pains to talk about 
 himself and to place on record the story of his 
 early experiences. His fragmentary schooling, 
 a little of it in Kentucky, and more in Indiana, 
 was undoubtedly of some value. That he had 
 learned to read and write unusually well as a 
 mere lad is beyond doubt. Under whatever 
 inspiration at the beginning, he persistently 
 cultivated the practice of writing down quota- 
 tions from books or fugitive poems from news- 
 papers, and he committed many things to mem- 
 ory. He became remarkably well versed in 
 the Bible and in due time he found opportunity 
 to read Shakespeare. It was typical that he 
 should have read and memorized Aesop's 
 
26 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Fables. 1 le was devoted to the poetry of Rob- 
 ert Burns ; and while he was not even a second- 
 rate poet himself, it was to his credit that he 
 should have written a great many third-rate 
 verses in his attempt to acquire a flexible use 
 of the English language. 'We have ample tes- 
 timony that he was regarded as the most inde- 
 fatigable reader of his neighborhood, so that 
 older people were lending him books, and his 
 reputation as an earnest seeker for knowledge 
 admitted him to homes a good many miles 
 apart, where he was a welcome visitor. 
 
 His physical prowess was a matter of fame 
 throughout the region. It never afterwards 
 occurred to his mind that his youthful experi- 
 ences as farmer and forester, occupying fully 
 ten years, would be counted by our present-day 
 authorities as educational, in the full sense of 
 the word. His brief career as a postmaster 
 and a merchant had also their value since they 
 utilized in practical ways some of his acquisi- 
 tions, in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In 
 addition, they gave him more time for read- 
 ing than farm work allowed, and they helped 
 him to discover in himself certain capacities for 
 dealing with the people about him. He was 
 thus daily cultivating his accomplishments as a 
 public character, a raconteur and entertainer, 
 and a leader in tasks of social reform. He was 
 a faddist in a creditable sense. For instance, 
 he advanced the wholly new idea that boys 
 should not be cruel to animals. He was set- 
 ting a sturdy example of what the followers 
 of Thomas Hughes in England would have 
 called "muscular Christianity" and what the 
 disciples of Theodore Roosevelt cultivated. 
 
 It was no small part of Lincoln's education 
 that he should have known so much about pub- 
 lic lands. There was the question of Indian 
 titles. Public and private land surveying, and 
 the administration of the Government's land 
 offices, the laying out of roads, all these were 
 matters of familiar knowledge. The whole 
 process of an organized rural community 
 within a given area, such as a surveyed town- 
 ship of public land, with a certain number of 
 settlers, who had come with government land 
 warrants to locate claims and make homes, was 
 as clear as daylight to young Lincoln. 
 
 In these new counties and townships certain 
 
 forms assumed fresh life that had come down 
 through the centuries from early periods of 
 English local government. The settlers of 
 southern Indiana and southern Illinois had 
 brought the Virginia system of County gov- 
 ernment with them, while the settlers of 
 northern Illinois, coming from New England 
 and New York often by way of northern 
 Ohio or southern Michigan, had brought their 
 more highly developed institutions of the 
 parish, or the township as they called it. When 
 leaders from the north and south of this longi- 
 tudinally extensive territory of Illinois met to 
 form a State constitution in 1818, they found 
 it necessary to work out a compromise between 
 the New England town system and the Vir- 
 ginia county system. The early territorial and 
 State legislatures of Indiana and Illinois were 
 borrowing civil and penal codes from the older 
 States, with such modifications as they found 
 desirable. They were establishing local and 
 higher courts of justice, and adopting codes of 
 procedure. 
 
 It would be hard to invent, for young law- 
 yers and aspiring publicists, better schools of 
 training in the principles of constitutional gov- 
 ernment, of legislation, of jurisprudence, and 
 of parliamentary law than were afforded by 
 the process of setting up the major and minor 
 institutions of a new State. Merely to have 
 observed these constitutional beginnings in any 
 such state was virtually a course of instruction 
 in politics and government. Better still, to have 
 had a part in working them out and putting 
 them into effect, was more than an ordinary 
 professional education. As a member of the 
 Legislature and as a young practising lawyer, 
 Lincoln had these unexcelled educational op- 
 portunities for growth in the sphere of public 
 life and service. 
 
 W. H. Herndon, who was Lincoln's law 
 partner for twenty-five years, referring to 
 Lincoln as a reader and a student, made the 
 following remarks in a private letter, after- 
 wards published : 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was not a great general reader, but 
 was a special one. When he wished to know any- 
 thing he hunted it up and dug it out to the small, 
 fibrous end of the very taproot. I say that Mr. 
 Lincoln was a practical man, and hence he was a 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT 
 
 27 
 
 special man ; that is, he worked for a practical and 
 paying end. He did not much care to know any- 
 thing that he would have no use for. Politics was 
 his constant study and newspapers his ever present 
 library. 
 
 Mr. Herndon's reflections are less im- 
 portant than his testimony. What he had 
 observed and what he remembered — for this 
 letter was written in Mr. Herndon's old age — 
 was the patient industry with which Lincoln 
 devoted himself to practical law cases and to 
 actual issues of politics and government. But 
 more significant than anything else, is the tes- 
 timony that Lincoln made the "newspapers his 
 ever-present library." Fortunately, we know 
 what newspapers were available and what they 
 contained. Precisely what the late James 
 Ford Rhodes studied as the "research" mate- 
 rial for much of his valuable political history 
 of the United States, Mr. Lincoln had studied 
 day by day forty or fifty years earlier. It 
 happened that Lincoln read newspapers for 
 the serious, practical purposes he had in mind, 
 and they made him a man of broad, current 
 intelligence regarding public affairs. 
 
 The late Dr. Talcott Williams, himself a 
 prodigious reader, with an almost unequalled 
 knowledge of American biography and politi- 
 cal history, in 1920 wrote at my request an 
 article entitled "Lincoln, the Reader," which 
 is perhaps the best statement both for facts 
 and for interpretation that has ever been made. 
 Dr. Williams regarded Lincoln's education as 
 a continuing process, through a devotion to 
 reading that became more marked and more 
 fruitful in results from his early beginnings 
 to his election in i860. 
 
 "Lincoln," says Dr. Williams, "to an amaz- 
 ing degree is the books he read. . . . Reading 
 was his education. In these college days of 
 required reading, taken up with about the 
 enthusiasm and spontaneity of a tax assess- 
 ment, the average student is haltered and fed 
 at a manner, stall-fed. He knows little of the 
 free pasture of letters and nothing of the joy 
 of discovery 'when a new planet swims into his 
 ken.' Lincoln's was all of this last sort; every 
 book a discovery ; every author ruled over a 
 realm of gold. He was unschooled ; his read- 
 ing was his education." Dr. Williams finds 
 
 
 ,.\'-v;$. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 SPf 
 
 SI 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 fck; J 
 
 
 ^Sflilllll 
 
 
 
 
 HbskP^ 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 Lincoln was twenty-six years old when Marshall died. 
 During that entire period, and even before Lincoln was 
 born, Marshall had been presiding over the Supreme Court 
 and writing its important decisions. It was a time when 
 the precise meaning of the Constitution was often in 
 doubt. The decisions of Marshall were read and discussed 
 not alone by lawyers but by all those who were polit- 
 ically minded. They formed a part of Lincoln's training. 
 
 Lincoln "reading when the plow halted at the 
 end of the furrow, on the way to the mill, on 
 the fence watching cattle, wherever and when- 
 ever the book came, after a walk of from ten 
 to twenty miles to the house that was reputed 
 to have the precious treasure of a new book." 
 The influence of Lincoln's later reading upon 
 his mature style is admirably shown by Dr. 
 Williams in characterizing the stately utter- 
 ances of the Presidential period. But it is par- 
 ticularly pertinent for us to note the importance 
 attached by Dr. Williams to the study by Lin- 
 coln of our great political documents such as 
 the Declaration of Independence, the "Ordi- 
 nance for the Government of the Territory 
 Northwest of the Ohio," the Federal Constitu- 
 tion, and the fundamental and statute laws of 
 his own State. "Lincoln faced here," says Dr. 
 
28 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 GENERAL LAFAYETTE'S ARRIVAL AT INDEPENDENCE HALL, 
 PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER 28, 1824 
 Lafayette was only twenty years old when he came to America to aid the Colonies in the struggle 
 for independence in 1777. He returned in 1824, remaining more than a year and making an extensive 
 tour. The scene reproduced above is from a silk handkerchief printed in Germantown. Pennsyl- 
 vania, to commemorate the visit of Lafayette to Philadelphia. 
 
 Williams, "the priceless advantage of our 
 American system of written constitutions for 
 the man whose youth was without the advan- 
 tages of education or property. In England 
 a lifetime, one might almost say two or three 
 lifetimes from father to son, are needed before 
 the English unwritten constitution can be un- 
 derstood in all its network of precedents and 
 traditional practice. Any man with an alert 
 mind who reads the Federal Constitution can 
 understand the framework of our federal em- 
 pire, its dual sovereignty, and the constant 
 limitations on the powers of its consonant 
 parts." 
 
 Lincoln's own idea of educational devel- 
 opment through adult years was expressed in 
 his eulogy on Henry Clay, delivered in the 
 State House at Springfield, July 16, 1852. 
 Referring to the fact that little was known of 
 Henry Clay's ancestry, and even of his father 
 who had died when Clay was a small boy, 
 Lincoln continued : "Mr. Clay's education to 
 the end of his life was comparatively limited. 
 I say 'to the end of his life,' because I have 
 understood that from time to time he added 
 something to his education during the greater 
 part of his whole life. Mr. Clay's lack of a 
 more perfect early education, however it may 
 be regretted generally, teaches at least one 
 profitable lesson : it teaches that in this country 
 one can scarcely be so poor but that, if he will, 
 he can acquire sufficient education to get 
 through the world respectably." 
 
 In the Library at William and Mary College, 
 Virginia, is preserved the dingy and discolored 
 volume of Blackstone's Commentaries that was 
 owned and diligently used by John Marshall. 
 He was patiently laying the foundations, in his 
 father's log house in the uplands of northern 
 Virginia, for his subsequent career as the great 
 Chief Justice, whose masterly interpretations 
 made the Constitution a working reality. Mar- 
 shall was still on the bench when Lincoln was 
 reading his own similar copy of Blackstone, 
 and was beginning his local career as lawyer 
 and member of the Legislature. Marshall's law 
 studies had been benefited by a few weeks or 
 months of study at William and Mary College 
 while on furlough as a soldier in the later 
 period of the Revolution. But he was not, like 
 Jefferson and Madison, a man of scholastic 
 training who had studied the classics and had 
 enjoyed such advantages as William and 
 Mary had given in the case of Jefferson or 
 the influences and opportunities of Prince- 
 ton as in Madison's case. Washington's was 
 the greatness of sheer mastery, in a period that 
 inevitably brought the best men to the front, 
 regardless of schools. He also was a man of 
 intellectual attainments, who grew in stature 
 with every opportunity, and whose contacts 
 and advantages were varied and important. 
 
 Of all the early statesmen it seems most 
 satisfactory to select Marshall as the prototype 
 of Lincoln. It should be remembered also that 
 Marshall's decisions were a part of the subject 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT 
 
 29 
 
 matter of current political discussion during 
 Lincoln's first twenty-six years (till Marshall's 
 death in 1835) and ever afterwards. The 
 newspapers of Lincoln's young manhood dealt 
 principally with affairs of politics and govern- 
 ment. Lincoln, at first hand or at second, could 
 not escape being a student of Marshall's decis- 
 ions ; and it is impossible to avoid the conclu- 
 sion that Lincoln's constitutional views were 
 largely shaped by Marshall's reasoning. Thus 
 Lincoln attached himself in very early life to 
 the school of thought that was best expressed 
 by Marshall, and from which Jefferson, Madi- 
 son, and Monroe were ever more strongly tend- 
 ing to dissent. 
 
 It happens that in the late Mr. Beveridge's 
 monumental life of John Marshall there occurs 
 a passage comparing Lincoln with Marshall 
 
 LAFAYETTE, A TERROR TO DESPOTISM 
 Reproduced from an old French engraving colored by 
 hand. The French nation assisted by M. de Lafayette 
 attacks the vipers representing despotism and surviving 
 abuses of the feudal system, which had been terrorizing 
 the people. After his services in the struggle for American 
 independence Lafayette played a prominent part in the 
 French revolutions of 1789 and 1830. 
 
 LAFAYETTE AT THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON 
 From a colored lithograph widely circulated in 1857, 
 upon the one-hundreth anniversary of the birth of Lafay- 
 ette. It depicts an incident during the visit of Lafayette 
 to America in 1824, when the distinguished Frenchman 
 went to Mount Vernon to visit the grave of the leader 
 under whom he had served in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 that is so felicitious, and so true to the facts, 
 that I shall not fail to gratify my readers if I 
 quote it at some length : 
 
 Indeed, the resemblance of Marshall to Lin- 
 coln is striking. Between no two men in Ameri- 
 can history is there such a likeness. Physically, 
 intellectually, and in characteristics, Marshall and 
 Lincoln were of the same type. Both were very 
 tall men, slender, loose-jointed, and awkward, but 
 powerful and athletic ; and both fond of sport. 
 So alike were they, and so identical in their negli- 
 gence of dress and their total unconsciousness of, 
 or indifference to, convention, that the two men, 
 walking side by side, might well have been taken 
 for brothers. 
 
 Both Marshall and Lincoln loved companion- 
 ship with the same heartiness, and both had the 
 same social qualities. They enjoyed fun, jokes, 
 laughter, in equal measure, and had the same keen 
 appreciation of wit and humor. Their mental 
 qualities were the same. Each man had the gift 
 of going directly to the heart of any subject, while 
 
3° 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 the same lucidity of statement marked each of 
 them. Their style, the simplicity of their lan- 
 guage, the peculiar clearness of their logic, were 
 almost identical. Notwithstanding their straight- 
 forwardness and amplitude of mind, both had a 
 curious subtlety. Some of Marshall's opinions and 
 Lincoln's state papers might have been written 
 by the same man. The 'Freeholder' questions 
 and answers in Marshall's congressional campaign, 
 and those of Lincoln's debate with Douglas, are 
 strikingly similar in method and expression. 
 
 Each had a genius for managing men; and 
 Marshall showed the precise traits in dealing with 
 tbe members of the Supreme Court that Lincoln 
 displayed in the Cabinet. 
 
 Both were born in the South, each on the eve 
 of a great epoch in American history when a new 
 spirit was awakening in the hearts of the people. 
 Although Southern-born, both Marshall and Lin- 
 coln sympathized with and believed in the North ; 
 and yet their manners and instinct were always 
 those of the South. Marshall was given advan- 
 tages that Lincoln never had; but both were men 
 of the people, were brought up among them, and 
 knew them thoroughly. Lincoln's outlook upon 
 life, however, was that of the humblest citizen, 
 Marshall's that of the well-placed and prosperous. 
 Neither was well educated, but each acquired, in 
 
 i ifi 
 
 THE OLD FRENCH CHURCH AT VINCENNES 
 
 Lincoln was twenty-one when he helped his father move 
 
 from Indiana to Illinois. They passed through Vincennes, 
 
 the old French trading post on the Wabash founded in 
 
 1731, and afterward capital of the Indiana Territory. 
 
 different ways, a command of excellent English 
 and broad, plain conceptions of government and 
 of life. Neither was a learned man, but both 
 created the materials for learning. 
 
 Of Lincoln's first twenty-one years of life, 
 the initial seven years made him a Kentuckian, 
 and the next fourteen years spent in Indiana, 
 not far from the Ohio River, made him a 
 Hoosier. Dismissing from our minds the 
 false impressions produced by writers unac- 
 quainted with the life of that period, we 
 would do well to adopt the less morbid 
 and more sensible view of Lincoln as a for- 
 tunate and promising young man, whose op- 
 portunities had been upon the whole quite as 
 advantageous as those of the majority of indi- 
 vidual Americans who rose to eminence in the 
 Nineteenth Century. A good mother had given 
 him a proper start in life, had taught him to 
 read, and had left him when she died with the 
 companionship of a congenial sister. A step- 
 mother with children of her own soon followed 
 to preside admirably over the enlarged family 
 circle. Practical work was no hardship to a 
 lad who was growing tall and strong, and 
 acquiring the physical prowess of a young 
 Hercules. 
 
 Living near the Ohio River, Lincoln as a 
 boy had seen hundreds of steamboats carry- 
 ing passengers of cosmopolitan variety, be- 
 sides all sorts of merchandise, domestic and 
 foreign. He heard preachers and lawyers, 
 and developed an early taste for public speak- 
 ing. To know something of what the river 
 activities of the Ohio and Mississippi signi- 
 fied in that period, and yet to fail in under- 
 standing the adventurous and instructive na- 
 ture of Lincoln's first trip down these rivers 
 to New Orleans, is merely to prove one's own 
 lack of imagination. These experiences of 
 Lincoln's were as mentally transforming and 
 as important as George Washington's trip to 
 the Ohio for Governor Dinwiddie, or the 
 youthful visit he made to the West Indies. 
 They might be compared with John Quincy 
 Adams's early experiences in visiting Europe. 
 
 Lincoln was sixteen in the year 1825, when 
 General Lafayette was spending memorable 
 months as the guest of our nation, touring vari- 
 ous parts of the country, and occupying space 
 
THE EDUCATION OF A FUTURE PRESIDENT 
 
 3i 
 
 in the newspapers every day. Lafayette was 
 in a steamboat wreck on the Ohio, near Troy, 
 Indiana, no great distance from Lincoln's 
 home. So far as I am aware, we have no evi- 
 dence that Lincoln actually saw Lafayette in 
 that situation. But so overwhelming was 
 the enthusiasm that attended the movements 
 of the gallant Frenchman who had fought 
 through our Revolution, and had made a later 
 record of leadership in his own country, that 
 nobody neglected any possible opportunity to 
 set eyes upon him in the years 1824 and 1825. 
 A brochure entitled "Lincoln the Hoosier," 
 published at Indianapolis in 1927, gives us 
 what is undoubtedly the normal and true pic- 
 ture of our young American in these years of 
 growth to manhood. It contains admirable 
 paragraphs on the migration of the Lincoln 
 family to Illinois : 
 
 Lincoln had almost grown to manhood. He was, 
 as he says, almost six feet four inches in height. In 
 trials of strength with those of his age and older, 
 he had proved himself a superior man. 
 
 His father had relinquished to the Government 
 part of his farm and now held but eighty acres. 
 Brilliant reports were coming to them of the fer- 
 tility of land in Illinois. Thomas Lincoln probably 
 did not know that for four generations the Lincolns 
 had been born in one State, married in another, and 
 died in a third. Thomas Lincoln was only prepar- 
 ing for the fulfillment of the destiny of his race. 
 
 So a contract of sale was drawn up and the Gen- 
 trys later came into possession of what is historically 
 known as the Lincoln Farm, the farm which for 
 fourteen years was the home of the sixteenth Presi- 
 dent, the home where the various influences that 
 make character were steadily at work. The fam- 
 ily prepared to leave the familiar scenes, and the 
 little knoll to the south of the cabin, where sleeps 
 Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and her neighbors, victims 
 of that peculiar malady. 
 
 A team of oxen and an ox-cart sufficed for the 
 family on its pilgrimage. The neighbors gathered 
 round and said a sad farewell. The Lincolns had 
 become genuinely liked. 
 
 Slowly they took their way westward and north- 
 ward. At Vincennes they stopped for the last time 
 in Indiana. There Lincoln could not have failed to 
 see the new cathedral, its tall, thin spire standing 
 out high above all the other buildings of that time. 
 Here also he must have visited the home of Gen- 
 eral William Henry Harrison, a building of such 
 magnificence and beauty as he could never have 
 seen with the possible exception of the days he 
 
 WHERE LINCOLN EMBARKED FOR NEW ORLEANS 
 
 This is the ferry-landing at Rockport, Indiana, where Lin- 
 coln set out on his first flatboat voyage down the Ohio 
 and Mississippi, in 1828. He was working for Mr. Gentry, 
 of Gentryville, Indiana, and was hired to help take a 
 load of produce to New Orleans. Three years later, after 
 he had moved to Illinois, Lincoln made a second flatboat 
 voyage to New Orleans. This sketch and the one on the 
 facing page are by Constance Forsyth, made on the spot 
 for a booklet entitled "Lincoln the Hoosier." 
 
 spent in New Orleans. Here, certainly, he saw a 
 printing press for the first time in his life. 
 
 Vincennes also was the oldest town in Indiana 
 that Lincoln had ever visited. He could hardly 
 have known the romantic history of that city except 
 in a general way. But it is such a place and such a 
 history as must have kindled his imagination and 
 left with him a fine and permanent picture of In- 
 diana as he passed out of it in 1830. 
 
 In Indiana he was leaving behind the burial spot 
 of his mother. He was leaving the scene of his 
 first efforts at labor and at scholarship. Here he 
 had hewn great timbers and split rails. Here he 
 had delivered his first addresses; here he had writ- 
 ten his first articles; here become imbued with his 
 first ambitions of service and achievement. Here 
 he had known his first great sorrow. Here he had 
 first thrilled to the touch of a woman's hand. Here 
 he had caught his first glimpses of the greater world 
 as it went by on the bosom of the great Ohio. Here 
 he had learned to labor and to wait, to earn his 
 bread by the sweat of his brow, to look the world in 
 the face and, unashamed, to ask of it a just recog- 
 nition. 
 
A RAFT ON THE MISSISSIPPI IN LINCOLN'S YOUTH 
 
 While living at Gentryville, Indiana, Lincoln's employer sent him down the Ohio and Mississippi 
 
 rivers to New Orleans with a raft-load of produce. YVith him was his employer's young son, Allen 
 
 Gentry. Three years later, while living in Illinois, Lincoln and his half-brother, John D. Johnston, 
 
 and a second cousin, John Hanks, hired themselves out to take a flatboat to New Orleans. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A Frontier Youth Encounters Slavery 
 
 Lincoln's fiat-boat voyages to New Orleans— The family moves from 
 
 Indiana to Illinois — A period of national expansion — Henry Clay and 
 
 the turbulent campaign of 1824 
 
 To the making of the character and 
 capacity of any man who achieves 
 worthy success in after life, every early 
 experience, remembered or not, will have con- 
 tributed in its measure. Diaries were not often 
 kept in log cabins, as indeed they are too seldom 
 kept anywhere. Marvelous things happen, and 
 are wholly lost because never written down, 
 and because deaths, migrations, or other cir- 
 cumstances so frequently break the thread of 
 transmission by word of mouth. The patient 
 biographer is likely to learn, even in cases 
 where the written materials are most abundant, 
 that what we can find out is only fragmentary 
 after all. It is always much less than the sum 
 total of a rounded and full record. Washing- 
 ton left extensive diaries, but for the most part 
 32 
 
 the entries tantalize us by their meagerness. 
 They had no other purpose than to serve as 
 memoranda for Washington himself. He had 
 no thought of helping posterity to know details 
 about the life of a great man. 
 
 It happens, however, that Washington was 
 involved in large affairs from his very youth, 
 and he was obliged to make written reports and 
 to carry on extensive correspondence about 
 things of a public nature. If Lincoln had been 
 in Washington's place, he would have been en- 
 tirely capable of making the famous journey 
 and writing the significant report of 1753. The 
 French were then building forts in the Ohio 
 Valley. Washington was a young surveyor, 
 not yet twenty-two years old. Governor Din- 
 widdie of Virginia, on behalf of the British 
 
A FRONTIER YOUTH ENCOUNTERS SLAVERY 
 
 33 
 
 Government, sent Washington as a messenger 
 to warn the French at Fort Duquesne, now 
 Pittsburgh, and to find out what they were 
 doing, what they claimed, and what they in- 
 tended. Washington did his errand, made a 
 careful and well-informed report, and this was 
 published as a small volume in London. 
 
 I am not writing the story of Washington, 
 but I am making allusions that have some 
 bearing upon the circumstances that affect the 
 career of Lincoln, and that help us the better 
 to comprehend it. Washington's report was 
 followed by activities — including the Braddock 
 expedition — that led to the momentous French 
 and Indian War, and to the ultimate acquisition 
 by the United States of the Ohio Valley, where 
 Lincoln was born, and in which he spent his 
 lifetime until he journeyed to Washington to 
 take the presidential oath of office on March 
 4, 1 86 1. Far greater resemblances than dif- 
 ferences appear if we dwell upon essential 
 things and disregard some matters of external 
 circumstance, when we compare the early lives 
 of Washington and Lincoln. 
 
 As for the records that disclose matters of a 
 more personal and private kind, in both cases 
 the investigators have been at work, with their 
 labors still uncompleted. Thus genealogists 
 have been studying the Washington family, 
 even as they have been studying that of Lin- 
 coln ; and it is likely to appear that as regards 
 
 the dignity and standing of the two families at 
 the time of their early migration from Eng- 
 land to the United States — the Lincoln family 
 to Massachusetts and the Washington family 
 to Virginia — there would be little to choose. 
 
 For the most part, families have always ta- 
 ken their own affairs for granted, and have 
 been exceedingly careless about preserving ac- 
 curate records for the enlightenment of their 
 descendants. Through the efforts of a number 
 of later collectors of data, including Miss Tar- 
 bell, Dr. Barton, the late Senator Beveridge, 
 Mr. Warren, and Mr. Sandburg, we have been 
 bringing to light things about the life and 
 times of Lincoln that were indeed well known 
 to his associates but that had been lost because 
 the familiar things are so seldom set down 
 on paper at the very time, by those who could 
 do it best. 
 
 Without apology for repetition, it should be 
 emphasized that Lincoln was the product of 
 great movements in an amazing period of mod- 
 ern history. He was identified with American 
 nationalism at its most expansive stage, during 
 the first half of the third century of the settle- 
 ment of English-speaking people on this con- 
 tinent. Thomas Jefferson was still President, 
 during the three weeks that followed Lincoln's 
 birth, and he survived as the illustrious Revo- 
 lutionary patriot who had written the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. Then as now his fame 
 
 VICKSBURG, THEN THE LARGEST CITY IN MISSISSIPPI, WHICH LINCOLN SAW ON 
 
 HIS WAY TO NEW ORLEANS 
 
 From an early print. Note the flatboats, and the steamers that were already appearing on the river. 
 
34 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was that of a personage of unfading world 
 renown. And his busy and influential life at 
 Monticello continued until Lincoln was in his 
 eighteenth year. 
 
 To have memorized the Declaration while 
 its author was still living was to render the 
 more real and vivid the political doctrines as 
 well as the events of the period — fifty years to 
 a day — from July 4, 1 776, to Jefferson's death 
 on July 4, 1826. No one could forget that it 
 was Jefferson who had in 1803 seized the op- 
 portunity afforded hy certain exigencies in the 
 great game of European imperialism to buy 
 from Napoleon the country west of the Mis- 
 sissippi. It was with the problems arising 
 from the settlement and political adjustment of 
 all this vast Louisiana territory, as followed by 
 later acquisitions, that Lincoln had to deal 
 through his public career. 
 
 While still living in Indiana, at the age of 
 nineteen, Lincoln had joined in building a flat- 
 boat, and with another adventurous youth, 
 whose father was his employer, he had floated 
 down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New 
 Orleans. Thousands of young men had thus 
 embarked upon our western rivers for long 
 journeys. There was nothing uncommon in the 
 adventure; but because Lincoln was himself 
 uncommon his impressions and observations 
 were an important element in his education 
 and in the forming of his opinions. He came 
 into some contact with people of three races 
 and colors, but particularly he encountered 
 the institution of Slavery as a social and 
 economic fact in the settlements and on the 
 plantations which his flatboat passed, and at the 
 many landing places where he and his comrade 
 briefly paused. 
 
 New Orleans was a comparatively small city, 
 but highly cosmopolitan with its population of 
 French and Spanish Creoles, its slave market, 
 its shipping under various flags, and its ex- 
 perience of just twenty-five years of American 
 rule. Steamboats for a number of years had 
 been plying the western rivers, and Lincoln's 
 return (1828) was made as a steamboat pas- 
 senger. 
 
 The removal of Lincoln's father and family 
 by ox-teams from Indiana to Illinois had oc- 
 curred when the youth was twenty-one, and his 
 
 own master. To be exact, the move began on 
 .March 1, 1830, less than a month after his 
 twenty-first birthday. Having assisted his 
 father in building a log house, clearing land 
 and settling the family, the vigorous and 
 adaptable young man found some local employ- 
 ment through the winter, and — as a part of a 
 local tradesman's business enterprise — he was 
 engaged in the early spring to help build an- 
 other flatboat and to carry a cargo of agricul- 
 tural products down the Mississippi. 
 
 It was in the early summer of 183 1, soon 
 after his twenty-second birthday, that Lincoln 
 made his second voyage as a flatboat navigator 
 to New Orleans. He had been learning and 
 thinking, in these three years ; and he was the 
 better prepared, as a responsible citizen rather 
 than an adventurous boy, to observe conditions 
 and to form opinions. He found himself 
 strongly out of sympathy with slavery. Again, 
 he found himself drawn toward the policy of 
 internal and coastwise improvements — roads, 
 canals, waterways, harbor construction, and 
 shipping encouragement — that the Whigs were 
 advocating. We had a vast country to occupy 
 and develop, and Lincoln followed Clay in be- 
 lieving in the constructive American policies 
 that the Whigs (and afterwards the Republi- 
 cans) proclaimed, as against the Democratic 
 view that these things were no part of the busi- 
 ness of the federal government under strict 
 interpretation of the Constitution. 
 
 The year 1832 marks a turning point in 
 American politics. The Federalists, in spite of 
 the ability and eminence of their leaders, had 
 over-reached themselves in the bitterness of 
 their antagonism to the Jeffersonian policies 
 that had culminated under Jefferson's suc- 
 cessor, James Madison, in the War of 1812. 
 The Federalists v/ere relatively conservative 
 and pro-British. They were concerned with the 
 shipping and commercial interests of the east- 
 ern seaboard, and regarded Jefferson's em- 
 bargo policies as more fatal to their ships and 
 ocean trade than the high-handed and piratical 
 policies of the European governments which, 
 in rivalry with one another, had attempted to 
 control the movements of neutral merchant- 
 men. Late in Madison's second term the Fed- 
 eralist leaders had held a convention behind 
 
A FRONTIER YOUTH ENCOUNTERS SLAVERY 
 
 35 
 
 THE SLAVE MARKET AT NEW ORLEANS 
 
 In 1828 and again in 1831 Lincoln made the river voyage to New Orleans. On the second trip he 
 
 spent a month there, and it is known that he visited the slave market. He was twenty-two years 
 
 old, and what he saw impressed itself deeply. The illustration is from an old English engraving. 
 
 closed doors at Hartford, in opposition to the 
 war and the Administration. They had lost 
 all hold upon the sympathies not only of the 
 South and West, but of great masses of plain 
 citizens in the East. 
 
 The Federalism of Presidents Washington 
 and John Adams, supported by the financial and 
 constructive genius of Alexander Hamilton 
 and the statesmanship of John Jay and many 
 others, stands well upon its own merits and 
 needs no defense, although it made some mis- 
 takes and was not tactful enough in appealing 
 to the new spirit of democracy. Once in 
 power, President Jefferson and President 
 Madison had adopted federalistic methods for 
 all practical purposes, by such bold measures 
 as the acquisition of Louisiana and the policies 
 that were involved in the War of 1812. 
 
 The Hartford Convention had the misfor- 
 tune to have been held as the war was ending, 
 and just before General Andrew Jackson's 
 thrilling victory at New Orleans over an army 
 of British regulars, led by the Duke of Well- 
 ington's brother-in-law, General Pakenham, 
 The Hartford Convention was not, in fact, 
 wholly secessionist, its fire-eaters having been 
 brought under control of wiser and more 
 patient men. It was not so objectionable as has 
 usually been assumed. But certain of its mem- 
 bers, who were sent to Washington to present 
 its views, arrived just as the news of Jackson's 
 victory, relayed from New Orleans, had 
 crossed the Potomac to the national capital. 
 The whole country was emotionally wild over 
 the great victory of January 8, 18 15, and it was 
 especially welcome at Washington because in 
 
36 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 T7w Plumb -pudding in danaer ;_or _Stat&Epimres taking laiPeUtSmlper 
 
 — ' {A* grwt Cloic ikdf. cund> "^ wtiich, iL..uihlrit . " torn sma/l to saiu/y suh unzubal/iy aj'^ilfti. 
 
 THE PERIOD IN WHICH LINCOLN GREW UP— A CARTOON BY GILLRAY 
 
 Lincoln was twelve years old when Napoleon died. French victories over Austrians and Russians 
 at Austerlitz, over Prussians at Jena ; British defeats of Napoleon by Nelson at Trafalgar and by 
 Wellington at Waterloo — these events, still fresh in memory, shaped the destinies of Europe 
 and of America while Lincoln was young. When he went to New Orleans in 1828 it was but 
 twenty-five years after the great Louisiana territory had been purchased from France. This 
 drawing, was made by James Gillray, the leading English caricaturist of that period. Pitt, Prime 
 Minister of England, and Napoleon are dividing the world between them. It is reproduced here 
 as throwing a sidelight upon the time in which Lincoln grew up, and also as indicating the 
 influence of European caricaturists upon their fellow-craftsmen in America. 
 
 August, less than five months earlier, several 
 British regiments under General Ross had oc- 
 cupied the federal city and burned the Capitol 
 and the White House, with other public build- 
 ings, thus deeply humiliating our officialdom. 
 
 James Monroe, who had filled many public 
 positions since his service as a young officer in 
 the Revolution, and who was Secretary of State 
 in Madison's Cabinet, was the unrivalled heir- 
 apparent of what was then called the "Virginia 
 dynasty." The fact that our commissioners 
 had signed a peace treaty in Ghent on Christ- 
 mas Eve, some two weeks before the Battle of 
 New Orleans, without any express references 
 to the causes of the combat, or the questions at 
 
 issue, might have furnished the Federalists 
 with some ground for criticizing so costly and 
 destructive a war against the British Empire. 
 But in politics military victories count for 
 more than diplomatic documents. Jackson's 
 victory had simply wiped out the Federalist 
 party as a nation-wide influence, and it had 
 given the Democrats an ascendency that lasted 
 (with the brief interruption of Harrison's 
 single month in 1841 and the Taylor-Fillmore 
 quadrennium, 1849-53) until the election of 
 Abraham Lincoln himself in i860. 
 
 In those days the dominant party called itself 
 "Republican," or "Democratic- Republican" ; 
 but these designations were soon dropped in 
 
A FRONTIER YOUTH ENCOUNTERS SLAVERY 
 
 37 
 
 A POSTER CARICATURE OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1824 
 The reader will note an extraordinary improvement in the drawing of campaign posters as he 
 advances from this chapter through the next half-dozen. This is a very early example. The four 
 candidates for the Presidency in 1824 are pictured as engaged in a foot race: John Quincy Adams, 
 Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. Their admirers make various comments — 
 puns being a favorite form of humor — "Hurrah for our son Jack! "You needn't be so Oa-morous! 
 "He'll even get the better of the Quincy," etc. Clay, toward the right has not yet started to run. 
 
 Jackson wears his military uniform. 
 
 favor of the useful name "Democratic," which 
 has always since held its place. The nomina- 
 tion of Mr. Monroe was brought about by a 
 caucus of Republican members of Congress. 
 It is worth remembering that Henry Clay was 
 then in Congress from Kentucky, and that he 
 was present at this meeting of members that 
 made Monroe the party candidate. With Ohio 
 and Indiana admitted as States (having fol- 
 lowed Kentucky, Vermont, Tennessee, and 
 Louisiana, as additions to the original thir- 
 teen ) there were now nineteen States in the 
 Union. Mr. Monroe received the electoral votes 
 of all except Massachusetts, Connecticut, and 
 Delaware. Those three States supported Ruf us 
 King of New York as Federalist candidate. 
 But the party that had passed the Alien and 
 Sedition Laws, and had been responsible for 
 the Hartford Convention, was moribund. It 
 never regained vitality. 
 
 There followed the "Era of Good Feeling," 
 as it has always been termed, parties having 
 ceased for a few years to assert themselves on 
 
 well-organized national lines. Mr. Monroe was 
 widely experienced and excellently qualified, 
 but not a heaven-born leader of men, or a mas- 
 terful statesman in his hold upon the assembled 
 representatives at Washington. His Secretary 
 of State, John Quincy Adams of Massa- 
 chusetts, had been trained by his father from 
 boyhood for a public career, had filled diplo- 
 matic posts in several European countries while 
 still very young, was a man of great learning, 
 of eloquence, and of literary skill, but not 
 versed in the arts of political management. 
 
 The country was doing its best to recover 
 from a struggle that had taxed public and pri- 
 vate resources very heavily. The War of 1812 
 had almost paralyzed the once prosperous acti- 
 vities of the merchants and ocean traders of the 
 Atlantic seaboard for three long years, and it 
 left the government of the United States with 
 a public debt of a hundred million dollars — 
 which was regarded as a heavy obligation at 
 that time. The country was too busily engaged 
 in making up its losses and reviving its busi- 
 
38 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ness energies, to be unduly concerned over 
 politics. But localities and regions were as- 
 serting themselves, new sectional leaders were 
 coming to the front, personal rivalries and am- 
 bitions were beginning to affect the general 
 harmony, and the country was slowly prepar- 
 ing to divide again on partisan lines. 
 
 The War of 1812 had cut off the ordinary 
 supply of European imported manufactures, 
 and had laid the foundations for the great 
 American textile industry, while reviving the 
 Hamiltonian arguments for a protective tariff 
 in order to build up the economic independence 
 of the United States. 
 
 Henry Clay of Kentucky had popular gifts 
 that were lacking in President Monroe and his 
 Secretary of State, Mr. Adams. He was in 
 passionate sympathy with the uprisings under 
 General Bolivar and other Latin American 
 leaders for the expulsion of the Spanish colon- 
 ial authorities from the western hemisphere. 
 General Jackson's experiences with the Span- 
 iards in Florida — following the earlier crisis 
 when the Spaniards had closed the mouths of 
 the Mississippi to the western farmers and 
 traders whose thousands of flatboats, keel- 
 boats, and rafts had been carrying food prod- 
 ucts and cotton to New Orleans for export — 
 had given the West an abiding hatred of the 
 Spanish government in its exercise of control 
 anywhere on our side of the Atlantic. 
 
 Mr. Clay in Congress was a leader of mov- 
 ing eloquence, and the Monroe Administration 
 had no reason for sympathy with Spain. The 
 United States led the world in acknowledging 
 the independence of the new South American 
 republics. When the Holy Alliance, made up 
 of the chief rulers of continental Europe, after 
 the Congress of Vienna, had shown signs of 
 willingness to aid Spain in the recovery of her 
 American empire, the Monroe Doctrine was 
 proclaimed in 1823. Jefferson had been con- 
 sulted and had approved, and the South and 
 West especially were in accord with the cour- 
 ageous assertion of the purpose of the United 
 States to support the liberated portions of the 
 western hemisphere in resisting further efforts 
 to subject them to European imperial control. 
 
 War had awakened once more the restless, 
 pioneering spirit ; and thousands of families 
 
 from the East were moving with their ox- 
 teams, horses, and covered wagons along the 
 main trails, or were continuing to float down 
 the Obio. New York in 1825 completed the 
 Erie Canal ; and while this brought western 
 products to the East for local consumption or 
 export, it also carried thousands of families to 
 Buffalo whence they moved farther west, many 
 of them carried by the new steamboats on the 
 Great Lakes. 
 
 To look a little further back, it should be 
 noted that the Northwest Ordinance, providing 
 for the organization and government of the 
 territory that was afterwards divided to form 
 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wiscon- 
 sin, had provided that slavery should be for- 
 ever excluded from that area. This had, 
 doubtless, considerably affected the movement 
 of population, not only in numbers, but also in 
 respect of sentiment and character. This trend 
 is well shown by statistics. Kentucky had about 
 75,000 people in 1790, and in 1800 it had three 
 times as many — more than 220,000 — while 
 Ohio in 1800 had only one-fifth as many — 
 about 45,000. But in 1820 Ohio had out- 
 stripped Kentucky; and in the census of 1830, 
 while Kentucky had 688,000, her neighbor 
 north of the river had 938,000. Indiana, with 
 a handful of people in 1800, had almost 
 350,000 in 1830. Illinois, which was admitted 
 to the Union in 181 8 with about 50,000 peo- 
 ple, had almost 160,000 in 1830. 
 
 The South was also growing rapidly, with 
 settlers who were disposed to utilize rather than 
 to abolish the economic institution of Slavery. 
 Thus Tennessee, with only a fourth of the 
 population of Massachusetts in 1800, had far 
 surpassed Massachusetts by 1830. Georgia, 
 Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana had been 
 gaining with astounding strides between 1810 
 and 1830, largely by reason of the world's de- 
 mand for cotton. These shifts in population 
 through the first half of the Nineteenth Cen- 
 tury were the most determining of all influ- 
 ences and factors in the ups and downs of party 
 politics. They also were the determining causes 
 of the Mexican War, with the territorial an- 
 nexations that followed it. Finally, they sup- 
 plied the causes that precipitated the Civil War, 
 while also they furnished the men, the re- 
 
A FRONTIER YOUTH ENCOUNTERS SLAVERY 
 
 39 
 
 sources, and the large nationalistic and unify- 
 ing motives that brought the war to its conclu- 
 sion, with the permanent and fully accepted re- 
 sults of an undivided nation under adequate 
 central authority. 
 
 The career of Abraham Lincoln could not 
 possibly be understood apart from these facts 
 of national expan- 
 sion, and the great 
 sectional growth of 
 the West and the 
 South. The same 
 general facts, large- 
 ly economic, entered 
 as an essential ele- 
 ment into each suc- 
 ceeding presidential 
 contest. Also, they 
 form the necessary 
 background for the 
 study of the politi- 
 cal fortunes of hun- 
 dreds of other men 
 besides Abraham 
 Lincoln, some of 
 whose names are 
 written in the pages 
 of school histories, 
 while most of them 
 though once prom- 
 inent are now for- 
 gotten. 
 
 "Young Harry 
 of the West," as 
 Clay continued to 
 be called long after 
 he had outlived the 
 stage of boy orator 
 and precocious 
 statesman, was re- 
 garded as the 
 country's rising 
 hope, with a great 
 
 HENRY CLAY, FOR WHOM LINCOLN CAMPAIGNED 
 Clay, idol of the Whig party, was three times defeated 
 for the Presidency. He ran fourth in 1824, and lost to Jackson 
 in 1832 and to Polk in 1844. He also was a prominent candi- 
 date in 1840 and 1848, though he failed to get the nomination; 
 and in those years the Whig candidate won. Meanwhile he 
 served conspicuously in public office for nearly forty years — 
 in the House of Representatives, as Secretary of State, and as 
 United States Senator. Above is a campaign poster of 1844. 
 
 future that must 
 
 surely lead to the presidency. But General An- 
 drew Jackson was the hero whose reward must 
 come first in the estimation of the South, and 
 this opinion was shared not only in the new com- 
 munities north of the Ohio, but also to some 
 extent in northern New England, where the 
 
 plain farming folk had as yet hardly emerged 
 from pioneering conditions and where the bold 
 spirit of "Old Hickory" made a peculiar 
 appeal. These rustic Yankees, like the rough 
 frontiersmen of the South and West, were 
 not only out of sympathy with the superior 
 culture and the refined manners of the "aristo- 
 crats" who shared 
 in the fortunes of 
 the "Virginia dyn- 
 asty," but they were 
 almost equally in re- 
 volt against that 
 other scholarly 
 group identified 
 with Boston and 
 Cambridge, with 
 Hartford and New 
 Haven, and, to 
 some extent, with 
 New York City, of 
 whom John Quincy 
 Adams seemed to 
 them an intellectual 
 survival, even 
 though he was not a 
 subservient disciple 
 of his father's polit- 
 ical friends. The 
 younger Adams was 
 comfortable enough 
 in his Democratic 
 associations, as Sec- 
 retary of State un- 
 der Monroe. Also 
 he was the best- 
 trained man in sight 
 for the presidency. 
 But the older 
 States of the Atlan- 
 tic seaboard had run 
 the country long 
 enough, and the new 
 
 populations west of 
 the Alleghenies were in aggressive mood. Not 
 only did the great valley of the interior make 
 its claim as a region, but it also had two pieces 
 of presidential timber that loomed above all 
 others, and these were Andrew Jackson of 
 Tennessee and Henry Clay of Kentucky. 
 
40 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 These two were not the only candidates by 
 any means. President Monroe himself was 
 inclined to favor his Secretary of the Treasury, 
 a substantial and experienced citizen of 
 Georgia, William H. Crawford. John C. Cal- 
 houn of South Carolina, and De Witt Clinton 
 of New York, had their supporters. The plan 
 of a congressional caucus was discarded. The 
 more general practice employed in 1824 was 
 that of the naming of favorites by State legis- 
 latures. Thus Clay was named by Kentucky 
 and afterwards by Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, 
 and Louisiana. General Jackson, first presen- 
 ted by a local mass convention in Tennessee, 
 was named by many groups and bodies 
 throughout the country. The Legislature of 
 South Carolina presented Mr. Calhoun. Mr. 
 Crawford was endorsed by the Legislature of 
 Virginia. The New England States through 
 their Legislatures were formally for Adams, 
 although in the subsequent election popular 
 sentiment favored some of the other can- 
 didates. 
 
 Election methods were by no means uniform 
 at that time, presidential electors in several 
 States being chosen by the Legislatures. There 
 was no clear majority of electoral votes for any 
 candidate, and, under the Constitution, three 
 names had to be referred to the House of Rep- 
 resentatives for final choice. Some of the Clay 
 electors had shifted ground, so that Jackson, 
 Adams, and Crawford were the names referred 
 to the House. The electoral votes had stood : 
 for Jackson 99, John Quincy Adams 84, Will- 
 iam H. Crawford 41, Henry Clay 37. 
 
 Mr. Clay was himself Speaker of the House 
 at that time and very popular. Upon his 
 friends rested the responsibility of throwing 
 the decision either way, as between Jackson and 
 Adams. The representatives of thirteen States 
 supported Adams, seven were for Jackson, and 
 four for Crawford. Chief Justice Marshall 
 administered the oath to Mr. Adams on March 
 4, 1825, and Andrew Jackson, who was then a 
 Senator, promptly offered his congratulations. 
 But General Jackson did not forgive Henry 
 Clay, who could, if he had so chosen, have in- 
 fluenced his friends in Congress to vote for 
 the candidate who had undoubtedly received 
 a considerable plurality of the popular vote, 
 
 and who had received 99 votes as against 84 
 for Adams in the returns of the presidential 
 electors. Clay became Secretary of State, and 
 was unjustly accused of having made a pre- 
 vious bargain with the friends of Adams. 
 
 This situation arose half a dozen years be- 
 fore Abraham Lincoln had attained his major- 
 ity, and had begun to take his local place as a 
 young man greatly concerned about politics. 
 But it created passionate differences which 
 lasted for many long years ; and even the chil- 
 dren of the West, taking their views from the 
 excited talk of their elders, became violent 
 partisans of Andrew Jackson or devoted ad- 
 mirers and followers of Henry Clay. It hap- 
 pened that Lincoln — not so much through ac- 
 cidents of family or environment that deter- 
 mined the party allegiance of most citizens, as 
 because of admiration for Clay's brilliant 
 speeches, and natural agreement with his views 
 — became an avowed supporter of Clay. As the 
 anti-Jackson elements became coalesced in the 
 new Whig party, Lincoln was soon known 
 among his neighbors as an active and consis- 
 tent Whig politician. 
 
 It is always interesting to note in studying 
 American politics how the careers of eminent 
 public men have overlapped. Thus Jackson, 
 who was born in 1767, was fighting at the age 
 of fourteen as a Revolutionary soldier in the 
 Virginia campaign that resulted in the victory 
 of Washington and Lafayette and the surren- 
 der of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. In 
 Tennessee he had become a lawyer holding 
 local positions, then rapidly a member of Con- 
 gress, a United States Senator and a Supreme 
 Court Judge of the State, while Washington 
 and the elder Adams were still occupying the 
 presidential chair. It was later that he had con- 
 quered the Creek Indians, and had become a 
 Major-General in the War of 18 12. 
 
 After Jackson's crowning success in defeat- 
 ing the British at New Orleans in 1815, he had 
 taken a leading part in the acquisition of 
 Florida by purchase from Spain, and he had 
 become our first Governor of the new Florida 
 Territory. In 1823 he went back to the United 
 States Senate, in which, for a year or two, he 
 had also served a quarter of a century earlier. 
 In popular opinion, he was destined to become 
 
A FRONTIER YOUTH ENCOUNTERS SLAVERY 
 
 41 
 
 ^ £•% 
 
 THE GRAND NATIONAL CARAVAN MOVING EAST 
 
 Andrew Jackson, though unsuccessful in the campaign of 1824, was elected four years later and 
 re-elected in 1832. This is a cartoon of the Jacksonian era. The banners proclaim the conquering 
 hero: "Sound the trumpet, beat the drums." "Honor and gratitude to the man who has filled 
 the measure of his country's glory." Jackson is astride the leading horse, with Vice-President 
 Van Buren behind him. Jackson was the first President from a State other than Massachusetts or 
 Virginia. He was born in western North Carolina, and had practised law at Nashville, Tennessee. 
 
 President sooner or later ; and Congress was 
 doubtless more scheming than wise in refusing 
 to elect him in 1824. Jackson defeated Adams 
 in 1828, and Clay in 1832. Though Clay was 
 nominated again in 1844, changed condi- 
 tions gave the victory to Polk. In 1848 
 the results of the Mexican War demanded a 
 
 military hero rather than a seasoned statesman, 
 especially a statesman who, like Clay or Web- 
 ster, had been vigorously opposed to the war 
 policy of President Polk, and had thought our 
 invasion of Mexico unjustified, high-handed 
 and inspired by unworthy motives. Lincoln 
 loved Clay not less, but favored a Whig soldier. 
 
 THE LOG CABIN IN WHICH ANDREW JACKSON LIVED 
 
 In 1804, after Jackson had been Congressman, Senator, and Tennessee judge, he purchased 
 
 a plantation near Nashville. The log cabin on that plantation was his home for fifteen 
 
 years, and still remains near the mansion that is shown on page 46. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Lincoln's First Taste of Politics and War 
 
 The presidential careers of John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson — 
 
 Lincoln announces his candidacy for the Legislature, serves in the 
 
 Black Hawk War, and is defeated at the polls 
 
 Iincoln attained his twentieth birthday 
 while John Quincy Adams had still 
 nearly a month remaining of his single 
 term in the White House. It would be 
 wholly against the probabilities that Lincoln 
 was not already politically-minded. He was 
 "talking politics" every 
 day, and trying to learn 
 to express himself, in the 
 arguments of his Hoo- 
 sier community at the 
 post office, the black- 
 smith's shop and the 
 country store. He had be- 
 come a reader of news- 
 papers; and these were 
 a repository of political 
 literature of high educa- 
 tional value. Undoubted- 
 ly he was seeing the litho- 
 graphed cartoon posters 
 that even then were find- 
 ing distribution through- 
 out the country. 
 
 The disappointment of 
 the Jacksonians in 1825 
 had intensified a feeling 
 that was even more 
 strongly exhibited in the 
 rural neighborhoods of 
 the West than in the 
 towns and cities of the 
 East, where people were 
 more generally occu- 
 pied with business and 
 private affairs. The newspapers, as I have 
 already intimated, were strikingly different 
 from those of our generation. Lacking tele- 
 graphic news and with comparatively little 
 development of the art of local reporting, 
 the press was heavy and documentary. Presi- 
 dent's messages and formal addresses were 
 
 42 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 
 Sixth President of the United States 
 
 Before his election, in 1824, Adams had been United 
 States Senator from Massachusetts; Minister to 
 Holland, Germany, Russia, and England ; and Sec- 
 retary of State under Monroe. He became Presi- 
 dent when Lincoln was sixteen and served until 
 Lincoln was twenty. From 1831 until his death in 
 1848, Adams the former President served as a mem- 
 ber of the House. He died in his seat there, and 
 Lincoln — then also a member — represented the Ill- 
 inois delegation at the funeral. 
 
 given ample space. And it should be said 
 that nothing could have been better reading 
 for the young student of politics than the 
 perfectly phrased messages of President 
 Adams, and the speeches of his brilliant Sec- 
 retary of State, Henry Clay. Lincoln's ten- 
 dency from the very be- 
 ginning had been to asso- 
 ciate himself with the in- 
 tellectual and rational 
 minority, rather than 
 with the more emotional 
 masses that had naturally 
 rallied around the ban- 
 ners of Jackson, fully 
 convinced, and asking 
 for no high arguments 
 in the sphere of states- 
 manship. 
 
 The inaugural address 
 and the four annual mes- 
 sages of President Ad- 
 ams are state papers 
 that will always stand as 
 models. Along with clar- 
 ity and beauty of style, 
 they expounded policies 
 with moderation of tone 
 but with firmness of 
 logic, and they set forth 
 the facts of government 
 finance and the nation's 
 public business in a suc- 
 cinct but adequate man- 
 ner. Above all, they 
 handled many diplomatic and international sit- 
 uations with an ability that no statesman any- 
 where in the world in that day could have sur- 
 passed. Adams and Clay were the strongest 
 supporters of the new South American repub- 
 lics, and were sending diplomatic representa- 
 tives to the old Spanish cities that had now be- 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST TASTE OF POLITICS AND WAR 
 
 43 
 
 c 
 
 0?~ 
 
 *&! 
 
 w^^) 
 
 
 cen/wi6fe t&t^ariJfasfra/at 1 
 
 A CARTOON OF 1828, WHEN ADAMS AND JACKSON WERE OPPOSING CANDIDATES 
 
 A circular letter dated "Centreville, July 19, 1828," was alleged to have urged supporters of John 
 Quincy Adams to persuade doubtful voters, and to have "at least six strong and courageous men 
 at the polls." This cartoon is the answer of the supporters of Andrew Jackson. It shows a voter, 
 who maintains that he is doubtful, being dragged and pushed to the voting place by six Adams 
 men. Adams himself, in the window, remarks: "Let us not be palsied by the wishes of our constit- 
 uents." Jackson behind the tree at the right, says: "Let the people's unbiased will prevail." 
 
 come republican capitals. They were endorsing 
 the Pan-American Congress that leaders in 
 Central and South America had called to as- 
 semble at Panama. 
 
 Two foremost lines of domestic policy 
 were ably presented by Adams, one being 
 that of the steadily enlarging program of in- 
 ternal improvements, particularly highways 
 and canals, under government aid and direc- 
 tion, while the other was the policy of in- 
 creasing the rates of certain tariff schedules. 
 Successive advances in average tariff rates 
 had already made it clear that the country 
 had abandoned the pretext of levying cus- 
 toms duties for revenue only, lit was build- 
 ing higher tariff walls, behind which our "in- 
 fant" industries could find protection against 
 British and other foreign goods. This pro- 
 tective policy was generally favored in the 
 
 West, and it found many adherents in the 
 older states of the North Atlantic, where 
 manufacturing had begun to equal shipping 
 and ocean-borne commerce in the profitable 
 employment of labor and capital. But this 
 protective policy was strongly opposed in 
 Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, and also 
 in the newer cotton states of the lower South. 
 Very little manufacturing on a commercial 
 basis had been attempted in the South, al- 
 though plantation and household industries 
 for local supply were common. The South 
 wished to sell its cotton, tobacco, and other 
 products in Europe at good prices and to 
 bring return cargoes of textiles and other 
 manufactured goods, bought at better prices 
 than those of New England, New York or 
 Pennsylvania, where mills and factories en- 
 joyed the advantages of a protective tariff. 
 
44 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 In 1828, toward the end of the Adams ad- 
 ministration, there was enacted a new tariff 
 measure which came to be designated by its 
 critics as the "Tariff of Abominations." The 
 Jacksonian Democrats held the protective 
 tariff to be unconstitutional in principle, and 
 sectionally discriminatory and unjust in its 
 actual provisions. Taking this view of the 
 tariff, for consistency's sake they also assailed 
 the policy of internal improvements at fed- 
 eral expense, declaring it to be contrary to 
 the meaning and intent of the Constitution. 
 Thus the lines were actually forming for a 
 definite readjustment of parties. There were 
 leaders of the first rank on both sides, and 
 there were differences of opinion about im- 
 portant matters. Both of these things are 
 requisite to the existence of strong and con- 
 tinuing parties. 
 
 During Adams's entire term, his adminis- 
 tration lacked majority support in the Sen- 
 ate. At first he had strength in the House 
 of Representatives ; but in the ensuing Con- 
 gressional election the Jacksonians captured 
 the House. The factional spirit was kept alive 
 especially by the determination of the Jack- 
 son men to right the wrong of Jackson's pre- 
 vious rejection by the House. 
 
 About some occurrences of that time there 
 was no partisan disagreement. Lafayette 
 had come to the United States as the nation's 
 guest, and was sent back to France in Sep- 
 tember, 1825, on the frigate Brandywinc 
 after a protracted sojourn of more than a 
 year. For more than forty years following 
 his youthful services as an officer under 
 Washington in the Revolutionary War, La- 
 fayette had played an important part in the 
 political affairs of France. 
 
 The country, aglow with enthusiasm for 
 the achievements of Washington and his 
 compatriots, was linking the name of Bolivar, 
 the great South American liberator, with 
 those of Washington and Lafayette. Adams 
 was officially eulogizing the heroes of the 
 Greek Revolution, and the nation was in a 
 mood for assertion and self-congratulation. 
 It would be a dull and unwarranted concep- 
 tion of Abraham Lincoln and his Indiana 
 environment at that time, to suppose that 
 
 they were not as ardently affected by Lafay- 
 ette's visit, by the freeing of South America, 
 and by the struggle of the Greeks against the 
 Turks, as were the citizens of Virginia or 
 other eastern States. These matters were 
 part and parcel of the educational outfitting 
 of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 There was no doubt about the selection of 
 candidates in 1828. Adams was running for 
 a second term by the common consent of all 
 his supporters, and there was no formality 
 of any kind that gave him a party nomina- 
 tion. Jackson, on the other hand, was put 
 in nomination by the legislature of his own 
 State of Tennessee three years before the 
 election was actually held. Various other 
 State legislatures, caucuses, and local political 
 groups, endorsed Jackson's nomination from 
 time to time. It was only necessary to con- 
 ciliate the friends of Mr. Crawford in Vir- 
 ginia, Georgia, and elsewhere ; and this was 
 done by the adroit Mr. Van Buren of New 
 York, who made a Southern tour on behalf 
 of Jackson as the undisputed candidate of 
 the Democratic party. 
 
 It is interesting to note that by this time 
 the choice of presidential electors had become 
 a matter of popular vote in every one of the 
 twenty-four States then existent except in 
 South Carolina, where the legislature con- 
 tinued to appoint the electors. It is also to 
 be observed that eighteen States chose their 
 electors on a general State ticket, which is 
 now our universal practice. On the other 
 hand, four chose their electors by districts 
 (which is by far the more suitable and desir- 
 able plan), these four being Maine, New 
 York, Maryland, and Tennessee. 
 
 Jackson received nearly 55 per cent, of the 
 popular vote and Adams more than 45 per 
 cent. But majorities were so distributed 
 among the States and districts as to give 
 Jackson 178 votes in the electoral college and 
 John Quincy Adams only 83. Adams car- 
 ried all the New England States strongly, 
 with New Jersey and Maryland. The Jack- 
 son majorities in New York, Ohio, Indiana 
 and Kentucky were not large. In Louisiana 
 it happened also that the voting was almost 
 even, but otherwise Jackson swept the South 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST TASTE OF POLITICS AND WAR 
 
 45 
 
 overwhelmingly. In Illinois, also, 
 Jackson's vote was double that of 
 Adams, this being- largely due to 
 the more rapid development of the 
 southern part of the State. The 
 author of a judicious narrative his- 
 tory of the United States very pop- 
 ular more than half a century ago, 
 characterized President Jackson's 
 personality, and set forth his poli- 
 cies in so fair a summary that I 
 find it well to quote his statement at 
 length. Says John Clark Ridpath : 
 
 The new President was a military 
 hero. But he was was more than that; 
 a man of great native powers and in- 
 flexible honesty. His talents were 
 strong but unpolished; his integrity 
 unassailable; his will like iron. He was 
 one of those men for whom no toils 
 are too arduous, no responsibility too 
 great. His personal character was 
 strongly impressed upon his adminis- 
 tration. Believing that the public affairs 
 would be best conducted by such means, 
 and to reward his friends for their 
 party service, he removed nearly seven 
 hundred officeholders, and appointed in 
 their stead his own political friends. 
 This practice came to be known as the 
 Spoils System. It was adopted by 
 Jackson's successors and was contin- 
 ued till after the Civil War. 
 
 In his first annual message the President took 
 strong ground against rechartering the Bank of 
 the United States. Believing that institution to be 
 both inexpedient and unconstitutional, he recom- 
 mended that the old charter should be allowed to 
 expire by its own limitation in 1836. But the influ- 
 ence of the bank, with its many branches, was very 
 great; and in 1832 a bill to recharter was brought 
 before Congress and passed. To this measure the 
 President opposed his veto ; and since a two-thirds 
 majority in favor of the bill could not be secured, 
 the proposition to grant a new charter failed. 
 
 The year following Jackson's veto of the bank 
 bill was one of great excitement on account of his 
 determination to remove the government deposits 
 from the old bank. This he accomplished through 
 his secretary of the treasury. The bank officials 
 were greatly chagrined at this bold action of the 
 President, and by withholding their customary 
 loans from other banks and business firms, they 
 brought on a financial crisis of wide extent. Thou- 
 sands of people petitioned the President to replace 
 the deposits, but he was inflexible and refused to 
 
 LAFAYETTE AT THE HERMITAGE 
 When the Marquis visited the United States in 1824, nearly half a 
 century after he had aided the Revolutionary army, he was widely 
 acclaimed and remained for a year. He is here shown calling upon the 
 hero of the Battle of New Orleans, at Jackson's home near Nashville, 
 while on an extended steamboat tour of the sparsely settled region 
 west of the Alleghenies. This was before Jackson's election as President 
 and just after his first campaign. 
 
 be moved, declaring that any institution that had 
 the power to disturb the business of the country to 
 such an extent had no place in a republican govern- 
 ment. Jackson won in the end and the United 
 States Bank ceased to exist at the expiration of the 
 old charter. 
 
 The reopening of the tariff question occasioned 
 great excitement in Congress and throughout the 
 country. In the session of 1831-32 additional duties 
 were levied upon manufactured goods imported 
 from abroad. By this act the manufacturing dis- 
 tricts were again favored at the expense of the 
 agricultural States. South Carolina was specially 
 offended. A great convention of her people was 
 held, and it was resolved that the tariff law of Con- 
 gress was unconstitutional, and therefore null and 
 void. Open resistance was threatened in case the 
 officers of the government should attempt to collect 
 the revenues in the harbor of Charleston. In the 
 United States Senate the right of a State, under 
 certain circumstances, to nullify an act of Congress 
 was boldly proclaimed. On that issue occurred the 
 famous debate between the eloquent Colonel Hayne, 
 
4 6 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Senator from South Carolina, and Daniel Webster, 
 of Massachusetts, perhaps the greatest master of 
 American oratory. The former appeared as the 
 champion of State rights, and the latter as the advo- 
 cate of constitutional supremacy. 
 
 But the question was not decided by debate. The 
 President took the matter in hand and issued a 
 proclamation denying the right of any State to 
 nullify the laws of Congress. But Mr. Calhoun, 
 the Vice-President, resigned his office to accept a 
 seat in the Senate, where he might better defend 
 the doctrines of his State. The President, having 
 warned the people of South Carolina against pur- 
 suing those doctrines further, ordered a body of 
 troops under General Scott to proceed to Charleston, 
 and also sent thither a man-of-war. At this display 
 of force the leaders of the nullifying party quailed 
 and receded from their opposition. Bloodshed was 
 happily avoided; and in the following spring the 
 excitement was allayed by a compromise. Mr. 
 Clay brought forward and secured the passage of a 
 bill providing for a gradual reduction of the duties 
 complained of until, at the end of ten years, they 
 should reach the standard demanded by the South. 
 
 The Jacksonian times were turbulent and 
 the administration, as a New England author 
 once expressed it, was "one which those who 
 enjoy a quiet life can never dwell upon with 
 pleasure." Jackson ran the government with a 
 high hand and believed that, as the personal 
 choice of the people, he was ordained to have 
 
 THE HERMITAGE- HOME OF ANDREW JACKSON 
 In his youth Jackson was forced to struggle with poverty. He was born near the line 
 between North and South Carolina, in 1767, and grew up in a log cabin, as other frontier 
 people did in those days. He studied law and became a substantial citizen in eastern 
 Tennessee (then a part of North Carolina), even before the War of 1812 brought him fame 
 and the Presidency. A log cabin continued to be the Major-General's home, however, 
 until 1819. Then he built the mansion shown above, on his plantation near Nashville. 
 From 1829 to 1837 he occupied the White House; and from that time until his death in 
 1845 he again lived at the Hermitage. 
 
 his own way. He scorned consistency, and 
 he was not sensitive to the discord that his 
 activities produced. But he built up the 
 Democratic party in what have since been 
 many of its distinctive characteristics. It has 
 been more personal in its tone, and rather 
 more inclined to make politics a business, 
 than the opposing party. 
 
 The same New England historian declares 
 of Jackson: "His adoption of the principle 
 first formulated by Marcy, that 'to the victors 
 belong the spoils of the enemy,' was ap- 
 plauded and approved. He degraded na- 
 tional politics to the level of a game wherein 
 the shrewdest and the strongest, rather than 
 the best and the wisest were to come off the 
 victors; yet he merely extended the operation 
 of a principle that had long been dominant 
 in the affairs of the great States of New 
 York and Pennsylvania, and gave to a great 
 majority of the people of the country a gov- 
 ernment of a sort which they preferred to 
 that which had preceded it. Thus he at- 
 tracted more than he repelled; he pleased 
 more of the men of his generation than he 
 offended; and when the appeal was made to 
 the voters to pass judgment upon his doings, 
 a compact, enthusiastic body of his support- 
 ers confronted a dis- 
 organized and dis- 
 cordant opposition." 
 It was in the 
 thick of this Jack- 
 sonian ferment that 
 Abraham Lincoln, 
 the young citizen, 
 stepped forth to be- 
 gin his career as 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 the public man. He 
 decided very sensi- 
 bly to begin by an- 
 nouncing himself a 
 candidate for the 
 Illinois State Leg- 
 islature. He had re- 
 turned from his 
 second flatboat voy- 
 age to New Orleans, 
 landing at St. Louis 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST TASTE OF POLITICS AND WAR 
 
 47 
 
 and walking from that point back to his home. 
 These experiences had accounted for the first 
 half of the year 1831. For the next few 
 months, Lincoln occupied himself variously, 
 utilized opportunities during- the winter to 
 make local friends, and improved his knowl- 
 edge of English grammar and diction. His 
 village of New Salem _ 
 
 was some fifteen or twen- 
 ty miles from Springfield, /^ .... 
 
 and Lincoln was des- 
 tined before long to be- 
 come a citizen of the 
 larger place. 
 
 Meanwhile, his river 
 experiences had inter- 
 ested him deeply in the 
 question of transporta- 
 tion as affecting the de- 
 velopment of his vicinity. 
 Steamboats were coming 
 up the Illinois River in 
 increasing numbers, and 
 Lincoln was studying the 
 possibility of some im- 
 provement in the Sanga- 
 mon River, a branch of 
 the Illinois, that would 
 enable small steamboats 
 of light draft to come 
 up as far as Springfield. 
 
 However unimportant 
 this would seem nowa- 
 days, the idea was highly 
 plausible at that time, 
 and strong in its appeal, 
 because of the lack of 
 railroads and the neces- 
 sity of teaming over the 
 soft prairie wagon trails, 
 with black mud to the 
 hubs in wet weather. Most decidedly Lincoln 
 was for internal improvements. He made his 
 first announcement of candidacy for the Leg- 
 islature about March 1, 1832. Because I like 
 the phrasing of that announcement, and be- 
 cause of what one may read between the lines 
 in view of all that had happened to crystallize 
 Lincoln's opinions, I am taking the liberty to 
 separate the sentences for better emphasis : 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON 
 
 Seventh President of the United States 
 
 As the head of Tennessee volunteers who had 
 defeated the Creek Indians, Jackson's military 
 genius was recognized by appointment as a Major- 
 General in the regular army in 1814, and eight 
 months later he won the Battle of New Orleans. 
 He received the largest vote for President in 1824, 
 but since he lacked a clear majority, with four 
 candidates running, the election was thrown into 
 the House, and Adams was chosen. Four years 
 later Jackson overwhelmingly defeated Adams for 
 the Presidency, and four years after that he was 
 re-elected over Henry Clay. 
 
 "Fellow-citizens : I presume you all know who 1 
 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 a National Bank. 
 "I am in favor of the internal improvement sys- 
 tem, and a high protective 
 fcn^ tariff. 
 
 N^ "These are my sentiments 
 
 IHJIB and political principles. 
 
 "If elected, I shall be 
 thankful; if not it will be- 
 all the same." 
 
 This announcement 
 was followed at once by 
 an extended statement 
 which was printed as a 
 hand-bill for distribution 
 throughout the county. 
 Lincoln had completed 
 his twenty-second year. 
 His address was in ad- 
 mirable style, and it dis- 
 cussed various topics with 
 a careful weighing of 
 words and a quality of 
 practical wisdom that 
 suggest the writings of 
 Benjamin Franklin. It 
 argued for a carefully 
 considered policy of in- 
 ternal improvements, and 
 very properly appealed 
 to the local constituency 
 by a discussion of their 
 own problems of com- 
 munication. He wrote in- 
 telligently on behalf of 
 measures for the more 
 general diffusion of 
 "Upon the subjects of which I 
 
 education 
 
 have treated," he declares, "I have spoken as I 
 have thought. I may be wrong in regard to 
 any or all of them, but, holding it a sound 
 maxim that it is better only sometimes to be 
 right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as 
 I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall 
 be ready to renounce them." In this first docu- 
 ment, Lincoln's reasonableness shines forth. 
 
48 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 1 [e concludes with the following character- 
 istic paragraph : 
 
 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 es- 
 teemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself 
 worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in 
 gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed. I 
 am young, and unknown to many of you. I was 
 born, and have ever remained, in the most humble 
 walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular rela- 
 tions 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 back- 
 ground, I have been too familiar with disappoint- 
 ment to be very much chagrined. 
 
 I have heen at some pains to compare this 
 first announcement of Lincoln as a candi- 
 date for an important office with the state- 
 ments made by Theodore Roosevelt when, 
 soon after his graduation at Harvard, he 
 entered practical politics as a candidate for 
 the New York Legislature. He was also aged 
 twenty-two when he made his appeal for votes 
 some fifty years later. And I have had in 
 mind the political expressions of other young 
 
 GENERAL ATKINSON'S VICTORY OVER BLACK HAWK 
 
 This is a crude representation, after the manner of the times, of the decisive 
 
 battle of the Black Hawk War, in 1832. Lincoln was not present, though he had 
 
 re-enlisted in a company of independent scouts after his own volunteers — who 
 
 had chosen him Captain — had been mustered out. 
 
 men of education and opportunity, as they 
 were entering upon a public career. I have 
 not discovered that any one of them showed 
 better reasoning processes, or a firmer grasp 
 of principles and of the policies that he had 
 chosen to espouse, than Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The State election was to occur in August ; 
 and in April Governor Reynolds of Illinois 
 called upon General Neale of the State 
 militia to organize volunteers for a campaign 
 against the Sac, Fox, and Winnebago Indians, 
 who were under the leadership of a famous 
 chief known as Black Hawk. Many of these 
 Indians still occupied territory which had 
 been ceded by them to the United States 
 more than twenty years earlier. Now that 
 settlement was requiring their removal, 
 they took to the war path. The call was 
 printed at Springfield on April 19th and 
 Lincoln joined a company that was at once 
 organized. It was evidence" of his pres- 
 tige and his hold upon the young men of 
 the neighborhood that he was promptly 
 elected captain, as they marched to the 
 area of disturbance. Troops of the United 
 States Army had also appeared on the scene 
 and the militia had little fighting to do. Lin- 
 coln's adventures as a soldier in 1832 were 
 soon ended, the companies 
 being mustered out after a 
 few weeks. 
 
 Such an experience, how- 
 ever, had some value in giv- 
 ing personal confidence to a 
 young man who had deter- 
 mined upon a course that was 
 to lift him out of humble 
 and precarious occupations as 
 a private citizen, and launch 
 him upon a political and pro- 
 fessional career. Undoubted- 
 ly Lincoln would have made a 
 good soldier and a meritori- 
 ous officer if the occasion 
 had brought him to the test. 
 Although we have no 
 clear record of it, he must 
 have made numerous 
 speeches throughout the 
 county in the two months pre- 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST TASTE OF POLITICS AND WAR 
 
 49 
 
 THE NATION'S BULWARK: A WELL-DISCIPLINED MILITIA 
 
 A Philadelphia caricature of 1829 
 
 Under the laws of the new State of Illinois, every able-bodied man between 18 and 4S was required 
 
 to drill twice a year or pay a fine of one dollar. Lincoln might have drilled with such a squad. 
 
 When the Indians under Black Hawk invaded northwestern Illinois, in 1832, Lincoln responded to 
 
 the call for volunteers and was elected Captain ; but he was never under fire. 
 
 ceding the vote for presidential electors. There 
 was the more reason for making speeches, 
 because the national campaign had set in with 
 remarkable vigor. The Democrats had nom- 
 inated Jackson for his second term, and the 
 "National Republicans," as the party of Clay 
 to which Lincoln adhered was now called, 
 had held the first regular convention of a 
 major party. They had nominated Henry 
 Clay for the Presidency with great enthusi- 
 asm. A subsequent rally of the "Young Re- 
 publicans" had been held, to endorse the Clay 
 ticket ; and this young men's gathering 
 adopted a ringing platform. This was the 
 first party campaign platform of which we 
 have any record. The example has been fol- 
 lowed by party conventions ever since. The 
 Young Republican movement was as active 
 in Illinois as elsewhere, and Lincoln was one 
 of its leaders in his own neighborhood. His 
 brief announcement of principles was simply 
 a re-echoing of the platform of the men who 
 
 were there and elsewhere supporting Clay. 
 Jackson's victory was, of course, to have 
 been expected. The people took affairs into 
 their own hands, and henceforth for a long 
 time they governed through parties. Previ- 
 ously the government had been that of a body 
 of representative men sent to Congress from 
 whose numbers Cabinets were recruited, dip- 
 lomatic agents selected, and judges elevated 
 to the federal bench. Jackson was at odds 
 with this Washington element of the trained 
 and representative public men. For one 
 thing, he believed in the direct election of 
 Presidents by the people. This was natural 
 in view of the fact that he had been the vic- 
 tim of the complicated electoral college in 
 1824, followed by the arbitrary preference of 
 Congress for Adams early in 1825. He was 
 opposed to banks and their money power, but 
 so were the plain people at large. He had the 
 habit of success and he was regarded by the 
 untutored masses as an invincible hero. As 
 
50 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 a character in history we can appreciate Jack- 
 son's good qualities and find much to attract 
 us in his powerful and self-reliant personal- 
 ity. Lincoln was not bitter or personal in his 
 partisanship, but he reasoned thoughtfully 
 against most of Jackson's positions. He had 
 chosen his views and affiliations so firmly that 
 they sufficed for the future. 
 
 By way of keeping convenient record of 
 the campaigns in which Lincoln was active 
 it may be noted that the National Republi- 
 cans held their convention at Baltimore on 
 December 12, 1831, this being eleven months 
 previous to the election. Several Southern 
 States had no delegates, but there was a cre- 
 dentials committee and the convention was 
 
 BORN TO COMMAND 
 
 KINC ANDREW THE FIRST. 
 
 THE JACKSONIAN ERA IN AMERICAN POLITICS 
 
 Jackson was the first President to have serious and pro- 
 longed difficulites with Congress and the other arms of 
 the government. He acted promptly and firmly when 
 South Carolina passed the ordinance nullifying the tariff 
 in 1832, and with equal promptness in vetoing the bill 
 renewing the charter of the United States Bank. Jackson 
 is here portrayed as trampling upon the Constitution 
 and the laws. Bitter as was the opposition he met, it was 
 exceeded by the popular enthusiasm he aroused. 
 
 not a mere mass meeting. Henry Clay was 
 nominated unanimously, and John Sargeant 
 of Pennsylvania was named for the Vice- 
 Presidency. In lieu of a platform the conven- 
 tion issued an address strongly attacking the 
 Jackson administration. It was at Washing- 
 ton in May, 1832, that the young men's rati- 
 fying convention was held, which adopted a 
 platform in a series of ten resolutions. After 
 defense of the protective policy and that of 
 internal improvements, came a resolution up- 
 holding the authority of the Supreme Court 
 and another defending the Senate in the exer- 
 cise of its functions. The attitude of Jack- 
 son as regards all these subjects was criti- 
 cized, as was his partisan removal of officials. 
 
 The Democrats met in convention at Bal- 
 timore on May 21, 1832, and endorsed by 
 acclamation the general demand of the party 
 for Jackson's renomination. On its second 
 day the convention adopted a rule to the effect 
 that in voting for President and Vice-Presi- 
 dent "two-thirds of the whole number of 
 votes in the convention shall be necessary to 
 constitute a choice." Under this rule Martin 
 Van Buren was nominated for the Vice- 
 Presidency. The popular vote was divided 
 in the same proportions as in the previ- 
 ous election, Clay receiving about 45 per cent, 
 and Jackson about 55. In four or five of the 
 Southern States no Clay electoral ticket was 
 in the field. When the electoral votes were 
 counted, Jackson had received 219 and Clay 
 49. Again Lincoln's young State of Illinois 
 went strongly for Jackson, this time about 
 three to one. 
 
 Lincoln himself was beaten in his local con- 
 test, but on analysis it appears that, although 
 failing to gain the office, his canvass had been 
 a most remarkable success. The county was 
 extensive and several thoroughly well-known 
 and mature lawyers were among the thirteen 
 candidates for the Legislature. The county 
 was entitled to four, and those coming in at 
 the top of the list were elected under the 
 Illinois statutes. The triumph of Lincoln as 
 a beginner in politics lay in the fact that his 
 own voting district of New Salem disre- 
 garded party lines altogether and gave him 
 277 votes out of a total of 280 that were cast. 
 
LINCOLN'S FIRST TASTE OF POLITICS AND WAR 
 
 5i 
 
 This State election was held early in 
 August, three months before the national 
 election and not many days after Lincoln's 
 return from his absence on military duty. 
 His speaking through the county for Clay 
 therefore came later, and was a thing apart 
 from his own canvass. As showing his pop- 
 ularity among his neighbors on personal 
 grounds it is recorded that in November the 
 same precinct gave Jackson 185 and Clay only 
 70. But for Lincoln's influence it is certain 
 that the Clay vote would have been much 
 smaller. The four men elected to the Legis- 
 lature were well-known citizens of Spring- 
 field and other places in the county. Among 
 the nine who failed, Lincoln stood fourth, 
 with nearly as many votes as those who 
 ranked above him. . He had made an excel- 
 lent start and had become known thoughout 
 the county. 
 
 The biographers are well occupied with in- 
 teresting details of Lincoln's experiences fol- 
 lowing his military and political adventures 
 of the year 1832. New Salem had been 
 ill-chosen as the site for a growing town. Lin- 
 coln joined another man in carrying on a 
 general store, but this venture proved finan- 
 cially disastrous in the end. But associated 
 with it was Lincoln's appointment as post- 
 master in May, 1833, and he held the office for 
 three years. Furthermore, he was appointed 
 a deputy county surveyor for his portion of 
 a county that contained two thousand square 
 miles. The great tariff and nullification de- 
 bates had taken place at Washington, and the 
 messages of Jackson were published in the 
 local paper at Springfield. Calhoun had re- 
 signed from the Vice-Presidency to take his 
 place as a South Carolina Senator; and the 
 speeches of Webster, Calhoun, Clay, and 
 others, were appearing in the newspapers 
 quite unabridged. 
 
 Lincoln was now a public man, perma- 
 nently committed to the National Republi- 
 can or so-called 'Whig" positions, and he was 
 studying the arguments with care and absorp- 
 tion. To have regarded him at this time as 
 an ignorant, half illiterate backwoodsman 
 would be to mistake trifling external things 
 for essentials. Mr. Nicolay, his Secretary 
 
 THE RATS LEAVING A FALLING HOUSE 
 In 1831, as a result of a dispute among their wives, the 
 Cabinet of President Jackson offered their resignations. 
 Four of them had been known as the "busy B's" — Berrien, 
 Branch, Van Buren, and Barry — and it is these four whose 
 faces appear in this drawing. 
 
 in after life, characterizes Lincoln as he was 
 at the moment when, in 1834, he decided 
 to run again for the Legislature. Says Mr. 
 Nicolay : 
 
 He could certainly view his expectations in 
 every way in a more hopeful light. His knowledge 
 had increased, his experience broadened, his ac- 
 quaintanceship greatly increased. His talents were 
 acknowledged, his ability recognized. He was post- 
 master and deputy surveyor. He had become a pub- 
 lic character whose services were in demand. As 
 compared with the majority of his neighbors, he 
 was a man of learning who had seen the world. 
 Greater, however, than all these advantages, hi^ 
 sympathetic kindness of heart, his sincere, open 
 frankness, his sturdy, unshrinking honesty, and 
 that inborn sense of justice that yielded to no influ- 
 ence, made up a nobility of character and bearing 
 that impressed the rude frontiersmen as much as, if 
 not more quickly and deeply than, it would have 
 done the most polished and erudite society. 
 
 This election of 1834 was mainly a State 
 affair, with a Governor to be chosen as well 
 
52 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 as a Legislature, though Congressmen were 
 also to he elected. There were pending vari- 
 ous questions having to do with public im- 
 provements in the development of the State. 
 Again there were thirteen candidates for the 
 lower house, and Lincoln took time to make 
 a popular canvass. This time the highest 
 vote was for a man named Dawson, credited 
 with 1390, and Lincoln came next with 1376. 
 The other two successful candidates were 
 each of them more than 200 votes behind 
 Lincoln. For a young man of twenty-five, 
 without money or family influence, living in 
 a decaying hamlet rather than at the center 
 of the county, this was a victory of renown. 
 It fixed Lincoln's position as a public man. 
 
 Here was one of the most promising young 
 men of the United States, because of a rare 
 combination of qualities. Without school 
 advantages and without as yet having actu- 
 ally entered upon the study of law, he had 
 become a careful reasoner about the ques- 
 tions that statesmen were discussing. He 
 had been taking an extension course, so to 
 speak, under Adams, Clay, Marshall, and 
 Webster, without ignoring the arguments of 
 Jackson, Calhoun, Hayne, Van Buren, and 
 many others. Yet his knowledge of human 
 nature and his shrewd, practical way of mak- 
 
 ing personal contact, had been demonstrated 
 in his campaign methods. 
 
 One of the four who were elected to the 
 Legislature from Sangamon County in 1834 
 was a Springfield lawyer, regarding whom 
 Lincoln afterwards made the following state- 
 ment, referring to himself in the third person: 
 
 Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the 
 law, was also elected. During the canvass, in a 
 private conversation he encouraged Abraham to 
 study law. After the election, he borrowed books 
 of Stuart, took them home with him, and went at it 
 in good earnest. ... In the autumn of 1836 he 
 obtained a law license, and on April 15, 1837, re- 
 moved to Springfield and commenced the practice, 
 his old friend Stuart taking him into partnership. 
 
 The hardest blow that befell Lincoln in 
 his early manhood was the death of the re- 
 fined, intelligent and charming girl, Ann 
 Rutledge, to whom he had become engaged 
 after returning from the Black Hawk cam- 
 paign. The wedding was to have occurred as 
 soon as Lincoln had been admitted to the Bar 
 and had found it possible to assume family re- 
 sponsibilities. Her death occurred in August, 
 1835. For a time this bereavement seems to 
 have broken Lincoln's spirit and to have af- 
 fected his hold upon life. But recovery came 
 with more determined effort to forget himself 
 in his studies and his varied occupations. 
 
 The champion is William Henry Harrison, whose back is toward the reader. His second 
 
 is Western Lad, and his bottle-holder is Old Seventy-Six. The Kinderhooker is Martin Van 
 
 Buren, who faces the reader. Andrew Jackson seconds Van Buren, and the bottle-holder is 
 
 "Little Amos [Kendall] of the Post-Office." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Lincoln Becomes a Lawmaker 
 
 Douglas a jellow member of the Illinois Legislature — Lawyers in the 
 
 politics of 1836 — Lincoln a foremost Whig leader in his State — He 
 
 joins in a program of public improvements 
 
 The next year of major politics was 
 1836, when Lincoln was again elected 
 to the Legislature in spite of the fact 
 that he was a Whig in a Democratic State and 
 district. He had become acquainted with 
 many representative men of Illinois, and he 
 was the most active and influential of the 
 group who succeeded in securing the transfer 
 of the capital from Vandalia to Springfield, 
 this decision having been made during the en- 
 suing session in 1837. Lincoln's removal to 
 Springfield and his beginnings as a lawyer are 
 of that same date. His leading part in the leg- 
 islative contest over the capital location had 
 made him a Springfield favorite. He had now 
 taken up the definite career, as lawyer and 
 politician, that was to lead on to his own elec- 
 tion as President just twenty-four 
 years after that of Martin Van 
 Buren in 1836. 
 
 In his legislative canvass, Lincoln 
 increasingly displayed that remark- 
 able combination of the statesman's 
 seriousness and the politician's 
 shrewdness which at once inspired 
 confidence and brought popular sup- 
 port. Much of the tradition that 
 dwells upon his poverty, his shabby 
 clothes, his uncouth manners and his 
 inferiority in other aspects, may be 
 traced to his own habit of rather 
 humorous self-deprecation. The 
 Whig leaders were twitted by Demo- 
 cratic stump speakers upon their 
 "riding in fine carriages, wearing 
 ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive 
 gold watch-chains with large gold 
 seals, and flourishing heavy gold- 
 headed canes," to use Lincoln's own 
 words in characterizing the charges 
 of an opponent. Lincoln exposed this 
 Col. Taylor as himself an example of 
 
 the ostentatious persons he had described as 
 typical Whigs. In contrast, Lincoln drew an 
 exaggerated picture of himself, as having once 
 worked on a flatboat at wages of eight dollars 
 a month, wearing shrunken buckskin breeches ; 
 and, as a Whig, he added, "If you call this 
 aristocracy, I plead guilty to the charge." It 
 is well to remember that Lincoln was obliged 
 to sugar-coat his unpopular Whig affiliations 
 and his highly intelligent arguments with the 
 reassuring humor of the frontiersman. But 
 his humor, and his readiness in amusing the 
 rural audiences at the expense of a less worthy 
 antagonist, were merely incidental features of 
 his political campaign. 
 
 The best testimony for Lincoln's qualities 
 of mind and character at this time when he 
 
 THE OLD ILLINOIS STATE CAPITOL AT VANDALIA 
 When Lincoln was first elected to the legislature, in 1834, Vandalia 
 was the capital city. This particular building was erected in the sum- 
 mer of 1836, by local enterprise and without authorization. In 
 February of the following year, largely through the efforts of 
 Lincoln, the legislature voted to make Springfield the capital. The 
 Vandalia structure was last used as the Capitol in 1839, but is still 
 in use as a county courthouse. 
 
 53 
 
54 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was twenty-seven years old, is to be found in 
 the meager but thoroughly convincing record 
 that remains to us of his own words. On 
 June 21, 1836, in the midst of the campaign, 
 he wrote a letter to Colonel Robert Allen 
 that — in perfect form and diction, but above 
 all in its fine sense of personal honor and pub- 
 lic responsibility — would have done credit to 
 any statesman in American history. The 
 letter in full is as follows : 
 
 New Salem, June 21, 1836. 
 
 Dear Colonel : — I am told that during my absence 
 last week you passed through this place, and stated 
 publicly that you were in possession of a fact or 
 facts which, if known to the public, would entirely 
 destroy the prospects of N. W. Edwards and myself 
 at the ensuing election ; but that, through favor to 
 us, you would forbear to divulge them. No one has 
 needed favors more than I, and, generally, few have 
 been less unwilling to accept them; but in this case 
 favor to me would be injustice to the public, and 
 therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. 
 That I once had the confidence of the people of 
 Sangamon county is sufficiently evident; and if I 
 have since done anything, either by design or mis- 
 adventure, which, if known, would subject me to a 
 forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows of that 
 thing and conceals it, is a traitor to his country's 
 interest. 
 
 I find myself wholly unable to form any conjec- 
 ture of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you 
 spoke. But my opinion of your veracity will not 
 permit me for a moment to doubt that you, at least, 
 believed what you said. I am flattered with the 
 personal regard you manifested for me; but I do 
 hope that on more mature reflection you will view 
 the public interest as a paramount consideration, 
 and therefore determine to let the worst come. 
 
 I assure you that the candid statement of facts on 
 your part, however low it may sink me, shall never 
 break the ties of personal friendship between us. 
 
 I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to 
 publish both, if you choose. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Col. Robert Allen. 
 
 Sangamon County in this election was en- 
 titled to seven members in the lower House 
 and two in the State Senate. It happened 
 that the successful candidates were tall men, 
 and they became known in the county and in 
 the State as the "Long Nine," Lincoln be- 
 ing called the "Sangamon Chief," being the 
 tallest of the group. It was the strategy of 
 
 the Long Nine that secured the removal of 
 the State capital. One of this group, Robert 
 L. Wilson, said afterwards : "When our 
 bill, to all appearance, was dead beyond re- 
 suscitation, and our friends could see no 
 hope, Lincoln never for a moment despaired, 
 but collecting his colleagues in his room for 
 consultation, his practical common-sense and 
 his thorough knowledge of human nature 
 made him an over-match for his compeers 
 and for any man I have ever known." 
 
 In view of the later prominence of the two 
 men as political opponents, it is to be noted 
 that Stephen A. Douglas — who was then only 
 twenty-three years old but a Democratic poli- 
 tician and debater who had become as promi- 
 nent in Morgan County as Lincoln had in 
 Sangamon — was a member of this Legisla- 
 ture. Douglas vigorously opposed Lincoln 
 in the struggle over the removal of the cap- 
 ital to Springfield. 
 
 Having left Vermont at fourteen for New 
 York State, Douglas had later drifted on 
 to Ohio. Following the rivers southward, 
 then northward, in quest of a place where he 
 might settle and become a lawyer, he had 
 finally found his opportunity at Jacksonville, 
 Illinois, and had been admitted to the Bar 
 just before his twenty-first birthday. As a 
 lad in the East, Douglas had been an ardent 
 Jackson Democrat ; and he seems to have 
 brought with him from his six years in On- 
 tario County, New York, and at the Canan- 
 daigua Academy, what were known then as 
 the Albany ideas of party organization. 
 
 The headmaster of strategy and tactics of 
 this New York school of Democratic pol- 
 itics was Martin Van Buren. He had long 
 used his trained skill as a political man- 
 ager in Jackson's interest. He was born at 
 Kinderhook, a town on the Hudson River 
 south of Albany, December 5, 1782, and had 
 been admitted to the Bar at the age of twenty- 
 one. He had filled various offices, and had 
 been Attorney-General of the State. Begin- 
 ning in 1 82 1 he had served six years in the 
 United States Senate and had then been 
 elected Governor. He had been Secretary of 
 State in Jackson's administration, and in Aug- 
 ust, 1 83 1, he was sent as Minister to England. 
 
LINCOLN BECOMES A LAWMAKER 
 
 55 
 
 Fruited t faUuUd lj> EJonu. 
 
 A D U E L 
 
 128 Fulton Strut tf.tork. 
 
 This cartoon of the campaign of 1836 shows Henry Clay piercing Martin Van Buren, the Democratic 
 nominee, with a sword labeled "tariff." Clay, though the most prominent Whig, was not the 
 nominee of his party that year. The choice had fallen to Gen. William Henry Harrison, who 
 stands at the left. At the extreme right is Andrew Jackson, then President, encouraging his 
 protege, Martin Van Buren. In the November Election, Van Buren defeated Harrison. 
 
 Arriving in London in September he was 
 persona grata, but the Senate's refusal in Jan- 
 uary to confirm his appointment compelled his 
 return. During Jackson's second term Van 
 Buren was Vice-President of the United 
 States, and he was Jackson's choice for the 
 succession to the Presidency. 
 
 "Old Hickory's" views were law for the 
 Democracy, but it required vigorous effort 
 on Jackson's part to enforce that law in favor 
 of Van Buren. The New York lawyer was 
 not widely popular on his own account, but 
 he was accepted as Jackson's lieutenant. 
 Jackson's own State of Tennessee favored 
 Senator Hugh L. White, and the Alabama 
 Legislature had followed Tennessee. Jack- 
 son promptly countered the mutinous drifts 
 
 by demanding a national convention ; and in 
 this he was successful. It was held at Balti- 
 more in May, 1835, almost a year and a half 
 previous to the election. The two-thirds rule 
 was again adopted, for reasons rather spe- 
 cious than fundamental. All opposition had 
 been beaten down and Martin Van Buren was 
 unanimously nominated. 
 
 The Whig opposition to the Jackson-Van 
 Buren dynasty was not homogeneous, and it 
 was not considered feasible to hold a conven- 
 tion and to run the risk of failure to agree 
 upon a candidate. It was thought by Whig 
 politicians that the only possible way to beat 
 Van Buren lay in encouraging several favor- 
 ite sons to take the field by States or sections. 
 Enough electoral votes might thus be secured 
 
56 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 to keep Van Buren from having a majority 
 of the whole. Thus the election would he 
 thrown into the House, where Jackson him- 
 self had been beaten twelve years earlier. 
 
 The leading Whig candidate was General 
 William Henry Harrison of Ohio. The Leg- 
 islature of that State, however, had ex- 
 pressed i t s preference 
 otherwise and had nom- 
 inated Judge John 
 McLean. Daniel Webster 
 was the foremost Whig 
 of New England, and 
 Massachusetts proceeded 
 to nominate him. Judge 
 Hugh L. White was run- 
 ning in Tennessee and 
 elsewhere ; and South 
 Carolina, of course, 
 would not support Jack- 
 son's candidate. Calhoun 
 and Jackson had been 
 bitter antagonists over 
 the Nullification issue ; 
 and it was Calhoun's in- 
 fluence as Vice-President 
 that had prevented the 
 Senate's approval of Van 
 Buren's appointment to 
 London. 
 
 Mr. Van Buren re- 
 ceived a slight popular 
 majority over all the 
 Whig candidates taken 
 together. In the elec- 
 toral college his vote was 
 170, while that of Wil- 
 liam Henry Harrison 
 was J2>- There were 26 
 
 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS 
 Douglas was four years younger than Lincoln. 
 Both participated in the campaign of 1836, Lincoln 
 supporting Hugh L. White and Douglas speaking 
 for Van Buren. Both, in addition, were themselves 
 elected to the Illinois Legislature, Lincoln for his 
 second term. Douglas was born in Vermont in 1813, 
 moving to Illinois at the age of twenty and 
 being admitted to the bar. Previous to his election 
 to the legislature, in the campaign with which 
 this chapter is concerned, Douglas had been State's 
 Attorney. After his legislative experience he served 
 as a judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois. A 
 later portrait of Douglas will be found on page 194. 
 
 electoral votes for Hugh 
 L. White, and 14 for Daniel Webster (cast 
 by Massachusetts). South Carolina electors 
 voted for W. P. Mangum of North Carolina. 
 Van Buren had carried all of New Eng- 
 land except Vermont and Massachusetts. He 
 had carried New York, Pennsylvania, Vir- 
 ginia, North Carolina, and most of the States 
 farther south. Harrison had been successful 
 in Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Mary- 
 land, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. 
 
 Van Buren had also won Illinois, obtain- 
 ing about 18,000 votes as against 15,000 for 
 Harrison. The young Douglas had, of 
 course, been an ardent Van Buren man in 
 this successful campaign, and he was soon 
 rewarded with what was then a lucrative and 
 important federal position — that of Register 
 of the Land Office at 
 Springfield. 
 
 Success in gaining po- 
 litical leadership and in 
 securing elective or ap- 
 pointive office is a mat- 
 ter of personal qualities, 
 but it is also affected 
 profoundly by circum- 
 stances of time and place. 
 Douglas had arrived in 
 Illinois without accpiaint- 
 ance or credentials in 
 1833. He had secured pu- 
 pils and taught a select 
 school for a few months 
 at Jacksonville, while 
 studying the Illinois stat- 
 utes, obtaining admis- 
 sion to the Bar, and be- 
 ginning to practise in the 
 lower courts. Yet within 
 four years he was a lead- 
 ing member of the Legis- 
 lature and a rising man 
 in the political councils of 
 the party that was in 
 power in the State as well 
 as in the nation. Lincoln, 
 on the other hand, had 
 lived in Illinois for only 
 seven years. He also had 
 made his own way with- 
 out extraneous advantages of any kind. 
 Douglas in his school days in New York 
 State had been the leading debater on the 
 Democratic side, and all the more aggres- 
 sively a supporter of Jackson and Van Buren 
 because the Academy and the community 
 were somewhat dominated by the anti-Ma- 
 sonic and Whig doctrines of that time. He 
 had grown strong in his own convictions as 
 the leader of the minority in his school. He 
 
LINCOLN BECOMES A LAWMAKER 
 
 57 
 
 WHIG BAZAAR. 
 
 Van Buren, whom the cartoonist pictures as seeking to purchase a wig, had in the previous year 
 defeated the Whig candidates for the Presidency. This is a poster caricature dated 1837, Van 
 Buren's first year in the White House, which is remembered largely as a period of economic 
 disturbances and financial panic. The dealer refuses to sell Van Buren a wig, but recom- 
 mends Conservative oil for bald Democratic heads. 
 
 was gaining his reward rapidly in Illinois by 
 finding his talents useful in a county and in a 
 State where the Democrats were in major- 
 ity. Lincoln, by way of contrast, had adopted 
 Whig principles in his teens, and had gained 
 in moral courage and mental power by a 
 steady uphill fight on the unpopular side. He 
 had gone to the Legislature regardless of 
 parties, first, because of his own popularity, 
 and second, because of his strong advocacy 
 of certain State policies that were in accord 
 with the speculative boom that was then pre- 
 vailing in Illinois, as in other western States. 
 Both Lincoln and Douglas would have 
 risen to eminence in any case ; but their 
 progress would have been less rapid in older 
 communities, where they would have been 
 overshadowed by middle-aged leaders. Wil- 
 
 liam Henry Harrison had gone from Vir- 
 ginia to Ohio in early days, and was heading 
 for the Presidency. Jackson had left North 
 Carolina at the right time to make his way in 
 Tennessee from one position to another, until 
 he had established his reign at Washington. 
 Henry Clay had been born near Richmond, 
 Virginia, in 1777 and — under circumstances 
 similar to those that affected Douglas later 
 in Vermont, his father also having died when 
 he was a small boy — he overcame hardships, 
 studied law, and was admitted to the Virginia 
 Bar at the age of twenty. 
 
 But Clay proceeded at once to Lexington, 
 Kentucky, where he began law practice in 
 1797. He was on hand in time to take part 
 in forming the constitution of Kentucky, and 
 in 1803, about five years after his arrival in 
 
58 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 the new State, he was an influential member 
 of the Legislature. His political advance- 
 ment in the State and in the nation during 
 the next ten or twelve years was so rapid as 
 to have been almost without parallel in our 
 history, in view of his youth, except in the 
 case of two or three men in the Revolution- 
 ary period, notably Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 We have had many other examples of the 
 rapid political advancement of young lawyers 
 appearing on the scene at the right moment 
 in the formative periods of States still farther 
 west. Thomas H. Benton as a lad had gone 
 from North Carolina to Tennessee, and had 
 passed on across the Mississippi to make his 
 distinguished political record as a citizen of 
 Missouri. Young men in older States, ready 
 to begin life for themselves, had become em- 
 
 inent as lawyers, governors, and senators by 
 settling at the fortunate time in Wisconsin, 
 Minnesota, and Iowa. The same thing was 
 true of Nebraska and Kansas. A generation 
 later, hundreds of young lawyers found op- 
 portunity for the rapid realization of political 
 ambitions by arriving opportunely to take 
 part in the settlement and development of 
 North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, 
 Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, 
 Nevada, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Ari- 
 zona. How Colonel Fremont's timely pres- 
 ence in California in the days of the Mexican 
 War had catapulted him upon a meteoric 
 career, is a story that will have its brief space 
 in another chapter of this work, because 
 Lincoln's career became involved with that 
 of the picturesque explorer. 
 
 WEIGHED & FOUND WANTING. 
 
 on the crrccrs or a summers ramble 
 In the scales are Van Buren, at the left, who was then President, and Clay leader of the Whigs. 
 At the right stands Daniel Webster, Senator from Massachusetts. The ghostlike figure in the hack- 
 ground is Jackson, Van Buren's predecessor and guiding hand. This cartoon and the one on the op- 
 posite page are of the campaign of 1840, circulated in the interest of Clay — who did not, however, 
 receive the Whig nomination. Both Van Buren and Clay in their "loop" conversations refer to 
 Rhode Island. It was in this year that the cities of Rhode Island began to revolt against the 
 domination of the agricultural districts. The climax of that revolt, known as Dorr's Rebellion, came 
 two years later, when a "suffrage legislature" assembled, with Thomas W. Dorr as "Governor." 
 
LINCOLN BECOMES A LAWMAKER 
 
 59 
 
 THE MEETING at SARATOGA. 
 
 Like Upien thus fieff? they fit/tit. 
 Their htinJs.tn fiie'ttf.thipthejf uhite . 
 
 Henry Clay is here shown calling upon President Van Buren at Saratoga, in the President's home 
 State of New York. "Like boxers thus before they right, their hands in friendship they unite." At 
 the left are Daniel Webster and Gen. William Henry Harrison, who with Clay were the outstanding 
 political opponents of Van Buren in the campaign year 1840. They are commenting upon the cheer- 
 ing reception to Clay — "first always in the service of his country and great even among the greatest." 
 The men in the background are supposed to be Clay followers who had pledged themselves to let their 
 hair grow until they saw their idol in the White House. Saratoga, noted for its carbonated medicinal 
 springs, was then a most fashionable resort, and leaders of all parties were visitors in the vast Sara- 
 toga hotels in the summer of 1840. 
 
 These observations in passing are the more 
 relevant, since conditions familiar to older 
 men, whose memories carry them back to the 
 decades following the Civil War, have virtu- 
 ally ceased to exist, and might easily be over- 
 looked by younger students of our political 
 annals. "Native sons" are numerous enough 
 now in the Western States to assert their 
 prior claims over newcomers. But in Lin- 
 coln's time, and for a quarter-century after 
 his death, it was still a practical thing for the 
 youthful lawyer and politician to go West, 
 establish himself in an infant community, and 
 "grow up with the country." This is just what 
 Lincoln and Douglas were doing, as each of 
 them began life in the great State of Illinois 
 at the age of twenty-one. 
 
 I am the more strongly impelled to make 
 these remarks, because it remains a fashion 
 of many writers, and of still more Lincoln's 
 Birthday orators, to present their hero as an 
 obscure man, with little prospect or hope of 
 rising to fortune and fame, until he was al- 
 most fifty years old. But to have led in the 
 selection of the permanent capital of his State 
 while in his middle twenties ; to have estab- 
 lished himself in that capital city as a lawyer, 
 steadily advancing in the esteem of the judges 
 and fellow-practitioners ; to have become one 
 of the chiefs of his party in the Legislature 
 and in State and local conventions, all well 
 before his thirtieth year, was not to have 
 been obscure or unpromising. In fact, Lin- 
 coln's third decade was marked by solid success. 
 
6o 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 It is to be remembered, further, that an 
 American politician's rise to fame on the na- 
 tional plane is much affected by the question 
 whether or not he belongs to the dominant 
 party in his own State. If Lincoln had been 
 a Democrat in 1836, his political advance- 
 ment would have been much more rapid. 
 Douglas happened to have that advantage. 
 Mr. Dolliver and Mr. Cummins, who had 
 gone to Iowa as young Republican lawyers 
 from the same general region of western 
 Pennsylvania and West Virginia, rose to the 
 highest rank in State affairs and in the United 
 States Senate. But there were two equally 
 gifted young Democrats who could make no 
 political headway in so strongly Republican 
 a state as Iowa; and in due time one of them 
 went to San Francisco and the other to St. 
 Louis, each finding admission promptly to 
 places of influence and distinction. As a 
 Whig in a Democratic state, Lincoln made his 
 way remarkably well. 
 
 To catch the spirit of the times, it should 
 be noted that after the completion of New 
 York's Erie Canal, in 1825, there was a veri- 
 table craze for canal building in Ohio, Indi- 
 ana, and Illinois ; that steamboats were 
 multiplying on the Great Lakes, with Chicago 
 rapidly growing; that river traffic also was 
 booming, with the States of the corn-and- 
 wheat-belt feeding the plantations of the 
 lower South, while railroads were being 
 projected everywhere with state and local aid. 
 Lincoln would have been a rather solitary 
 pessimist if he had not shared in the enthusi- 
 asm of the people of Illinois for these modern 
 improvements. He had always been a be- 
 
 liever in the policy of promoting the develop- 
 ment of the country by government aid. He 
 was even credited with having said that it 
 was his ambition "to become the De Witt 
 Clinton of Illinois." 
 
 As a candidate for re-election, he had made 
 the following statement in June, 1836: 
 "Whether elected or not, I go for distribut- 
 ing the proceeds of the sales of the public 
 lands to the several States, to enable our 
 State, in common with others, to dig canals 
 and to construct railroads without borrowing 
 money and paying interest on it." In the 
 ensuing session of the Legislature he took a 
 foremost part in promoting a program of 
 public improvements that went too far in 
 pledging the credit of the State. The opti- 
 mism of that immediate period of land spec- 
 ulation, and of currency inflation through the 
 unrestrained activity of State banks, was 
 about to face a terrible blow in the nation- 
 wide panic of 1837. 
 
 It is evident that Lincoln's constituents 
 were not disposed to censure him for his part 
 in creating the State debt, for they readily 
 elected him again in 1838 and in 1840, and 
 would have continued to do so if he had 
 cared to serve longer than through eight con- 
 tinuous years. His party voted for him as 
 Speaker of the House in 1838 and again in 
 1840; but the Whigs were in the minority, 
 and he remained as active floor leader for his 
 party. Although he had originally declared 
 his preference for Hugh L. White as the 
 Whig candidate for President in 1836, he was 
 willing to join other Illinois Whigs in sup- 
 porting William Henry Harrison. 
 
 A SCENE ON THE OLD ERIE CANAL— FROM AN EARLY ENGRAVING 
 
CHAPER VII 
 
 A Definite Position on the Slave Question 
 
 The contest over slavery in free Illinois — Van Buren the first Presi- 
 dent to discuss slavery — Lincoln takes a courageous stand — Crusading 
 Abolitionists, and their persecution 
 
 The Jackson policies were at stake, 
 and Lincoln was as strongly opposed 
 to them in 1836 as he had been in 
 1832. The question of slavery was not an 
 overshadowing issue at that time, and the 
 Whig party still had 
 its hold in some of 
 the slave States. But 
 the agitators on both 
 sides were promoting 
 discord, and in one 
 way or another the 
 subject forced itself 
 to the front. 
 
 The points in his 
 own career that Lin- 
 coln thought it worth 
 while to set down in 
 June, i860, for the 
 use of a friend who 
 was proposing to 
 write a brief cam- 
 paign biography, are 
 especially valuable 
 as showing what he 
 himself regarded as 
 important. The ques- 
 tion of slavery had 
 come forward in the 
 Legislature, in con- 
 sequence of the 
 spread of the Abo- 
 litionist movement. It 
 is to be remembered 
 that southern Illinois 
 lay between the slave 
 States of Kentucky 
 
 and Missouri, and that a large majority of 
 the State's early settlers were from slave- 
 holding communities. 
 
 Under the Ordinance of 1787, Illinois, fol- 
 lowing Ohio and Indiana, was admitted as a 
 
 LINCOLN, THE ILLINOIS STATESMAN 
 
 This portrait is of the period of the debates with Douglas, 
 in 18S8. It shows the man who had been Assemblyman, 
 Congressman, presidential elector, and was emerging as a 
 national leader in that most critical period of the 
 nation's history. 
 
 free State. But, later, there had been serious 
 attempts to assert the sovereignty of the 
 State and to repudiate the guaranty of the 
 Northwest Ordinance. In short, it was 
 proposed to authorize the holding of slaves 
 
 in defiance of the 
 national limitations 
 under which Illinois 
 had been allowed to 
 enter the Union. 
 These attempts had 
 been defeated ; and 
 with the rapid settle- 
 ment of the northern 
 and central counties 
 from the Eastern 
 States, there was no 
 longer any danger 
 that Illinois would 
 legalize slave -hold- 
 ing. For some years, 
 however, the anti- 
 slavery clause of the 
 State constitution 
 had not been rigidly 
 enforced in the south- 
 ern counties. As evi- 
 dence of this fact I 
 have noted a table in 
 the "American Al- 
 manac" for the year 
 1836. It gives the 
 number of slaves in 
 the several States 
 according to the first 
 five census enumera- 
 tions. Illinois had 168 
 slaves in 1810; 917 in 1820; and 747 in 1830. 
 But in this last year they were called "inden- 
 tured colored servants." 
 
 This change of designation had followed 
 the defeat of the pro-slavery movement by 
 
 61 ' 
 
62 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 no wide margin in a popular referendum vote 
 in 1824. But the Legislature had always re- 
 mained pro-slavery in sympathy ; and early 
 in 1837, with Lincoln serving his second 
 term, a committee had reported a set of reso- 
 lutions "highly disapproving abolition soci- 
 eties" and otherwise catering to the senti- 
 ment then gaining control of the Democratic 
 party, the object being to promote harmony 
 at the opening of the Van Buren administra- 
 tion which began on March 4, 1837. Lin- 
 coln and five other members of the Legisla- 
 ture had voted against the resolutions, the 
 
 WORSHIP OF THE NORTH 
 
 large affirmative vote indicating the preva- 
 lent state of mind. The resolutions as adopted 
 were not drafted with discrimination. 
 
 Lincoln was no fanatic at that time, or at 
 any subsequent turn in the slavery discus- 
 sion, but he had formed distinct views and 
 he thought it well to put them on record. Ac- 
 cordingly, he drew up a protest and caused 
 it to be entered on the Journal of the House 
 in the proceedings of March 3, 1837. I have 
 not seen it elsewhere noted that, with his fine 
 instinct for timeliness in political action, he 
 had presented this protest on the very eve of 
 
A DEFINITE POSITION ON THE SLAVE QUESTION 
 
 63 
 
 "WORSHIP OF 
 THE NORTH" 
 
 was the first of a series 
 of "Confederate War 
 Etchings" engraved on 
 copper by Adalbert 
 John Volck of Balti- 
 more, during the war. 
 There were twenty- 
 nine in that series, once 
 known, though now 
 almost forgotten. But 
 there were other Volck 
 caricatures, even more 
 striking, which have 
 been unknown because 
 never published hith- 
 erto, and are presented 
 in these volumes almost 
 seventy years after they 
 were drawn. 
 
 The Lincoln head at 
 the corner of the Chica- 
 go Platform, in this 
 cartoon, is similar to 
 Volck's clown caricature 
 on page 12. At the left 
 of the platform is Hen- 
 ry Ward Beecher, with 
 the sacrificial knife. 
 Charles Sumner bears a 
 torch. Below is Horace 
 Greeley, carrying a cen- 
 ser. In the middle fore- 
 ground is Benjamin F. 
 Butler, the Northern 
 general so execrated in 
 the South. Grouped 
 around the Lincoln 
 bust are Stanton, Sew- 
 ard, and other mem- 
 bers of the Cabinet. 
 General Scott and Gen- 
 eral Halleck are con- 
 spicuous. The statue is 
 that of John Brown. 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe 
 is kneeling on a copy of 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 Other well-known per- 
 sonages of the war pe- 
 riod are in the picture. 
 
 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 Con- 
 stitution to abolish slavery in the District 
 of Columbia, but that the power ought not 
 to be exercised unless at the request of the 
 people of the District. 
 
 The difference between these opinions 
 and those contained in the above reso- 
 lutions is their reason for entertaining 
 this protest. 
 
 Van Buren's inauguration. Since Lincoln 
 twenty-three years later, in referring to this 
 protest, declared that it "briefly defined his 
 position on the slavery question ; and so far 
 as it goes, it was then the same as it is now," 
 I may well quote it in full at this point : 
 
 Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery 
 having passed both branches of the General Assem- 
 bly at its present session, the undersigned hereby 
 protest against the passage of the same. 
 
 They believe that the institution of slavery is 
 founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that 
 the promulgation of Abolition doctrines tends rather 
 to increase than to abate its evils. 
 
 Only one other member of the Leg- 
 islature was willing to join him in sign- 
 ing this memorandum, but Lincoln was 
 already thinking in national terms as 
 he was studying the debates of the 
 closing session of Jackson's last Con- 
 gress, and he was not cringing to local 
 prejudice. He was definitely going on 
 record as against Van Buren's position. 
 In his inaugural address, delivered 
 on the day following the presentation 
 of Lincoln's protest, Van Buren re- 
 peated a statement that he had previ- 
 ously made defining his attitude 
 toward slavery as a public issue. He 
 was the first President who had pre- 
 sented the subject of slavery to Con- 
 gress in an official message. Referring 
 to the difficulties that the forefathers 
 had met and overcome, he remarked : 
 "The last, perhaps the greatest of the 
 prominent sources of discord and disas- 
 ter supposed to lurk in our political 
 condition was the institution of domes- 
 tic slavery. Our forefathers were deeply 
 impressed with the delicacy of this subject, 
 and they treated it with a forbearance so 
 evidently wise that in spite of every sinister 
 foreboding it never, until the present period, 
 disturbed the tranquillity of our common 
 country." After appealing to the spirit of 
 "generous and fraternal feeling amidst the 
 violence of excited passions," Van Buren 
 proceeded as follows : 
 
 Perceiving before my election the deep interest 
 this subject was beginning to excite, I believed it a 
 solemn duty fully to make known my sentiments in 
 regard to it, and now, when every motive for mis- 
 
6 4 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 representation has passed away, I trust that they 
 will be candidly weighed and understood. At least 
 they will be my standard of conduct in the path 
 before me. 
 
 I then declared that if the desire of those of my 
 countrymen who were favorable to my election was 
 ratified, "I must go into the Presidential chair the 
 inflexible and uncompromising opponent of every 
 attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery 
 in the District of Columbia against the wishes of 
 the slave-holding States, and also with the deter- 
 mination equally decided to resist 
 the slightest interference with it in 
 the States where it exists." 
 
 He regarded the fact of his 
 election as authorizing his belief 
 that these views on slavery were 
 approved by "a majority of the 
 people of the United States, in- 
 cluding those whom they most 
 immediately affect," and he 
 nailed his pro-slavery flag to the 
 mast with the declaration that "it 
 now only remains to add that no 
 bill conflicting with these views 
 can ever receive my constitu- 
 tional sanction." 
 
 My readers will perceive, 
 therefore, that the Lincoln protest 
 was directed squarely at the Van 
 Buren position, and was not pri- 
 marily concerned with the opin- 
 ions of the Illinois Legislature. 
 Neither Lincoln nor Van Buren 
 had referred to the question of 
 slavery in the new States of the 
 Louisiana purchase, simply be- 
 cause the Missouri Compromise 
 of 1820 was still accepted as hav- 
 ing- settled that issue. Arkansas 
 had just been admitted as a slave 
 State (June, 1836), Missouri 
 having entered the Union in 
 1 82 1. The practical question had 
 to do with the District of Colum- 
 bia, with Van Buren inflexible 
 in his support of slavery, while 
 Lincoln favored its abolition 
 whenever the anti-slavery inhab- 
 itants of the District should be 
 numerous enough to show a 
 majority to that effect. 
 
 A WENDELL PHILLIPPIC 
 Wendell Phillips became the 
 foremost orator in the anti- 
 slavery cause, after his speech 
 at Boston in 1837 in protest 
 against the murder of the Rev. 
 E. P. Lovejoy by a pro-slavery 
 mob in Alton, Illinois. He la- 
 ter abandoned a law career, 
 for he would not abide by an 
 oath to uphold the Constitu- 
 tion as then interpreted by the 
 courts against the rights of 
 slaves as human beings. 
 
 It is enlightening to have Lincoln's protest 
 of 1837 m mind when studying his bill, intro- 
 duced in Congress more than ten years later, 
 for the gradual abolition of slavery in the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia. 
 
 There had been something distinctive and 
 rare in the calmness and naturalness with 
 which Lincoln had taken his isolated position 
 in the Illinois Legislature when he entered his 
 protest of March 3, 1837, on the 
 slavery question. A young man 
 already so skilled in the arts of 
 the popular politician, who nev- 
 ertheless insisted upon the ex- 
 pression of his own convictions 
 on questions of statesmanship 
 without the slightest thought of 
 temporizing, was likely to go far 
 in influence and leadership — un- 
 less, indeed, his convictions were 
 so erroneous in their nature that 
 intelligent voters could not be 
 gradually drawn to his side. 
 There was intense feeling, and 
 the mob spirit was abroad in the 
 country ; yet Lincoln set forth 
 his principles and reasoned upon 
 them with as little show of pas- 
 sion as if he were demonstrating 
 his favorite problems in Euclid 
 (for he had learned to like the 
 logical symmetry that he had 
 discovered in his study of 
 geometry). 
 
 A few weeks earlier in that 
 same year he had delivered a pre- 
 pared address before the Young 
 Men's Lyceum of Springfield. 
 His subject was the perpetuation 
 of our political institutions. It has 
 been characterized by some of 
 his biographers as an artificial 
 and stilted piece of rhetoric, in 
 no way to be compared with his 
 later utterances as regards literary 
 style. I may merely make the 
 comment that there are advan- 
 tages in studying Lincoln at first 
 hand. The address is an admira- 
 ble piece of writing, and nothing 
 
A DEFINITE POSITION ON THE SLAVE QUESTION 
 
 65 
 
 better has ever been said upon the danger 
 of acquiesence in the actions of mobs whe- 
 ther in Maine or in Mississippi or Louisi- 
 ana. He recounted facts of an ominous 
 kind, showing the prevalence of lynching 
 and the activity of mobs. He found in the 
 agitations over slavery a widespread dispo- 
 sition to deal summarily with Abolitionists, 
 while already in the North there was law- 
 less activity against the enforcement of 
 fugitive slave laws. 
 
 The address contains remarkably acute 
 observations on the conditions that were 
 shifting the motives and objects of popular 
 hatred and passion. The long Revolution- 
 ary struggle had tended to unite American 
 sentiment, and had done much afterwards 
 to hold the country together in maintaining 
 its new institutions. "I mean." said Lin- 
 coln, "the powerful influence which the in- 
 teresting scenes of the Revolution had 
 upon the passions of the people as dis- 
 tinguished from the judgment." And he 
 proceeded as follows : 
 
 By this influence, the jealousy, envy and ava- 
 rice incident to our nature, and so common 
 to a state of peace, prosperity, and conscious 
 strength, were for the time in a great measure 
 smothered and rendered inactive, while the 
 deep-rooted principles of hate, and the power- 
 ful motive of revenge, instead of being turned 
 against each other, were directed exclusively 
 against the British nation. And thus, from the 
 force of circumstances, the basest principles of 
 our nature were either made to lie dormant, or to 
 become the active agents in the advancement of the 
 noblest of causes — that of establishing and main- 
 taining civil and religious liberty. 
 
 He found that there was danger lest we 
 should invoke passion in our domestic matters 
 and he declared that our temple of liberty 
 must now be upheld by "other pillars, hewn 
 from the solid quarry of sober reasoning." 
 Those who have been discussing prohibition 
 enforcement, would do well to read the follow- 
 ing paragraphs from this speech of Abraham 
 Lincoln to young men of his home town, deliv- 
 ered just sixteen days before his twenty-eighth 
 birthday : 
 
 When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of 
 all the laws, let me not be understood as saying 
 
 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 
 A cartoon by John Leech, in the London Punch, 1848, "dedi- 
 cated to the smartest nation in all creation." England, having 
 provided for the liberation of slaves in the sugar-growing West 
 Indies as early as 1833, was inclined to jibe at American ideals 
 of liberty. For years Brother Jonathan, or "Columbia" — rep- 
 resenting the United States — was almost never pictured in 
 Punch without a whip. John Leech and John Tenniel were the 
 outstanding English cartoonists of their time. Both drew for 
 Punch, their careers overlapping. In later chapters of this work 
 there are many other drawings by Leech and by Tenniel. 
 
 there are no bad laws, or that grievances may not 
 arise for the redress of which no legal provisions 
 have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But 
 I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they 
 exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, 
 while they continue in force, for the sake of ex- 
 ample they should be religiously observed. So also 
 in unprovided cases. If such arise, let proper legal 
 provisions be made for them with the least possible 
 delay, but till then let them, if not too intolerable, 
 be borne with. 
 
 There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress 
 by mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for 
 instance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of 
 two positions is necessarily true — that is, the thing 
 is right within itself, and therefore deserves the 
 protection of all law and all good citizens, or it is 
 wrong, and therefore proper to be prohibited by 
 legal enactments; and in neither case is the inter- 
 position of mob law either necessary, justifiable, or 
 excusable. 
 
,,., 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "Woman 
 
 The Juvenile Department chronicled various unfortu- The Ladies' Department paraphrased the slogan "Am I 
 nate incidents in connection with the lives of children Not a Man and a Brother?" adopted by the first abo- 
 of slaves — in this cut, the auction block. liticn scciety late in the preceding century. 
 
 DEPARTMENT HEADINGS IN GARRISON'S "LIBERATOR" DURING 1832 
 
 In short, Lincoln stood firmly for law en- 
 forcement, or better still for obedient accept- 
 ance of law until in response to public opin- 
 ion the law had been changed. Primarily, 
 it was the abolition question that was arous- 
 ing the intensity of lawless passion that Lin- 
 coln deplored. The American Anti-Slavery 
 Society had been formed in 1833, and its 
 agents were traveling all over the country 
 organizing local societies. They were de- 
 manding "immediate" abolition, and since this 
 was obviously impossible it was producing a 
 kind of friction that moderate men regarded 
 as deplorable. The institution of slavery was 
 not to be uprooted by the Abolitionists of 
 
 that date, but they had a right to hold meet- 
 ings and to discuss public policies; and the 
 breaking up of their meetings by mob vio- 
 lence everywhere was the thing that Lincoln 
 had calm courage to denounce. 
 
 Riots and mobs were as prevalent against 
 the Abolitionists in New England as any- 
 where else. George Thompson, the Scotch- 
 man who had secured British emancipation 
 in the West Indies, had come to Boston in 
 1834 and had delivered lectures at various 
 places for a year on the gradual emancipation 
 policy that had been put into effect by British 
 legislation. This would have seemed harm- 
 less enough, but Thompson had been obliged 
 
 VOL.1. 
 
 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON AND ISAAC KNAPP, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 INO. 24. 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts.] 
 
 OUR COUNTRY IS THE WORLD — OUR COUNTRYMEN ARE MANKIND. 
 
 [Saturday, June 1 1, 1831. 
 
 The anti-slavery movement got well under way in 1832, with the establishment of a weekly 
 
 newspaper called the Liberator. It was founded and edited by William Lloyd Garrison, devoted 
 
 to chronicling the evils of slavery, and continued publication until the end of the Civil War. 
 
 This slave-auction heading was used during its first year. 
 
A DEFINITE POSITION ON THE SLAVE OUESTION 
 
 6? 
 
 ABOLITION GARRISON IN DANGER, k THE NARROW 
 ESCAPE oFl/ie SCOTCH AMBASSADOR. 
 
 A pro-slavery poster depicting an actual occurence. William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the 
 Liberator, was dragged through the streets by a Boston mob, with a rope tied around his neck; 
 and George Thompson, a Scotchman who had been influential in securing British Emancipation 
 of slaves, narrowly escaped such treatment. At that time abolitionist doctrines were almost as 
 unpopular throughout the North as they were in the South. 
 
 to use disguise to save his life in escaping from 
 Boston mobs in November, 1835. 
 
 Nothing could better illustrate the atmos- 
 phere in which Lincoln's Lyceum address de- 
 nounced mob law, nor does any circumstance 
 throw more valuable light upon the filing of 
 Lincoln's protest in the Legislature on March 
 3, than a tragic occurrence in Illinois only 
 eight months later. A Presbyterian minister, 
 Elijah P. Lovejoy, had established an Aboli- 
 tion newspaper at Alton, Illinois, in the strong 
 pro-slavery environment of the southern end 
 of the State. A mob, on November 7, 1837, 
 sacked and destroyed his printing office, and 
 shot and killed Mr. Lovejoy. 
 
 Abolition agents found that it was inviting 
 death to penetrate the southern States with 
 their demand for "immediate" freeing of the 
 slaves. But they adopted the practice of 
 sending their pamphlets and newspapers 
 
 throughout the South in the mails. This 
 aroused so much opposition that President 
 Jackson in his annual message to Congress, 
 December, 1835, na o! advocated the passage 
 of a law to exclude Abolitionist publications 
 from the mails. Such a bill was actually in- 
 troduced, and Van Buren in his capacity as a 
 candidate for the Presidency, being called 
 upon to express himself, had come out in 
 favor of the pending amendment of the postal 
 laws. The bill to that effect was not carried 
 to final passage ; but the individual States and 
 the local postmasters were allowed to rifle the 
 mails at their own discretion, and thus Abo- 
 litionist publications were confiscated in the 
 South and to a great extent elsewhere. With 
 this spirit abroad in the country, it is obvious 
 that the Abolitionist petitions, demanding 
 that the District of Columbia be made free, 
 were without effect and of no influence. 
 
68 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
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CHAPER VIII 
 
 ation Projects ^ Lincoln's Plan 
 
 He proposes gradual emancipation in the District of Columbia — The 
 
 African slave trade — British, French and Latin-American methods 
 
 for liberation of the Negroes 
 
 Lincoln never ceased to think that the 
 methods of the Abolitionists were dis- 
 ** rupting, harmful, and dangerous. But 
 with his calm logic he also studied the subject 
 of slavery in the Federal District. After Van 
 Buren's inflexible stand on that question, sub- 
 sequent Presidents (Harrison, Tyler, and 
 Polk) had regarded that particular issue as 
 settled, and had said nothing about it. In 
 his inaugural address, March 4, 1845, Mr. 
 Polk — who was, of course, a pro-slavery 
 President — had confined himself to this 
 single sentence in his allusions to slavery : 
 "It is a source of deep regret that in some 
 sections of our country misguided persons 
 have occasionally indulged in schemes and 
 agitations whose object is the destruction of 
 domestic institutions existing in other sec- 
 tions — institutions which existed at the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution." 
 
 Since Lincoln held to his own views on this 
 question with such tenacity and consistency, 
 I think it well at this point to refer to his posi- 
 tion in Congress in 1849. It was st iU his 
 opinion that if slavery were to be regarded 
 as a subject with which each State might 
 deal, it would be reasonable to regard the 
 District of Columbia as a distinct entity, in 
 which the residents might properly have some 
 voice on such a question. The District of 
 Columbia had been originally formed from 
 territory ceded by Maryland and Virginia, 
 in both of which slavery existed. Congress 
 had full jurisdiction over the District, and 
 could therefore abolish slavery if it so desired. 
 Van Buren had held, quite illogically, that 
 slavery must continue in the District until 
 representatives from the slave States were 
 willing to have it abolished. Anti-slavery 
 men, on the other hand, held that it was the 
 duty of free-state majorities in Congress to 
 convert the District into a free-state Terri- 
 
 tory. Lincoln, elected to Congress in 1846 
 and retiring on March 4, 1849, found Con- 
 gress still under the spell of pro-slavery senti' 
 ment, but he was not content to return to pri- 
 vate life without again putting himself on 
 record. Accordingly he introduced his bill 
 for gradual abolition in the District of Co- 
 lumbia. The careful provisions of his 
 scheme undoubtedly represented his opinions 
 as to steps that ought to be taken at some 
 future time to eliminate slavery south of 
 Mason and Dixon's line, with the acquiescence 
 of the Southern States one after another. 
 
 Before explaining Lincoln's bill, it may be 
 well to present in a summary way the statistical 
 
 $&4$ 
 
 THE MANIFEST DESTINY OF SAMBO 
 Whether North or South was to win the long continued 
 argument, the Negro for years bore the brunt of it. Lin- 
 coln's plan of 1849 would have abolished slavery for all 
 Negroes born thereafter. This cartoon of the War period, 
 by Stephens in Vanity Fair, uses Lincoln and Davis to 
 represent the opposing viewpoints of North and South. 
 Davis has been tossed in the air. 
 
 69 
 
7 o 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 facts regarding white and black population in 
 the District of Columbia. 
 
 Although, ever since the removal of the 
 capital to Washington in 1800, the population 
 of the District had been growing steadily, 
 there was nothing to cause a proportionate 
 growth in the number of slaves. Obviously, 
 the Government could not hold slaves, and 
 could not use them as laborers or in any 
 capacity whatever. The hundred square 
 miles of the District had been occupied by 
 farmers and by inhabitants of the two villages 
 of Georgetown and Washington. Twenty- 
 five per cent, of the 14,000 inhabitants were 
 slaves in the year 1800. The total number 
 of slaves in 1820 was 6,377, this being less 
 than 20 per cent, of the total population of 
 33,000. The enumerations of 1830, 1840, and 
 1850 showed a rapid dwindling of the slave 
 population of the district, so that when Lin- 
 coln introduced his bill in 1849, tne slaves 
 were barely 7 per cent, of a total count of 
 about 51,000. 
 
 The host of new Government clerks that 
 Jackson had invited to Washington, and that 
 had been considerably increased year after 
 year, until the growth of public business in 
 the Mexican War had brought a fresh access 
 of civil and military dependents upon the 
 public treasury, were not the class of people 
 who kept slaves. Adoption of a plan of grad- 
 
 THE AMERICAN SLAVERY QUESTION— A GERMAN VIEW 
 This Cartoon from Kladderadatsch, the Berlin humorous weekly, bears the 
 following explanatory caption: "The Northerner wishes to get rid of the black 
 man and can do it; but the Southerner can not. Whereupon there arises be- 
 tween the Brothers Jonathan such a tremendous noise that Europe is unable 
 to get cotton to stop up her ears. In the background is Brazil, where the blacks 
 are obtaining the mastery over the whites." 
 
 ual emancipation would have made little prac- 
 tical difference to anybody domiciled in the 
 District, because the few slave owners would 
 have been fully compensated, and could after- 
 wards have employed all the colored help 
 they needed on their own terms. 
 
 But the District was Southern in origin 
 and tradition, and the people were pro- 
 slavery even though they had no slaves. The 
 South was in strong control in all depart- 
 ments of the government, and the slavery 
 leaders would tolerate no discussion of eman- 
 cipation in the District because such a step 
 would be regarded as in some measure a vic- 
 tory for the abolitionists and a foreshadowing 
 of the larger movement that was to demand 
 national emancipation. 
 
 Lincoln's bill was introduced on January 
 16, 1849. The first section provided that 
 certain persons should never henceforth be 
 held in slavery within the District. This ap- 
 plied to slaves not already owned by residents 
 of the District, and to unborn children. The 
 second section permitted those coming into 
 the District in official character to bring and 
 retain their domestic servants, without being 
 in any way affected by the proposed measure. 
 The third section, relating to children born 
 of slave mothers after January 1, 1850, pro- 
 vided that they should be held for service as 
 apprentices until they had attained a certain 
 age, being allowed suitable 
 support and education. 
 
 The fourth section provi- 
 ded that the slaves already 
 in the District should know 
 no change unless the owner 
 should consent to emancipate 
 them, in which case a Gov- 
 ernment Board consisting of 
 high officials should deter- 
 mine the full value, and give 
 the owner an order on the 
 Treasury, while giving the 
 slave a certificate of freedom. 
 The fifth section empowered 
 and required the local author- 
 ities "to provide active and 
 efficient means to arrest and 
 deliver up to their owners 
 
EMANCIPATION PROJECTS— LINCOLN'S PLAN 
 
 7i 
 
 all fugitive slaves escaping 
 into said District." Section 
 six specified details for the 
 submission of the bill to lo- 
 cal vote of free white male 
 citizens, the President of the 
 United States being author- 
 ized to canvass the result and, 
 in case of a majority in favor 
 of the act, to give it effect 
 by issuing his proclamation. 
 In a speech at Peoria, Ill- 
 inois, some five years later, 
 Lincoln referred to the sit- 
 uation that had existed at 
 Washington in the following 
 terms : 
 
 The South clamored for a 
 more efficient fugitive slave law. 
 The North clamored for the 
 abolition of a peculiar species of 
 slave trade in the District of 
 Columbia, in connection with 
 which, in view from the win- 
 dows of the Capitol, a sort of 
 negro livery stable, where droves 
 of negroes were collected, tem- 
 porarily kept and finally taken 
 to Southern markets precisely 
 like droves of horses, had been 
 openly maintained for years. 
 
 There had actually been 
 introduced in Congress a 
 more drastic proposal for 
 abolition, and it had been 
 bitterly debated. The Lincoln 
 proposal was offered as a 
 substitute for the radical 
 measure that had no possible chance to secure 
 approval. Nothing could have been more con- 
 siderate of Southern feelings than the proposal 
 of the Whig from Illinois; but the debate 
 had already been too acrimonious for any sort 
 of compromise. The Lincoln measure had 
 many secret friends but few outspoken ones. 
 Nothing came of it at the time, yet much was 
 to come of it later; for it was to stand as evi- 
 dence of the depth and breadth of Abraham 
 Lincoln's understanding. 
 
 He was furnishing a platform upon which 
 wise and prudent men, North and South, 
 
 THE LAND OF LIBERTY— A BRITISH VIEW IN 1847 
 A "holier than thou" attitude is evident in all the cartoons of Punch in the years 
 preceding the Civil War. At the moment this one was published (December, 
 1847) the army of General Scott had reached Mexico City and the one-sided 
 conflict was ended, leaving the impression abroad that Uncle Sam had been 
 bullying a defenseless neighbor. The cartoonist here is Richard Doyle, known 
 as Dickie Doyle, whose initialled signature includes the outline of a dicky-bird. 
 
 might in due time have come together for the 
 solution of a problem that was threatening 
 division of the Union. He believed in grad- 
 ual emancipation on an orderly plan, for 
 the economic and social well-being of both 
 races. He also held to the sane and practical 
 view that full compensation out of the Federal 
 Treasury would be highly expedient, entirely 
 fair, and a good investment from every stand- 
 point. The facts that Lincoln held these states- 
 manlike views while still in his twenties, that 
 he later set them forth in Congress when he 
 was exactly forty years old, and that he ad- 
 
72 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 hered to them in i860 at the age of fifty-one 
 when elected President, formed a part of that 
 record which in later times came to be under- 
 stood, alike by descendants of the rabid Aboli- 
 tionists and by progeny of the blinded eulo- 
 gists of slavery as a divine institution. Wendell 
 Phillips complimented Lincoln by calling him 
 "the slave hound of Illinois ;" and we shall 
 later see what Southern Democrats called him 
 in i860, when it dawned upon their minds that 
 he was destined to be elected President because 
 their own party had split asunder on the slav- 
 ery issue. 
 
 Early in the century the United States and 
 Great Britain, with other countries of con- 
 
 _____ _"£_°i* '• NQ - 5 — 
 
 111 
 
 AMERICAN 
 
 ANTI-SLAVERY 
 
 ALMANAC, 
 
 for 
 
 1 840, 
 
 MING BISSEXTILE OR LEAP-YEAR, AND TJ1« 61T11 Of ANKHICAN 
 
 INDEPENDENCE. CALCULATED FOR BOSTON ; ADAPTED 
 
 TO THE NEW ENGLAND STATES. 
 
 NORTHERN HOSPITALITY-NEW YORK NINE MONTHS' LAW. 
 TUr- stuvt firps nut of Hie «Uvc »t»v, uid hit chains f_l. A fr« •«_*, wiUi anoihtr 
 Had*, h«<i<1» tudy 10 IHmllrt linn. 
 
 Thu< uiih tt» Lord, Drtircr him thai Is ivM mi: of lit hand* of Hie oj>pre«or. 
 
 NEW YORK &. BOSTON : 
 
 PUBLISHED EY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 
 
 NO. 1« NASSAU STREET, NSW YORK ; 
 
 AMD BY 3. A. COLLINS, ® COBNHHA, BOSTON. 
 
 The pages of this yearbook were filled with extreme and 
 
 exaggerated cases of cruelty to slaves. In this cover design 
 
 attention is called to a law in New York which operated 
 
 against the rights of Negroes even in a free state. 
 
 tinental Europe, had joined in efforts to sup- 
 press the bringing of new cargoes of slaves 
 from Africa. Spain had not yet assumed this 
 attitude, and Cuba as a Spanish possession be- 
 came the great slave mart of the western 
 world. Slave-traders of all nationalities per- 
 sisted in the horrible practices of kidnapping 
 on the African coast. By evading the Ameri- 
 can and British naval patrol they brought 
 fresh cargoes to the Spanish colonial posses- 
 sions. From Cuba and other islands, and 
 from ports on the Spanish mainland includ- 
 ing those of Mexico, slaves by the scores 
 of thousands were being smuggled into the 
 United States to meet the insatiate labor de- 
 mands of the cotton planters, who were open- 
 ing new fields in Alabama, Mississippi, and 
 Louisiana. 
 
 These conditions on the lower Mississippi 
 made profitable markets for wheat, corn, pork, 
 and beef, from the farms of Ohio, Indiana, 
 Illinois, and Missouri, with supplies of many 
 other kinds in demand for plantation use. This 
 river trade, steadily growing, had something 
 to do with the persistence of Illinois sentiment 
 against the Abolitionists, and in favor of the 
 prosperous relations that existed between the 
 free-labor agriculture north of the Ohio River 
 and the Missouri Compromise line, and the 
 slave-labor agriculture of the lower South. 
 Lincoln understood this motive, and he had 
 no proposals to make that could possibly affect 
 detrimentally the exchange of commodities be- 
 tween the wheat-and-corn belt and the cotton 
 States of the lower Mississippi. 
 
 But looking to the future, and planning with 
 the far-seeing vision of a man who knew that 
 such questions had to be settled by decisions 
 rather than by avoidance and neglect, he had 
 come to firm conclusions. The United States 
 Government must in due time act where it had 
 exclusive jurisdiction, and must leave it to the 
 slave States, each for itself, to deal with slav- 
 ery within its own bounds, exactly as various 
 northern States had previously done. There 
 was no flaw in Lincoln's reasoning. 
 
 For example, New Jersey's State Act to 
 abolish slavery bore the date of April 18, 1846, 
 this being the year of Lincoln's election to 
 Congress. It is true that slavery had been 
 
EMANCIPATION PROJECTS— LINCOLN'S PLAN 
 
 73 
 
 FUGITIVE SLAVES ESCAPING NORTH 
 Lincoln's plan of 1849, for abolishing slavery within the District of Columbia, yielded to the 
 South in its provision that fugitive slaves should be arrested and delivered up to their owners. This 
 is one of the original drawings for Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." published in 
 1852. The book did more to arouse abolition feeling in the north than anything else up to the time 
 of John Brown's raid. Its sale was probably greater than that of any book previously published in 
 
 the United States except the Bible. 
 
 naturally dwindling in New Jersey, so that 
 from about 12,500 slaves in the year 1800, the 
 number had declined to 2,254 by the census of 
 1830. New York's action had come earlier; 
 and the 20,000 slaves of 1800 were reduced to 
 a few more than 10,000 in 1820, and had dis- 
 appeared in the next decade, leaving only 75 
 in 1830. Massachusetts had abolished slavery 
 before 1790, and Maine, New Hampshire, and 
 Vermont had speedily followed; but Rhode 
 Island and Connecticut had been more toler- 
 ant, and a handful of slaves' was still enumer- 
 ated in those States as late as 1830 and 1840. 
 Maryland, of course, was an important slave 
 State, and Delaware maintained slavery until 
 the Civil War. Lincoln believed that if we 
 set the example of gradual emancipation by 
 popular consent in the District of Columbia, 
 with full compensation to such slave owners 
 as were ready to manumit their bondsmen, we 
 would do much to allay fear in the South. 
 This plan might also pave the way for an ulti- 
 
 mate change of status in the cotton belt — a 
 change that could not come about in a hurried 
 fashion without disastrous consequences. 
 
 It is well, moreover, to remember that all 
 intelligent Americans, North and South, were 
 fully aware of the position of the slavery ques- 
 tion in other countries. Nearly four years be- 
 fore Lincoln recorded his views in the Illinois 
 Legislature — namely, in August, 1833 — an act 
 providing for emancipation in the British col- 
 onies was carried through the House of Com- 
 mons and promptly accepted by the House of 
 Lords and the Crown, under the leadership of 
 Lord Grey who was then Prime Minister. Ten 
 years earlier the English Anti-Slavery Society 
 had been formed, and its propaganda had met 
 with violent opposition on the part of the 
 sugar planters in the West Indies, with vari- 
 ous supporting interests in Great Britain. But 
 the agitation against slavery in the British 
 Parliament had steadily gained in strength 
 until it had won its victory. 
 
74 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 It is not to be argued that British ethical 
 standards were higher than those that pre- 
 vailed in America. It merely happened that 
 the British Islands themselves had no slaves, 
 and very few people in Great Britain had per- 
 sonal reasons for accepting the views of a 
 handful of rich slave-owners and sugar plant- 
 ers in distant islands. It was typical of Eng- 
 lish methods that a series of measures intended 
 to ameliorate slave conditions should have 
 been adopted before emancipation was pro- 
 claimed in 1833. 
 
 Furthermore, there was nothing abrupt or 
 confiscatory about the English plan of emanci- 
 pation. The sum of a hundred million dol- 
 lars was appropriated at the outset, from which 
 planters could be compensated. All slaves 
 were to be designated as "apprentices," and to 
 be held in bondage for seven years, giving 
 service to their former owners in lieu of main- 
 tenance. This rule did not apply to children 
 under the age of six, 
 who were made free at 
 once. The law provid- 
 ed that full freedom 
 for all former slaves 
 should take effect in 
 August, 1840. But as it 
 afterwards turned out, 
 the plan of indentured 
 apprenticeship worked 
 badly, and could not 
 be enforced under con- 
 ditions existing in the 
 West Indies. So com- 
 plete abolition was 
 hastened, and it came 
 to pass in 1838, with 
 payment to owners on 
 adjusted terms. 
 
 This English exam- 
 ple naturally had its in- 
 fluence upon American 
 minds, and doubtless 
 it provided Lincoln with some of the ideas that 
 took form in his plan for the District of Co- 
 lumbia. It is also to be noted as a significant 
 fact that the Provisional Government of 
 France, that superseded the Royal Govern- 
 ment of Louis Philippe and that initiated 
 
 COMMEMORATING THE ABOLITION OF 
 SLAVERY BY GREAT BRITAIN IN 1834 
 
 An anniversary medal, in the 
 H. Russell Drowne collection 
 
 the Second Republic in 1848, had promptly 
 proclaimed and carried into effect a plan of im- 
 mediate emancipation throughout the French 
 colonies. 
 
 Within our own Hemisphere, emancipation 
 movements had been the order of the day. 
 Thus Mexico, having secured her independ- 
 ence, had abolished slavery by decree in Sep- 
 tember, 1829, so that Texas was a free-soil 
 State in the Mexican Republic when the Amer- 
 ican settlers expelled the Mexicans and estab- 
 lished the Republic of Texas. Furthermore, 
 New Mexico and California were free-soil 
 areas when we occupied them at the outbreak 
 of the Mexican War. The government at 
 Buenos Aires had adopted a plan of slow abo- 
 lition, by giving freedom to all children born 
 in slavery after a certain date in the year 181 3. 
 The Republic of Colombia had arranged that 
 all young slaves should be made free on 
 their eighteenth birthday, beginning with the 
 
 month of July, 1839. 
 Slavery, of course, 
 in one form or another 
 continued to exist in 
 darkest Africa, in the 
 Turkish Empire, and 
 in various parts of 
 Asia. But otherwise 
 there remained no im- 
 portant areas in which 
 slave labor was em- 
 ployed under modern 
 economic conditions, 
 excepting only the 
 slave-holding portion 
 of the United States, 
 the Spanish Island of 
 Cuba, and the great 
 Portuguese Empire of 
 Brazil. I am recording 
 these readily accessi- 
 ble facts and dates as 
 a mere matter of 
 convenience, in order that they may be 
 brought into comparison with Lincoln's pro- 
 test of 1837 at Springfield, and his bill 
 of 1849 for gradual emancipation in the 
 District of Columbia. Lincoln, himself, of 
 course, was fully aware of these British, 
 
EMANCIPATION PROJECTS— LINCOLN'S PLAN 
 
 75 
 
 
 A SLAVE MARKET SUCH AS LINCOLN SAW FROM THE WINDOWS OF THE CAPITOL 
 AT WASHINGTON WHILE A MEMBER OF CONGRESS 
 
 This is another of the original drawings for "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
 
 French and Latin-American projects for and the inherent rights of man, but also as 
 
 Negro emancipation. The world at large was economically obsolete. Brazil, in 1850, had 
 
 abandoning the slavery system, as not only definitely stopped importations ; so that Cuba 
 
 inconsistent with prevailing ideas of liberty was left as the sole entrepot for slave cargoes. 
 
 SOME SIGNIFICANT DATES IN LINCOLN'S FIRST THIRTY YEARS 
 
 1809 — Abraham Lincoln is born on 
 a farm near Hodgenville, Ken- 
 tucky, February 12th. 
 
 1815 — Battle of New Orleans, won 
 by Gen. Andrew Jackson. 
 
 Battle of Waterloo, ending 
 Napoleon's power in Europe. 
 
 Lincoln receives his only 
 formal schooling from Zacha- 
 riah Riney and Caleb Hazel, in 
 a Kentucky country school. 
 
 1816 — The Lincoln family moves to 
 a farm on Little Pigeon Creek, 
 near Gentryville, Spencer 
 County, Indiana. 
 
 Indiana admitted as a State. 
 Illinois admitted as a State. 
 Missouri admitted as a Slave 
 State under a compromise ar- 
 rangement prohibiting slavery 
 in the remainder of Louisiana 
 Territory to the north. 
 John Quincy Adams elected 
 President by the House of 
 Representatives. John C. Cal- 
 houn elected Vice-President. 
 
 1818 
 1820 
 
 1825- 
 
 1828 — Andrew Jackson, Democrat, 
 elected President, Calhoun 
 continuing as Vice-President. 
 
 Lincoln makes his first trip 
 to New Orleans, on a fiatboat 
 down the Ohio and Mississippi. 
 
 1830 — The Lincoln family moves 
 from Indiana to a farm near 
 Decatur, Macon County, 111. 
 
 1831 — Lincoln makes a second trip 
 to New Orleans. Upon his re- 
 turn he settles at New Salem, 
 in Sangamon County, Illinois, 
 becoming a clerk in a grocery 
 store. 
 
 1832 — Andrew Jackson re-elected 
 President, with Martin Van 
 Buren Vice-President. 
 
 Lincoln serves for two 
 months as Captain of Volun- 
 teers in the Black Hawk War, 
 though not in actual fighting. 
 Lincoln is a candidate for 
 the Illinois Legislature, losing 
 by a narrow margin. Later he 
 campaigns for Henry Clay. 
 
 1832 — South Carolina, led by John 
 C. Calhoun, refuses to accept 
 the new Tariff, claiming a 
 right to nullify Federal law. 
 
 1833 — Chicago incorporated as a 
 town, with 135 inhabitants. 
 
 Lincoln appointed postmas- 
 ter at New Salem and assistant 
 surveyor. 
 
 1834 — Lincoln is elected to the Illi- 
 nois Legislature as a Whig. 
 
 1834-41 — Lincoln's service in the 
 Illinois Legislature. 
 
 1836 — Van Buren elected President. 
 
 1837 — Financial panic throughout 
 the country. 
 
 Legislature votes removal of 
 State capital from Vandalia to 
 Springfield, largely through 
 Lincoln's efforts. 
 
 Lincoln removes to Spring- 
 field and enters a law partner- 
 ship with John Todd Stuart. 
 A mob kills Elijah P. Love- 
 joy at Alton, 111. 
 
 1839 — Capital moves to Springfield. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A Crisis in National Bankin 
 
 Lincoln is licensed to practise law, moves to Springfield, and is 
 
 married — President Jackson denounces the National Bank — Lincoln 
 
 qualifies as an authority on banking 
 
 Iincoln had been licensed to practise law 
 in the fall of 1836 and had taken up his 
 home at Springfield in April, 1837, 
 where he was accepted as a partner by his 
 friend, Major John T. Stuart, who had also 
 served in the Legislature, and had political 
 ambitions, along with 
 character and ability. It 
 was in the following 
 year, 1838, that Stuart 
 was nominated for Con- 
 gress by the Whigs of the 
 district, with the boyish 
 and diminutive Douglas 
 (he was not much more 
 than five feet in height ) 
 named by the Democrats 
 as his opponent. It was a 
 strenuous and bitter can- 
 vass, thirty-four great 
 counties being grouped at 
 that time in this one con- 
 gressional district. Stuart 
 was fully six feet tall 
 and a heavier man than 
 Lincoln ; and the contrast 
 between him and Douglas 
 was as striking as that 
 which was afforded in 
 the famous Lincoln- 
 Douglas senatorial contest 
 twenty years later. 
 
 Douglas at this time 
 was only twenty-five years old, but he was 
 already a man of mark, an orator and 
 debater of striking promise, and a most adroit 
 campaigner and vote-winner. Stuart was the 
 victor by a majority of 35 in a total of 36,000. 
 If Douglas had contested the election in the 
 Democratic House at Washington he prob- 
 ably would have unseated Stuart ; but he could 
 not afford the expense or time involved and 
 
 76 
 
 MRS. LINCOLN: AN EARLY PORTRAIT 
 Mary Todd of Lexington, Kentucky, had come 
 to Springfield, Illinois, to live with her mar- 
 ried sister. There she met Lincoln, for her sis- 
 ter's husband was a fellow-member of the 
 Legislature. They were married at Springfield 
 on November 4, 1842. 
 
 he accepted his defeat. This was made easier 
 for him by the gift of a federal office. 
 
 Lincoln, who was naturally active in sup- 
 porting Stuart's campaign, could not think of 
 national politics on his own account at that 
 time. He had an indebtedness to pay off result- 
 ing from the failure of his 
 earlier mercantile ven- 
 ture, and he had yet to 
 establish himself as a law- 
 yer. It should be said that 
 Stuart was re-elected to 
 Congress in 1840, and 
 that, during the four years 
 of his membership of the 
 House at Washington, 
 Lincoln remained at 
 Springfield as active part- 
 ner in the law firm. 
 
 Also in both of the 
 election years of 1838 and 
 1840, Lincoln was making 
 his own canvass for the 
 Legislature, while Stuart 
 was running for Congress. 
 Since the Legislature had 
 now left Vandalia and 
 come to the new capital at 
 Springfield, Lincoln could 
 keep his law office open 
 while taking his full share 
 in the work of the law- 
 making body of the State. 
 With his partner coming and going between 
 Springfield and Washington, Lincoln enjoyed 
 the sense of personal contact with national 
 affairs. We may anticipate by noting that 
 he declined a renomination for the Legis- 
 lature in 1842, his private affairs absorbing 
 his attention at that time. For, in the election 
 month of November, 1842, he was married to 
 Mary Todd, the daughter of Robert S. Todd, 
 
A CRISIS IN NATIONAL BANKING 
 
 77 
 
 of Lexington, Kentucky. A few 
 months later he was making a 
 long step forward in his profes- 
 sional and business career by ac- 
 cepting a partnership offered him 
 by Stephen T. Logan, who stood 
 at the very head of the Bar of 
 Illinois as a trial lawyer. Cer- 
 tainly from this time on we may 
 disregard the notion that Lincoln 
 was an altogether obscure and 
 unpromising person. He was ex- 
 cellently married, well settled, 
 and steadily making his way. 
 
 The extensive literature that 
 has come into existence regard- 
 ing Lincoln's marriage, his do- 
 mestic affairs, and like matters 
 of a private and personal nature, 
 is of varying merit. Most of it has no impor- 
 tant relation to his political career. 
 
 LINCOLN'S HOME IN SPRINGFIELD 
 In 1844, two years after his marriage, Lincoln bought this house at 
 
 Eighth and Jackson Streets. It had been built in 1839. Though not 
 conspicuous, it was classed as one of the town's better houses. Here he 
 lived for seventeen years, until he moved into the White House. After 
 the death of Mrs. Lincoln, in 1882, the house passed to the President's 
 son Robert, who turned it over to the State of Illinois. It is visited 
 by many thousands each year. Oak, hickory, and black walnut all 
 entered into the construction of this modest residence. 
 
 THE HOUSE WHERE LINCOLN WAS MARRIED 
 When Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were married, on November 
 4, 1842, the ceremony took place in this red-brick residence at 441 South 
 Second Street, Springfield. It was the home of Mrs. Lincoln's sister, Mrs. 
 Ninian W. Edwards. Mr. Edwards' father was the third Governor of 
 Illinois. In this house, also, Mrs. Lincoln died in August, 1882. 
 
 The same sort of natural curiosity pursues 
 the life-story of every man who happens to 
 become famous. Biographers of a 
 certain school expend undue effort in 
 meddling with privacy. Happily, not 
 many writers about Lincoln have 
 found it possible to ignore the record 
 that he was making year by year as 
 a citizen of Illinois, as one of the 
 ablest practising lawyers in the his- 
 tory of America, and as a political 
 leader and thinker of rare sagacity. 
 Certainly nothing in his family life 
 had crushed his spirit, or had 
 spoiled a tempered reasonableness not 
 equalled in the record of any other 
 young American politician of his 
 generation. Douglas also was a man 
 of first-rate talents, and he had gen- 
 uine convictions and tested courage. 
 But Douglas had the common failing 
 in political debate of misrepresenting 
 opponents, of playing upon his audi- 
 ence by appeals to prejudice, and of 
 employing palpably sophistical argu- 
 ments. Lincoln, on the other hand, 
 always manifested the utmost en- 
 deavor to state a case fairly, to recite 
 facts without garbling, and to give 
 clearly and with logical precision the 
 reasons that convinced him. 
 
78 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 JOHN T. STUART STEPHEN T. LOGAN WILLIAM H. HERNDON 
 
 John Todd Stuart, Lincoln's first partner (1837-41), was a cousin of the Mary Todd who in 1842 
 became Mrs. Lincoln. Stephen T. Logan, who had been a judge of the circuit court, was senior part- 
 ner from 1841 to 1844. William H. Herndon remained as junior partner until Lincoln's death. 
 
 LINCOLN'S THREE LAW PARTNERS 
 
 That Lincoln was making- numerous 
 speeches showing this quality, we have every 
 reason to believe. Few of them have sur- 
 vived as evidence of his intellectual devel- 
 opment in the Van Buren period. But for- 
 tunately we have one speech which in the 
 very nature of the case could not have been a 
 departure, either in substance of doctrine or 
 in method of reasoning, from many others 
 that he made in early public life, for his plat- 
 form efforts were always consistent. 
 
 The speech to which I refer was delivered 
 in December, 1839. It was printed in pam- 
 phlet form, and happily a copy was still in 
 existence and available when Nicolay and Hay 
 were compiling the Lincoln papers in 1894. 
 I shall make some analysis of the speech, be- 
 cause it deals wholly with national questions, 
 and exhibits Lincoln as a student of those 
 problems of banking, currency, and financial 
 administration that were even more central in 
 the public mind during Van Buren's adminis- 
 tration than was the slavery question. 
 
 The original bank of the United States, de- 
 vised in 1 79 1 by Alexander Hamilton as fiscal 
 agent of the government, had served its pur- 
 pose, had fallen into disfavor, and at the end 
 of its charter period had been transformed 
 into a Philadelphia bank with a Pennsylvania 
 
 charter. A second United States Bank had 
 been established by Madison and his financial 
 advisers in 1816, to take care of the en- 
 larged treasury operations growing out of 
 the War of 181 2. The management of this 
 bank may have been guilty of mistakes of one 
 kind or another, and it encountered political 
 prejudice. However worthy or otherwise it 
 may have been, the Jacksonian Democrats 
 were furiously and fanatically opposed to ex- 
 tending its chartered existence. Jackson dealt 
 it a fatal blow when he withdrew the govern- 
 ment's deposits from the central bank of the 
 United States, and from the branches in lead- 
 ing American cities. He had already in July, 
 1832, vetoed a bill that had passed Congress, 
 under the leadership of Daniel Webster and 
 Henry Clay, for an extension of the bank's 
 charter for another term of years from the 
 date of its expiration in 1836. 
 
 Jackson especially objected to the combina- 
 tion of public and private functions that had 
 made possible the ownership in Great Britain 
 of a large part of the stock of the Bank of the 
 United States. In his message of December, 
 1835, Jackson continued to denounce the spirit 
 of monopoly that had been exemplified both 
 in the conception and in the methods of the 
 Bank of the United States. With too much 
 
A CRISIS IN NATIONAL BANKING 
 
 79 
 
 THE STATE CAPITOL AT SPRINGFIELD, WHEN LINCOLN 
 WAS IN THE LEGISLATURE 
 During Lincoln's eight-year service as an Assemblyman in Illinois, the Legislature met 
 first at Vandalia and later at Springfield. The Vandalia State House is shown on page 53. 
 Lincoln had been a leader in the movement to make Springfield, in his own county, the 
 capital of the State. This building was first occupied in December, 1839, and Lincoln 
 attended sessions here until March, 1841. Meanwhile he had moved to Springfield, and 
 was practising law there. By 1876 a larger State House had been constructed, and since 
 then this building has been used as the court house of Sangamon county. 
 
 optimism, he descanted upon the smooth going 
 that the Treasury had experienced for a year 
 in doing its business through "the use of the 
 State banks, which do not derive their charters 
 from the General Government and are not con- 
 trolled by its authority." "All the wants of 
 the community," he added, "in relation to ex- 
 change and currency are supplied as well as 
 they have ever been before." Referring to the 
 evils of an unchecked paper system, Jackson 
 declared that "the management of the revenue 
 can be made auxiliary to the reform which the 
 Legislatures of several of the States have al- 
 ready commenced in regard to the suppression 
 of small bills." 
 
 And so General Jackson continued to paint 
 a most cheerful picture; but — alas for Jack- 
 son's self-confidence and belief in the value of 
 his victory over that centralized monster the 
 Bank of the United States — a storm was im- 
 pending, the violence and wreckage of which 
 has hardly ever been equalled in the history of 
 
 American currency and banking. A recent 
 historian of obviously anti-Jackson convic- 
 tions, sums up the results of the Treasury's 
 experiment in using State banks, in the fol- 
 lowing sentences : 
 
 It was Van Buren's misfortune that the storm 
 which Jackson had called from the sky, by his reck- 
 less use of high explosives, burst just as Jackson 
 reached shelter and as the "Magician" stepped forth 
 to take the great rain-maker's place. The terrible 
 panic of 1837 began when the administration was 
 but two months old — a direct consequence of the 
 financial disorder produced by Jackson's war on 
 the Bank. The enforced liquidation of the greatest 
 monetary institution in the country; the transfer of 
 the public funds to banks much weaker and far 
 more loosely managed than the Bank of the United 
 States ; a wild speculation induced by the excessive 
 note-issues of state banks which had a fictitious 
 capital only; and the inability of the banks to re- 
 spond when called upon to refund the sums intrusted 
 to them, under the law for "depositing" the surplus 
 revenue with the States — such were the events 
 which brought about the suspension of specie pay- 
 ments on the 10th of May, 1837. 
 
8o 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Obviously Mr. Van Buren could not con- 
 tinue to use State banks; and it would have 
 been politically impossible to reverse the party 
 position and establish a third Bank of the 
 United States. The banks had with virtual 
 unanimity suspended specie payments about 
 two months after Van Buren's inauguration. 
 
 Congress was called in special session, and 
 on September 4th the President transmitted 
 to it a message of great length, analyzing the 
 country's financial difficulties, and making 
 remedial proposals. Speculation of all sorts 
 had been so reckless for two or three years 
 that reaction had become inevitable. This had 
 been stimulated by redundant issues of paper 
 money. First, it was recommended "to sep- 
 arate the fiscal operations of the government 
 
 from those of individuals or corporations." 
 Mr. Van Buren observed that neither in Eng- 
 land nor in the United States had a central 
 bank been able to prevent an undue expansion 
 of credit and the evils that flow from it. He 
 regarded banking as a private business that 
 should be carried on by bankers for the con- 
 venience of commerce and trade. As a result 
 of President Van Buren's reasoning there was 
 introduced a measure creating a so-called Sub- 
 Treasury system, under which the Govern- 
 ment should become the custodian of its own 
 funds. 
 
 It was typical of the universal interest in 
 these questions of finance and currency that 
 there should have been protracted public dis- 
 cussion, during a series of evenings, in the 
 
 THE APOLOGY MEDIATION SATISFACTION 
 
 FRANCE PAYS THE SPOLIATION CLAIMS, FOR DAMAGE TO UNITED STATES COMMERCE DURING THE WARS OF NAPOLEON 
 
 The French King Louis Philippe is at the right, with the English King William IV acting as mediator 
 
 with President Jackson. At the left is Martin Van Buren, then Vice-President, who had arranged the 
 
 settlement while Secretary of State in 1831. France had been dilatory in making payment until 
 
 President Jackson assumed a vigorous position in 1834. 
 
A CRISIS IN NATIONAL BANKING 
 
 It/hat the deril shall I dn Matty 
 mith this Bill? Shall I veto it, 
 tne cursed Whigs are strong 
 enough to fiass it if 
 
 ilk are m a tad har General ',_ 
 I'm dead against g-ivmg away 
 a dat/ar, 6ut as ycu. say, needs 
 must when, tie dee// drtves ! /— 
 
 CAUCU S mih SURPLUS BILL. 
 
 fubUs/ud Juru./m, & l/it /?w/iruli>r.&B.£dwm, 4d Cturtlandt Strut,* Vew, l/trt 
 
 President Jackson, at the left, deliberates over a bill passed by Congress, lending surplus Govern- 
 ment moneys to the States. Van Buren, at the right, had already been nominated by the Democrats 
 as Jackson's successor. In the center is Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Hall of the House of Representatives at 
 Springfield in December, 1839. Mr. Douglas 
 had spoken against the revival of the United 
 States Bank, and had defended the Van Buren 
 Sub-Treasury scheme. He had taunted and de- 
 fied the Whigs to meet his arguments. Mr. 
 Lincoln accepted the challenge, meeting 
 it with his habitual aim at the major issue. 
 "The subject heretofore and now to be dis- 
 cussed," he began, "is the sub-treasury scheme 
 of the present administration, as a means of 
 collecting, safekeeping, transferring, and dis- 
 bursing the revenues of the nation, as con- 
 trasted with the national bank for the same 
 purposes. Mr. Douglas has said that we, the 
 Whigs, have not dared to meet them, the Locos, 
 in argument on this question. I protest against 
 this assertion." He then proceeded, with as 
 
 much care to reason philosophically and to 
 avoid clap-trap and partisanship, as if he had 
 been preparing a brief for the Supreme Court. 
 "Of the sub-treasury then," said Mr. Lin- 
 coln, "as contrasted with a national bank for 
 the before enumerated purposes, I lay down 
 the following propositions, to wit : ( 1 ) It 
 will injuriously affect the community by its 
 operation on the circulating medium. (2) It 
 will be a more expensive fiscal agent. (3) It 
 will be a less secure depository of the public 
 money." Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to show 
 how the national bank by its ordinary opera- 
 tions had kept money in circulation. "By the 
 sub-treasury," he remarked, "the revenue is to 
 be collected and kept in iron boxes until the 
 government wants it for disbursement ; thus 
 robbing the people of the use of it, while the 
 
S2 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 government does not itself need it, and while 
 the money is performing no nobler office than 
 that of rusting in iron boxes. The natural 
 effect of this change of policy, everyone will 
 see, is to reduce the quantity of money in 
 circulation." 
 
 Mr. Van Buren had provided for the col- 
 lection of the revenues in gold and silver in 
 his recommendations for the pending sub- 
 treasury bill. Mr. Lincoln showed that this 
 would prove an advantage to a favored class, 
 and detrimental to the general public, because 
 it would draw into the strong boxes of the 
 sub-treasury more than half of all the gold 
 and silver dollars in the United States. As an 
 argument for his Illinois hearers, he further 
 demonstrated that the government's land of- 
 fices in the western States and Territories were 
 absorbing most of the available money of the 
 people, and that the Van Buren proposals 
 would so enhance the purchasing power of 
 money as to double or treble the price of pub- 
 lic land and thus make almost insurmountable 
 the difficulties "that poor people now encounter 
 in procuring a home." 
 
 As regards the working of a national bank 
 under normal conditions, Mr. Lincoln held 
 
 a.. ,'t,nf uJtljU-nyrtftJi thrjtoriStf i 
 
 WHO'LL 
 
 HAVE THE SPECIE 
 
 President Van Buren is showing very little respect for the British Bulldog and 
 the French cock, in a situation growing out of the suspension of specie payments 
 in May, 1837 — only two months after the inauguration of the new President. 
 
 that it could take reasonable care of contrac- 
 tions and expansions, and provide a safely 
 elastic volume of currency. He admitted that 
 it could not be expected to regulate the cur- 
 rency when it was under official attack, "crip- 
 pled and thrown into death convulsions by 
 the removal of the deposits from it, and other 
 hostile measures of the government against it." 
 And there followed this wise and significant 
 sentence : "We do not pretend that a na- 
 tional bank can establish and maintain a sound 
 and uniform state of currency in the country, 
 in spite of the national government ; but we do 
 say that it has established and maintained such 
 a currency, and can do so again, by the aid of 
 that government; and we further say that no 
 duty is more imperative on that government 
 than the duty it owes the people of furnishing 
 them a sound and uniform currency." 
 
 I may not pause to review Lincoln's facts 
 and figures set in array to prove that it would 
 be more expensive to operate the sub-treasury 
 system than to handle the public revenues 
 through a national bank. So much loss had 
 been incurred through the failure of the State 
 Banks that Mr. Lincoln proceeded at length 
 to discuss the question of relative security for 
 the public money. He allu- 
 ded to many defalcations on 
 the part of government offi- 
 cials that had occurred in 
 operating the custom houses, 
 the land offices and the mints ; 
 and he predicted further de- 
 falcations at the hands of 
 officials who might have the 
 public funds under their con- 
 trol if the sub-treasury sys- 
 tem were adopted. He made 
 an ingenious argument to 
 show that, human nature 
 being what it is, banks would 
 be preferable custodians for 
 public funds. 
 
 The pending sub-treasury 
 bill provided for four Re- 
 ceivers - general, at New 
 York, Boston, Charleston 
 and St. Louis, through 
 whose hands most of the rev- 
 
 9 
 
A CRISIS IN NATIONAL BANKING 
 
 83 
 
 Mraif'd g/yjrjm .JTahtr fy 2Wv Metm/na, JfefjFu to Mater <Jac/c Dewnma.^ 
 
 TffiEE BWOT.A1L.JL. (DIP MdDTMIEIR BAETlKo 
 
 fnniedkFuib? ?&vH£Acbitlson;&Z Caurtlandt Jit W-Yerk . ^ 
 
 President Jackson was opposed to the National Bank and in 1832 vetoed a bill extending its 
 charter. But since the Bank had four years to live, Jackson in 1833 ordered his Secretary of the 
 Treasury to withdraw Government funds. The Major Jack Downing, appearing in the two cartoons 
 in this chapter, was a fictitious character, the name under which Charles Augustus Davis wrote 
 satirical letters on politics. The name was revived in the Civil War period. 
 
 enues would flow. Lincoln compared these 
 treasury branches with the branches of the 
 national bank located at the same places, and 
 attempted to prove that funds under the active 
 operation of banks would be actually safer 
 than if they were lying idle until needed for 
 disbursement under the custodianship of gov- 
 ernment officials. 
 
 Next Lincoln undertook to argue the dis- 
 puted question of the constitutionality of a 
 National Bank ; and this he dealt with by the 
 familiar logical method of the rcductio ad ab- 
 surdum. In short, he showed that the gov- 
 ernment funds had to be handled in one way 
 or another, and held that if the Van Buren way 
 was constitutional, the way of Hamilton and 
 that of Madison and his advisors must be 
 equally so. 
 
 Leaving these arguments as to the theory 
 and practice of banking and currency systems. 
 Lincoln came to concrete disputes over gov- 
 ernment expenditures that had been included 
 on previous evenings in the allegations of 
 Messrs. Douglas and Lamborn. Comparisons 
 of the costs of the government under different 
 administrations had been made by these Dem- 
 ocratic debaters, using methods to which re- 
 sort is always a temptation when politicians 
 discuss finance. Mr. Lincoln went into an 
 elaborate review of particular objects of ex- 
 penditure, the most important of these being 
 the War in Florida against the Seminoles, that 
 had been protracted and of course unduly ex- 
 travagant, as wars have usually been. 
 
 Mr. Douglas had excused the expenditures 
 of 1838, which had been large beyond prece- 
 
8 4 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 dent in a year of peace, by saying that ten 
 million dollars of that expenditure "was a con- 
 tingent appropriation, to prosecute an antici- 
 pated war with Great Britain on the Maine 
 boundary question." Lincoln characterized 
 this statement not only as untrue but supremely 
 ridiculous. "First," he declared, "the ten mil- 
 lions appropriation was not made until 1839, 
 and consequently could not possibly have been 
 expended in 1838; second, although it was 
 appropriated, it has never been expended 
 at all." 
 
 Mr. Lamborn had insisted that "the differ- 
 ence between the Van Buren party and the 
 Whigs was that although the former some- 
 times erred in practice, they were always cor- 
 rect in principle, whereas the latter are wrong 
 in principle." To give this a more telling 
 effect with the audience, Lamborn had said : 
 "The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but 
 
 they are sound in the head and the heart." This 
 gave Lincoln the opportunity to relieve his ser- 
 ious argument on banks, currency and financial 
 administration by touches of humor and of 
 well-merited ridicule. Lamborn, further, had 
 boasted that, in view of the results of the Con- 
 gressional elections in 1838, every State in the 
 Union would vote to give Van Buren a second 
 term in the Presidential election of 1840. 
 
 Such boastful predictions afforded Lincoln 
 the chance for a peroration, in which he em- 
 ployed a soaring and artificial style of oratory, 
 meant to impress the audience and to show that 
 he too could use figures of speech and build 
 rhetorical sentences with as much fluency as 
 Douglas himself, whenever he might choose 
 to depart from his better manner of un- 
 adorned but more admirable diction. Poli- 
 ticians and preachers of that day were also the 
 public entertainers. 
 
 
 
 
 THE MODERN BALAAM AND HIS ASS 
 
 President Van Buren comes into office as successor to President Jackson, the expression, "I shall 
 
 tread in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor," being a quotation from Van Buren's inaugural 
 
 address. In two cartoons on these facing pages we see the Democratic donkey. 
 
A CRISIS IN NATIONAL BANKING 
 
 85 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 BANK-OH" S! CHOST. 
 
 As the successor to Jackson in 1837, President Van Buren inherited a financial situation which 
 
 culminated in the worst panic the country had experienced. He is here explaining to the Ghost of 
 
 Commerce that he did not cause the panic. 
 
 A SHINPLASTER CARICATURE OF MAY, 1837 
 
 Van Buren had been inaugurated and he is shown here speeding downhill while Senator Benton 
 
 and Jackson are chasing the Gold Humbug. Benton had been Jackson's chief supporter in the 
 
 Senate in the banking crisis. This imitation shinplaster is signed by H. R. Robinson, who published 
 
 many of the poster caricatures of the period. 
 
86 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 CUTTING DOWN THE HICKORY TREE 
 "Old Hickory," Andrew Jackson, is being disturbed in his 
 Sub-Treasury crow's nest by William Henry Harrison, 
 who swings his reform axe while Clay and Webster pull 
 on the rope. The second crow, falling from the nest, is 
 Martin Van Buren. 
 
 Our form of government has from the be- 
 ginning made popular these difficult questions 
 of taxation, monetary standards, banking, 
 currency, and the financial methods and func- 
 tions of government. Such topics have always 
 been discussed, not merely at Washing- 
 ton and not alone at the state capitals, but at 
 every country cross-roads from one coast to 
 the other. This fact has been viewed with 
 concern at times in our own country and with 
 amused criticism by European financial au- 
 thorities. But it could not have been other- 
 wise and in the long run it has not been harm- 
 ful. The United States alone has been able to 
 bring economic questions of this kind into the 
 sphere of serious even if not always highly 
 intelligent discussion, in every community. 
 
 Lincoln had listened to the raging torrents 
 of local argument. He had studied carefully 
 the masterly discussions of Webster, Clay and 
 others following the lines laid down by Ham- 
 ilton and his successors. He had also given 
 attention to the very able — although somewhat 
 
 fallacious — arguments of Jackson, Van Buren, 
 and their principal supporters, against the aris- 
 tocratic and monopolistic tendencies of a cen- 
 tral bank, acting as fiscal agent for the 
 government and regulating currency in the in- 
 terest of normal business as against inflation. 
 Reading these arguments and observing the 
 course of affairs in his own State and through- 
 out the country, Lincoln had assumed posi- 
 tions that are demonstrated in the experience 
 of the nation to have been safe and sound. 
 
 Our western thinker and leader was des- 
 tined twenty-two years after this Springfield 
 debate of 1839 to assume national responsi- 
 bility. He was to have in his own hands the 
 executive control of financial transactions 
 swollen by war from a modest stream to a vast 
 river. It was therefore of consequence that 
 be should in an earlier period have adopted 
 principles that were capable of serving for 
 his guidance in emergencies. Otherwise he 
 might not have been able to navigate the 
 stormy waters. He had to deal with many 
 men of strong will in the two Congresses and 
 the Cabinet, and with currents of public opin- 
 ion that could not be wholly disregarded. 
 There had to be compromises, and some tem- 
 porary inflation was inevitable. But Lincoln's 
 policies gave us a thoroughly reformed bank- 
 ing system which later on made possible a full 
 resumption of specie payments with no re- 
 pudiation and without violent deflation. 
 
 Lincoln's arguments of 1839 show that he 
 would have been fully alive to deficiencies in 
 our banking and currency system that resulted 
 in the work of the Aldrich Commission and 
 in the modified plans that gave us in 19 13 the 
 Federal Reserve System with its central board 
 and its twelve regional reserve banks. Lin- 
 coln's national bank system of 1864 remained, 
 while Van Buren's sub-treasury system was 
 abolished in favor of those principles that Lin- 
 coln had set forth when defending active banks 
 as public depositories. After more than sixty 
 years we had come back to a system that 
 Lincoln as a young man, aged thirty, had 
 set forth in sound principle in 1839, in general 
 accord with the ideas and aims of Alexander 
 Hamilton in providing a scheme of banking 
 and financial administration. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 The Boisterous Harrison Campaign 
 
 An Indian fighter is elected President — Harrison's genuine qualifica- 
 tions — Lincoln demonstrates ability as a stump speaker and a talent 
 for party organization 
 
 IN his memorandum of i860, summariz- 
 ing in condensed fashion the facts of his 
 political career, and speaking in the third 
 person, Lincoln remarked: "After 1840 he 
 declined re-election to the Legislature. He was 
 on the Harrison electoral ticket in 1840, and 
 on that of Clay in 1844, and spent much time 
 and labor in both those 
 canvasses." Since he al- 
 ways used the emphasis of 
 understatement when re- 
 ferring to his own achieve- 
 ments, we might need no 
 further evidence to con- 
 vince us that Lincoln took 
 a leading part in Illinois on 
 behalf of the Whigs in 
 these two memorable cam- 
 paigns for the Presidency. 
 His own seat in the Legis- 
 lature had been secure, re- 
 gardless of party. 
 
 Martin Van Buren. 
 whom the cartoonists of 
 the opposition were always 
 disparaging as a mere sub- 
 ordinate of Jackson, and 
 whom they contemptu- 
 ously designated as 
 "Marty" or "Matty," had 
 shown himself a President 
 of high character and dis- 
 tinguished ability. He 
 stood revealed as a states- 
 man, a leader of his party, 
 a man of intellect, cautious 
 but eventually courageous, 
 a master of forcible yet 
 graceful English diction. 
 There had been enough to 
 justify Lam born and 
 Douglas, debating a year 
 
 MARTIN VAN BUREN 
 
 President of the United States, 1837-1841 
 
 For twenty years following 1821, Van Buren 
 served almost continuously in high office: 
 United States Senator, Governor of New 
 York, Secretary of State, Minister to Eng- 
 land (rejected by the Senate), Vice-President, 
 and President. He had aided materially in 
 Jackson's election in 1828 and became Jack- 
 son's political protege and heir. After one 
 term in the White House Van Buren was 
 defeated by Harrison in 1840 and was an 
 unsuccessful aspirant for a third Democratic 
 nomination in 1844. In 1848 he was the can- 
 didate of the Free Soil party. He was born 
 at Kinderhook, New York, in 1782 and died 
 there in 1862, at the age of eighty. 
 
 before the election of 1840, in their enthusias- 
 tic laudation of Van Buren when meeting Lin- 
 coln and others in the forensic tilts at Spring- 
 field. Lamborn's prediction that Van Buren 
 would carry every State in 1840 was the 
 typical expression of those Democrats who 
 believed in their party, in its policies, and in its 
 presidential leader and 
 who abhorred the Whigs 
 and all their ways and 
 works. They thought that 
 the great voting public 
 could never be induced to 
 reverse itself, and to place 
 in power the aristocrats 
 and financiers of the East, 
 led by men like Daniel 
 Webster of Massachusetts, 
 with their western fellow- 
 worshippers at the shrine 
 of plutocracy, like Clay in 
 Kentucky, Harrison in 
 Ohio, and Abraham Lin- 
 coln in Illinois. 
 
 The Democrats had in- 
 deed lost ground in the 
 mid-term elections for 
 Congress in 1838 ; but they 
 thought this merely a tem- 
 porary set-back. They re- 
 nominated Mr. Van Buren, 
 whom they called the "Lit- 
 tle Magician," in a glow 
 of enthusiasm and with no 
 opposition whatever, Ten- 
 nessee and even South 
 Carolina having at length 
 resumed full party co-op- 
 eration. 
 
 No such thing as a Na- 
 tional Democratic Com- 
 mittee had been invented ; 
 
 87 
 
88 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 and the Democrats in the New Hampshire 
 Legislature took it upon themselves to issue 
 a national call for a convention to meet at 
 Baltimore on May 4, 1840. It was to some 
 extent informal, hut three-quarters of the 
 States were regularly represented. Mr. Van 
 Buren was unanimously renominated, and the 
 convention decided to leave the Vice-Presi- 
 dency to be settled in the electoral college. It 
 adopted a platform of nine brief, terse, and 
 unambiguous resolutions — such a platform 
 as might well be studied by platform commit- 
 tees in our own times. 
 
 This Democratic platform of 1840 was for 
 strict construction of governmental functions; 
 against internal improvements at federal ex- 
 pense; unfriendly to a protective tariff; op- 
 posed to a United States Bank as calculated 
 to place the business of the country "within 
 the control of a concentrated money power;" 
 opposed to all efforts to induce Congress to 
 interfere with questions of slavery ; and, final- 
 ly, it reiterated the Democratic tenets which 
 made our land "the asylum of the oppressed 
 of every nation" — an eager bid for the Irish, 
 German and foreign-born vote. 
 
 The National Whig Convention had taken 
 time by the forelock and had met at Harris- 
 
 MATTY'S DREAM 
 President Martin Van Buren dashes down the steps of the White House and in 
 pseudo-Shakespearian language recounts a dream in which he felt himself 
 crushed in a cider press by fiends in the shape of cider barrels. Calhoun (at the 
 left) and Benton try to reassure him. This is a poster cartoon of the campaign 
 of 1840. All the cartoons in this chapter, except the last one. favor Harrison. 
 
 burg, Pennsylvania, five months earlier than 
 the Democratic gathering at Baltimore. Henry 
 Clay was still the popular leader of the Whigs. 
 He was sixty-two years old, and had been in 
 the forefront of politics and statesmanship for 
 more than thirty years. He would have been 
 the logical nominee, and the party doubtless 
 came short of its highest duty to itself and to 
 the country in its failure to designate him to 
 make the contest against Van Buren in 1840. 
 But the Whigs at that time were not well knit 
 together in point of convictions, their one 
 strong point of agreement consisting in their 
 opposition to the "Loco-Focos," as for a few 
 years they chose to term the Democrats. 
 
 Clay's views were too positive for the 
 Southern Whigs, and his personal affiliations 
 were temporarily in disfavor (he happened to 
 be a Free-Mason) in Eastern States, then 
 stirred feverishly by the fanatical delusions 
 of the "anti-Masonic" and "Know-Nothing" 
 movements. The convention at Harrisburg 
 held an informal vote as a test of actual pref- 
 erence, and found Clay in the lead. The first 
 regular ballot gave Clay 103, William Henry 
 Harrison 94, and General Winfield Scott 57. 
 After a number of ballots the Harrison vote 
 grew to 148, and Clay's fell to 90, whereupon 
 the convention accepted the 
 Harrison nomination "in a 
 whirlwind of enthusiasm." 
 
 John Tyler of Virginia, 
 who had become momen- 
 tarily popular with the Clay 
 elements of the party, was se- 
 lected for the Vice-Presi- 
 dency. His record was not 
 that of the orthodox Whigs, 
 but he was agreed upon with- 
 out opposition. The conven- 
 tion was, like so many later 
 ones, under the sway of the 
 short-sighted and fallacious 
 idea that it might strengthen 
 the ticket in the South by set- 
 ting up a balance against the 
 sturdy old hero of the anti- 
 slavery Northwest, Tyler 
 himself being an aristocratic 
 planter and slave-owner. 
 
THE BOISTEROUS HARRISON CAMPAIGN 
 
 89 
 
 White siands^mos, Bla/r stands 
 When*fmosfa//s,.JaVj£lair 'U/fien 
 Blairjallsjalls the Globe 'and me 
 along with et- 
 
 .Major Jo, A Dnirnif 
 
 POLITICAL JUGGLERS LOSIINC THEIR BALANCE 
 
 President Van Buren had been nominated for a second term by the Democrats, and General 
 Harrison was the Whig Candidate. Amos Kendall and Francis P. Blair, the most prominent mem- 
 bers of "Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet," were credited with being the real managers of the Democratic 
 party in the Jackson-Van Buren era. Harrison in the above cartoon is upsetting the Democratic 
 regime so long in power. The log cabin and cider barrel played a prominent part in the campaign 
 of 1840. Someone had said that Harrison was more at home in his log cabin with a barrel of cider 
 than he would be in the White House — and the intended slur was turned to good account by the Whigs. 
 
 General William Henry Harrison was born 
 in the famous home of his ancestors, at Berk- 
 eley on the James River, in Virginia. He was 
 the son of the Benjamin Harrison who was a 
 Revolutionary leader and a signer of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence. Young William 
 Henry after studying at Hampden-Sidney 
 College entered the army with a lieutenant's 
 commission at the age of eighteen, and found 
 himself serving as aide-de-camp to General 
 Anthony Wayne in his campaigns against the 
 Indians of Ohio in 1792 and the following 
 years. Such intelligence, capacity and cour- 
 
 age did Harrison exhibit in those trying times 
 of frontier settlement and Indian warfare, 
 that he was made Secretary of the vast North- 
 west Territory in 1798 at the age of twenty- 
 five. The next year he was serving as Terri- 
 torial Delegate at Washington. 
 
 For many years, until 1812, he was Gov- 
 ernor of the Indiana Territory, which until 
 1809 included Illinois and Wisconsin. In 
 his capacity as Governor he lived for some 
 time at the old French village of Vincennes. 
 Also, for years, he was Superintendent of In- 
 dian Affairs ; and although he was not ruthless 
 
go 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE NORTH BEND FARMER «//,/ HIS VISITORS 
 
 Pilgrimages to General Harrison's home at North Bend, Ohio, were a feature of the campaign 
 of 1840. This group of visitors represents merely the imagination of the artist and publisher; 
 they are all Democrats, and Harrison was the nominee of the opposing Whig party. At the left of 
 the group are Francis P. Blair, editor of the Washington Globe, and Postmaster-General Amos 
 Kendall, the two principal advisers of the Democratic administration. The next figure is that of 
 Andrew Jackson, former President. Then comes Martin Van Buren, President and candidate for a 
 second term. Blair is stating that he will report in his paper that he found Harrison drinking and 
 reading abolition tracts, which will kill him politically. Jackson declares it to be "a dirty job ; 
 I don't like it." Van Buren characterizes Harrison as an old fool to live in a log cabin and plow his 
 own ground; "look at me, I roll in riches and live in splendor and laugh at the dear People whom 
 I gull." Harrison himself asks his visitors to accept the fare of the log cabin. "I have no champagne 
 but can give you a mug of good cider and clean beds." Note the fastidious costumes of the visitors 
 
 and the plain garb of the host. 
 
 or aggressive against the resident tribes, he 
 was compelled to protect settlers and to en- 
 force land treaties. 
 
 This made him one of the heroes of border 
 warfare against hostile Indians, the difficulties 
 of the situation being intensified by the fact 
 that intriguing British garrisons had been kept 
 in occupation at Detroit in defiance of the 
 terms of the Peace Treaty of 1783. The seri- 
 ous fact that the British were supplying the 
 Indians with guns and ammunition, and keep- 
 ing them stirred up against the Americans for 
 fully twenty years, was well known to Har- 
 rison. This situation became greatly aggra- 
 vated, as the country was going through the 
 period of increasing disagreement with Great 
 Britain that resulted in the War of 181 2. That 
 
 the high-spirited pioneers had endured so much 
 was due to their lack of numbers.. 
 
 Early in 181 1, Congress had forbidden all 
 trade with Great Britain and her colonies; and 
 the war spirit was even more prevalent in the 
 West than elsewhere. Unquestionably the 
 British had armed the great Chief Tecumseh 
 and his formidable warriors with fresh sup- 
 plies of musketry, powder and ball. Thus 
 General Harrison's victory over Tecumseh at 
 the battle of Tippecanoe Creek in November, 
 181 1, was regarded as the opening of a justifi- 
 able war, the closing episode of which was 
 Jackson's great victory at New Orleans. 
 
 Incidentally, it is to be noted that Harrison's 
 victory which gave him the favorite title of 
 "Tippecanoe" was fought fully half a year be- 
 
THE BOISTEROUS HARRISON CAMPAIGN 
 
 9i 
 
 fore war against Great Britain was actually 
 declared, while the Battle of New Orleans was 
 fought two weeks after the peace treaty had 
 been signed. These two victories had created 
 for their respective heroes that popular avail- 
 ability that carried both of them in due time 
 to the White House. 
 
 Harrison's genuine qualifications, however, 
 had resulted from a lifetime spent in the con- 
 duct of public affairs, while he served as the 
 guiding spirit in the settlement and political 
 organization of the Northwestern States. His 
 Indian fighting, it may be noted, had not com- 
 pleted his military experience. Commissioned 
 as a Major-General, he recaptured Detroit, 
 drove the British across the line into Canada, 
 and defeated General Proctor in a severe fight 
 on British soil, October 5, 1813. After the 
 War of 1 812, General Harrison held public 
 
 ^ov.B«T£o w</ , C/) WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON DlE „ nfR'i-**""' 
 
 Reproduced from a colored lithograph widely circulated 
 at the time of Harrison's death in 1841. He was the first 
 President to die in office. In subsequent chapters will be 
 found other lithographs commemorating the deaths of 
 Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson— 
 the three indicating a prevailing custom. 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 
 
 Ninth President of the United States 
 
 Harrison's early career was in the army, from which he 
 resigned in 1798 at the age of twenty-five. He then be- 
 came Governor of Indiana Territory, a region including 
 Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. An Indian up- 
 rising in 1811 and the War of 1812 brought him back into 
 the army, and he earned promotion to the rank of Major- 
 General. After that he made his home in Ohio, and was 
 elected to the House of Representatives and to the Senate. 
 Twice he was the Whig candidate in opposition to Van 
 Buren, being defeated in 1836 and successful in 1840. He 
 died April 4, 1841, after only one month in the Presidency. 
 
 offices in Ohio, and represented that State in 
 the United States Senate from 1824 to 1828. 
 President John Quincy Adams and Secretary 
 of State Clay then induced him to go to the 
 Republic of Colombia as United States Min- 
 ister, to support the policies of that adminis- 
 tration, following the enunciation of the Mon- 
 roe Doctrine and the Pan-American Congress 
 at Panama, and to advance American interests 
 along the lines that lay so clearly in the ambi- 
 tious plans and programs of Henry Clay. 
 
 The situation was altogether changed, how- 
 ever, by the election of Jackson to the Presi- 
 dency, this resulting in the recall of Harrison 
 from South America in 1829. After almost 
 forty years of strenuous occupation in public 
 capacities, he was glad to retire to his farm at 
 North Bend, Ohio, near Cincinnati. 
 
92 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE TRAP SPRUNG! THE KINDERHOOK FOX CAUGHT! 
 
 SOLD BY HUEBTIB & Co. 104 NASSAD-ST, N. Y. 
 
 Harrison, who is springing the trap with the aid of a hickory limb and a bale of 
 
 cotton, actually carried all the States listed and several others. He received 
 
 a total of 234 electoral votes, against 60 for Van Buren. 
 
 Six years later, however, the exigencies of 
 Whig politics invaded his quiet and pleasant 
 life in the Ohio Valley, and dragged him into 
 the limelight as a Presidential candidate. His 
 defeat by Van Buren in 1836 
 had put an end to the visit- 
 ing delegations that admired 
 his livestock and his crops, 
 and it allowed him a further 
 term for repose and con- 
 templation. But again in 
 1840 he was found the most 
 available candidate for the 
 Whigs, and what had been 
 a relatively calm adventure 
 on the seas of presidential 
 politics was now to be fol- 
 lowed by a second one of a 
 much more tempestuous and 
 exciting character. 
 
 The pilgrimages to North 
 Bend in 1840 were some- 
 what like those of the famous 
 "front porch" campaign of 
 McKinley in 1896. The visi- 
 ble evidences of Harrison's 
 amazing popularity were sur- 
 
 prising to a modest, well- 
 seasoned old gentleman who 
 had never posed as a hero or 
 a popular leader. The out- 
 burst of noisy appreciation 
 that exhibited itself in dem- 
 onstrations of all kinds 
 throughout the country was 
 due rather to circumstances 
 and conditions than to Harri- 
 son's personal magnetism or 
 qualities of statesmanship, 
 although he was a suitable 
 and worthy candidate. He 
 was four years older than 
 Henry Clay, and ten years 
 older than his opponent, 
 President Van Buren. 
 
 I have made it clear that 
 Harrison was a man of 
 sound judgment, good sense, 
 and vast administrative and 
 military experience. He had 
 been identified with the beginnings and the 
 later development of the series of States north 
 of the Ohio River. In some sense he was the 
 embodiment of the principles of the Northwest 
 
 lUcest at NichoU*! Appear! appear! 
 By these two great cabbages crost! 
 By the Slates I've won and loct ! 
 By the great SUB TREASURY nig' 
 By the great MILITIA gag! 
 Great Saotadau*, appear! appear? 
 
 The Little Magician raising the spirit of Santaclaus, 
 
 a la Der Freiscbutz. 
 
 HUESTIS 4 Co. 104 NASSAU STREET, NEW- YORK. 
 
 Van Buren, because of his undeniable astuteness as a politician, was known as 
 
 "The Little Magician" and as "The Kinderhook Fox," from the name of his 
 
 home town in New York. 
 
THE BOISTEROUS HARRISON CAMPAIGN 
 
 93 
 
 Ordinance. Harrison, like 
 Lincoln, was an anti-slavery 
 man, while Tyler his run- 
 ning-mate was by residence, 
 by private interests and by 
 habits of thought a Southern 
 partisan in the steadily wid- 
 ening breach that the slavery 
 question was producing. Like 
 Clay, Lincoln and all the 
 leading Western Whigs, 
 Harrison stood for internal 
 improvements at national ex- 
 pense, believed in protective 
 tariffs, and held unshaken 
 views in favor of a National 
 Bank of the United States. 
 
 A HARD R G A D T () II O E ! 
 
 His nomination, however, 
 was distinctly for the purpose 
 of catching votes, because in 
 the minds of the masses he 
 had always been remem- 
 bered as a hero of the last 
 war against the British. The Whig slogan of 
 that season was "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too!" 
 In their campaigning, the Whigs had taken 
 
 Or, the 'Wliitc Bouse Turnpike, macadamized by the North Benders. 
 
 BOLD BY nOESTIB & Co. 104 MASSAD-SI, N. Y 
 
 The People's Line«.Take care of the Locomotive 
 
 Sold at 104 Sassa*, end IS Dirtiinn Street!, IVew-fork. 
 
 The railroad was still something of a novelty, and was a favorite subject for 
 
 cartoonists. The face on this locomotive is that of Harrison, while Van Buren 
 
 (then President, and a candidate for re-election) is on "Uncle Sam's cab." 
 
 During Van Buren's term as President came the panic of 1837, precipitated 
 largely by acts of his predecessor and of Congress. Van Buren's own plan for a 
 sub-treasury system had been rejected by Congress in 1837 but was adopted in 
 July, 1840, in the height of the campaign. The Whigs made the panic an issue. 
 
 a leaf out of the book of their Democratic 
 opponents. In short, they had undertaken to 
 appear as the party of the people. Harrison 
 suited them as a candidate, 
 for the very reason that he 
 was not too clearly identified 
 in the public mind with those 
 unpopular views held by the 
 "aristocrats" and "monopo- 
 lists" regarding banks and 
 the enlargement of federal 
 functions. The Whig parades 
 and spectacular demonstra- 
 tions, exhibiting log cabins 
 on wheels, cider barrels, and 
 other things suggestive of 
 frontier exploits and experi- 
 ences, were the unprece- 
 dented and long-remembered 
 features of the campaign. 
 
 As it happened, Van Buren 
 was too much the scholarly, 
 mild-mannered, peace-loving 
 gentleman to make a strong 
 appeal to the rip-roaring 
 masses of the American elec- 
 torate of 1840. When the 
 
94 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 T K I. I. (' II A P .M X X T ( If " V 
 
 THE NORTH BEND GAME COCK 
 
 The successful Whig campaign of 1840 was marked by 
 
 new methods which aroused popular enthusiasm — mass 
 
 meetings, parades, slogans. "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," 
 
 the cry of this game cock, has not yet been forgotten. 
 
 votes were counted, only seven States were 
 carried by Van Buren, while nineteen States 
 gave majorities for the Harrison electors. The 
 popular majorities were not large, but they 
 were well distributed. Of the 294 electors, 
 Harrison received the vote of 234, while Van 
 Buren had only 60. 
 
 Lincoln had hoped to be one of the 394 
 members of the Electoral College of 1840, 
 upon whom devolved the constitutional re- 
 sponsibility of selecting a President. He was, 
 indeed, one of the five men on the Whig elec- 
 toral ticket of his State. But Van Buren car- 
 ried Illinois by a popular majority of nearly 
 2,000 votes, in a total vote of 93,000. The 
 total vote in 1836 had been only 33,000, and 
 the relative Democratic majority had been five 
 times as great. This comparison shows not 
 only that Illinois was growing rapidly in popu- 
 lation, but that this growth was of a kind that 
 was building up the Whig party as against the 
 Democrats. 
 
 Mr. Beveridge finds that although Lincoln 
 spoke all over the State, frequently traveling 
 and debating with Douglas, his best work in 
 that fight of 1840 was in organizing county 
 Whig committees everywhere, and seeing that 
 they divided their counties into small districts, 
 checking up all the voters and working on the 
 doubtful cases. While we have less informa- 
 tion than we should wish, we know enough 
 to elaborate extensively Lincoln's own brief 
 statement that he "spent much time and labor" 
 in the campaign. I should be disposed to 
 attach great importance, from Lincoln's own 
 standpoint, to his twofold undertakings in 
 that year of politics. His biographers — in the 
 lack of accessible data — have not drawn upon 
 their imaginations. 
 
 As a stump speaker Lincoln had now dem- 
 onstrated maturely his amazing ability to 
 dwell upon principles, and to deal broadly with 
 facts and statistics, while at the same time he 
 was adapting himself in spontaneous fashion 
 to the moods of popular audiences, responsive 
 to their liking for amusing anecdotes and 
 clever retorts. But, besides this, he had dem- 
 onstrated his talent for party organization, 
 and for those careful and thorough methods 
 that are now the familiar practice of all party 
 
 HARRISON'S HOME IN VINCENNES, INDIANA 
 
 Where he lived as Governor of Indiana Territory from 
 
 1801 to 1811, when he defeated the Indians in the famous 
 
 battle of Tippecanoe and was placed in command of troops 
 
 in the Northwest during the War of 1812. 
 
THE BOISTEROUS HARRISON CAMPAIGN 
 
 95 
 
 GOING UP SALT RIVER 
 
 President Van Buren stands on the bank while Clay, Webster, and Wise ride the Harrison horse- 
 with the familiar barrel of hard cider — up the river that signifies political defeat. 
 
 machines. He was taking his natural place as 
 the strongest and most responsible party leader 
 
 in a rapidly developing State that was fast 
 assuming a pivotal character. 
 
 THE RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON AT NORTH BEND, OHIO 
 After a career of twenty years as Governor of a vast region known as Indiana Territory, and follow- 
 ing subsequent service in Indian uprisings and the War of 1812, Harrison had settled down to the life 
 of a farmer in Ohio. For nearly thirty years thereafter he lived at North Bend, in Hamilton County, 
 on the Ohio River, in the southwestern corner of that State. In this house, also, William Henry 
 Harrison's grandson, Benjamin Harrison (President from 1889 to 1893), was born in 1833. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 A President Without a Party 
 
 Lincoln warns against injurious partisanship — Tyler becomes Presi- 
 dent through the death of Harrison, and abandons Whig doctrines — 
 The Cabinet, except Webster, resign 
 
 Early in 1841 Lincoln's service in the 
 Legislature had come to an end. Mr. 
 Beveridge — himself a product of Illi- 
 nois and Indiana, with talents similar to Lin- 
 coln's in point of capacity for the firm grasp 
 and lucid presentation of 
 principles, and also for 
 the use of the methods of 
 practical politics — has 
 gone more thoroughly 
 than preceding biograph- 
 ers into the study of Lin- 
 coln's career in the State 
 Legislature. No one could 
 have appreciated more 
 fully than Mr. Beveridge 
 the possibilities for train- 
 ing in all the tasks of 
 government that lay in 
 the work of the Legisla- 
 ture of a great State in 
 its formative period. 
 
 It is probably true that 
 in the fundamentals of 
 statesmanship Mr. Lin- 
 coln had acquired a more 
 valuable experience by 
 virtue of his four terms 
 in the Legislature than he 
 would have gained at 
 
 Washington if he had 
 served those same two- 
 year periods in Congress. 
 At Washington, he would 
 have been drawn more 
 closely into the details of 
 federal government and 
 the personalities of party 
 controversy. He would 
 doubtless have attained a 
 national reputation ear- 
 lier. But, remaining in 
 96 
 
 JOHN TYLER 
 
 President of the United States, 1841-1845 
 
 When William Henry Harrison died, after only a 
 month in the White House, Tyler became President 
 and served for the remainder of the term. He was 
 the first Vice-President thus to be elevated to the 
 presidency. He was a Virginia lawyer who had 
 been elected to the legislature at the age of twenty- 
 one, and whose public career had included service 
 as Representative in Congress, Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, and United States Senator. His had always 
 been a stormy political career, and in the presi- 
 dential office he was repudiated by the party which 
 had elected him. He presided over the Peace Con- 
 vention called by Virginia in February, 1861, in a 
 futile effort to avert the impending crisis. When 
 Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861 Tyler was 
 elected to the Confederate House of Representa- 
 tives, but died early in the following year before 
 taking his seat. 
 
 Illinois, he was in a position to study national 
 questions with more calmness and detachment. 
 He was actually debating these issues with a 
 better grasp of underlying principles than was 
 shown by other public men of Illinois who 
 were representing the 
 State at Washington. 
 They were so close to 
 daily maneuvers that the 
 dust of conflict was in 
 their eyes. To change 
 the figure of speech, they 
 could not always see the 
 woods for the density of 
 the undergrowth in which 
 they were entangled. 
 
 When it came to mat- 
 ters of public business, 
 there was much to be 
 learned in dealing with 
 the immense number of 
 questions always pending 
 in the Illinois Legisla- 
 ture. It has often been 
 observed as regards 
 European politics that 
 the really responsible 
 statesmen of small coun- 
 tries have had a broad 
 and also a profound de- 
 velopment of character, 
 capacity and wisdom, 
 such as one seldom finds 
 in the official groups of 
 a great empire. Mr. 
 Beveridge has done well, 
 therefore, to study the 
 records at Springfield, 
 and to make extensive re- 
 search into the part that 
 Lincoln had taken pre- 
 vious to 1843 in the gov- 
 
TYLER: A PRESIDENT WITHOUT A PARTY 
 
 97 
 
 Tho' Swing StcoTTrfa 
 
 Don' Wf bl>er SrtofSiott Ph/Stnon fi'^D'Nanlry Pmwbnt Harmon M*v Nfp*t*> £ Cta-o 
 
 DEATH OF HARRISON , APRIL. 4-. A.D. 184.1. 
 
 ish you to underaland the true principles of the Government. I wish them carried out I ask nothing more 
 
 rt./Cttfrrv* 014111',/' Cf 
 
 William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia one month after his inauguration, the first President to 
 die in office. The persons grouped about his bedside are: Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury; 
 Daniel Webster, Secretary of State ; the physician ; the Rev. Dr. Hawley ; the President's niece and 
 nephew ; and in the doorway Francis Granger, Postmaster-General. The painting on the wall is a 
 portrait of the President himself. This death scene is reproduced from a large lithograph in posses- 
 sion of the author, which was widely circulated throughout the country for framing and hanging 
 in the homes of Harrison's admirers, especially in Ohio and the West. 
 
 ernmental affairs of the State of Illinois. 
 The campaign for the Presidency in the 
 year 1844 had begun as soon as the votes were 
 counted in 1840. The Democrats were both 
 surprised and angry at the sweeping success 
 of Harrison. Far from abandoning their de- 
 feated candidate, they rallied with remarkable 
 conviction and enthusiasm about the trailing 
 banner of Van Buren. The Democratic mem- 
 bers of practically every Legislature in the 
 Union held caucuses within a few weeks and 
 announced their support of Van Buren for 
 1844. This was happening while the kindly 
 and competent little gentleman from Kinder- 
 hook, New York, was serving the four months 
 that remained of his term in the White House 
 after the shock of his defeat. 
 
 The Whigs, on the other hand, having 
 gained their victory were awaiting the fourth 
 of March, 1841, for which date they were 
 planning a tremendous demonstration at 
 Washington on Inauguration Day. Jackson 
 had loaded the civil service with Democrats; 
 and the growth of public business had given 
 Van Buren opportunities to appoint many 
 more of the faithful, who were eager to feed 
 from the public crib. Naturally, the Whig 
 henchmen were similarly greedy and expect- 
 ant. They were arriving at Washington by 
 every means of conveyance, to be on hand with 
 their applications for jobs. 
 
 The only state paper attributable to Presi- 
 dent Harrison in the four brief weeks of his 
 Chief Magistracy was his conciliatory and 
 
98 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 dignified inaugural address, with its allu- 
 sions to Roman history, and its air of sage 
 and reflective benevolence. In that document 
 he deprecated the use of the veto power by 
 Presidents, and begged parties to take a less 
 violent attitude toward one another. A toil- 
 some public career of half a century had left 
 his physical vitality impaired; and the pres- 
 sure of his new responsibilities was beyond his 
 limited power of endurance. He died on 
 April 4, exactly a month after he had taken 
 the oath of office. 
 
 It might prove to be well in every presiden- 
 tial year if both major parties should take to 
 heart President Harrison's warning against 
 the evils of excessive partisanship. Several 
 sentences in his address should be kept current 
 as a legacy to party leaders, not only in the 
 United States but in all other democratic coun- 
 tries. "To me it appears perfectly clear," 
 said President Harrison in referring to party 
 strifes then resounding throughout the land, 
 "that the interest of the country requires that 
 the violence of the spirit by which those par- 
 ties are at this time governed, must be greatly 
 mitigated, if not entirely extinguished, or 
 consequences will ensue which are appalling 
 to be thought of. If parties in a republic are 
 necessary to secure a degree of vigilance suf- 
 ficient to keep the public functionaries within 
 the bounds of law and duty, at that point their 
 usefulness ends. Beyond that they become 
 destructive of public virtue, the parent of a 
 spirit antagonistic to that of liberty, and 
 eventually its inevitable conqueror." 
 
 Of Mr. Lincoln it may be said, as of Presi- 
 dent Harrison, that his partisanship was never 
 of a destructive character, but always subordi- 
 nated to his regard for the welfare of the 
 country. Moreover, it was always so ex- 
 pressed as to keep the friendly good-will of 
 his fellow-citizens regardless of party lines. 
 
 In the session of the Illinois Legislature 
 that came to an end March i, 1841, three days 
 before Harrison's inauguration, there had been 
 a terrific struggle over legislation reorganiz- 
 ing the judiciary of the State, intended to 
 throw that co-ordinate branch of the govern- 
 ment into subjection to the personal and po- 
 litical objects of the Democratic majority in 
 
 the law-making body. A debate lasting many 
 days, in which men of remarkable ability and 
 of future fame took leading parts, was char- 
 acteristic of the discussions of institutional 
 problems that were training many others be- 
 sides Abraham Lincoln in western legislatures. 
 Finding themselves unable to break down 
 the Democratic majority that was forcing this 
 unsound measure upon the State, a group of 
 Whig members issued "An Appeal to the Peo- 
 ple of the State of Illinois." Mr. Lincoln was 
 one of the six members of the committee on 
 behalf of the Whigs of the Legislature who 
 prepared and sent out the address. Messrs. 
 Nicolay and Hay present the document as of 
 Lincoln's authorship. In any case, it repre- 
 sented his sentiments ; and — quite apart from 
 its extended review of the exact situation then 
 existing as regards the present and prospective 
 organization of the law courts of Illinois — it 
 contains a plea for the dignity and the high 
 functions of an independent judiciary. It 
 might well be republished from time to time, 
 in view of attacks upon the Federal courts and 
 the occasional injection of politics into the 
 selection of judges and the organization of 
 judiciary systems under the several State gov- 
 ernments. As a warning against undue and 
 injurious partisanship in the affairs of the 
 State, especially at a time when economic con- 
 ditions had been so desperate by reason of the 
 panic of 1837, the following sentences, attrib- 
 uted to Lincoln, may well be compared with 
 those which I have quoted from President 
 Harrison's address : 
 
 It was not expected by you that the spirit of party 
 would take the lead in the councils of the State, and 
 make every interest bend to its demands. Nor was 
 it expected that any party would assume to itself 
 the entire control of legislation, and convert the 
 means and offices of the State, and the substance of 
 the people, into aliment for party subsistence. 
 Neither could it have been expected by you that 
 party spirit, however strong its desires and unrea- 
 sonable its demands, would have passed the sanctu- 
 ary of the Constitution, and entered with its 
 unhallowed and hideous form into the formation of 
 the judiciary system. 
 
 The Vice-President, John Tyler, had not 
 yet arrived at Washington from his home in 
 Virginia when the members of the Harrison 
 
TYLER: A PRESIDENT WITHOUT A PARTY 
 
 99 
 
 REQUESTING HIM TO RESIGN. 
 
 Tyler — who is portrayed here as stepping out of the presidential chair — was elected to the Vice- 
 Presidency in 1840 as a Whig, and almost immediately became President through the death of Harri- 
 son. But he had supported Jackson in 1828, had been the vice-presidential nominee of disaffected 
 Democrats in 1836, and his principles were largely Democratic. After he had vetoed important bills 
 passed by the Whig majority in Congress in 1842, the party disclaimed him and the Cabinet resigned. 
 This is a cartoon put out by the supporters of Henry Clay during the presidential campaign that 
 followed. Clay had led the Whigs in Congress, in framing the legislation that Tyler vetoed, and he 
 became the party nominee for President. Clay did not step into the presidential chair, however, as 
 this cartoonist had indicated, for he lost the election. James K. Polk, who stands at the left of the 
 platform, was elected President. Next to him is his running-mate for Vice-President, George M. 
 Dallas, and at the extreme left is Andrew Jackson, idol of the Democratic party. 
 
 Cabinet announced to the country the death of 
 the President. Mr. Harrison had made Daniel 
 Webster of Massachusetts Secretary of State ; 
 Thomas Ewing of Ohio, Secretary of the 
 Treasury; John Bell of Tennessee, Secretary 
 of War; John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, At- 
 torney-General ; George E. Badger of North 
 Carolina, Secretary of the Navy ; and Francis 
 Granger of New York, Postmaster-General. 
 It has been said of him that in selecting these 
 gentlemen for the heads of departments, he 
 had "singled out for members of his official 
 household, regardless of their rivalries, the 
 statesmen who had stood in the front ranks 
 
 of the government opposition during the past 
 twelve years." 
 
 It must not be supposed that Harrison had 
 slighted Henry Clay, his disappointed rival 
 for the nomination. He had originally planned 
 that Clay should be Secretary of State, and 
 that Webster, who had served as chairman of 
 the Senate Committee on Finance, should head 
 the Treasury Department. Harrison had ac- 
 tually gone to Frankfort, Kentucky, soon after 
 his election, to confer with Clay and to offer 
 him the leading position in the Cabinet. But 
 Clay declared that he preferred to remain at 
 his post of leadership in the Senate, and urged 
 
IOO 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 that Webster was the massive and powerful 
 Whig statesman whose abilities ought to be 
 recognized by appointment as Secretary of 
 State. Mr. Crittenden was the junior Senator 
 from Kentucky, and it has been said that he 
 entered the Cabinet as a sort of proxy for the 
 real head of the Whig party. John Bell of 
 Tennessee had been a Jackson Democrat, but 
 had drifted — through earlier support of Judge 
 White — into affiliation with the Whigs. 
 
 John Tyler's assumption of the Presidency 
 afforded the first occasion for the discovery 
 that it might be well for political parties to be 
 sure they know their man when they are select- 
 ing a running-mate for a presidential nom- 
 inee. Mr. Tyler was an excellent gentleman, 
 and his address to the people of the United 
 States upon taking office was reassuring, espe- 
 
 cially upon the point of the "spoils system." 
 He promised to remove no incumbent who 
 had faithfully and honestly acquitted himself 
 of the duties of his office, except in cases of 
 active and objectionable partisanship. But 
 President Tyler immediately found it requisite 
 to focus his attention upon the ever-recurring 
 questions of fiscal policy. He supported the 
 repeal of the Sub-Treasury law (which, how- 
 ever, was re-enacted five years later under 
 President Polk, in 1846). But he declined to 
 favor the chartering of a new central Bank of 
 the United States, unless with severe and un- 
 precedented restrictions. He asserted his con- 
 victions in his veto message, August 16, 1841, 
 when he refused to approve "an act to incor- 
 porate the subscribers to the Fiscal Bank of 
 the United States," which had originated in 
 
 THE MAN WOT DRIVES THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 The cry that the other side was trying to destroy the Constitution was raised continuously by both 
 parties during this period. Clay had to his credit two famous compromises by which disunion had 
 been averted, and was yet to have a third. With his running-mate in the campaign of 1844, Theo- 
 dore Frelinghuysen, he is here driving to Washington. The vehicles in difficulties are those of Tyler, 
 then President, and Van Buren, former President. Neither Tyler nor Van Buren, however, was 
 nominated. It was Polk as victor who drove in style to the White House on March 4, 184S. 
 
TYLER: A PRESIDENT WITHOUT A PARTY 
 
 IOI 
 
 GREAT PRESIDENTIAL STEEPLE CHASE OF 1844 
 
 finning in. — £'d?a's'J<7foJc>/i &t£ JZe/iLzic&y . 
 
 This poster was published early in the season, before the nomination. Van Buren — the second 
 horse — was not chosen by the Democrats. His place in this presidential race was taken by 
 Polk, and Polk won. The horses, from left to right, represent: Henry Clay, the Whig nominee; 
 Martin Van Buren; John C. Calhoun, who is throwing his rider; President Tyler, "old Veto, stuck in 
 the mud" on the river bank; and Cave Johnson, then a member of Congress from Tennessee and 
 later Polk's Postmaster-General. Horse-racing was a universal diversion, with a race track in almost 
 
 every county, east, west, and south. 
 
 the Senate under Clay's leadership and had 
 passed both houses. 
 
 Mr. Tyler declared that he had been elected 
 Vice-President with the full knowledge that he 
 had always been opposed to the use of banks 
 of any kind, national or state, for the govern- 
 ment's fiscal operations. Two days after 
 the veto, Secretaries Ewing, Bell, Crittenden, 
 and Badger resigned from the Cabinet, with 
 Granger at once following. Webster, who 
 took the view that the foreign relations of the 
 country were not involved in the disputes over 
 the bank bill, alone kept his post. Mr. Tyler 
 was getting his seat in the saddle. He meant 
 to be President in his own right, and not be 
 the rubber-stamp for a government by Har- 
 rison's surviving Cabinet. It was evident that 
 he must either form his own Cabinet, or else 
 subject himself to the domination of statesmen 
 who would have been in perfect accord with 
 Mr. Harrison, who had selected them, but who 
 
 could not sharply reverse their mature views 
 of financial policies to oblige an accidental 
 President. 
 
 Mr. Tyler, moreover, had at once sur- 
 rounded himself with a group of admirable 
 and scholarly Virginia gentlemen who were 
 called his "kitchen cabinet;" and their private 
 influence at the White House had not pleased 
 the official Whig Cabinet. Mr. Webster, who 
 was hoping to settle the Northeast boundary 
 dispute with Great Britain, concerned himself 
 as little as possible with the Cabinet upheavals. 
 As between President Tyler and Secretary 
 Ewing, it was in point of fact a question as to 
 which one ought to be responsible for the finan- 
 cial policies. Ewing knew more about finance, 
 but Tyler was the constitutional executive ; 
 and he established a precedent that has been 
 maintained. The new Cabinet selected by 
 Tyler was made up of men not so conspicuous 
 as those who had resigned. Webster held on 
 
102 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 for nearly two years longer, but left the Cab- 
 inet in May, 1843. He had lost influence with 
 his own party, while disagreeing with Tyler. 
 Never at any time during the Tyler admin- 
 istration did the Cabinet situation become sta- 
 bilized. Two members of the Cabinet were 
 killed by the explosion of a gun on a naval 
 vessel on Chesapeake Bay. Southern Demo- 
 crats were named to fill one vacancy after an- 
 other. Ultimately, John C. Calhoun of South 
 Carolina was offered the post of Secretary of 
 State, and James K. Polk was invited to enter 
 the Cabinet. For some reason Polk declined. 
 But Calhoun accepted, though with evident 
 hesitancy because he had his own presidential 
 aspirations, and he did not wish to be com- 
 mitted to the renomination of President Tyler. 
 
 I have brought forward these names, and 
 given due attention to the Washington situa- 
 tion, because the men and the measures of the 
 Tyler period were of vital interest to Lin- 
 coln, who was preparing to take a great part 
 in the campaign of 1844. The self-assertion 
 of President Tyler, and his unqualified dissent 
 from the doctrines and positions of the Whig 
 party to which he had owed his election, re- 
 sulted in the further strengthening of Henry 
 Clay as the pre-eminent national leader of the 
 Whig party, and by far the most influential 
 statesman of the entire country. Lincoln had 
 always been a devoted admirer of the brilliant 
 Kentuckian, and was preparing to do his ut- 
 most to aid in the nomination of Clay and his 
 election to the Presidency. 
 
 Jten-itescr-ypt Animate '0rte ef them, ts 
 cenfrnttafty &a*u/inp a&out mtrrt drops f 
 anaf fife oMtr *s y*//tny aioui efiSuniert 
 antt nuf/t/i'cafe'on ■' 
 
 THE HUNTER OF KENTUCKY. 
 
 Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, Whig nominees for President 
 and Vice-President in 1844, are pictured as ridding the country of the most prominent Democrats. 
 The reader will have noticed that all the cartoons in this chapter, dealing with the campaign of 1844, 
 are pro-Clay. Those in the previous chapter, concerned with the campaign of 1840, similarly fav- 
 ored the Whig candidate, Harrison. Doubtless the Whigs were the better patrons of the publishers 
 of these lithographed poster caricatures. 
 
/rffapflfX kf^Jil Cotmf 
 
 C LEANSING THE A UGE AN STABLE 
 
 *rd*if Ir jr- adeftrnf*** ■ 
 
 LT^&eJU^U* ■'■■ w ~ A ... - M. /:,.... -r JU^MtO? PS at H Y-, 
 
 The Whigs are doing the cleaning. Clay and Frelinghuysen, candidates for President and Vice- 
 President, are tossing their Democratic opponent out of the window. Henry A. Wise, then a Whig 
 Congressman from Virginia, afterwards Democratic Governor of Virginia, is refusing entrance to 
 Madam Texas. But this election of 1844 had a different result ; the Democrats won, Polk was elected, 
 and Texas was admitted to the Union in 184S. Calhoun holds the Kinderhook Fox, Van Buren. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 Clay Loses His Third Campaign 
 
 Polk emerges as the first "dark horse" candidate — Texas and Oregon 
 
 the issues, in an era of expansion — Lincoln explains his opposition to 
 
 the annexation of Texas 
 
 Lincoln was now ready to go to Congress, 
 but there were other capable and aspir- 
 ing Whigs who were practising law at 
 the State capital and seeking political honors. 
 He had been married in 1842; and such were 
 the connections of his Kentucky bride that it 
 was repeated everywhere, throughout Sanga- 
 mon County and the several other counties that 
 formed the Congressional district, that "Abe 
 Lincoln had married into the aristocracy." 
 Furthermore, the religious denominations 
 were playing politics, and Lincoln was not a 
 member of any church. His wife's family 
 
 connections were with the less popular de- 
 nominations, the Episcopalians and the Pres- 
 byterians. The so-called "Campbellites" 
 (more properly known as the Disciples or 
 Christians ) held the foremost place among the 
 plain people, and the Methodists, of course, 
 were hardly less numerous. J. J. Hardin was 
 a strong and able candidate, while Edward D. 
 Baker was also a man of ability who had the 
 advantage of the Campbellite support. 
 
 Perhaps Lincoln was too confident ; but, in 
 any case, Sangamon County gave its prelim- 
 inary preference to Baker, and appointed Lin- 
 
 103 
 
104 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ^ 9 '^■f m W ^^^ r f^^> (B?tA*Eurruit'3<&ufcti 
 tyfo i$*W\ if A& <kej gofcrTexcui . 
 
 £- 
 
 POLITICAL COOT F/affTERS . 
 
 During the early part of the campaign of 1844 Clay seemed certain to win over Polk, because of his 
 
 vastly greater reputation and wide personal popularity. This poster caricature places Clay on top 
 
 in the contest. In the background, are from left to right: Webster, Tyler, Van Buren, Calhoun, 
 
 Benton, and Jackson, with the man at the extreme right not identified. 
 
 coin as one of the delegates to the district 
 convention to work for Baker's nomination. 
 Lincoln's old home, the village of New Salem, 
 was now in the county of Menard, which had 
 been formed by a division of the original Sang- 
 amon County. Menard's first choice in the 
 convention was its old resident, Lincoln. But 
 the convention compromised by nominating 
 the third candidate, J. J. Hardin, disappointing 
 the two active rivals, Baker and Lincoln. It 
 came to be understood by candidates, and per- 
 haps throughout the district, that the Whigs 
 were to give these three aspirants successive 
 terms at Washington. Baker came second in 
 the sequence, and was elected in 1844, while 
 Lincoln was obliged to wait for his turn until 
 1846. Mr. Beveridge is in his element in 
 recounting Lincoln's ups and downs in that 
 period as an aspirant for Congressional hon- 
 
 ors. We shall see, as our narrative proceeds, 
 that Lincoln lost nothing by waiting. 
 
 He was, however, drawn deeply into the 
 presidential struggle of 1844. John Tyler's 
 course had served to strengthen the hold 
 of Clay upon the Whigs of the country, 
 while the Democrats had not been harmonized 
 by the strange proceedings of a President who 
 had been elected on the Whig ticket but had 
 shown strong Democratic leanings without be- 
 coming a follower of Jackson and Van Buren. 
 Among the Whigs every doubt about the nom- 
 ination of Henry Clay had disappeared ; and 
 no party was ever more united or more ardent 
 in the support of a presidential candidate. 
 
 The Whigs met at Baltimore on the first of 
 May, 1844. This was the most complete and 
 symmetrical national convention that had ever 
 been held by either party. All business was 
 
CLAY LOSES HIS THIRD CAMPAIGN 
 
 105 
 
 transacted in a single session, Clay having 
 been nominated by acclamation with no other 
 name presented. Several ballots resulted in 
 the choice of Theodore Frelinghnysen for 
 Vice-President. This time the Whigs knew 
 both candidates thoroughly, and commended 
 them, with full confidence in their devotion 
 to Whig principles. The third and fourth 
 resolutions were eulogistic first of Henry Clay 
 and then of Mr. Frelinghuysen. The Whig 
 doctrines were all summed up in the second 
 resolution ; and since Lincoln was making his 
 way forward in public life on this platform 
 
 FBEEKIItDl CHAMPION 
 
 Polk was elected President in this campaign of 1844. When 
 the Democratic convention, after eight ballots, had failed to 
 choose between Van Buren and Cass it turned to Polk — 
 the first "dark horse" in the history of the Presidency. He 
 was born in North Carolina in 179S and educated at the 
 State University. But early in his youth the family moved 
 into Tennessee and the future President began to practice 
 law there in 1820. Three years later he was elected to the 
 legislature and in the following year was sent to Congress. 
 He served in the House for seven terms, the last two as 
 Speaker, and was then chosen Governor of Tennessee, in 
 1839. His administration as President was notable for 
 the winning of the war with Mexico and the settlement of 
 the Oregon boundary dispute with England. Polk died at 
 Nashville in 1849, three months after his term expired. 
 
 f&f/t irtiytrmrmiinJU/Y 
 
 2J*i0id*aiSJUvtJt.W/alA 
 
 Eleventh President of the United States . 
 
 The reader will notice an ingenious device in this campaign 
 portrait which explains what appears to be an erroneous 
 statement that Henry Clay was the eleventh President of 
 the United States. In the original lithograph, considerably 
 larger, the eye more readily discovers two additional 
 words in the caption, on a line by themselves: "Nominated 
 for." The device appealed to the confident admirers of a 
 candidate, and to the thrifty who after election — if their 
 candidate won — found it easy to eliminate the two words 
 in small type and hang the portrait on the walls of the 
 home during the Presidential term. The colored litho- 
 graphs reproduced in these early chapters are all from the 
 private collection of the author. 
 
 we may well quote the plank in full. It stands 
 recorded as follows : 
 
 Resolved that these principles may be summed up 
 as comprising : A well regulated currency ; a tariff 
 for revenue to defray the necessary expenses of the 
 government, and discriminating with special refer- 
 ence to the protection of the domestic labor of the 
 country ; the distribution of the proceeds from the 
 sales of the public lands ; a single-term for the Presi- 
 dency ; a reform of executive usurpations ; and gen- 
 erally such an administration of the affairs of the 
 country as shall impart to every branch of the pub- 
 lic service, the greatest practical efficiency, con- 
 trolled by a well-regulated and wise economy. 
 
 It was remarked in the previous chapter that 
 after Mr. Van Buren's defeat in 1840, Demo- 
 
io6 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 cratic caucuses throughout the nation had at 
 once declared their intention to nominate him 
 again in 1844. This purpose had not been 
 abandoned, and the real head of the Demo- 
 cratic party was to have been pitted against 
 the actual leader of the Whigs. But some- 
 thing happened, as a bolt out of clear sky, 
 that shifted the issues and caused the rejec- 
 tion of Van Buren. The Democrats brought 
 a "dark horse" to the front for the first time 
 in our presidential history, and wrecked Henry 
 Clay's life-long ambition to serve a term in 
 the White House. 
 
 On the twenty-second of April, President 
 Tyler had sent to the Senate a treaty with the 
 Republic of Texas, providing for the annexa- 
 tion of that imperial domain by the United 
 States. The United States had acquired some 
 
 pretentions as to Texas in making the Louisi- 
 ana Purchase of 1803, Spain and France not 
 being in agreement over the line between 
 French and Spanish possessions in North 
 America. But when we acquired Florida by 
 purchase from Spain in 1819 we definitely 
 relinquished our claims to Texas. Mean- 
 while, Mexico had been successful in its strug- 
 gle for independence ; and by the Treaty of 
 Cordova, between Mexico and Spain (Febru- 
 ary, 1821), Texas with Coahuila had become 
 one of the constituent states of the federated 
 republic of Mexico. 
 
 After the Missouri Compromise of 1820, 
 Southern leaders had begun to look enviously 
 toward Texas as their one great opportunity 
 to extend slave territory. Many land grants 
 in Texas were sought for, and some large ones 
 
 MATTY MEETING THE TEXAS QUESTION. 
 
 Martin Van Buren, who had been elected President in 1836 and defeated by Harrison in 1840, was 
 a receptive candidate for a third nomination in this year 1844. He had a majority on the first ballot, 
 in the convention, but failed to receive the necessary two-thirds vote. He had declared against the 
 annexation of Texas and thus alienated some Southern support. Madam Texas in this cartoon is a 
 fearful creature, in contrast with the attractive person shown on the opposite page. All the men 
 here are Democrats. Van Buren ("Matty" being a nickname from Martin) is being prodded by 
 Andrew Jackson. Texas is carried on a platform by Senators Benton and Calhoun. At the right 
 are the convention nominees for President and Vice-President, James K. Polk and George M. Dallas. 
 
CLAY LOSES HIS THIRD CAMPAIGN 
 
 107 
 
 virtuous mum: oil set a thief to catch a thief. 
 
 Texas had revolted from Mexico in 1836 and established itself as an independent republic. The 
 question of admission to the Union, or annexation, was the leading issue of the campaign of 1844. 
 Polk and Dallas, the Democratic nominees, declared for annexation, while Clay and the Whigs were 
 against it as not fair to Mexico. In this poster caricature Clay is represented as refusing to have any- 
 thing to do with Madam Texas and gamblers, horse-racers, and licentious profligates. The Quaker 
 retorts: "Softly, softly, friend Harry. Thou hast mentioned the very reason that we cannot vote for 
 thee!" Clay was widely accused of being fond of all the relaxations and amusements of his day. 
 Lincoln was a Presidential Elector on Clay's ticket in Illinois in this campaign of 1844, and he spoke 
 for Clay and against the annexation of Texas not only in his own State but in Indiana as well. 
 
 were obtained by Southern Catholics on the 
 ground of religious sympathy, Mexico being 
 under dominant Roman Catholic control. Both 
 Clay and Van Buren, as Secretaries of State — 
 the first in 1827 and the second in 1829 — had 
 offered increasing sums of money to Mexico 
 for the purchase of Texas, but without results. 
 This Texas question was leading us directly 
 into two great wars, first that which President 
 Polk directed against Mexico, and second that 
 which President Lincoln waged for the preser- 
 vation of the Union and the restoration of the 
 Stars and Stripes in Texas as everywhere else; 
 therefore it may be worth our while to record 
 several convenient dates and facts. 
 
 For a dozen years after the Mexican inde- 
 pendence of 182 1, Southern land-seekers and 
 adventurers of a filibustering tendency had 
 been forcing their way into Texas. In 1833 
 Texas separated from Coahuila and set itself 
 up as a full State in the Mexican federal sys- 
 tem. But two years later a dictatorship was 
 in power at Mexico City, state sovereignty 
 was annulled by the Mexican Congress, and 
 all the state constitutions were declared non- 
 existent. This gave Texas its welcome oppor- 
 tunity to secede and proclaim its independence. 
 
 General Sam Houston, another of the young 
 men from older sections who were seeking 
 fame and fortune by leadership in law, pol- 
 
io8 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 SILAS WRIGHT 
 Received the Democratic nomination 
 and declined. Member of New York 
 State Senate, 1823-27, of federal 
 House of Representatives, 1827-29. 
 United States Senator, 1833-44. Gov- 
 ernor of New York, 1845-46. Died in 
 1847, at the age of fifty-two. 
 
 THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN 
 Whig nominee. Senator from New 
 Jersey, 1829-35. Mayor of Newark, 
 1836-39. Chancellor of New York 
 University, 1839-50. President of 
 Rutgers College in New Jersey, 
 1850-62. Died in 1862, at the age of 
 seventy-five. 
 
 GEORGE M. DALLAS 
 Democratic nominee, elected. Mayor 
 of Philadelphia, 1828. Senator from 
 Pennsylvania, 1831-32. Minister to 
 Russia, 1835-39. Vice-President, 
 1845-49. Minister to Great Britain, 
 1856-61. Died in 1864, at the age of 
 seventy-two. 
 
 NOMINATED FOR VICE-PRESIDENT IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 
 
 itics, and amateur soldiery in frontier commu- 
 nities, was the commander of the Texas 
 troops that after a short campaign of four or 
 five weeks defeated a much larger Mexican 
 army led by the President and Dictator, Gen- 
 eral Santa Anna himself. As a war prisoner, 
 the Mexican leader was ready to sign a treaty 
 acknowledging the independence of the Re- 
 public of Texas. Having done this, he was al- 
 lowed to go to the United States, and after 
 some months he returned to Mexico. The 
 treaty that he had signed was not ratified. 
 
 With the incoming of President Van Buren 
 in March, 1837, the United States recognized 
 the independence of Texas and set up diplo- 
 matic connections. England and France took 
 similar steps. Acquiring independence had 
 cost Texas a good deal of money, and the re- 
 sources of the young republic were too little 
 developed to give assurance of solvency. The 
 Mexican population of Texas had been very 
 small, and Americans were running the ex- 
 perimental republic. An immediate attempt 
 to secure annexation (in 1837) had some 
 Southern support, but failed at Washington. 
 
 But the Texans in due time discovered that 
 they possessed an almost infallible remedy for 
 American reluctance in the matter of annexa- 
 tion. They held possession of an area of 
 265,780 square miles, all but a small per- 
 centage of which was public domain in full 
 control of the Texas Congress. Nothing was 
 easier than to issue land warrants in great 
 numbers and to dispose of them throughout 
 the southern half of the United States. As 
 an able writer puts it, the owners of these 
 warrants "were at once converted into advo- 
 cacy of Texas annexation." 
 
 In 1843 it was asserted by a Virginia Con- 
 gressman that if we delayed to annex Texas, 
 Great Britain would be given the opportunity; 
 and we would have no grounds for complaint 
 if we had undertaken to play the part of dog 
 in the manger. General Jackson was still liv- 
 ing, and in March of that year he wrote a letter 
 strongly advocating immediate annexation. 
 
 It had been planned to hold the Democratic 
 convention as early as December, 1843, with 
 Van Buren's nomination thus far uncontested. 
 But it was postponed until May 27, 1844, and 
 
CLAY LOSES HIS THIRD CAMPAIGN 
 
 109 
 
 meanwhile candidates were boldly questioned 
 as to their stand on the Texas question. Van 
 Buren had the courage to part company with 
 his old mentor, Andrew Jackson, and he de- 
 clared himself opposed to annexation in a let- 
 ter of April 20th. Clay had taken the same 
 ground in a letter dated three days earlier. 
 The convention made Van Buren's nomina- 
 tion impossible from the 
 outset by adopting the 
 two-thirds rule that had 
 governed the two pre- 
 ceding conventions. 
 
 The annexation treaty 
 had been negotiated and 
 concluded on the part of 
 the United States by Ty- 
 ler's Secretary of State, 
 the eminent John C. Cal- 
 houn of South Carolina. 
 This was on April 12th, 
 and the Van Buren letter 
 was written on April 
 20th, two days before 
 President Tyler sent the 
 treaty to the Senate. Mr. 
 Van Buren's letter was 
 not, however, given to 
 the public until the 27th, 
 exactly a month before 
 the meeting of the Balti- 
 
 more convention. Tyler 
 may have thought that 
 this would promote his 
 own candidacy, while the 
 faithful Van Burenites 
 regarded the whole af- 
 fair as devised by Cal- 
 houn. Thus the leading 
 organ of the Van Buren Democrats declared- 
 referring to Calhoun — "It is the last card of 
 his desperate competitor, who has been playing 
 for twenty-five years for the Presidency with 
 the frenzy of a gamester." 
 
 Van Buren still had strength, and he would 
 have been nominated on the first ballot but 
 for the adoption of the two-thirds rule, the 
 Southern votes favoring the rule while most 
 of the Northern ones were against it. As Mr. 
 Stanwood remarks, "the conclusion is inevita- 
 
 JOHN C. CALHOUN 
 
 As Secretary of State, Calhoun negotiated the 
 treaty annexing Texas in the year 1844. It was 
 promptly rejected by the Senate, became an is- 
 sue in the campaign, and was then approved by 
 the Senate on March 1, 184S, just before the end 
 of Tyler's administration. Calhoun had been a 
 distinguished member of the House, 1811-17; 
 Secretary of War under Monroe, 1817-25; Vice- 
 President with John Quincy Adams and Andrew 
 Jackson, 1825-37, resigning; Senator, 1832 until 
 his death in 1850, with the exception of a year as 
 Secretary of State during the administration of 
 President Tyler. 
 
 ble that they, the Northern delegates, were 
 willing that he should be sacrificed, but that 
 they did not quite venture to appear with dag- 
 gers in their own hands." Van Buren on the 
 first ballot received 134 votes out of 151 from 
 the Northern States, while there were only 12 
 votes for him out of 105 from the South. He 
 had a clear majority of 26 over all other 
 candidates put together. 
 But he lacked 32 votes of 
 the necessary two-thirds. 
 Lewis Cass of Michigan 
 was second with 83, 
 Richard M. Johnson of 
 Kentucky had 24, James 
 Buchanan of Pennsyl- 
 vania 4, Levi Woodbury 
 of New Hampshire 2, 
 Commodore Stewart of 
 Pennsylvania 1, and John 
 C. Calhoun of South 
 Carolina 6. 
 
 On the second day of 
 the convention, a new 
 name appeared as the 
 eighth ballot was taken. 
 Van Buren had 104, Cass 
 114, and James K. Polk 
 of Tennessee 44. The 
 New York chairman, 
 acting upon instructions, 
 thereupon withdrew the 
 name of Mr. Van Buren 
 and the large New York 
 delegation swung over to 
 Polk. We are told that a 
 "stampede" followed 
 with the result that every 
 delegation changed its 
 vote and Polk was unanimously nominated. 
 Senator Silas Wright of New York was 
 named for Vice-President but refused, this 
 being perhaps the only case of the kind previ- 
 ous to the declaration of Governor Lowden of 
 Illinois at Cleveland in 1924. Senator Wright 
 held the views of Mr. Van Buren ; but George 
 M. Dallas of Pennsylvania — who was ulti- 
 mately selected and became Vice-President — 
 in due time stood with the South on the Texas 
 question. A flourishing Texas city bears his 
 
I 10 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 name and reminds us of the campaign of 1844. 
 
 The platform took a lofty tone and ridiculed 
 the "factitious symbols" (referring to the log- 
 cabins, the rowdy parades, and the hard-cider 
 orgies of the Harrison campaign), and it made 
 appeal to "the intelligence, patriotism and dis- 
 criminating justice of the American people." 
 With a preliminary sentence or two the plat- 
 form of 1840 was readopted. Then followed 
 a resolution against the distribution of the 
 proceeds of the sale of public lands and an- 
 other approving of the veto power, "which has 
 thrice saved the American people from the 
 corrupt and tyrannical domination of the Bank 
 of the United States." 
 
 Next came the really significant plank upon 
 which the campaign was destined to turn. It 
 reads as follows: "Resolved, that our title 
 to the whole of the territory of Oregon is 
 
 clear and unquestionable; that no portion of 
 the same ought to be ceded to England or any 
 other power ; and that the reoccupation of Ore- 
 gon and the reannexation of Texas at the 
 earliest practicable period are great American 
 measures, which this convention recommends 
 to the cordial support of the Democracy of 
 the Union." A resolution expressing esteem 
 for Martin Van Buren was, of course, entirely 
 sincere. The party had set itself to great 
 business, and it had made its nomination of 
 candidates to accord with understandings of 
 the platform. 
 
 A minor party asserted itself in this cam- 
 paign, that of the Abolitionists, who formed 
 what they called the Liberty party, and they 
 named James G. Birney for President and 
 Thomas Morris of Ohio for Vice-President. 
 They adopted a platform of exceedingly great 
 
 
 
 •Uw«/f 
 
 POLITICAL JESUITISM OR INTEREST VERSUS PRINCIPLE 
 
 The two principal figures in this cartoon are Pennsylvanians. At the left is Francis R. Shunk, suc- 
 cessful Democratic candidate for Governor. At the right is George M. Dallas, nominee for Vice- 
 President, put on the ticket to strengthen Democratic chances in the North. The tariff of 1842, which 
 Dallas is shown as endorsing, was a Whig measure strongly opposed by the Southern Democrats. 
 It raised the rates provided by the compromise of 1833, and was widely approved in the North. 
 Two years after this election, when Dallas as Vice-President was presiding in the Senate, he cast the 
 deciding vote to secure the passage of the Democratic tariff of 1846, by which tariff rates were 
 reduced. He thus offended the protectionist industries of his own State of Pennsylvania. 
 
CLAY LOSES HIS THIRD CAMPAIGN 
 
 in 
 
 WJ/Id APPEAL FOR AN EXCISE. 
 
 Theodore Frelinghuysen, nominee for Vice-President on the Whig ticket, is dressed in academic robes 
 with his head in the clouds. At this time he was Chancellor of the University of New York. He 
 appeals here for "an excuse for teaching free-trade doctrines to students in the University, and tariff 
 doctrines to the Whig party, who think it all important." Clay, seated at the dice table in front of 
 President Tyler, suggests: "Never give up, Freely. Do as I did when Walker proved, according to 
 Roosevelt's Mode of Protecting Domestic Industry, that the tariff cannot give protection while we 
 have bank paper to raise prices and induce excessive imports and give foreign nations a bounty — 
 blackguard them when you cannot answer." 
 
 length devoted exclusively to the slavery ques- 
 tion. Mr. Birney was a southern man who 
 had formerly owned slaves in Kentucky and 
 Alabama, but had gone north and established 
 an anti-slavery paper in Ohio. 
 
 Mr. Clay held that we were boldly facing 
 two wars at the same time, one with Great 
 Britain, over the Oregon dispute, and the 
 other with Mexico, that country never having 
 acknowledged the independence of Texas. To 
 assert both territorial claims at the same time 
 was to place ourselves in a position that 
 meant the sacrifice of one or the other, with 
 the possible loss of both. But counsels 
 of prudence meant nothing to the embattled 
 Democrats in 1844. Reckless statesmanship 
 sometimes inflames public opinion to the point 
 of equal recklessness. 
 
 Clay was the most popular public man the 
 country has ever produced, while Polk — 
 against whom nothing could be said — had no 
 personal hold and was unknown to the masses. 
 He had been Speaker of the House at Wash- 
 ington for four years, but more recently he 
 had twice been defeated for the governorship 
 of Tennessee. Like most early Tennesseans, 
 he had been born in North Carolina ; but he 
 had been elected to the Tennessee Legislature 
 in 1823 at the age of twenty-eight. He was in 
 his fiftieth year when he entered upon the 
 Presidency, March 4, 1845. 
 
 The popular vote for presidential electors 
 gave 1,377,243 for Polk, and 1,299,062 for 
 Clay. In the electoral college, however, Polk's 
 vote was 170 and Clay's 105. Maine, New 
 Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania had 
 
112 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 
 gone Democratic. Clay, on the other hand, 
 had carried North Carolina, Kentucky and 
 Tennessee. Of the four Western States, Clay 
 had carried Ohio; but Michigan, Indiana and 
 Illinois had gone for Polk and Dallas. Major- 
 ities in most States had been very small. 
 
 If the Abolitionist vote for Birney in New 
 York had been cast for Clay, it would have 
 turned the thirty-six presidential electors to 
 what was the real anti-slavery side; and this 
 alone would have been sufficient to make Henry 
 Clay President. Similarly, the Abolitionists 
 defeated Clay in Michigan, and practically also 
 in Indiana. Their wrong-headedness and folly 
 had thus brought on the Mexican War, with 
 a series of consequences that plunged us in- 
 evitably into the terrible abyss of the war be- 
 tween the States. 
 
 Mr. Beveridge says that "when the cam- 
 paign came on the ardor of the Whigs knew no 
 bounds. 'Redeem the country,' 'restore pros- 
 
 perity' and, louder than all else, 'Hooray for 
 Clay,' were the war-cries of the Whigs. The 
 Democratic slogans were 'Texas,' 'Oregon,' 
 'Manifest Destiny,' 'Forward,' 'To the West,' 
 and, above all, that stirring, militant demand, 
 'Fifty-four Forty or Fight' — 'War rather 
 than to yield to Great Britain any part of the 
 vast domain below that line, every foot of 
 which, the Democrats claimed, belonged by 
 right to the United States.' Indeed, as a prac- 
 tical influence on voters, American title to the 
 Oregon country was quite as strong a political 
 force in the campaign of 1844 as the annexa- 
 tion of Texas. Already long trains of covered 
 wagons were making their way to the far 
 Northwest." 
 
 Lincoln, as we have already said, was one 
 of the Whig nominees for Presidential elec- 
 tor ; and we have sufficient evidence as to his 
 assiduous efforts to promote Whig success. 
 It is to be regretted that his extemporaneous 
 
 POLK VERSUS WOOL; OR THE HARRY-CANE 
 
 This is a high-tariff Whig cartoon, directed against a free-trade candidate. Polk, the Democratic 
 nominee for President in 1844, is being assailed by the woolly ram, and the tools of various manufac- 
 turing industries that favor a protective tariff. In his predicament the cartoon makes Polk say: 
 "It is my opinion that wool should be duty free." 
 
CLAY LOSES HIS THIRD CAMPAIGN 
 
 ii3 
 
 TARIFF AND TEXAS: TWO ISSUES OF 1844 
 
 For the industrial sections of the North a protective tariff was far more important than the acquisition 
 
 of Texas. In this cartoon Clay rides his sea-shell chariot, flying the tariff banner, in triumph to the 
 
 White House. Polk and Dallas, the Democratic candidates, together with Senator Benton, float on 
 
 the Texas bladders. Van Buren is left to sink or swim by himself. 
 
 speeches were not reported for our benefit, and 
 that if any had been carefully written out by 
 him they had disappeared too soon for use by 
 Nicolay and Hay and have not been discov 
 ered by more recent biographers. Francis F. 
 Browne, in his valuable "Everyday Life of 
 Abraham Lincoln," informs us that "Lincoln 
 canvassed Illinois and a part of Indiana dur- 
 ing the campaign, meeting the chief Demo- 
 cratic speakers, and especially Douglas, in de- 
 bate. While in Indiana he visited the home 
 of his boyhood and met old friends." He made 
 a campaign ; but we have no details. 
 
 At this time it seems undoubtedly true that 
 Lincoln had never met Henry Clay and had 
 never heard him speak. It was two years 
 later, when Lincoln was an expectant candi- 
 date for Congress, that he went to Lexington, 
 heard Clay speak at a public meeting, and vis- 
 ited the great party leader at Ashland. Mr. 
 Clay had known, of course, for years of Lin- 
 coln's Whig activities in Illinois, and especially 
 
 his support of the Clay-Frelinghuysen ticket 
 of 1844. Dr. William E. Barton, in his ex- 
 cellent life of Abraham Lincoln, prints for our 
 benefit a letter of Lincoln's written in October, 
 1845, in which he analyzes in his characteristic 
 way the defection of the New York supporters 
 of the Birney ticket. "If the Whig Aboli- 
 tionists of New York," writes Lincoln, "had 
 voted with us last fall, Mr. Clay would now be 
 President, Whig principles in the ascendant 
 and Texas not annexed ; whereas, by the divi- 
 sion, all that either had at stake in the contest 
 was lost." In a later part of this epistle, Lin- 
 coln makes observations on Texas and the slav- 
 ery question that are so typical of his mentality 
 and so important as looking to his future lines 
 of reasoning and action, that I am glad to 
 quote a long paragraph in full : 
 
 But I will not argue further. I perhaps ought to 
 say that individually I was never much interested 
 in the Texas question. I never could see much 
 good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were 
 
ii4 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 NOT A DRUM WAS HEARD NOR AfUNERAl NOTE 
 AS HIS CORSE TO THE RAMPARTS WE HURRIED_ 
 NOT A LOCO DISCHARGED HIS FAREWEll SHOT 
 O'ERTHE DITCH WHERE OUR HERO WE BURIED. 
 
 It is Van Buren, the Fox, who is being buried. He had served only one term in the White House, 
 being renominated in 1840 but defeated by Harrison, and failing to receive his third nomination in 
 this year 1844 because of his opposition to the annexation of Texas. The grave-diggers are Clay and 
 Webster ; the horse, Andrew Jackson ; the driver, President Tyler ; and the mourners, Benton and 
 Calhoun. With the exception of two words — Loco instead of soldier, and ditch in place of grave — 
 the poetry is the first verse of Charles Wolfe's "Burial of Sir John Moore." 
 
 already a free republican people on our own model. 
 On the other hand, I never could very clearly see 
 how the annexation would augment the evil of slav- 
 ery. It always seemed to me that the slaves would 
 be taken there in about equal numbers, with or 
 without annexation. And if more were taken be- 
 cause of annexation, still there would be just so 
 many the fewer left 
 where they were taken 
 from. It is possibly 
 true, to some extent, 
 with annexation, some 
 slaves may be sent to 
 Texas and continued 
 in slavery that other- 
 wise might have been 
 liberated. To what- 
 ever extent this may 
 be true, I think annex- 
 ation an evil. I hold 
 it to be a paramount 
 duty of us in the free 
 States, due to the 
 Union of the States, 
 
 jPT" 
 
 
 ''^t^ ' v * J 
 
 H 
 
 ®1 f .•'"]$] 
 
 'Pip',. ' -MlS::- o C> ^nfet \.t) \ 
 
 
 
 Mp ' 
 
 3*'.1:-.- -:-.'. "- .,-i:~ v vte.--: ; ■ 
 
 
 ASHLAND, THE HOME OF HENRY CLAY 
 Our illustration is from an old print, showing Ashland as it ap- 
 peared at about the time when Lincoln visited Henry Clay. 
 
 and perhaps to liberty itself (paradox though it may 
 seem), to let slavery in the other States alone; 
 while, on the other hand, I hold it to be equally 
 clear that we should never knowingly lend our- 
 selves, directly or indirectly, to prevent that slav- 
 ery from dying a natural death — to find new places 
 for it to live in, when it can no longer exist in the 
 
 old. Of course I am not 
 now considering what 
 would be our duty in 
 cases of insurrection 
 among the slaves. To 
 recur to the Texas 
 question, I understand 
 the Liberty men have 
 viewed annexation as 
 a much greater evil 
 than ever I did ; and 
 I would like to con- 
 vince you, if I could, 
 that they could have 
 prevented it, without 
 violation of principle, 
 if they had chosen. 
 
DEATH OF HENRY CLAY, JUNIOR, IN THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Although the Whigs and their presidential candidate, Henry Clay, had opposed 
 the annexation of Texas and the beginning of the Mexican War, they supported 
 the war loyally after it had begun. Speaking in the House on July 27, 1848, 
 Lincoln said: "You have constantly had our votes here for all the necessary 
 supplies. And more than this, you have had the services, the blood, and the 
 lives of our political brethren in every trial and on every field. . . . Clay and 
 Webster each gave a son, never to be returned." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 War "with Mexico ~ The Oregon Crisis 
 
 Lincoln is nominated and elected to Congress — Admission of Texas 
 
 as a State results in war with Mexico — Disputes with England over 
 
 the Oregon boundary 
 
 Startling chapters in the history of 
 American expansion were writing them- 
 selves in the news of the clay, and Lin- 
 coln was eager to he at Washington in the 
 thick of these great affairs. Having been dis- 
 appointed in his hopes of a nomination in 1842 
 and again in 1844, he took unwonted pains in 
 advance of the district convention of 1846 to 
 forestall the possible competition of his able 
 and popular rival, J. J. Hardin. Baker regarded 
 himself as under agreement to step aside 
 in favor of Lincoln. Hardin had previously 
 served a term, and Baker was now the incum- 
 bent. For some time it was doubtful what 
 steps Hardin would take, but at length he 
 announced his candidacy. He proposed to 
 Lincoln that they should hold what we would 
 
 now call a primary election throughout the dis- 
 trict, to name the candidate by direct choice of 
 Whig voters. But Lincoln refused, and de- 
 clared that he was satisfied with the convention 
 system by which Hardin and Baker had been 
 named in succession. 
 
 So assiduous was Lincoln's canvass, and so 
 thorough his organization work, that Hardin 
 withdrew before the convention was held ; and 
 on May 1, 1846, Lincoln was nominated, with 
 no other name presented. The platform took 
 the orthodox Whig positions on the tariff and 
 the bank question, but ignored the new and 
 acute issues that were agitating Washington 
 and the country. 
 
 Ten days after Lincoln's nomination on May 
 1st, President Polk sent a message to Con- 
 
 "5 
 
n6 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 *£gX- 
 
 FAIR ROSAMOND; OR THE ASHBURTON TREATY 
 From Punch (London), November, 1842 
 
 Before the Northwest boundary was settled, the Northeast 
 boundary — between Maine and Nova Scotia — was fixed by 
 the Ashburton treaty. Great Britain sent Baron Ashburton 
 as special commissioner, while the United States was rep- 
 resented by Daniel Webster, Secretary of State. It is worth 
 noting that this treaty also provided that each nation 
 should maintain a squadron on the coast of Africa for 
 suppression of the slave trade. The cartoon shows America, 
 in Indian costume, demanding that Britannia must choose 
 between the treaty cup and the war dagger. Its inspiration 
 is the story of the fair Queen Rosamond, who was forced 
 by her husband to drink from a cup which was in fact 
 the skull of her father. 
 
 gress explaining the failure of his effort to 
 conciliate Mexico, and Congress declared that 
 a state of war existed by the act of Mexico. 
 On May 13th Polk issued his War Proclama- 
 tion. The decision was popular, and volun- 
 teers were ready to enlist beyond all possible 
 need. The call for fifty thousand found six 
 times that number responding at once. Mr. 
 Beveridge gives a graphic account of the re- 
 sistless enthusiasm for the Mexican War that 
 swept the country throughout the summer of 
 1846, while Lincoln was running for Congress 
 against the famous Peter Cartwright who had 
 been nominated by the Democrats. 
 
 Everybody in the West had been familiar 
 with the thrilling events — the Alamo tragedy, 
 for example — in the brief struggle for the in- 
 dependence of Texas in 1836; and the fellow- 
 feeling for Sam Houston and his Texas asso- 
 
 ciates was almost universal. President Tyler 
 had been able to secure the passage of a joint 
 resolution authorizing the admission of Texas 
 as a State, and he returned it to Congress with 
 his approval only a short time before the in- 
 auguration of Mr. Polk as his successor in 
 March, 1845. The Texas Congress had later 
 accepted the proposal with unanimity, and 
 within a few months Texas had adopted a 
 State constitution. Soon after the session of 
 Congress opened at Washington in December, 
 1845, this Texas constitution was ratified, and 
 the admission of Texas was completed by 
 virtue of a proclamation issued by President 
 Polk on December 29th. 
 
 If there had been no slavery question to en- 
 gender party strife and to arouse sectional 
 apprehensions, there could have been little 
 doubt anywhere as to the propriety of the an- 
 nexation of Texas by the United States. After 
 ten years of actual control by the American set- 
 tlers, Mexico — torn by revolution and without 
 stable leadership — could never have regained 
 Texas. The Mexicans could have done little 
 with the empty expanses of Texan territory, 
 even if they had been able to assert by force 
 the claims of a 
 nominal sover- 
 eignty. Presi- 
 dent Polk at- 
 tempted to con- 
 ciliate them, and 
 to negotiate a 
 fair adjustment 
 of differences. 
 He sent Mr. 
 Slidellof Louis- 
 iana as a special 
 ambassador to 
 Mexico, but 
 wholly without 
 avail. Slidell 
 w as not re- 
 ceived or heard. 
 
 The o b j e c- 
 tions of anti- 
 slavery men and 
 Whig leaders 
 to the policies 
 that led us into 
 
 PETER CARTWRIGHT 
 
 Lincoln was elected to Congress in 
 1846, his Democratic opponent be- 
 ing this famous itinerant Methodist 
 preacher. Cartwright had been a 
 member of the Legislature in 1828 
 and 1832, and was twenty-four 
 years older than Lincoln. He had 
 long played a leading part in build- 
 ing up the Methodist Church in the 
 Middle West. Cartwright was 87 
 when he died, in 1872. 
 
WAR WITH MEXICO— THE OREGON CRISIS 
 
 117 
 
 
 TEXAS COMING IN 
 This is a cartoon of the campaign of 1844 which accurately foretold events. It was not until the 
 following March that Texas actually was invited into the Union ; and it shows Polk welcoming Texas 
 from the White House side of Salt River. In cartoons of this period Salt River represents defeat. 
 The five Whig leaders pulling on the rope have not been able to stay the progress of the steamboat 
 Texas. From left to right they are: Clay and Frelinghuysen, candidates for President and Vice- 
 President ; Daniel Webster ; Henry A. Wise, a member of Congress from Virginia ; and one man who 
 is not identified. Astride the barrel in Salt River is William Lloyd Garrison, declaring that he will 
 not keep company with Clay, an unholy man and a blackleg. It was, indeed, the loss of the Aboli- 
 tion vote — which went to James G. Birney — that brought about the defeat of Clay. 
 
 the Mexican War could not be viewed lightly. 
 But as for the war itself, it seems a fair con- 
 tention that the Mexicans were the aggressors 
 in the military sense, and brought on the clash 
 for which the West in the summer of 1846 
 was enthusiastic without regard to party. 
 American expansion was the theme that made 
 the Mexican War so popular, and the slavery 
 problem was virtually forgotten for the mo- 
 ment, in the ardor for territorial gain. 
 
 Lincoln took the platform, with other 
 speakers of both parties, at war rallies in 
 Springfield. Since he and his circuit-riding 
 Methodist opponent, Mr. Cartwright, were of 
 similar views upon the war and upon several 
 other subjects (Cartwright being no believer 
 in slavery), the contest was not bitter. Lin- 
 
 coln had a remarkable campaign manager in 
 his young law partner, William H. Herndon, 
 who remained his close friend as well as his 
 business associate through all the remaining 
 years, and who became one of his biographers. 
 As Beveridge remarks: "The contest was 
 one of personal popularity and party organiza- 
 tion, in both of which Lincoln had an immense 
 advantage over the truculent old Methodist 
 preacher. Many Democrats thought that a 
 minister ought not to run for political office ; 
 the Democratic workers were indifferent, and 
 the organization loose and inefficient. Indeed, 
 early in the campaign, the Democratic leaders 
 gave up the contest, and that party cast only 
 42 percent, of the total vote." 
 
 It was, of course, quite impossible for Presi- 
 
u8 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 dent Polk to fight the British Empire 
 while he had a war with Mexico on 
 his hands. The most telling slogan 
 of his electoral campaign had been 
 "Fifty-four Forty or Fight." The 
 subsequent literature of the Oregon 
 question has grown to be voluminous. 
 But the main facts can be readily 
 stated and easily understood. 
 
 Boundary questions will not settle 
 themselves, and they must either be 
 subjected to the costs and hazards of 
 war, or else worked out by the bar- 
 gaining methods of diplomacy. The 
 United States had come into posses- 
 sion of a long stretch of Atlantic 
 coast line, with difficulties in fixing 
 exact terminal points both northward 
 
 G V LF OF 
 MEXICO 
 
 THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT POLK BUILT 
 
 From Yankee Doodle, a humorous weekly published in 
 
 New York for about two years beginning with October, 
 
 1846. It was frankly opposed to the Mexican War and 
 
 ridiculed the statesmanship of President Polk. 
 
 VAST AREAS ACQUIRED DURING POLK'S ADMINISTRATION 
 First came the annexation of Texas in 1845, just as Polk was being 
 inaugurated. This resulted in war with Mexico and the acquisition of 
 all that unpopulated region lying between Texas and the Pacific which 
 later became the States of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and 
 parts of Colorado and New Mexico. For that territory the United 
 States paid Mexico $15,000,000. Even while war with Mexico was 
 being waged, there came a dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon 
 country, resulting in the compromise line shown on this map. The 
 United States claim was founded upon the explorations of Captain 
 Gray and of Lewis and Clark, strengthened by the acquisition of 
 Spanish, French, and Russian rights. In 1818 the United States had 
 entered into an arrangement with Great Britain for joint occupation, 
 which lasted until 1846 when the Oregon country was permanently 
 divided between them. 
 
 and southward. Webster had remained in the 
 Tyler Cabinet in order to complete the nego- 
 tiations with Lord Ashburton over the North- 
 east boundary — to fix the line between Maine 
 and Nova Scotia, and to divide the Great 
 Lakes. We had earlier avoided a war with 
 Spain, and had settled the Southeast boundary 
 by purchasing the whole of Florida under the 
 terms of the Treaty of 1819. 
 
 We were sweeping westward, and were in- 
 evitably facing the prospect of a coast line on 
 the Pacific, that might prove as extensive as 
 that which we had confirmed on the Atlantic 
 by successful diplomacy. 
 
WAR WITH MEXICO— THE OREGON CRISIS 
 
 119 
 
 liJCn*.«r tWmrlt a». 
 
 UNCLE SAMS TAYLORIFICS 
 
 v jHtrirtnnrttftit .< ■>< 7.' 
 
 This is a New York lithograph of 1846, which portrays Great Britain — the John Bull of the cartoon- 
 ists — literally as a bull instead of the traditional burly Englishman. Uncle Sam, or Brother 
 Jonathan, is here crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico with his armies, while John Bull finds the 
 moment opportune to fish for that portion of Oregon lying between 54° 40" and 49° — which did, 
 indeed, become English territory by the treaty of 1846. This is an excellent example of the litho- 
 graphic poster caricatures of E. W. Clay, whose initials are seen in the lower right corner, and whose 
 work appears more often than that of any other artist in the illustrations of this and nearby chapters. 
 
 While Lincoln was making- his campaign in 
 the summer of 1846, Commodore Sloat of our 
 Pacific Squadron was occupying California, 
 without any Spanish forces to make serious 
 trouble. General Kearny, who was then sta- 
 tioned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was at 
 once placed at the head of an expedition that 
 marched across the country and occupied New 
 Mexico, which then included Arizona. John C. 
 Fremont, a young officer of the regular army, 
 had for several years been exploring Oregon 
 and the Northwest ; and he was conveniently 
 at hand, in that historic summer of 1846, to 
 share California honors with Admirals Sloat 
 and Stockton. 
 
 It was already certain, in view of the vic- 
 
 tories that General Zachary Taylor had been 
 winning in the northern states of Mexico, that 
 the war must result in complete American vic- 
 tory. With Texas already ours, we would in- 
 evitably carry a southern boundary straight 
 to the Pacific, retaining New Mexico and Cal- 
 ifornia. This southern line would have to be 
 adjusted in detail, as a part of the peace agree- 
 ment, when the Mexicans were ready to lay 
 down their arms. 
 
 But the Mexicans refused peace overtures 
 in 1846; refused again after Taylor had de- 
 feated them overwhelmingly at Buena Vista 
 in February, 1847; and they continued to re- 
 ject reasonable American terms after General 
 Winfield Scott had landed an army at Vera 
 
120 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 WHO'S AFRAID? 
 
 Punch's first cartoon on the Oregon question, 
 April 12, 184S. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, British Premier, is ready for a duel with 
 President Polk. King Louis Philippe of France is pictured 
 as supporting the American President. The Democrats in 
 1844 had made a campaign issue of the Oregon boundary, 
 declaring that the title of the United States to the whole 
 region was clear and unquestionable. Polk, their candi- 
 date for President, was successful and in his inaugural ad- 
 dress in March, 184S, he asserted the claims of the United 
 States in terms suggesting the possibility of war. This 
 cartoon from Punch was England's unofficial answer. 
 
 promotion of Britain's commercial interest in 
 securing free-trade with a new cotton-growing 
 country. Moreover, the hold of Mexico upon 
 California was of the very slightest, and 
 the British had their aspirations, well-known 
 and long-standing, in that direction, about 
 which there is no possible reason to speak 
 reproachfully. 
 
 As for our Northwestern claims, we had 
 already made it certain by explorations, by 
 the establishment of a fur-trading post at the 
 mouth of the Columbia River, and by the be- 
 ginning of permanent settlements, that we 
 should be able to hold Oregon as the first 
 stretch of American territory on the Pacific. 
 We had reached an understanding with Rus- 
 sia that the Czar's government would not as- 
 sert claims south of the parallel known as 
 "Fifty-four Forty." The Spaniards, followed 
 by the Mexicans, had never claimed anything 
 north of the forty-second degree of latitude, 
 this being the present northern line of Cali- 
 fornia. The British, meanwhile, were carry- 
 ing on a considerable fur-trade through pri- 
 vate agencies in this stretch called the "Ore- 
 gon Country," that lay between the northern 
 California line at "Forty-two" and the Rus- 
 
 Cruz and had marched over 
 the mountains to the capital. 
 Scott's victory at Chapulte- 
 pec, and his occupation of the 
 City of Mexico, brought the 
 war to an end in the middle 
 of September. The Treaty of 
 Guadaloupe - Hidalgo was 
 signed on February 2, 1848, 
 and thereby the United States 
 made permanent acquisition 
 of New Mexico and Califor- 
 nia, paying a considerable 
 sum of money. 
 
 It should not be supposed 
 that these American transac- 
 tions of the years from 1845 
 to 1848 had been unobserved 
 in Europe. There were Brit- 
 ish influences working to 
 keep Texas from joining the 
 United States, in obvious 
 
 WAR ! OR NO WAR ! 
 
 "Ike! I say the 49th, and let's settle it amercably." 
 
 "No Sir-ree. I goes for the hull of Oregon or none — I do, and don't do 
 ner-thin else." 
 
 (This is a hint to the effect that belligerency over the Oregon question was 
 largely bluster. We reproduce it from a lithograph published at New York in 
 April, 1846, at the height of the crisis.) 
 
WAR WITH MEXICO— THE OREGON CRISIS 
 
 121 
 
 
 "what! strike your own father!" 
 
 TEACHING GRANDMOTHER BRITANNIA TO SUCK EGGS 
 
 "YOUNG YANKEE-DOODLE," AS HE SEEMED TO THE ENGLISH 
 DURING THE DISPUTE OVER OREGON 
 
 Two cartoons from London Punch, March, 1846. 
 
 In the first sixty years of Punch, 
 from 1841 to 1901, two really great 
 artists stood out among others who 
 contributed to its political success. 
 In the earlier period it was John 
 Leech, in the later period John 
 Tenniel, their careers overlapping 
 in the '50s. To both in turn came 
 the opportunity to stand up for 
 John Bull and ridicule Uncle Sam 
 during international crises. The 
 reader should remember that the 
 cartoonist of Punch was a member 
 of its editorial board, reflecting its 
 deliberate opinion. He was never 
 embarrassed by the caution that 
 often tempers the language of the 
 editorial writer. 
 
 Two of the cartoons on this page 
 bear the signature of John Leech, 
 and the third was evidently drawn 
 by him. They set forth the opin- 
 ion prevalent in England when 
 America was shouting "Fifty-Four- 
 Forty or Fight," from which posi- 
 tion we receded when we accepted 
 the boundary of Forty-nine degrees. 
 James Buchanan, as American Sec- 
 retary of State, and Richard 
 Pakenham, special British envoy, 
 arranged a compromise settlement 
 that was submitted to the Senate 
 by President Polk in June, 1846, 
 and duly ratified by the Senate. 
 
 RIDICULOUS EXHIBITION; OR, YANKEE-DOODLE PUTTING 
 HEAD INTO THE BRITISH LION'S MOUTH. 
 
 From Punch, May 2, 1846. 
 
 HIS 
 
122 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 sian line at "Fifty-four Forty." This area, 
 claimed in part by the British and claimed in 
 toto by the Americans, included what are now 
 the States of Oregon and Washington and the 
 Canadian province of British Columbia. 
 
 Douglas had held that to allow the British 
 any part of this area was to submit to a viola- 
 tion of the Monroe Doctrine. In their plat- 
 form of 1844 the Democrats had declared 
 firmly for the uncompromising occupation of 
 the whole Oregon country. In his first mes- 
 sage to Congress, December 2, 1845, Presi- 
 dent Polk had dealt at great length with the 
 subject, explaining that in view of compro- 
 mises that had previously been offered, he had 
 endeavored to settle the dispute by carrying the 
 
 THE GREEDY BOY. 
 
 VICTORIA -YOU GREEDY YOUNO YANKEE 1 YOU WONT LEAVE A CRUMB FOB LITTLE FREDERICK ALBERT 
 tM'/s PHILIPPE- SOYEZ TRANaUILLE MA CBERE. YOU ARE VARY FOND OF INDIAN BONBONS, AND I LOAF VARY 
 MOSB ZE TABAC D" ALGIERS MYSELF WE SHALL MOSB BETTER BOTH BE ttUIET. 
 
 Frederick Albert was Victoria's son, then five years old, later Edward VII. 
 Louis Philippe was King of France from 1830 until he was forced to abdicate 
 as a result of the revolution of 1848. His remark about Indian bonbons, in the 
 caption above, refers to Britain's war against the Sikhs, lasting from 1845 to 
 1849 and resulting in the annexation of the Punjab. This cartoon is from 
 Yankee Doodle, New York, November, 1846. 
 
 line of the forty-ninth parallel straight to the 
 Pacific coast. But on British refusal Presi- 
 dent Polk had withdrawn the offer and had 
 asserted American title to the entire Oregon 
 territory. 
 
 He advised the scrupulous observance of 
 the agreement that had been made for the 
 temporary joint occupation, but he proceeded 
 to reassert the Monroe Doctrine as applicable 
 to the Oregon situation. Two months later 
 President Polk had sent to Congress corre- 
 spondence that seemed to make it clear that, 
 upon their own frank admission, the British 
 were arming in preparation for an American 
 war. Congress proceeded at once to authorize 
 the President to give the necessary twelve 
 months' notice for the ending 
 of the joint occupation of 
 Oregon. Whereupon the 
 British Ambassador, on June 
 6, 1846, agreed to accept 
 what had been a repeated 
 American offer — namely, the 
 extension of the forty-ninth 
 parallel to the seacoast, leav- 
 ing Vancouver's Island to the 
 British. There was still a 
 Whig majority in the Senate, 
 and the Whigs wisely and 
 prudently advised President 
 Polk to accept the offer. This 
 was accordingly done, the 
 business reached its conclu- 
 sion smoothly and promptly, 
 and the last step was taken on 
 July 17th with exchange of 
 ratifications at London. 
 
 Thus President Polk had 
 been sensible enough to lay 
 aside extreme claims in the 
 Northwest, while he had been 
 reasonable and moderate in 
 his treatment of Mexico in 
 the adjustment of the new 
 Southwest boundary. 
 
 Since campaign talk is not 
 always consistent, much less 
 impartial, in its verdicts, one 
 cannot quite blame Lincoln 
 and his Whig supporters for 
 
WAR WITH MEXICO— THE OREGON CRISIS 
 
 123 
 
 DuktsWOxfto, PnnaAlbert ThiOium. 
 
 O'Camjl 
 
 Lotus Ptuhppe 
 
 SmperarMchcttu 
 
 Polk 
 
 Gaunt Bunkum 
 
 ULTIMATUM ON THE OREGON QUESTION. 
 
 The young Queen Victoria is on her throne, and the conversation with President Polk has reference 
 not only to the Oregon boundary but to the opening of Britain's ports to American grain free of 
 duty. Victoria claims it as a friendly act, while Polk asserts that it was done only to save England 
 from starvation. The famine in Ireland occurred at this time, which explains the presence in this 
 drawing of Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator. As for Oregon, Victoria declares that she offered to 
 settle by arbitration. Polk replies that he too offered to arbitrate but Victoria refused. Now he will 
 not arbitrate. If Victoria agrees to his demands for the whole region he is willing to negotiate. 
 General Bunkum, at the right, blusters loudly, while at the left the Duke of Wellington, hero of the 
 Battle of Waterloo thirty years earlier, urges the British lion "up and at 'em!" This is an extraordi- 
 nary cartoon, again the work of E. W. Clay, showing a situation under Polk which might easily have 
 led to war with England while we were still engaged in war with Mexico. It was in this year that 
 Lincoln was elected to Congress and began to participate in international affairs. 
 
 turning the tables on the Democrats. This 
 Oregon settlement had been announced in the 
 very height of the Congressional campaign, 
 and Whigs twitted Democrats unmercifully 
 upon having so hastily retreated after their 
 "Fifty-four Forty or Fight" war-cry. The 
 unthinking masses wanted no compromises 
 with England, and so they turned to the sup- 
 port of Lincoln and other Whig candidates, 
 although it had been Clay himself and the 
 Whig Senate that had encouraged Polk and 
 had ratified the British agreement. 
 
 Lincoln was easily elected over his opponent ; 
 and he afterwards regretted that he had been 
 so modest and so lacking in political foresight 
 
 as to have declared that he would be content 
 with a single term. This was the only Whig 
 district in Illinois, and it was sending able 
 men, one after another, each for a single term. 
 It was thus depriving itself of the prestige that 
 would have resulted from keeping the same 
 man at Washington long enough to make him- 
 self felt in committees and on the floor of the 
 House. But in these matters there are com- 
 pensations that appear in the retrospect. 
 
 It was almost a year and a half after his 
 election in 1846 before Lincoln took his seat 
 on the opening day of the first session of the 
 new Congress in December, 1847. Douglas 
 had been elected to Congress as a Democrat 
 
i -'4 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 in an adjoining district in 1842 and 1844, with 
 Hardin in one term and Baker in the next term 
 as his colleagues from Lincoln's Seventh Illi- 
 nois District. In 1846 Douglas was elected 
 for a third term, on the same day that Lincoln 
 was chosen for his first and only term in Con- 
 gress. Lincoln had continued to meet Douglas 
 in debate from time to time, and their careers 
 were moving along parallel lines so far as 
 Illinois was concerned, although Douglas with 
 his aggressive personality and his brilliancy in 
 debate was already making his mark at Wash- 
 ington as a champion of Democratic policies. 
 
 So rapid, indeed, was Douglas's advance- 
 ment that instead of taking his seat in the 
 House with the Illinois delegation, he ap- 
 peared at the other end of the Capitol and took 
 the oath of office as a Senator of the United 
 States from Illinois, when Congress opened on 
 the first Monday of December, 1847. The 
 Democratic Legislature at Springfield had con- 
 ferred this honor upon the rising young leader 
 of their party, who was then only thirty-three 
 years old. Lincoln was nearly six years older, 
 being some weeks short of thirty-nine when 
 he took his seat as a member of Congress. 
 
 POLK, IN HIS DREAM, SWEARS NEVER TO ABANDON HIS OREGON DEMANDS 
 Books on the table in the White House bedroom indicate that the President had been reading "The 
 Art of War" and a life of Napoleon, as well as Calvin's works and a thesis on practical piety. The 
 devilish apparition hides behind a mask of Andrew Jackson, and demands of Polk "never to take 
 your toe off that line should you deluge your country with seas of blood, produce a servile insurrec- 
 tion, and dislocate every joint of this happy and prosperous union!" Attracted by the noise of the 
 nightmare are three members of President Polk's cabinet: George Bancroft, the historian, who was 
 then Secretary of the Navy; James Buchanan, Secretary of State, with the candle, who detects a 
 strong smell of brimstone; and Robert James Walker, Secretary of the Treasury and author of the 
 Walker Tariff of 1846, who holds the tariff bill under his arm and declares the President to be 
 patriotic even in his dreams. The cartoon is dated April, 1846. 
 
CHICAGO AT ABOUT THE TIME OF LINCOLN'S VISIT IN 1847 
 This is an early print of what was then the entire city of Chicago and now remains its center and 
 principal business section. The Chicago River, with its North and South Branches, here empties into 
 Lake Michigan. When Lincoln went to Chicago in 1847, as a delegate to the Rivers and Harbors 
 Convention, it had less than 30,000 population and had been a city just ten years though incorpora- 
 tion as a town had come in 1833. In the thirteen years that intervened between Lincoln's visit and 
 the holding of the Republican convention there in 1860, which nominated him for the presidency, 
 Chicago grew in population from 30,000 to more than 112,000. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Lincoln, the Con, 
 
 xessman 
 
 He attends a great river and harbor convention at Chicago — Some 
 
 noted biographers of Lincoln — His personal appearance — A speech 
 
 against Cass for President, on the floor of the House 
 
 In the long interval after his election, 
 Lincoln had ample time to adjust his own 
 private affairs, although he followed the 
 course of history-making events, as the Mexi- 
 can War proceeded, with the closest attention. 
 The year 1847 was one °f almost unprece- 
 dented interest in the settlement and develop- 
 ment of the great West. President Polk had 
 not been satisfied to occupy himself with his 
 war to the southward and his territorial acqui- 
 sitions and boundary adjustments on the Pa- 
 cific Coast. He had dealt rapidly with various 
 domestic issues. He had proceeded to urge a 
 reduction of tariff rates, justified not only on 
 
 constitutional grounds but to meet increased 
 war expenditures. Among other executive 
 activities was his veto of a River and Harbor 
 appropriation bill. This had caused great dis- 
 satisfaction, in view of the country's eager- 
 ness for improvements required by the expan- 
 sion of national territory, the growth of in- 
 ternal and external trade, and the western 
 movement of population that was stimulating 
 steamboat traffic on the Great Lakes and on 
 the rivers of the Mississippi Valley. A great 
 River and Harbor Convention was called to 
 meet at Chicago, July 5, 1847, in protest 
 
 against the veto. 
 
 125 
 
126 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 No such gathering, official or otherwise, in 
 point of numbers and of representative inter- 
 est, had ever before been held in the United 
 States. We have an account of the convention 
 in Dr. Barton's life of Lincoln, this biographer 
 being the first to make note of the fact that 
 Lincoln attended that great meeting as a dele- 
 gate from Sangamon County. Mr. Beveridge 
 gives a still more detailed account of this nota- 
 ble occasion that was important enough to 
 bring Horace Greeley, Thurlow Weed, and 
 many other leading Whig journalists from 
 New York and elsewhere to the growing city 
 on Lake Michigan, besides Whig statesmen, 
 business men, and promoters of all sorts. The 
 Eastern visitors traveled on the Great Lakes in 
 splendid steamboats, and wrote glowingly of 
 their first trip to the magnificent West. South- 
 ern delegates came north on the Mississippi 
 
 LINCOLN'S FAVORITE CANDIDATE FOR THE 
 PRESIDENCY IN 1848 
 Though the honor of entering Mexico City fell to General 
 Scott, Zachary Taylor was the real hero of the Mexican 
 War through his victories at Resaca de la Palma, Mon- 
 terey, and Buena Vista. In the year following the war 
 he was nominated as the Whig candidate for the Presi- 
 dency and was elected. Congressman Lincoln spoke for 
 Taylor not only throughout Illinois but in New England, 
 particularly at Worcester and Boston. This is a sketch of 
 General Taylor made by a lieutenant of artillery at the 
 battle of Palo Alto. 
 
 steamboats, making a short land trip from a 
 river point to Chicago. 
 
 Mr. Beveridge observes that this conven- 
 tion gave Lincoln his first personal contact 
 with men of nationwide prominence from 
 other States. The chairman of the convention, 
 for instance, was Hon. Edward Bates, of St. 
 Louis, whom Lincoln was to appoint Attor- 
 ney-General in his first Cabinet of March, 
 1 86 1, almost fourteen years later. While Lin- 
 coln was noting everything with intense 
 interest, he was not wholly unobserved him- 
 self. He even took the floor and made a brief 
 speech, in reply to the famous New York 
 lawyer, David Dudley Field (attending as a 
 spokesman for President Polk), who had dis- 
 agreed at some point with the convention's for- 
 mal resolutions. Mr. Beveridge tells us that 
 Horace Greeley, writing of the convention for 
 his own paper, the New York Tribune, re- 
 marked that "Hon. Abraham Lincoln, a tall 
 specimen of an Illinoisan, just elected to Con- 
 gress from the only Whig district in the State, 
 was called out, and spoke briefly and happily 
 in reply to Mr. Field." This incident reminds 
 me that David Dudley Field took an active 
 part in the hidden wire-pulling at Chicago in 
 the Convention of i860 that defeated Seward 
 and resulted in Lincoln's nomination. 
 
 No such demonstration had ever been made 
 in support of Lincoln's life-long dogma of 
 Internal Improvements as a national policy : 
 and the tall Congressman-elect was imbued 
 with fresh vigor by all that was said and done 
 in this convention. Mr. Beveridge shrewdly 
 suggests that Whig policies along economic 
 lines at this time were in full harmony with 
 the expansive mood of the country, and that 
 the Democratic opposition to internal improve- 
 ments, still stubbornly maintained as a party 
 doctrine, played a more important part than 
 has been usually recognized in the Presidential 
 victory gained by the Whigs in 1848. 
 
 Dr. Barton observes that the River and 
 Harbor Convention had put Chicago upon the 
 nation's map. "It did more than any previous 
 or subsequent assembly to link the fortunes of 
 the great State of Illinois with the North and 
 East." Dr. Barton continues as follows: "It 
 must have been a very illuminating event to 
 
LINCOLN, THE CONGRESSMAN 
 
 127 
 
 IDA M. TARBELL 
 While an editor on the staff of Mc- 
 Clure's, Miss Tarbell began a study 
 of Lincoln's career which resulted in 
 the publication of a two-volume Life 
 in 1900 — then the most important 
 Lincoln biography that had appeared 
 since that of Nicolay and Hay. Re- 
 vised editions have followed. 
 
 © Bachrach 
 
 ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 
 Himself a lawyer, statesman, and 
 orator of the Middle West, Senator 
 Beveridge had devoted years of in- 
 tensive research and labor to a Life 
 of Lincoln when his own death in 
 1926 ended the story. Two volumes 
 carry Lincoln to the debates with 
 Douglas in 1858. 
 
 ^^^^^li 
 
 
 H * - 
 
 J 
 
 m 
 
 
 a ^^ 
 
 
 M A 
 
 
 ^»..c^AL'JB . '^K * *3jS 
 
 
 
 
 © Underwood 
 
 WILLIAM E. BARTON 
 
 A Congregational minister long resi- 
 dent in Illinois, author of half a 
 hundred volumes in various fields of 
 literature, Dr. Barton has made him- 
 self an authority on Lincoln. His 
 two-volume Life was published in 
 1925; and "The Lineage of Lincoln," 
 in 1929, adds new information. 
 
 THREE FAMOUS BIOGRAPHERS OF LINCOLN 
 
 Lincoln. It was probably his first view of the 
 Great Lakes. It was his first important re- 
 minder that, while he was elected from central 
 Illinois, he, as the only Whig member of Con- 
 gress from the State, must find his political 
 support thereafter largely in the newer por- 
 tion of the State, where the Whigs were more 
 largely in control. It must have reminded him, 
 and he was soon to be rudely reminded again, 
 that Chicago and northern Illinois with her, 
 was thenceforth to be reckoned with as an im- 
 portant political, as well as economic, factor." 
 I may pause to remark that biographers en- 
 counter difficulties that they do not always 
 explain to their readers. They are conscious 
 that in any given period the important man 
 who is the subject of their inquiries must have 
 been doing something or going somewhere. 
 But too frequently they can find no trace of 
 his activities. Their hero had kept no diaries ; 
 nor had the wife, or the law-partner, or any 
 other intimate associate, performed the daily 
 offices of a Boswell. Herndon and Lamon, 
 who survived to write Lincoln biographies, 
 
 knew a vast deal about his concerns and his 
 movements that it never occurred to them to 
 include in their volumes of reminiscence. 
 Strictly contemporary biographers, writing 
 about a man who has attained eminence under 
 their own eyes, are more likely to record trivial 
 things in a somewhat disparaging and apolo- 
 getic manner, and to exploit their own philoso- 
 phies of life and character, than to give us an 
 orderly arrangement of the plain, precise facts 
 that are so obvious to them that they leave 
 them fatally unrecorded. 
 
 Nicolay and Hay were duly objective and 
 informative in their ten-volume history of 
 Lincoln and his times. But they made no 
 thorough research into the earlier periods of 
 his life, because as his secretaries at the White 
 House, in daily contact with him, it was their 
 chief business to deal with the vastly impor- 
 tant Presidential years. Their first volume 
 covers everything up to the Fremont-Buchanan 
 campaign of 1856, and the second volume car- 
 ries the reader through the campaign of i860, 
 with Lincoln elected, Secession movements 
 
128 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THOMAS NAST'S CONCEPTION OF LINCOLN 
 Though always exceedingly friendly, Thomas Nast, like 
 all the other cartoonists, rarely presented Lincoln in the 
 dress of a statesman. In this cartoon of July, 1861, after 
 Lincoln had become President, we see the tradition of 
 shabby attire still maintained. The other figure in the 
 cartoon is Jefferson Davis, the period being one of con- 
 fidence in the North that the Confederacy would not last. 
 
 well under way, and the country waiting in 
 suspense for Buchanan's retirement and Lin- 
 coln's inauguration on March 4, 1861. The 
 remaining eight volumes are devoted to the 
 four years of Lincoln's first term, his re-elec- 
 tion, and the culmination of the war, followed 
 by his assassination, a few weeks after the 
 delivery of his famous second inaugural 
 address. 
 
 It would have been fortunate for us, in our 
 natural desire to know the life story of the 
 most eminent American since Washington, if 
 the men who were Lincoln's associates in the 
 long years previous to 1856 had been as mod- 
 estly intelligent in their subsequent biograph- 
 ical work as were his White House secretaries. 
 They supplied us, indeed, with much informa- 
 tion for which we are thankful; but after the 
 manner of men who were lawyers rather than 
 historians, they were more concerned to shape 
 
 for us our estimates and opinions than to give 
 us specific facts that would have aided us in 
 arriving at our own judgments. Miss Tarbell 
 in 1894 began to make first-hand inquiries 
 that resulted in substantial additions to our 
 knowledge of Lincoln's youth and his private 
 life. Dr. William E. Barton, in researches 
 that were still continuing in 1929, had made 
 further distinct additions to our knowledge 
 of the Lincoln family and its migrations, and 
 to our understanding of Lincoln's develop- 
 ment as a public man. 
 
 Finally, Mr. Beveridge in two posthumous 
 volumes, appearing in the autumn of 1928, 
 brought his notable Life of Lincoln to the 
 point of an unfinished chapter on Lincoln's 
 campaign for the Senate in 1858 and his de- 
 bates with Douglas. Without haste and with 
 untiring industry, aided by the best historical 
 scholars and with the resources of public li- 
 
 LINCOLN AS THE CARTOONISTS FIRST 
 PICTURED HIM 
 
 This sketch of Lincoln in Springfield, in the period of his 
 election to the Presidency, is used here to illustrate a preva- 
 lent eastern conception of the Illinois statesman, poorly 
 clad, in short-waisted, swallow-tail coat and thin panta- 
 loons. Compare it with the actual portrait on the op- 
 posite page. Lincoln's visitor in this cartoon is Artemus 
 Ward, the sketch accompanying an account the humorist 
 wrote of "A Visit to Abe Lincoln," for Vanity Fair. 
 
LINCOLN, THE CONGRESSMAN 
 
 129 
 
 braries and private collections at his disposal, 
 Mr. Beveridge proved at length and in detail 
 a thesis that I had long held without access 
 to all the supporting facts. It was this : that the 
 Lincoln of 186 1-5 was merely the Lincoln of 
 the thirty previous years, trained and devel- 
 oped in the school of experience, educated 
 through constant study of current history and 
 the movements of American life, and tested 
 by the trials and emergencies of a crisis 
 toward which events had been carrying the 
 nation. Lincoln, as well as other men, had 
 been preparing unconsciously for the impend- 
 ing conflict. 
 
 Thus Lincoln as Beveridge saw him, like 
 his long-time rival Douglas, was a political 
 thinker, a man versed in the arts of practical 
 politics, and a recognized leader of what was 
 suddenly becoming in 1847-8 the dominant 
 party. He was well equipped to have a share 
 in the nation's councils at Washington when 
 he entered upon his term of service, with the 
 Mexican War in progress, absorbing the atten- 
 tion of the people, who supported it with ardor. 
 
 Mr. Beveridge, like Mr. Barton, holds the 
 view that Lincoln had probably never visited 
 Chicago or seen Lake Michigan before 
 his attendance at the River and Harbor Con- 
 vention. The opinion found some support in 
 a quotation that Mr. Barton gives as a foot- 
 note, from the Chicago Journal of July 6, 
 1847. This item, printed at the moment when 
 Lincoln was in Chicago, derives its greatest 
 value from the evidence it furnishes of the 
 high opinion in which Lincoln was held even 
 then in the rising metropolis on Lake Michi- 
 gan. Let us promote the paragraph to the 
 place that it deserves in the main text : 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, the only Whig Representative 
 to Congress from this State, we are happy to see in 
 attendance upon the convention. This is his first 
 visit to the commercial emporium of the State, and 
 we have no doubt his first visit will impress him 
 more deeply, if possible, with the importance, and 
 inspire a higher zeal for the great interest of, River 
 and Harbor improvements. We expect much from 
 him as a Representative in Congress, and we have 
 no doubt our expectations will be more than real- 
 ized, for never was reliance placed in a nobler heart 
 and a sounder judgment. We know the banner he 
 bears will never be soiled. 
 
 THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN 
 
 Authorities differ as to the exact date of this daguerreotype, 
 but it is known to be of the period of Lincoln's election 
 to Congress in 1846 or shortly thereafter. He was then 
 about thirty-seven years old. The portrait was first pub- 
 lished in 1895, through the courtesy of the President's son, 
 the late Robert T. Lincoln. 
 
 The reporter might have been mistaken as 
 regards the "first visit." Lincoln had visited 
 New Orleans twice as a young man. had prac- 
 tised law in numerous counties, had canvassed 
 Illinois and Indiana in presidential campaigns, 
 and was looking to the future with ambitions 
 that could only be realized through his state- 
 wide acquaintance with the people and the in- 
 terests of Illinois. He had long been an apos- 
 tle of improvements to benefit navigation and 
 commerce. I should prefer to find some state- 
 ment in Lincoln's own words before accepting 
 the view that he had never seen Chicago until 
 a year after his election to Congress. An emi- 
 nent lawyer, politician and Congressman-elect 
 residing at Albany, New York, might in 
 earlier life have visited New York City more 
 than once, with his name on hotel registers but 
 with no interview or flattering paragraph in 
 the metropolitan newspapers. There were 
 similar reports as to Grover Cleveland's unfa- 
 
130 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 miliarity with New York City and Washing- 
 ton, when he emerged in national politics. I 
 raise the point about Lincoln in Chicago not 
 as vital in itself, but as illustrating the diffi- 
 culties that biographers encounter in dealing 
 with so simple a fact as the 
 question when Lincoln first 
 saw the metropolis of his own 
 State, the city in which he 
 was to he nominated for the 
 Presidency thirteen years af- 
 ter the River and Harbor 
 Convention. 
 
 It is true that he had ar- 
 rived in Illinois from south- 
 ern Indiana, a region in which 
 the newspapers of Cincin- 
 nati, Ohio, and Louisville, 
 Kentucky, were then as now 
 the more familiar organs of 
 current intelligence and opin- 
 ion. And at Springfield, as 
 one of his contemporaries has 
 told us, a Louisville news- 
 paper continued to be his fav- 
 orite daily source of amuse- 
 ment as well as information. 
 But it is also undoubtedly 
 true that he was a reader of 
 Chicago newspapers, and we 
 know that he came later into 
 touch with Mr. Medill and 
 the Chicago Tribune. His 
 own immediate organ was 
 the Sang am o Journal, pub- 
 lished in his home city of 
 Springfield, whose opinions 
 echoed his own views, and 
 for which he often wrote edi- 
 torials on major topics as well 
 as upon State and local ques- 
 tions of legislation and parti- 
 san politics. 
 
 It is recorded that Lincoln 
 in 1846 — presumably after, rather than before, 
 his election to Congress — had made the jour- 
 ney from the capital of Illinois to Lexington 
 (the capital of Kentucky), for the sole pur- 
 pose of hearing Clay make a speech; and we 
 are told that Clay invited Lincoln to remain 
 
 LEWIS CASS, DEMOCRATIC 
 NOMINEE FOR THE 
 PRESIDENCY IN 1848 
 Born in New Hampshire in 1782, Cass 
 moved with his family to Ohio when 
 he was about eighteen and was ad- 
 mitted to the bar there in 1802. Mem- 
 ber of the Assembly, federal marshal, 
 colonel of militia in the war of 1812, 
 brigadier-general in the regular army, 
 Governor of the Territory of Michi- 
 gan, Secretary of War in Jackson's 
 Cabinet, Minister to France, Senator 
 from Michigan — such had been the 
 imposing career of Lewis Cass when 
 he was defeated by Gen. Zachary 
 Taylor in the campaign of 1848. He 
 returned to the Senate, became Secre- 
 tary of State in the Buchanan Cabinet, 
 supported the Northern cause during 
 the Civil War, and died in 1866. 
 
 cared nothim 
 
 and make him a visit at Ashland, the invita- 
 tion being accepted. That he had never made 
 the short trip from Springfield to Chicago 
 until a year later than his visit to Clay at Lex- 
 ington, is somewhat difficult to believe. 
 
 Neither am I quite satis- 
 fied to accept every detail of 
 the reminiscences of certain 
 persons who in advanced 
 years describe minutely such 
 things as Lincoln's costume 
 on particular occasions. If 
 Greeley or the Chicago Jour- 
 nal had found anything strik- 
 ingly unusual, their com- 
 ments would probably have 
 given us that impression. It 
 may be doubted whether his 
 friend and admirer, Elihu B. 
 Washburne, could remember 
 with precision, forty years 
 later, just what clothes Lin- 
 coln wore at the River and 
 Harbor meeting in 1847. I* 
 is set down, however, in his 
 reminiscences that Lincoln's 
 costume consisted of a"short- 
 waisted, thin, swallowtailed 
 coat; a short vest of same 
 material, thin pantaloons, 
 scarcely coming down to his 
 ankles ; a straw hat ; and a 
 pair of brogans with woolen 
 socks." 
 
 It was mid-summer and 
 hot weather, and Lincoln had 
 come across the prairies by 
 stage-coach. Many of us 
 have attended mid-summer 
 conventions in Chicago, and 
 have seen countless statesmen 
 content to wear shirts and 
 thin trousers only. We will 
 readily believe that Lincoln 
 for costume, and did not 
 pose magnificently like Henry Clay or Lewis 
 Cass. But we need not feel sympathetically 
 sorry about his clothes as if that had been 
 a matter that was subjecting him to cruel 
 embarrassment. We may, indeed, decline to 
 
LINCOLN, THE CONGRESSMAN 
 
 131 
 
 think that Elihu Washburne had the eye of a 
 tailor. He merely had his conceptions of the 
 dignity of the presidential office, and he was 
 seeking contrasts as in old age he remembered 
 Lincoln in the days of informality on the 
 prairies, when men could afford to be careless 
 about clothes. Mrs. Lincoln was of the Ken- 
 tucky "quality," and would have had her in- 
 fluence in such matters. We must admit, how- 
 ever, that Mr. George Grey Barnard had 
 found some justification, in the reminiscences 
 of various people besides Elihu B. Washburne, 
 for the unstatesmanlike costume that has 
 caused criticism of his heroic statue of Lin- 
 coln as a young man. The cartoonists of i860 
 were only too ready to accept the tradition of 
 a badly dressed, shabby Lincoln, as so many 
 of the caricatures presented in these pages 
 must attest beyond dispute. 
 
 The rumors regarding Lincoln's manner 
 and personal appearance seemed to have a cer- 
 tain value as political assets in i860, and they 
 were encouraged rather than contradicted by 
 Lincoln's supporters. There was enough truth 
 to give some color of veracity to the hundreds 
 of tales that came into circulation about the 
 phenomenal frontiersman of shambling figure, 
 awkward manners, and ill-assorted raiment 
 who had defeated a conventional statesman 
 like Seward in the Chicago Convention. I 
 might quote additional costume descriptions, 
 suspiciously like that of Mr. Washburne, in 
 the reminiscences of other survivors of Lin- 
 coln's early period, some of these fixing the 
 same weird costume as of the year 1832, fifteen 
 years before the Chicago meeting of 1847, and 
 just after Lincoln had returned from the 
 Black Hawk War to make his first appeal as 
 candidate for the Legislature. Lincoln's own 
 habit of poking fun at himself in stump 
 speeches, in order to pave the way for a sally 
 of mild ridicule directed against an opponent, 
 helped, of course, to sustain the legends of his 
 incomparable uncouthness. 
 
 It was only a few months after he had taken 
 his seat in Congress that Lincoln was a dele- 
 gate to the Whig convention at Philadelphia 
 that nominated General Zachary Taylor for 
 the Presidency. The Democrats were in the 
 field with Hon. Lewis Cass of Michigan as 
 
 BARNARD'S STATUE OF LINCOLN 
 Erected in Cincinnati in 1917, George Grey Barnard's 
 heroic statue gained high praise for artistic merit and en- 
 countered criticism for portraying a Lincoln in unstates- 
 manlike costume, possessed of extraordinary hands and 
 feet. But Barnard had been meticulous in his search for 
 exact measurements and models. When a replica of this 
 statue was later presented to Manchester, England, the 
 principal address was made by Alton B. Parker, who had 
 been the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1904. 
 
 their candidate. Curiously enough, both of 
 these nominees had participated in the Black 
 Hawk War, with General Lewis Cass com- 
 manding the improvised expedition, and Colo- 
 nel Zach Taylor, who had been an army officer 
 
132 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 r{sb/st/u j:'i&«imf**imi *i*/ \ Ha/Am tbatv, UKjxsrtt #a? \ ■..{■,,■» f~ r .*~,. ,. .« I'.ffffjfA /bar HnvNiJmtri 
 
 ! 4a ■„, ,/u, ■ ' t, .:.. ■'■"»■■■*■»'■ 
 
 ■ ■ ' • ar- _ ,..,■ .,,,■ 
 
 CA SS & HIS CABINET IN 18*9. 
 
 A lithograph poster issued during the Presidential campaign of 1848, in which Lewis Cass, the 
 Democratic nominee, was defeated by his Whig opponent, General Zachary Taylor. This is not a 
 confident, friendly cartoon put out by the supporters of Cass, for the group — although a distinguished 
 one — is discussing the spoils of the election and the error of the Whigs in deserting Clay. Cass him- 
 self, for example, as a President addressing his Cabinet, remarks: "Gentlemen! We stand on the 
 Democratic Platform, that is, to Reward our Friends. Rewarding of enemies and deserting of 
 friends is what caused the breaking-up of the Whig party." The members of this imaginative 
 Cabinet are (beginning at the left) Amos Kendall of Kentucky and Levi Woodbury of New 
 Hampshire, who had both been members of the cabinets of Jackson and Van Buren; John C. Cal- 
 houn of South Carolina, Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, Sam Houston of Texas, and William Allen 
 of Ohio, the last four being prominent Democratic members of the Senate. 
 
 for twenty- four years and had served well in 
 the War of 1812, on hand to do the real fight- 
 ing. If Lincoln as a captain of raw militia 
 had little contact with the gallant Taylor in 
 that brief experience, he did not hesitate to 
 match his own career as an Indian fighter with 
 that of the Democratic candidate for the Pres- 
 idency, of whom he had never thought highly. 
 Congress remained in session for some time 
 after the presidential conventions had been 
 held; and late in July the tall Whig member 
 from Illinois (who had quickly attained un- 
 usual prominence for a new Congressman in 
 spite of later assertions to the contrary) in- 
 dulged in a strictly political speech on the floor 
 
 of the House. He undertook to attribute 
 sound Whig principles to his own military can- 
 didate Taylor, who had never been in politics, 
 while reviewing at length the opinions and the 
 career of Lewis Cass as a man with military 
 as well as political background — a hero of the 
 William Henry Harrison victories in the War 
 of 1 812 and, later, an Indian fighter in the 
 Black Hawk War of 1832. 
 
 A Georgia member of Congress, Mr. Iver- 
 son, on the previous day had accused the 
 Whigs of having deserted all their principles 
 and "taken shelter under General Taylor's mil- 
 itary coat-tail." Whereupon Lincoln asked 
 his colleague if he did not know that his own 
 
LINCOLN, THE CONGRESSMAN 
 
 '33 
 
 A WAR 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRACY 
 
 AS LINCOLN AND THE WHIGS PICTURED THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE IN 1848 
 Though he had been in public office for thirty-five years, Lewis Cass retained the title of General 
 from the War of 1812. In a speech upon the floor of the House of Representatives, quoted in 
 this chapter, Lincoln ridiculed the military record of Cass in a spirit quite similar to that which is 
 evident in this cartoon. Here, and in another cartoon on page 154, we see also a temptation prevailing 
 at the time to play upon the similarity of the words Cass and gas. 
 
 party had run the last five presidential races 
 under General Jackson's coat-tail, and that 
 they were now running the sixth under the 
 same cover. Finding himself in his element 
 with the give-and-take of a stump debate pro- 
 ceeding on tbe floor of the House, Lincoln ran 
 on in the following vein : 
 
 Yes, sir, that coat-tail was used not only for Gen- 
 eral Jackson himself, but has been clung to, with 
 the grip of death, by every Democratic candidate 
 since. You have never ventured, and dare not now 
 venture, from under it. Your campaign papers 
 have constantly been "Old Hickories," with rude 
 likenesses of the old general upon them ; hickory 
 poles and hickory brooms your never-ending em- 
 
 blems; Mr. Polk himself was "Young Hickory," 
 "Little Hickory," or something so ; and even now 
 your campaign paper here is proclaiming that Cass 
 and Butler are of the true "Hickory stripe." Now, 
 sir, you dare not give it up. Like a horde of hungry 
 ticks you have stuck to the tail of the Hermit- 
 age lion to the end of his life; and you are still 
 sticking to it, and drawing sustenance from it, 
 after he is dead. 
 
 Lincoln explained that he was using figures 
 of speech that he would not have been the first 
 to introduce, but he was meeting the gentle- 
 man from Georgia on his own ground. He 
 was perhaps without an ecmal anywhere in his 
 ability to find pithy anecdotes and allusions 
 with which to enliven political debate. He 
 
134 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 then proceeded to treat Cass's military record 
 with scathing ridicule : 
 
 He (Cass) was not at Hull's surrender, but he 
 was close by; he was volunteer aid to General Har- 
 rison on the day of the battle of the Thames ; and 
 as you said in 1840 Harrison was picking huckle- 
 berries 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 huckleberries. 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. 
 
 By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a 
 
 A CASS-US OMMISSUS. 
 
 ANTER away to Banbury 
 
 cross, 
 Cantor away my Oregon 
 
 hots, 
 
 was the natural expres- 
 sion of that first of 
 female authoresses, 
 Mother Goose, when she 
 saw Master Cass, ere 
 mounting his hobby, put 
 the last edition of her 
 works in one of the hol- 
 sters to balance his own 
 book upon the Court of 
 Louis Philippe which 
 was previously stowed 
 away in theother. Had 
 these woi ks of merit but 
 reached Vancouver's 
 Sound, in the latitude of 
 filty-four forty, the na- 
 tives of those benighted 
 regions would have 
 learned that the Anglo- 
 Saxon race never carries 
 with it the bane of the 
 sword in one hand with- 
 out extending the anti- 
 dote of literature in the 
 other. Unfortunately for that poor people, however, it was deter- 
 mined to extend our common school system in the opposite direction ; 
 and the hobby-horse of master Lewis Cass was sent up into the gar- 
 ret of the White House, and made to give place to the Mexican 
 Jack upon which masters Polk and Marcy are now riding about the 
 Presidential grounds. 
 
 military hero? Yes, sir; in the days of the Black 
 Hawk war I fought, bled and came away. Speak- 
 ing of General Cass's career reminds me of my 
 own. I was not at Stillman's defeat, but I was 
 about as near it as Cass was to Hull's surrender; 
 and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. 
 It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I 
 had none to break ; but I bent a musket pretty badly 
 on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword, the idea 
 is he broke it in desperation; I bent the musket by 
 accident. If General Cass went in advance of me 
 in picking huckleberries, I guess I surpassed him 
 in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any 
 live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did; but 
 I had a good many bloody struggles with the mos- 
 quitoes, and although I never fainted from the loss 
 of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry. 
 Mr. Speaker, if I should ever conclude to 
 doff whatever our Democratic friends 
 may suppose there is of black-cockade 
 federalism about me, and therefore they 
 take me up as their candidate for the 
 Presidency, I protest they shall not make 
 fun of me, as they have of General Cass, 
 by attempting to write me into a military 
 hero. 
 
 A CONTEMPORARY CARICATURE OF CASS 
 
 This was published in one of the first issues of Yankee Doodle, in 1846, 
 and harmonizes with the characterization made by Lincoln in the 
 political debate of 1848 which is quoted on page 133. Text accom- 
 panying the drawing makes slighting reference to Cass on his hobby- 
 horse, with particular relation to the withdrawal of the Democrats 
 from their extreme demands in Oregon. 
 
 It must not for a moment be sup- 
 posed that Lincoln was making him- 
 self conspicuous in Congress by 
 buffoonery or by partisanship on low 
 levels. This very speech, with its 
 paragraphs of rather undignified per- 
 sonality in reply to Iverson's even less 
 dignified attack upon the Whigs, was 
 in all its major portions composed of 
 a worthy and intelligent, even 
 though partisan, review of political 
 issues. Doubtless the speech was 
 made with the principal object of dis- 
 tribution as a campaign document in 
 Illinois. Ever since that date, Con- 
 gressmen in presidential years have 
 been making political speeches on the 
 floor at Washington, and using the 
 franking privilege to give them cir- 
 culation in their home States or else- 
 where. It is worth observing that even 
 in a partisan speech, like this one for 
 the plaintiff in the case of Taylor 
 against Cass, Lincoln always built his 
 argument upon bed-rock principles. 
 
THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON, WHEN LINCOLN WAS A MEMBER 
 
 OF CONGRESS 
 
 After the British had burned it in 1814 the Capitol was rebuilt according to the original 
 
 plan. This engraving shows it as it appeared during the years from 1827 until 1851. 
 
 Then the construction of extensions at each end was begun, and these were completed — 
 
 with the new dome — in 1863, during Lincoln's Presidency. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Washington in Polk's Time 
 
 Lincoln's first journey to Washington — His distinguished contem- 
 poraries in Congress, and the contacts he formed there — A period of 
 political and social revolt in Europe 
 
 There was published in 1917 a volume 
 entitled "Uncollected Letters of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, Now First Brought To- 
 gether by Gilbert A. Tracy with an intro- 
 duction by Ida M. Tarbell." Mr. Tracy 
 who had been a clerk in the War Department 
 from 1863 t0 1868 had afterwards, as Miss 
 Tarbell informs us, become a Connecticut far- 
 mer who collected Lincoln material and grad- 
 ually found enough letters that had not 
 appeared in previous collections of Lincoln's 
 "Complete Works" to justify a supplementary 
 volume. I make this allusion rather conspicu- 
 ously because Mr. Tracy's efforts illustrate the 
 fact that the biographers of great men can 
 never be definitive, to the last detail. 
 
 Letters of French officers and soldiers who 
 served under Rochambeau and Lafayette in 
 the Revolution, now found from time to time 
 
 in the garrets of old French homes, afford 
 fresh glimpses of George Washington as man 
 and soldier. Similarly, we learn details about 
 the Revolutionary War from the re-discovered 
 diaries and letters of Hessians and other Ger- 
 mans who were fighting on the British side. 
 Lincoln's days were not those of stenographers 
 or of carefully filed carbon copies of corre- 
 spondence. John Hay's presence in the White 
 House as one of the group of men composing 
 Lincoln's personal staff was due to the fact 
 that, besides other qualifications, this youth 
 had acquired the then novel accomplishment 
 of shorthand writing. 
 
 We may anticipate nothing further about 
 Lincoln of a startling character. But that 
 some items of worth-while information may 
 yet come to light, especially in letters written 
 by various people as they had been brought 
 
 135 
 
136 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 VOLUNTEERS FOR TEXAS 
 
 This is a New York poster caricature bearing the date of 
 May, 1846. It had been the asserted privilege of the 
 effete East to ridicule the militia of the newer States and 
 the volunteers for Indian wars; and that privilege was 
 exercised also in respect to the Mexican War. Both car- 
 toons on this page express derision of the warlike West. 
 
 into contact with Lincoln, may be expected as 
 a matter of course. Lincoln himself doubtless 
 wrote hundreds or even thousands of letters 
 that were destroyed, many of which would 
 have been of literary, historical, and biograph- 
 ical value. 
 
 Mr. Beveridge informs us that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Lincoln, with their son Robert, now in his 
 sixth year, on their journey to Washington 
 "went by way of St. Louis, up the Ohio on a 
 steamboat to Pittsburgh, and thence by rail to 
 Baltimore and Washington." In Mr. Tracy's 
 volume there appears a letter from Lincoln to 
 a correspondent on a matter of litigation, writ- 
 ten October 19, 1847. In that letter he says: 
 "Unfortunately for my attending to the busi- 
 ness you sent, I start for Washington by way 
 of Kentucky, on next Monday." 
 
 Since Congress was not opening until De- 
 cember 6th, the Lincoln family were allowing 
 themselves a margin of about six weeks. This 
 letter raises a proper question for an investi- 
 gator like Mr. Barton to answer by his methods 
 of research. I am not able to discover that 
 any writer has really found out anything in 
 
 detail about this first trip of Abraham Lincoln 
 to the nation's capital as a member of its 
 law-making body. I make this seemingly un- 
 important allusion for two reasons. First, 
 because it shows a single instance among al- 
 most countless ones where the zealously pursu- 
 ing biographers find the trail completely 
 broken. The more significant reason, how- 
 ever, lies in the contrast afforded between this 
 trip of Lincoln in his official capacity from 
 Springfield to Washington in the autumn of 
 1847, an d the journey he made between these 
 two capitals as President-elect for his inaug- 
 uration of March 4, 1861. 
 
 Mr. Beveridge bases his statement that the 
 Lincolns went to Washington by way of St. 
 
 DESIC.N POR A STATUE TO BE ERECTED 
 
 TO 
 
 GENERAL TOM THUMB nr.NTON. 
 
 It was not a far cry, in the days of the Mexican War, 
 from political leadership to command of armies in the 
 field; and the veteran Senator from Missouri, Thomas H. 
 Benton, who had been a colonel in the War of 1812, was 
 seriously considered by President Polk as commander of 
 the American forces in Mexico or as chief of staff issuing 
 orders from Washington. Benton is here pictured standing 
 on the prostrate, one-legged Mexican dictator, Santa Anna, 
 while Generals Scott and Taylor offer him their swords. 
 This is a cartoon from Yankee Doodle, a comic periodical 
 published in New York. 
 
WASHINGTON IN POLK'S TIME 
 
 137 
 
 J-uoUthcd t, A Ho» f .e/^, _ JWd tt'lteiiset,, m*J Betout at (A* Boot-Stand ifett S\ 
 
 ROUGH AND READY LOCOMOTIVE AGA INST THE FIELD. 
 
 General Taylor, who was strictly a military man all his life until elected to the Presidency, had been 
 nicknamed "Old Rough and Ready" because of his somewhat careless manners. In contrast, General 
 Scott, nominated four years later, was derisively called "Old Fuss and Feathers." This cartoon 
 appeared early in the campaign of 1848. It shows President Polk on the White House steps, with 
 General Taylor and Lewis Cass engaged in the presidential race. In the distance is General Scott, 
 pictured as hurrying to President Polk with the much delayed treaty of peace that had been negotiated 
 by Nicholas Trist, Assistant Secretary of State. Trist's peace mission in Mexico was at first a failure, 
 though he remained until finally, in February, 1848, the treaty was signed. 
 
 Louis upon some remark that was afterwards 
 attributed to Mrs. Lincoln. It is hard to dis- 
 cover anything that this latest authority has 
 overlooked, but apparently he had not read a 
 letter that Lincoln himself wrote from Wash- 
 ington in February to a Mr. Welles, that ap- 
 pears in Tracy's collection. It had to do with 
 an earlier letter containing money that had 
 somehow been lost. Lincoln was to have de- 
 livered it personally in St. Louis. The letter 
 to Mr. Welles proceeds as follows : 
 
 To make it more secure than it would be in my 
 hat, where I carry most all my packages, I put it 
 in my trunk. I had a great many jobs to do in St. 
 Louis ; and by the very extra care I had taken of 
 yours, overlooked it. On the Steam Boat near the 
 mouth of the Ohio, I opened the trunk and discov- 
 ered the letter. I then began to cast about for some 
 
 safe hand to send it back by. Mr. Yeatman, Judge 
 Pope's son-in-law, and stepson of Mr. Bell of Ten- 
 nessee, was on board, and was to return immediately 
 to St. Louis from the Mouth of Cumberland. At 
 my request he took the letter and promised to de- 
 liver it. 
 
 Incidentally it is to be noted that the letter 
 further spoke of Mr. Yeatman's unquestion- 
 able character, and of Lincoln's fear lest some 
 "pickpocket on the boat may have seen me 
 give him the letter and slipped it from him." 
 It was typical of Lincoln's consideration that 
 he called upon Mr. Yeatman in Washington 
 about the lost letter, and thought it natural 
 enough that "never seeing the letter again, he 
 would never think of it." 
 
 All this makes it clear that Lincoln had his 
 circle of friends in St. Louis, and affairs of 
 
138 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS 
 
 When Lincoln came into the House, 
 in 1847, Stephens — though three 
 years younger — had already been a 
 member, from Georgia, for two 
 terms. They became close friends. 
 During Lincoln's term as President, 
 Stephens served as Vice-President of 
 the Confederacy. After the War he 
 was again a Georgia Congressman at 
 Washington. 
 
 JEFFERSON DAVIS 
 
 Serving his first term in the House, 
 from Mississippi, Davis in 1846 re- 
 signed to become a Colonel in the 
 war with Mexico. From 1847 to 1851 
 he was a member of the Senate. 
 Later he was Pierce's Secretary of 
 War, and again a member of the 
 Senate. In February, 1861, he was 
 elected President of the Confederate 
 States. He died in 1889. 
 
 ROBERT TOOMBS 
 A Representative from Georgia, 
 184S-S3, and Senator from 1853 to 
 1861, when the South seceded, 
 Toombs was made Secretary of 
 State in the Confederate Cabinet of 
 Jefferson Davis. He resigned after a 
 few months to become a Brigadier- 
 General in the Southern army. 
 Toombs, Stephens, and Lincoln 
 were all Whigs in 1848. 
 
 THESE MEN LINCOLN KNEW WHILE A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE, AND LATER THEY 
 HELD THE THREE MOST PROMINENT OFFICES IN THE CONFEDERACY. 
 
 one kind or another to occupy him in that city. 
 With weeks on his hands, we may reasonably 
 infer — in view of Lincoln's earlier letter say- 
 ing that he was "going to Washington by way 
 of Kentucky," and remembering the further 
 fact that Mrs. Lincoln's own friends and rela- 
 tives were living in that State — that the jour- 
 ney was again broken by visits en route. 
 
 This, to be sure, is a sidelight of no great 
 candlepower ; but it may help the reader to 
 understand that the too ready assumption that 
 Lincoln was obscure, unknown, and untrav- 
 elled even in his own section of the country, is 
 merely based upon the failure of later biog- 
 raphers to find letters long ago destroyed, and 
 the failure of earlier biographers to record 
 what they supposed to be commonplace and 
 uninteresting. 
 
 As regards Mr. Lincoln's service in Con- 
 gress, it is more important to consider that ex- 
 perience as lifting him finally to the plane of 
 national politics, than to give especial weight 
 
 to his sayings and doings as a Congressman. 
 This was the first House for many years that 
 was not organized and controlled by the Dem- 
 ocrats. There was a small Whig majority, 
 due to various causes but not due to any 
 marked reaction against Polk's Mexican pol- 
 icy, and the war for territorial expansion. 
 
 The Speakership was conferred upon the 
 Hon. Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, 
 an excellent representative of Harvard train- 
 ing and Boston culture. It is not likely that 
 Mr. Winthrop's memories of Lincoln as a 
 Congressman, revived in after years, could 
 have been much softened to accord with the 
 sentiment of a nation in mourning for the 
 martyred President. Referring to Lincoln in 
 Congress, Mr. Winthrop said: "I recall viv- 
 idly the impressions I then formed, both of 
 his ability and amiability. We were old Whigs 
 together, and agreed entirely upon all ques- 
 tions of public interest. I never lost my per- 
 sonal regard for him. For shrewdness and 
 
WASHINGTON IN POLK'S TIME 
 
 139 
 
 THOMAS HART BENTON 
 Participation in the War of 1812 brought Benton into 
 contact with the new country west of the Mississippi, and 
 he settled at St. Louis in 1815. Previously he had prac- 
 ticed law in Tennessee and had been elected to the State 
 Senate there. When Missouri was admitted in 1821, Ben- 
 ton was sent to the United States Senate. For thirty years 
 thereafter he dominated the politics of Missouri and was 
 one of the Senate's most conspicuous leaders. Opposition 
 to the Clay-Webster compromise of 1850 brought about 
 his retirement. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 After serving ten years in the House, not continuously, 
 Webster was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in 
 1827 and there became one of the great statesmen and 
 orators of all time. From 1841 until 1845 he was Secretary 
 of State under Harrison and Tyler, and from 1850 until 
 his death in 1852 he occupied that office under Fillmore. 
 With those exceptions his career in the Senate extended 
 over a quarter of a century. He shared the leadership of 
 the Whig party with Clay through a long period, but 
 never received a Presidential nomination. 
 
 sagacity, and keen practical sense, he has had 
 no superior in our day or generation." 
 
 The Lincoln family lived in a boarding- 
 house that stood where now the Library of 
 Congress occupies the square east of the Capi- 
 tol grounds. Eight or ten Congressmen sat 
 at the same table and became Lincoln's per- 
 sonal friends. Perhaps his best friend in Con- 
 gress was Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, 
 a Whig member who afterwards became Vice- 
 President of the Confederacy. In a letter to 
 Herndon a few weeks after the opening of the 
 session, Lincoln said that Mr. Stephens had 
 just concluded "the very best speech of an 
 hour's length" he had ever heard. Writing 
 in later years, Mr. Stephens said : "I knew 
 
 Mr. Lincoln well and intimately. 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 
 movement, which resulted in his nomination." 
 It may be well at this point to quote further 
 from this account by Mr. Stephens, because 
 that statesman was under no temptation to 
 compose a eulogy. "Mr. Lincoln was careless 
 as to his manner and awkward in his speech, 
 but possessed a very strong, clear, vigorous 
 mind. He always attracted and rivetted the 
 attention of the House when he spoke. His 
 manner of speech as well as of thought was 
 
140 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 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 anecdote, always exceedingly 
 apt and pointed ; and socially he kept his com- 
 pany in a roar of laughter." 
 
 As the sole Whig member from Illinois, 
 Lincoln was regarded at Washington as head 
 of the party in that State, just as Douglas, 
 then in the Senate, was the recognized chief of 
 the Illinois Democrats. Politicians will read- 
 ily understand that these party conditions gave 
 Lincoln, as a new member at Washington, a 
 
 more favorable position than he might other- 
 wise have secured. He had his reasonable 
 share of committee appointments, and enjoyed 
 the kind of recognition that brought him into 
 close contact with many public men. 
 
 Having only the minor responsibilities that 
 a new member incurs, he was able to cross 
 frequently to the Senate chamber, and listen 
 to men whose names had been long familiar 
 to him, men whose speeches he had been read- 
 ing since boyhood. At the same time he was 
 acquainting himself with the personalities of 
 younger men, who were destined to play a 
 great part in the Civil War period. Among 
 
 A DAUMIER CARTOON OF THE YEAR 1848 
 For eighteen years Louis Philippe had been King of France; but the revolution of February, 1848, 
 brought about his abdication and the proclamation of a republic. This cartoon by Honore Daumier — 
 perhaps the greatest French caricaturist of all time — shows Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I, 
 as a candidate for the presidency of France in 1848. Though at first rejected, the French Assembly 
 did elect Louis Napoleon as president of the Republic. Just four years later he had so shaped events 
 that he was proclaimed Emperor. This same Louis Napoleon who became President of France 
 while Lincoln was in Congress was thus Emperor of the French during Lincoln's Presidency, as 
 Napoleon III. He was the son of the elder Napoleon's brother Louis. The French revolution of 
 1848 was the signal for an outbreak of popular movements throughout Europe. In Austria, 
 Hungary, and Germany there were resignations, new governments, and reforms. 
 
WASHINGTON IN POLK'S TIME 
 
 141 
 
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 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY GOINGTOTHE RIGHT HOUSE. 
 
 The year 1848 witnessed the launching of democratic uprisings in France, Germany, and Hungary; 
 and in the United States the same period saw the rise of various social movements destined to attract 
 wide attention. The abolition movement is dealt with in subsequent chapters of this book. Others 
 that might be mentioned were the beginning of the demand for woman's rights, the action of Maine 
 in 1846 that began the march of prohibition, the establishment of the Mormon Church in Utah in 
 1847, and such brief experiments as the socialistic colony at Brook Farm, Massachusetts. When the 
 Republican party was founded, in 1854, it was often asserted by its opponents that radical groups 
 made up its principal strength. In a later chapter there is a poster caricature showing Fremont 
 receiving a long line of such visitors in 1856, while here we reproduce a similar one seeking to show 
 that their support went to Lincoln in 1860. He is carried on a rail by Horace Greeley. 
 
 the veterans were Daniel Webster of Massa- 
 chusetts, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, 
 Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, and Lewis 
 Cass of Michigan (Clay was temporarily out 
 of the Senate, but was soon to return). Cal- 
 houn had been Tyler's last Secretary of State, 
 but was back at his old seat in the Senate. 
 James Buchanan, on the other hand, had left 
 the Senate to become Polk's Secretary of 
 State. The eminent William L. Marcy of 
 New York was now serving- as Secretary of 
 War, and Robert J. Walker of Mississippi was 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
 Among the new members of the Senate 
 sworn in on December 6th with Douglas was a 
 man who had suddenly achieved amazing pop- 
 ularity as a hero of the Mexican War. This 
 was Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. Davis 
 had been a member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, but at the outbreak of the war had 
 
 hurried back to his own State to serve as 
 Colonel of a famous volunteer regiment, the 
 "Mississippi Rifles." Joining General Tay- 
 lor's expedition, this regiment had won de- 
 served fame; and Davis shared honors with 
 General Taylor by his valor at the Battle of 
 Buena Vista. The volunteer regiment was no 
 longer needed, and Davis returned as the idol 
 of his State and with the plaudits of the 
 country. 
 
 A vacancy caused by the death of Senator 
 Spaight enabled the Governor of Mississippi 
 to honor Col. Jefferson Davis by appointing 
 him to the Senate for the remainder of the 
 term. The Mexican War was by no means 
 finished, and a strong element among the ex- 
 treme Southern leaders was urging President 
 Polk to increase the regular army, push the 
 conquest of Mexico to the point of overwhelm- 
 ing victory, and annex the entire Mexican 
 
142 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 area, or, at least, all of the states of northern 
 Mexico. Also, Calhoun and the Southern men 
 were already openly planning for the extension 
 of slavery to the territory that was to he an- 
 nexed. 
 
 These questions were being forced upon 
 Polk and his administration, and they were 
 at the heart of schemes and intrigues within 
 the Democratic party as the forthcoming pres- 
 idential convention was approaching. In these 
 senatorial discussions, and in the more confi- 
 dential councils of the Democratic leaders, 
 Jefferson Davis was playing a great part. It 
 is a notable circumstance that among the mem- 
 bers of this Congress sitting in the Senate 
 chamber were Douglas of Illinois and Bell of 
 Tennessee, who were to head Presidential 
 tickets in i860, with Davis who was to be 
 President of the Confederacy, Hannibal Ham- 
 lin of Maine, who was to be Lincoln's running 
 mate, and Gen. Sam Houston who, when the 
 crisis came, could not abandon the fla°f of the 
 country that had added the Lone Star of Texas 
 to the star-spangled banner. From New York 
 was John A. Dix, who also, like Sam Houston, 
 lives in history for his devotion to the flag. 
 
 Sitting in the House with Lincoln was the 
 historian John G. Palfrey of Massachusetts, 
 
 DEATH OF GEN* JACKSON, 
 
 born, Marrh IS'. h 1767, and died June #"> IS+5, in his 78 jear 
 
 Andrew Jackson remained the guiding spirit, if not the actual head, of the 
 Democratic party from his retirement in 1837 until his death in 1845. At this 
 deathbed scene are Major Lewis, an intimate friend; Andrew Jackson, Jr., his 
 adopted son; his daughter-in-law; and George, the Negro servant, whose own 
 grave is near that of the General, in the Hermitage grounds. 
 
 while another eminent historian, George Ban- 
 croft, was then serving as Polk's Secretary of 
 the Navy and literary mentor, and was about 
 to be sent to London as United States Minis- 
 ter at the Court of St. James's. In the House, 
 besides Stephens, who was to become Vice- 
 President of the Confederacy, the Georgia 
 delegation included Howell Cobb and Robert 
 Toombs, both of whom later became pillars of 
 the southern edifice. There were many others, 
 Northern and Southern, who were to attain 
 their wider fame at the time when Lincoln 
 himself came into supreme command. 
 
 Most noteworthy as a link with the past was 
 John Quincy Adams, who had served for many 
 years in the House of Representatives after 
 his retirement from the Presidency. Lincoln 
 in his youth had been familiar with Adams's 
 great state papers ; and he was now hearing 
 "the Old Man Eloquent," who was unrivalled 
 in erudition as well as in oratorical graces, 
 among the members of the lower House. 
 Adams, who was then in his eighty-second 
 year, was taking part in a somewhat acrimoni- 
 ous partisan discussion over suspending the 
 rules to vote the thanks of Congress to various 
 political war heroes, when he was fatally 
 stricken with paralysis. Lincoln was present, 
 voting "Nay" with Adams; 
 and thus he "witnessed the 
 death-stroke of one of the pre- 
 eminent men of the nation, an 
 outstanding figure in Ameri- 
 can history," to quote from 
 Beveridge's excellent account. 
 Lincoln was appointed on the 
 Committee of Arrangements 
 for the funeral of John Quincy 
 Adams. 
 
 Lincoln was at Washington 
 in a period that might well 
 have stimulated the intellectual 
 processes and aroused the 
 imagination of a man far less 
 gifted. For the United States, 
 the great story of the Nine- 
 teenth Century was to turn 
 upon events associated in one 
 way or another with the Mexi- 
 can War. Old men who re- 
 
WASHINGTON IN POLK'S TIME 
 
 143 
 
 membered Washington, and who had 
 known intimately the group composed 
 of the elder Adams, Jefferson, Madi- 
 son, Marshall, and many others of 
 their generation, were still in public 
 life and their voices were heard in de- 
 bate, on one side or on the other, in 
 the contentious discussions of the Polk 
 administration. Men of middle age, 
 like Lincoln, Douglas, and Jefferson 
 Davis, were stepping to the front and 
 boldly assuming responsibility. 
 
 With the foreign legations at Wash- 
 ington — European and South Ameri- 
 can — and with political upheavals tak- 
 ing place in many countries, Lincoln 
 as a constant student of newspapers 
 was acquiring a new fund of interna- 
 tional information. On April 3, 1848, 
 President Polk had sent a special mes- 
 sage to Congress accompanied by 
 documents, announcing the overthrow 
 of the French Monarchy. "The world 
 has seldom witnessed," said Mr. Polk, 
 "a more interesting or sublime spec- 
 tacle than the peaceful rising of the 
 French people, resolved to secure for 
 themselves enlarged liberty, and to as- 
 sert in the majesty of their strength 
 the great truth that in this enlightened 
 age man is capable of governing him- 
 self." 
 
 Four months later, Polk sent a mes- 
 sage nominating Mr. Donelson of 
 to be "Envoy Extraordi- 
 Minister Plenipotentiary 
 of the United States to the Federal Gov- 
 ernment of Germany." The outburst of 
 liberalism in Germany was indeed short-lived, 
 and unsuccessful in its apparent results, even 
 though profound in its historical influences. 
 Its failure resulted in the emigration to the 
 United States of many young men of univer- 
 sity culture and military training, who were 
 afterwards to become leaders in the Middle 
 West and to take high civil and military posi- 
 tions in Lincoln's administration. The Hun- 
 garian revolution, and many other movements 
 were arousing similar interest in the United 
 States. Kossuth in Hungary and Garibaldi in 
 
 Tennessee 
 nary and 
 
 St:Z£0 W'TH A III IN THt HOUSC OF Ht,P«tSfc*TAIIVF^ FCB» 21" 1848 
 
 Soon after the expiration of his term as President, in March, 1831, 
 John Quincy Adams returned to Washington as a Representative in 
 Congress from Massachusetts, and served in that office for seventeen 
 years. On February 21, 1848, he was stricken with paralysis while in 
 his seat and died two days later. Lincoln was then a member of 
 Congress and was present at the moment. He was one of the com- 
 mittee that went officially to Massachusetts to attend the funeral. 
 
 Italy were names that in due time became fa- 
 miliar in every American household. 
 
 Along with the stirring of the spirit of de- 
 mocracy throughout the world, there were 
 social and economic movements with which 
 American newspapers were dealing at length. 
 Mr. Greeley's New York Tribune, of which 
 Lincoln had become a regular reader, was es- 
 pecially interested in all this radical efflores- 
 cence. A considerable group of journalists, 
 like Greeley himself and his brilliant lieuten- 
 ant Charles A. Dana, Henry J. Raymond, and 
 others who were rising to literary eminence, 
 had been more or less touched by the particular 
 
144 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Loou-NiroLKox. 
 
 THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS 
 
 While the people of the United States were electing a President in 1848, the voters of 
 France were similarly engaged. The monarchy had failed in February, a constitution 
 had been adopted, and a President was to be chosen on December 4th with a term 
 limited to four years. There were three candidates: Lamartine, the poet, whose 
 eloquence had gained for him a prominent place in politics; Cavaignac, Minister of 
 War, who had played a leading part in the revolt, and who expected to be chosen 
 President; and Prince Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon. The magic of the name 
 Napoleon carried the election ; and Louis Napoleon ruled France for twenty-two 
 years, first as President and afterward as Emperor. The cartoon is by Richard Doyle, 
 published in Punch (London) in October, 1848. 
 
 the heroes of the Mexi- 
 can War. And let us re- 
 member that with all 
 these caricatures and pic- 
 torial efforts Lincoln was 
 quite as familiar as are 
 any public men of our 
 own day with the car- 
 toons of Berryman in the 
 Washington Star, Dar- 
 ling in the New York 
 Herald - Tribune, Rollin 
 Kirby in the World, or 
 McCutcheon in the Chi- 
 cago Tribune. A few 
 years later Lincoln was 
 to know the cartoons of 
 Nast, and the powerful 
 political satire of John 
 Tenniel in Punch. 
 
 On December 12, 1848, 
 President Polk trans- 
 mitted to the Senate the 
 following message, which 
 could not have escaped 
 Lincoln's attention: 
 
 "I nominate Second 
 
 type of socialistic gospel known as Fourierism, 
 especially as practised in the famous Brook 
 Farm Colony. Albert Brisbane, father of 
 Arthur Brisbane, was the philosophic exponent 
 in America of those doctrines of social uplift 
 through groups living in association like one 
 large family. Along with Abolitionism, new 
 cults and queer societies were springing into 
 being everywhere in the country. 
 
 Such movements were ridiculed in the lith- 
 ograph posters of the day, and a few years 
 later the Democrats were accusing the new 
 Republican party of harboring all the cranks 
 and radicals, of every stripe, that had emerged 
 in the intellectual turmoil of the Forties and 
 early Fifties. Meanwhile, the illustrators, espe- 
 cially those who worked for the lithographers, 
 whose presses were now busy in New Orleans, 
 in Cincinnati, and other places in the West and 
 South as well as in Philadelphia, New York, 
 Hartford and Boston, were flooding the coun- 
 try with their conceptions of the battles and 
 
 Lieutenant Ulysses S. 
 Grant (since promoted First Lieutenant), of 
 the Fourth Regiment of Infantry, to be First 
 Lieutenant by brevet, for gallant and meritori- 
 ous services in the Battle of Chapultepec, Sep- 
 tember 13, 1847, as proposed in the accom- 
 panying communication from the Secretary 
 of War." 
 
 Robert E. Lee also was especially distin- 
 guished as an officer in the Mexican War, and 
 George B.McClellan was another young officer 
 cited for meritorious services, who, with many 
 other older and younger officers that I may 
 not here pause to mention by name, were to 
 attain far greater military distinction on one 
 side or the other in the Civil War. It was a 
 part of Lincoln's preparation for his future 
 duties, as commander-in-chief of our armies 
 and navies, that he had in 1848 become so 
 familiar not only with the exploits of General 
 Taylor and General Scott, but also with the 
 deeds and qualities of many younger soldiers, 
 both regulars and volunteers. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Lincoln a Leader in the Politics of 1848 
 
 He advises Zachary Taylor on his campaign — A three-party fight 
 
 that defeats Cass and elects Taylor, the Whig candidate — Lincoln 
 
 speaks in Massachusetts 
 
 Of Lincoln's speeches, votes and ac- 
 tivities in the Thirtieth Congress, we 
 have a sufficiently complete record to 
 form our own opinions. In the longer per- 
 spectives, that record seems to have more sig- 
 nificance than historians and biographers have, 
 as a rule, attached to it. We learn from it not 
 so much what he achieved, of the extent of 
 his growing influence upon the course of leg- 
 islation and politics, as what he had become, 
 in his convictions and in his competency as a 
 public man. The wholly absorbing topic of 
 the period was the Mexican War. Like every- 
 one else in both Houses, with negligible ex- 
 ceptions, Lincoln voted the necessary supplies 
 to carry on the war, and stoutly defended the 
 Whigs against their political opponents when 
 any questions were raised as to lack of war 
 zeal, or evasion of patriotic duty. 
 
 But Lincoln had entered Congress as a 
 staunch partisan, with as strong prejudices 
 against President Polk as he had entertained 
 against President Tyler. And he was com- 
 mitted to the Whig view of the Mexican War 
 as an unnecessary enterprise, deliberately pro- 
 voked by Calhoun and Southern leaders for 
 territorial acquisition. He thought of it as an 
 enterprise undertaken to counter-balance the 
 Free States of the rapidly developing North- 
 west. He was ready to challenge President 
 Polk on points of accuracy as to the ownership 
 of that particular strip on the Texas frontier, 
 the invasion of which by Mexican soldiers had, 
 according to the President's message, precipi- 
 tated a conflict that Texas and the United 
 States had done nothing to incite. Lincoln had 
 been in Congress only two weeks when he in- 
 troduced a series of resolutions calling upon 
 Polk to specify the exact spot where the out- 
 rages had occurred. 
 
 On January 12, 1848, about a month after 
 he had taken his place, Lincoln made a speech 
 
 in defense of his belief that the war with 
 Mexico "was unnecessarily and unconstitu- 
 tionally commenced by the President." He 
 was following up in this forensic effort his 
 previous resolutions, and he dealt at length 
 with the geographical facts regarding the 
 boundaries of Texas. He was frank enough 
 to say: "If the President can show that the 
 soil was ours where the first blood of the war 
 was shed — that it was not within an inhabited 
 country, or if within such that the inhabitants 
 
 ©nwasnaiiffii s. i?Airai©isi 
 
 ROUGH & HEAJ1Y " 
 
 Lincoln's choice for the Presidency in 1848 was General 
 Taylor, though he had not lost his admiration for Henry 
 Clay; and Lincoln spoke for Taylor not only in his own 
 State of Illinois but at Boston, Worcester, and elsewhere 
 in Massachusetts, by invitation from the local Whig leaders. 
 General Taylor was the hero of Palo Alto, Resaca de la 
 Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista. 
 
 145 
 
[46 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 had submitted themselves to the civil authority 
 11!" Texas or of the United States, and that 
 the same is true of the site of Fort Brown — 
 then I am with him for his justification. In 
 that case I shall he most happy to reverse the 
 vote I gave the other day." 
 
 It may be noted that Mr. Beveridge, himself 
 a Republican with strong Whig proclivities, 
 fully accepts the verdicts of several recent his- 
 torians, among them Charming, Rives, Smith, 
 and Stephenson, who justify the Mexican 
 War and support Polk as against the preju- 
 diced attitude of Lincoln and his fellow- 
 Whigs. Beveridge declares that these histo- 
 rians "demolish the old Whig and Abolition 
 theory of the Mexican War, which until re- 
 cent years was accepted by writers — the theory 
 that it was a war of conquest instigated by the 
 slave power, begun and waged by a powerful 
 and grasping nation against a small and weak 
 country for the purpose of seizing territory to 
 extend the domain of slavery." 
 
 Later on in the same speech Lincoln made 
 certain challenging observations regarding the 
 continuance of the war, which had been "going 
 
 PLUCKED : 
 
 TnE MF.MCAN EAfiLE fiEFORE TI1E WAR! THE MEXICAN EAGLE AFTER THE WAR! 
 
 The war with Mexico was short and one-sided. General Taylor from the Texas 
 border, and General Scott from the Gulf port of Vera Cruz, invaded Mexico 
 without a single reversal. Taylor's victories came first, followed by Scott's 
 march to Mexico City, the two campaigns lasting from May, 1846 to September, 
 1847. It is interesting to compare this cartoon with one quite similar which 
 appears later in these pages, showing the American eagle at the beginning and 
 at the end of President Buchanan's administration. 
 
 on for some twenty months." He remarked 
 that "the President now claims about one-half 
 of the Mexican territory, and that by far the 
 better half so far as concerns our ability to 
 make anything out of it." His point was that 
 Taylor had already conquered the states of 
 northern Mexico, which were very scantily 
 populated. In those regions we might pro- 
 mote American settlement, while the rest of 
 Mexico was densely inhabited and would not 
 be for us a desirable acquisition. He failed to 
 see that the only way to bring the Mexicans 
 to terms, and thus to end the war, was to 
 occupy the Capital and compel a settlement. 
 
 Polk's actual terms were liberal to Mexico. 
 Both countries would have been better off, in 
 the long run, if while we were about it we had 
 annexed by purchase a zone extending some 
 distance south of the Rio Grande, with a par- 
 allel of latitude for the boundary line, on the 
 plan of our Oregon settlement that took the 
 Forty-ninth parallel for the division. Rivers 
 seldom form satisfactory boundaries. 
 
 These territories of northern Mexico were 
 not adapted to cotton-growing, and would not 
 have invited the American 
 slave system. For laborers 
 they would have continued 
 for a time to utilize Mexican 
 peons, but they would have 
 been settled eventually by 
 sturdy Americans. 
 
 I have already alluded to 
 Lincoln's political speech of 
 June 30, 1848, after General 
 Taylor and Lewis Cass had 
 been made the opposing 
 nominees for the Presidency. 
 This was one of the telling 
 addresses of that campaign. 
 Lincoln also was listening to 
 his colleagues, and was send- 
 ing partisan Whig speeches 
 made by many fellow-mem- 
 bers to his friends and con- 
 stituents in Illinois. We find 
 him suggesting what he 
 thought to be the best prac- 
 tical positions for his some- 
 what puzzled candidate, 
 
LINCOLN A LEADER IN THE POLITICS OE 1848 
 
 147 
 
 General Taylor, to take with regard to public 
 questions. In the first place, he held that the 
 old contention favoring a National Bank had 
 better be ignored, as a lost cause. He foresaw 
 that a tariff revision was coming, with a view 
 to more revenue to meet the war debt; but 
 wished that Taylor would demand that tariff 
 modification be made "with due reference to 
 the protection of our home industry." 
 
 "As to the Mexican War," added Lincoln 
 (for Taylor's guidance), "I still think the de- 
 fensive-line policy the best to terminate it." 
 He then puts these words, suppositiously, in 
 Taylor's mouth : "In a final treaty of peace 
 we shall probably be under a sort of necessity 
 of taking some territory. But it is my desire 
 that we shall not acquire any extending so far 
 South as to enlarge and aggravate the distract- 
 ing question of slavery." Finally, in this 
 memorandum, he advises that Taylor should 
 express the view that legislation ought to be 
 left to Congress "uninfluenced by the execu- 
 tive in its origin or progress, and undisturbed 
 by the veto unless in very special and clear 
 cases." It will be remembered that Jackson, 
 Van Buren, Tyler, and Polk, had all been 
 assertive heads of the Government, urging 
 their policies upon Congress and the country, 
 and using the veto power freely and without 
 reluctance. 
 
 In July, Lincoln made a Taylor speech on 
 the floor of the House reviewing precedents 
 in the use of the veto power, putting a plat- 
 form of principles under General Taylor's 
 feet, and challenging General Cass's record 
 on the "Wilmot Proviso." Mr. Wilmot, a 
 Democrat of Pennsylvania, had earlier pre- 
 sented a famous resolution to the effect that 
 slavery should not be permitted in any terri- 
 tory that might be acquired as a result of the 
 Mexican War. Lincoln as a member of the 
 Post Office Committee, and as an expert in 
 matters of land laws and western settlement, 
 had been active in Congress in dealing with 
 domestic issues relating to extension of postal 
 service, sale of public lands, and support of in- 
 ternal transportation and other improvements. 
 The country was excited about California and 
 Oregon, and was negotiating for control of 
 the Panama route, with the view of building 
 
 A New York cartoon, not too friendly, published at the 
 time of the occupation of the Mexican capital by Gen. 
 Winfield Scott, commander of the United States Army, in 
 September, 1847. A decisive battle at Churubusco had 
 been followed by an armistice. Then hostilities were re- 
 sumed, and Chapultepec — guarding Mexico City — was 
 captured on September 13th. On the next day General 
 Scott was "revelling in the halls of the Montezumas." 
 
 a trans-isthmian railroad and perhaps ulti- 
 mately a ship canal to unite the oceans. 
 
 General Winfield Scott was also a Whig, 
 and had for a long time been regarded as of 
 presidential caliber. But there were reasons of 
 immediate availability that seemed to Lincoln 
 to make the choice of General Zachary Taylor 
 preferable. It was with regret that he could 
 not join in supporting his long-time party 
 chief, Henry Clay ; but he felt that this would 
 be a political mistake. Clay remained the 
 party's mentor and pre-eminent statesman, 
 with his crowning efforts for national har- 
 mony yet to be made, two years later in the 
 Senate. Taylor's personal position was that 
 of a man who had not originally believed in 
 marching an American Army to the Rio 
 
148 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Grande. But he had obeyed orders, and had 
 thereby made himself a first-class military 
 hero. Tins was in spite of his opinion that 
 war might have been avoided if we had been 
 less ready to meet the Mexican forces on the 
 field of battle. Such a record gave Taylor a 
 peculiar availability. The anti-war men could 
 back him on his sentiments, and the war party 
 loved him for his successes on the battlefield. 
 
 The Democrats held their convention first, 
 meeting at Baltimore on May 22d. They regu- 
 larized party methods for the future by fixing 
 the number of delegates as equal to the elec- 
 toral vote of each State. They appointed a 
 National Democratic Committee, and again 
 they adopted the two-thirds rule. 
 
 The unity of the convention was affected by 
 
 ***; 
 
 DESERTION OE HENRY CLAY. 
 
 (ArTCR VANDrRLY.VS PICTURE OF CAIU8 MARICfl.) 
 
 The Kentucky Senator in every campaign from 1824 to 
 1848 was either a leading candidate or actually nominated 
 for the Presidency. It was his misfortune that in the two 
 elections carried by the Whigs the nomination had been 
 tendered to a more available candidate, brought forward 
 by war. Clay was "deserted" by his party in the year 
 1848, according to this cartoon from Yankee Doodle; he 
 was "assassinated," according to a similar cartoon repro- 
 duced on page 151. 
 
 a sharp cleavage in New York between the up- 
 state followers of Van Buren and Silas Wright 
 and the elements that centered in Tammany 
 Hall. The former had become known as 
 "Barn-Burners," someone having suggested 
 that in their zeal for uplift and reform they 
 were like the farmer who had burned his barn 
 to get rid of the rats. The other faction was 
 known as "Hunkers" and was led by Mr. 
 Marcy, Polk's Secretary of State, and sup- 
 ported, as I have said, by Tammany Hall. 
 They were called "Hunkers" because they 
 were said to be hunkering, or hankering, for 
 the offices. In those days the Whigs called 
 Democrats in general "Loco-Focos." 
 
 This rather far-fetched designation grew 
 out of a lively row in Tammany Hall in the 
 year 1835. The so-called "Equal Rights" 
 men, radical Jacksonians opposed to Tam- 
 many, had gone to Tammany Hall to attend a 
 Democratic mass-meeting, and to oppose cer- 
 tain Tammany nominations. The Tammany 
 men had slipped out of the hall and turned off 
 the gas-lights. The Ecmal Rights men sup- 
 plied themselves with candles, and passed 
 around boxes of the new so-called "Loco- 
 Foco" matches, a chemical invention which had 
 just come into use. I am taking space to ex- 
 plain these designations, because they were 
 used constantly in the campaigns of that 
 period, and also because it is necessary to 
 understand them in order to catch the mean- 
 ing of many of the contemporary cartoons. 
 
 The Whigs had fallen into the habit of 
 calling all Democrats "Loco-Focos," Lincoln 
 himself constantly using that term in his po- 
 litical correspondence. But in the Baltimore 
 Convention of 1848, the terms "Hunker" and 
 "Barn-Burner" were applied specifically to 
 the two factions in New York State. Each of 
 the two appeared with a full delegation. The 
 Hunkers had been favored rather than the 
 Barn-Burners with appointments by President 
 Polk. Neither faction was satisfied with the 
 convention's action, taken after two days of 
 argument. It was decided by a close vote to 
 allow each to cast half the votes to which New 
 York was entitled, both delegations being 
 seated. Barn-Burners indignantly withdrew 
 and the Hunkers sulked. Their quarrel was 
 
LINCOLN A LEADER IN THE POLITICS OF 1848 
 
 149 
 
 carried to election day, and it resulted in a 
 tremendous New York plurality for General 
 Taylor. The national outcome turned upon 
 the New York vote, as has been the case in 
 several presidential elections since 1848. 
 
 Candidates in abundance were brought for- 
 ward at Baltimore, but Lewis Cass of Michi- 
 gan was the favorite from the start. On the 
 first ballot he had 125 votes, James Buchanan 
 55, Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire 53, 
 John C. Calhoun 9, with scattering votes for 
 two or three others. Cass was nominated on 
 the fourth ballot with 179, Buchanan having 
 33, Woodbury 38. President Polk would 
 have welcomed a renomination, but he had 
 originally declared himself a one-term man; 
 and there was no disposition to overrule what 
 he had said in 1844. Since General Cass, like 
 the other candidates, was against the Wilmot 
 Proviso, and was considered one of the 
 "Northern men with Southern principles," it 
 was regarded as tactful to choose a man of 
 striking personality and distinguished career, 
 an altogether shapely and solid piece of presi- 
 dential timber. General William O. Butler of 
 Kentucky was nominated for the Vice-Presi- 
 dency. 
 
 The platform justified the Mexican War. 
 praised the army, congratulated the new 
 French Republic and glorified "this grand po- 
 litical truth : of the sovereignty of the people 
 and their power and capacity for self-govern- 
 ment which is prostrating thrones and erecting 
 republics on the ruins of despotism in the Old 
 World." In one terse resolution the platform 
 praised the Democratic party for its con- 
 tinued success in defeating efforts to create a 
 national bank, for its prevention of the dis- 
 tribution of the proceeds of land sales, for its 
 management of currency and monetary con- 
 ditions and for "the noble impulse given to 
 the cause of free-trade by the repeal of the 
 tariff of 1842, and the creation of the more 
 equal, honest, and productive tariff of 1846.'' 
 Certainly this was a vigorous and unambigu- 
 ous platform, following in sequence a number 
 of equally frank and well-written Democratic 
 platforms that were in contrast with the grow- 
 ing tendencies of the Whig party to conceal its 
 lack of unity on points of principle. 
 
 GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR 
 
 Twelfth President of the United States 
 
 Though the Whigs had opposed the idea of war with 
 Mexico they supported it vigorously when it came, and 
 later they nominated its two outstanding military leaders 
 as their candidates for the presidency — Taylor in 1848 and 
 Scott in 1852. Taylor was born in Virginia in 1784, and 
 went into Kentucky with his family while still a child. He 
 entered the army in 1808, came out of the war of 1812 as 
 a Major, rose through the rank of Colonel to Brigadier- 
 General in the Black Hawk and Seminole Indian wars, and 
 as commander of the southern division of the western 
 military department was the obvious choice to lead the 
 expedition into Mexico in 1846. He was elected President 
 two years later, when a Louisiana planter, but died in of- 
 fice on July 9, 18S0, sixteen months after inauguration. 
 
 Lincoln, as we have already discovered, was 
 present at the Whig national convention at 
 Philadelphia, opening on the seventh of June. 
 General Taylor, like Henry Clay, his chief 
 competitor for the nomination, was a Southern 
 slave-holder. He had long been identified 
 with the American army, and he was sixty- 
 four years of age, having been born in Orange 
 County, Virginia, November 24, 1784. He 
 was the favorite of Louisiana, and had been 
 put in nomination by a convention of the peo- 
 ple of that State, regardless of party, many 
 months before the convention date. Similar 
 endorsements in Alabama and other Southern 
 communities attested Taylor's popularity. He 
 
150 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 seemed inclined at first to make an independ- 
 ent run ; but in casting about for a party he 
 concluded that he was, after all, "a Whig 
 though not an ultra one." 
 
 Henry Clay had outlived some of the issues 
 with which he had been most strongly identi- 
 fied; and the Whigs, finding themselves on 
 the unpopular side of the Mexican War, felt 
 it necessary to choose for their standard- 
 bearer a war-hero whose valorous deeds might 
 serve them as a bridge. In the Philadelphia 
 convention of June 7th Taylor was nominated 
 on the fourth ballot. He had 1 1 1 votes on 
 the first, against 97 for Henry Clay, 43 for 
 General Winfield Scott (whose home was in 
 New Jersey), 22 for Daniel Webster, 2 for 
 John McLean of Ohio, and 4 for John M. 
 Clavton of Delaware. On the final ballot, the 
 
 vote stood Taylor 171, Clay 32, Scott 63, 
 Webster 14. At each ballot Taylor had received 
 votes from every one of the States; and the 
 convention accepted him with enthusiasm. 
 
 Rivalry for the Vice-Presidency lay be- 
 tween Millard Fillmore of New York and 
 Abbott Lawrence of Massachusetts, with Fill- 
 more successful on the second ballot. This 
 ticket, "Taylor and Fillmore," was not the 
 sort that great statesmen like Daniel Webster 
 and Henry Clay could view with emotions of 
 satisfaction. But it was a vote-getting selec- 
 tion, as the event proved, and it served the 
 purpose for which it had been named. 
 
 There were all sorts of sporadic attempts at 
 the founding of new parties in 1848, previous 
 to the two big conventions. The so-called 
 "Native Americans" had launched a move- 
 
 GeiUlemt/i I riui/iol 
 ettt/orse a ' iiolelh.iit 
 l/ic ilntiioi /mus'/f 
 has riol siaiie/f . 
 
 fj/r Clay whilr /mis Mayoi 
 
 ' ol'lliflilyof/Ve>r>orA / 
 .:sfi/itll /lie Jtif/iienrf llu/d 
 I to have you ittwu/t/rled.you 
 \ luivtialirtys been my first 
 
 r/ioti 
 
 h oh I you/- lou/ieje 
 I ' rillrj/i/r/i you 
 trill rum eie/y 
 I/11/14/ 
 
 HraJ) i/i> to" 
 
 him l/ial /if whs 
 
 1! our first Choice 
 
 THE AVAIhAHLE 1'AR.TY IKY/NO TO GUT IIIEIIi VI I.LJVY CNIWHSMI ttf THE VEKY MAN. TIlKr HAVE ASSASISATED 
 
 There was some doubt whether Henry Clay would support General Taylor after he himself had 
 been passed over by the convention. In this cartoon Clay refers to the fact that Taylor was refusing 
 to state his position on any of the important questions of the day. At the left of his three visitors 
 is William V. Brady, then Mayor of New York, and at the right is John J. Crittenden, who in that 
 year 1848 served first as Senator from Kentucky and later as Governor. The note that they present 
 reads: "Mr. Clay: We have called on you to humbly request that you will state to your friends that 
 you approve of the Philadelphia convention and that you endorse General Taylor as a good Whig." 
 
LINCOLN A LEADER IN THE POLITICS OF 1848 
 
 151 
 
 the ASSAS/A/AT/O/V or the SAGE OF ASHLAND. 
 
 Henry Clay would have been the obvious choice of the Whigs in 1848 had the war with Mexico not 
 brought forward General Taylor. The vote-getting qualifications of the military leader out- 
 weighed those of the statesman, and Clay was once more disappointed. His first bid for the presi- 
 dency came in 1824, when he was one of four candidates no one of whom received a majority; and 
 Clay, being then Speaker of the House, helped to elect Adams. In 1832 Clay was the nominee of the 
 National Republican party, defeated by Jackson. In 1840 the Whig nomination that he expected 
 was given to General Harrison. In 1844 he was nominated by the Whigs and defeated by Polk 
 largely because he opposed the annexation of Texas. In 1848 the Whig nomination was given to 
 General Taylor. Clay is designated here as the Sage of Ashland, that being the name of his estate 
 near Lexington, Kentucky. Shakespeare's tragedies were popular on the American stage; the elder 
 Booth was at the height of his career. The assassinators are thus found to be repeating lines used 
 by the conspirators in "Julius Caesar." 
 
 ment, and the Abolitionists, meeting in New 
 York City, had nominated John P. Hale of 
 New Hampshire. These smaller affairs, how- 
 ever, were afterwards absorbed to some ex- 
 tent in a coalition movement which included 
 New York Democratic Barn-Burners, Ohio 
 anti-slavery men both Democrats and Wings, 
 and especially the anti-slavery Whigs of Mas- 
 sachusetts. This movement, with strong lead- 
 ers, was not to be despised. It came to be 
 known by the term "Free Soil," from the 
 brave motto on its banners : "Free Soil, Free 
 Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men." 
 
 Ex-President Van Buren (whose opinions 
 were now rapidly taking a Northern complex- 
 ion) somewhat reluctantly accepted the Free 
 Soil nomination for the Presidency. Charles 
 Francis Adams of Massachusetts (son of John 
 Ouincy Adams and afterwards Mr. Lincoln's 
 Minister to England), was nominated for 
 Vice-President. If this was as yet a relatively 
 small party, it had leaders more eminent than 
 the nominees of either of the great parties, 
 and it had adopted a powerful platform, most 
 of which was devoted to a series of pro- 
 nouncements on the subject of slaverv. At 
 
152 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 the tail of the series of resolutions was the 
 following: "Resolved: That we inscribe on 
 our banner, Free Soil, Free Speech, Free 
 Labor and Free Men, and under it we will 
 fight on, and fight ever, until a triumphant 
 victory shall reward our exertions." 
 
 The popular vote for the Taylor ticket was 
 1,360,000, that of the Cass ticket 1,220,500, 
 while the Van Buren Free Soil ticket had ex- 
 actly 291,263. This vote for the third party 
 seemed small — ten or eleven per cent, of the 
 total poll. Yet the rivalry between the two 
 famous Democrats Cass and Van Buren gave 
 the State of New York to the Whigs, thereby 
 electing Taylor President of the United States. 
 The popular vote in New York was 218,603 
 for Taylor, 120,510 for Van Buren, and only 
 1 14,3 18 for Cass. The Van Buren ticket drew 
 almost enough Democrats, though not quite, 
 
 to carry Lincoln's State of Illinois for the 
 Whig ticket. Largely on grounds of per- 
 sonal popularity, Taylor carried Delaware, 
 Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mary- 
 land, North Carolina, and Tennessee, all of 
 these being slave-holding States that might 
 under more normal conditions have gone Dem- 
 ocratic. Cass carried Virginia, but by a very 
 narrow margin. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
 Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa all went Dem- 
 ocratic, and gave their electoral vote to Cass. 
 The main result seemed rather a curious re- 
 versal of the sectional tendencies that were so 
 soon to exhibit themselves. 
 
 Although the Free Soil movement did not 
 poll a large aggregate vote, it was decidedly 
 stronger in Massachusetts and Vermont than 
 the regular Democratic ticket, as I have just 
 shown that it was in New York. Its impor- 
 
 fjHb Caf, t/ie^fn/e/s too\ ( 
 \hijhforyouf You'll j 
 
 J tried myoldhlujmssame i lTnree bulleh.C/ciy/ Stiff 
 
 I Wftryouf >bu II j j m f ha conU n te4 h an Jl sr,oth l n 3 K, o/d f^ef tfaerer I 
 
 \tex-e top/ay for smalleh \f> bra? wdhbuta hand 'full <f j l u / f U iar ei6f>emet lam\ 
 
 V Srd/cesf \ \heart5 1 Jm nor sorry 7wwew\ 1 z., „ , /, , „v ^,7-a 
 
 By Jove' PclM. O/d. j \fi7y knave hand\ 
 Zacki oorthe docw) ^Puchanan, has j 
 
 merits ! three. ( Y" 1 * me fhe 9 a ? e * 
 natties! J \ I may as we// 
 
 POLITICAL CAME OF BRAGbHEWOF HANDS. 
 
 Brag, a card game similar to poker, was frequently used as a subject for these cartoons. The 
 four players around this table are two Whigs and two Democrats. Taylor, facing the reader, has 
 won the Whig nomination with three aces or bullets. Clay rises and announces that his own bluff 
 game has failed. At the left of the picture is Calhoun, lending encouragement to Cass, the Demo- 
 cratic nominee. At the right are President Polk, seated, and his Secretary of State, James Buchanan. 
 
LINCOLN A LEADER IN THE POLITICS OF 1848 
 
 153 
 
 MARRIAGE OF THE FREE SOIL. AND LIBERTY PARTIES. 
 
 Jbm. M.r.9 
 
 Martin Van Buren, not having been at all anxious to accept the Free Soil party's nomination for the 
 presidency, could not have been particularly pleased when his candidacy was endorsed by the much 
 more radical abolitionist Liberty party. Pushing Van Buren forward in this cartoon is Horace 
 Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune. Reading the marriage service is Benjamin F. Butler of 
 New York, not to be confused with the man of the same name who became a Civil War general and 
 Governor of Massachusetts. The Butler in this cartoon had been Van Buren's law partner and a 
 member of the cabinets of Jackson and Van Buren. For most of his life an enthusiastic Democrat, 
 he was beginning to disapprove of some of that party's policies, and joined the new Republican 
 party in 18S6. He was the father of William Allen Butler and grandfather of Charles Henry But- 
 ler, both distinguished lawyers. 
 
 tance lay in the fact that it was the beginning 
 of the break-up of the Whig party. Mr. Bar- 
 ton reminds us that in Massachusetts it was 
 led by men of the highest distinction, among 
 whom he names Henry Wilson, Charles Fran- 
 cis Adams, Anson Burlingame, John A. An- 
 drew, E. Rockwood Hoar and John G. Palfrey. 
 Mr. Beveridge adds the names George Frisbie 
 Hoar and Richard Henry Dana, and further 
 reminds us that "nearly all men of letters in 
 Massachusetts supported the new party — 
 Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell." These were 
 men who, at a later time, surrounded Lincoln 
 in the forefront of the Republican party. 
 
 At this time, however, Lincoln as an ortho- 
 dox Whig was fighting the "bolt" of the Free 
 Soilers from the party of Webster and Clay. 
 
 He was one of several speakers from New 
 York and States further West, who were in- 
 vited to take the stump in Massachusetts, and 
 he accepted promptly. There has been a some- 
 what prevalent impression (due perhaps to 
 the dramatists and rhapsodists who translate 
 Lincoln from the prairies to the White House, 
 with twenty years ignored) that Lincoln had 
 never spoken in the East until he delivered the 
 Cooper Union Speech in i860, immediately 
 after which he made a few addresses in New 
 England. But on September 13, 1848, he at- 
 tended the Whig convention of Massachusetts 
 at Worcester, and delivered before the dele- 
 gates a long evening address. 
 
 His main object in Massachusetts was to 
 check the Free Soil revolt, on the ground that 
 
154 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Whig victory would really be better for the 
 cause of the anti-slavery men than the election 
 of Cass on a pro-slavery platform. As it 
 turned out, however, the third party move- 
 ment, by splitting the Democrats in New 
 York, was the instrument by which Lincoln's 
 candidate won the election. Similarly, the 
 split availed to increase the Whig plurality in 
 Massachusetts. Barton says that Lincoln 
 spoke in Boston on September 15th, and at 
 Lowell on the following day. In the next 
 week he made addresses at Dorchester, Chel- 
 sea and Dedham — where he "evoked so much 
 enthusiasm that his audience was unwilling to 
 have him leave for Cambridge, where he 
 spoke that night.'' Leaving Cambridge, he 
 spoke again in Boston with William H. Sew- 
 ard of New York, the eloquent statesman who 
 was in i860 to be his foremost rival for the 
 
 nomination, and who became his Secretary of 
 State. The two men became well acquainted 
 on this occasion, and Lincoln was impressed 
 by Seward's earnestness and tone of prophecy. 
 As a speaker, Lincoln was undoubtedly a 
 favorite that year in Massachusetts. Reasons 
 of his own led him to decline many further 
 invitations to canvass in the East. He returned 
 to Illinois by way of Niagara Falls and Lake 
 Erie, and stopped at Chicago, where on Octo- 
 ber 6th he made a two-hour campaign speech. 
 Anticipating events, it may be noted that Lin- 
 coln appeared again in Chicago by official in- 
 vitation on July 25, 1850, to deliver a com- 
 memorative address on President Taylor, who 
 had died in office July 9th. This memorial ad- 
 dress was brought to light and published by 
 Mr. Barton some seventy years after it had 
 been heard by the leading men of Chicago. 
 
 CL £ DUKAM., MHA0' 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC rilNERAL OF 18 48 
 
 In this year Martin Van Buren, twice the standard-bearer of the Democrats, had somewhat reluc- 
 tantly accepted the nomination of the so-called Free Soil party, causing a split in the Democratic 
 ranks which was fatal to the party's chance of success. This Whig cartoon shows Van Buren the 
 fox and Cass the gas-bag, carried by pall-bearers Houston, Benton, and Calhoun — all Democratic 
 Senators. President Polk, whose term was expiring, is being carried by Allen, Kendall, Woodbury, 
 and Worth — the first three being Democratic Senators and the last a Major-General second in com- 
 mand to Taylor and to Scott in the war with Mexico. 
 
In the campaign of 18S2 the Democrats brought forward Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire as their 
 candidate for President. This cartoon throws more light upon the prohibition movement, then 
 under way, than upon the personal qualities of Pierce, who is pictured here as needing the support of 
 a tree. Maine — represented by the man on horseback, scolding the New Hampshire presidential 
 nominee — had been the first State to abolish the sale of liquor, in 1846. Vermont had followed in 
 1852, the presidential campaign year. Pierce's own State of New Hampshire did not adopt prohibi- 
 tion until 18SS, and abandoned it in 1902. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Lincoln Returns to Private Li 
 
 He considers government posts in the Land Office and Oregon — The 
 Compromise of 1850 — The nominating convention and presidential 
 
 election of 1852 
 
 President Taylor, though born in Vir- 
 ginia, had for a long time been a resident 
 of Louisiana where he owned a large 
 sugar plantation and several hundred slaves. 
 He is credited with having been a good busi- 
 ness man, well-trained in methods of practical 
 efficiency, both by the conduct of his private 
 affairs and also by the responsibilities of a long 
 
 career in the army. He came to Washington 
 with preconceived ideas of the constitutional 
 rights of the slave-holding States, but he was 
 no victim of the metaphysics of Calhoun and 
 the theorists of that school, nor was he com- 
 mitted to the practical policies of the slavery 
 expansionists like Cobb, Toombs, and Davis. 
 He was a man of little education, but of rea- 
 
 155 
 
156 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 sonable mentality ; and he soon came to un- 
 derstand the futility of the Southern purpose 
 to force slavery upon new communities that 
 did not want it and were determined not to 
 have it. 
 
 The rush to California from all parts of the 
 world, gold having been discovered at the very 
 moment of the signing of the treaty with Mex- 
 ico, promptly resulted in a statehood move- 
 ment; and a convention in California formed 
 an anti-slavery constitution with the unani- 
 mous vote of the delegates. The demand on 
 the part of slave-owners that they should be 
 given the right to go to these new regions and 
 carry their archaic institution with them, was 
 purely theoretical in view of the facts. The 
 census of 1850 showed that California already 
 had a population of 92,597, and there was 
 not a single slave enumerated, although there 
 were 965 free persons of color. 
 
 Neither was there a single slave in the ter- 
 ritory of New Mexico, it may be pertinent to 
 note, where there were 17 free Negroes 
 and a total white population of 61,530. In 
 the Utah Territory, afterwards subdivided to 
 form several States, there were exactly 26 
 slaves and 24 free Negroes. Kansas, Nebras- 
 ka, the Dakotas, and other portions of the 
 new Northwest were still in the condition 
 of a wilderness area not yet opened for 
 settlement. This wild territory was closed 
 to slavery by the Compromise of 1820. It 
 offered almost no possibility of ever coming 
 under the slave system, with the exception of 
 its extreme southern portion, that was in the 
 near future to be marked off as the Territory 
 of Kansas. 
 
 Being a man of poise and common sense, 
 Taylor quickly perceived, after he had become 
 President, that the carrying of slavery into 
 the new country acquired from Mexico, quite 
 apart from fine-spun theories, was out of the 
 question as a concrete proposal. In the first 
 place, the new territories belonged to the 
 United States as a whole ; and an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the people of the country were 
 opposed to slavery extension. In the second 
 place, there were no prospective cotton and 
 sugar plantations in any of these new areas. 
 There was nothing that tempted the pioneers 
 
 and prospectors to encourage slavery and set 
 up the local slave codes that cumbered the 
 statute books of the old Slave States. 
 
 The lower South, in its new enthusiasm for 
 wealth and prosperity under an economic sys- 
 tem that would brook no thought of alterna- 
 tives, began to revive the long suspended pro- 
 ject of annexing Cuba. It was the idea of the 
 Gulf States that they might convert that rich 
 island of tobacco and sugar plantations into 
 three or four American slave states. We 
 had bought Florida in 1819, and Taylor's 
 Secretary of State — John M. Clayton of Dela- 
 ware — was now concluding the Clayton-Bul- 
 wer Treaty relating to a trans-Isthmian canal. 
 Cuban annexation was logical, and it was 
 tempting for other reasons than the strength- 
 ening of the slave system. President Taylor, 
 however, took firm ground against schemes to 
 force this Cuban project. He showed his 
 sincerity by his efforts to prevent the fili- 
 busters from provoking Cuban insurrections. 
 He advised Congress to admit California as a 
 Free State, and this was done on September 9, 
 1850, exactly two months after Taylor's death. 
 
 The return of a Whig administration had 
 compelled Taylor, in spite of himself, to give 
 more attention to the demands of office-seekers 
 than to questions of statesmanship. Not only 
 were the federal offices at Washington sought 
 by Whigs who urged the immediate dismissal 
 of many thousands of Democratic incumbents, 
 but federal appointments in all the States — 
 postmasterships and the like — occupied most 
 of the time and energy of Whig politicians, 
 who were demanding of Taylor that he should 
 consult them about questions of local patron- 
 age. As regards the State of New York with 
 its tangle of factions, Taylor expected at first 
 to rely upon the counsel of Vice-President 
 Fillmore. But before long he preferred the 
 guidance of William H. Seward, who had 
 just entered the Senate, where he took his 
 place at once as a powerful leader of the more 
 progressive and advanced Whig element. 
 
 Lincoln, as I have remarked, had found 
 Washington a congenial center of life and of 
 public work. He had not been long in Con- 
 gress before he wrote home to his partner 
 Herndon as follows : 
 
LINCOLN RETURNS TO PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 157 
 
 It is very pleasant to learn from you that there 
 are some who desire that I should be reelected. I 
 most heartily thank them for their kind partiality; 
 and I can say, as Mr. Clay said of the annexation 
 of Texas, that "personally I would not object" to a 
 reelection, although I thought at the time, and still 
 think, it would be quite as well for me to return to 
 the law at the end of a single term. I made the 
 declaration, that I would not be a candidate again, 
 more from a wish to deal fairly with others, to 
 keep peace among our friends, and to keep the dis- 
 trict from going to the enemy, than for any cause 
 personal to myself; so that, if it should so happen 
 that nobody else wishes to be elected, I could not 
 refuse the people the right to send me again. But 
 to enter myself as a competitor of others, or to 
 authorize any one so to enter me, is what my word 
 and honor forbid. 
 
 The old line Whigs, with Lincoln himself 
 still standing pat as a party regular and con- 
 servative, were now beginning to disintegrate 
 everywhere ; and this was true of the Seventh 
 Congressional District of Illinois. His young 
 partner, Herndon, wrote frequently to warn 
 him that the new generation was beginning 
 to resent "the stubbornness and bad judgment 
 of the old fossils in the party who were con- 
 stantly holding the young men back." It was 
 to Judge Stephen T. Logan that Lincoln had 
 been virtually committed as his successor ; and 
 Logan was duly nominated. But the voters 
 declined to elect him. It was by no means cer- 
 tain that Lincoln's readiness to be continued 
 in Congress would have kept him there, even 
 if Logan had withdrawn and the local con- 
 vention had tendered Lincoln the renomina- 
 tion that he coveted. Logan was a worthy 
 candidate, but the old party lines had so 
 shifted that Lincoln himself might have been 
 defeated at the polls, in spite of his personal 
 hold upon the voters. 
 
 Retiring Congressmen have a notorious 
 appetite for appointive office ; and Lincoln, 
 who deserved so well of the Taylor-Fillmore 
 administration, thought that something fairly 
 good ought be his if the proper strings were 
 pulled. On that subject he wrote: "I be- 
 lieve that, so far as the Whigs in Congress 
 are concerned, I could have the General Land 
 Office almost by common consent; but then 
 Sweet and Don Morrison and Cyrus Edwards 
 all want it, and what is worse, while I could 
 
 JOSftM, coMMA/irbwii rM/jvitJo stand sr/it 
 
 Until a few weeks before his death in 18S0, Senator John 
 C. Calhoun of South Carolina continued his struggle for 
 the right of an individual State to settle its destiny inde- 
 pendently of the will of the others. First this doctine of 
 State Rights and Nullification had to do with the tariff, 
 but in later years it applied particularly to slavery. In 
 this cartoon the sun represents the abolition press. Cal- 
 houn, as Joshua, issues his command: "Sun of intellectual 
 light and liberty, stand ye still, in masterly inactivity, 
 that the nation of Carolina may continue to hold Negroes 
 and plant cotton till the day of Judgment !" 
 
 easily take it myself, I fear I should have 
 trouble to get it for any other man in Illinois." 
 While really wanting the office very much for 
 himself, Lincoln was making his candidacy 
 conditional upon his inability to secure it for 
 Cyrus Edwards. Political influences at length 
 gave the position to Justin Butterfield, a Chi- 
 cago lawyer, who had supported the Mexican 
 War when Lincoln opposed it. Furthermore, 
 Logan was somewhat disaffected because he 
 thought that Lincoln's anti-war record was 
 the principal cause of Whig defeat in the 
 Congressional fight. Lincoln's opponents 
 seemed everywhere to be gaining at his ex- 
 pense, and some of his old friends clearly felt 
 
158 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 that lie had been playing a double-face game in 
 the matter of appointments. He was by no 
 means a happy Whig, as he returned to 
 Springfield. 
 
 The burdens of office were too much for 
 honest old Zachary Taylor, and he died on 
 July 9, 1850, having 
 served sixteen months, 
 or one-third of his 
 term. Even if Lincoln 
 had succeeded in ob- 
 taining the appoint- 
 ment that seemed to 
 him so desirable, he 
 would have held it at 
 most only during Fill- 
 more's administration 
 of less than three years, 
 since all such posts 
 were filled with still 
 another set of new 
 men when the election 
 of Franklin Pierce 
 over General Scott 
 brought the Demo- 
 crats back into power. 
 
 Furthermore, Lin- 
 coln would have found 
 the administrative de- 
 tail of the Land Office 
 uncongenial to a man 
 never 
 
 GKiSi' 
 
 m 
 
 * "■■'■ ' 
 
 «" i 
 
 
 gbgp 
 
 WILLIAM RUFUS 
 KING 
 
 Elected Vice-President on 
 the ticket with Franklin 
 Pierce in 1852, he died in 
 April of the following 
 year. He was a North 
 Carolinian by birth (1786), 
 but had moved into Ala- 
 bama in 1818, becoming 
 one of that State's first 
 United States Senators. In 
 that office he served for 
 thirty years until his elec- 
 tion as Vice-President, in- 
 terrupted only by a period 
 as Minister to France un- 
 der President Polk. 
 
 who had never had 
 any experience in man- 
 aging an organization 
 like this, with its sys- 
 tematic routine. A bu- 
 reau head in Washington is a subordinate per- 
 son, who does not talk politics in hotel lobbies 
 or take the stump from time to time as a party 
 orator. Such a post would have been mani- 
 festly unsuited to so self-ordered and inde- 
 pendent a personage as Abraham Lincoln. He 
 had always been greatly interested in public 
 policy as affecting the Western lands; but as 
 Commissioner of the Land Office the Con- 
 gressional committees would have failed to 
 consult him. They would instead have been in 
 communication with his superior, the Secre- 
 tary of the Interior. It was merely that he and 
 Mrs. Lincoln liked Washington life. 
 
 This Interior Department was a brand-new 
 creation, and President Taylor had made 
 Thomas Ewing of Ohio its first head. Fill- 
 more two months after he entered the White 
 House gave the Interior portfolio to Alex- 
 ander H. H. Stuart of Virginia. These changes 
 would have found Abraham Lincoln merely 
 a bureau head in a department of rotating 
 appointees, with no mortgage on his own job. 
 The whole episode indicates — what many other 
 evidences go to prove — that Lincoln at that 
 time, and for a few years afterwards, was 
 drifting rather than choosing, in so far as 
 external details of his career were concerned. 
 
 Regardless of his 
 own inclinations, how- 
 ever, circumstances 
 were compelling one 
 decision after another 
 tINt 1 M that proved fortunate 
 
 in the end. 
 
 It is an honorable 
 thing for a man fit 
 for the representative 
 tasks of law-making 
 and government to 
 work for the realiza- 
 tion of his ambitions. 
 But there are times 
 when it is the better 
 plan to resume the 
 paths of private life 
 contentedly, and let the 
 office seek the man. 
 Mr. Barton, following 
 many other biograph- 
 ers, declares : "Though 
 President Taylor did 
 not see fit to offer him 
 the Land Office in 
 Washington, his suc- 
 cessor, President Fill- 
 more, did offer him 
 the Governorship of 
 Oregon." Mr. Barton continues as follows: 
 "Lincoln was sorely tempted to accept. He 
 anticipated little joy in Springfield. There was 
 much that was irksome to him in the practice 
 of law. He did not care much to be Governor 
 of the Territory, but he reflected that before 
 
 JOHN PARKER HALE 
 Free Soil candidate for the 
 Presidency in 1852. Hale 
 was a New Hampshire 
 Democrat who found him- 
 self in bitter strife with his 
 party by opposing slavery. 
 He served first in the 
 House, beginning in 1843, 
 then in the Senate, of 
 which he was a member 
 while running for the 
 Presidency. He retired 
 from the Senate in 1865 
 to become Minister to 
 Spain. Hale was one of 
 the organizers of the Re- 
 publican party. 
 
LINCOLN RETURNS TO PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 159 
 
 long Oregon would be a State, and that the art who became Secretary of the Interior) — 
 territorial governor would stand a chance of that for the mere cost at government expense 
 being one of the first Senators. Mrs. Lincoln of a trip to Oregon Lincoln might hope to re- 
 vetoed this proposition. She had no intention turn, also at government expense on transcon- 
 of going to live in Oregon. If she could not tinental mileage account, as United States 
 live in Washington, Springfield was the next Senator. California had hastened to make the 
 
 lucky John C. Fremont 
 one of its two first mem- 
 
 best thing. Her home was 
 there and her friends 
 were there, and she had 
 more faith than Lincoln 
 had just then in his politi- 
 cal future." 
 
 Nicolay and Hay state 
 unequivocally that it was 
 Taylor not Fillmore who 
 "offered Mr. Lincoln the 
 Governorship of Ore- 
 gon," upon what they re- 
 gard as ample authority. 
 Mr. Joseph H. Barrett in 
 his important work pub- 
 lished in 1904, entitled 
 "Abraham Lincoln and 
 His Presidency," went 
 straight to the files at 
 Washington, and discov- 
 ered that Lincoln was not 
 in fact offered the Gov- 
 ernorship of Oregon, but 
 rather that on August 
 9, 1849, a duly certified 
 commission was issued to 
 him, appointing him Sec- 
 retary of the Oregon 
 Territory, the Governor- 
 ship on the same date 
 having been awarded to 
 
 Hon. Joseph Marshall of 
 Indiana. Both commis- 
 sions were returned, and 
 were placed in the ar- 
 chives marked"declined." 
 
 Mr. Beveridge, with his especial aptitude 
 for political facts and their bearings, discov- 
 ered in his own way that it was Fillmore and 
 not Taylor who had issued the commission, 
 and that the office in question was the Secre- 
 taryship. In most of the biographies there is 
 the assumption — readily traced to Lincoln's 
 Illinois friend Stuart (not to the Virginia Stu- 
 
 MILLARD FILLMORE 
 
 President of the United States, 1850-1853 
 
 Fillmore became President through the death of 
 Zachary Taylor, and served for slightly less than 
 three years. He was a lawyer of Buffalo, N. Y., 
 born in 1800, and entered public life at the age of 
 twenty-eight as a member of the Legislature. He 
 was then elected to Congress, serving four terms, 
 becoming chairman of the Ways and Means Com- 
 mittee which framed the high protective tariff of 
 1842, and retired in the following year. In 1848 
 he was elected Vice-President, and on July 9, 
 18S0 stepped into the presidency. He failed to 
 secure a renomination, but in 18S6 he was the 
 candidate of the American or Know Nothing 
 party, receiving a considerable popular vote, but 
 carrying only the State of Maryland. 
 
 bers of the United States 
 Senate ; but the idea that 
 Lincoln might arrive at 
 high office in Washing- 
 ton by way of the Ore- 
 gon Trail, was probably 
 never entertained by him 
 for a moment. 
 
 He was aware, though 
 some of his biographers 
 have not considered the 
 fact, that Oregon in 1850 
 was by no means ready 
 for statehood. The popu- 
 lation by the census of 
 that year counted in the 
 Oregon Territory (con- 
 taining an area three or 
 four times as large as the 
 later State of Oregon) 
 was only 13,294. In 
 point of fact the date 
 of favorable action at 
 Washington on the ad- 
 mission of Oregon was 
 
 February 14, 1859; and 
 no Oregon Senator had 
 an opportunity to take his 
 seat until December 5th 
 of that year, with the 
 presidential campaign of 
 i860 already begun in its 
 preliminary movements. 
 Lincoln, of course, could 
 not have regarded Oregon as offering any 
 hope of political advancement. 
 
 That Lincoln ever thought of abandoning 
 his own State of Illinois I cannot believe. He 
 and Douglas had already set their stakes once 
 and for all. Each had "gone West to grow up 
 with the country" and had fully proved the 
 advantages of his location. It happened that 
 
i6o 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 
 ft 
 
 itj 
 
 
 
 
 
 HENRY CLAY AND HIS WIFE 
 Reproduced from an original Brady photograph owned by 
 the author. While a practising lawyer at Lexington, Ken- 
 tucky, Clay married Lucretia Hart, daughter of a respected 
 and well-known resident of that city. They had eleven 
 children, six daughters and five sons. The daughter named 
 for her mother died at the age of fourteen. The son 
 named for his father was killed in the war with Mexico. 
 A married daughter died at the age of twenty, another 
 died while Clay was on his way to Washington to be- 
 come Secretary of State. We make no effort here to call 
 the roll in full; his private life was in some respects as full 
 of disappointments to him as was his political career. 
 While still a member of the Senate, Clay died in 18S2 at 
 the age of seventy-five, having been in public life more 
 than half a century. 
 
 Douglas as a Democrat was in the Senate, and 
 in the public eye. Lincoln, belonging to the 
 minority party, was relegated to private life. I 
 cannot be completely convinced by the testi- 
 mony that is heaped up to prove that this re- 
 turn to his law practice had filled Lincoln with 
 unspeakable gloom and disappointment. 
 
 Such are the paradoxes of politics that 
 Douglas, not Lincoln, was just then in the less 
 enviable situation. For Douglas was where 
 he must form opinions rapidly, and answer 
 for them to the entire country. In retirement 
 from office for a few years, he could have 
 studied situations and assumed his positions 
 more deliberately. It was his very place of 
 eminence in the Senate that led him to a mis- 
 take that precipitated conflicts within the 
 Democratic party, by virtue of which he lost 
 
 to Buchanan in 1856. Lincoln's exclusion from 
 public life gave him opportunity to recon- 
 sider his ground, and to resume the leadership 
 for which he was prepared when the old Whig 
 position had become no longer tenable. The 
 Republican party of his State in due time 
 found him in accord with its advanced 
 views. Moreover, in the midst of his disap- 
 pointment about the Land Office position, he 
 was not without recognition and honor on the 
 part of the Illinois Whigs. Mr. Barrett states 
 the case as follows : 
 
 A United States Senator was to be chosen at the 
 next session of the Illinois Legislature, but a Whig 
 majority in that body was not among the possibili- 
 ties of the time. Lincoln was voted for by the 
 Whig members for that office when the election 
 came off, .vhile the more effective vote of the Dem- 
 ocratic majority was given to General James 
 Shields, who had resigned his place as Commis- 
 sioner of the General Land Office to go to the war, 
 had been shot through the body on a Mexican bat- 
 tlefield, and had come back a military hero, who 
 could easily distance all political competitors. 
 
 Lincoln had only to wait, practising his pro- 
 fession with increased prestige, and studying 
 the course of public events with serious pur- 
 pose to find high ground from which he could 
 look to the country's future regardless of what 
 lay behind. With all his ambition, and his 
 consciousness that he had the power to stand 
 with the ablest men of both parties, he had 
 never risen wholly above the early sense of 
 disadvantage. His frequent moods of depres- 
 sion and melancholy had plagued him with 
 what in the pseudo-scientific jargon of our 
 day is called the "inferiority complex." In 
 "the invaluable discipline of defeat," as Bever- 
 idge observes, Lincoln was to forget himself 
 in order to fight the battles of his country. It 
 is not my purpose in these pages to dwell at 
 length upon his private fortunes in this period, 
 nor shall I yield to the temptation of making 
 an elaborate review of the political events that 
 were following each other so swiftly in the 
 days that were now closing upon the long ca- 
 reers of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. 
 
 In his excellent school history, Professor 
 Muzzey comments upon the brilliancy of the 
 United States Senate as it assembled in Decem- 
 ber, 1849. "There met for the last time," 
 
LINCOLN RETURNS TO PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 161 
 
 says Mr. Muzzey, "the great triumvirate of 
 American statesmen, Clay, Webster, and Cal- 
 houn — all three born during the Revolution- 
 ary War, and all so identified with every pub- 
 lic question for a generation that to write the 
 biography of any one of them would be to 
 write the history of our country during that 
 period." He then cites the names of Benton, 
 Cass, Bell, Douglas, Davis, Seward, Chase, 
 and Hale, "the last three being the first pro- 
 nounced anti-slavery delegation in the Senate." 
 The Missouri Compromise of 1820 which 
 had fixed a dividing line between Slave States 
 and Free States to be formed out of the Louisi- 
 ana Purchase, had stood for thirty years. But 
 the Mexican War had reopened the discussion. 
 There were differences about California, New 
 Mexico, Texas, the District of Columbia, and 
 the fugitive slave laws. In what was termed 
 his Omnibus Bill, Clay attempted to secure 
 harmony. He proposed California's admis- 
 sion as a free state, and the division of the 
 New Mexico area on the Thirty-seventh par- 
 allel, leaving the slavery question to the choice 
 of the settlers. He was readjusting Texas 
 boundaries with compensation, and abolishing 
 the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in the 
 District of Columbia. He was proposing a 
 new and more effective law for the recovery 
 of runaway Negroes. 
 
 Calhoun made his final plea for the South 
 on March 4, 1850, five weeks after the Clay 
 bill had been introduced, and died before the 
 end of the month. Webster's great speech 
 was on the 7th of March, and he supported 
 Clay's bill. He thought the Wilmot Proviso 
 unnecessary, because he knew that slavery 
 would never invade the plains and mountains 
 of the areas in dispute. Webster spoke as a 
 statesman, but was denounced in Massachu- 
 setts as a moral reprobate by the impatient 
 Free-Soilers. Seward, now in the Senate from 
 New York, appealed to what he called the 
 "higher law" of the anti-slavery movement. 
 Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, who like Seward 
 was to hold high rank in Lincoln's Cabinet, 
 opposed the Compromise as a weak and vain 
 concession to the aggressive slave-holders. 
 
 President Taylor, the Louisiana planter and 
 slave-owner, had been won over to Seward's 
 
 WIMFJ JSEa'B BBOTT. 
 JFouxBfiosemiHFiiP^siaiipinift oJFfllufi Uiuted Slates. 
 
 Abandoning a law career at the age of twenty-one, Scott 
 entered the army with the rank of Captain in 1808 and 
 remained in active service until he retired, at the age of 
 75, in the first year of the Civil War. The War of 1812 
 brought him opportunity for distinguished service, and 
 when war with Mexico came in 1846 he was commander 
 of the army and as such entered Mexico City to receive 
 the surrender of Santa Anna. In 1852 he was nominated 
 by the Whigs for President, but was overwhelmingly de- 
 feated by the Democratic candidate, Franklin Pierce. This 
 portrait is reproduced from a colored lithograph campaign 
 poster; note the words in small type "Whig candidate for" 
 which precede the line "Fourteenth President of the 
 United States." 
 
 high views against the extension of slavery, 
 and he would probably have vetoed the Clay 
 Compromise. But the bill was passed several 
 weeks after his death, and President Fillmore 
 signed it. The Compromise was on its face 
 a victory for the South. In reality it was a 
 modus vivcndi that added not an acre to slave 
 territory in the new parts of the country, that 
 took at least a small step toward improvement 
 in the District of Columbia, that gave Cali- 
 fornia immediate admission as a Free State, 
 and that made fugitive slave laws odious by 
 providing for their enforcement. 
 
1 62 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 If Lincoln had not much to say in public 
 about the Compromise of 1850, he made a fine 
 apologia for Clay in a memorial address at 
 Springfield in July, 1852, immediately after 
 the death of the great Kentucky statesman. 
 He defended Clay from the attacks of extrem- 
 ists on both sides, and made it appear that on 
 the whole Clay's life had been devoted to the 
 cause of human liberty, with Negroes not ex- 
 cepted in his view from the human race. 
 
 President Fillmore had promptly taken his 
 stand as a Whig of orthodox views, and he 
 dispensed with Taylor's Cabinet. He made 
 Webster Secretary of State, Thomas Corwin 
 of Ohio Secretary of the Treasury, and John 
 J. Crittenden of Kentucky Attorney General, 
 with changes in all the other Cabinet places. 
 Although Fillmore somehow failed to write 
 
 his name boldly upon the pages of history, Mr. 
 James Ford Rhodes, our foremost authority 
 upon that period, pronounces the following 
 verdict : "When Fillmore withdrew from the 
 presidential office, the general sentiment pro- 
 claimed that he had filled the place with ability 
 and honor. The country abounded with pros- 
 perity ; the administration was identified with 
 the Compromise and the Compromise had now 
 become very popular. . . . In a just estimate 
 therefore of our Vice-Presidents who have be- 
 come Presidents, we should class Fillmore with 
 Arthur, and not with Tyler and Johnson." 
 
 Both parties were preparing for the presi- 
 dential contest of 1852. General Cass was still 
 in the field for the Democratic nomination, 
 while Buchanan, Douglas and Marcy were all 
 favored by their friends. The convention met 
 
 A//o>v us toconorat 
 ulateyou General 
 on your ylorious 
 nomi nation. Youno 
 America is deliyht— 
 ed (J think- myehan 
 ■ee. forthe nexttem 
 is about f/ie best 
 of any BodyS) 
 
 O/i my dear Fr/ends/ 
 you outfe overcome, 
 me with your kindness' 
 Bui since you will thrust 
 potver upon, me Mi ope \ 
 you will Ae/p me to 
 Support the. iurthen. 
 of it/ 
 
 
 We witlJWewill 
 (/fit had not been 
 for that rasca £ 
 Buchanan . / 
 Should Stave, 
 had the no nv 
 in alio n /J 
 
 Uewill'tfewilt. 
 (If it had not 
 been for that 
 olot Schemer 
 Cass, I Should 
 Aaveyotin to 
 a certain ty } 
 dajh rny wiy. 
 
 f Xfe will!Uf>will! 
 (/thought /had 
 laid my traps 
 toosecurely to 
 miss, but that 
 d — d Dick- 
 inson has 
 sprung t/iem. 
 upon myself.') 
 
 IVewil/,lfew/lll 
 (Myjove, I've 
 made a nice 
 blow up of 
 it/> 
 
 We will! 
 We wilt! 
 (/Sha/lfO 
 lack to 
 Texas/ 
 andgive. 
 Up cold 
 Water!) 
 
 BUCHANAN 
 
 MARCY DICKINSON HOUSTON 
 
 POLITICAL HYPOCRISY 
 
 /9isap//t , ////i'f//}t/u/s'/fs/i's '/•////■/■</ /////i//////' ft'i'/t /'/'tut A /force t'/t /ttx /ttv/ff/ttt/ftvt /•/■ //w fWsufe/tcy. 
 
 Pierce, who stands on the Democratic platform, had not been a prominent candidate for the nomina- 
 tion. These other men had been his rivals in the convention, particularly Stephen A. Douglas, who 
 steps forward from the left, and Lewis Cass and James Buchanan, who advance toward Pierce from 
 the other side. The three men at the right of the picture are William L. Marcy, who became Pierce's 
 Secretary of State; Daniel S. Dickinson, Senator from New York, and Sam Houston. 
 
LINCOLN RETURNS TO PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 163 
 
 SOL I C I TING A VOTE, 
 
 My honest friend, these men 
 are interested parties, /have- 
 no further 'Tnterest "in this matter 
 mystlf, thanthe inclination to 
 "Serve* mjfoeloved Country". My 
 Family- cannot m/bszstcn. Uis 
 • than- 2S. 000 f a year. 
 
 This is the. "Ticket" for 
 you, my goodfrtendX 
 am-"Old Sani-lfoustorV if 
 elected I shall not only 
 "leci'all 'Europe! but all 
 "Creation- to foot: 
 
 There, there, go away 
 go away, dont worry 
 the man,, leavohtm, 
 to mo, leave him/ 
 to ntcK 
 
 My good Fricnd,afioirrne£ipre\. 
 sent you- this Ticket. latn/ 
 'Old Gen! Scott" you Xncyr^ 
 me, J lickodthe British and 
 the Mexicans, i£ ' elected I shall 
 proiably lick all Europe. 
 
 DEM'*' 
 
 WHtC 
 
 The major political question of slavery had presumably been settled by the Compromise of 1850, and 
 the campaign of 18S2 was being fought largely around the personalities of the leaders. The two most 
 conspicuous Whig candidates were Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, and General Scott, who 
 actually received the nomination. The two Democrats in this cartoon are Sam Houston, who had 
 been President of Texas and was then Senator, and Stephen A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois, 
 already an acknowledged leader of his party and destined to figure largely in cartoons in subsequent 
 chapters of the present work. Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, who received the Democratic 
 nomination, does not appear in this pre-convention cartoon. He had not been a conspicuous can- 
 didate until the convention chose him to end a deadlock. In offering this harassed voter his own 
 ticket, General Scott says: "You know me. I licked the British and the Mexicans. If elected I shall 
 probably lick all Europe." Webster is made to appear most interested in the $25,000 salary. 
 
 at Baltimore, June ist. Incidentally, to show 
 how names may repeat themselves in Demo- 
 cratic politics, John W. Davis of Indiana was 
 permanent chairman. After the two-thirds 
 rule had been adopted, it was evident that Cass 
 and Buchanan, far in the lead, would defeat 
 one another. Cass slowly lost, and on the 
 twenty-ninth ballot Douglas and Buchanan 
 were neck and neck. On the thirty-fifth bal- 
 lot, Cass was far in the lead, but Virginia 
 trotted in a dark horse named Franklin Pierce 
 of New Hampshire. On the forty-eighth bal- 
 lot, Marcy was in the lead, with Cass and 
 
 Pierce coming next and with Douglas and 
 Buchanan trailing in the rear. Then came a 
 stampede for Pierce, and everything was over. 
 This result had been planned, in view of the 
 prospect that no conspicuous candidate could 
 be chosen. The platform was consistent with 
 its predecessors, and it specifically upheld the 
 Compromise of 1850. 
 
 The Whig convention at Baltimore, on the 
 1 6th of June, found Mr. Fillmore in favor 
 with the Southern delegates and General Win- 
 field Scott the leading candidate of the North. 
 Webster's 7th of March speech had brought 
 
164 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 flwriltluA totlitfflrr' frcth I 
 httrit * 'him, tth.n / m-AJ a bey 
 
 •1, A, h,f (f, >i,U trthlul. 
 1,1 It ccmt aid f,„ „„„:/,.■ .M, 
 
 CotiUund Whiter 'what jofsh* want tp qtt ry/it 
 IT my ..,., I.; • ,1 hi Aonl qtvr c,J t r P,tr<i dont 
 
 '.,,,,1 /,!,„// hi I.,,,,.-,, . 
 
 .Va '.Yo Wd Fuji W FalhtrS, ym itnl i ltd 
 this t/tiia fiiintinq »a»>. I'm going w to maXf 
 ijpoa tune ' ' irhi'liifr I tytrt or //of Liiji 'do your dutr 
 
 I \ihnt i>,t,l\ If mail nntout tf hat) 
 ante h? niaAo tf grand UUt-fe 
 Huhfna,, *hch m<',ke l„,.> fieh.ot 
 q#i/t , ttil hi run ray - 
 
 oil oujhl te fiail, 
 
 lie's yetah'i? SVkLc 
 
 CHEAT FOOTRACE FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL PURSE (S100, OOO AND PICKINGS) OVER THE UNION COURSE 18S2. 
 
 FariidcatJtfZ Spruce St OCX 
 
 Daniel Webster is conspicuous in three of the cartoons of this chapter. A distinguished Senator and 
 member of two Cabinets, he had shared the leadership of the Whig party with Henry Clay. Unlike 
 Clay, Webster never received the party's presidential nomination. He came nearest to it in this year 
 18S2, after his support of the Fugitive Slave Law had been looked upon as a bid for Southern sup- 
 port. The other runners in this race are General Scott, who was later nominated by the Whigs, and 
 Franklin Pierce, who had already received the Democratic nomination. The purse of $100,000 rep- 
 resents the four-year income from the Presidency at that time. It might be added here that both 
 Webster and Clay died in the period after the Whig convention and before the election. Webster's 
 death came at his Massachusetts home, Marshfield, on October 24th, while Clay had died in Wash- 
 ington on June 29th of this year 1852. 
 
 him Southern favor, but only as next choice 
 after Fillmore. The Northern faction won in 
 the end, but it was on the fifty-third ballot, and 
 by a very small majority. A rather colorless 
 platform was adopted, ending with a harmony 
 resolution beginning as follows : "That the 
 series of acts of the Thirty-second Congress, 
 the act known as the Fugitive Slave Law in- 
 cluded, are received and acquiesced in by the 
 Whig party of the United States as a settle- 
 ment in principle and substance of the danger- 
 ous and exciting questions which they em- 
 brace." This was adopted by a vote of 212 to 
 70. With both parties agreed on the most 
 dangerous issue, the Democrats had a clear 
 advantage, and the Whigs were fighting their 
 last campaign as a major party. 
 
 The growing anti-slavery sentiment of the 
 North was not satisfied with the platform; 
 and General Scott was not regarded as a 
 statesman, or a leader in the field of politics. 
 The ticket of Pierce and King received 254 
 electoral votes as against only 42 for the 
 Whig ticket of Scott and Graham. Scott car- 
 ried Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and 
 Tennessee. All the other States were carried 
 by Pierce. The popular majorities were, how- 
 ever, so small that if the scanty vote for the 
 Free-Soil ticket headed by John P. Hale of 
 New Hampshire had been added to the Scott 
 vote, the two sides would have been almost 
 even in the balloting. Hale received nearly 
 1 50,000 votes — about half as many as had been 
 cast for the Free Soil ticket four years earlier. 
 
LINCOLN RETURNS TO PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 165 
 
 Lincoln, of course, supported the Whig 
 ticket and made speeches for Scott ; but since 
 he regarded Democratic victory as inevitable, 
 he threw himself with less zeal than usual into 
 a campaign that seemed to have no great prin- 
 ciples at stake. To quote Lincoln's own sum- 
 ming up, in the third person : "In 1852 he was 
 upon the Scott electoral ticket, and did some- 
 thing in the way of canvassing, but owing to 
 the hopelessness of the cause in Illinois, he did 
 less than in previous presidential campaigns." 
 
 Sometimes the busiest, happiest, and most 
 prosperous years of a public man's life are 
 those that are filled with private occupations 
 between periods of political activity. Most of 
 the biographers touch scantily upon Lincoln's 
 life at this time. The exception is Mr. Bever- 
 idge, who is not content merely to tell us that 
 
 Lincoln was engaged for about five years, 
 from 1849 to 1854, in the building up of his 
 law practice. He informs us that Lincoln 
 "spent at least six months of every year away 
 from Springfield riding the circuit, and he was 
 the only lawyer that attended the courts in 
 every county seat. . . . Court was held in 
 the various counties from the middle of March 
 to the middle of June, and again from early 
 September until the first of December. For 
 more than three years after his Congressional 
 term the Eighth Circuit comprised fourteen 
 counties, Sangamon, Tazewell, Woodford, 
 McLean, Logan, DeWitt, Champaign, Ver- 
 milion, Piatt, Edgar, Shelby, Moultrie, Macon, 
 and Christian. It was nearly 140 miles long 
 by almost 1 10 miles broad, nearly one-fifth of 
 the entire area of the State." 
 
 gmSm aHfJmmi •• i ■ J ii *? < 
 
 *.j r *rwrSf 7 j-ji • trrj^r. jk.. ^TtiK^iriSri 7E caTW Fr 
 
 PAP, SOUP, AND CHOWDER. 
 
 Tu wft *t Mi Spru~ St- J& 
 
 A poster caricature of the campaign of 1852, after the Democrats had nominated and while the 
 Whigs were taking fifty-three ballots. Pierce, the Democratic nominee, rides unmolested to the 
 White House, on horseback, while the three Whig leaders eat their favorite food. President Fillmore, 
 carried on the shoulders of the editor of the New York Mirror, eats Government Pap, a synonym for 
 patronage, and expresses regret that he will not be renominated. General Scott, supported by Horace 
 Greeley, editor of the Tribune, eats soup. It is said that he once left his office to take "a hasty plate 
 of soup" and never lived down the phrase. Scott's progress toward the White House is interfered 
 with by the Southern voter who tugs at his arm and seeks the candidate's views regarding the Fugitive 
 Slave Law. Daniel Webster, carried by James Watson Webb, editor of the New York Courier and 
 Enquirer, eats chowder, said to have been his favorite dish. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Birth, of the Republican Party 
 
 The older statesmen pass on, Lincoln's contemporaries assuming con- 
 trol — Social conditions in the South — The Kansas-Nebraska bill and 
 its important sequel 
 
 The old leaders were now for the most 
 part gathered unto the Fathers. Jack- 
 son had died in 1845, the year before 
 Lincoln's election to Congress. John Quincy 
 Adams had fallen at his post, and Lincoln had 
 accompanied the body to its resting place in 
 Massachusetts. Calhoun had 
 taken part in the Compromise 
 debate of 1850, another man 
 reading his speech for him 
 as he sat near in mortal ill- 
 ness, and the end came within 
 a month. Clay's death had 
 followed in June, 1852, and 
 Lincoln had delivered a me- 
 morial oration. Daniel Web- 
 ster died at Marshfield Octo- 
 ber 25, 1852, five months 
 after his unsuccessful at- 
 tempt to win the Whig nom- 
 ination, and four months 
 after the death of Clay. Van 
 Buren was still living at Kin- 
 derhook, and he survived un- 
 til 1862, a firm supporter of 
 Lincoln's administration, but 
 not a leading figure in the 
 great drama after the Com- 
 promise of 1850. 
 
 Lincoln's contemporaries 
 were now in full responsi- 
 bility. The two Democrats 
 of most brilliant parts were 
 Stephen A. Douglas of Illi- 
 nois and Jefferson Davis of 
 Mississippi. They were ora- 
 tors who would have com- 
 manded attention in any age. 
 Each of them had the energy 
 and the courage of men born 
 to lead. Emerging from the 
 ranks of the conservative 
 
 166 
 
 FRANKLIN PIERCE 
 
 Fourteenth President 
 of the United States 
 
 In the Democratic convention of 18S2, 
 which nominated him for the Presidency, 
 Pierce's name did not appear until the 
 thirty-fifth ballot. He had been a mem- 
 ber of the House for two terms begin- 
 ning in 1833, and then served almost a 
 full six-year term in the Senate, retiring 
 in 1842 to his home at Concord, New 
 Hampshire, to practice law. At the out- 
 break of war with Mexico he enlisted 
 as a private but was commissioned a 
 Colonel of militia and promoted to be a 
 Brigadier-General. He was again in 
 private life when the presidential nom- 
 ination made him a national figure. In 
 the November election Pierce carried all 
 the States except four. 
 
 Whigs, and impelled by the course of events 
 to accept high commands in the new Repub- 
 lican party, were Seward of New York and 
 Chaseof Ohio, each with profound anti-slavery 
 convictions, great attainments as lawyers, and 
 political and forensic talents of a high order. 
 Douglas and Davis had been 
 longer in the Senate, while 
 Seward and Chase were new 
 arrivals but in full maturity 
 of intellect and training. 
 
 With Webster gone, a new 
 type of public man was com- 
 ing forward in Massa- 
 chusetts, scholarly and accom- 
 plished, but intense and intol- 
 erant. Webster and Clay had 
 partaken of the broad and 
 generous spirit of compre- 
 hension that made Washing- 
 ton the common denomina- 
 tor, in the earlier periods of 
 discord as between followers 
 of Hamilton and Jefferson. 
 Charles Sumner, John P. 
 Hale, and other leaders of 
 New England were even 
 less tolerant and sympathetic 
 than Seward. 
 
 No set of men so little un- 
 derstood the South as the ex- 
 treme Abolitionists. They 
 saw the wrongs of slavery, 
 and they would not com- 
 promise with evil. Less rabid 
 men like Seward, in the 
 North and East, were com- 
 bating a false and impossible 
 sectional attitude, and they 
 did not sufficiently analyze 
 the nature and causes of this 
 Southern solidarity. 
 
BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
 
 167 
 
 Get out tht way /i-t/ow ■ 
 
 7 want th& lvholc-aft&e- road 
 
 \ 
 
 Cook & doodle/ doo 000 . 
 
 Dont J'OU/ wish you. may got it. 
 Butjrou cant get over this Uney.. 
 
 ORNITHOLOGY. 
 
 tTiro Great Birds of the United States, not de-scriied'by /tuduSotts. 
 (genus. Turkey cocJrcyus cum Fuss and Fetheribua _ A. Genus. G-omeeociiue Graiut&statd' ', 
 
 The game-cock of the Granite State, Franklin Pierce, was wrong in his challenge that Scott could not 
 cross the Mason and Dixon Line; for although the Whigs carried only four States in this year 18S2, 
 two of them were Kentucky and Tennessee. The turkey represents General Scott, "Old Fuss and 
 Feathers" being a nickname applied to him in contrast to "Old Rough and Ready," which had 
 characterized his brother officer and predecessor as presidential candidate of the Whigs, General 
 Taylor. The cartoonist here asserts that John James Audubon, the great American naturalist who 
 had died in the preceding year, had failed to describe this particular turkey and this game-cock in 
 his monumental work "The Birds of America." 
 
 There were three great population elements 
 in the South. The first was composed of the 
 educated and cultured community, planters, 
 property owners, and social elements that rep- 
 resented Anglo-Saxon civilization. A much 
 larger element, numerically, was made up of 
 the non-slaveholding farmers, the mountain- 
 eers, and the so-called "poor whites," many of 
 whom were descended from indentured Eng- 
 lish servants and misdemeanants of the colo- 
 nial period. These people, in the main, had 
 always been political followers of their more 
 prosperous neighbors, and were largely Jeffer- 
 sonian, in so far as they were aware of the 
 existence of social and political doctrines. The 
 other great population element comprised sev- 
 eral million African slaves, who found slavery 
 cruel and unbearable in many of its aspects, 
 
 yet who were so bound by their sense of do- 
 mestic attachment and loyalty to the superior 
 class, upon whom they were dependent, that 
 when the final test of war came they proved 
 themselves to be the most devoted Southerners 
 of any class whatever, in view of facts and 
 motives that might have provoked them to 
 insurrection. 
 
 The clearer truth of history, as now it be- 
 gins to reveal itself, shows that the consoli- 
 dated Southern position was due to many 
 things besides slavery. There was the love of 
 land and the Anglo-Saxon instinct for pioneer- 
 ing and territorial extension. There was strong 
 individualism, and the sense of personal right 
 that helped to explain the wholly indefensible 
 view that a slave-owner ought to be allowed 
 to take slaves into new national territory. This 
 
1 68 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 A BORDER RUFFIAN OF THE DARKEST DYE 
 
 The two illustrations on this page are reproduced from a book published in New 
 York in 18S6, entitled "The War in Kansas," by G. D. Brewerton. The one 
 reproduced above bears the following descriptive caption: "The white man 
 quickened his pace, but Caesar overhauled the panting fugitive, who surrendered 
 at discretion, at the same time begging for his life." 
 
 claim was asserted, with passionate intensity, 
 regardless not only of such national decisions 
 as that of the Ordinance of 
 1787, but also regardless of 
 the verdicts of the new com- 
 munities themselves. 
 
 Anyone who has studied 
 speculative land movements, 
 whether in Iowa and the Da- 
 kotas, or in Florida and 
 Southern California, ought 
 to comprehend the sheer 
 greed and ferocity of the 
 land, cotton, and slave specu- 
 lation that had created a state 
 of social delirium in Ala- 
 bama, Mississippi, and 
 Louisiana. The Southern 
 churches had suddenly dis- 
 covered that slavery was a 
 divine institution, and its 
 maintenance the chief duty of 
 applied religion. 
 
 Those were not the times 
 when men could be made to 
 listen to the calm and scien- 
 
 tific discussion of the histori- 
 cal trends of modern indus- 
 try and labor. Unfortun- 
 ately, economic history had 
 few students before 1850. 
 Webster was perfectly right 
 in his 7th of March speech 
 when he explained that it 
 would be needless further to 
 irritate the South, in its pres- 
 ent state of feverish excite- 
 ment, by prohibiting slavery 
 in advance of settlement in 
 regions where slavery in the 
 very nature of things — soil, 
 climate, and topography — 
 could never gain a lasting 
 foothold. 
 
 Illinois was so placed as to 
 have peculiar advantages for 
 the development of leaders 
 who might mediate between 
 the dangerous and fanatical 
 sectionalism of the changing 
 South and the no less dangerous and reckless 
 crusading spirit that was slowly but surely win- 
 
 THE BORDER RUFFIANS EXTRICATE THE FREE STATE ARTILLERY 
 This contemporary cartoon makes the artillery quite harmless in its appearance. 
 But the heated political discussion over the admission of Kansas did result in 
 actual war, in 1856. Partisans from adjoining slave and free states had rushed 
 into the territory, each side seeking to frame the State constitution. 
 
BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
 
 169 
 
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 LIBERTY THE FAIR MAID OF KANSAS.IN THE HANDS OF THE BORDER RUFFIANS' 
 
 The leaders of the Democratic party are here blamed for high-handed methods used in Kansas in 
 1856. President Pierce is in the center of the group. At the left, with patched trousers, is William L. 
 Marcy, Secretary of State. The man with watch in hand is James Buchanan, who had returned 
 from his post as minister to Great Britain and was to be elected President later in the same year. 
 Standing behind the maid representing Kansas is Lewis Cass, who became Buchanan's Secretary of 
 State. At the extreme right is Senator Douglas, with an unfamiliar beard. As chairman of the 
 Senate Committee on Territories, Douglas was author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill of 1854, which — 
 instead of legislating slavery into any territory, or excluding it — had left the people free to regulate 
 domestic institutions in their own way. This squatter sovereignty principle brought on the disorder 
 in Kansas but eventually it proved itself efficient. 
 
 ning the North to the anti-slavery movement 
 as a holy cause. Illinois had two leaders 
 touched with genius and rising to greatness. 
 Lincoln, with a few years of fortunate oppor- 
 tunity in private life to readjust his views, was 
 preparing to lead the North, while trying to 
 restrain its angry expressions and to sooth its 
 aroused temper. Douglas, far too conspicu- 
 ous in the Senate for unobserved meditation, 
 was obliged to do his thinking on his feet. He 
 was acting under the minor compulsions of 
 the Senate's committee business, rather than 
 upon well-chosen lines of major policy. 
 
 Douglas had come to Illinois from Vermont, 
 with his schoolboy record as a militant Jack- 
 sonian Democrat. Party exigencies had 
 brought him into relation with the Southern 
 Democratic leaders, without which his ambi- 
 tions for promotion would have been in vain. 
 By heredity and instinct Douglas was always 
 more the Northern man than was Lincoln. 
 
 With Virginia and Kentucky background, 
 Lincoln's residence until manhood was in a 
 part of Indiana populated by Southerners. He 
 married, also, into a family of slave-owning 
 Kentuckians, and it was always easy for him 
 to fraternize with Southern men. Although 
 his family had been so poor, and his own early 
 advantages so meager as regards education, 
 he was in many respects like the politicians and 
 lawyers of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Caro- 
 lina, Georgia, and Virginia. 
 
 As for the State of Illinois itself, a glance 
 at the map shows that more than half of it lies 
 south of the northern line of Missouri, while 
 the southern tip of it extends southward far 
 enough to look across the Ohio to the Kentucky 
 shore. The Northwest Ordinance had pro- 
 tected Illinois for freedom, but its early set- 
 tlers were from the South. With the exception 
 of the Springfield district, Illinois had always 
 been a Democratic State, and this had permit- 
 
170 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ted Douglas, as a born leader of men, to make 
 his early appearance in the United States Sen- 
 ate. Lincoln had slowly but steadily made his 
 way to the undisputed leadership of the other 
 party in Illinois, following Henry Clay in his 
 general positions. 
 
 Lincoln came back into politics with re- 
 freshed mind and enhanced power through a 
 false move made by Douglas in 1854. Doug- 
 las was chairman of the Senate Committee on 
 Territories. David Atchison, a Senator from 
 Missouri, was a member of that committee, 
 somewhat unscrupulous, and a daring and ag- 
 gressive worker for slavery extension. To 
 the immediate westward of his State of Mis- 
 souri lay the empty prairies of what is now 
 the agricultural State of Kansas. To the east 
 of Missouri lay the settled and prosperous 
 Free State of Illinois. Kansas was a part of 
 
 the unorganized region known as the Nebraska 
 Territory. Atchison brought in a bill to or- 
 ganize this Territory, survey its lands, and 
 open it to settlement. But naturally the people 
 of Missouri, with unappeased land hunger, 
 wanted to occupy the rich lands of eastern 
 Kansas, and they were not willing to leave 
 slavery behind them. They regarded it as 
 highly detrimental to the continued existence 
 of slavery in Missouri to be pinched in between 
 free Illinois on the East and a free Kansas on 
 the West, with a free Iowa on the North. 
 
 As chairman of the Committee on Terri- 
 tories, Douglas felt impelled to report the bill 
 as his own. Not to have done so would have 
 given Atchison undue influence, and would 
 apparently thwart Douglas's ambition to se- 
 cure the presidential nomination in 1856. At- 
 chison sought to organize the whole Nebraska 
 
 THE UNITED STATES IN 1854 
 In the ten-year period from 1812 to 1821, seven States were admitted into the Union: Louisiana, 
 Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri. By that time the great debate over 
 slavery had arisen, and no States were admitted in the following fifteen years. Then Arkansas and 
 Michigan came in, balancing each other. Florida and Texas in 1845 rounded out the southern and 
 eastern coast line. Iowa was admitted in 1846, Wisconsin in 1848, and California in 1850. Then 
 arose the protracted discussion over Kansas and Nebraska, which kept Douglas in the forefront and 
 brought Lincoln back into national politics after a period of practical retirement as a lawyer in 
 Illinois. Our map shows Slave States, shaded lightly, and Free States; and the dotted line indicates 
 the region which later became the States of Nebraska and Kansas. 
 
BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
 
 171 
 
 LINCOLN SHOWS DOUGLAS THE RIGHT ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE 
 
 Discussion over the likelihood of slavery in Kansas resulted in dissension within the Democratic 
 party in the Free State of Illinois, and very nearly brought about Lincoln's election to the United 
 States Senate early in 18SS. He threw his support to an anti-Douglas Democrat, Lyman Trumbull, 
 and elected him. In 18S6 Lincoln declined a nomination for Governor, and named the man who was 
 nominated and elected (William H. Bissell). Lincoln was second choice for Vice-President at the 
 first Republican National Convention in that same year. In 1858 he was the "first and only choice" 
 of Illinois Republicans for United States Senator, and challenged Douglas, his Democratic opponent, 
 to a series of debates. Meanwhile the situation in Kansas had grown worse, and Douglas himself 
 refused to condone the Administration's policy. In this cartoon from Phunny Phellow, a humorous 
 political paper published at New York in the campaign of 1860, Lincoln is consoling Douglas, with the 
 Kansas feather in his hat, and suggesting that splitting rails was a better way to become President. 
 
 country as slave territory ; but this could not 
 have been carried through Congress. As 
 Douglas brougbt the bill to the floor of the 
 Senate, there was a provision which left it to 
 the settlers, in a territorial convention, to de- 
 cide the slavery question for themselves. 
 
 Atchison, however, insisted upon an amend- 
 ment which radically changed the situation as 
 viewed in a practical light. He forced Doug- 
 las to accept the plan of an immediate separa- 
 tion of Kansas from Nebraska, with the fur- 
 ther proviso that Kansas should at once be 
 organized as a Territory by itself. The 
 
 Nebraska region proper, lying west of Iowa, 
 was of course hopeless from the standpoint of 
 the pro-slavery propaganda. But Kansas lay 
 due west of Missouri, and in the same latitude 
 as Virginia and Kentucky. The Missourians 
 considered it the best possible concrete opening 
 for a new Slave State. 
 
 The Kansas-Nebraska Bill passed both 
 houses of Congress and became a law with 
 President Pierce's signature on May 30, 1854, 
 after five months of debate. Douglas returned 
 from the East early in the autumn, to find 
 Illinois deeply stirred by the breaking of the 
 
172 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 truce that both parties had so solemnly ac- 
 cepted in their platforms of 1852. He defended 
 his course at Chicago on September 1st, and 
 spoke in the State House at Springfield on 
 October 4th. Lincoln followed at once with 
 a reply that was well considered, and — ac- 
 cording to several listeners — of amazing elo- 
 quence. He had, of course, been studying this 
 Kansas dilemma for many months, and was 
 now quite through with policies of temporiz- 
 ing and compromise. He was definitely in 
 politics again, and became at once a candidate 
 for the United States Senate against Doug- 
 las's colleague, General James Shields, who 
 was seeking re-election. 
 
 Douglas had faced a hostile and angry 
 throng at Chicago, and felt that his popularity 
 had suffered in Illinois even as in states farther 
 East. His debate in Springfield on October 
 4th, where his three-hour speech in the after- 
 noon was answered in a similarly long speech 
 by Lincoln in the evening, was not for the 
 "Little Giant" a triumphant memory. Mr. 
 
 LYMAN TRUMBULL 
 
 Elected to the United 
 States Senate by the Illi- 
 nois legislature in 1855, 
 with Lincoln playing the 
 leading part. Then a 
 Democrat, Trumbull later 
 joined the new Republican 
 party; but after the death 
 of Lincoln he once more 
 became a Democrat. He re- 
 mained in the Senate for 
 eighteen years, returning 
 in 1875 to law practice. 
 
 GENERAL SHIELDS WOUNDED 
 
 Lincoln was the Whig candidate for United States Senator from Illinois in 1855. 
 The seat was that of James Shields, the same Springfield lawyer with whom Lin- 
 coln had nearly fought a duel fourteen years earlier. Shields had become a 
 brigadier-general in the Mexican War, had been wounded in May, 1847, while 
 leading his troops, and had returned to be lionized and elected to the Senate. 
 As that six-year term was expiring, in 1855, Shields assumed a position in the 
 slavery controversy which alienated some Democratic support, and Lincoln saw 
 a chance that he himself might be elected. He led Shields on the first ballot, 
 45 votes to 41, with 13 votes scattering. But the Democrats, who were in a 
 majority later, united upon Lyman Trumbull. 
 
 Barrett says that "Lin- 
 coln was relied upon 
 by the Anti-Nebrask- 
 ans, Whig and Demo- 
 cratic, as a most ef- 
 fective champion ; and 
 his speech in turn was 
 so masterly as to sur- 
 prise both friends and 
 opponents." Twelve 
 days later, the two 
 leaders spoke in debate 
 at Peoria, and Lincoln 
 regarded his reply to 
 Douglas on that occa- 
 sion as one of the 
 greatest efforts of his 
 life. His subject was 
 the repeal of the Mis- 
 souri Compromise ; 
 and he argued for the 
 propriety of its restor- 
 ation. This speech in- 
 cluded as frank a dis- 
 cussion of the slavery ques- 
 tion as any that Lincoln 
 made in all his career. 
 
 On the contention that 
 slavery, if left alone, would 
 never take root in Kansas, 
 Lincoln made the following 
 observations in this Peoria 
 speech of October 16, 1854: 
 "Let me here drop the 
 main argument, to notice 
 what I consider rather an in- 
 ferior matter. It is argued 
 that slavery will not go to 
 Kansas and Nebraska, in any 
 event. This is a palliation, a 
 lullaby. I have some hope 
 that it will not; but let us 
 not be too confident. As to 
 climate, a glance at the map 
 shows that there are five 
 slave States — Delaware, 
 Maryland, Virginia, Ken- 
 tucky, and Missouri, and also 
 the District of Columbia, all 
 north of the Missouri Com- 
 
BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
 
 173 
 
 One of the measures included in the Compromise of 1850 was the Fugitive Slave Law. It provided 
 for the appointment of a federal commissioner in every county to decide whether or not a seized 
 colored man was an escaping slave, the Negro's testimony not to be considered. It provided, 
 further, that the commissioner's fee was doubled if he decided against the alleged fugitive. This 
 Fugitive Slave Law gave effect to a provision in the Constitution, that persons held to service or 
 labor in one State and escaping into another shall be delivered up. William H. Seward, Senator from 
 New York, opposed this provision, and in a speech on March 11, 18S0, declared that "there is a 
 higher law than the Constitution." Daniel Webster, standing toward the right of this cartoon, 
 apologetic rather than proud, was Clay's chief supporter in securing the adoption of the compromise 
 measures. This is unusual among cartoons of that time, in its extreme anti-slavery character. 
 
 promise line. The census returns of 1850 
 show that within these there are eight hundred 
 and sixty-seven thousand two hundred and 
 seventy-six slaves, being more than one-fourth 
 of all the slaves in the nation. 
 
 "It is not climate, then, that will keep slavery 
 out of these Territories. Is there anything in 
 the peculiar nature of the country? Missouri 
 adjoins these Territories by her entire western 
 boundary, and slavery is already within every 
 one of her western counties. I have even 
 heard it said that there are more slaves in pro- 
 portion to whites in the northwestern county 
 of Missouri, than within any other county in 
 the State. Slavery pressed entirely up to the 
 old western boundary of the State, and when 
 
 rather recently a part of that boundary at the 
 northwest was moved out a little farther west, 
 slavery followed on quite up to the new line. 
 Now when the restriction is removed, what is 
 to prevent it from going still farther ? Climate 
 will not, no peculiarity of the country will, 
 nothing in nature will. Will the disposition of 
 the people prevent it ? Those nearest the scene 
 are all in favor of the extension. The Yan- 
 kees who are opposed to it may be most num- 
 erous ; but, in military phrase, the battle-field 
 is too far from their base of operations." 
 
 Younger readers should have it well in mind 
 that United States Senators were elected by 
 the Legislatures of the States until after the 
 passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to 
 
174 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
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BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
 
 175 
 
 the Constitution in 19 13, which provides for 
 direct popular election. The Illinois Legisla- 
 ture convened for this purpose on February 8, 
 1855. Lincoln and Shields were the chief op- 
 posing candidates, the uncertainty being due 
 to the tendencies of both parties to split on 
 the Kansas issue. Lyman Trumbull was a 
 prominent anti-slavery Democrat, and his 
 name was presented as a competitor. On the first 
 ballot there were 45 votes for Lincoln, 41 for 
 Shields, and 5 for Trumbull with 8 scattering. 
 After six ballots, the Shields vote was trans- 
 ferred en masse to the Governor of the State, 
 J. A. Matteson. Matteson was gaining and 
 Lincoln was losing through several more bal- 
 lots, until suddenly Lincoln made a bold move 
 and threw enough of his strength to Trumbull 
 to secure his election by a vote of 51 to 47. 
 
 Lincoln's election had been regarded as vir- 
 tually assured, and there was disappointment 
 among his friends. But he himself wisely and 
 generously said that "On the whole it is per- 
 haps well for our general cause that Trumbull 
 is elected." And this proved to be wholly true 
 in the reshaping of parties and in the later 
 support, loyal and powerful, that Senator 
 Trumbull brought to Lincoln and the "general 
 cause." 
 
 In 1858, in his opening speech in joint de- 
 bate with Lincoln, Douglas declared that there 
 had been an arrangement in 1854 between Lin- 
 coln and Trumbull to lead their respective 
 followers out of the two dissolving old parties 
 into "an Abolition party under the name and 
 disguise of a Republican party." Doubtless 
 Douglas believed this to be true, but there is 
 no evidence that sustains the charge. Unques- 
 tionably Douglas would have preferred to have 
 Lincoln beat Shields or Matteson in 1854, 
 rather than to risk Lincoln's more dangerous 
 competition for bis own seat in 1858, when 
 otherwise he would have Trumbull confront- 
 ing him. 
 
 Attention was now turning altogether away 
 from the debate at Washington, over the Kan- 
 sas bill, to the excitement of competitive col- 
 onization in Kansas itself. Since Kansas was 
 to put the principle of "squatter sovereignty" 
 into effect without delay, the zealots on both 
 sides proposed to occupy Kansas with militant 
 
 propagandists, rather than with ordinary pio- 
 neer farmers. 
 
 With the Kansas-Nebraska Bill came the 
 actual founding of the Republican party. It 
 brought together the Free-Soilers, the Whigs, 
 all but the more violent of the Abolitionists, 
 and a large contingent of Democrats. Histor- 
 ically the party may be said to have had its 
 beginning on July 6, 1854, at Jackson, Michi- 
 gan, where the name "Republican" was 
 adopted in State convention, and where the 
 chief plank of the platform was as follows: 
 
 "Resolved, That postponing and suspend- 
 ing all differences with regard to political 
 economy or administrative policy, in view of 
 the imminent danger that Kansas and Ne- 
 braska will be grasped by Slavery, and a thou- 
 sand miles of slave soil be thus interposed be- 
 tween the Free States of the Atlantic and those 
 of the Pacific, we will act cordially and faith- 
 fully in unison to avert and repeal this gigantic 
 wrong and shame." 
 
 Similar movements had been springing up 
 simultaneously in a number of States, but the 
 Michigan meeting which nominated a full 
 State ticket, adopted a party platform, and 
 agreed upon the party name, is accorded the 
 honors by political historians. The influence 
 of the Abolitionists upon Northern opinion 
 and upon the origins and doctrines of the Re- 
 publican party may well be studied in the calm 
 and philosophical pages of James Ford 
 Rhodes. Meanwhile, for the latest survey of 
 the Abolition cult in its promotion of sectional 
 antagonism and of civil war, it is necessary 
 to read the opening chapters of Mr. Bever- 
 idge's second volume. 
 
 Horace Greeley was soon brought into the 
 Republican fold, with the New York Tribune 
 as his personal organ, this being the most 
 widely circulated and influential newspaper in 
 America at that time. Some thirty Congress- 
 men had met in Washington the day after the 
 Kansas-Nebraska Bill had passed the House, 
 and on their own account had taken initial 
 steps toward the forming of a new party. The 
 details are on record in Mr. Francis Curtis's 
 "History of the Republican Party ;" and it is 
 enough to remark at this point that the Re- 
 publicans became at once a major party organ- 
 
176 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 MUR E B !•! 
 ibori li' 1 1 
 Children . 
 
 A CONTESTED SEAT 
 
 The candidates in 1852 both were men who had gained distinction in the war 
 
 with Mexico. Scott, who jerks away the presidential chair in this picture, was 
 
 a Major-General. Pierce, on the floor, was only a Brigadier-General. The 
 
 Brigadier-General won on election day. 
 
 ization, with the Whig party doomed though 
 not yet dissolved. 
 
 The break-up of old parties was strik- 
 ingly evidenced when the Thirty-fourth Con- 
 gress, elected in 1854, met in December of the 
 following year and proceeded to the choice of 
 a Speaker. After a long struggle, Nathaniel P. 
 Banks of Massachusetts, who 
 had formerly been an anti- 
 slavery Democrat, but was 
 now an avowed Republican, 
 secured that post of influence. 
 With the new party winning 
 control in one northern State 
 after another, and now se- 
 curing the Speakership of 
 the Thirty-fourth Congress, 
 it was so well established that 
 one of its founders, Henry 
 Wilson of Massachusetts, in [ 
 after years looking backward * 
 over its history, and forward 
 to consider its prospects, de- 
 clared that he could see no 
 reason why it should not last 
 a thousand years. 
 
 Lincoln was not one of the 
 first to announce himself a 
 
 Republican on the ruins of his 
 old Whig party. But before 
 the national convention of 
 1856 had been held, he was 
 recognized not only as a mem- 
 ber of the new party, but as 
 the leading Republican of his 
 State and of the Northwest. 
 He had made a speech that was 
 the greatest effort of his life, 
 in the opinion of those who 
 heard it, at a State convention 
 early in 1856, that organized 
 the Republican party of Illi- 
 nois. Lyman Trumbull pre- 
 sided at that Convention, hav- 
 ing passed from his position 
 as an anti-Nebraska Demo- 
 crat, along with another emi- 
 nent Democratic leader John 
 M. Palmer, to the comrade- 
 ship of old Whigs like Lin- 
 coln, in the endeavor to rally Illinois against 
 Douglas. Lincoln's swing from Whig to Re- 
 publican required courage in view of local cir- 
 cumstances. The convention met at Blooming- 
 ton late in May, and was made up of mixed 
 and strange elements. Lincoln's thrilling 
 speech unified the gathering and saved the day. 
 
 FORCING SLAVERY DOWN THE TS'.KATOF A FREESOILER 
 
 Free Soil advocates had their own national ticket in 1848 and 1852, but not in 
 1856. Here we see the four leading Democrats in the campaign of 1856. At the 
 left are Senator Douglas of Illinois and President Pierce. At the right, pulling the 
 Free-Soiler's hair, are James Buchanan, the successful Democratic candidate, 
 and Lewis Cass, who was to become Buchanan's Secretary of State. 
 
MISSOURIANS GOING TO KANSAS TO VOTE 
 A contemporary engraving attributed to F. O. C. Darley. It was widely under- 
 stood that bands of armed men crossed into Kansas from the slave State of 
 Missouri, taking possession of the polls and controlling the election of 1854 which 
 resulted in the temporary ascendancy of the pro-slavery advocates. Then fol- 
 lowed civil war and a new election three years later, with the subsequent adop- 
 tion of a constitution prohibiting slavery. Darley was a Philadelphia-born 
 artist doing important work as a book illustrator in New York, even then a 
 member of the National Academy and later becoming internationally known. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The Presidential Election of 1856 
 
 The rival colonization of "Bloody Kansas," by North and South — 
 
 Designs on Cuba meet with Republican disapproval — Lincoln takes 
 
 high rank in the new party 
 
 SENTIMENTS ARE ALSO FACTS, regardless 
 of their justification. Webster had de- 
 clared it a fact that slave labor would 
 never produce cotton, sugar or tobacco on the 
 arid plains of New Mexico ; but the sentiment 
 of Massachusetts against his 7th of March 
 speech was a harder fact than any stone wall 
 on his farm at Marshfield. Douglas was 
 now to find that he had underestimated the re- 
 sistless force of Northern anti-slavery senti- 
 ment, as a far more real though less tangible 
 thing than the statutes that he had been help- 
 ing to make and unmake at Washington. 
 
 The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had 
 fixed the parallel of 36° 30' as the dividing 
 
 line between the areas of freedom and slavery 
 in the West. Douglas until lately had regarded 
 this line as one of the irrevocable fixtures, 
 comparable with the charter of freedom for 
 States north of the Ohio in the Ordinance of 
 1787. This Missouri Compromise had allowed 
 the single State of Missouri to be admitted 
 with slavery, but had expressly declared that 
 otherwise slavery should be kept south of the 
 specified parallel of latitude. 
 
 Through the influence of Jefferson Davis, 
 who was then Secretary of War and by far 
 the ablest and most influential member of Pres- 
 ident Franklin Pierce's Cabinet, and also at 
 the instance of Southern Senators, Douglas 
 
 177 
 
1 7 8 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 had substituted the Kansas-Nebraska Bill for 
 the earlier bill that dealt with Nebraska as un- 
 divided. The assurance of President Pierce 
 that he would sign the new bill, which included 
 specifically the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
 promise, had been secured in advance. To 
 understand the situation, readers must keep 
 in mind the fact that Kansas lay north of the 
 parallel 36 30', and had 
 therefore been guaranteed as 
 free territory by the Com- 
 promise of 1820, which had 
 been universally accepted. To 
 justify himself, Douglas took 
 the ground that by the Com- 
 promise of 1850 a new prin- 
 ciple had been adopted, that 
 of permitting the territories 
 to decide for themselves, 
 thus replacing the old scheme 
 of a fixed line that should 
 forever separate free soil 
 from slave soil. 
 
 This, however, had not 
 been so understood in 1850; 
 for Douglas himself at that 
 time had declared the Mis- 
 souri Compromise to be "can- 
 onized in the hearts of the 
 American people as a thing 
 which no ruthless hand would 
 ever be reckless enough to 
 disturb." No one had thought 
 that the law of 1850 affect- 
 ing New Mexico and Utah 
 was to be applied far east- 
 ward to the organization 
 of Kansas, the status of 
 which had been ordained in the law of 1820. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Douglas ar- 
 gued weakly or insincerely. He held his own 
 against Senators of the highest ability, and 
 carried his bill to its final passage in May, 
 1854, when it became a law with President 
 Pierce's approval after a debate of five 
 months. On its face, this was a great parlia- 
 mentary triumph for Douglas. But like Web- 
 ster four years earlier, he had taken positions 
 for which Northern disapprobation was bitter 
 enough to have burned him at the stake. Mr. 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 The author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
 was the daughter of Lyman Beecher, the 
 sister of Henry Ward Beecher, and the 
 husband of Calvin E. Stowe — all dis- 
 tinguished clergymen. Most of her life 
 was spent in New England, but from 
 1832 to 18S0 (when she was twenty-one 
 to thirty-nine years of age) she lived in 
 Cincinnati. Her father was president of 
 Lane Theological Seminary there, and 
 her husband was a professor in the same 
 institution. Mrs. Stowe's observations 
 of slave life, upon which her book was 
 based, resulted from this long residence 
 in Cincinnati, lying just across the Ohio 
 from the slave State of Kentucky. 
 
 Muzzey remarks that "Douglas was de- 
 nounced as a turn-coat, a traitor, a Judas, a 
 Benedict Arnold, who had sold himself to the 
 South for the presidential nomination." He 
 was burned in effigy so frequently that he him- 
 self said he could "travel from Boston to Chi- 
 cago by the light of the fires." It was declared 
 that "485,000 square miles of territory that 
 had forever been dedicated to 
 freedom were opened to the 
 slave-holder." 
 
 Yet Douglas doubtless 
 foresaw that under his plan 
 of squatter sovereignty not a 
 mile of this area would ac- 
 tually become the abode of 
 legalized slavery, unless in 
 the merely transitional stages 
 of Kansas settlement. His 
 arguments were ingenious, 
 and in the perspectives of 
 three-quarters of a century, 
 they appear by no means 
 contemptible. But they of- 
 fended both legal and moral 
 principles, according to the 
 prevailing sentiment of the 
 North, and they blighted the 
 promising political career of 
 the ambitious Douglas. 
 
 In 1852 Mrs. Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe had written 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a 
 novel that intensified still 
 further the moral indignation 
 against slavery as a social 
 and domestic institution. It 
 is stated that when Mrs. 
 Stowe was presented to President Lincoln in 
 the White House ten years later he remarked 
 as he greeted her: "So this is the little woman 
 who brought on this big Civil War!" For a 
 time the new fugitive slave law of 1850 had 
 seemed to be effective, and to reduce if not 
 wipe out completely that system for aiding 
 slaves to cross the North to the Canada bor- 
 der known as the "Underground Railroad." 
 But now, the States officially began to nullify 
 the law. By local statutes, administrative 
 measures and judicial proceedings they tried 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1856 
 
 179 
 
 to thwart completely the ef- 
 forts of Federal officials to 
 aid Southern owners in the 
 recovery of their escaped 
 bondmen. This Northern 
 nullification was hardly dif- 
 ferent in legal principle from 
 the action of South Carolina 
 in nullifying the tariffs of 
 1828 and 1832. 
 
 The rival colonizing move- 
 ments were set on foot with 
 no delay whatever. The New 
 England Emigrant Aid So- 
 ciety was promptly organized, 
 to assist picked young men to 
 settle in Kansas; and the 
 present city of Lawrence 
 bears the name of the Boston 
 merchant who gave money 
 and aid to the emigrant 
 movement. The city of Atchi- 
 son, on the other hand, bears 
 the name of the Missouri 
 
 LITTLE EVA AND UNCLE TOM 
 
 (An illustration from the original edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin") 
 
 The publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 18S2, and its amazing sale., contributed 
 materially to the popular agitation in the North against slavery. Its author was 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe. The story is that of Uncle Tom, a slave who after 
 long service for kindly and sympathetic owners is sold into a life of cruelty and 
 suffering. Little Eva was this first master's daughter. There are dramatic 
 incidents where husband and wife in the slave cabins are parted forever, where 
 the escaping young wife with her child in her arms is pursued across the ice of 
 the Ohio River by bloodhounds, where slaves are beaten by overseers, and Uncle 
 Tom himself dies from the effects of a whipping. 
 
 SOUTHERN CHIVALRY- ARCUMENTWu* CLUBS 
 
 Charles Sumner, a distinguished Boston lawyer and former Harvard professor, 
 had been elected to the Senate in 1851 by Free Soilers and anti-slavery Demo- 
 crats. He particularly opposed the Fugitive Slave Law and other Compromise 
 measures, and on May 20, 1856, delivered a speech in the Senate on "The Crime 
 Against Kansas." It was a severe indictment of Senator Andrew P. Butler of 
 South Carolina, as well as of Senator Douglas. Two days later Butler's nephew, 
 Preston S. Brooks, himself a member of the House, attacked Sumner with a 
 cane. Penned in his seat, Sumner was beaten insensible. He was canonized as 
 a martyr in the North, while Brooks — who resigned and was immediately 
 re-elected — became a popular hero in the South. Sumner was seriously injured, 
 remaining away from the Senate for three years. 
 
 Senator who was the most 
 energetic of the Southern 
 leaders in promoting the 
 counter-movement of occu- 
 pation. With many organized 
 and inhabited counties of 
 western Missouri adjacent to 
 the Kansas border, or with- 
 in easy marching distance, 
 the Missourians adopted the 
 plan of border raids, in pref- 
 erence to the slower and less 
 militant northern scheme of 
 founding actual settlements. 
 From other parts of the 
 South came volunteer bands 
 of armed men, somewhat as 
 the militia had risen ten 
 years earlier to join the ex- 
 pedition against Mexico. 
 Non-resident raiders organ- 
 ized the first territorial gov- 
 ernment, and enacted a dras- 
 tic pro-slavery code. The 
 Free Soil settlers formed a 
 
i8o 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 MASTER JONATHAN TRIES TO SMOKE A CUBA; 
 
 BUT IT DOESN'T AGREE WITH HIM! 
 This is a cartoon from Punch (London), published in 
 June, 1850. During Taylor's term as President it was 
 widely proposed in the South that Cuba should be an- 
 nexed, for sugar, tobacco, and slave territory. Filibuster- 
 ing expeditions under a Venezuelan adventurer named 
 Narciso Lopez were fitted out at Southern ports, and be- 
 came the subject of Punch's satire. The first, in 1849, was 
 blocked by President Taylor. The second failed. The 
 third succeeded in landing 600 men in Cuba, but they 
 soon met defeat and Lopez himself was captured and 
 executed in 1851 . 
 
 government of their own, and applied to Con- 
 gress for the admission of Kansas as a State. 
 Destruction of the Free Soil town of Law- 
 rence was at once followed by an avenging 
 raid — with John Brown of Ossawatomie as 
 the leader of a small band including his four 
 sons — upon a settlement of Missourians living 
 in his vicinity in southeast Kan- 
 sas. The massacre of several men 
 by John Brown's band, seized in 
 their homes at night, shocked the 
 North and drove the South to 
 frenzies of indignation. 
 
 There is an extensive literature 
 of the Kansas question in the an- 
 nals of American politics and gov- 
 ernment, and there is also a litera- 
 ture that deals with local details of 
 this epoch of ferocious though 
 quite temporary civil war in Kan- 
 sas. It may suffice here to remark 
 that the climax of the Kansas sit- 
 uation was reached in May, 1856, 
 less than a month before the first 
 Republican national convention 
 met at Pittsburgh. Senator Sum- 
 ner had made a bitter speech 
 against the South, and he had been 
 
 beaten almost to the point of death by a South 
 Carolina Congressman. United States troops 
 had finally been sent to Kansas to keep order, 
 and, with protection thus furnished, the bona- 
 fide settlement by Northern men proceeded 
 safely and conclusively. Anticipating events, 
 it may be added that it was not until 1861 with 
 the Republicans in full power at Washington 
 that Kansas was finally admitted as a Free 
 State. But the question of slavery in that ter- 
 ritory had continued to agitate parties through 
 the Buchanan administration. 
 
 Other questions, meanwhile, had also been 
 claiming the attention of the Pierce adminis- 
 tration. Notable among these was the ag- 
 gressive diplomacy that sought the acquisition 
 of Cuba. William L. Marcy of New York 
 was Secretary of State, Jefferson Davis of 
 Mississippi was Secretary of War, James C. 
 Dobbin of North Carolina Secretary of the 
 Navy, and Caleb Cushing of Massachusetts 
 Attorney-General. These were all able men, 
 with Davis by far the most masterful and en- 
 ergetic. There arose the incident of an Ameri- 
 can steamship, the Black Warrior, seized by 
 the Spaniards at Havana, with the South dis- 
 posed to hope that it would give excuse for a 
 war with Spain, and justify the long-desired 
 occupation and retention of Cuba. 
 
 
 WANTED: A WHALER 
 
 The agitation to annex Cuba continued long after the failure of the 
 Lopez filibustering expedition. It broke out again twice during Buchanan's 
 administration as President. This cartoon — from Vanity Fair (New 
 York), June, 1860 — shows Sam Houston, the Texas expansionist, rowing 
 the boat for the harpoonist. 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1856 
 
 181 
 
 Ifjrc aont hand over yer small 
 change, in a. jiffy ye* ould spot- 
 pten> "TUfetljustifUd'mtaiin^. 
 tt out ofje. wid a touch of this 
 shillaZjr as 7 pozzis thtpoworZ. 
 
 Coma Ic/shave* ekatticier 
 or you'll find thatTonsidf'- 
 rations .exist which render 
 delay" in doiny so Excee- 
 dingly darujtrous'tojour 
 
 head.— 
 
 Why/ Whjf\ 
 
 this is rank \ 
 
 robbe/ry /_ I 
 
 Help/ SelpA 
 
 all ho Tie sir | 
 
 meruit J 
 
 I'll take jour hat Old- Suck/ \ 
 £ haint oot none and aslmay ^ 
 catch' a cold in rny Head 
 
 'its imynediateacquisi- 
 tion^ fy -Tne t4 is ofparomount , ^ 
 
 „»*#» " f ,n^i£- Stat" ■ -- . 
 
 1 fi„m Spout, if »*P'ti€*' the- 
 Paver. 4 
 
 Yourf, ^_Jl 
 
 very re4j>tctfi*Zlr 
 
 JAMES BVCBAXAIV, 
 j. r. MASor. 
 
 PtEXHE SOVLE. 
 
 ffen \V n L.MAR(fY. 
 
 Svitrnt? of Stat 
 
 i -i 
 
 THE"OSTEND DOCTRINE, 
 
 Practical Democrats carrying out the principle. 
 
 For SaUirt JV? 2 Spruce. ST XT 
 
 The recent acquisition of vast regions in the West made it easy for the South to believe that the 
 island of Cuba should also be included within the American Union. Besides, Cuba was restive under 
 Spanish rule. As a result of this pressure, the three foremost American ministers in Europe met at 
 Ostend, Belgium, in October, 1854, and issued a manifesto declaring that if the United States could 
 not buy Cuba it would be justified in taking the island from Spain by force. The three diplomats 
 were James Buchanan, minister to England; John Y. Mason, minister to France; and Pierre Soule, 
 minister to Spain. Above is a cartoon circulated in the presidential campaign two years later, when 
 Buchanan was the Democratic nominee. The Republicans then sought to use against him this doc- 
 trine of justifiable force. The tramps are using the language of the Ostend Manifesto while they rob 
 Buchanan. The one at the right, for example, takes Buchanan's hat with the statement that "its 
 immediate acquisition is of paramount importance." Another intimates that "considerations exist 
 which render delay exceedingly dangerous." 
 
 So strong was this feeling that President 
 Pierce found it necessary in May, 1854, to 
 issue a warning to "citizens of the United 
 States and others residing therein" against 
 "organizing and fitting out a military expedi- 
 tion for the invasion of the Island of Cuba." 
 
 In October, governments in both hemis- 
 pheres were startled by the issuance of what 
 was called the "Ostend Manifesto." New 
 Orleans, in particular, had been a center of 
 
 agitation in favor of the annexation of Cuba 
 and Pierre Soule of that city was sent to Spain 
 as American Minister to urge upon the Span- 
 ish government the desirability of selling the 
 Island to the United States. A sum was offered 
 that was many times larger than that which 
 Jefferson had paid Napoleon for the vast 
 Louisiana area in which Mr. Soule was born. 
 But the Spaniards were obdurate, holding that 
 they would rather see Cuba forever submerged 
 
1 82 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 JOHN C. FREMONT 
 When the leaders of the new Republican party looked 
 around for a candidate in 1856, they chose the 43 -year-old 
 Pathfinder of the West. Born in Georgia in 1813, John 
 Charles Fremont had become at twenty-three a professor 
 of mathematics and engineering in the navy. In 1842 he 
 entered upon the first of five exploring expeditions into the 
 new country west of the Rockies. When war came with 
 Mexico, Colonel Fremont raised a small force of volunteers 
 which seized and held the region that is now California. 
 While stationed at Washington in 1841 he had met and 
 eloped with Jessie Benton, the daughter of the dis- 
 tinguished Senator Benton of Missouri. In 1850 he was 
 chosen as one of the first Senators from California. In the 
 presidential election of 1856, as candidate of the Republican 
 party, Fremont received 114 electoral votes against 174 
 for Buchanan. 
 
 beneath Caribbean waters than to sell it at any 
 conceivable price. 
 
 Whereupon, John Y. Mason, American 
 Minister to France, and James Buchanan, Min- 
 ister to Great Britain, joined Mr. Soule for a 
 conference over the Cuban question at Ostend 
 in Belgium. Secretary Marcy and the Pierce 
 administration were regarded as responsible 
 for the Manifesto issued by this trio of Demo- 
 cratic diplomatists. The so-called "circular" 
 was in the form of a report to the Department 
 of State, advising that Spain's misgovernment 
 would undoubtedly lead to an insurrectionary 
 war in Cuba, proposing that the United States 
 should offer Spain $120,000,000, and arguing 
 
 that in case of Spain's continued refusal, the 
 United States would be justified in taking 
 Cuba by force. 
 
 It was the lingering memory of the Repub- 
 lican opposition to the Ostend Manifesto that 
 led Congress, at the instance of President 
 McKinley's administration, to register a 
 solemn disavowal of all annexation motives 
 when Cuba was occupied by the American 
 army and navy in 1898. A preliminary con- 
 vention of Republicans at Pittsburgh on 
 Washington's Birthday, 1856, adopted a long 
 address to the people of the United States, 
 and called a nominating convention to meet 
 at Philadelphia, June 17th. With all the 
 northern States and the Territories repre- 
 sented, there were also delegates from the four 
 Slave States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia 
 and Kentucky. Senator Seward of New York 
 was the most conspicuous man in the new 
 party, in the eyes of the convention. But he 
 did not expect success in that year, and refused 
 to be the candidate. Senator Chase of Ohio 
 and John McLean also of Ohio came next in 
 prominence, but for certain reasons of avail- 
 ability their names were withdrawn. 
 
 Colonel John C. Fremont was the only re- 
 maining candidate of national fame, and he 
 was unanimously nominated, following a 
 single informal ballot. He was picturesque 
 and popular, had been in the Senate from Cal- 
 fornia for a short time, was a son-in-law of 
 that sterling old Democrat Senator Benton of 
 Missouri, and was nominated rather for what 
 we should call publicity purposes than upon any 
 solid basis of political experience or states- 
 manlike qualification. 
 
 The ballot for Vice-President gave William 
 L. Dayton of New Jersey 259 votes, Abra- 
 ham Lincoln of Illinois no, and the Speaker 
 of the House, N. P. Banks of Massachusetts, 
 46. Dayton was unanimously chosen, and the 
 new ticket was hailed with enthusiasm. The 
 Whigs had seldom found themselves capable 
 of adopting platforms that had the ring of 
 earnest and united conviction; but the Repub- 
 licans of 1856 supported the Declaration of 
 Independence, declared the sovereignty of 
 Congress over the Territories, and added the 
 famous assertion that it is "both the right and 
 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1856 
 
 183 
 
 duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories 
 those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and 
 slavery." It should be noted that the Mormons 
 had abandoned their headquarters at Nauvoo, 
 Illinois, and had established themselves near 
 the Great Salt Lake in Utah. 
 
 The platform made a long and detailed re- 
 cital of the grievances of Kansas, for which 
 "the administration, the President, his advis- 
 ers, agents, supporters, apologists, and acces- 
 sories either before or after the fact," were 
 arraigned as guilty of "this high crime against 
 the Constitution, the Union and humanity." 
 Another plank demanded the immediate ad- 
 mission of Kansas as a Free State. It was 
 further resolved, "That the highwayman's 
 plea that might makes right, embodied in the 
 Ostend circular, was in every respect unworthy 
 of American diplomacy, and would bring 
 shame and dishonor upon any government or 
 people that gave it their sanction." Final res- 
 olutions demanded the construction of a rail- 
 road to the Pacific Ocean, and appropriations 
 for rivers and harbors. 
 
 The Democratic convention had already 
 met, this time at Cincinnati, on the 2nd of 
 June. President Pierce was a candidate for 
 renomination, while James Buchanan of Penn- 
 sylvania was preferred by many Northern 
 Democrats of moderate views. Mr. Douglas 
 was still the brilliant and popular leader, with 
 an especial claim upon the favor of the South. 
 Again the two-thirds rule was adopted, and 
 again New York appeared with rival delega- 
 tions, both of which were seated. Buchanan 
 led on the first ballot with 135 votes, President 
 Pierce had 122, Douglas 33, and Cass 5. 
 There were seventeen ballots altogether, with 
 Pierce eliminated on the sixteenth, when Bu- 
 chanan had 168 votes and Douglas 121. The 
 Douglas men did not hold out to take advan- 
 tage of the two-thirds rule, but fell in line 
 promptly, and on the next ballot Buchanan 
 received the entire 296 votes. 
 
 There were many candidates for the Vice- 
 Presidency, but John C. Breckinridge of Ken- 
 tucky was unanimously chosen on the second 
 ballot. The platform emphasized State's 
 Rights, accepted the compromise measures of 
 1850 with the Fugitive Slave Act, and fell 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY UNDER PIERCE 
 The followers of Stephen A. Douglas, particularly took 
 "Young America" as a slogan because of his comparative 
 youth ; but it applied somewhat generally to the new, hot- 
 blooded elements which were gaining control of the Demo- 
 cratic party. Franklin Pierce, then President, here rests on 
 the shoulders of "Young America" while supported by 
 Douglas on the left and by the veteran Lewis Cass on the 
 right. This is not a complimentary cartoon, however, for 
 Cass is made to claim that to the victors belong the spoils, 
 and Douglas to remark that "preservation of slave prop- 
 erty to our Aristocracy is the true test of sound Demo- 
 cracy." Cass had been accused of collecting salaries from 
 the Government for three different jobs at once, and as 
 early as 1848 Lincoln had read before Congress a series of 
 figures intended to prove the charge. 
 
 back upon the "Kentucky and Virginia Reso- 
 lutions of 1797 and 1798" as a part of the 
 fundamental creed of the Democratic party. 
 The Kansas-Nebraska bill was strongly en- 
 dorsed, and the general principle of squatter 
 sovereignty upheld. 
 
 A later plank declared "in favor of free 
 seas and progressive free trade throughout 
 the world." The right of predominant influ- 
 ence at Panama was asserted, and it was "re- 
 solved, that the Democratic party will expect 
 of the next administration that every proper 
 effort be made to insure our ascendency in the 
 Gulf of Mexico." The administration of 
 
1 84 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
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THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1856 
 
 185 
 
 THE MUSTANG" TEAM 
 
 Fremont's journey to the White House is blocked by a tollgate operator who does not like the load 
 he carries. Riding on the Republican horse are three distinguished New York newspaper editors, 
 who did not agree among themselves but in varying measure supported the new party. On this 
 mustang are: First, Horace Greeley of the Tribune; next, James Gordon Bennett of the Herald; 
 third, Henry J. Raymond of the Times. Hanging to the tail of the cart is James W. Webb, who had 
 founded the Courier and Enquirer thirty years earlier and was dean of them all. The cross which 
 Fremont carries on his shoulder, in this cartoon and also the one on the opposite page, reflects the 
 existence of rumors at the time that he was affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 President Pierce was endorsed, with an expres- 
 sion of "unqualified admiration of his meas- 
 ures and policy." 
 
 Although, as I have remarked in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, the Whig party was doomed 
 by the sudden apparition of the Republican 
 party, it was strong enough to take the field 
 with a ticket of its own in 1856, and to draw 
 votes enough away from the Fremont ticket 
 to elect Buchanan. The Whig Convention 
 met at Baltimore on the 17th of September, 
 with Edward Bates of Missouri presiding. 
 In its platform this convention resolved "that 
 the Whigs of the United States declare as a 
 fundamental rule of political faith the abso- 
 lute necessity for avoiding geographical par- 
 ties." 
 
 The Whigs looked with alarm at the two 
 
 other parties, "one claiming to represent only 
 sixteen Northern States and the other appeal- 
 ing mainly to the passions and prejudices of 
 the Southern States." As in their mind "the 
 only remedy for an evil so appalling," the 
 Whigs offered ex-President Fillmore to head a 
 non-sectional ticket. They praised "his justice 
 and moderation," "his calm and pacific tem- 
 perament" and his many other excellent attri- 
 butes and qualifications. And thus they lim- 
 ited themselves to proclaiming their candidate 
 as the embodiment of their whole political 
 creed. 
 
 There was an enthusiastic Republican cam- 
 paign in the North, but the Fillmore ticket 
 diverted many votes. The totals gave 1 ,838,- 
 169 to Buchanan, 1,341,264 to Fremont, and 
 8 75>534 to Fillmore. This Fillmore Whig 
 
1 86 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ticket actually carried the one State of Mary- 
 land, where Fremont had only a handful of 
 votes. No votes at all were reported for Fre- 
 mont in eleven Southern States. When the 
 electoral votes were counted, Buchanan and 
 Breckinridge were found to have 174, Fre- 
 mont and Dayton 114, and Fillmore and Don- 
 elson 8. Fremont had carried all of the New 
 England States, New York, Ohio, Michigan, 
 Wisconsin and Iowa. Buchanan, besides 
 sweeping the South, had carried his own State 
 of Pennsylvania. In spite of the vigorous 
 campaign of Lincoln, Trumbull and the Re- 
 publicans of that State, Illinois gave a small 
 plurality for Buchanan, which would have 
 been wiped out four or five times over but for 
 the vote that went to Fillmore. In Indiana, 
 Buchanan had a clear majority over all. Bu- 
 
 chanan also carried California, with Fillmore 
 second and Fremont a very bad third in his 
 own State. 
 
 Douglas had behaved with notable mag- 
 nanimity. He had waived the two-thirds rule 
 without delay in favor of his rival who had 
 gained the majority. He had promptly pro- 
 claimed his ardent support of the ticket and 
 platform. One of his biographers states that 
 he sold a hundred acres of land at this time 
 on the western limits of Chicago at $1,000 per 
 acre, and out of the proceeds "contributed with 
 great liberality to the campaign fund, not only 
 of his own State, but also of Pennsylvania." 
 His sincerity and his unselfishness carried con- 
 viction wherever he spoke. 
 
 Buchanan had been out of the country, and 
 had not been involved in the bitter fight over 
 
 
 THE BALLS ARC ROLLING .. CLEAR THE TRACK 
 
 A Fremont poster of the campaign of 18S6, taking its cue from the candidate's career as an explorer, 
 and showing Fillmore and Buchanan crushed by the avalanche of States that Fremont supporters 
 were hoping to carry. Fremont actually did win in eleven of the States designated here, but 
 Buchanan was elected, sweeping the South and carrying California, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, 
 and New Jersey as well. "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Press, Free Men, and Fremont," which 
 appears in the rainbow, was the campaign slogan of the new Republican party. 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1856 
 
 187 
 
 Which ever road I trawl' 
 a/ways brings me te this con- 
 [thought, wehad 
 thing this time- on/ the 
 
 Bleeding Kansas dodge . 
 
 Seward' it/ seems to me- we are/ 
 going the same /load we did 
 ui> "fifty two" but as long as 
 
 jouUad- I'll folio 
 U blind" ^- 
 
 ■iff 
 
 This is pretty hard' riding- but' 
 if/te only carries me- to the Mute 
 house? w solely I mil forgive my 
 friend? for putting me astride of 
 such a crazy Ola < f/acA k_-— 
 
 Be heavenly minded my brttheren/all 
 
 But if you fall out at trifles, 
 Settle the matter with powder and 'Sail 
 A/idl wilt furnish the' rifles «-. 
 
 jih. Colentl— you're aop mte 
 a bad crowd— you'll find ^ 
 that dead Horse on the 
 prosit is better far the 
 Constitution, than A 'bolt - 
 tton Soup orWooly head 
 stew in the White house 
 
 C0 L . FREMONT'S LAST GRAND EXPLORING EXPEDITION IN 1856. 
 
 Almost continuously from 1842 to 1854 Fremont had been engaged — as a topographical engineer, 
 under Government auspices — in exploring the vast new region lying between the Rocky Mountains 
 and the Pacific Ocean. In 1856 he became the first nominee of the Republican party. In this car- 
 toon Senator Seward of New York leads toward Salt River the abolition nag that bears the face of 
 Horace Greeley, while Henry Ward Beecher carries a supply of rifles, and Kit Carson, the famous 
 scout who often accompanied Fremont, surveys this expedition disapprovingly. Salt River, found 
 in many cartoons in subsequent chapters, conveys the idea that the Fremont expedition of 1856 is 
 headed toward defeat. Here again, as in the cartoon on page 182, is reference to the charge that 
 Beecher supplied rifles to Kansas settlers: "Be heavenly minded my brethren all. But if you 
 fall out at trifles, settle the matter with powder and ball, and I will furnish the rifles." 
 
 the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. He was more 
 available, therefore, than either Douglas or 
 Pierce. Buchanan alone of these three could 
 have carried Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, if 
 the Kansas-Nebraska measure had been with- 
 held by Douglas until after the election of 
 1856, it is quite probable that he, as the real 
 leader of the Democratic party, would have 
 been nominated at Cincinnati. It is also more 
 than probable that in such case he would have 
 been elected. There would have been a grow- 
 ing Free Soil party in the field, but Lincoln 
 would have remained a Whig, as would Sew- 
 ard in the East; and the Republican party 
 would not have appeared in this election. 
 
 The whole situation had been changed by 
 the Kansas-Nebraska bill of 1854; and while 
 
 Douglas was still to hold the leading place in 
 his party, he was to be the candidate in i860 
 of the Northern fragment of a disrupted De- 
 mocracy, with defeat inevitable at the hands 
 of his old Illinois rival, Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Meanwhile, Lincoln had attended the Phil- 
 adelphia Republican convention as a delegate 
 from Illinois, where, if Dayton had stepped 
 aside, he would have been placed on the ticket 
 with Fremont. It was fortunate that this 
 empty honor passed him by. As usual, he was 
 named on the electoral ticket in his State, and 
 we know upon his own testimony that he made 
 more than fifty speeches in Illinois and ad- 
 joining States for the Fremont and Dayton 
 ticket. These speeches were strong and posi- 
 tive in tone, asserting the authority of the fed- 
 
1 88 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 eral government and declaring that under no 
 circumstances should the union be dissolved. 
 In an address after the election, Lincoln 
 dwelt upon the fact that Buchanan, though 
 victorious in the Electoral College, was in a 
 minority of about four hundred thousand in 
 the aggregate popular vote. "In the late con- 
 test," he declared, "we were divided between 
 Fremont and Fillmore." And he continued 
 as follows : "Can we not come together for 
 the future ? Let everyone who really believes 
 and is resolved that free society is not and 
 shall not be a failure, and who can conscien- 
 
 tiously declare that in the past contest he had 
 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 past differences as nothing be; 
 and with steady eye on the real issue, let us 
 reinaugurate the good old 'central ideas' of the 
 Republic. . . . We shall then 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, in- 
 cluding both those and much more, that 'all 
 men are created equal'." 
 
 f/e's a border rufrta 
 and I'll shoot the Stave - 
 holding Villain . 
 
 Stop/ Stop/ Mj friends, lean '#\, 
 allow any fiyht trie?, there niu^t be peace] 
 detweenj'ou as Sony as f stand here J -' 
 
 Let go/ £er me at Atmy, 
 III made Jfinee- meat of 
 Me rascally abolitionist '-.'C- 
 
 THE RIGHT MAN FOR THE RIGHT PLACE. 
 
 The supporters of Fillmore offer him as a candidate of justice and moderation, without sectionalism, 
 in contrast to the sectional appeal of Fremont in the North and Buchanan in the South. Fremont, 
 at the left of the cartoon, characterizes Buchanan as a slave-holding villain; while Buchanan retorts 
 that Fremont is a rascally abolitionist. Fillmore assumes the role of peacemaker. In this group por- 
 trait of the candidates in 1856 the portraiture is remarkably accurate. For reasons not now discover- 
 able, the artists who drew originals for these lithographic posters — during the campaign of 18S6 and 
 that of four years later — did not sign their drawings; but it is known that many of them were the 
 
 work of Louis Maurer. 
 
ConfiurU, th< Gun .' if I 
 cans enty ye>t out of this 
 mussfUstiei topi 
 china and let fire -arms 
 a/oit* — 
 
 tjh f 'Brother BeecAerf \ 
 Kansas Gun has Bursteai 
 an J upset our gunner — I 
 iG-aiayweputintoo J 
 a load — fjk 
 
 THE GREAT AMERICAN BUCK H U IN T OF 1856. 
 
 The buck is Buchanan, headed toward the White House. It is a poster caricature published in the 
 interest of Fillmore, candidate of the American party, who stands on Union Rock at the right of the 
 picture. Fremont's sectional gun has exploded, and it remains for Fillmore to bring down Old 
 Buck with his American rifle. Meanwhile Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley, who sup- 
 ported Fremont, are mired in the abolition bog. The divided opposition to the Democratic ticket 
 that is expressed in this cartoon resulted in Buchanan's election. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas ■=■ A Supreme Debate 
 
 President Buchanan appeals for harmony — The Dred Scott decision 
 
 stirs the Northern States — A senatorial contest in Illinois results in 
 
 the most famous of all political stumping tours 
 
 When James Buchanan was inaugu- 
 rated President of the United States 
 on March 4, 1857, he congratulated 
 himself and the country that — in spite of the 
 excitement of the election contest — "when 
 the people proclaimed their will the tempest at 
 once subsided and all was calm." Proceeding 
 with his optimistic address, he made the fol- 
 lowing observations : 
 
 What a happy conception, then, was it for Con- 
 gress to apply this simple rule, that the will of the 
 majority shall govern, to the settlement of the ques* 
 tion of domestic slavery in the Territories ! Con- 
 gress is neither "to legislate slavery in any Territory 
 or State nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave 
 
 the people thereof perfectly free to form and regu- 
 late their domestic institutions in their own way, 
 subject only to the Constitution of the United 
 States." As a natural consequence, Congress has 
 also prescribed that when the Territory of Kansas 
 shall be admitted as a State it "shall be received into 
 the Union with or without slavery, as their constitu- 
 tion may prescribe at the time of their admission." 
 
 Dwelling further upon this subject, with 
 genuine and glowing satisfaction, the new 
 President was able to declare : "No other ques- 
 tion remains for adjustment, because all agree 
 that under the Constitution slavery in the 
 States is beyond the reach of any human power 
 except that of the respective States themselves 
 
 189 
 
190 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 wherein it exists." And in tone of pious bene- 
 diction he concluded : "May we not, then, hope 
 that the long agitation on this subject is ap- 
 proaching its end." 
 
 This excellent and upright Pennsylvania!! 
 did not dream that he was to hold the reins of 
 authority during the stormiest period of agita- 
 tion in the history of the country. At the age 
 of sixty-six he had spent more than forty years 
 in public life. He had served in the Legisla- 
 ture, had been ten years in the lower House at 
 Washington, had been Minister to Russia in 
 Jackson's time, and had then sat in the Senate 
 for ten years, after which for four years he 
 was President Polk's Secretary of State. De- 
 feated by Franklin Pierce for the presidential 
 nomination in 1852, be had been sent as Minis- 
 ter to England ; and now be was to serve for 
 four years as President of the United States. 
 Few contemporary statesmen in any country 
 could have matched Buchanan's record for 
 
 steady advancement in official life, and for 
 broad experience in domestic and foreign af- 
 fairs. He had administered our foreign office 
 during the Mexican War ; and he had directed 
 the settlement by virtue of which we ac- 
 quired vast new territories. This extension of 
 American jurisdiction had led to the reopen- 
 ing of the earlier slavery compromises. 
 
 Another veteran statesman, Lewis Cass of 
 Michigan, was made Secretary of State by Mr. 
 Buchanan. Howell Cobb of Georgia became 
 Secretary of the Treasury. The War Depart- 
 ment was assigned to John B. Floyd of Vir- 
 ginia, and Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania 
 was appointed Attorney-General. A Tennes- 
 sean, Aaron V. Brown, became Postmaster- 
 General. The Navy portfolio was assigned to 
 Isaac Toucey of Connecticut. Jacob Thomp- 
 son of Mississippi was the new Secretary of 
 the Interior. This cabinet was meant to bal- 
 ance nicely the sectional situation. 
 
 
 Sb/fifon eial Jlna. a/id mtz/te itay\ 
 /br/fe '/fry/So/- //.'stt&fu/t" 
 
 '^Ate 
 
 ^^ T 
 BUTLE 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAICN OF '56 
 
 ' eoO<^2«SP ^PIERCE" 
 
 rnwrli *^ 
 
 Slavery enters Kansas, breaking through the fence on the Mason and Dixon's Line and carrying on 
 its back the candidate of the Democratic party. The chariot is drawn by three Dough Faces, a name 
 given to pro-slavery Democrats of the North: Lewis Cass, of Michigan, soon to become Buchanan's 
 Secretary of State; Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, an outstanding member of the Senate; and 
 President Pierce, of New Hampshire, who had recognized the pro-slavery element in Kansas. 
 Fremont dashes forward to stop the progress of the animal. This is a Cincinnati caricature. 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS— A SUPREME DEBATE 
 
 191 
 
 The Morning aft erthe Election NoveiiibnlSoG. 
 
 PlU) d bv U]uLbS4S""; , . J SI FliU* 
 
 Horace Greeley appears conspicuously in five of the cartoons in this chapter and the preceding one. 
 Here we see four New York newspaper editors who had supported Fremont. It is the day after 
 election, and they are turning from Fremont to Buchanan, the President-elect. The four editors are: 
 Horace Greeley of the Tribune, Bennett of the Herald, Webb of the Courier and Enquirer, and an 
 unnamed German. Fremont rides home on horseback, declaring his loss of faith in editors, who had 
 made him believe that "papers could do all things." At the right of the picture, in "the dark and 
 gloomy caverns of Know-Nothingism," is Fillmore, placing upon Raymond, editor of the Times, the 
 
 blame for an unsuccessful campaign. 
 
 Buchanan sought also to be at peace with all 
 mankind; and almost two weeks before his in- 
 auguration he took the unusual precaution to 
 write a letter directly to the British Foreign 
 Minister at London. In that letter he said: 
 "General Cass is to be my Secretary of State 
 and no Englishman need feel the least un- 
 easiness on this account. His anglophobia, as 
 you used facetiously to term it, if it ever ex- 
 isted no longer exists. His age, his patriotism, 
 his long and able public services, his unsullied 
 private character and the almost universal 
 feeling in his favor render his appointment 
 peculiarly appropriate." General Cass was 
 almost ten years older than Buchanan, and 
 doubtless the President expected to direct his 
 own foreign policy. Three of these cabinet 
 officers were to become Secessionist leaders 
 
 before the end of Buchanan's term, and two 
 were later to become Confederate Generals. 
 
 The turmoil of the last year of Buchanan's 
 four-year period has somewhat obscured the 
 earlier years; but from the very beginning 
 there was excitement enough in the daily news. 
 Two days after Buchanan had succeeded 
 Pierce in the White House, came the "Dred 
 Scott Decision" of the Supreme Court. It was 
 not the case itself, but the elaborate opinion 
 rendered by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, 
 that aroused contentious argument and sec- 
 tional passion far beyond any other court de- 
 cision in the history of the United States. Dred 
 Scott was a slave in Missouri who had so- 
 journed for some time at military posts in the 
 Western Territory, whither his owner (an 
 Army surgeon) had taken him. At a consid- 
 
192 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 erably later time, after the death in Mis- 
 souri of the former owner, it was claimed on 
 Scott's behalf that he acquired the permanent 
 status of a free man when his foot had touched 
 the soil of a region where slavery was not a 
 lawful institution. 
 
 The Missouri courts had denied this con- 
 tention, and the Supreme Court had confirmed 
 the judgment of the lower 
 Federal court in accepting 
 the opinion of the State 
 tribunals. The trouble was 
 caused by the elaborate 
 and quite unnecessary 
 metaphysical disquisition 
 in which the aged Chief 
 Justice led himself along 
 to the fallacious conclu- 
 sion that a Negro as such 
 could have no legal rights 
 because Negroes when ac- 
 tually slaves were treated 
 as chattels, and not as 
 human beings. This was 
 even more absurd than 
 was the opposite conten- 
 tion that under the system 
 that then existed an actual 
 slave owned by a citizen of 
 a slave state became a free 
 man permanently if it 
 could be shown that he had 
 at some previous time been 
 brought into a non-slave- 
 holding territory. 
 
 Taney had been ap- 
 pointed by President Jack- 
 son to succeed Chief Jus- 
 tice Marshall, who died in 1835. 
 conscientious, abstractly logical 
 with that legalistic quality of 
 ignores the relationship of law to history, and 
 works in realms of theory. 
 
 The Buchanan Administration was in no 
 way displeased by the Court's decision, which 
 in effect nullified all compromise enactments. 
 Jefferson Davis and the South felt that final 
 victory had been gained for the most extreme 
 of Calhoun's contentions. But in the North 
 the decision was held in abhorrence, and the 
 
 ROGER BROOKE TANEY 
 
 From 1836 until his death in 1864, Taney was 
 Chief Justice of the United States. He was 
 a Democrat, a Baltimore lawyer, who had 
 been Attorney-General in the cabinet of Jack- 
 son. During Jackson's administration the per- 
 sonnel of the Supreme Court was entirely 
 changed. John Marshall had broadly inter- 
 preted the Constitution for thirty-four years; 
 but Roger Taney, who succeeded him, was a 
 strict constructionist. His most noted decisions 
 were in the Dred Scott case (18S7) and in the 
 denial of the right of the President to suspend 
 the writ of habeas corpus even when exercis- 
 ing full war powers, as in 1861. 
 
 He was able, 
 and affected 
 mind which 
 
 Court was assailed in language too unjust and 
 vulgar to repeat. The Kansas issue was taken 
 up with renewed determination on both sides. 
 In December, 1857, a pro-slavery constitution 
 was framed at Lecompton without authority 
 from Congress, and ratified by a dishonest 
 referendum. Two weeks later that instrument 
 was repudiated overwhelmingly in a referen- 
 dum vote that was rela- 
 tively fair. Anti-slavery 
 men had abstained in one 
 case, and pro-slavery vot- 
 ers had largely abstained 
 in the other. Ignoring this 
 second referendum, Buch- 
 anan urged Congress to 
 admit Kansas to statehood 
 on the pro-slavery Le- 
 compton Constitution. 
 
 But Douglas, with a 
 vigor and courage that 
 surprised . both sides, op- 
 posed such action. He de- 
 clared that his Kansas bill 
 had contemplated an hon- 
 est and not a dishonest test 
 of the will of the people 
 of Kansas. He denounced 
 the Lecompton activities 
 as fraudulent. Although 
 the bill was passed in the 
 Senate, with Douglas sup- 
 porting the Republican 
 minority, it was defeated 
 in the House. A proper 
 and legal reference of the 
 Lecompton Constitution to 
 a third vote of the people, 
 by authority of Congress, resulted in its defeat 
 by a vote of 11,000 to 2,000. Douglas was 
 now as vituperously assailed throughout the 
 South as, only four years earlier, he had been 
 reprobated in the North. 
 
 It was under these conditions that Douglas 
 returned to Illinois. A new Legislature was to 
 be elected, and it was to choose a Senator to 
 succeed Douglas whose term was expiring. 
 He had entered the Senate on March 4, 1847, 
 and was now the undisputed leader of the 
 Northern wing of the Democratic party, while 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS— A SUPREME DEBATE 
 
 193 
 
 THE POLITICAL QUADRILLE 
 
 Music by Dred Scott 
 
 Dred Scott, the Negro slave of an army officer, maintained that he had become free when his owner 
 took him into free territory to live temporarily, afterward returning to Missouri. One of several 
 suits which he brought reached the Supreme Court, and Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion. 
 He held that Scott was not a citizen, had no standing in the federal courts, and was only a piece of 
 property. He went further and declared the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional, on the 
 ground that neither Congress nor the territorial governments could prohibit slavery in the Territories. 
 The decision aroused intense feeling in the North. It was handed down in the first week of President 
 Buchanan's administration, and, as the above cartoon indicates, it was an issue in the campaign three 
 years later. The political quadrille here is composed of four candidates for the Presidency in 1860. 
 Lincoln is in the upper right corner, and Douglas in the lower left. Above Douglas is John C. Breck- 
 inridge, of Kentucky, nominated by the Southern Democrats. Below Lincoln is John Bell, of Tennes- 
 see, candidate on a Constitutional Union ticket. 
 
 Jefferson Davis had become only less widely 
 recognized as the most active and influential 
 leader of the Southern wing. Douglas's can- 
 didacy for re-election was, of course, virtually 
 unopposed in Illinois within his own party (a 
 dissenting handful of so-called Lecomptonites 
 merely emphasized the resistless party leader- 
 ship of Douglas), and his success depended 
 upon securing a Democratic majority in the 
 new Legislature. 
 
 The Republicans had not yet gained pre- 
 dominance in the State, but they were hopeful. 
 A Republican state convention unanimously 
 designated Abraham Lincoln as the party's 
 
 candidate for the senatorship, and hailed his 
 position as foremost orator, thinker and poli- 
 tician of the anti-slavery forces of Illinois. 
 There followed a campaign that eventually 
 centered in the plan that Lincoln and Douglas 
 personally adopted of holding a series of joint 
 debates. The nation-wide fame of Douglas, 
 who expected to be nominated for the Presi- 
 dency in i860, lent to these forensic exhibi- 
 tions an extraordinary publicity outside of the 
 State. This served Lincoln's case well, be- 
 cause his presence on the same platform with 
 Stephen A. Douglas made him a national 
 political character in the full sense. 
 
194 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 The famous debates, however, did not begin 
 until late in August, and the opposing candi- 
 dates had already taken their positions with 
 deliberate care. Their appearance at various 
 places on the same platform brought immense 
 crowds to hear them, and afforded the people 
 of Illinois an admirable 
 opportunity to compare the 
 two foremost public men 
 of the state while also pro- 
 viding an illustration of 
 the means by which masses 
 of American citizens are 
 trained for the exercise of 
 self-government. Horace 
 Greeley, in a lecture on 
 Lincoln, based upon his 
 own personal recollections, 
 made the following obser- 
 vations upon the two con- 
 tending champions : 
 
 I cannot help regarding 
 that senatorial contest of 
 1858, between Lincoln and 
 Douglas, as one of the most 
 characteristic and at the same 
 time most creditable incidents 
 in our national history. There 
 was an honest and earnest 
 difference with regard to a 
 most important and imminent 
 public question; and Illinois 
 was very equally divided 
 thereon, with a United States 
 Senator for six years to be 
 chosen by the Legislature 
 then to be elected. Hereupon 
 each party selects its ablest 
 and most trusted champion, 
 nominates him for the coveted 
 post, and sends him out as the 
 authorized, indorsed, ac- 
 credited champion of its prin- 
 ciples and policy, to canvass 
 
 SENATOR DOUGLAS OF ILLINOIS 
 Douglas' second six-year term was to ex- 
 pire in March, 1859, and his re-election or 
 retirement would come at the hands of a leg- 
 islature to be chosen in 1858. Twice he had 
 been a leading candidate for, the Democratic 
 presidential nomination ; and when Lincoln 
 challenged him to a series of debates he had 
 been looking forward with confidence to his 
 re-election as United States Senator and to a 
 nomination for the Presidency in 1860. 
 
 the state and secure a ver- 
 dict for its cause. So the two champions traversed 
 the prairies, speaking alternately to the same vast 
 audiences at several central, accessible points, and 
 speaking separately at others, until the day of elec- 
 tion, when Douglas secured a small majority in 
 either branch of the Legislature, and was re-elected, 
 though Lincoln had the larger popular vote. But 
 while Lincoln had spent less than a thousand dollars 
 in all, Douglas had borrowed and disbursed in the 
 canvass no less than eighty thousand dollars, in- 
 
 curring a debt which weighed him down to the 
 grave. I presume no dime of this was used to buy 
 up his competitor's voters, but all to organize and 
 draw out his own ; still the debt so improvidently, 
 if not culpably, incurred remained to harass him out 
 of this mortal life. Lincoln it was said was beaten : 
 it was a hasty, erring judgment. This canvass 
 made him stronger at home, 
 and stronger with the Repub- 
 licans of the whole country. 
 
 If the debates are to be 
 studied for their doctrines 
 it is desirable to begin with 
 two set speeches, in which 
 the opponents had sepa- 
 rately dealt with the ques- 
 tions upon which they were 
 divided. The first of these 
 was Lincoln's speech at 
 Springfield before the Re- 
 publican State convention, 
 delivered in the evening of 
 June 1 6th, the convention 
 having during that day 
 passed a resolution unani- 
 mously declaring that 
 "Abraham Lincoln is the 
 first and only choice of the 
 Republicans of Illinois for 
 the United States Senate." 
 Douglas meanwhile was 
 still in Washington, the 
 session of Congress having 
 ended on that same date, 
 June 16th. He remained in 
 New York and the East 
 for two or three weeks, 
 and appeared at Chicago 
 on July 9th, where he 
 spoke upon the burning is- 
 sues of the day and 
 answered Lincoln's speech 
 of June 1 6th. Referring 
 to the arrival of Senator Douglas at Chicago, 
 Mr. Gardner in his biography remarks : "A 
 special train loaded with prominent citizens 
 was dispatched to meet him. On his arrival he 
 was greeted with tumultuous applause. He 
 addressed the vast multitude from the bal- 
 cony of the Tremont House. Thirty thousand 
 people are said to have gathered to hear him. 
 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS— A SUPREME DEBATE 
 
 195 
 
 He was profoundly pleased by this splendid 
 ovation, so strikingly in contrast with the re- 
 ception .four years before, when his neigh- 
 bors refused even to hear him in defense of his 
 course. Among the distinguished visitors on 
 the speakers' stand sat Lincoln." 
 
 On the following evening Lincoln spoke to 
 the citizens of Chicago in reply to Douglas. 
 The next appearance of 
 Douglas was at a great 
 public gathering at 
 Bloomington on July 
 1 6th. At Springfield on 
 the following day this 
 Bloomington speech was 
 repeated. Lincoln's turn 
 came in the evening of 
 that same day, July 17th, 
 at Springfield. He had 
 heard Douglas speak at 
 Bloomington, and they 
 had come together in a 
 companionable way to 
 the State Capital, Lin- 
 coln's home city, where 
 Douglas also had served 
 in the Legislature and 
 afterwards as Register of 
 the Land Office. The 
 "Little Giant" was mov- 
 ing about the state as a 
 conquering hero, with 
 decorated special trains 
 and with such evidences 
 of personal popularity as 
 had never been accorded 
 before to any man in the 
 West, not even to Henry 
 Clay himself. He had an 
 
 extremely difficult situation to meet, but he 
 avoided all appearance of being on the de- 
 fensive. He had so shaped his course at 
 Washington that he had one form of appeal 
 for the anti-slavery population of the northern 
 third of Illinois, another sort of the middle 
 section, and a third for the people of southern 
 origin who predominated in the lower counties 
 of the State. As an extemporaneous stump 
 speaker, he was without rival in his own day, 
 and he has hardly been equalled at any time. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1858 
 From an ambrotype made on August 25, 1858, at 
 Macomb, Illinois, while Lincoln was in the midst 
 of his debates with Douglas. The issue over which 
 they fought was slavery, the prize was Douglas' 
 seat in the United States Senate. Though Lincoln 
 failed to win the Senatorship, he had forced 
 Douglas to take positions which profoundly af- 
 fected presidential issues two years later; and he 
 himself gained fame far beyond the borders of 
 his State. 
 
 Lincoln had waited several weeks before 
 deciding how to carry on the campaign during 
 the remaining period before the election of 
 legislators. He had somewhat vaguely thought 
 that perhaps Senator Douglas would propose 
 a series of debates; but, although such a plan 
 was not in accordance with the preferences of 
 the Senator, it could not well be rejected when 
 Lincoln himself on July 
 24th sent him a note sim- 
 ply asking: "Will it be 
 agreeable to you to make 
 an arrangement for you 
 and myself to divide time 
 and address the same 
 audiences in the present 
 canvass?" 
 
 Douglas replied on the 
 same day, proposing a 
 "discussion between us at 
 one prominent point in 
 each Congressional Dis- 
 trict in the State except 
 the Second and Sixth, 
 where we have both 
 spoken and in each 
 of which you had the 
 concluding speech." 
 There were nine Con- 
 gressional Districts in 
 Illinois, and thus it re- 
 mained to hold seven 
 joint debates. "If agree- 
 able to you," continued 
 Douglas, "I will indicate 
 the following places as 
 the most suitable in the 
 several Congressional 
 
 Districts at which we 
 should speak, to wit : Freeport, Ottawa, Gales- 
 burg, Quincy, Alton, Jonesboro, and Charles- 
 ton." Dates were at once arranged, with 
 Ottawa first on the list for August 21st, Free- 
 port six days later, Jonesboro, September 15th, 
 Charleston, September 18th, Galesburg, Octo- 
 ber 7th, Quincy, October 13th, and Alton, 
 October 15th. Mr. William Gardner in his 
 brief but impartial and trustworthy survey of 
 the life and career of Stephen A. Douglas gives 
 an excellent picture of the two antagonists and 
 
196 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 the setting for the momentous intellectual 
 contest that lifted each man to the dignity of 
 his party's nomination for the Presidency two 
 years later. Says Mr. Gardner : 
 
 Now that Lincoln has become idealized and is 
 safely classed with the great men of all ages, his 
 modest challenge seems like a condescension of the 
 immortal President to his rival. It then seemed an 
 act of temerity bordering on madness. Lincoln's 
 friends thought it rash. Douglas's friends had no 
 hope that his adversary would be so easily delivered 
 into his hands. 
 
 Yet Lincoln was not a despised antagonist. He 
 was the most prominent Republican in Illinois. But 
 Douglas was the recognized head of a great national 
 party, the giant of the Senate, the most resourceful 
 American then living. Through years of desperate 
 battling he had successfully repelled the assaults of 
 Seward, Sumner and Chase. He had more recently 
 encountered with equal ease all the 
 Southern Senators. It seemed a sim- 
 ple task to meet this humble Western 
 lawyer and make his friends ashamed 
 of their senatorial candidate. Doug- 
 las did not share the pleasant illusion 
 of his friends. Before leaving Wash- 
 ington, when he heard that Lincoln 
 was nominated, he said to Forney: 
 
 "I shall have my hands full. He is 
 the strong man of his party — full of 
 wit, facts, dates — and the best stump 
 speaker, with his droll ways and dry 
 jokes, in the West. He is as honest 
 as he is shrewd; and if I beat him my 
 victory will be hardly won." 
 
 Lincoln was burning with jealousy. 
 He believed himself to be Douglas's 
 full equal in mental endowment. For- 
 tune, he thought, with a tinge of bit- 
 terness, had dealt with them most un- 
 equally, clothing his rival with the 
 glory of a world-renowned statesman, 
 and leaving him to waste his powers on 
 the obscure quarrels of litigious clients in a small 
 town. He yearned for the opportunity to measure 
 himself with the great Senator on a conspicuous 
 stage. 
 
 This series of debates was a rare piece of strategy 
 on Lincoln's part. Doug- 
 las had so long been 
 wrapped in his senatorial 
 toga that his greatness had 
 become exaggerated to the 
 popular mind of Illinois ; 
 while Lincoln had been a 
 plain, modest lawyer, mov- 
 ing among the people in 
 the daily round of routine 
 
 life. The dogmatic statement of the great Sena- 
 tor carried more weight than the profoundest 
 argument or the clearest demonstration of the coun- 
 try lawyer. But these debates brought them to a 
 common level. They measured their intellectual 
 strength in the presence of the people, with all offi- 
 cial trappings laid aside; and while no one could 
 well be disappointed in Douglas's strength, the 
 whole country was amazed at the unexpected power 
 of Lincoln. 
 
 The latest, and perhaps the best balanced, 
 
 WHERE THE 
 
 LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 WERE HELD IN 1858 
 
 The seven Illinois towns selected are num- 
 bered on this map in the chronological or- 
 der of the debates. The heavy lines indi- 
 cate Congressional districts as then laid out. 
 There was one debate in each district except 
 the two which included Chicago and Spring- 
 field. In those cities Lincoln and Douglas 
 had already spoken. 
 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS— A SUPREME DEBATE 
 
 197 
 
 LINCOLN, DOUGLAS, AND THE RAIL-FENCE HANDICAP 
 This campaign poster of 1860 (published in Buffalo), puts in the mouth of the diminutive Douglas 
 the plaintive question, "How can I get over this rail fence." Lincoln declares with assurance, "It 
 can't stop me, for I built it." From the black figure between the rails comes the unwelcome mes- 
 sage, "You find me in dis yer fence, Massa Duglis." 
 
 estimate of Lincoln and Douglas, in that 
 rivalry on the hustings in 1858, is to be found 
 in the concluding chapters of Mr. Beveridge's 
 biography : 
 
 It may be helpful at this point to look at the com- 
 batants once more. Physically and mentally, Lin- 
 coln and Douglas were exactly opposite types. 
 Douglas was short and thick set, with great depth 
 and breadth of chest, big round face, firm wide 
 mouth, powerful square jaws, strong muscular 
 neck, large and brilliant blue eyes, a mighty head 
 and a deep voice. Lincoln was very tall and thin, 
 with narrow chest and drooping shoulders, a long, 
 slender, wrinkled neck, a lined and withered face, 
 shrunken checks, small head, and shrill voice. 
 
 Lincoln was humorous and quizzical, indifferent 
 to or forgetful of his clothes which never fitted, 
 
 slow of thought and action, given to moods of mel- 
 ancholy broken by strange and sudden bursts of fun, 
 and he was the best story-teller in the country. 
 Douglas was cordial and dignified, alert, quick, and 
 resourceful, careful of his dress; but he could not 
 tell a story or crack a joke and never tried to do so. 
 
 As speakers the quality of both men is shown by 
 what they said. Each was scrupulously honest, per- 
 sonally, although the followers of each denied that 
 the other was overloaded with that virtue. Both 
 were strong for the Union, both intensely patriotic, 
 facts that we shall see emerge in flaming grandeur 
 when the stern and decisive hour shall come. 
 
 Lincoln and Douglas were inordinately ambitious, 
 politically; but Lincoln had for the most part failed, 
 while Douglas had mounted on eagle's wings with 
 never a let down, never a halt. In 1858 the name 
 of Douglas was known to every man and woman in 
 the whole land, while that of Lincoln, though 
 
198 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 familiar to Republican politicians in other States, 
 had not been heard by the masses of the people out- 
 side of Illinois. The hold of Douglas on his follow- 
 ers everywhere was absolute. He was an idol to 
 them; their devotion amounted to a frenzy; they 
 acted as if under a spell. 
 
 It may be borne in mind that the joint de- 
 bates comprised by no means all the speeches 
 made by the candidates during the campaign 
 season. Dr. Allen Johnson, whose biography 
 of Stephen A. Douglas is the accepted and 
 standard one, gives us a statement of the local 
 conditions, and of the environment of the first 
 of the joint debates, that is so accurate and so 
 informing that I may well conclude this chap- 
 ter by an extended quotation from a volume 
 that is admirable as a political study and as an 
 instance of careful historical research: 
 
 The next three months may be regarded as a 
 prolonged debate, accentuated by the seven joint 
 discussions. The rival candidates traversed much 
 the same territory, and addressed much the same 
 audiences on successive days. At times, chance 
 made them fellow-passengers on the same train or 
 steamboat. Douglas had already begun his itiner- 
 ary, when Lincoln's last note reached him in Piatt 
 County. He had just spoken at Clinton, in De Witt 
 County, and again he had found Lincoln in the 
 audience. 
 
 No general ever planned a military campaign 
 with greater regard to the topography of the 
 enemy's country, than Douglas plotted his cam- 
 paign in central Illinois. For it was in the central 
 counties that the election was to be won or lost. 
 The Republican strength lay in the upper, northern 
 third of the State ; the Democratic strength, in the 
 southern third. The doubtful area lay between 
 Ottawa on the north and Belleville on the south ; 
 Oquawka on the northwest and Paris on the east. 
 Only twice did Douglas make any extended tour 
 outside this area ; once to meet his appointment 
 with Lincoln at Freeport ; and once to engage in 
 the third joint debate at Jonesboro. 
 
 The first week in August found Douglas speak- 
 ing at various points along the Illinois River to 
 enthusiastic crowds. Lincoln followed closely after, 
 bent upon weakening the force of his opponent's 
 arguments by lodging an immediate demurrer 
 against them. On the whole, Douglas drew the 
 larger crowds; but it was observed that Lincoln's 
 audiences increased as he proceeded northward. 
 Ottawa was the objective point for both travelers, 
 for there was to be held the first joint debate on 
 August 21st. 
 
 An enormous crowd awaited them. From sunrise 
 to mid-day, men, women, and children poured into 
 
 town in every sort of conveyance. It was a typical 
 mid-summer day in Illinois. The prairie roads were 
 thoroughly baked by the sun, and the dust rose, like 
 a fine powder, from beneath the feet of horses and 
 pedestrians, enveloping all in blinding clouds. A 
 train of seventeen cars had brought ardent support- 
 ers of Douglas from Chicago. The town was gaily 
 decked; the booming of cannon resounded across 
 the prairie; bands of music added to the excitement 
 of the occasion. The speakers were escorted to the 
 public square by two huge processions. So eager 
 was the crowd that it was with much difficulty, and 
 no little delay, that Lincoln and Douglas, the com- 
 mittee men, and the reporters, were landed on the 
 platform. 
 
 For the first time in the campaign, the rival can- 
 didates were placed side by side. The crowd in- 
 stinctively took its measure of the two men. They 
 presented a striking contrast. Lincoln, tall, angu- 
 lar, and long of limb ; Douglas, short, almost 
 dwarfed by comparison, broad-shouldered and 
 thick-chested. Lincoln was clad in a frock coat 
 of rusty black, which was evidently not made for 
 his lank, ungainly body. His sleeves did not reach 
 his wrists by several inches, and his trousers failed 
 to conceal his huge feet. His long, sinewy neck 
 emerged from a white collar, drawn over a black 
 tie. Altogether, his appearance bordered upon the 
 grotesque, and would have provoked mirth in any 
 other than an Illinois audience, which knew and 
 respected the man too well to mark his costume. 
 Douglas, on the contrary, presented a well-groomed 
 figure. He wore a well-fitting suit of broadcloth ; 
 his linen was immaculate ; and altogether he had the 
 appearance of a man of the world whom fortune 
 had favored. 
 
 Mr. Sandburg, who was himself born in 
 Galesburg, Illinois, is at his best in his anec- 
 dotal account of the great debates. He sup- 
 plies much local color, and by his quotations 
 from newspapers, East and West, he gives us 
 a just impression of the significance that was 
 attached to the Illinois contest. In the com- 
 plete works of Abraham Lincoln there is not 
 a line of the great speech at the Bloomington 
 convention of 1856. It was extemporaneous, 
 and went unreported. But in 1858 the words 
 were taken down. "The reporters would give 
 the country 'full phonographic verbatim re- 
 ports,' newspapers told their readers." Young 
 Robert Hitt, afterwards a prominent Illinois 
 Congressman, was especially relied upon, and 
 it is largely to his stenographic skill that we 
 owe, as a great boon, our authentic record of 
 the most famous of all forensic discussions. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 How the Two Illinois Rivals Stood 
 
 The gradual disintegration of the older political parties — Douglas 
 
 finds himself leader of a Democratic minority faction — Lincoln's 
 
 speech, when named for the Senate 
 
 is I have stated in the previous chapter, 
 /-\ Lincoln had set forth his main lines of 
 ■*- -*- argument in the prepared speech that he 
 delivered before the Illinois State Republican 
 Convention on June 16th when he was named 
 as the party's candi- 
 date for the Senate. 
 Douglas had care- 
 fully considered his 
 home - coming when 
 Congress adjourned 
 on June 16th, and he 
 had studied the po- 
 litical situation at 
 large by spending 
 some days in confer- 
 ence at New York 
 and elsewhere. While 
 Douglas had great 
 advantages of repu- 
 tation and prestige, 
 and while no other 
 politician was his 
 equal in dealing with 
 immediate predica- 
 ments, he was ac- 
 tually facing a situa- 
 tion that was ren- 
 dered extremely dif- 
 ficult by shifting con- 
 ditions. Lincoln stood 
 on bed rock as re- 
 gards certain funda- 
 mental principles, and 
 also he knew exactly 
 what he was trying 
 to accomplish in 
 the strategies of this particular campaign. 
 Douglas had deceived himself regarding the 
 value, both momentary and ultimate, of the 
 principles that were involved in his squatter 
 sovereignty doctrine, as embodied in the Kan- 
 
 WEttE »P»n 
 
 TMt LITTLE OIM4T.IN THE OHARKOTER OF THE OLMHSTOW 
 
 Though short in stature, Douglas possessed physical and 
 mental solidity which earned for him the nickname of Lit- 
 tle Giant. This poster caricature was published at Phila- 
 delphia in 18S8, the year of his debates with Lincoln. The 
 Philadelphia artist had evidently worked from a portrait 
 taken some time previously, when Douglas wore a beard. 
 
 sas-Nebraska Bill, with its repeal of the com- 
 promise measures that had been worked out 
 by the elder statesmen. At first Douglas had 
 seemed to be formulating plans that the South- 
 ern extremists could heartily accept. The 
 
 proposal to leave the 
 slavery question to 
 the settlers of Kan- 
 sas to decide for 
 themselves, taken in 
 conjunction with the 
 Dred Scott decision, 
 had been too quickly 
 acclaimed as a final 
 victory for the slave- 
 holders. Douglas's 
 later attack upon the 
 Lecompton constitu- 
 tion, in defiance of 
 President Buchanan, 
 had dismayed and 
 angered the South, 
 while it had puzzled 
 the North. It brought 
 him, for the moment, 
 into favor with Re- 
 publican leaders of 
 the East, among them 
 Senator Seward of 
 New York and Henry 
 Wilson of Massa- 
 chusetts ; and even 
 Horace Greeley of the 
 New York Tribune 
 had thought that 
 Douglas ought to be 
 re-elected to the Sen- 
 ate as a reward for his fearlessness in demand- 
 ing that "squatter sovereignty'' should be exer- 
 cised honestly, and that the anti-slavery voters 
 of Kansas should not be tricked out of their 
 fair part in the processes of self-determination. 
 
 199 
 
200 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "SIT DOWN, LINCOLN, YOUR TIME IS UP" 
 The artist illustrates a scene during the fourth debate, at Charles- 
 ton, Illinois, on September 18th. Lincoln had been delivering his 
 argument with telling effect, and Douglas had lost his poise, walk- 
 ing rapidly up and down the platform with watch in hand and 
 finally calling time. In these debates each spoke for an hour and a 
 half, the man who opened the discussion saving a half-hour of his 
 time for rebuttal. Thus each man had opportunity to answer the 
 other from the same platform. 
 
 The obvious fact was that parties were dis- 
 integrating. The old Whig party was now a 
 thing of the past, most of the Southern Whigs 
 having become Democrats on the slave issue. 
 Most of the Northern Whig statesmen, like 
 Seward in the East and Lincoln in the West, 
 were now active in the new Republican party. 
 The Free-soilers, whose movement had crys- 
 tallized at an earlier date, had been absorbed, 
 for the most part, into this all-inclusive 
 "Black Republican" party of the North. Many 
 Democrats, including distinguished leaders in 
 various States, had marched into the Repub- 
 
 lican camp, where their adherence was 
 hailed with enthusiasm, and where they 
 were assigned posts of honor without 
 prejudice. 
 
 Some Eastern Republican leaders 
 seemed to hold the view that if the Re- 
 publicans of Illinois should step aside in 
 favor of Douglas, the result would be 
 his re-election as an overwhelming 
 triumph and his Presidential nomina- 
 tion in i860 on a Union ticket would 
 carry the North overwhelmingly, would 
 make some appeal to the South, and 
 would remove the disunion danger. 
 Douglas himself, perhaps, had enter- 
 tained such ideas, until the Republican 
 Convention at Springfield, on June 
 1 6th, had cleared up the situation. He 
 had fought Whigs and Republicans in 
 Illinois for so many years that they 
 could not possibly have turned to his 
 support, merely to reward him because 
 he had opposed the admission of Kan- 
 sas on the fraudulent Lecompton consti- 
 tution. He now perceived that he had 
 to make his fight for re-election on 
 straight Democratic lines. 
 
 Douglas was riding two horses that 
 were pulling apart, and in spite of his 
 amazing skill he was falling between. 
 Republicanism was gaining in the 
 North, while intense sectionalism, un- 
 der the leadership of a group whose 
 ablest strategist was Jefferson Davis, 
 was dominating the South. 
 
 Quite apart from the medieval dia- 
 lectics of court decisions, and the dis- 
 cussion of particular methods and com- 
 promises as regards slavery in new territories, 
 the plain fact stood out that the North was 
 infected with the anti-slavery movement, while 
 the South was rapidly adopting a wholly new 
 religion of slavery as a sacred and divine in- 
 stitution, to criticize which was blasphemous. 
 In earlier times there had not been a man 
 in the United States who thought of slavery 
 otherwise than as wrong in itself and a thing 
 to be abolished, although the view prevailed 
 in the South that the extinction of this insti- 
 tution must be by gradual processes, to be 
 
 
HOW THE TWO ILLINOIS RIVALS STOOD 
 
 20I 
 
 THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 
 
 LINCOLN'S FIGHT TO KEEP SLAVERY OUT OF THE TERRITORIES 
 This poster originated at Cincinnati, often called "Porkopolis" in those days because of its packing 
 industry. The head of the hog is a portrait of James Buchanan, President, who had been nominated 
 and elected upon a platform adopted by the Democratic convention at Cincinnati in 1856. Douglas 
 (at the right) justifies the platform on the ground that it would keep slavery out of the Territories; 
 but Lincoln declares that the slave interests had been permitted to go too far already and should be 
 sent back where they belong. In this cartoon we see for the first time in these pages the term 
 "irrepressible conflict," used by Senator William H. Seward of New York in a speech in the Senate 
 on October 25, 1858, in which he referred to the antagonism between freedom and slavery as "an 
 irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces." 
 
 worked out through some future period that 
 could not be strictly defined. A Southern 
 Congressman, the assailant of Senator Sum- 
 ner, was quoted as having admitted freely that 
 Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and all of 
 the early Southern statesmen were opposed to 
 slavery; but as he proceeded to explain, either 
 naively or cynically, the invention of the cot- 
 ton gin had made all the difference in the 
 world ; and slavery had now become the essen- 
 tial factor in Southern prosperity — an institu- 
 tion to be maintained as the permanent basis 
 of future wealth and well-being. 
 
 History was shaping itself through the pas- 
 sions and prejudices of two great sections of 
 the country which were so divided in sentiment 
 that mere political devices could not hold them 
 
 together. The more reckless of Southern lead- 
 ers were talking freely of secession, and the 
 more reckless of Northern leaders were ex- 
 pressing themselves in terms of coercion, de- 
 claring that eighteen million Northerners with 
 industrial resources would prove more than a 
 match for eight million Southerners lacking 
 the ability to make munitions and to finance 
 a war of rebellion. 
 
 Douglas did not fully realize how com- 
 pletely the Southern leaders had rejected him, 
 as the head of their party and their future can- 
 didate for the presidency. On the other hand, 
 he did not grasp the truth that his political 
 record had made him unacceptable to the 
 growing sentiment that was spreading its 
 counter-propaganda against the propaganda 
 
202 
 
 AHKAIl \M LINCOLN 
 
 THE DOUGLAS STATUE IN SPRINGFIELD 
 This is a companion memorial to the one of Lincoln re- 
 produced on the opposite page, both erected in the Capitol 
 grounds upon the occasion of the Illinois centennial in 
 1918. The Douglas statue is the work of Gilbert P. Ris- 
 wold of Chicago. Douglas was only 5 feet 4 inches tall, 
 but so broad and solid that he was called the "Little 
 Giant." Lincoln was twelve inches taller. 
 
 of the slave-holding oligarchy of the South. 
 In short, he had maneuvered himself into 
 the position of the leader of a minority faction 
 of a divided party; and it was too late for him 
 to seek a commission giving him high com- 
 mand in the Republican camp. He had been 
 vain enough to think that the Republicans of 
 Illinois might come to him, or at least meet 
 him half way; but his hopes were blighted 
 when the State Convention declared that 
 Abraham Lincoln was its first and only can- 
 didate for the United States Senate. 
 
 Lincoln, who had known Douglas through- 
 out his public life, did not for a moment share 
 the view of certain leaders in the East that 
 Douglas could be weaned from his devotion 
 to the Democratic party. Ambition had forced 
 Douglas into a false attitude when Atchison of 
 Missouri had taken the initiative with his 
 Nebraska bill. As chairman of the Senate 
 Committee on Territories, Douglas was placed 
 in a position where he must either report the 
 bill out of committee, or else step aside for the 
 Missouri Senator. He chose to report the bill 
 and to make its doctrines his own. He was 
 further driven to abandon his earlier convic- 
 tions, and accept as an amendment to the new 
 bill the explicit repeal of the Missouri Com- 
 promise. 
 
 He had made such a record in the years 
 from 1854 to 1858 that there was no alterna- 
 tive for him except to push the Kansas ques- 
 tion to a conclusion, in order that the country 
 might turn to something else and allow slavery 
 to take its chances in an age that was moving 
 inevitably toward industrialism and freedom. 
 He was perfectly ready to admit Kansas as a 
 free State on the verdict of the settlers; but 
 this willingness was quite too evident to be 
 relished by the South. 
 
 The South could not forgive its own emi- 
 nent son, Walker of Mississippi, who had been 
 appointed Governor of Kansas by President 
 Buchanan, and who had there enforced law 
 and order with the aid of United States troops 
 and had protected actual settlers in their 
 rights. Neither could it forgive Douglas, who 
 had opened the door for slavery in the Terri- 
 tories, and had then shown willingness to have 
 the "squatters" close the door — determined 
 not to permit slavery in a territory that was 
 free soil under the old Compromise of 1820. 
 
 Lincoln, therefore, was not only entering 
 the campaign to set forth his own views, but 
 he was skillfully planning to expose and con- 
 firm the dilemma that Douglas was facing. 
 He succeeded so well that although the Doug- 
 las men carried the majority of legislative 
 districts, Lincoln himself received the popular 
 majority in the State as a whole. If there had 
 been an up-to-date re-apportionment of leg- 
 islative districts, Lincoln would actually have 
 
HOW THE TWO ILLINOIS RIVALS STOOD 
 
 203 
 
 1 r 
 
 THE LINCOLN STATUE IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 
 When the people of Illinois were commemorating, in 1918, the one-hundredth anniversary of the 
 admission of their State into the Union, they caused to be erected in the Capitol grounds a statue of 
 Lincoln and one of Douglas. The Lincoln statue is the work of Andrew O'Connor. On the reverse 
 side of the huge granite slab which forms its background is carved Lincoln's farewell address to his 
 fellow-citizens in Springfield as he departed for Washington to become President in 1861, in which 
 occur these words: "Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an 
 old man. Here my children have been born and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or 
 whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. 
 Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that 
 
 assistance, I cannot fail." 
 
 been elected Senator. The northern part of 
 the State had been growing much more rapidly 
 than the southern part, and, with unchanged 
 apportionment, the Democratic part of the 
 State was now greatly over-represented in the 
 Legislature. 
 
 The main lines of Lincoln's arguments 
 throughout the summer are found in his ad- 
 dress of June 1 6th. The debates as a whole 
 were published and widely circulated through- 
 
 out the country, and even today they are well 
 worth reading for the place they occupy in the 
 history of American politics. But while we 
 shall try here to show clearly their character 
 and significance, we shall not review them in 
 detail. The more convenient way, then, to find 
 just what were Lincoln's positions is to study 
 his speech on June 16th; while those of Doug- 
 las are to be found in his Chicago speech on 
 July 9th. Lincoln opened his Springfield 
 
204 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 speech to the Convention with the following 
 paragraph that stands among the best known 
 of his utterances : 
 
 If we could first know where we are, and whither 
 we are tending, we could then better judge what to 
 do, and how to do it. We are now far on into our 
 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 can not 
 stand." I believe this Government can not endure 
 permanently half slave and half free. I do not ex- 
 pect 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 pub- 
 lic mind shall rest in the belief that it is in 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. 
 
 These were bold words but were supported 
 by the facts. The Dred Scott decision, carefully 
 analyzed, proves to have been merely a denial 
 of Federal jurisdiction in a particular matter. 
 But the extended opinion of Chief Justice 
 Taney, in which a majority of the Justices 
 concurred, set forth a doctrine the ultimate 
 logic of which would have permitted a slave 
 owner to settle anywhere in the Union with 
 his human property, and would have upheld 
 the re-opening of the African slave trade in our 
 Southern seaports. It was Lincoln's belief 
 that the President, the Chief Justice and the 
 authors of the Nebraska-Kansas legislation 
 were working together to arrest what were 
 natural tendencies toward freedom. "The New 
 Year of 1854," he declared, "found slavery ex- 
 cluded from more than half the States by State 
 Constitutions, and from most of the national 
 territory by Congressional prohibition. Four 
 days later commenced the struggle which 
 ended in repealing that Congressional prohibi- 
 tion. This opened all the national territory 
 to slavery and was the first point gained." 
 
 Congress having acted, there must be some 
 form of popular endorsement, and the so- 
 called "sacred right of self-government" had 
 been advanced as a principle that President 
 Buchanan at once seized upon as providing 
 
 a "happy solution," which no reasonable per- 
 son could dispute. Hence the so-called "new 
 principle" of the Nebraska Bill, further elab- 
 orated into the bill which separated Nebraska 
 and Kansas and provided for the organization 
 of the Kansas Territory, the settlers being 
 authorized to decide for themselves whether 
 they would bring slavery in through Missouri 
 and the southward, or repel slavery under the 
 majority influence of colonists from New 
 England, New York, and the States north of 
 the Ohio River. Connecting the two impor- 
 tant topics, Lincoln continued as follows : 
 
 While the Nebraska bill was passing through 
 Congress, a law case, involving the question of a 
 Negro's freedom, by reason of his owner having vol- 
 untarily taken him first into a free state and then 
 into a territory covered by the Congressional pro- 
 hibition, and held him as a slave for a long time in 
 each, was passing through the United States Cir- 
 cuit Court for the District of Missouri ; and both 
 Nebraska bill and lawsuit were brought to a de- 
 cision in the same month of May, 1854. The negro's 
 name was Dred Scott, which name now designates 
 the decision finally made in the case. Before the 
 then next presidential election, the law case came to 
 and was argued in the Supreme Court of the United 
 States; but the decision of it was deferred until 
 after the election. 
 
 We are next reminded by Lincoln that 
 Douglas had found opportunity to speak in 
 Illinois in support of the Dred Scott decision 
 early in the previous year, President Buchanan 
 also having expressed himself to the same ef- 
 fect. But with all this outlook for Democratic 
 harmony, so acceptable to the Southern lead- 
 ers, a practical difference had led to new dis- 
 cord, as Lincoln tells his fellow Republicans 
 of Illinois in the following words : 
 
 At length a squabble springs up between the 
 President and the author of the Nebraska bill on 
 the mere question of fact, whether the Lecompton 
 constitution was or was not in any just sense made 
 by the people of Kansas; and in that squabble the 
 latter declares that all he wants is a fair vote for the 
 people, and that he cares not whether slavery be 
 voted down or voted up. 
 
 Lincoln's argument becomes somewhat tech- 
 nical as it discusses the application of the Dred 
 Scott decision in various hypothetical cases. 
 But his real object is not disguised for a mo- 
 ment. He is making the South and its north- 
 ern sympathizers understand that Douglas 
 
HOW THE TWO ILLINOIS RIVALS STOOD 
 
 205 
 
 CONQUERING PREJUDICE TO SAVE THE UNION 
 The Fugitive Slave Law, compelling the return of slaves who had escaped into Free States, had been 
 adopted as part of the Compromise of 1850. It was a source of constant irritation in the North, 
 often flagrantly disregarded and in some cases actually nullified by State legislatures. The slave in 
 the foreground of this drawing is being seized because he has transferred himself to a Free State 
 "without the consent of his kind-hearted owner." One of the men arresting the Negro reminds him 
 that he is only "a piece of property," a phrase borrowed from the decision of Chief Justice Taney 
 
 in the Dred Scott case. 
 
 does not care whether slavery is voted up or 
 voted down. On the other hand, he is making 
 Northern anti-slavery men understand that 
 Douglas has no feeling whatever about the 
 moral aspects of slavery, and is perfectly will- 
 ing to extend slave territory in all directions, 
 provided the local opposition may prove not 
 too intolerant. To those who might have 
 thought that Douglas was on the road to 
 Damascus, so to speak, and that he might soon 
 see the light of the true Republican gospel, 
 Lincoln gave the following warning: 
 
 Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge 
 Douglas's position, question his motives, or do aught 
 that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, 
 if ever, he and we can come together on principle, 
 so that our great cause may have assistance from 
 his great ability, I hope to have interposed no ad- 
 
 ventitious obstacle. But clearly he is not now with 
 us, he does not pretend to be, he does not promise 
 ever to be. Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, 
 and conducted by, its own undoubted friends — those 
 whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work 
 — who do care for the result. 
 
 A speech of great intellectual authority, 
 without the slightest taint of unfairness or 
 misrepresentation, was concluded by Mr. Lin- 
 coln with the following sentences : 
 
 Two years ago the Republicans of the nation 
 mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. 
 We did this under the single impulse of resistance 
 to a common danger, with every external circum- 
 stance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even 
 hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, 
 and formed and fought the battle through, under the 
 constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud and pam- 
 pered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now 
 
206 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 COUNTING HIS EGGS AFTER THEY ARE HATCHED 
 Douglas: Oh Lord, I'm sorry I broke this egg. If I could only 
 keep the Nigger quiet until after the election I'd be all right. 
 
 The first Egg Douglas picked was called the Compromise, 
 Out popped a little nigger, with the devil in his eyes; 
 
 He raised his hands in horror, when Stephen gave a frown, 
 Said he, "Little Nigger, I'm bound to keep you down." 
 
 Another Egg was Cuba, but it would not pass muster, 
 
 For out of it had sprung a little Filibuster ; 
 The climate was too hot, and he couldn't stand the test. 
 
 With his shell upon his back, he retreated to his nest. 
 
 The Squatter Sovereign Egg was broken with an awful shout, 
 There being nothing in it, there was nothing to come out. 
 
 Twas a shame to raise a cackle, a Democratic sell, 
 A bid for the Senate — a hollow, windy shell. 
 
 Free Kansas was a piece of chalk, or else a polished bone, 
 The people asked to have an Egg, but only got a stone; 
 
 He said he had no great respect for black, or white, or brown, 
 And did not care if Slavery was voted up or down. 
 
 The Egg "Dred Scot Decision" lies there unbroken still, 
 Subject to the election and the fire-eaters' will; 
 
 Pandora's Box was harmless, compared with all its evil., 
 For out of it there yet may hatch the very biggest devil. 
 
 (Cartoon and doggerel from the Rail-Splitter, Chicago) 
 
 — now, when the same enemy is wavering, dis- 
 severed, and belligerent? The result is not doubt- 
 ful. 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. 
 
 Mr. Beveridge is at pains to show us that 
 a great oration owes its power as much to the 
 occasion as to its words and phrases. Many- 
 things in this Springfield speech had been said 
 
 before. In this case it was like Jefferson's 
 Declaration of Independence, Washington's 
 farewell address or Marshall's greatest opin- 
 ions. There were phrases from Webster in 
 the speech, and thoughts from other masters 
 at whose feet Lincoln had long been a disciple. 
 "But," says Mr. Beveridge, "like Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson and Marshall, Lincoln stated old 
 truths in a simpler form than anyone else had 
 expressed them ; like those masters, he stated 
 them when the public mind was intent upon 
 them and impressive numbers of men and 
 women were ready to receive them ; and he 
 stated them as the chosen leader of a 
 young, powerful and growing party in a 
 great Western State at a critical time, and 
 as the opponent selected by that party to do 
 battle with the then strongest political man 
 in the United States." 
 
 It is also explained by Beveridge that 
 Lincoln broke the speech, as he wrote it 
 out, into very short paragraphs, with 
 many words italicized throughout. Printed 
 in this way, as it is reproduced in Bever- 
 idge's pages, its statements seem doubly 
 impressive, and they gain in cumulative 
 force as they proceed. The speech was at 
 once printed in Republican papers through- 
 out Illinois, and it was circulated in 
 pamphlet form. The New York Tribune 
 reproduced it without abridgment, and 
 Mr. Greeley was apparently converted 
 from his earlier view that Illinois Repub- 
 licans might support Douglas. Mr. Bev- 
 eridge, whose judgment about the matter 
 may be taken as final, declares that this 
 speech of Lincoln's was "his most impor- 
 tant move in the game for the presidency, 
 a game Lincoln meant to win." Dr. Bar- 
 ton describes the method by which Lincoln 
 had written bits of the speech as thoughts 
 occurred to him, afterward arranging them 
 in order. He read the final draft to a 
 group of friends the night before the conven- 
 tion. These advisers disapproved of it, Hern- 
 don alone favoring it. The Republican co- 
 horts, also, were less enthusiastic about this 
 thoughtful speech than about the improvised 
 effort of 1856. But the orator stood on ground 
 that his party duly accepted. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 ouglas Wins a Costly Victory 
 
 His home-coming speech at Chicago — The candidates question one 
 
 another thoroughly as they tour the State before election — Illinois 
 
 sectionalism — Immigrants at the polls 
 
 The reply of Douglas to Lincoln's 
 written speech of June 16th was made 
 in the home-coming speech at Chicago, 
 on July 9th. Regardless of the fact that this 
 great town had become a Republican strong- 
 hold, the personal 
 prestige of the gal- 
 lant Senator was so 
 great as to insure him 
 a magnificent wel- 
 come. He was adroit 
 in complimenting Re- 
 publicans on having 
 stood with him in his 
 recent fight against 
 the Lecompton Con- 
 stitution, thus seem- 
 ing to bring them 
 over to his side in 
 support of the doc- 
 trine of local sov- 
 ereignty. Many Re- 
 publicans, in fact, 
 were losing sight of 
 principles, and were 
 imagining that per- 
 haps Douglas had 
 found the path to ac- 
 tual freedom in the 
 national domain. In 
 somewhat patroniz- 
 ing fashion he re- 
 ferred to Lincoln's 
 candidacy : 
 
 I have observed from 
 the public prints that 
 but a few days ago the 
 Republican party of the 
 
 State of Illinois assembled in convention at Spring- 
 field, and not only laid down their platform, but 
 nominated a candidate for the United States Senate 
 as my successor. I take great pleasure in saying that 
 I have known personally and intimately, for about 
 
 AN ILLINOIS CARICATURE OF DOUGLAS 
 A Republican campaign paper called the Rail-Splitter, which 
 was issued at Chicago from June to October in 1860, repre- 
 sented Douglas as "the Illinois thimble-rigger," referring to 
 the parent of the later well-known "shell game," popular at 
 county fairs. Douglas, in the guise of professional gambler, 
 declaims: "Walk up, gentlemen, here's your Popular Sov- 
 ereignty, Dred Scott and Wickliffe thimbles. Now you see 
 it, and now you don't see it. I'll bet you $25,000 you can't 
 tell under wkich one the little joker is." This analysis of 
 Douglas was anticipated by Lincoln at the close of the 
 debate, as explained in the concluding paragraph of the 
 chapter. Governor Wickliffe of Louisiana, to whom the 
 Railsplitter referred, was a Douglas Democrat who had been 
 a member of the platform committee at the Baltimore con- 
 vention in 1860. As Governor he had sent a secession 
 message to the Louisiana Legislature. His support was to 
 prove costly to Douglas in the North. 
 
 a quarter of a century, the worthy gentleman who 
 has been nominated for my place, and I will say 
 that I regard him as a kind, amiable and intelligent 
 gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable op- 
 ponent; and whatever issue I may have with him 
 will be of principle, and not involving personalities. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln made a 
 speech before the Re- 
 publican Convention 
 which unanimously 
 nominated him for the 
 Senate — a speech evi- 
 dently well prepared 
 and carefully written — 
 in which he states the 
 basis upon which he 
 proposes to carry on the 
 campaign during this 
 summer. In it he lays 
 down two distinct 
 propositions which I 
 shall notice, and upon 
 which I shall take a di- 
 rect and bold issue with 
 him. 
 
 Douglas then ad- 
 dressed himself to 
 Lincoln's arguments 
 regarding the dan- 
 gers of division. He 
 was of the opinion 
 that we could go on 
 perfectly well with- 
 out being all slave or 
 all free. Douglas was 
 an expansionist, as 
 were most western 
 and southern people, 
 and he was in accord 
 with the Southern 
 desire to purchase 
 
 Cuba and divide the 
 island into two additional slave States. But 
 Douglas, unlike Buchanan, was not playing 
 the southern game in a submissive spirit ; and 
 he was not playing the northern game with any 
 
 207 
 
208 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 pretense of sympathy with northern motives. 
 The very fact that both sections were discredit- 
 ing his leadership should have been, to him, 
 the most concrete kind of proof that Lincoln 
 was right in his warning that the country 
 could not go on happily with the two systems, 
 slavery in the South, free labor in the North, 
 and rivalry in the new territories. 
 
 Douglas assumed that Lincoln's position 
 meant direct activities against slavery in the 
 old Southern States : 
 
 His first and main proposition I will give in his 
 own language, Scripture quotation and all ; I give 
 his exact language : " 'A house divided against itself 
 can not stand.' I believe this Government can not 
 endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I 
 do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not 
 expect the house to fall ; but I do expect it to cease 
 to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
 the other." In other words Mr. Lincoln asserts, as 
 a fundamental principle of this government, that 
 there must be uniformity in the local laws and do- 
 mestic institutions of each and all the States of the 
 Union; and he therefore invites all the non-slave- 
 holding States to band together, organize as one 
 body, and make war upon slavery in Kentucky, upon 
 slavery in Virginia, upon slavery in the Carolinas, 
 upon slavery in all the slaveholding States in this 
 Union, and to persevere in that war until it shall be 
 exterminated. . . . Now, my friends, I must say 
 to you frankly that I take bold, unqualified issue 
 with him upon that principle. I assert that it is 
 neither desirable nor possible that there should be 
 uniformity in the local institutions and domestic 
 regulations of the different States of this Union. 
 
 ABOLITION RIDICULED IN THE NORTH 
 As late as February, 1861, when this cartoon was pub- 
 lished in Vanity Fair (New York), those who advocated 
 the abolition of slavery were often the subject of con- 
 temptuous satire. 
 
 The framers of our government never contemplated 
 uniformity in its internal concerns. 
 
 It was a long speech that Douglas made, and 
 it is not necessary to attempt to digest it here 
 as a whole ; but the following sentences, deal- 
 ing with the Dred Scott decision, and Doug- 
 las's views upon the question of the legal rights 
 of Negroes, may well be quoted, as showing 
 the kind of argument that was then current 
 even among leaders of such distinction : 
 
 The other proposition discussed by Mr. Lincoln 
 in his speech consists in a crusade against the 
 Supreme Court of the United States on account of 
 the Dred Scott decision. On this question, also, I 
 desire to say to you unequivocally that I take direct 
 and distinct issue with him. I have no warfare to 
 make on account of that or any other decision which 
 they have pronounced from that bench. . . . I have no 
 idea of appealing from the decision of the Supreme 
 Court upon a constitutional question to the decisions 
 of a tumultuous town meeting. I am aware that 
 once an eminent lawyer of this city, now no more, 
 said that the State of Illinois had the most perfect 
 judicial system in the world, subject to but one ex- 
 ception, which could be cured by a slight amend- 
 ment, and that amendment was to so change the law 
 as to allow an appeal from the decisions of the Su- 
 preme Court of Illinois, on all constitutional ques- 
 tions, to Justices of the Peace. 
 
 ("You were then on the Supreme Bench," said 
 Lincoln quietly.) 
 
 My friend, Mr. Lincoln, who sits behind me, re- 
 minds me that the proposition was made when I 
 was Judge of the Supreme Court. Be that as it may, 
 I do not think that fact adds any greater weight or 
 authority to the suggestion. ... I am opposed to 
 this doctrine of Mr. Lincoln, by which he proposes 
 to take an appeal from the decision of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, upon this high constitu- 
 tional question, to a Republican caucus sitting in the 
 country. Yes, or any other caucus or town meeting, 
 whether it be Republican, American, or Democratic. 
 I respect the decisions of that august tribunal ; I 
 shall always bow in deference to them. . . He ob- 
 jects to the Dred Scott decision because it does not 
 put the negro in the possession of the rights of cit- 
 izenship on an equality with the white man. I am 
 opposed to negro equality. ... I am opposed to 
 taking any step that recognizes the negro man or 
 the Indian as the equal of the white man. I am 
 opposed to giving him a voice in the administration 
 of the government. I would extend to the negro 
 and the Indian, and to all dependent races, every 
 right, every privilege, and every immunity con- 
 sistent with the safety and welfare of the white 
 races ; but equality they never should have, either 
 political or social, or in any other respect whatever. 
 
DOUGLAS WINS A COSTLY VICTORY 
 
 209 
 
 The extreme views of Abolitionists 
 were by no means popular in 1858, 
 even in the ranks of the more radical 
 half of the Republican party. Doug- 
 las therefore felt himself on safe and 
 solid ground in asserting his views on 
 the subject of racial equality. He was 
 making a somewhat dangerous ap- 
 peal to southern prejudice when he 
 raised the alarm that Lincoln's argu- 
 ment on the "house divided against 
 itself" indicated an aggressive Re- 
 publican program to invade the old 
 slave States, in order to make the 
 country "all free." He could hardly 
 have realized that he was spending 
 long weeks and months of the year 
 1858, with every politician in the 
 South eagerly following his words, in 
 bold reiteration of the idea that the 
 election of a man like Lincoln to 
 the Presidency would create such 
 peril for the South as clearly to 
 justify secession. 
 
 What Douglas said at Chicago early in July 
 was repeated by him, with many variations but 
 with increasing ardor and intensity, during the 
 whole period of the strenuous campaign. The 
 following passages from the Chicago speech 
 show the quality and method of the Douglas 
 argument : 
 
 I believe this Government of ours was founded 
 on the white basis. I believe it was established for 
 white men, for the benefit of white men and their 
 posterity in all time to come. I do not believe that 
 it was the design or intention of the signers of the 
 Declaration of Independence or the framers of the 
 
 THE UNITED STATES— A BLACK BUSINESS 
 
 From Punch (London), November 8, 1856 
 
 Looking on from a distance, before the day of the transatlantic cable, 
 
 Punch saw clearly that the disagreement over slavery would tear the 
 
 Union apart. Note the English conception of the Southerner with 
 
 gun in hand and the Northerner with high hat. 
 
 had any reference to negroes when they used the 
 expression that all men were created equal. . . . 
 
 They were speaking only of the white race 
 
 Every one of the thirteen colonies was a slave- 
 holding constituency. Did they intend. ... to de- 
 clare that their own slaves were on an equality 
 with them ? What are the negroes' rights and privi- 
 leges? That is a question which each State and 
 Territory must decide for itself. We have decided 
 that question. We have said that in this State the 
 negro shall not be a slave but that he shall enjoy 
 no political rights; that negro equality shall not 
 exist. . . . For my own part, I do not consider 
 the negro any kin to me nor to any other white man ; 
 but I would still carry my humanity and my philan- 
 Constitution to include negroes as citizens thropy to the extent of giving him every privilege 
 
 The position Lincoln has taken on this question not 
 only presents him as claiming for them the right to 
 vote, but their right under the divine law and the 
 Declaration of Independence to be elected to office, 
 to become members of the legislature, to go to Con- 
 gress, to become Governors or United States Sena- 
 tors, or Judges of the Supreme Court. . . . He would 
 permit them to marry, would he not? And if he 
 gives them that right I suppose he will let them 
 marry whom they please, provided they marry their 
 equals. If the divine law declares that the white 
 man is the equal of the negro woman, that they are 
 on a perfect equality, I suppose he admits the right 
 of the negro woman to marry the white man. . . . 
 I do not believe that the signers of the Declaration 
 
 and every immunity that he could enjoy consistent 
 with our own good. 
 
 Maine allows the negro to vote on an equality 
 with the white man. New York permits him to vote, 
 provided he owns $250 worth of property. In Ken- 
 tucky they deny the negro all political and civil 
 rights. Each is a sovereign State and has a right 
 to do as it pleases. Let us mind our own business 
 and not interfere with them. Lincoln is not going 
 into Kentucky, but will plant his batteries on this 
 side of the Ohio and throw his bomb shells — his 
 Abolition documents — over the River and will carry 
 on the political warfare and get up strife between 
 the North and the South until he elects a sectional 
 President, reduces the South to submit to the con- 
 
2IO 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 dition of dependent colonies, raises the negro to an 
 equality and forces the South to suhmit to the doc- 
 trine that a house divided against itself can not 
 stand; that the Union divided into half slave States 
 and half free cannot endure ; that they must be all 
 free or all slave; and that, as we in the North are 
 in the majority, we will not permit them to be all 
 slave, and therefore they in the South must consent 
 to the States being all free. 
 
 In his Chicago speech on the following even- 
 ing, Lincoln showed that Douglas had not cor- 
 rectly stated his position, and that he had not, 
 in his Springfield speech of June 16th, said 
 anything at all in favor of taking steps for the 
 extinction of slavery. He now took the op- 
 portunity to say, however, that he did desire 
 that slavery he put in course of ultimate ex- 
 tinction, and he went on as follows : "I have 
 always hated slavery, I think, as much as any 
 Abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. 
 I have always hated it, but I have always been 
 
 quiet about it until this new era of the intro- 
 duction of the Nebraska bill began. I always 
 believed that everybody was against it, and that 
 it was in course of ultimate extinction." When 
 further elaborating upon this change of atti- 
 tude, he protested again that there was no 
 right, and ought to be no inclination, to inter- 
 fere with slavery in the slave States. 
 
 These speeches laid the foundation for the 
 weeks of campaigning that followed. There 
 was, of course, much repetition, especially on 
 the part of Douglas. Points became sharply 
 differentiated, and the candidates put questions 
 to each other that were skilfully drawn and 
 intended to create either the embarrassment 
 of evasion or the confusion of inconsistency. 
 In answering Douglas's questions Lincoln said 
 that he had never been committed, ( i ) to the 
 unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
 Law, or (2) against the admission of more 
 
 THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF KANSAS TERRITORY 
 From a sketch published in Leslie's Weekly (New York), in December, 18SS. It represents the con- 
 vention of Free State supporters which met at Topeka in September of that year. Pro-slavery advo- 
 cates, two months earlier had met and drawn up a constitution based upon that of the Slave State 
 of Missouri. The Topeka convention declared the existing territorial government illegal, and framed 
 another constitution prohibiting slavery. President Pierce recognized the pro-slavery government, 
 however, in January, 1856, and civil war ensued in the Territory. 
 
DOUGLAS WINS A COSTLY VICTORY 
 
 21 I 
 
 slave States into the Union, 
 or (3) 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, or (4) in 
 favor of the abolition of slav- 
 ery in the District of Colum- 
 bia, or (5) in favor of prohi- 
 biting the slave trade between 
 the different States. 
 
 He declared that he was 
 (6) impliedly, if not ex- 
 pressly, pledged to the belief 
 in the right and duty of Con- 
 gress to prohibit slavery in 
 all the United States territor- 
 ies; and (7) he was not op- 
 posed to the extension of 
 American territory, provided 
 further acquisition should be 
 made honestly, though in case 
 of any proposed annexation, 
 he would consider what effect 
 it might have upon the agi- 
 tation of the slave question. 
 
 Having answered the seven 
 questions of Douglas, Lin- 
 coln in turn asked four ques- 
 tions. He inquired whether 
 Douglas would vote to admit 
 Kansas as a State "before 
 they have the requisite num- 
 ber of inhabitants according 
 to the 'English bill,' some 
 93,000." In his second ques- 
 tion he asked if there was any 
 lawful way by which the 
 people of a territory "against 
 the wish of any citizen of the 
 United States can exclude slavery from its 
 limits." In the third question Douglas was 
 asked if he would acquiesce in the decision if 
 the Supreme Court should decide that States 
 can not exclude slavery from their limits. 
 Finally, he asked if Douglas was in favor of 
 acquiring additional territory "in disregard of 
 how such acquisition may affect the nation on 
 the slavery question." 
 
 The crucial question was, of course, the 
 
 DOUGLAS READY TO "BURY" LINCOLN POLITICIALLY 
 AS A PATRIOTIC DUTY 
 
 On September 12, 1860, a great mass-meeting and barbecue were held in New 
 York City under Tammany auspices at which August Belmont presided. The 
 crowd in attendance was estimated at from 20,000 to 30,000 persons and the 
 New York Herald the next morning said of the occasion that nothing like it in 
 politics had ever occurred there before. Douglas took that opportunity to say: 
 "My friends, there is no patriotic duty on earth more gratifying to my feelings 
 than to make i speech over Mr. Lincoln's political grave. (Loud cheers.) I do 
 not make this remark out of any unkindness to Mr. Lincoln, but I believe that 
 the good of his own country requires it." The Vanity Fair cartoonist pictures 
 Senator Douglas as "Aminadab Sleek," a character in a comedy called "The 
 Serious Family," which was popular in New York during the '50's. 
 
 second one. Douglas answered it promptly in 
 the affirmative. "It matters not," he declared, 
 "what way the Supreme Court may hereafter 
 decide as to the abstract question as to whether 
 slavery may or may not go into a Territory 
 under the Constitution. The people have the 
 lawful means to introduce it or exclude it, as 
 they please, for the reason that slavery can not 
 exist a day or an hour anywhere unless it is 
 supported by local police regulations." He 
 
212 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 A 1929 STATUE OF LINCOLN, AT FREEPORT 
 To commemorate the second debate in the series of seven, 
 this bronze statue was erected in Freeport, Illinois, the 
 work of Leonard Crunelle of Chicago and the gift of 
 W. T. Raleigh. It was unveiled on August 27, 1929, on 
 the seventy-first anniversary of the debate with Douglas. 
 
 elaborated this idea further, and declared that 
 no matter what the decision of the Supreme 
 Court might be, "still the right of the people 
 to make a slave Territory or a free Territory is 
 perfect and complete under the Nebraska bill. 
 I hope Mr. Lincoln deems my answer satisfac- 
 tory on that point." 
 
 This was a sort of nullification doctrine, 
 such as many opponents of national Prohibi- 
 tion have recently advocated. The national 
 policy could not be expected, Douglas held, to 
 prevail in a given State or Territory unless 
 local police authority was acting in harmony 
 with national laws, or with Supreme Court 
 decisions. The Fugitive Slave Law had broken 
 down in New England, because local senti- 
 ment was so strongly against it. 
 
 There was practical common sense in this 
 reply of Senator Douglas ; but the South con- 
 sidered it an unpardonable heresy, and Lincoln 
 
 had evidently intended to widen the gap be- 
 tween the southern and northern wings of the 
 Democratic party. On the expansion ques- 
 tion, Douglas was breezy and eloquent. "Just 
 as fast," he said, "as our interests and our 
 destiny require additional territory in the 
 North, in the South or on the islands of the 
 ocean, I am for it, and when we acquire it we 
 will leave the people, according to the Ne- 
 braska bill, free to do as they please on the 
 subject of slavery and every other question." 
 Ottawa, the point chosen for the first of the 
 seven debates, was in a district represented by 
 Owen Love joy in Congress, with anti-slavery 
 sentiment permeating the entire group of 
 counties. Douglas was highly entertaining 
 in his review of Lincoln's personal and politi- 
 cal career, and the" tone of his speech greatly 
 resembled many of the addresses made by 
 Senator Borah, Senator Robinson and other 
 
 THE LINCOLN STATUE AT URBANA, ILLINOIS 
 
 Many cities and towns throughout his own State of 
 Illinois have found occasion to commemorate Lincoln in 
 bronze and marble. The statue reproduced above is the 
 work of Lorado Taft, a distinguished sculptor of Chicago. 
 As the capital of Champaign County, Urbana was often 
 visited by Lincoln the lawyer. 
 
DOUGLAS WINS A COSTLY VICTORY 
 
 213 
 
 A FAMOUS LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE SCENE RE-ENACTED AFTER SEVENTY YEARS 
 Knox College at Galesburg, Illinois, was a Lincoln stronghold in 1858. The debate there was con- 
 ducted from a platform adjacent to one of the college buildings. It was well attended and aroused 
 much enthusiasm. In October, 1928, on the same spot, Frank McGlynn and A. B. Pierson represented 
 Lincoln and Douglas, respectively, in a repetition of the Galesburg speeches. In the picture Mr. 
 Pierson, impersonating Senator Douglas, is delivering his address. 
 
 leaders, including Governor Alfred E. Smith 
 himself, in the Presidential campaign of 1928. 
 There was a tendency throughout all of the 
 Douglas speeches to misuse remarkable gifts 
 as a platform entertainer by indulgence in 
 mild ridicule, in misrepresentation through 
 omissions and false emphasis, and in telling 
 plays upon the regional bias of particular 
 audiences. Since the speeches were everywhere 
 distributed in cold type, it so happened that 
 the cleverness with which Douglas won votes 
 and secured his election to the Senate sup- 
 plied a fund of quotations that it was easy 
 to turn against him when he became a presi- 
 dential candidate in i860. 
 
 Having listened to Douglas for a solid hour 
 at Ottawa, Lincoln followed with this opening 
 sentence: "When a man hears himself some- 
 what misrepresented, it provokes him — at least 
 I find it so with myself; but when misrepre- 
 sentation becomes very gross and palpable, it 
 is more apt to amuse him." He then proceeded 
 
 in a straightforward way to present his posi- 
 tions, wasting no time in trying to imitate 
 Douglas's method of disparaging the state- 
 ments and arguments of his opponent. 
 
 Freeport, where the next debate was held, 
 was also in a district in which the Democrats 
 themselves were on record against the aggres- 
 sions of the pro-slavery politicians. To have 
 seen Douglas arriving in a carriage drawn by 
 four white horses, while Lincoln appeared on 
 the scene in a farmer's wagon with a can- 
 vas cover of the type known as "prairie 
 schooner," would have been something to re- 
 member. Indeed, there were thousands who 
 were ready for a long time afterwards to de- 
 scribe the scene to a succession of visiting 
 Lincoln biographers. It was here that Lincoln 
 answered the seven questions of Douglas, and 
 propounded his own four interrogatories. 
 
 The next debate took the antagonists further 
 South, and at Jonesboro they were in the part 
 of Illinois known as "Egypt." In this atmos- 
 
214 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 phere Douglas, whether consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, played upon the Southern traditions 
 of the crowd that came to listen and applaud. 
 Lincoln here presented a fifth question, as 
 follows : "If slave-holding citizens of a United 
 States Territory should need and demand Con- 
 gressional legislation for the protection of 
 their slave property in such Territory, would 
 you as a member of Congress vote for or 
 against such legislation?" Douglas in reply in- 
 sisted that, even if Congress enacted Legisla- 
 tion to support slave-holders under the Dred 
 Scott decision, "you cannot maintain slavery 
 for a day where there is an unwilling people 
 and an unfriendly legislature. If the people 
 want slavery they will have it, and if they do 
 not want it you cannot force it upon them." 
 
 Possibly Lincoln's antagonism to the Dred 
 Scott decision was slowly assuming a tone that 
 might be construed as revolutionary ; while on 
 the other hand the Douglas doctrine that locali- 
 ties could lawfully exclude an institution that 
 had been made lawful by the national govern- 
 ment, was nullification pure and simple, be- 
 sides being an incitement to revolution. Thus 
 the tendency of the Lincoln-Douglas debates 
 was to make parties and sections less patient 
 and less tolerant. 
 
 Mr. Gardner comments to the effect that 
 "there was a marked falling off in the good 
 temper and mutual courtesy of the combatants 
 
 THE KNOX COLLEGE BUILDING AT GALESBURG 
 
 Against the end of this building the speakers' stand was built for the fifth 
 debate in the series between Lincoln and Douglas, on October 7, 1858. 
 
 in the later stages of the contest." This writer 
 further remarks: "The abiding question to 
 which the argument constantly recurred was 
 that of negro slavery, as to which Lincoln 
 was darkly oracular and Douglas was reso- 
 lutely evasive. Lincoln again and again pressed 
 Douglas to say whether he regarded slavery 
 as wrong. Douglas persistently declined the 
 plea as one wholly foreign to national politics." 
 "I look forward," said Douglas, "to the 
 time when each State shall be allowed to do 
 as it pleases. If it chooses to keep slavery for- 
 ever, it is not my business, but its own. If it 
 chooses to abolish slavery, it is its own busi- 
 ness, not mine. I care more for the great 
 principle of self-government, the right of the 
 people to rule, than for all the negroes in 
 Christendom. I would not endanger the per- 
 petuity of this Union ; I would not blot out the 
 great inalienable rights of the white man for 
 all the negroes that ever existed." 
 
 At Galesburg, where Knox College was the 
 dominant influence, the audience was rela- 
 tively sympathetic with Lincoln. Douglas 
 opened the debate very ably, with that instinc- 
 tive change of tone and attitude that recog- 
 nized the difference between a Galesburg audi- 
 ence and those to which he had been appealing 
 "down in Egypt." Lincoln dwelt upon the 
 significance of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, declaring that "the entire records of the 
 world, from the date of the 
 Declaration of Independence up 
 to within three years ago, may be 
 searched in vain for one single 
 affirmation from one single man 
 that the negro was not included 
 in the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. We are now far in this can- 
 vass," said Mr. Lincoln ; "Judge 
 Douglas and I have made perhaps 
 forty speeches apiece, and we 
 have now for the fifth time met 
 face to face in debate." 
 
 It was in the Galesburg speech 
 that Lincoln made his prophetic 
 remarks upon the fact that Doug- 
 las himself was becoming sec- 
 tional, even while twitting Lin- 
 coln and the Republicans upon 
 
DOUGLAS WINS A COSTLY VICTORY 
 
 215 
 
 © 1903, X 
 
 In front of the old 
 in the right center 
 
 their being exclusively a 
 Northern party. The follow- 
 ing sentences are well worth 
 quoting at this point: 
 
 I ask his attention to the fact 
 that his speeches would not go 
 as current now, South of the 
 Ohio River, as they have for- 
 merly gone there. I ask his at- 
 tention to the fact that he felici- 
 tates himself today that all the 
 Democrats of the free States are 
 agreeing with him, while he 
 omits to tell us that the Demo- 
 crats of any slave State agree 
 with him. If he has not thought 
 of this, I commend to his con- 
 sideration the evidence in his 
 own declaration, on this day, of 
 his becoming sectional too. I see 
 it rapidly approaching. What- 
 ever may be the result of this 
 ephemeral contest between Judge Douglas and my- 
 self, I see the day rapidly approaching when his 
 pill of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting 
 down the throats of Republicans for years past, will 
 be crowded down his own throat. 
 
 The debate at Quincy on October 13th was 
 followed two days later by the final meeting 
 at Alton. Referring to his "popular sov- 
 ereignty" principle, and his stand in Congress 
 against Buchanan, Douglas declared : "I will 
 never violate or abandon that doctrine if I have 
 to stand alone. I have resisted the blandish- 
 ments and threats of power on one side, and se- 
 duction on the other, and I have stood immov- 
 ably for that principle, fighting for it when 
 assaulted by northern mobs or threatened by 
 southern hostility." There was a note of rather 
 desperate defiance in this challenge to his 
 opponents in both sections. 
 
 Two weeks after the Alton debate the elec- 
 tion was held, on November 2nd. The Repub- 
 lican State ticket was elected; but the Demo- 
 crats carried the majority of the legislative 
 districts. The aggregate Lincoln vote for 
 members of the Legislature exceeded the 
 Douglas vote by a total of perhaps four thous- 
 and. Douglas had won a small victory, at the 
 expense of a greater one. Lincoln's conduct 
 of the campaign had given him national stand- 
 ing, and had contributed greatly to the pros- 
 
 ^<&g? 
 
 • < 
 
 
 Ml 
 
 SITE OF THE QUINCY DEBATE 
 Court House on Fourth Street (the building with the columns 
 of the picture) the stand was erected for the sixth of the de- 
 bates, on October 13th. 
 
 pects of the Republican party as a whole. The 
 campaign of Douglas had cost him his place 
 as the most influential statesman of that de- 
 cade, and had contributed to the discord that 
 was breaking asunder the great Democratic 
 party that Jackson had built upon the foun- 
 dations laid by Jefferson. 
 
 At a meeting in Springfield on Saturday, 
 October 30th, with several speakers on the 
 platform at the final rally of the campaign, 
 Lincoln had made a speech which for some 
 reason of inadvertence was not published. We 
 now have access to it in the excellent Lincoln 
 biography by William E. Barton, who first 
 brought it to light in 1925. As a summing 
 up of his arguments and his platform methods 
 in the long contest with Douglas, and as a 
 revelation of his patriotic spirit, this brief con- 
 cluding speech should stand as a Lincoln docu- 
 ment of rare value. Dr. Barton well charac- 
 terizes it when he says : "These are not the 
 words of a politician whose ethics are those of 
 opportunism. They are the words of a noble 
 statesman and an honest man. They are words 
 that deserve to become as well known and as 
 immortal as the best known and most cherished 
 of the utterances of Lincoln." The speech in 
 its entirety is as follows : 
 
 My friends, today closes the discussions of this 
 canvass. The planting and the culture are over; 
 
2l6 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 and there remains but the prepa- 
 ration, and the harvest. 
 
 I stand here surrounded by 
 friends — some political, all per- 
 sonal friends, I trust. May 1 be 
 indulged, in this closing scene, 
 to say a few words of myself. 
 I have borne a laborious, and, 
 in some respects to myself, a 
 painful part in the contest. 
 Through all, I have neither as- 
 sailed, nor wrestled with any 
 part of the Constitution. The 
 legal right of the southern peo- 
 ple to reclaim their fugitives I 
 have constantly admitted. The 
 legal right of Congress to inter- 
 fere with their institutions in the 
 States, I have constantly denied. 
 In resisting the spread of slav- 
 ery to new territory, and with 
 that, what appears to me to be a 
 tendency to subvert the first prin- 
 ciple of free government itself 
 my whole effort has consisted. 
 To the best of my judgment I 
 have labored for, and not against, 
 the Union. As I have not felt, 
 so I have not expressed any 
 harsh sentiment towards our 
 southern brethren. I have con- 
 stantly declared, as I have really 
 believed, the only difference be- 
 tween them and us, is the dif- 
 ference of circumstances. 
 
 I have meant to assail the mo- 
 tives of no party, or individual ; 
 and if I have, in any instance 
 (of which I am not conscious) 
 departed from my purpose, I re- 
 gret it. 
 
 I have said that in some re- 
 spects the contest has been pain- 
 ful to me. Myself, and those 
 with whom I act, have been con- 
 stantly accused of a purpose to 
 destroy the Union; and bespat- 
 tered with every imaginable 
 odious epithet ; and some who 
 were friends, as it were but yes- 
 terday, have made themselves 
 most active in this. I have cul- 
 tivated patience, and made no at- 
 tempt at a retort. 
 
 Ambition has been ascribed to 
 me. God knows how sincerely I 
 prayed from the first that this 
 field of ambition might not be 
 opened. I claim no insensibility 
 to political honors ; but today 
 
 Last Great Discussion. 
 
 Let all take notice, that on Fri- 
 day next, Hon. S. A. Douolas and 
 Hon. A. Lincoln, will hold the 
 seventh and closing joint debate of 
 the canvass at this place. We 
 hope the country will turn out, to 
 a man, to hear these gentlemen. 
 
 The following programme for 
 the discussion has been decided 
 upon by the Joint Committee ap- 
 pointed by the People's Party 
 Club and the Democratic Club for 
 that purpose. 
 
 Arrnnj«iB«nM f«r (fee 10th last. 
 
 The twc Committees— one from each par- 
 ty—heretofore appointed to make arrange- 
 ments for the public speaking on the 15 tb 
 inst., met in joint Committee, and the fol- 
 lowing programme of proceedings was 
 adopted, viz : 
 
 1st. The place for said sneaking shall bo on 
 the east aide of City IIa.lI. 
 
 2d. The time shall be 1) o'$look, P. M. on 
 said day. 
 
 3d. That Messes. C. Stiolman and W. T. 
 Miller be a Committee to erect a plat- 
 form; also, seats to aoeommodato ladies. 
 
 4th. That Messrs. B. P. Barby and Willi** 
 Post superintend music and salutes. 
 
 5th. Messrs. H. G. McPiki aad W. C. Qoio- 
 i.by be a committee having charge of the 
 
 Elatform, and reception of ladies, and 
 uve power to appoint assistants. 
 6th. That the reception of Messrs. Douglas 
 and Lincoln shall be a quiet one, and no 
 public display. 
 7th. That no banner or motto, ezoept na- 
 tional oolors, shall be allowed on- the 
 speakers' stand. 
 
 On motion, a committee, consisting of 
 Messrs. W. C. QciotsT and U. Q. McPiuc, 
 be appointed to publish this programme of 
 proceedings. W. 0. QUIGLEY, 
 
 H. G. McPlltE. 
 Amos, Get. 18, 1846. 
 
 To the above it should be added that the 
 0. A. & St. Louis Railroad, will, on Friday, 
 carry passengers to and from this city at 
 half its usual rates. Persons can come in 
 on the 10:40 a. m, train, and go out at G:20 
 in the evening, 
 
 * . . ■ - ■ _ . 
 
 ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 
 CLOSING DEBATE AT ALTON 
 This clipping from the Alton Daily 
 Whig carries an advertisement of the 
 last of the seven debates, at Alton on 
 October ISth. The attendance, although 
 numbering more than 5000, was smaller 
 than at most of the earlier debates. 
 This was attributed by some of the 
 newspapers to the conservative char- 
 acter of the Madison County voters, 
 many of whom were old-line Whigs. 
 Missourians from across the Mississippi 
 River helped to make up the audience. 
 
 could tbe Missouri restriction be 
 restored, and the whole slavery 
 question replaced on the old 
 ground of "toleration" by neces- 
 sity where it exists, with un- 
 yielding hostility to the spread 
 of it, on principle, I would, in 
 consideration, gladly agree, that 
 Judge Douglas, should never be 
 out, and I never in, an office, so 
 long as we both, or either, live. 
 
 After the election was 
 over, Lincoln's junior law 
 partner, energetic campaign 
 manager and devoted friend, 
 William H. Herndon, wrote 
 a letter in which he told of 
 the difficulties of the contest 
 as felt by a party manager. 
 He emphasized the difference 
 of origin and mentality in the 
 State of Illinois among the 
 people of the north and those 
 of the middle and those of the 
 south. All the pro-slavery in- 
 fluences of the nation were, 
 in Herndon's opinion, work- 
 ing for Douglas, while on 
 the other hand there was no 
 corresponding support for 
 Lincoln from the great lead- 
 ers of the Republican party 
 in the East. The feeling in 
 New York and New Eng- 
 land, as among some of Lin- 
 coln's oldest friends in the 
 West like Crittenden of Ken- 
 tucky, was favorable to 
 Douglas merely because 
 Douglas had momentarily 
 joined the Republican Sena- 
 tors against President Buch- 
 anan and the South in oppos- 
 ing the acceptance of the 
 Lecompton Constitution. 
 
 In the bitterness of the re- 
 action felt by a young cam- 
 paign manager who had lost 
 an election, Herndon wrote : 
 "Greeley never gave us one 
 single solitary manly lift. On 
 
DOUGLAS WINS A COSTLY VICTORY 
 
 21' 
 
 the contrary, his silence was his opposition. 
 This our people felt. We never got a smile or a 
 word of encouragement outside of Illinois 
 from any quarter during all this great canvass. 
 The East was for Douglas by silence. This 
 silence was terrible to us. Seward was against 
 us too. Thirdly, Crittenden wrote letters to 
 Illinois urging the Americans and Old Line 
 Whigs to go for Douglas, and so they went 
 "helter skelter." Thousands of Whigs dropped 
 us just on the eve of the election, through the 
 influence of Crittenden." 
 
 They were building railroads and canals in 
 Illinois, and they were using the available labor 
 of the newest types of immigrants, as has 
 always been the case at every stage of our in- 
 dustrial progress. There had been a large 
 recent Irish immigration, and for well-known 
 reasons the Irish-Americans had mainly 
 joined the Democratic party. The more anx- 
 iously the older Americans — who in several 
 states were acting politically as "Know- 
 Nothings" or "Americans" — were arousing 
 one another against foreign-born naturalized 
 citizens in New York and elsewhere, the easier 
 it had become for the Democratic politicians 
 to gather in to their fold these ignorant and 
 well-meaning recruits from the over-populated 
 and poverty-stricken regions of Europe. 
 
 The infusion of this prejudice against the 
 new citizens into political campaigns had been 
 a disfiguring characteristic of politics in the 
 East for two decades. Its recurrence at inter- 
 vals, under changing conditions of immigra- 
 tion, had continued to be a factor in campaigns 
 for almost a century, when it was revived 
 again in the Hoover-Smith campaign of 1928. 
 Herndon's letter was, of course, not intended 
 for publication, and this fact gives it an engag- 
 ing candor that adds to its value as throwing 
 light upon the conditions of that time. Thus, 
 after mentioning four causes of Lincoln's de- 
 feat, he remarks: "Fifthly, thousands of rov- 
 ing, robbing, bloated, pock-marked Catholic 
 Irish were imported upon us from Philadel- 
 phia, New York, St. Louis, and other cities. I 
 myself know of such, by their own confession. 
 Some have been arrested, and are now in jail 
 awaiting trial." 
 
 It was to no one of these causes, but to all 
 
 Comme rcial Heg tgtet 
 
 '■■-■" ... - 
 
 Published Daily, Tri- Weekly & Weekly 
 
 BY HENRY D. COOKE AND C. C. BILL. 
 
 SANDUSKY, OHIO, 
 
 SATURDAY MORNING, NOV. 6, ltfsa 
 
 «■ 1 ■■■ ■' 
 
 Lincoln for President. 
 
 We are indebted to a friend at Mansfield lor 
 the following special dispatch : 
 
 " Maksfiild, Nov. 5lh, 1858. 
 
 " Euitor Sandosky Register : — An enthusi- 
 astic meeting is in progress here to-night in fa- 
 vor of Lincoln for the next Republican candi- 
 date for President. Reporter." 
 
 LINCOLN PROPOSED FOR PRESIDENT IN 1858 
 An unexpected outcome of Lincoln's defeat in the sena- 
 torial contest was the suggestion of his name for the 
 Republican presidential candidacy in 1860. At Mansfield, 
 Ohio, the home of Representative (later Senator) John 
 Sherman, a Republican gathering proclaimed Lincoln as 
 its choice as early as November 5, 1858. This has been 
 thought to be the first public announcement of his 
 candidacy. 
 
 of them in combination, that Herndon attri- 
 buted the Douglas victory. And he summed it 
 up by asking: "Do you not now see that there 
 is a conspiracy afloat which threatens the dis- 
 organization of the Republican party? Do 
 you not see that Seward, Greeley, Crittenden, 
 etc., are at this moment in a joint common un- 
 derstanding to lower our platform?" Such was 
 the natural petulance and irritation of a tired 
 young campaign manager. Lincoln, on the 
 other hand, calmly explained that Douglas had 
 been so ingenious in the late contest as to be 
 supported by those who thought his victory the 
 best means to break down the slave interest, 
 and by those, on the other hand, who thought 
 it the best means to uphold that interest. "No 
 ingenuity," he declared, "can keep those an- 
 tagonistic elements in harmony long. Another 
 explosion will soon occur." 
 
 The Lincoln-Douglas debates have been de- 
 scribed by most historians and biographers 
 from the standpoint of the main arguments of 
 the two speakers, and from that of the politi- 
 cal bearings of the campaign for the senator- 
 
2l8 
 
 AI5RAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ship. Mr. Carl Sandburg-, in his important 
 work entitled, "Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie 
 Years," has succeeded in enlivening this epi- 
 sode with so many descriptive and personal 
 touches, in addition to his analysis of the fun- 
 damental issues, that his chapters possess a 
 rare literary value. And they are also of weight 
 in their historical statements and interpreta- 
 tions. Looking at Lincoln the man, as the 
 hard campaign reached its end, Mr. Sandburg 
 remarks : "The open air, the travel and excite- 
 ment of the sixty speeches Lincoln made 
 through the campaign, threw him back to flat- 
 days; his voice grew clearer and 
 in November he was heavier by 
 nearly twenty pounds than he was at the be- 
 ginning of the canvass." 
 
 Mr. Sandburg reminds us that Lincoln, 
 when he spoke at Quincy, was visited by a 
 political writer afterwards famous, namely, 
 David R. Locke of the Toledo, Ohio, Blade. 
 He quotes from the report Mr. Locke made at 
 that time. Mr. Sandburg might have re- 
 minded his readers that this Mr. Locke was 
 the celebrated "Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby," 
 whose humorous satires on politics came to be 
 quoted throughout the country, and were read 
 
 boating 
 stronger 
 
 THE UNDECIDED POLITICAL PRIZE FIGHT 
 In the debates of 18S8, between Lincoln and Douglas, a seat in the United States 
 Senate was at stake. But two years later the same Illinois statesmen were can- 
 didates for a higher office, the Presidency of the United States. 
 
 by Lincoln constantly in his White House 
 years. Answering Locke's questions, Lincoln 
 predicted that he would not be elected to the 
 United States Senate ; he would carry the State 
 and the popular vote, but because of the ar- 
 rangement of legislative districts (under which 
 the northern part of the State, which had 
 grown rapidly, was not fully represented), 
 Douglas would be elected by the Legislature. 
 Locke quotes Lincoln as saying: "You can't 
 overturn a pyramid, but you can undermine 
 it; that's what I've been trying to do." 
 
 How Mr. Lincoln relaxed in his hotel room 
 after a public appearance, Mr. Locke de- 
 scribes as follows : "I found Mr. Lincoln sur- 
 rounded by admirers, who had made the dis- 
 covery that one who had previously been con- 
 sidered merely a curious compound of genius 
 and simplicity was really a great man. I ob- 
 tained an interview after the crowd had de- 
 parted. He sat in the room with his boots off, 
 to relieve his very large feet from the pain 
 occasioned by continuous standing; or, to put 
 it in his own words : T like to give my feet a 
 chance to breathe.' He had removed his coat 
 and vest, dropped one suspender from his 
 shoulder, taken off his necktie and collar, and 
 he sat tilted back in one 
 chair with his feet upon an- 
 other in perfect ease. He 
 seemed to dislike clothing, 
 and in privacy wore as lit- 
 tle of it as he could." 
 
 Such sentences might seem 
 like an undue exposure of a 
 public man's informality in 
 his hotel bedroom; but Mr. 
 Locke did not fail to give an 
 excellent description of Lin- 
 coln's skill as a debater, or to 
 note the intellectual power of 
 his arguments. Passing from 
 mere details of attire or man- 
 ner, Mr. Locke made a mem- 
 orable statement when he 
 said : "I never saw a more 
 thoughtful face. I never saw 
 a more dignified face. I never 
 saw so sad a face." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 Buchanan Surveys the World At Large 
 
 A mild-mannered Expansionist, highly alarming to Europe and Latin- 
 America — Talk oj re-opening the African slave trade — Northern 
 Abolitionists and their activity 
 
 THE PERSONAL STANDING of Lincoln 
 was notably enhanced by the ability 
 with which in his own State he had 
 confronted the foremost debater of the age. 
 But it is to be remembered that his political 
 fortunes were bound up not so much with elec- 
 toral results in Illinois as with the success of 
 the Republican party at large. We may, there- 
 fore, note the broad fact that the elections in 
 the summer and autumn of 1858 showed 
 marked Republican gains in many States. In 
 Illinois the nine districts returned to Congress 
 five Democrats and four Republicans, while in 
 most other northern States the results of the 
 Congressional elections were sweepingly fav- 
 orable to the new party. 
 
 Senator Seward of New York had avoided 
 the Republican presidential nomination of 
 1856 because the party strength was not yet 
 sufficient for victory. This was true of sev- 
 eral other leading men, so that it was without 
 disappointment that they had hailed the nom- 
 ination of John C. Fremont. But the indica- 
 tions in 1858 encouraged party hopes for Re- 
 publican success in i860. New England was 
 uniformly and completely Republican by this 
 time, and the State of New York was carried, 
 under Senator Seward's leadership, with the 
 result that Edwin D. Morgan, the Republican 
 candidate, was elected Governor, while three- 
 fourths of the Congressional districts were 
 won by the new party. This situation turned 
 Seward into a confident and willing aspirant 
 for the Presidency. 
 
 For two terms Salmon P. Chase had been 
 Governor of Ohio, and in the coming year he 
 was to be followed by the worthy and patriotic 
 William Dennison, and was himself to be suc- 
 cessful in his candidacy for a seat in the United 
 States Senate, with a record that entitled him 
 to rank with Seward and Lincoln as a pros- 
 pective Republican standard bearer in i860. 
 
 A BUSINESS CRISIS IN BUCHANAN'S FIRST YEAR 
 Just twenty years after the great financial depression of 
 1837 the spread of "wild-cat" banking brought on a 
 serious panic in the early months of the Buchanan admin- 
 istration. There had been an era of extravagance. John 
 Bull thought it a fitting time to give America a bit of 
 fatherly advice: "The fact is, Jonathan, both you and 
 your wife have been living too fast." It is a cartoon from 
 Punch (London), November, 1857. 
 
 President Buchanan, whose success in his 
 own state of Pennsylvania in 1856 had turned 
 the scales for his party, was now deeply dis- 
 tressed by the fact that the Republicans had 
 carried their state ticket and had increased 
 their strength in the Congressional districts. 
 Pennsylvania after long decades of unbroken 
 Democratic majorities had now joined with 
 New England in support of a more decided 
 protective tariff policy; and this fact con- 
 tributed to the further disaffection of the free- 
 trade South. Below Mason and Dixon's line 
 and the Ohio River, the elections showed a 
 
 219 
 
220 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 MR. DALLAS RECEIVES AN APOLOGY 
 This cartoon from Vanity Fair (New York), refers not to a 
 formal apology from Palmerston, British Prime Minister, 
 for the searching of American ships by British cruisers 
 seeking to suppress the slave trade ; it relates to an inci- 
 dent at an international congress in London, when Mr. 
 Dallas, the American Minister and former Vice-President, 
 was introduced to a Negro by Lord Brougham. 
 
 rangement for the suppression of the African 
 slave trade. Slaves in immense numbers had 
 been persistently landed on the coast of the 
 Spanish island colony of Cuba. The British, 
 apparently with far greater zeal than our gov- 
 ernment was showing, were patrolling the 
 Atlantic and overhauling slave ships in pur- 
 suance of a policy that both countries had en- 
 tered upon in 1808. A number of small British 
 cruisers, with nothing in particular to do after 
 the end of the Crimean War in 1856, were sent 
 to the West Indies with instructions to board 
 without ceremony any ship of any nation sus- 
 pected of being engaged in the outlawed slave 
 traffic. 
 
 The British cruisers proceeded within a 
 short time to overhaul and search more than 
 forty vessels flying the American flag. This, 
 of course, was contrary to international law 
 as laid down by recognized authorities, includ- 
 ing those of Great Britain. Secretary Cass 
 through Mr. Dallas, our Minister at London, 
 succeeded in obtaining apologies from Pal- 
 merston, on behalf of the British Government. 
 While we were wholly right on the point of 
 international law, we should have stood better 
 in a court of ethics if we could have shown 
 
 greater degree of sectionalism than ever be- 
 fore. In Missouri, Democrats were elected in 
 every Congressional district. 
 
 The Congress in which the Kansas question 
 had been fought over had still its short session 
 remaining, and President Buchanan had his 
 opportunity to address it in his annual mes- 
 sage of December 6th. Early in the year he 
 had been dealing with Kansas troubles, with 
 the defiant Mormon colony in Utah, and with 
 filibustering expeditions to Nicaragua. In this 
 message of December, he reported upon the 
 Utah situation, declaring that "the authority 
 of the Constitution and the laws has been 
 fully restored and peace prevails throughout 
 the Territory." 
 
 He reported, also, upon a controversy with 
 Great Britain that had come to a fortunate 
 end. Two main subjects were involved, one 
 of them being the right of "visitation and 
 search" at sea in times of peace, and the other 
 being the practical execution of our joint ar- 
 
 THE SPOILED CHILD 
 
 England looked on at the increasing turmoil in the United 
 States with a superiority complex easily induced by age. 
 That spirit is reflected in the accompanying cartoon from 
 Punch. John Bull, as the parent of the American child, 
 remarks: "I don't like to correct him just now because he's 
 about his teeth, and sickening for his measles — but he cer- 
 tainly deserves a clout on the head." There were numer- 
 ous exhibitions of a belligerent spirit in international af- 
 fairs, on the part of young America. 
 
BUCHANAN SURVEYS THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 
 221 
 
 that we had been using our 
 own cruisers effectively in 
 Caribbean waters not only to 
 stop the slave trade from 
 Africa under the American 
 flag, but, what was more 
 pertinent, to stop the smug- 
 gling of slaves from the 
 Cuban entrepot to their in- 
 tended destination in our 
 own cotton States. 
 
 The Administration was 
 not content to rest with hav- 
 ing curbed the activity of the 
 British cruisers. Mr. Buch- 
 anan affected a great concern 
 about the slave trade, and 
 made this an excuse for re- 
 turning to the subject of the 
 desirability of our annexa- 
 tion of Cuba. He declared 
 Cuba to be "a constant source 
 of injury and annoyance to 
 the American people." And 
 he proceeded as follows : "It is 
 the only spot in the civilized 
 world where the African slave 
 trade is tolerated, and we are bound by treaty 
 with Great Britain to maintain a naval force 
 on the coast of Africa at great expense, both 
 in life and treasure, solely for the purpose of 
 arresting slavers bound to that island. As long 
 as this market shall remain open, there can be 
 no hope for the civilization of benighted 
 Africa. Whilst the demand for slaves con- 
 tinues in Cuba, wars will be waged among the 
 petty and barbarous chiefs for the purpose of 
 seizing subjects to supply this trade." 
 
 He protested that we would not think of 
 acquiring Cuba from Spain except by honor- 
 able negotiations. His advice was followed 
 by the introduction of a bill in Congress to 
 appropriate a large sum of money, as pre- 
 liminary to taking up the diplomatic question. 
 Spain was, of course, as indignant as on pre- 
 vious like occasions, and the appropriation bill 
 was not passed — partly, indeed, because of bad 
 financial calculations and treasury deficits, fol- 
 lowing the severe panic and business collapse 
 of 1857. 
 
 SETTLING VEXATION BY ANNEXATION 
 
 John Bull: "My dear boy, if it comes to the worst, you'll see your Old Dad 
 out of this plaguy French business, won't you?" 
 
 Jonathan: "Well, can't without seeing the boys first. I tell you what, 
 though, 'spose we annex you ! That'll settle this business right away !" 
 
 (Anti-British propaganda in the French press had caused some worriment in 
 England. This American cartoon reflects the expansionist attitude assumed by 
 President Buchanan, which caused no small measure of irritation abroad.) 
 
 The mild-mannered President Buchanan 
 was now in a surprisingly aggressive mood, as 
 he invited the country to forget its internal 
 differences while joining in foreign adven- 
 tures. He stated grievances against Mexico, 
 and declared that "abundant cause now un- 
 doubtedly exists for a resort to hostilities 
 against the government still holding possession 
 of the [Mexican] capital." He intimated that 
 we might take possession of portions of Mexi- 
 can territory to be held in pledge. He went so 
 far even as to declare, after reciting lawless 
 conditions in the Mexican states of Chihuahua 
 and Sonora, that our Government ought "to 
 assume a temporary protectorate over the 
 
 northern portions and to establish 
 
 military posts within the same." 
 
 No President before Buchanan, and none 
 since, is on record as proposing to enter so 
 deliberately upon an expansion policy. With 
 a hope of new slave states in Cuba and north- 
 ern Mexico, the South might be less chagrined 
 over its failure in Kansas. But the North was 
 
222 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 . 
 
 ASERVICEABLE GARMENT. 
 
 OR REVERIE OF A BACHELOR. 
 
 President-elect Buchanan recalls, in his reverie, that the coat was in 
 fashionable Federal style when it was new — its owner began his 
 political life as a Federalist — but that patching and turning have 
 made it a Democratic model. The "Cuba patch" (referring to 
 Buchanan's part, as Minister to England, in writing the Ostend 
 Manifesto) is admittedly unsightly, though quite in line with South- 
 ern fashions. But the bachelor President, the only one before Grover 
 Cleveland occupied the White House, thinks that perhaps he can 
 afford a new outfit. 
 
 in no mood for expansion under those circum- 
 stances; and Buchanan's proposals, while ex- 
 tremely irritating to other governments, were 
 wholly without effect at home. Latin America 
 was seriously displeased, and the British and 
 French Governments were preparing to sup- 
 port Spain in holding Cuba, and to defend 
 Mexico in case of aggression on our part. 
 
 Our citizens had been going to California 
 by the Panama route, and also by way of 
 
 Mexico and Nicaragua. Rights pre- 
 viously negotiated over the Nicaragua 
 route had now been officially revoked. 
 "Under these circumstances," said Mr. 
 Buchanan, "I earnestly recommend to 
 Congress the passage of an act, auth- 
 orizing the President, under such re- 
 strictions as they may deem proper, 
 to employ the land and naval forces of 
 the United States in preventing the 
 transit from being obstructed or closed 
 by lawless violence. He asked simi- 
 lar authority to protect the Panama 
 route, and also the Tehuantepec route 
 across Mexico. 
 
 We had some question of difference 
 with Paraguay over an attack upon 
 a United States steamer. Mr. Buch- 
 anan declared to Congress that if 
 amicable negotiations failed, "then no 
 alternative will remain but the employ- 
 ment of force. In view of this con- 
 tingency, a naval force has been des- 
 patched to rendezvous near Buenos 
 Aires." None of these affairs in the 
 foreign field, however, led the country 
 into a war that might have diverted at- 
 tention from domestic politics. 
 
 With the 4th of March, 1859, there 
 expired a Congress that had few 
 worthy achievements to its credit. Yet 
 things were happening in the world 
 that, in the course of decades, were to 
 contribute towards a finer civilization. 
 Thus, five days before the first of the 
 Lincoln-Douglas debates, the comple- 
 tion of the Atlantic cable had per- 
 mitted the exchange of greetings be- 
 tween Queen Victoria and President 
 Buchanan. On the 26th of August, 
 there was cabled the news that a treaty had 
 closed one of England's periodic wars with 
 China ; and this was a welcome message to lov- 
 ers of peace. On our own part, we had recently 
 opened relations with China and Japan in a 
 friendly and honorable fashion. Contradic- 
 tory forces were then, as always, making for 
 war in some directions as in others for peace. 
 Minnesota had been admitted to the Union in 
 May, 1858, and later on, in February, 1859, 
 
BUCHANAN SURVEYS THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 
 223 
 
 Oregon's application had been granted, both 
 new States prohibiting slavery in their con- 
 stitutions, while Oregon also forbade Negroes 
 to settle in the State. 
 
 It is to be noted that when this Congress 
 of the first half of Buchanan's Administration 
 had been elected, there were fifteen slave 
 States and sixteen that prohibited slavery. 
 With the two new States admitted, the fif- 
 teen slave States were confronted by eighteen 
 which excluded slavery. There was not much 
 reason to think that the economic conditions 
 of the vast unsettled areas, subsequently to be 
 converted into fourteen additional States that 
 are now flourishing members of the Union, 
 would ever invite slave owners to utilize their 
 bondmen in great numbers. Nevertheless, 
 Kansas was in the same latitude as Missouri 
 and several of the older slave States ; and the 
 question of slavery in the unorganized coun- 
 try farther west had its practical as well as its 
 theoretical bearings. 
 
 The South was principally concerned, how- 
 ever, with the political aspects of the problem. 
 They now saw slavery in a new economic as- 
 pect, and they were seeking to protect the in- 
 stitution, at first by a decisive check upon na- 
 tional anti-slavery tendencies and afterwards 
 by a bold reversal of international policies. 
 
 There was comparative quiet at Washing- 
 ton in 1859, after the adjournment of Con- 
 gress on March 4th, with the halls of legisla- 
 tion closed for nine months. But within party 
 circles and in various local centers, there was 
 no adjournment of politics; and everybody 
 was looking forward to the fateful political 
 year i860. It would be gravely improper 
 to attribute motives or purposes to parties, 
 groups or individuals in either section without 
 evidence. But there are ample facts to show 
 that the anti-slavery movement in the North 
 was becoming Abolitionist in its temper, with 
 more defiance in its leadership and less dis- 
 position to explain its acquiescence in the per- 
 manent Constitutional status of slavery where 
 it actually existed. 
 
 As for the South, it was abandoning the de- 
 fensive and openly planning for a new type 
 of high civilization in an extended empire, 
 with African slavery as the economic and 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN 
 
 Fifteenth President vf the United States 
 
 A lawyer of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in his first year at 
 the bar, Buchanan enlisted as a private in the War of 1812. 
 He was then twenty-one years old. After the war he 
 served in the Pennsylvania legislature. In 1820 he was 
 elected to Congress as a Federalist, remaining there for five 
 terms until he went to Russia as Minister, 1831-33, by 
 appointment of President Jackson. There followed a period 
 of twelve years as Senator from Pennsylvania. During 
 President Polk's entire term, 1845-49, Buchanan was Sec- 
 retary of State, dealing with the Oregon crisis and the 
 War with Mexico. From 1853 to 1856 he was Minister to 
 England under President Pierce. In the Democratic con- 
 ventions of 1844, 1848, and 1852, Buchanan was a can- 
 didate for the presidential nomination, and in 1856 he was 
 the convention's choice. In the election that followed he 
 obtained a decisive majority of the electoral votes, though 
 his popular vote fell considerably short of exceeding that 
 of Fremont and Fillmore combined. 
 
 social foundation. Thomas Jefferson in his 
 annual presidential message to Congress on 
 December 2, 1806, had made the following 
 reference to the African slave trade: 
 
 "I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the 
 approach of the period at which you may in- 
 terpose your authority constitutionally to 
 withdraw the citizens of the United States 
 from all further participation in those vio- 
 lations of human rights which have been so 
 long continued on the unoffending inhabitants 
 
224 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 Forty years paster of Plymouth (Congregational) Church, 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., Beecher was the most famous preacher of 
 his generation. He was active in the anti-slavery move- 
 ment from an early date, co-operating with the Abolition- 
 ists while not assenting to their more radical positions. 
 As to the Fugitive Slave Act, he accepted the doctrine that 
 there was a "Higher Law" than the Constitution. He 
 urged the settlement of Kansas by Free State men and 
 condoned the use of force, but regarded John Brown as 
 an irresponsible fanatic. Harriet Beecher Stowe was his 
 sister. It was Beecher who brought Lincoln to New York 
 in 18S7, for the Cooper Union address. 
 
 of Africa, and which the morality, the repu- 
 tation, and the best interests of our country- 
 have long been eager to proscribe. Although 
 no law you may pass can take prohibitory ef- 
 fect till the first day of the year 1808, yet the 
 intervening period is not too long to prevent 
 by timely notice expeditions which can not be 
 completed before that day." 
 
 In the month of May, 1859, the cotton- 
 raising States were represented in a signifi- 
 cant convention at Vicksburg, Mississippi. By 
 a vote of more than two to one a resolution 
 was passed in this convention to the effect that 
 "all laws State or Federal prohibiting the 
 
 African slave trade ought to be repealed." Re- 
 gardless of laws, the external slave trade was 
 encouraged and Southern juries would not 
 convict those responsible for the illegal land- 
 ing of fresh cargoes, whether direct from 
 Africa or from the slave-markets of Cuba. 
 Jefferson Davis, and the other Southern lead- 
 ers, were making important speeches during 
 the summer in which they demanded national 
 legislation to protect slave owners in the Ter- 
 ritories, and elaborated upon the views of the 
 Vicksburg Convention. 
 
 The South was not able to obtain a sufficient 
 supply of slaves for its later necessities by 
 natural increase of those already here; and 
 therefore it was demanded that Congress 
 should repeal the law of Jefferson's time which 
 made the African slave trade piracy. It was 
 declared that a slave costing $1500 in Virginia 
 could be bought for $600 in Cuba and for $100 
 or much less in Africa. It was the proposal 
 of these foremost Southern leaders that con- 
 trol of the slave trade should be relegated to 
 the individual States. With slavery protected 
 in the Territories, and with the African slave 
 trade reopened, it was further demanded by 
 Southern leaders that the United States should 
 proceed by force to acquire Cuba, Mexico and 
 Central America, from which to form a series 
 of new slave States. 
 
 Mr. Davis spoke for the maintenance of the 
 Union if Southern policies were not blocked. 
 But he stated plainly that he was for separa- 
 tion if the principles laid down by Senator 
 Seward in his speech at Rochester were to 
 guide the policy of the nation. He thought 
 the annexation of Cuba would be desirable 
 for the entire United States, but especially de- 
 sirable for the South in case of the forming 
 of a new Southern Confederacy. 
 
 It must not be supposed that in the minds 
 of leaders in South Carolina, Georgia, Ala- 
 bama, and Mississippi, Secession was con- 
 templated merely as a defensive program. They 
 adhered to the view that further annexations 
 were practicable, and that some slight aid to 
 filibustering parties and insurrectionists would 
 create so much difficulty for Spain that Cuba 
 could be purchased on our own terms. North- 
 ern Mexico was scantily populated, and could 
 
BUCHANAN SURVEYS THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 
 225 
 
 1 
 
 0WF^' 
 
 vTl 
 
 
 
 ^W : 23r. -^sBi 
 
 
 JJ^ffi J ^9 
 
 
 B^_j|Kr ' 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 BH 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS 
 It was the mob attack on William 
 Lloyd Garrison, in Boston, which led 
 Phillips when only four years out of 
 Harvard to become interested in the 
 anti-slavery movement. Later, when the 
 courts held that a fugitive slave had no 
 right to a trial by jury, he gave up the 
 practice of law rather than abide by his 
 oath to support the Constitution. He 
 even refused to vote and thus participate 
 in such a government. Phillips was the 
 leading orator of the anti-slavery move- 
 ment, in great demand as a lyceum 
 speaker. He was later an active worker 
 for the abolition of capital punishment, 
 for women's rights, and for prohibition. 
 
 WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON 
 
 From his fourteenth year until he was 
 twenty-one, Garrison was a printer's 
 apprentice at Newburyport, Massa- 
 chusetts. Soon afterward (1829), as 
 a Baltimore editor, his fulminations 
 against slavery got him into jail for 
 libel. On January 1, 1831, at Boston, 
 he began publishing the Liberator, 
 and became the leader in the agita- 
 tion against slavery, the veritable em- 
 bodiment of the abolitionist cause. 
 Four years later he was roughly 
 treated by a mob in Boston. Gar- 
 rison was a moral crusader who dis- 
 dained moderation. He lived to see 
 slavery abolished, and died in 1879. 
 
 GERRIT SMITH 
 Ten years older than Garrison, and 
 sixteen years older than Phillips, Ger- 
 rit Smith was the financial backer of 
 the anti-slavery movement. He in- 
 herited a fortune from his father, a 
 fur trader of northern New York. In 
 1848 and 18S2 he was the presi- 
 dential candidate of the Liberty 
 party, which he had organized. He 
 was a personal friend of John Brown 
 and supplied some of the money re- 
 quired for the raid on Harper's Ferry. 
 It was Gerrit Smith who joined 
 Horace Greeley in signing the bail 
 bond for the release of Jefferson 
 Davis after the Civil War. 
 
 be acquired by processes similar to those which 
 had given us Texas and New Mexico. 
 
 In less than forty years the number of 
 slaves in the South had doubled, and the de- 
 mand was so great that average prices had 
 advanced by three or four hundred per cent. 
 At an earlier period Southern churches had 
 been apologetic, and had looked to the ultimate 
 training of Negroes for freedom. But under 
 the pressure of new political and economic 
 motives the Southern churches had been study- 
 ing tbe Bible with more diligence and respect, 
 and had brought slavery under the protection 
 of the Christian religion. Convinced of the 
 bopeless inferiority of the Negro race, and of 
 the terrible plight of Negroes remaining in 
 their savage state in the jungles of Africa, 
 
 they persuaded themselves that the best thing 
 that could possibly befall these unhappy and 
 degraded Africans was to be brought to 
 America to have their fortunate place in the 
 domestic organization of a refined and Chris- 
 tian South. Moreover, this was not a hard 
 doctrine for people whose convenience it hap- 
 pened to serve. 
 
 On the other hand, the churches of the 
 North had become infected with the doctrines 
 of the Abolitionists. Accepting the principle 
 that slavery was morally wrong, they began to 
 universalize exceptional facts as to the cruel- 
 ties and hardships of slavery in the South. 
 These views were increasingly proclaimed 
 from Northern pulpits, and their dissemina- 
 tion had been promoted by the publication of 
 
226 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 •<\ 
 
 IP 
 
 NS^E 
 
 
 LIFE IN THE SOUTH 
 
 This is an illustration from a book published at Buffalo in 
 1852, as a reply to "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It shows a Sun- 
 day School class conducted for the young people in the 
 slave quarters of a Southern plantation. Not all slave- 
 owners were cruel, and there was widespread effort in the 
 South to uplift the Negro race. In South Carolina, espe- 
 cially, religious instruction of slaves was encouraged. 
 
 Senator Seward's Rochester speech, to 
 which Senator Jefferson Davis had referred, 
 stands as the most famous utterance of the 
 man who was everywhere recognized as the 
 foremost Republican leader of the country. It 
 had been delivered on October 25, 1858. 
 Analyzing the recent progress of the country, 
 Seward developed the argument that with 
 growing populations, railroad systems and 
 domestic trade, the slave system and the 
 northern system of free labor were approach- 
 ing an inevitable and sharp collision. This led 
 to such conclusions as are set forth in the fol- 
 lowing paragraph : 
 
 Shall I tell you what this collision means? They 
 who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the 
 work of interested or fanatical agitators, and there- 
 fore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is 
 an irrepressible conflict between opposing and en- 
 during forces, and it means that the United States 
 must and will, sooner or later, become either en- 
 tirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor 
 nation. Either the cotton and rice-fields of South 
 Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will 
 ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston 
 and New Orleans become marts for legitimate mer- 
 chandise alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat- 
 fields of Massachusetts and New York must again 
 be surrendered by their farmers to slave-culture 
 and to the production of slaves, and Boston and 
 New York become once more markets for trade in 
 the bodies and souls of men. 
 
 Seward had further proceeded to state the 
 
 such books as Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin. Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe in this novel had done 
 more to stimulate the anti- 
 slavery movement than all the 
 Garrisons and Phillipses of 
 the Abolition party, and the 
 less anarchical preachers and 
 lecturers, of whom her gifted 
 brother, Henry Ward 
 Beecher, was foremost. Thus 
 while Washington on the 
 Potomac was so calm, with 
 Congress adjourned for nine 
 months in 1859, public opin- 
 ion was crystallizing danger- 
 ously in the North as well as 
 in the South. 
 
 THE DEATH OF UNCLE TOM 
 
 In the book by Mrs. Stowe, which inflamed the North against slavery, the 
 
 thoroughly likeable old Negro known as Uncle Tom is beaten to death by his 
 
 new master. In this drawing for the original illustrated edition, Cassie is 
 
 ministering to the dying slave. 
 
BUCHANAN SURVEYS THE WORLD AT LARGE 
 
 227 
 
 THE NEGRO IN THE NORTH— AND IN THE SOUTH 
 One might assume from this contemporary cartoon that it is a product of the South. It was actually 
 published in New York, however, and represents a considerable belief in the North that the planta- 
 tion life of most Negroes was contented and far from unbearable. The Negro at the right asks: 
 "Say, Massa Jim, is I wun of them unfurtunate Niggers as you was readin' about? Well, it's a 
 great pity about me — I'se berry badly off, I is." In the scene at the left, by contrast, is the artist's 
 
 conception of a Negro in the North, "a fish out of water." 
 
 southern program, in the most positive terms 
 and with somewhat doleful and harsh exag- 
 geration. Where Lincoln was always speak- 
 ing temperately, in order to make men think 
 and reason, Seward was taking the tone of 
 prophetic warning, and intensifying the spirit 
 of sectionalism. Whether rightly or wrongly, 
 the New York papers now regarded Seward 
 as an agitator more dangerous than Beecher, 
 Garrison or Parker. This phrase "irrepressi- 
 hle conflict," however true or otherwise, was 
 associated throughout the country henceforth 
 with the name and fame of William H. 
 Seward. He had appealed from the Supreme 
 Court to the "higher law" of right and wrong; 
 and for this suggestion by so famous a lawyer 
 he was reprobated in the South. 
 
 I have already referred to the Ohio election 
 that was to be held in 1859. Douglas went 
 to the help of the Democrats, and spoke at 
 
 Columbus and at Cincinnati. Lincoln, whose 
 mission it had been through long years to trail 
 Douglas, soon afterwards appeared at both 
 places to speak for Republicanism, for William 
 Dennison who was running for the governor- 
 ship, and for Chase who was seeking to secure 
 a Republican majority in the Legislature that 
 would send him to the Senate. A few weeks 
 before going to Ohio, Lincoln had written to 
 a Congressman in that state to convey warning 
 against the Douglas ideas. Because Douglas 
 had become unpopular in the South, there re- 
 mained some confusion about him among Re- 
 publicans in the North. Lincoln said that 
 their leaning toward "popular sovereignty" 
 was giving him some uneasiness. "No party," 
 he declared, "can command respect which sus- 
 tains this year what it opposed last." He was 
 not vindictive, but he was firm in exposing 
 Douglas : 
 
228 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "LIKE MEETS LIKE" 
 William Lloyd Garrison (at the right), the ultra-Aboli- 
 tionist of Boston, goes half way to join forces with the 
 South Carolina secessionist, Laurence M. Keitt. "Well, 
 my friend," the cartoonist fancies him as saying, "at last 
 we meet in unity to destroy 'this accursed union.' Twas 
 only a misunderstanding this many years. We were 
 always one at heart." Note the garb in which the artist 
 disguises Garrison — a common device in the anti-slavery 
 agitation. It may have been the ancestor of the Anti- 
 Saloon League cartoon employed so freely after the adop- 
 tion of the Eighteenth Amendment 
 
 "Secondly, Douglas (who is the most dan- 
 gerous enemy of liberty, because the most in- 
 sidious one) would have but little support in 
 the North, and, by consequence, no capital to 
 trade on in the Soutb, if it were not for our 
 friends thus magnifying him and his humbug. 
 But lastly, and chiefly, Douglas's popular sov- 
 ereignty, accepted by the public mind as a great 
 principle, nationalizes slavery and revives the 
 African slave trade inevitably. Taking slaves 
 into new Territories and buying slaves in 
 Africa are identical things — identical rights or 
 identical wrongs — and the argument which es- 
 tablishes one will establish the other. Try a 
 thousand years for a sound reason why Con- 
 
 gress shall not hinder the people of Kansas 
 from having slaves, and when you have found 
 it, it will be an equally good one why Congress 
 should not hinder the people of Georgia from 
 importing slaves from Africa. 
 
 "As for Governor Chase, I have a kind side 
 for him. He was one of the few distinguished 
 men of the nation who gave us their sympathy 
 last year. I never saw him — suppose him to 
 be able and right-minded, but still he may not 
 be the most suitable as a candidate for the 
 Presidency. I must say, I do not think myself 
 fit for the Presidency." 
 
 In his speech at Columbus on the 16th of 
 September, Lincoln combated the Douglas 
 doctrines, particularly as Douglas had set them 
 forth in an article that had recently appeared 
 in Harper's Magazine. At Cincinnati on the 
 following day, Lincoln looked across the 
 Ohio River to Kentucky and addressed 
 himself in direct terms to the Democrats 
 of that State. He was not trying to proselytize 
 them, for that would have been a vain effort. 
 "I only propose," he said, "to try to show you 
 that you ought to nominate for the next Presi- 
 dency at Charleston, my distinguished friend, 
 Judge Douglas. In whatever there is a differ- 
 ence between you and him, I understand he is 
 sincerely for you and more wisely for you than 
 you are for yourselves." Looking ahead to the 
 presidential contest, he spoke to the Kentuck- 
 ians in a neighborly tone that was strikingly 
 in contrast with the eloquent but gloomy fore- 
 casts of Seward. 
 
 The following sentences are eminently Lin- 
 colnian : "We mean to treat you, as nearly 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 institutions ; to abide by all and every 
 compromise of the Constitution, and, in a 
 word, coming back to the original proposi- 
 tion, to treat you, as far as degenerated men 
 (if we have degenerated) may, according to 
 the example of those noble fathers, Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson and Madison." 
 
NO COMMUNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS! 
 "Stand aside, you Old Sinner! We are holier than thou!" Henry Ward Beecher and John Brown 
 are represented as sponsors of this impious decree, while the ghost of Washington himself, kneeling 
 at the altar, meets with harsh rebuff because there had been slaves on the Mount Vernon estate. Lin- 
 coln and Greeley are to be seen among the communicants. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 John Brown Attempts Emancipation 
 
 Our statesmen on their travels in the summer of 1859 — Brown's record 
 in Kansas and his invasion of Virginia — Lincoln's views on the Har- 
 per's Ferry raid — The martyrdom of John Brown 
 
 A lthough the prevailing tendencies of 
 /-% the summer and autumn of 1859 as re- 
 gards political weather were cloudy and 
 menacing, with the occasional incident of a re- 
 sounding thunder storm, there were lulls and 
 truces of sunshine and calm. Lincoln's cam- 
 paign had cost him a few hundred dollars, and 
 he was now taking, modestly and locally, to the 
 lecture platform, especially with a discourse 
 on "Discoveries and Inventions," showing 
 somewhat the quality of mind that Franklin 
 and Jefferson disclosed in those congenial 
 times when they were not engaged in politics 
 and public service. On the last day of Sep- 
 tember, Lincoln was the orator at the Wis- 
 
 consin State Fair, having been invited to give 
 the annual address before the State Agricul- 
 tural Society at Milwaukee. 
 
 The problems of the farmer have been 
 greatly changed, with our further advance- 
 ment in the methods of quantity production. 
 But Lincoln's exposition of the status and the 
 supreme importance of agriculture is by no 
 means obsolete. The independent farmer was, 
 in Lincoln's mind, the typical American citi- 
 zen. He held that the interest of farmers is 
 "most worthy of all to be cherished and cul- 
 tivated," and declared that "if there be in- 
 evitable conflict between that interest and any 
 other, that other should yield." The address 
 
 229 
 
230 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was carefully prepared, and is an admirable 
 example of Lincoln's best literary form. It 
 was wholly free from political allusion, unless 
 for a single remark as to land conditions in the 
 South. He had been explaining that our farm- 
 ers as a class were neither capitalists nor lab- 
 orers, but did their own work on their own 
 land. "Even in all our slave States except 
 South Carolina," he declared, "a majority of 
 the whole people of all colors are neither slaves 
 nor masters." He was far from thinking that 
 our Southern States were in the condition of 
 the West Indian sugar colonies — too far com- 
 
 HORACE GREELEY'S 
 
 OVERLAND JOURNEY TO CALIFORNIA, 
 
 IN THE SUMMER OF 1859. 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT 
 
 MORMON CHURCH IN UTAH. 
 
 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 One vol \2mo. t dotk. Price $1, 
 
 No more "interesting* record of American Travel has ever appeared than Mr. Greeley's Let- 
 ters, written while on his recent journey through the Great "West, Utah and California. They 
 have already attracted the attention of thousands in all parts of the country, and a universal 
 desire has been expressed to have them in a connected and permanent form. 
 
 The book contains a careful revision of the Letters already published, and also much new and 
 interesting matter, including the author's notes and observations among the Mormons in Utah, 
 closing with a chapter on the Paci6c Railroad, in which its importance and feasibility are clearly 
 set forth, and its ultimate success fully established. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING LIST IS FROM THE TABLE OF CONTENTS : 
 
 From New-York to Kansas. 
 
 Notes on Kansas. 
 
 Summing upon Kansas. 
 
 On the Plains. 
 
 The Home of the Buffalo. 
 
 Last of the Buffalo. 
 
 The American Desert. 
 
 Good Bye to the Desert 
 
 The Kansas Gold Diggings. 
 
 The Plains— The Mountains. 
 
 The Gold in the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 " Lo, the Poor Iudiaa." 
 
 Western Characters. 
 
 From Denver to Laramie. 
 
 Laramie to South Pass. 
 
 Railroad to 
 
 South Pass to Bridger. 
 From Bridger to Salt Lake. 
 Two Hours with Brighara Young. 
 The Mormons and Mormonism. 
 Salt Lake and its Environs. 
 The Army in Utah. 
 From Salt Lake to Carson Valley. 
 Carson Valley — The Sierra Nevada 
 California Mines and Mining. 
 California — The Yosemite. 
 California— The Big Trees. 
 California Physically considered. 
 California — Its Resources. 
 California — Summing up. 
 California — Final Gleanings, 
 the Pacific. 
 
 Address THE TRIBUNE, New-York 
 
 mitted to the manual labor of a subordinate 
 race to be capable of a prevailing society of 
 white men, working- without apology on their 
 own farms, or at trades and handicrafts. 
 
 It seems to have been wholly forgotten, 
 until Mr. Dunbar Rowland compiled the writ- 
 ings of Jefferson Davis, that this foremost 
 leader of the South was, in that summer of 
 1859, enjoying a vacation on the coast of 
 Maine, and that, in response to an invitation of 
 the Agricultural Society of that State, he de- 
 livered an address which, in many ways, is as 
 noteworthy as that of Abraham Lincoln at 
 Milwaukee. Mr. Davis eulogized 
 the farmers of New England, and 
 praised them for their qualities of 
 character. He explained the 
 grounds upon which his own State 
 of Mississippi had become so 
 marked an example of specializa- 
 tion in agriculture, and he thought 
 the differences of the sections, lead- 
 ing to an exchange of products, 
 ought to be a uniting bond rather 
 than a cause of separation. He 
 said nothing about slavery ; but he 
 argued that the country as a whole 
 would be benefited by further ex- 
 panding the national territories. It 
 was his view that with the greater 
 variety of products that would re- 
 sult from the addition of Cuba, 
 for example, we would find in- 
 creased advantages in the freedom 
 of our internal trade, making us 
 "almost independent of other 
 countries for the supply of every 
 object, whether of necessity or of 
 luxury." The tone of Mr. Davis's 
 speech was that of a man whose 
 feeling was broadly national, and 
 whose hope was for the perpetua- 
 tion of the Union. 
 
 Another of the most influential 
 of Southern statesmen, Alexan- 
 der H. Stephens, of Georgia, had 
 just retired from Congress (in 
 March, 1859), in frail health, 
 altogether weary of public life. 
 
 He was declining honors and 
 
JOHN BROWN ATTEMPTS EMANCIPATION 
 
 231 
 
 testimonials; and while Mr. Davis was so- 
 journing for his health at New England's 
 coast resorts, Mr. Stephens was traveling in 
 the far Northwest, to see the country and 
 gain physical recuperation. He declared that 
 he had no political ambitions, and that he 
 would exceedingly dislike to be President. 
 "What amazes me in 
 Douglas," he remarked, 
 "is his desire to be Presi- 
 dent. I have sometimes 
 asked him what he de- 
 sired the office for. It has 
 never yet added to the 
 fame of a single man. 
 You may look over the 
 list of Presidents; which 
 of them made any repu- 
 tation after his election? 
 Four years or even eight 
 years is too short a time 
 to enable a man to pur- 
 sue a policy which will be 
 permanent enough to 
 give him reputation." 
 
 Mr. Stephens was de-. 
 voted to the Union, al- 
 though he could not de- 
 tach himself from his 
 association with the peo- 
 ple of his own State. No 
 man in the Union, North 
 or South, was further 
 from consciousness of 
 being engaged in plots 
 for the break-up of the 
 country, in that ominous 
 year 1859, than was this 
 man, who was so soon to 
 be serving as Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the Confederacy. 
 
 As for the eastern Re- 
 publican leaders, they 
 were not spending the summer of 1859 in plot- 
 ting to destroy the peculiar institution upon 
 which the South was relying for its expand- 
 ing prosperity, with its cotton gins turning 
 out ever-increasing quantities of the royal 
 crop, for the mills of Europe and New Eng- 
 land. Seward, as his biographer tells us, had 
 
 GREELEY'S RIDE 
 
 In the summer of 1859 the famous New York 
 editor journeyed overland to California, seeing 
 the new country at first hand and writing let- 
 ters to the Tribune that were later published 
 in book form. Twelve years afterward Mark 
 Twain went over some of the same ground and 
 picked up a Greeley anecdote from a stage-coach 
 driver, which, together with the drawing above, 
 we reproduce from "Roughing It": "When 
 Horace Greeley was leaving Carson City he told 
 the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engage- 
 ment to lecture at Placerville and was very 
 anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk 
 cracked his whip and started off at an awful 
 pace. The coach bounced up and down in such 
 a terrible way that it jolted the buttons all off 
 of Horace's coat, and finally shot his head clean 
 through the roof of the stage, and then he 
 yelled at Hank Monk, and begged him to go 
 easier — said he warn't in as much of a hurry 
 as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk said, 
 'Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get you there 
 on time' — and he did, what was left of him!" 
 
 already planned to take a long vacation, and 
 to make a trip through Europe and the Holy 
 Land; and we have this quotation from his 
 affectionate farewell note to his wife as his 
 admirers, early in May, escorted him down 
 New York Bay: "The sky is bright and the 
 waters are calm ; the ship is strong and safe ; 
 the season of storms is 
 past." It was not until 
 late in December that 
 Seward returned from 
 his interesting travels 
 and from his study of the 
 civilizations and social 
 problems of Europe and 
 Asia. The "irrepressible 
 conflict" was not in the 
 forefront of Seward's 
 mental activity, as he 
 toured foreign lands. 
 
 As for that famous 
 Republican journalist 
 Horace Greeley, who was 
 in many respects the 
 most pervasively influen- 
 tial man in the new party, 
 he also was off on his 
 travels, visiting the West 
 and particularly occupy- 
 ing himself in seeing the 
 wonders of California. 
 He was full of enthus- 
 iasm, talking incessantly 
 about agriculture, min- 
 ing, and western pioneer- 
 ing, and attracting atten- 
 tion everywhere as he 
 went bumping over west- 
 ern roads in stage 
 coaches. No one was 
 more innocent, in that 
 fateful season, than 
 Horace Greeley of any 
 kind of agitation to provoke discord among 
 brethren in our great Republic. 
 
 Among the vacation travelers of 1859 was 
 John Sherman of Ohio. He had been elected 
 to Congress in 1854, again in 1856, and now, 
 for the third time, in the fall of 1858. He had 
 been a rising young Republican while his party 
 
232 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was in a hopeless minority. But at last he had 
 taken his part in a vigorous campaign that was 
 to give his party a decided plurality in the next 
 House of Representatives. He was looking 
 forward with some confidence to being chosen 
 as Speaker when the new Congress should meet 
 in December, 1859, which was sufficiently 
 rapid advancement for a serious young states- 
 man at the age of thirty-five. Having done 
 his share as a minority member of the expir- 
 ing Democratic House in the short session 
 from December, 1858, to March, 1859, he had 
 two-thirds of a year of freedom ahead of him, 
 and planned to use the time in a broadening 
 of his observations and experience. In April 
 he went to Europe, where he studied many sit- 
 uations that were of more than usual historical 
 significance. To his brother William, after- 
 wards the redoubtable general who was 
 Grant's foremost military associate, he sent 
 careful letters on the war in Italy, and later 
 upon the British system of government. 
 
 I might easily continue, with the aid of ex- 
 cellent biographers, to trace the summer move- 
 ments of other American statesmen in the in- 
 
 "■'At, x J \ I : "A / ■i.um^lS^ 
 
 oTM'* m 
 
 
 VS. 
 
 "THE IMPENDING CRISIS" OF A DAINTY MORSEL 
 Douglas in the summer of 1859 made a journey from New 
 Orleans to Cuba, to obtain first-hand knowledge of the 
 Spanish island that President Buchanan and other leading 
 Democrats were proposing to annex, and that was used as 
 a base by slave smugglers. Douglas was then chairman of 
 the Senate Committee on Territories. Reproduced above 
 is a New York cartoon published early in 1860. 
 
 terval between sessions of that year 1859. I 
 have, in this manner, mentioned Seward and 
 Greeley, Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. 
 Stephens, besides this allusion to John Sher- 
 man. Douglas's movements also are well re- 
 corded, and I shall allude to them in later 
 paragraphs of the present chapter. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the biographers of no 
 other American statesman have been so intent 
 upon completeness and inclusiveness as those 
 who have recorded the public and private life 
 of Abraham Lincoln. Why, then, in the vast 
 literature that includes hundreds of accounts, 
 have we had no definite record regarding the 
 comings and goings, during the summer of 
 1859, of the man whose qualities had been 
 revealed in the Lincoln-Douglas debates? 
 
 How it happens that obvious things of con- 
 siderable importance fail to appear in most bio- 
 graphies, is a question that belongs to the curi- 
 osities of literature, and I shall not try to 
 answer it. Lincoln's biographers do not fail to 
 record the well-known fact that he made a 
 speech at Columbus on September 16th, and 
 one at Cincinnati on September 17th, follow- 
 ing Douglas at the request of the Republican 
 authorities in a campaign for the election of a 
 Governor and State officers. Also they are 
 fully aware that in December Lincoln went to 
 Kansas, where he gave five lectures. Mr. Sand- 
 burg, who follows Lincoln's movements with 
 greater amplitude of detail than most other 
 biographers, finds him speaking in Chicago on 
 the night of the city election, March 1st. He 
 reports what Lincoln wrote to the Boston com- 
 mittee which had invited him to speak at a 
 Jefferson dinner in April. He quotes various 
 comments of that season on Lincoln as a presi- 
 dential possibility, and finds his hero invited 
 everywhere to speak as the foremost Republi- 
 can figure of the West. 
 
 Mr. Sandburg, as also Dr. Barton, finds Lin- 
 coln on May 30th drawing up a contract under, 
 which he became the owner of a small German- 
 language newspaper published at Springfield, 
 called the Illinois Staats-Anzcigcr. Its editor, 
 Theodore Canisius, was in debt, and Lincoln 
 bought him out for $400. The principal Ger- 
 man paper of Chicago was supporting Seward ; 
 and Lincoln now had a paper printed in that 
 
JOHN BROWN ATTEMPTS EMANCIPATION 
 
 233 
 
 a 1 
 
 i.ia. 
 
 3 
 
 ** |Q' Until SeeTsi. 186^ uslex othewj 
 
 O 
 
 <iym 
 
 o 
 
 language which could be scattered among in- 
 fluential Germans in order to promote the 
 political fortunes of a certain Illinois gentle- 
 man whose ownership of the paper was kept 
 an absolute secret. Mr. Sandburg's delightful 
 narrative now jumps, like all the others, to the 
 Ohio speeches of September. 
 
 It happens, however, that Lincoln, too, felt 
 like a vacation trip, and he made no secret of 
 it. It is curious that his temporary ownership 
 of a German - lan- 
 g u a g e newspaper 
 (which it is supposed 
 that he never men- 
 tioned, even to his 
 partner and political 
 manager, William H. 
 Herndon) should 
 later have become so 
 well known a fact, 
 while his unconcealed 
 August excursion in 
 a steamboat up the 
 Missouri River, his 
 sojourn at Council 
 Bluffs, Iowa, and his 
 study there of rail- 
 way questions and 
 the future route of 
 the first trans-con- 
 tinental railroad, 
 should have become 
 almost hopelessly lost 
 
 to students of the career of the one Ameri- 
 can whose life has been most assiduously in- 
 vestigated. 
 
 It merely happens that the later biographers 
 found themselves following Nicolay and Hay, 
 who also, it would seem, had overlooked the 
 trip to which I have alluded. My own first 
 knowledge of it came with the reading, many 
 years ago, of a book on the life and adventures 
 of Joseph La Barge, published in 1903 as a 
 "History of Early Steamboat Navigation on 
 the Missouri River." One of the chapters is 
 entitled "Abraham Lincoln on the Missouri." 
 Gen. H. M. Chittenden, the author of this 
 work, remarks : "It was during the boating 
 season of 1859 that Captain La Barge first 
 saw Abraham Lincoln. Among the more ob- 
 
 A RAILROAD LAWYER'S PASS 
 Lincoln's first employment as special counsel for the 
 Illinois Central Railroad was in 1855, nineteen years after 
 his admission to the bar. Then he argued against the at- 
 tempt of McLean County to upset the Legislature's grant 
 of tax exemption to the new railroad, and won his case. 
 His most important assignment came in September, 1857, 
 in which he argued successfully the right of a railroad to 
 cross the Mississippi so long as its bridge piers did not un- 
 necessarily obstruct traffic. It was Norman B. Judd, the 
 leading railroad attorney of Illinois, who brought the Re- 
 publican National Convention to Chicago in 1860 (to pro- 
 mote Lincoln's candidacy), and who made the speech 
 nominating Lincoln. 
 
 scure incidents in that great man's career were 
 his visits to the Missouri River in the summer 
 and fall of this year. In August he visited 
 Council Bluffs and in December several towns 
 in Kansas. The purpose of his first visit was 
 not political, although during his stay at the 
 Bluffs he was induced to make a political 
 speech. He had evidently come out to take 
 a look at the great West, and possibly, also, 
 to make some investments in real estate." It 
 
 is true that Mr. Lin- 
 coln did make an in- 
 vestment in one or 
 more lots in Council 
 Bluffs, these trans- 
 actions being asso- 
 ciated with his friend. 
 N. B. Judd, the Rock 
 Island Railroad law- 
 yer, who was a close 
 legal and personal 
 friend of Mr. Lin- 
 coln, and among the 
 shrewdest of the po- 
 litical backers who in 
 the following year 
 brought the National 
 Convention to Chi- 
 cago as a step toward 
 securing Lincoln's 
 nomination. 
 
 The Council Bluffs 
 
 _ . s p i g 
 
 CN» * J/tft&ecmfo. W5> I J 
 
 ordered. • j 2 
 
 M.iJ 
 
 newspapers gave re- 
 ports, quoted by Mr. Chittenden in foot-notes, 
 of a speech upon political issues, delivered by 
 Mr. Lincoln on Saturday evening, August 
 13th. Among those who heard the address was 
 Grenville M. Dodge, a young railroad sur- 
 veyor, who had just arrived from a study of 
 possible routes across Nebraska. Lincoln met 
 Dodge on that occasion, and had a long talk 
 with him on the subject of the proposed trans- 
 continental railroad. Dodge afterwards be- 
 came a distinguished general in the Civil War, 
 and a railroad builder identified with the trans- 
 portation history of the West. It fell to the 
 lot of President Lincoln, in 1864, to settle the 
 location of the eastern terminus of the Union 
 Pacific Railway; and the fact that Council 
 Bluffs on the East side of the Missouri River 
 
234 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 rather than Omaha on the West side was desig- 
 
 a significance that need not be 
 
 nated, gives 
 
 exaggerated to the study Lincoln made on the 
 
 ground in those August days of 1859. 
 
 This Iowa visit of Mr. Lincoln was not for- 
 gotten by General Dodge, who attempted in his 
 old age to write a volume of recollections, 
 which was never completed or published. The 
 Dodge manuscript with other material was 
 safely deposited in the archives of the State, 
 and in due time an au- 
 thorized biography was 
 written by Mr. J. R. Per- 
 kins and published in 
 1929. Mr. Perkins, in his 
 chapter entitled "Lincoln 
 Visits Dodge's Home 
 Town," gives us a more 
 intimate account of the 
 Lincoln trip than is con- 
 tained in the earlier vol- 
 ume on the experiences 
 of an old Missouri River 
 steamboat captain. Mr. 
 Perkins finds that Lin- 
 coln embarked on the 
 stern-wheel steamboat at 
 St. Joseph, Missouri, 
 which took him up- 
 stream nearly two hun- 
 dred miles to Council 
 Bluffs. He tells us that 
 Norman Judd had pe- 
 cuniary reasons for seek- 
 ing to interest Lincoln in 
 the river bottom lands, 
 now a network of tracks. 
 Grenville Dodge, as land 
 purchaser for the railroad that was crossing 
 Iowa, had also made Judd an investor. 
 
 As for the people of Council Bluffs, it seems 
 that the Lincoln visit had never been lost sight 
 of. Says Mr. Perkins : "Dodge's home town, 
 unto this day, speaks with pride and joy of the 
 visit Lincoln made to it nine months before his 
 nomination; of the reception tendered him at 
 the Pusey home; of his speech in Concert Hall 
 in the dim light of the tallow candles; of his 
 stroll up the ravine to the top of a great hill, 
 Moses-like to view the landscape; of how he 
 
 JOHN BROWN AS "SHUBEL MORGAN" 
 With four of his sons, Brown had so conducted 
 himself in Kansas, in 18S6, that there was a re- 
 ward offered for his arrest; but in Iowa, Ohio, 
 his home State of New York, and elsewhere in 
 the North, he was highly esteemed by anti- 
 slavery leaders. Two years later, when Brown 
 wished to return to Kansas, he found it desirable 
 to shave off his beard and use an assumed name. 
 
 sat on the porch of the Pacific House and 
 talked with the citizens; and finally, of his de- 
 parture, standing at the rail of the steamboat 
 as it swung out into the river, with his hat in 
 his hand and his face toward the yellow cliffs 
 that lifted above the sun-scorched village on 
 that mid-August afternoon." 
 
 There seems no record that pictures Senator 
 Douglas, however, as having forgotten poli- 
 tics, or as engaged in mere vacation travels, in 
 1859. Upon the conclu- 
 sion of the campaign of 
 '58, with his re-election 
 to the Senate assured, he 
 had, indeed, set forth 
 upon a long trip through 
 the South, speaking in 
 various places in the most 
 conciliatory tone that he 
 could assume. After vis- 
 iting and speaking at 
 New Orleans, he had sat- 
 isfied his curiosity about 
 the great island that we 
 were proposing to ac- 
 quire, by making a trip 
 to Havana. In the earlier 
 months of 1859, he was 
 engaged in Senate de- 
 bates at Washington that 
 made him a compara- 
 tively isolated figure. 
 There was no sharp issue 
 like the Lecompton Con- 
 s t i t u t i o n that now 
 brought him applause 
 from the Republican side 
 of the Senate ; and he was 
 chiefly engaged in controversies with Senator 
 Davis and other leaders of the South. 
 
 The session had begun before his return 
 from the trip to Cuba ; and he was chagrined 
 to find that in his absence the Southern Demo- 
 crats, who were still in control of the upper 
 branch of Congress, had deposed him from his 
 position as chairman of the important Com- 
 mittee on Territories. I have already noted 
 that he made speeches in September in the Ohio 
 State campaign, and he was planning carefully 
 for the Democratic National Convention that 
 
JOHN BROWN ATTEMPTS EMANCIPATION 
 
 235 
 
 was to be held at Charleston, South Carolina, 
 early in i860. 
 
 On October 1 7th came the news of the raid 
 of John Brown at Harper's Ferry; and this 
 tragic event startled the country like a bolt out 
 of a clear sky, inasmuch as the truce in politics 
 had promised to give the leaders a welcome 
 season of devotion to farming, industry, vaca- 
 tion trips and private affairs in general. 
 
 John Brown at this time was in his sixtieth 
 year. He was o f Connecticut birth, but was taken 
 to Ohio when five or six years of age. He had 
 tried all sorts of business ventures, and had 
 lived in one place after another. For several 
 years he had oscillated between Ohio and a 
 place called North Elba near Lake Placid, New 
 York, where Gerrit Smith in the heart of the 
 Adirondacks maintained a settlement of 
 refugee Negroes. Returning from Ohio to 
 North Elba in 1855, he left his family there. 
 Taking his four oldest sons, he joined a rush 
 of Free State men to Kansas, where he soon 
 became known as the redoubtable "Captain 
 John Brown of Ossawatomie." 
 
 He had been active all his life in helping 
 fugitive slaves to escape, and had been for 
 years a principal agent in the running of the 
 so-called "Underground Railroad." He was 
 a man of intense and moody nature; a man of 
 action rather than of words; whose belief in 
 freedom for the slaves was bound to show 
 itself in attempts to bring the thing about, if 
 necessary, by fire and sword and insurrection. 
 His violent and ruthless conduct in Kansas 
 had led to the offer of a reward of $3000 for 
 his arrest by the Governor of Missouri, while 
 President Pierce himself had offered $250. 
 
 It was on the night of the twenty-fourth of 
 May, 1856, at the height of the period of 
 guerrilla clashes in Kansas, that John Brown 
 and his little band massacred five pro-slavery 
 men on Pottawatomie Creek. Perhaps these 
 men were not of the most desirable and unof- 
 fending type ; but there can be no doubt of the 
 criminality as well as the brutality of the con- 
 duct of John Brown. His sons had been 
 hypnotized by the homicidal fanaticism of 
 their father. Brown's own defense was that 
 it had become necessary "to strike terror into 
 the hearts of the pro-slavery people." 
 
 JOHN BROWN 
 After participating in the fight to keep slavery out of 
 Kansas, in 1856, Brown returned to his home in northern 
 New York. There he planned the raid on a government 
 arsenal, to obtain rifles for an uprising of Negro slaves. 
 He was captured, found guilty of treason, and hanged at 
 Charlestown, Virginia, on December 2, 18S9. 
 
 Endeavor was vainly made to fix responsi- 
 bility for this action upon leaders of the Free 
 Soil cause. Our foremost authority upon the 
 deeds of John Brown and their relation to the 
 anti-slavery movement and the political con- 
 troversies of that period, is the remarkable 
 biography by Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, 
 published in 1910, and entitled "John Brown 
 1800-1859: A Biography Fifty Years After." 
 Mr. Villard makes it clear that Brown had 
 gone to Kansas with arms and munitions, fully 
 intending to fight. The Free Soil settlers in 
 general were of the most peaceable type, whose 
 purpose, apart from obtaining land and tilling 
 the soil, was to help cast a preponderant vote 
 at the polls in favor of making Kansas a free 
 State. This massacre made trouble for many 
 
236 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 innocent free-state people ; for there were 
 wholesale arrests, with attempts to fasten re- 
 sponsibility upon prominent men who had no 
 sympathy with John Brown's methods. 
 
 John Brown and his group were now out- 
 laws, and Kansas was in wild turmoil. Presi- 
 dent Pierce constantly admonished Governor 
 Shannon to maintain the laws, but without 
 much effect. A few weeks later Brown with 
 several sons and other followers escaped from 
 Kansas and crossed the Nebraska line. Before 
 long, however, the indomitable foe of slavery 
 was in Kansas again, a sort of mythical per- 
 sonage, credited by friends and foes alike with 
 various exploits in most of which he had no 
 part. With Governor Geary's advent, and with 
 United States troops under his direction, 
 peace came to Kansas. John Brown, who had 
 gone there to fight but not to settle, had re- 
 turned to the East. Just how he could have 
 been permitted to travel openly, and to remain 
 at large after his exciting year in Kansas, is 
 not cpiite clear; but he had given himself a 
 permanent place in the history of that Com- 
 monwealth, and it is undoubtedly true that his 
 crimes were condoned, and his methods widely 
 praised and admired, among the anti-slavery 
 people of the North. 
 
 Unquestionably John Brown was treated as 
 a hero in the Abolitionist communities of Iowa, 
 notably in the little town of Tabor. From 
 Iowa he set out for Chicago, where he ar- 
 rived late in October with two sons, and where 
 he was well received at the offices of the Na- 
 tional Kansas Committee. At that time Horace 
 White was assistant secretary of that commit- 
 tee, and a note from him to Brown is in evi- 
 dence to show how highly this man of blood 
 and iron was esteemed by the leaders of the 
 anti-slavery propaganda. After further ad- 
 ventures, John Brown went to Ohio and then 
 returned to northern New York. Early in 
 1857 he was in Boston, a hero in the group 
 that formed the Massachusetts State Kansas 
 Committee. The Bostonians were helping him 
 in his plans to raise money and equip a com- 
 pany for further exploits. 
 
 The great literary lights, philanthropists, 
 preachers, orators and merchant princes of 
 Boston were the enthusiastic supporters of 
 
 John Brown at this time. It should be under- 
 stood that they probably knew little of the 
 precise facts regarding the Pottawatomie 
 Creek massacre. They imagined that Brown's 
 operations had been defensive, against the so- 
 called "Border Ruffians" of Missouri. Un- 
 doubtedly he received much financial and 
 moral support for his mysterious plans, and 
 was not closely cross-examined about them by 
 any of these New England patrons. 
 
 The details of these endeavors are fully re- 
 corded by Mr. Villard. In point of fact, John 
 Brown, with the money contributed by his 
 New England backers, was quietly and delib- 
 erately preparing for the Harper's Ferry raid. 
 He was having certain weapons forged, par- 
 ticularly a type of spear that he was intending 
 to place in the hands of slaves not accus- 
 tomed to firearms. There were various causes 
 of delay in Brown's preparations, all of which 
 are set forth in Mr. Villard's fascinating vol- 
 ume. Among other things, he was buying 
 revolvers from the Massachusetts Arms Com- 
 pany. With various supplies, and in disguise 
 under an assumed name, Brown set out again 
 for Kansas, by way of Iowa. 
 
 The eminent statesman Robert J. Walker, 
 of Mississippi, was now Governor of Kansas 
 under President Buchanan ; and the Territory 
 had become too peaceful and law-abiding to 
 give John Brown any excuse for his proposed 
 invasion. He staid only a few days in Kansas, 
 and his mind was undoubtedly at work upon 
 his ultimate object, the Harper's Ferry at- 
 tack. It would not serve my purpose to con- 
 tinue with the details of John Brown's move- 
 ments. He was now thinking of Virginia 
 rather than of Kansas. Again he was visiting 
 in the East, raising money and developing 
 his hidden program. His mind was wholly 
 fixed upon the idea of provoking an insurrec- 
 tion of Negroes that should sweep through the 
 entire domain of slavery. He had gone so far 
 as to draw up a Provisional Constitution for 
 the government of the new, emancipated 
 America, for which he was planning. He was 
 storing arms and preparing for the onslaught. 
 He had sent a man in the summer of 1858 to 
 live at Harper's Ferry as a spy. 
 
 Brown next adopted the name of "Shubel 
 
JOHN BROWN ATTEMPTS EMANCIPATION 
 
 2 Z7 
 
 
 YE ABOLITIONISTS IN COUNCIL— YE ORATOR OF YE DAY DENOUNCING THE UNION 
 
 Many radical abolitionists in the North believed in disunion just as strongly as did the most sincere 
 pro-slavery advocates in the South. The Constitution was "a covenant with hell" because it recog- 
 nized slavery. Wendell Phillips of Boston was the leader of those Northerners who demanded 
 dissolution of the Union ; he wanted a nation of nineteen Free States. The wood engraving printed 
 above was published in New York in May, 1859. 
 
 Morgan," shaved off his beard, and made an- 
 other expeditionary visit to the West. In 
 June, 1858, we find him in Kansas experiment- 
 ing on the Missouri border, with the general 
 idea of carrying alarm into slavery terri- 
 tory. Again, he found himself the ob- 
 ject of hero-worship in the Abolitionist 
 communities of Iowa. In March, 1859, he was 
 in Ohio, where he gave a lecture at Cleveland 
 on Kansas, and on his late so-called "invasion 
 of Missouri." He had allowed his beard to 
 grow again, and was described by the Cleve- 
 land papers as a man of extraordinary quick- 
 ness of mind and physical vitality. 
 
 Back in Boston Brown was among his ad- 
 miring friends, but we soon find him again in 
 New York and Ohio, intensely occupied with 
 his plans. Under a non-de-plume, from Cham- 
 bersburg, Pennsylvania, June 30, 1859, he 
 wrote : "We leave here today for Harper's 
 
 Ferry; via Hagerstown. When you get there 
 you had best look on the hotel register for I. 
 Smith and Sons, without making much in- 
 cmiry. We shall be looking for cheap lands 
 near the railroad in all probability. You can 
 write I. Smith and Sons at Harper's Ferry, 
 should you need to do so." 
 
 On the fourth of July, John Brown with 
 three companions was in Maryland, ostensibly 
 looking for land in the vicinity of Harper's 
 Ferry. He found a place that he decided to 
 rent rather than to buy, and hired a small 
 property, about five miles from Harper's 
 Ferry, for $35 until March 1, i860. His young 
 daughter and a daughter-in-law came to keep 
 house, the better to help support the pretense 
 that he was in the neighborhood as a farmer 
 or cattle-buyer. Cautiously his arms and muni- 
 tions were transported to this Kennedy Farm. 
 
 Brown's associates were not discreet, how- 
 
2 3 8 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "HERE! TAKE THIS AND FOLLOW ME!" 
 "Please God, Mr. Brown, dat is onpossible. We aint 
 done seedin' yit at our house." 
 
 ever, and they fell under suspicion. One of 
 them wrote to his mother, for instance, two 
 weeks before the raid, explaining with boyish 
 enthusiasm that he was engaged in war with 
 slavery in a southern slave State that, before 
 he left, would be free. He added : "In Expla- 
 nation of my Absence from you for so long a 
 time I would tell you that for three years I 
 have been Engaged in a Secret Association of 
 as gallant fellows as ever pulled a trigger with 
 the sole purpose of the extermination of slav- 
 ery." Too many people already knew about 
 the raid, and even Floyd, the Secretary of 
 War, had been warned in a letter that, though 
 anonymous, was intelligent and explicit. But 
 Secretary Floyd was easy-going, as Mr. Vil- 
 lard says, and he was on vacation at a moun- 
 tain resort in Virginia, so that he took no 
 precautionary steps. 
 
 The plans were not developing well, and 
 what Mr. Villard calls "the officers and men 
 of the tiny provisional government" were only 
 twenty-two in all. As the time for the raid 
 approached, the two Brown girls left for their 
 home in the Adirondacks, and the preparations 
 for the attack became more serious. It was 
 altogether a forlorn and pathetic adventure 
 on the part of men of whom history must say 
 that they had the spirit of heroes, but were 
 utterly devoid of practical sense. 
 
 The U. S. Arsenal at Harper's Ferry was 
 at the point where the Potomac and Shenan- 
 doah rivers enclose an elevated promontory — 
 a spot famous for its scenic beauty and inter- 
 est. We are concerned rather with the political 
 phase than with the details of the raid itself. 
 It was on Sunday night, October 16th, that, 
 after cutting telegraph wires and guarding 
 the approaches, Brown seized the arsenal. It 
 contained an immense number of military 
 rifles, this fact, of course, being the reason f 01 
 the project. Brown had intended to distribute 
 the arms to Negroes who were expected to rise 
 against their masters. The arsenal was 
 guarded by two or three men but was without 
 a garrison, and the seizure was easily accom- 
 plished. A few slaves were brought in from 
 neighboring plantations ; but militia gathered 
 rapidly and United States Marines from 
 Washington were on the scene within a few 
 hours. Col. Robert E. Lee, who headed the 
 
 EFFECT OF JOHN BROWN'S RAID 
 "Much obliged to Possum Wattomie for dese pikes he 
 gin us — dey's turrible handy to dig taters wid." 
 
 (Brown had believed that the news of his attack would 
 lead to an immediate and widespread uprising of slaves, 
 whom he planned to arm with pikes of his own design. 
 The pikes were ready, but no slaves came to use them.) 
 
JOHN BROWN ATTEMPTS EMANCIPATION 
 
 239 
 
 AFTER JOHN BROWN'S RAID: THE TAKING OF THE ENGINE HOUSE 
 On October 16, 18S9, John Brown and a handful of men whom he had gathered about him seized the 
 United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, in what is now the State of West Virginia. He intended to 
 arm Negro slaves with rifles stored there. Government reinforcements under Col. Robert E. Lee 
 arrived promptly, besieged the raiders in the engine house at the arsenal, and easily captured Brown 
 and those of his comrades who survived the fighting. 
 
 Marines, instantly stopped needless bloodshed 
 and entered the arsenal to find John Brown 
 badly wounded and two of his sons lying dead. 
 
 Ten of the nineteen raiders were killed, two 
 escaped, and the remaining seven were sent 
 to jail. It has been the fashion of northern 
 historians to treat with sarcasm the tremen- 
 dous excitement of Virginia and the South, in 
 view of the pitiable and hopeless nature of 
 John Brown's project. But Brown had for 
 years been receiving pecuniary aid from the 
 most conspicuous anti-slavery men of the 
 North ; and it was natural enough that the 
 South should have believed that behind this 
 initial movement lay some larger scheme, 
 worthy of the intelligence and the resources of 
 Brown's eminent friends who were spread 
 across the country from all parts of New Eng- 
 land to Iowa and Kansas. 
 
 The actual incident was almost ludicrous in 
 its abortive and futile character. Vast schemes 
 
 indeed were floating in the deluded mind of 
 John Brown ; but his actual undertaking was 
 that of a man of exceedingly limited capacity 
 for bringing about a serious insurrection. With 
 his surviving comrades, John Brown was 
 promptly tried, and executed by hanging, un- 
 der Virginia laws. Brown himself was the 
 first on the scaffold, and his execution occurred 
 on December 2, 1859. 
 
 Every public man in the country had his 
 word to say about the raid at Harper's Ferry. 
 Lincoln's conclusive statement took form some 
 weeks later in his Cooper Union speech of 
 February 27, i860. We may quote his calm 
 and philosophical expression : 
 
 John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a 
 slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men 
 to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves 
 refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd 
 that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly 
 enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its 
 philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts re- 
 
240 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 lated in history, at the assassination of kings and 
 emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppres- 
 sion of the people till he fancies himself commis- 
 sioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the 
 attempt, which ends in little else than his own exe- 
 cution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and 
 John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in 
 their philosophy, precisely the same. The eager- 
 ness to cast blame on old England in the one case, 
 and on New England in the other, does not disprove 
 the sameness of the two things. 
 
 Many northern men were more sympathetic 
 than Lincoln in their allusions. Mr. Barrett, in 
 his work on Lincoln, prints for the first time 
 a letter that he himself received from Gov- 
 ernor Chase of Ohio, who was soon to take 
 his seat in the Senate. Chase was already 
 Seward's rival as a Republican presidential 
 candidate, and he was destined to be serving 
 in Lincoln's cabinet only a year and a half 
 later. In this letter, written by Governor 
 Chase to Mr. Barrett on October 29th, a few 
 days after the Harper's Ferry attack, we find 
 tbese prophetic words about John Brown : 
 
 Poor old man ! How sadly misled by his own 
 imagination ! How rash, how mad, how criminal, 
 
 thus to stir up insurrection, which, if successful, 
 would deluge the land with blood and make void the 
 fairest hopes of mankind ! And yet how hard to 
 condemn him, when we remember the provocation, 
 the unselfish desire to set free the oppressed, the 
 bravery, the humanity towards his prisoners, which 
 defeated his purposes ! This is a tragedy which 
 will supply themes for novelists and poets for cen- 
 turies. Men will condemn his act and pity his fate 
 forever. But while pity and condemnation mingle 
 for him, how stern will be the reprobation which 
 must fall upon the guiltiness of forcing slavery upon 
 Kansas, which began it all, and upon slavery itself, 
 which underlies it all ! 
 
 The verdicts of history have borne out Lin- 
 coln's remarks, and the predictions of Chase 
 have already been fulfilled. Mr. Bancroft, the 
 accomplished biographer of Seward, says : 
 
 Before the year expired, John Brown had become 
 a hero in the opinion of a large proportion of the 
 best persons in the free states, not on account of any 
 wisdom in his acts, but because of his bold assault 
 upon slavery. The fear shown by the South was 
 not feigned ; it was deep and almost hysterical. 
 Warlike preparations were going on in every county 
 of Virginia. Some districts were still under mar- 
 tial law, and the legislature was considering "the 
 full and complete arming of the whole State." 
 
 Elsewhere the alarm was not 
 so intense, but throughout the 
 South men believed that the 
 country was on the brink of a 
 terrible crisis. The slaveholders 
 would not have been so much 
 frightened if they had not made 
 the mistake of believing that the 
 slaves would fight for their lib- 
 erty — a belief that had also been 
 the greatest factor in leading 
 Brown into the wild delusion 
 that he could smite the rock of 
 slavery and call forth from it a 
 continuous fountain of freedom. 
 Fear soon gave place to anger, 
 and the conviction became com- 
 mon in the South that John 
 Brown differed from a majority 
 of Northerners merely in the 
 boldness and desperation of his 
 methods. 
 
 THE GRAVE OF JOHN BROWN 
 The boulder lies only a few yards from the door of the farmhouse built by 
 Brown in the Adirondacks. The same headstone had served for the grave of his 
 grandfather, Captain John Brown of the Revolution. The newer carving relates 
 the fact that John Brown, born May 9, 1800, was executed at Charleston, Vir- 
 ginia, December 2, 1859, and that Oliver Brown, born in 1839, was killed at 
 
 Harper's Ferry. 
 
 President Buchanan in his 
 message to Congress, on 
 December 19th, stated that 
 he would not "refer in de- 
 tail to the recent and bloody 
 occurrences at Harper's 
 
JOHN BROWN ATTEMPTS EMANCIPATION 
 
 241 
 
 THE COURTHOUSE AT CHARLESTOWN, VIRGINIA, WHERE JOHN BROWN WAS 
 TRIED AND SENTENCED TO DEATH 
 
 From a drawing made during the trial. 
 
 Ferry. Still, it is to be observed that these 
 events, however bad and cruel in themselves, 
 derive their chief importance from the appre- 
 hension that they are but symptoms of an in- 
 curable disease in the public mind which may 
 break out in still more dangerous outrages and 
 terminate, at last, in an open war by the North 
 to abolish slavery in the South." This was a 
 wholly unjustifiable reflection upon the pur- 
 poses and plans of the Republican party ; but 
 the mere fact that the President could have 
 made such suggestion in a message to Con- 
 gress, stands as evidence of the profound im- 
 portance in the political sense of Brown's raid. 
 Jefferson Davis did not exaggerate south- 
 ern feeling when he declared that this was "the 
 invasion of a State by a murderous gang of 
 Abolitionists. ... to incite slaves to murder 
 helpless women and children." Douglas, in 
 turn, sought to recover favor in the South by 
 saying that it was his "firm and deliberate be- 
 lief that the Harper's Ferry crime was the nat- 
 ural, logical and inevitable result of the doc- 
 trines and teachings of the Republican party." 
 
 The raid was timed with the object of inten- 
 sifying antagonism between the sections be- 
 fore the Republicans should have their oppor- 
 tunity in i860 to carry the elections. Brown 
 believed that they would enter upon a conser- 
 vative policy intended to save the Union, while 
 they would as a party adhere firmly to Lin- 
 coln's views of the constitutional rights of the 
 slave States. It might even be said that John 
 Brown was more bitterly opposed to Lincoln 
 and men of his type than to the Democratic 
 leaders. Extremists on both sides were help- 
 ing to bring affairs to a crisis, and this was 
 what John Brown was seeking. 
 
 There was a certain common ground upon 
 which northern Abolitionists and southern 
 Secessionists could meet. They were alike in 
 detesting compromises, and in wanting to live 
 in a country that was wholly one thing or 
 wholly the other. Republicans of the Lincoln 
 school on the contrary hoped for a gradual 
 extinction of slavery in the future, on moral 
 and economic grounds. With these views the 
 radicals of both sides had no sympathy. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Congress Meets in Bitter Dissension 
 
 The most turbulent session in our history — An anti-slavery book, 
 
 endorsed by John Sherman, causes a deadlock in the election of a 
 
 Speaker — Senator Davis formulates Southern views 
 
 IN THE THIRTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, which 
 had ended its unprofitable career on 
 March 4, 1859, there were a total of 64 
 Senators of whom 39 were Democrats, 20 Re- 
 publicans, and 5 Americans. These five — ■ 
 Thompson and Crittenden of Kentucky, John 
 Bell of Tennessee, Sam Houston of Texas, and 
 Anthony Kennedy of Maryland — were not 
 anti-slavery men, but were Unionists of con- 
 
 J H INj BROWN 
 
 l'»ijimtt 4at 'tpruenttd Gr/i' fire** ,.,_,<.,.,..,..<, a Sla*t -motAtr a*j'CJu/J ~>u eittrtulid 
 i/u f>**4ey*on*jj waft* 1J1, 3c*MU -. Cap' B'uwn stoeptd ' o»U iisjat lAvC/uJJ— (Atn met Au Sato- 
 
 A contemporary painting by Louis Ransom depicted John 
 Brown on his way to the scaffold pausing to give his 
 blessing to a slave mother and her child. That no such 
 incident could have happened did not at all lessen the effect 
 that the picture produced in the North, where it was 
 engraved and distributed broadcast. Note the Latin 
 motto of Virginia in the background. 
 
 242 
 
 servative stamp, with a tendency to look back- 
 ward rather than forward. In the House of 
 Representatives there were 237 members, of 
 whom the Administration Democrats num- 
 bered 116, the so-called anti-Lecompton Dem- 
 ocrats 11, the Republicans 92, and the Ameri- 
 cans or "Know-nothings" 15, with two vacan- 
 cies. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, as 
 Vice-President of the United States, presided 
 over the Senate, and James L. Orr of South 
 Carolina was Speaker of the House. 
 
 When the Thirty-sixth Congress convened 
 on December 5, 1859, an additional State, 
 Minnesota, had brought the number of Sena- 
 tors up to 66, of whom 38 were Democrats 
 and 25 Republicans, with two Americans and 
 one vacancy. Vice-President Breckinridge 
 continued to preside. 
 
 It was in the House of Representatives that 
 the great change had come about, the Repub- 
 licans now numbering 113, the Administration 
 Democrats 93, the anti-Lecompton Democrats 
 8, and the so-called "South Americans" 23. 
 These last were Southern Congressmen sur- 
 viving from Whig days, Unionists who were 
 out of sympathy with the divisive attitude of 
 the Southern Democracy. Two of them were 
 from Georgia, five from Kentucky, one from 
 Louisiana, three from Maryland, three from 
 North Carolina, seven from Tennessee (as 
 against only three Democrats in the delegation 
 of that State), and one from Virginia (with 
 twelve Democrats completing the Virginia 
 delegation). 
 
 This session was perhaps the most turbulent 
 of any in the entire history of our national 
 legislature. For the first time in many years 
 the Democrats had lost control of the House, 
 although the Republicans had not gained a 
 clear majority. The balance of power lay with 
 the southern group representing the American 
 party. John Brown's execution had occurred 
 
CONGRESS MEETS IN BITTER DISSENSION 
 
 243 
 
 SOON TO BE OUT OF A JOB 
 
 Mrs. Columbia: "Well, Bridget, I guess we sha'n't want your services after next March." 
 Biddy Buchanan: "An' shure thin will yezz be afther giving me back me charackther?' 
 
 (This cartoon from Vanity Fair of April 7, 1860, reflects some of the dissatisfaction with 
 Buchanan that developed in the latter part of his administration. Neither North nor South was 
 pleased, and it was evident that the President would not be renominated. Wheatland, which appears 
 on Buchanan's handbag, was the name of his estate near Lancaster, Pennsylvania). 
 
 only three days before Congress convened. 
 The South was in a state of frenzied alarm 
 over that incident. Governor Wise of Virginia 
 was leading his State in all kinds of local 
 preparations for military defense. The disposi- 
 tion to make a martyr out of John Brown 
 throughout the North was too evident to be 
 successfully denied. Idealists in England were 
 already eulogizing him as a hero, and a pane- 
 gyric of Victor Hugo in France was prophetic 
 and eloquent. For a number of years the 
 South had been aggressive in its determination 
 to nationalize the institution of slavery, and it 
 had been greatly annoyed by the Abolitionist 
 propaganda. But the exasperation and alarm 
 had been rather in the North than in the South. 
 The Slave States had been so much more suc- 
 cessful in political management, and their 
 
 leaders so much more confident, that they were 
 not profoundly disturbed until the tide had 
 seemed to turn against them with the failure 
 of their Kansas policy. But in the winter of 
 i859-'6o they were exasperated beyond all 
 hope that calm attemots at reconciliation could 
 influence them. 
 
 The House assembled in the newly com- 
 pleted wing of the Capitol after having used 
 what is the present Statuary Hall for several 
 decades. The seating arrangement brought 
 members into dangerously close contact with 
 one another, benches having been substituted 
 for individual desks and chairs. Gentlemen 
 who would have gone hungry rather than 
 shoot a rabbit or decapitate a chicken, found 
 themselves carrying revolvers to every sitting 
 of Congress ; while some of the Southern 
 
244 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 members carried two guns apiece besides 
 bowie knives. Rancor and recrimination were 
 without restraint. 
 
 With only the clerk of the House to act as 
 temporary chairman, long weeks were occu- 
 pied in a stubborn dispute over the election of 
 the Speaker. Mr. Fuller in his useful work 
 on "The Speakers of the House" remarks that 
 "the Republican party, although in the ma- 
 jority [meaning plurality], was such a loose 
 coalition that it was unable to complete the 
 organization of the House except by assistance 
 from without the party." Referring to Con- 
 gressional personalities he observes : "Colfax 
 of Indiana, the eloquent Burlingame of 
 Massachusetts, Morrill of Vermont, Grow and 
 Covode of Pennsylvania, all were destined to 
 political fame. Tom Corwin and Thaddeus 
 Stevens were back again amid the unfamiliar 
 scenes of the new legislative chamber. William 
 Pennington, a former Governor of New Jer- 
 sey, took the oath of office for the first 
 time. Charles Francis Adams, now a national 
 figure of heroic proportions, mingled with 
 such novitiates as Train, of his own State, 
 Windom of Minnesota, and Roscoe Conkling 
 of New York." 
 
 Looking across to the Democratic side, Mr. 
 Fuller notes "Sunset" Cox and Pendleton of 
 Ohio, together with Vallandigham from the 
 same State, one of the most partisan slave ad- 
 vocates. "The talented Lucius Lamar an- 
 swered the roll call for Mississippi, and Sickles 
 of New York, who in defense of his family 
 honor had but recently shot the brother of 
 that Key who wrote the Star Spangled Ban- 
 ner, with Logan and McClernand from Illi- 
 nois. Among the so-called independent mem- 
 bers were Gilmer and Vance of North Caro- 
 lina, Hickman of Pennsylvania, Henry Winter 
 Davis of Maryland, and Maynard and Ether- 
 idge of Tennessee." 
 
 On the first ballot for Speaker the Demo- 
 crats gave Thomas S. Bocock of Virginia 86 
 votes. The Republicans cast 66 ballots for 
 John Sherman of Ohio and 43 for Galusha 
 A. Grow of Pennsylvania, whereupon Mr. 
 Grow immediately withdrew his name in favor 
 of Sherman. 
 
 Representative Clark of Missouri then in- 
 
 troduced a resolution that was so important in 
 its consequences that it can never be omitted 
 from the record of significant things in the 
 history of American politics. Fame beyond its 
 merits had suddenly overtaken a book, first 
 published in 1857, entitled "The Impending 
 Crisis of the South" by a previously obscure 
 and unknown citizen of North Carolina named 
 Helper. The apparent object of the book had 
 been to arouse the non-slaveholding Whites of 
 the South, who were in the large majority, 
 against the slaveholders on the one hand and 
 against the Negroes on the other. 
 
 The Abolitionists of the North had been 
 making their attack upon slavery from the 
 standpoint of the rights of the Negroes as 
 human beings. Helper's book approached the 
 subject from a totally different angle. Mrs. 
 Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was circulating 
 throughout the North in edition after edition. 
 It had carried the sentimental appeal against 
 American slavery to the Liberal elements of 
 Great Britain and continental Europe. It had 
 instantly made its dramatized appearance 
 in the theaters of the Northern cities and towns. 
 John Brown's gesture had aimed at arousing 
 the Negroes themselves to insurrection after 
 the manner of the Blacks in Santo Domingo; 
 and although it was a failure in the immediate 
 and practical sense, it was justly regarded in 
 the South as having a most dangerous bearing 
 upon future conditions. 
 
 It was partly because the Helper book came 
 as an added grievance that it provoked so great 
 excitement. But the real complaint lay not 
 so much in the fact that the book was written 
 and published, as in the use that had been made 
 by Northern Republican politicians in the re- 
 cent congressional campaign of this ill-written 
 and violent attack by a Southerner on South- 
 ern institutions. A condensed edition of "The 
 Impending Crisis" had been prepared for free 
 distribution throughout the North, and widely 
 read. Those who were circulating this edition 
 had gained publicity and influence for it by 
 publishing the names of a long list of men 
 giving their endorsement. The list included 
 the names of about seventy Republican Con- 
 gressmen, two of them being Galusha Grow 
 and John Sherman. 
 
CONGRESS MEETS IN BITTER DISSENSION 
 
 245 
 
 We may now quote the resolution offered by 
 Clark of Missouri, immediately after the in- 
 itial ballot for Speaker : 
 
 Whereas certain members of this House, now in 
 nomination for Speaker, did endorse and recommend 
 the book hereinafter mentioned, Resolved, that the 
 doctrines and sentiments of a certain book called 
 "The Impending Crisis of the South — How to Meet 
 It," purporting to have been written by one Hinton 
 R. Helper, are insurrectionary and hostile to the 
 domestic peace and tranquillity of the country, and 
 that no member of this House who has endorsed 
 and recommended it is fit to be chosen to be 
 Speaker of this House. 
 
 It is difficult now to realize the upheaval 
 that was caused by Clark's motion. The Re- 
 publicans were taken by surprise and met the 
 attack with confused evasions and apologies, 
 but the Democrats were merciless in their furi- 
 ous onslaught. John Sherman could not deny 
 having allowed his name to appear in the list 
 of those endorsing the book, but he explained 
 that he had not actually read Helper, and was 
 not aware of the provocative character of por- 
 tions of that trouble-making volume. As Mr. 
 Fuller puts it, "to desert Sherman, whom the 
 Republicans had supported on the first ballot, 
 would be a confession of error and an admis- 
 sion that they had been bullied by the fire- 
 eating slaveholders. On the other hand, to 
 persist in their support of this candidate would 
 proclaim their adherence to Helper's doctrines, 
 and for this they were not prepared." 
 
 Clark held the advantage and persisted in 
 quoting incendiary passages from Helper's 
 book, and in reading the names of all those 
 who had indorsed it. Mr. Millson, a foremost 
 Southern leader, declared that "one who con- 
 sciously, deliberately, and of purpose, lent his 
 name and influence to the propagation of such 
 writings, is not only not fit to be Speaker, but 
 is not fit to live." Thaddeus Stevens of Penn- 
 sylvania, as masterful and uncompromising as 
 any of the Southern members, contributed to 
 the exchange of invectives. 
 
 It was eight weeks before the raging battle 
 of vituperative oratory ended in the election of 
 Mr. Pennington of New Jersey as Speaker, 
 with 117 votes in his favor, this number con- 
 stituting the smallest possible majority. At 
 one time Sherman had come within three votes 
 
 JOHN SHERMAN (1823-1900) 
 A member of Congress since 18SS, John Sherman of Ohio 
 was brought into prominence by the Speakership contest 
 of 1859-60. His long career in the Senate, beginning in 
 1861, was broken by his service as Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury in the Hayes administration. In that office he brought 
 about the resumption of specie payments in 1879. Return- 
 ing to the Senate, he was the author of two important 
 statutes — the Sherman Silver Law and the Sherman Anti- 
 Trust Law. He left the Senate in 1897 to become McKin- 
 ley's Secretary of State, but resigned soon after the be- 
 ginning of the war with Spain and died two years later. 
 The portrait reproduced here was published during the 
 Speakership contest. It was seen by John Sherman's elder 
 brother, William T. Sherman — later famous as a General 
 but then Superintendent of the Louisiana State Military 
 Academy — who expressed this opinion: "I see you are suf- 
 fering some of the penalties of greatness, having an awful 
 likeness paraded in Harper's, to decorate the walls of 
 country inns." 
 
 of election, while at another time an American 
 named Smith, of North Carolina, had received 
 enough Democratic support to have been 
 elected but for the switching of several North- 
 ern votes. Congress had begun balloting on 
 December 5, 1859, and had elected a Speaker 
 on February 1, i860. Four years earlier, 
 Banks had been elected Speaker after a dead- 
 lock that had lasted even three days longer 
 than this one of i860. But that contest had 
 been marked by courtesy and good humor, 
 when compared with the violence and bitter- 
 ness of the struggle that defeated Sherman. 
 
246 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 We have an interesting light upon John 
 Sherman's position in the volume entitled "The 
 Sherman Letters." For a period of fifty- four 
 years, John Sherman and his brother, Gen. 
 William T. Sherman, maintained a correspon- 
 dence, a large part of which 
 was devoted to the discussion 
 of current public affairs. The 
 letters were edited by General 
 Sherman's daughter and pub- 
 lished in 1894. In 1859 Wil- 
 liam T. Sherman was the sup- 
 erintendent of the Louisiana 
 Military Academy. On Decem- 
 ber 1 2th, he wrote a letter 
 from New Orleans in which 
 the following sentences occur : 
 "I have watched the des- 
 patches, which are up to De- 
 cember 10th, and hoped your 
 election would occur without 
 the usual excitement, and be- 
 lieve such would have been the 
 case had it not been for your 
 signing for that Helper's 
 Book. Of it I know nothing; 
 but extracts made copiously 
 in Southern papers show it to 
 be not only abolition, but as- 
 sailing. Now I hoped you 
 would be theoretical and not 
 practical ; for practical aboli- 
 tion is disunion, civil war, and 
 anarchy universal on this con- 
 tinent, and I do not believe you 
 want that. I do hope the dis- 
 cussion in Congress will not be 
 protracted, and that your elec- 
 tion, if possible, will occur 
 soon. Write me how you came 
 to sign for that book. Now 
 that you are in, I hope you will 
 conduct yourself manfully. 
 Bear with taunts as far as pos- 
 sible, biding your time to re- 
 taliate. An opportunity always 
 occurs." 
 
 John Sherman did not reply 
 until December 24th, when he 
 wrote as follows : "You ask 
 
 AN UNSATISFACTORY HELPER 
 IN THE HOUSE 
 
 John Sherman was to have been 
 Speaker of the House, in the Repub- 
 lican Congress which met in Decem- 
 ber, 18S9. But he had endorsed a 
 book on slavery, by a man named 
 Helper, that was offensive to the 
 South ; and the incident actually 
 prevented his election. It is John 
 Sherman who appears in this role of 
 "helper in the house." 
 
 why I signed the recommendation of the 
 Helper Book. It was a thoughtless, foolish, 
 and unfortunate act. I relied upon the rep- 
 resentation that it was a political tract, to be 
 published under the supervision of a commit- 
 tee of which Mr. Blair, a slave- 
 holder, was a member. I was 
 assured that there should be 
 nothing offensive in it, and so, 
 in the hurry of business of the 
 House, I told Morgan, a mem- 
 ber of the last Congress, to use 
 my name. I never read the 
 book, knew nothing of it, and 
 now cannot recall that I au- 
 thorized the use of my name. 
 Everybody knows that the 
 ultra sentiments in the book 
 are as obnoxious to me as they 
 can be to any one ; and in 
 proper circumstances I would 
 distinctly say so, but under the 
 threat of Clark's resolution, I 
 could not, with self respect, 
 say more than I have. Whether 
 elected or not, I will at a proper 
 time disclaim all sympathy 
 with agrarianism, insurrec- 
 tion, and other abominations 
 in the book." 
 
 This illuminating letter was 
 followed by a most readable 
 and interesting one from 
 Brother William; but I must 
 not yield to the temptation to 
 quote the Sherman letters ad 
 infinitum. I may therefore re- 
 mark that Brother William, 
 writing on January 16th says : 
 "If Pennington succeeds, he 
 will of course give you some 
 conspicuous committee, prob- 
 ably quite as well for you in 
 the long run as Speaker." As 
 a matter of fact, Speaker Pen- 
 nington did give Brother John 
 the most important appoint- 
 ment possible, the chairman- 
 ship of the Ways and Means 
 Committee. 
 
CONGRESS MEETS IN BITTER DISSENSION 
 
 247 
 
 I may make one more brief quotation 
 from this brotherly letter sent from Louisi- 
 ana : "I was in hopes the crisis would have 
 been deferred till the States of the North- 
 west became so populous as to hold both 
 extremes in check. Disunion would be civil 
 war, and you politicians would lose all 
 charm. Military men would then step on 
 the tapis, and you would have to retire. 
 Though you think such a thing absurd, it is 
 not so, and there would be vast numbers 
 who would think the change for the better." 
 
 President Buchanan's annual message of 
 that session bears the official date of De- 
 cember 19th, but in point of fact he did not 
 send it to Congress until December 27th. 
 It was read in the Senate and printed in the 
 newspapers, but was left unnoticed in the 
 House until some time after. There had 
 been no adjournment for holidays, the 
 House having kept up its wrangling on 
 Christmas Day and continuously thereafter. 
 In defeating Sherman, the South had won 
 in a practical way, although the Clark reso- 
 lution never came to a vote. 
 
 Buchanan in his message moralized in 
 polite and mild phrases, warning against 
 the danger of agitation and declaring that 
 "those who announce abstract doctrines 
 subversive of the Constitution and the Union, 
 must not be surprised should their heated 
 partisans advance one step further and at- 
 tempt by violence to carry these doctrines into 
 practical effect." 
 
 After much disquieting comment, however, 
 he resumed a cheerful tone, declaring: "But I 
 indulge in no such gloomy forebodings." He 
 reviewed with much elaboration the history of 
 the African slave-trade, taking strong grounds 
 against reopening that traffic. He tried tc 
 make this discussion agreeable at once to th< 
 North and to the South. Undoubtedly his ex 
 pressions were sincere, but they were too mild 
 and innocuous to suit the temper of either 
 section. The message was very long, and it 
 gave much more extended treatment to our re- 
 lations with Mexico than to the questions that 
 were agitating Congress. He seriously pro- 
 posed our intervention and occupation of 
 Mexico, that republic being, as he declared, "in 
 
 TOO MUCH CRINOLINE 
 One way of stating the obvious fact that John Sherman had 
 been sadly hampered by his thoughtless endorsement of "The 
 Impending Crisis." Senator Seward of New York looks on. 
 It is a New York cartoon, which appeared in the eighth week 
 of the deadlock over the speakership. 
 
 a state of anarchy and confusion from which 
 she is proved to be wholly unable to extricate 
 herself." 
 
 In March, i860, the House of Representa- 
 tives adopted a resolution calling for the ap- 
 pointment of a committee of five members by 
 the Speaker, one object of which was to inves- 
 tigate the question whetber the President had 
 sought by improper means to influence the 
 actions of Congress in any matter relating 
 "to the rights of any State or Territory." 
 Buchanan on March 28th sent a vigorous pro- 
 test, and asserted his personal and official in- 
 tegrity throughout a long career of public 
 service. Referring to George Washington's 
 exasperation at false charges made during his. 
 Presidency, Buchanan declared : "I may now, 
 however, exclaim in the language of complaint 
 employed by my first and greatest predecessor, 
 that I have been abused 'in such exaggerated 
 and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied 
 
248 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 to a Nero, to a notorious defaulter, or even to 
 a common pickpocket'." It was, certainly, not 
 appropriate to have investigated President 
 Buchanan's conduct by the precise methods 
 that this first Republican House had chosen to 
 employ. But the situation afforded merely 
 another evidence of the extremes to which sec- 
 tional antagonism had driven both parties. 
 
 This was the long session of the Thirty- 
 sixth Congress, and in so far as oratory in the 
 two chambers of the Capitol was concerned, it 
 brought to a climax all the personal and sec- 
 tional bitterness and vituperation of the quar- 
 rel over slavery that had been gaining in de- 
 structive momentum for many years. In the 
 Senate, leaders were shaping arguments for 
 the platforms upon which the presidential con- 
 test was soon to be fought out. Party conven- 
 tions were to be held in April and May, the 
 Democrats meeting at Charleston, South 
 Carolina, and the Republicans at Chicago, 
 with Congress, as it turned out, remaining in 
 session until June 25th. 
 
 When this Congress met at the regular date 
 in December for its final session, the Novem- 
 ber election had been held and the Republicans 
 had been successful. Lincoln was to enter the 
 White House in three months. Most of the 
 Senators and Representatives returned to their 
 seats. But the movement for secession was defi- 
 nitely under way in South Carolina, to be 
 followed rapidly by like activities in other 
 States of the lower South. The Southerners 
 in Washington were preparing to give up their 
 rooms and pack their trunks for home. 
 
 It is in the records of the previous long 
 session, therefore, that one finds most of the 
 political history of this last Congress of the 
 Buchanan Administration — the last one also 
 of the ante-bellum period. 
 
 In the Senate, Jefferson Davis had in Feb- 
 ruary introduced a series of resolutions af- 
 firming the Southern view of the nature of the 
 Federal Government and the rights of the 
 States. He denied that Congress had power 
 to forbid slavery in the Territories, and with 
 equal vigor he opposed the Douglas doctrine 
 that the Territories themselves had any right, 
 whether legal or inherent, to interfere with a 
 slaveholder's possession and use of his prop- 
 
 erty. The rights of slaveholders ought, ac- 
 cording to Mr. Davis, to be upheld by Federal 
 laws and executive action. Senator Douglas, 
 on his part, adhered firmly to his doctrine of 
 popular sovereignty. The people of the Ter- 
 ritories should decide the slavery question for 
 themselves, according to Douglas and the 
 Northern Democrats. 
 
 Thus while Lincoln was speaking in New 
 York and New England, Davis and Douglas 
 were debating in the Senate the doctrines 
 upon which they were seeking, as rivals, to 
 shape the platforms of the Democratic con- 
 vention. Seward in the Senate was discuss- 
 ing slavery from the Republican standpoint, 
 taking a tone more conciliatory than had 
 been his custom, in view of the confident 
 expectation that he was to be the Republican 
 nominee, and would need the votes of mod- 
 erate as well as extreme opponents of slavery. 
 In those weeks Douglas, Davis, and Seward 
 were the foremost political figures of the 
 country, with Lincoln's star now well above 
 the horizon. 
 
 The Republican House had passed various 
 measures that the Democratic Senate had re- 
 jected. Thus the Territory of New Mexico, 
 acting upon the Douglas doctrine, and setting 
 at naught the prophecies of Daniel Webster, 
 had actually established slavery and provided 
 a drastic code for the encouragement of that 
 institution. The House at Washington passed 
 a bill sweeping away that New Mexico pro- 
 vision, but the Senate did not concur. The 
 House voted to admit Kansas as a State under 
 a free constitution that had been adopted at 
 Wyandotte, but again the Senate would not 
 agree. The Morrill tariff bill, somewhat in- 
 creasing duties, was passed in the House but 
 was not acted upon by Senators. The House 
 stood for a liberal land law to settle the west- 
 ern prairies, and it accepted the Senate's less 
 generous amendments ; but President Buch- 
 anan vetoed the measure. Early in Lincoln's 
 Administration all these measures — the Mor- 
 rill Tariff, the Homestead bill, the admission 
 of Kansas, and the repudiation of slavery in 
 New Mexico and elsewhere in the Territories 
 — were adopted by Republican votes in both 
 houses, with Southern seats ominously vacant. 
 
SOUTK 
 
 MISS COLUMBIA CALLS HER UNRULY SCHOOL TO ORDER 
 On the Southern side of this national schoolroom we see the writing on the wall, "Let us alone!" On the 
 Northern side of the room Senator Seward of New York, is falling over his "Irrepressible Conflict" slate. It 
 
 is a New York cartoon, dated January 7, 1860. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 Lincoln Addresses the East 
 
 He visits New York and speaks in Cooper Union — A notable effort 
 
 that makes him a national figure — His brief speaking tour in New 
 
 England strengthens the Republican cause 
 
 The long debate over the Speakership 
 had made the threats of Secession 
 increasingly frequent and definite. 
 Names were mentioned without hesitation. 
 Senator Seward was by all means the foremost 
 Republican candidate for the Presidency, as he 
 had now returned to Washington in restored 
 health from his extended travels abroad. 
 Southerners who had formerly been careful 
 and moderate in tone were saying freely that 
 the nomination and election of Seward would 
 be followed immediately by secession. Gov- 
 ernor Chase of Ohio, now a new member of 
 the Senate, was regarded by the South as even 
 a more pronounced anti-slavery man than 
 
 Seward ; and he would have been as little ac- 
 ceptable in the presidential role. 
 
 Lincoln's name was not on men's tongues at 
 Washington, because the Southern leaders had 
 their minds on Douglas as the presidential per- 
 sonality of Illinois and the West. They were 
 thinking of him altogether in terms of the ap- 
 proaching Charleston Democratic convention. 
 Douglas's position was becoming somewhat 
 ambiguous and isolated. He was still the 
 political idol of the Northern Democratic 
 masses, but he had fallen from grace in the 
 South ; and his recent partisan speeches in the 
 cotton States, with his visit to Cuba, had not 
 sufficed to restore his lost leadership. 
 
 249 
 
250 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 But although the Southern Democrats were 
 not at this time considering Lincoln as a prob- 
 able leader of the North, that maturing politi- 
 cal philosopher and statesman was thinking 
 more clearly, and with more accurate percep- 
 tion of realities, than any other man in the en- 
 tire list of presidential possibilities. While 
 Congress was still wrangling over the Speaker- 
 ship, Lincoln was following events and cor- 
 responding extensively with men in the border 
 States. He was confident that the North would 
 hold together, and he also knew that the lower 
 South would be united under the leadership of 
 men like Jefferson Davis and Senator Toombs. 
 But he was strongly hoping to keep the border 
 States on the side of the Union. We are 
 fortunate in having in Mr. Tracy's collection 
 of letters of Abraham Lincoln, the following, 
 written December 22, 1859, to the famous 
 Unionist Senator of Kentucky, John J. Crit- 
 tenden : 
 
 December 22, 1859. 
 Address Springfield, Illinois 
 
 Hon. J. J. Crittenden, 
 U. S. Senate. 
 
 My dear Sir : I should not care to be a candidate 
 of a party having as its only platform "The Consti- 
 tution, the Union and the enforcement of the laws." 
 "The Constitution," as we understand it, has been 
 the shibboleth of every party or malcontent from 
 the Hartford Convention that wanted to secede 
 from slave territory and the "Blue Light" burners 
 who were in British sympathy in 1812, to John C. 
 Calhoun and South Carolina Nullification. 
 
 The Union, we intend to keep, and loyal states 
 will not let disloyal ones break it. Its constitution 
 and laws made in pursuance thereof must and shall 
 remain, "the supreme law of the land." The en- 
 forcement of what laws? If they are those which 
 give the use of jails and domestic police for masters 
 seeking "fugitives from labor," that means war in 
 the North. No law is stronger than is the public 
 sentiment where it is to be enforced. Free speech 
 and discussion and immunity from whip and tar and 
 feathers seem implied by the guarantee to each state 
 of "a republican form of government." Try Henry 
 Clay's "gradual emancipation" scheme now in Ken- 
 tucky, or to circulate W. L. Garrison's Liberator 
 where the most men are salivated by the excessive 
 use of the Charleston Mercury. Father told a story 
 of a man in your parts required to give a warrantee 
 bill of sale with a horse. He wrote, "I warrant him 
 sound in skin and skeleton and without faults or 
 faculties." That is more than I can say of an un- 
 
 meaning platform. Compromises of principles break 
 of their own weight. 
 
 Yours very respectfully, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Lincoln had been spending part of the 
 month of December in a visit to Kansas, where 
 he gave a series of lectures and addresses. Just 
 as in his Cincinnati speech he had talked across 
 the Ohio to the people of Kentucky, so now he 
 made an appeal to the voters of Missouri in 
 his political address at the Kansas border town 
 of Atchison. This was in pursuance of his ef- 
 fort to keep the northernmost of the slave 
 states from drifting to an alliance with the 
 lower South. His appeal to the Missourians 
 was very explicit. As shown in the letter to 
 Crittenden, Lincoln's analysis of the state of 
 the country was better than that of any other 
 man whose expressions of that season are pre- 
 served for our study. The following remarks, 
 from his talk to the Missourians as he looked 
 across at their fine State from the Kansas side 
 of the Missouri River at Atchison, are typical 
 of his extemporaneous manner : 
 
 But you Democrats are for the Union ; and you 
 greatly fear the success of the Republicans would 
 destroy the Union. Why? Do the Republicans de- 
 clare against the Union? Nothing like it. Your 
 own statement of it is that if the Black Republicans 
 elect a President, you "won't stand it." You will 
 break up the Union. If we shall constitutionally 
 elect a President, it will be our duty to see that you 
 submit. Old John Brown has been executed for 
 treason against a State. We can not object, even 
 though he agreed with us in thinking slavery wrong. 
 That can not excuse violence, bloodshed and trea- 
 son. 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 ex- 
 treme measures necessary. 
 
 It was now high time that Lincoln should 
 come to the East to stand or fall under the 
 criticism of such New York editors as Horace 
 Greeley of the Tribune and Henry J. Raymond 
 of the Times, and to let the Republicans of 
 New York and New England take the measure 
 of a western Republican about whom they had 
 heard somewhat, but who was not in their 
 
LINCOLN ADDRESSES THE EAST 
 
 251 
 
 calculations as a rival of Seward for the Presi- 
 dency. On the 27th of February Lincoln made 
 his Cooper Union speech in New York City 
 and thereupon the East proclaimed the dis- 
 covery of a new leader of the first rank. 
 
 Henry WardBeecher's far-famed Plymouth 
 Church in Brooklyn had been carrying on a 
 series of general lectures; and Mr. Beecher, 
 who had lived in the West and as a public lec- 
 turer was now from time to time speaking in 
 the States beyond the Alleghenies, was well 
 aware of the position Lincoln had gained in 
 the debates with Douglas, and knew him as a 
 picturesque platform character. Accordingly, 
 Mr. Beecher and his lecture committee had in- 
 vited Lincoln to come to Brooklyn to give one 
 of the weekly lectures in the course they were 
 arranging for that season. 
 
 As the time approached, however, it was 
 agreed that Lincoln should be permitted, in 
 view of the excitement of the entire country 
 following the John Brown episode, to make 
 a political address rather than to deliver a lec- 
 ture on some non-political theme. And, with 
 this change in the plans, the arrangements 
 passed from the hands of Beecher's lecture 
 committee to those of the Young Men's Re- 
 publican Union of New York. The best avail- 
 able place for the address was the great hall 
 of the new Cooper Institute that had been built 
 by the philanthropist, Peter Cooper, for pur- 
 poses of popular education. 
 
 Lincoln's previous speeches, while reason- 
 able and persuasive rather than bitterly contro- 
 versial, had almost invariably been made in the 
 heat of electoral campaigns, with a view to in- 
 fluencing voters in an immediate contest. On 
 this occasion the invitation, conveyed in a let- 
 ter written by Mr. Charles C. Nott (after- 
 wards a distinguished Judge), dated February 
 9, i860, was in the following terms: "The 
 Young Men's Central Republican Union of 
 this city, very cordially desire that you should 
 deliver during the ensuing month, what I may 
 term a political lecture." The letter further 
 explained that this was to be one of a series, 
 the first having been delivered by Mr. Blair of 
 St. Louis (himself a Republican favorite who 
 afterwards became a member of Lincoln's 
 Cabinet), and the second by Mr. Cassius M. 
 
 "A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF CANNOT 
 STAND" 
 An expression used by Lincoln in June, 18S8, in accepting 
 his nomination for the Illinois senatorship, became familiar 
 throughout the country in the three years that followed. 
 "I do not expect this house to fall," he continued, "but I 
 do expect it will cease to be divided." 
 
 Clay of Kentucky, famous as an orator, who 
 afterwards became Lincoln's influential Min- 
 ister to Russia, having come near success as 
 Hamlin's rival at Chicago for second place on 
 the Lincoln ticket. "These lectures," Mr. 
 Nott explained to Mr. Lincoln, "have been 
 contrived to call out our better but busier citi- 
 zens who never attend political meetings." Mr. 
 Nott ended his letter by saying: "You are, I 
 believe, an entire stranger to your Republican 
 brethren here; but they have for you the high- 
 est esteem, and your celebrated contest with 
 Judge Douglas awoke their warmest sympathy 
 and admiration. Those of us who are in the 
 ranks would regard your presence as of very 
 material aid and as an honor and pleasure 
 which I cannot sufficiently express." 
 
 These compliments, while doubtless sincere, 
 were somewhat overdrawn as regards the 
 
252 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 reputation that had preceded "an entire 
 stranger" who arrived at the old Astor House 
 in New York with much misgiving on the 
 Saturday before Monday's address, and who 
 went on Sunday to hear Beecher preach, as was 
 the fashion for western visitors, for a full 
 quarter-century. 
 
 It was not, therefore, to deliver a stump 
 speech that Lincoln came to New York, but 
 with the full understanding that he was to 
 make an address dealing with fundamental 
 principles and intended for an audience of 
 highly intelligent character, rather than for an 
 ordinary partisan mass meeting. William 
 Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Even- 
 ing Post, famous as a poet and a man of let- 
 ters, presided and introduced the speaker of 
 the evening, while David Dudley Field, emi- 
 nent at the bar, and brother of the Cyrus Field 
 w r ho had laid the Atlantic cable, escorted the 
 speaker to the platform. Horace Greeley of 
 the Tribune, Henry J. Raymond of the Times, 
 and many men prominent in business, in pro- 
 fessions, and in politics, were on the platform 
 or in the audience. 
 
 COOPER UNION, IN NEW YORK, WHERE LINCOLN SPOKE IN FEBRUARY, 1860 
 After Lincoln had accepted an invitation to deliver an address in Dr. Beecher's church in 
 Brooklyn, it seemed to those in charge of the meeting that a larger auditorium should be 
 secured. Cooper Union, across the river in New York City, was selected. It had recently 
 been erected through the generosity of Peter Cooper, designer and builder of the first 
 American steam locomotive, the practical application of his idea for the free instruction of 
 the working classes in science and art. Our picture shows the building as it was in 1860, 
 there having been minor changes in outward appearance made many years afterward. 
 
 We have numerous accounts of the occasion, 
 some of them contemporary and others re- 
 miniscent. They are all agreed in regarding the 
 speech itself as a masterly effort. The opin- 
 ion is general that Lincoln's success advanced 
 him at once to a position second only to that 
 of Seward as a possible nominee of the Re- 
 publican convention to be held less than three 
 months later in Chicago. Mr. Greeley, 
 as editor of the foremost Republican news- 
 paper, declared in the Tribune the following 
 morning: "Since the days of Clay and Web- 
 ster no one has spoken to a larger assemblage 
 of the intellect and mental culture of our city." 
 And he praised the speech in superlative terms. 
 Most Eastern men who had heard about Lin- 
 coln had thought of him as a shrewd, story- 
 telling son of the frontier, who had failed in 
 his campaign for the Senate, but had shown 
 much homespun ingenuity and cleverness in 
 his debates with the most brilliant and elo- 
 quent member of the United States Senate. 
 
 Precisely what Lincoln needed, therefore, 
 was the opportunity to show himself before a 
 New York audience of the highest intelligence 
 
 in his real character 
 as a thorough student 
 of our constitutional 
 history, as a master 
 of diction perfectly 
 suited to his theme, 
 and as a man of dig- 
 nified personality, far 
 removed from the 
 grotesque mounte- 
 bank about whose un- 
 couthness there had 
 been many rumors 
 afloat. If Seward, 
 whose pre - eminent 
 qualifications as a 
 leader were not in 
 dispute, should prove 
 for certain reasons to 
 be disqualified as a 
 vote-getter, who else 
 could be selected as 
 the best compromise 
 candidate ? The an- 
 swer to that question 
 
LINCOLN ADDRESSES THE EAST 
 
 253 
 
 was found in this successful appear- 
 ance of Lincoln for the first time on 
 a New York platform. 
 
 One of the men most prominent on 
 that occasion was the New York pub- 
 lisher, George P. Putnam. His son, 
 George Haven Putnam, who was 
 then a boy of nearly sixteen, and who 
 was destined not much later to enter 
 the army as a volunteer, attended this 
 meeting with his father. In 1909, on 
 occasion of the centenary of Lincoln's 
 birth, Major Putnam delivered an ex- 
 tended address on Lincoln's life and 
 career, which he soon afterwards ex- 
 panded and published as an admir- 
 able volume. He printed the Cooper 
 Union speech and the correspondence 
 accompanying it as an appendix. The 
 occasion itself and the bearings of the 
 speech are so well described by Major 
 Putnam, that I think it well to quote 
 at some length from his chapter deal- 
 ing with that episode : 
 
 The Committee of Invitation included, 
 in addition to a group of the old Whigs 
 (of whom my father was one), represen- 
 tative Free Soil Democrats like William 
 C. Bryant and John King. Lincoln's 
 methods as a political leader and orator 
 were known to one or two men on the 
 committee, but his name was still un- 
 familiar to an Eastern audience. It was 
 understood that the new leader from the 
 West was going to talk to New York about the fight 
 against slavery. It is probable that at least the larger 
 part of the audience expected something "wild and 
 woolly." 
 
 The West at that time seemed very far off from 
 New York and was still but little understood by the 
 Eastern communities. New Yorkers found it diffi- 
 cult to believe that a man who could influence West- 
 ern audiences could have anything to say that would 
 count with the cultivated citizens of the East. The 
 more optimistic of the hearers were hoping, how- 
 ever, that perhaps a new Henry Clay had arisen 
 and were looking for utterances of the ornate and 
 grandiloquent kind such as they had heard fre- 
 quently from Clay and from other statesmen of 
 the South. 
 
 The first impression of the man from the West 
 did nothing to contradict the expectation of some- 
 thing weird, rough, and uncultivated. The long, 
 ungainly figure upon which hung clothes that, while 
 
 i 
 
 *4 ** **f 
 
 
 
 
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 J^3 
 
 
 
 i SK^M 
 
 /^HFi*^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 L . -otf^|Pi 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 irlR 
 
 
 
 
 Ikr - W '?&■ 
 
 A LINCOLN PORTRAIT OF THE PERIOD 1858-60 
 This photograph, assigned by Lincoln authorities to the year 1854, 
 was actually taken as late as 1858. In that year the Chicago Tribune 
 absorbed the Democrat Press and became known as the Press and 
 Tribune, a copy of which Lincoln is holding. That name ceased to be 
 used in 1860. Our information regarding the date of the portrait was 
 confirmed by the editors of the Chicago Tribune. 
 
 new for this trip, were evidently the work of an 
 unskilful tailor; the large feet, and clumsy hands 
 of which, at the outset, at least, the orator seemed 
 to be unduly conscious ; the long, gaunt head, 
 capped by a shock of hair that seemed not to have 
 been thoroughly brushed out, made a picture which 
 did not fit in with New York's conception of a 
 finished statesman. The first utterance of the voice 
 was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being harsh 
 and the key too high. 
 
 As the speech progressed, however, the speaker 
 seemed to get into control of himself; the voice 
 gained a natural and impressive modulation, the 
 gestures were dignified and appropriate, and the 
 hearers came under the influence of the earnest 
 look from the deeply-set eyes and of the absolute 
 integrity of purpose and of devotion to principle 
 which were behind the thought and the words of the 
 speaker. In place of a "wild and woolly" talk, 
 illuminated by more or less incongruous anecdotes; 
 
254 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF DISUNION 
 
 The contrasting illustrations on these facing pages symbolize states of mind in 
 
 the North in 1860. They are the work of a distinguished artist, J. McNevin. 
 
 The editors of Harper's Weekly believed them to be so notable as to deserve, 
 
 each of them, a full page in that periodical. 
 
 in place of a high-strung exhortation of general 
 principles or of a fierce protest against Southern 
 arrogance, the New Yorkers had presented to them 
 a calm but forcible series of well-reasoned con- 
 siderations upon which their action as citizens was 
 to be based. 
 
 It was evident that the man from the West under- 
 stood thoroughly the constitutional history of the 
 country; he had mastered the issues that had grown 
 up about the slavery question ; he knew thoroughly, 
 and was prepared to respect, the rights of his politi- 
 cal opponents ; he knew with equal thoroughness the 
 
 rights of the men whose views 
 he was helping to shape and 
 he insisted that there should 
 be no wavering or weaken- 
 ing in regard to the enforce- 
 ment of those rights. He made 
 it clear that the continued exist- 
 ence of the nation depended 
 upon having these issues equit- 
 ably adjusted, and he held that 
 the equitable adjustment meant 
 the restriction of slavery within 
 its present boundaries. He main- 
 tained that such restrictions 
 were just and necessary as well 
 for the sake of fairness to the 
 blacks as for the final welfare 
 of the whites. 
 
 He insisted that the voters of 
 the present States of the Union 
 had upon them the largest pos- 
 sible measure of responsibility in 
 so controlling the great domain 
 of the Republic that the States 
 in which their children and their 
 grandchildren were to grow up 
 as citizens, must be preserved in 
 full liberty, must be protected 
 against any invasion of an in- 
 stitution which represented bar- 
 barity. He maintained that such 
 a contention could interfere in 
 no way with the due recognition 
 of the legitimate property rights 
 of present owners of slaves. He 
 pointed out to the New Eng- 
 enders of the anti-slavery group 
 that the restriction of slavery 
 meant its early extermination. 
 
 He insisted that war for the 
 purpose of exterminating slav- 
 ery from existing slave territory 
 could not be justified. He was 
 prepared, for the purpose of de- 
 fending against slavery the na- 
 tional territory that was still 
 free, to take the risk of war 
 which the South threatened, be- 
 cause he believed that only through such defence 
 could the existence of the nation be maintained; 
 and he believed, further, that the maintenance of 
 the great Republic was essential, not only for the 
 interests of its own citizens, but for the interests of 
 free government throughout the world. He spoke 
 with full sympathy of the difficulties and problems 
 resting upon the South, and he insisted that the mat- 
 ters at issue could be adjusted only with a fair 
 recognition of these difficulties. Aggression from 
 either side of Mason and Dixon's Line must be 
 withstood. 
 
LINCOLN ADDRESSES THE EAST 
 
 255 
 
 I was but a boy when I first 
 looked upon the gaunt figure of 
 the man who was to become the 
 people's leader, and listened to 
 his calm but forcible arguments 
 in behalf of the principles of the 
 Republican party. It is not likely 
 that at the time I took in, with 
 any adequate appreciation, the 
 weight of the speaker's reason- 
 ing. I have read the address 
 more than once since, and it is, 
 of course, impossible to separate 
 my first impressions from my 
 later direct knowledge. I do re- 
 member that I was at once im- 
 pressed with the feeling that here 
 was a political leader whose 
 methods differed from those of 
 any politician to whom I had 
 listened. His contentions were 
 based not upon invective or 
 abuse of "the other fellow," but 
 purely on considerations of jus- 
 tice, on that everlasting principle 
 that what is just, and only what 
 is just, represents the largest and 
 highest interests of the nation 
 as a whole. 
 
 When first invited in the 
 previous autumn to appear in 
 the Plymouth Church lecture 
 course, Lincoln had not fully 
 realized the political signifi- 
 cance of his Eastern journey. 
 His acceptance had been 
 chiefly influenced by the fact 
 that his young son, Robert 
 Todd Lincoln, was attending 
 a New England school, Phil- 
 lips Exeter Academy, pre- 
 paring under much difficulty 
 to pass examinations for the 
 freshman class at Harvard. 
 Lincoln thought of the lecture as an opportun- 
 ity to come East and visit his son, who had 
 failed in his entrance examinations in the pre- 
 vious summer, and had been sent to the 
 Academy for an additional year of prepara- 
 tion, finally entering college in the fall of i860. 
 Mr. Barton remarks of Robert Lincoln that he 
 had been accustomed to say, with some touch 
 of humor, that if he had not failed in the sum- 
 mer of 1859 to pass in fifteen out of sixteen 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF UNION 
 
 A sectional difference of opinion over the Negro and his status in a free country 
 had lasted more than forty years, defying all attempts at solution and com- 
 promise. The fact that secession was a real possibility gave impetus to the 
 efforts of those who, like Lincoln, sought to preserve the Union. 
 
 subjects his father might have been less solicit- 
 ous and might not have delivered the Cooper 
 Union speech. 
 
 In the campaign of 1848 Lincoln had made 
 a few speeches in New England on behalf of 
 the Whig ticket headed by General Zachary 
 Taylor, the Louisiana slave-owner; and the 
 object of his arguments in Massachusetts at 
 that time had been to keep Whigs from going 
 over to the support of the new Free Soil move- 
 
256 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ment. But on this second trip he was himself 
 a leader of the anti-slavery movement, and 
 he was in demand for important public meet- 
 ings. First came a speech at Providence, and 
 next several speeches in Connecticut and New 
 Hampshire, all in the same week with the 
 Cooper Union speech. After spending Sun- 
 day with Robert, he made speeches at Hart- 
 ford, New Haven, Bridgeport and elsewhere 
 in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Local elec- 
 tions were pending, and undoubtedly Lincoln's 
 presence turned the scales and elected a Repub- 
 lican Governor of Connecticut. It was reas- 
 suring to Eastern Republicans to hear a leader 
 whose calmness and poised judgment con- 
 trasted well with the tendencies to hysteria that 
 were prevalent on account of recent occur- 
 rences. 
 
 The reactions of the Eastern trip were fav- 
 orable in Illinois, and Lincoln returned to find 
 himself steadily displacing Seward as the fav- 
 orite candidate of his own State for the nom- 
 ination. His friend Judd, as Illinois member 
 of the Republican National Committee, had 
 been shrewd enough well in advance to secure 
 
 the convention for Chicago. Meanwhile, the 
 influential Chicago Tribune, edited by Joseph 
 Medill, had come out for Lincoln just before 
 the Cooper Union speech, and it was increas- 
 ingly earnest in its support when it found itself 
 able to quote the praises of the now enthusias- 
 tic Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, 
 and further to report the triumphs of the New 
 England tour. 
 
 It was not necessary to report in Illinois 
 that on the night of February 17th, after the 
 Cooper Union speech, one or two very young 
 and unimportant Republicans of New York 
 had given the Illinois orator a bit of supper at 
 a club, and had then allowed him to go all 
 alone, in an otherwise empty horse-drawn 
 street-car, down Broadway to the old Astor 
 House, rather tired and depressed, wondering 
 what sort of an impression he had really made. 
 His next visit to New York was a year later, 
 when he traversed Broadway in an open 
 barouche drawn by four white horses, amidst 
 the applause of multitudes, on his way to be 
 inaugurated at Washington as President of 
 the United States. 
 
 WHY NOT HANG THEM ALL? 
 John Brown had been executed in Virginia for his insurrection at Harper's Ferry. But the Governor 
 of Virginia, Henry A. Wise, believed that punishment should not end there. The cartoon shows him 
 as desirous of dragging into his State, for prosecution, those Abolitionists of the North who were 
 held as partly responsible for John Brown's activities. The Abolitionists are: Joshua R. Giddings, 
 of Ohio, who was at that time a member of the House; William H. Seward, Senator from New York; 
 Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune; Frederick Douglass, the famous mulatto orator 
 and editor who had himself been a slave and had purchased his freedom; and Gerrit Smith, of New 
 York, intimate friend and financial supporter of John Brown. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abolitionist publications, plan to ex- 
 clude from the mails (1835), 67. 
 
 Abolitionists, activity of, 225-226; de- 
 nouncing the Union (cartoon of 
 
 1859, 237; failure to understand the 
 South, 166; ridiculed in the North 
 (cartoon), 208. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, named by 
 Free Soil party for Vice-President in 
 1848, 151. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, fatally stricken 
 in House, Lincoln being present, 142, 
 143; in cartoon of 1824, 37; in car- 
 toon of 1828, 43; in cartoon, 68; 
 portrait, 42. 
 
 Albert, Prince, in cartoon, 123. 
 
 Allen, Robert, letter of Lincoln to, 
 1836, 54. 
 
 Allen, William, as member of Cass 
 "cabinet," in lithograph poster of 
 1848, 132; in cartoon of 1848, 154. 
 
 Alton, 111., announcement of closing 
 Lincoln-Douglas debate at, 216. 
 
 American expansion, attitude of Pres- 
 ident Buchanan (cartoon), 221. 
 
 American party in campaign of 1856, 
 cartoon "The Great Presidential 
 Sweepstakes," 184. 
 
 Anti-Slavery Society, American, opera- 
 tions of, 66. 
 
 Ashburton Treaty, Punch cartoon of, 
 1342, 116. 
 
 Atchison, David, Senator from Mis- 
 souri, member of Senate Committee 
 on Territories, 170. 
 
 Atkinson, Gen. Henry, leads to vic- 
 tory over Black Hawk in 1832, 48. 
 
 Jjanks, Nathaniel P., of Massa- 
 chusetts, elected Speaker of Thirty- 
 fourth Congress, 176. 
 
 Barnard, George Grey, heroic statue of 
 Lincoln by, 131 ; sculptor's model 
 used in creating, 5. 
 
 "Barn-Burners," in campaign of 1848, 
 148. 
 
 Barry, William T., a member of Jack- 
 son's cabinet, 51. 
 
 Barton, William E., biographer of Lin- 
 coln, portrait, 127. 
 
 Bates, Edward, chairman of River and 
 Harbor Convention (1847), 126. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, in cartoon, 62- 
 63; in cartoons of 1856, 184, 187, 
 189; in cartoon, 229; portrait, 224. 
 
 Bell, John, of Tennessee, in cartoon of 
 
 1860, 193. 
 
 Bellew, Frank, cartoons by, 14, 247. 
 
 Bennett, James Gordon, in cartoons of 
 1856, 185, 191. 
 
 Benton, Thomas Hart, as member of 
 Cass "cabinet," in lithograph poster 
 of 1848, 132 ; as young man, 58 ; con- 
 sidered as Mexican War commander 
 
 (cartoon from Yankee Doodle), 
 136; in cartoons, 88, 102, 104, 106, 
 113, 114; in cartoon of 1848, 154; 
 portrait, 139. 
 
 Berrien, John M., resigns from Jack- 
 son's cabinet, 1831, 51. 
 
 Beveridge, Albert J., biographer of 
 Lincoln, portrait of, 127 ; compari- 
 son of Lincoln and Chief Justice 
 Marshall, 29-30; gives estimate of 
 Lincoln and Douglas in 1858, 197- 
 198. 
 
 Birney, James G., Liberty party's 
 candidate for President, 110-111. 
 
 Blair, Francis P., of Maryland, in 
 cartoon, 89 ; visits General Harri- 
 son at North Bend, Ohio, 90. 
 
 Black Hawk War (1832), Lincoln vol- 
 unteers for, 48. 
 
 Border Ruffians in Kansas, as pictured 
 in book by G. D. Brewerton, 168; 
 cartoon, 169. 
 
 Branch, John, resigns from Jackson's 
 cabinet, 1831, 51. 
 
 Breckinridge, John C, in cartoon of 
 1860, 193; nominated for Vice-Pres- 
 ident by Democrats at Cincinnati, 
 1856, 183. 
 
 Brewerton, G. D., author of "The War 
 in Kansas," 168. 
 
 Brooks, Preston S., assaults Senator 
 Charles Sumner (cartoon), 179. 
 
 Brown, John, as "Shubel Morgan," in 
 Kansas (portrait, 1858), 234; con- 
 temporary painting by Louis Ran- 
 som, 242 ; grave of (in Adirondacks), 
 240; in cartoons, 62-63, 229; in car- 
 toon of 1859, 238; comments of 
 Lincoln, Chase, Buchanan, and 
 Davis on raid at Harper's Ferry, 
 239-241 ; portrait, 235 ; raids in 
 Kansas and Virginia, 235-241 ; raids 
 settlement of Missourians in Kan- 
 sas, 180; tried and executed for 
 Harper's Ferry raid, 239. 
 
 Browne, Francis F., author of "Every- 
 day Life of Abraham Lincoln," 113. 
 
 Buchanan, James, in, cartoon of 1848, 
 152; in cartoon of 1852, 162; in car- 
 toons of 1856, 169, 176, 181, 184, 188, 
 189, 190, 191 ; in cartoon, 201 ; nomi- 
 nated for President by Democrats 
 at Cincinnati, 1856, 183, 186-188. 
 
 Buchanan, James, President, appeals 
 for harmony, 189-190; cabinet of, 
 190; in cartoons, 219, 222, 243; ex- 
 pansionist leanings of, 219-223; on 
 John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, 
 240-241; portrait, 223. 
 
 Buoholzer, H., cartoons by, 99, 102, 
 104, 106, 111, 113, 117. 
 
 Butler, Benjamin F., of Massachusetts, 
 in cartoon, 62-63. 
 
 Butler, Benjamin F., of New York, in 
 cartoon (1848), 153. 
 
 L^alhoun, John C, in cartoons, 68, 
 
 88, 102; in cartoons of 1844, 101, 
 103, 104, 106; in cartoons of 
 1848, 114, 132, 152, 154; in cartoon, 
 157; portrait, 109; Secretary of 
 State in Tyler's cabinet, 102. 
 
 Campaign of 1844, cartoons, 101, 103, 
 104; Whigs at Baltimore name Clay 
 and Frelinghuysen, 104-105; Dem- 
 ocratic convention, 108-110. 
 
 Campaign of 1848, Democrats at Bal- 
 timore, 148; Whigs meet at Phila- 
 delphia, 149; cartoons, 152, 154. 
 
 Campaign of 1852. cartoons, 163, 164, 
 165, 167, 176. 
 
 Campaign of 1856, cartoons, 176, 184, 
 185; Republican convention at 
 Philadelphia nominates Fremont 
 and Dayton, 182; Democrats at 
 Cincinnati nominate Buchanan and 
 Breckinridge, 183. 
 
 Capitol at Washington, when Lincoln 
 was in Congress, 135. 
 
 Caricaturists, in Europe and Amer- 
 ica, 11. 
 
 Carleton, G. W., cartoons by, 118, 122, 
 134. 
 
 Carson, Kit, in cartoon of 1856, 187. 
 
 Cartwright, Peter, Lincoln's opponent 
 for Congress in 1846, portrait, 116. 
 
 Cass, Lewis, in cartoons of 1848, 132, 
 133, 134, 152, 154; in cartoon of 
 1852, 162; in cartoons of 1856, 169, 
 176, 183, 190; Democratic nominee 
 for the Presidency in 1848, portrait, 
 130, 131, 149; Lincoln comments 
 upon military record of, 132-134; 
 Secretary of State in Buchanan's 
 cabinet, 190-191. 
 
 Charleston, 111., scene at fourth Lin- 
 coln-Douglas debate, September 18, 
 1858, 200. 
 
 Charlestown, Va., courthouse at, 241. 
 
 Charnwood, Lord, on Lincoln, 6-8. 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., comments on 
 John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, 
 240. 
 
 Chicago about 1847, 125. 
 
 Chittenden, Gen. H. M., statement of, 
 concerning Lincoln's visit to Coun- 
 cil Bluffs, Iowa, in 1859, 233. 
 
 Cincinnati platform of 1856 in car- 
 toon, 201. 
 
 Clark, Representative John B., of 
 Missouri, resolution of, on Helper's 
 "Impending Crisis" (1859), 245. 
 
 Clay, E. W., lithographic poster artist, 
 cartoons by, 57, 68, 80, 81, 85, 86, 88, 
 
 89, 100, 101, 119, 123, 124, 137, 152, 
 162, 167. 
 
 Clay, Henry, and Mrs. Clay (re- 
 produced from an original Brady 
 photograph), 160; Ashland, home of 
 114; in cartoons (1824), 37; (1836), 
 55; in cartoon of 1840, 58; in car- 
 
 259 
 
26o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 toons, 68, 86, 95, 99, 102; in car- 
 toons of 1844, 39, 100, 101, 103, 104, 
 111, 113, 114, 117; cartoons of 1848, 
 148, ISO, 151, 152; Lincoln becomes 
 supporter of, 40; meeting Presi- 
 dent Van Buren at Saratoga in 
 1840, 59; nominated for the Presi- 
 dency in 1832, 49-50; popular qual- 
 ities of, 38; portrait, 105. 
 
 Clay, Henry, jr., killed in Mexican 
 War, 115. 
 
 Compromise of 1850, as expounded by 
 Douglas, 178. 
 
 Connecticut, Lincoln visits in 1860, 256. 
 
 Cooper Union, New York, Lincoln's 
 address at, 251-256; in 1860, 252. 
 
 Council Bluffs, Iowa, Lincoln's visit to 
 (1859), 233-234. 
 
 Crawford, William H., in cartoon of 
 1824, 37. 
 
 Crittenden, John J., in cartoon of 
 1844, 100. 
 
 Crunelle, Leonard, statue of Lincoln 
 by, Freeport, 111., 212. 
 
 Cuba, annexation of, cartoons of 1856, 
 180, 181 ; cartoon of 1860, 232; and 
 United States, warning by President 
 Pierce against military expeditions, 
 181 ; filibustering in, Punch cartoon 
 on (1850), 180. 
 
 .L/aixas, George M., of Pennsylvania, 
 in cartoons, 99, 220; in cartoons of 
 1844, 103, 106, 107, 110, 113; por- 
 trait, 108. 
 
 Darley, F. O. C, engraving attributed 
 to, 177. 
 
 Daumier, Honore, French caricaturist, 
 cartoons Louis Napoleon, 140. 
 
 Davenport, Homer, cartoon by, 8. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, addresses Maine Agri- 
 cultural Society (1859), 230; in Lin- 
 coln cartoon by Thomas Nast, 128; 
 on John Brown's raid at Harper's 
 Ferry, 241 ; portrait, 138. 
 
 Dayton, William L., nominated for 
 Vice-President by Republican Con- 
 vention at Philadelphia in 1856, 182. 
 
 Democratic platform of 1840, 88. 
 
 Dickinson, Daniel S., in cartoon of 
 1852, 162. 
 
 District of Columbia, abolition of 
 slavery in, bill introduced by Lin- 
 coln, 64, 69-74. 
 
 Disunion, spirit of, (cartoon), in 
 Harper's Weekly, 254. 
 
 Dodge, Gen. Grenville M., meets Lin- 
 coln at Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 
 1859, 233-234. 
 
 "Donkey," Democratic, in two car- 
 toons of 1837, 84, 85. 
 
 Dorr's Rebellion in Rhode Island 
 (1840), 58. 
 
 Dough Faces (pro -slavery Democrats 
 of the North), in cartoon of 1856, 
 190. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., candidate for 
 Congress, 1838, 76; in cartoon, 183; 
 in cartoons of 1852, 162, 163; 
 in cartoons of 1856, 169, 176 
 190; in cartoon of 1858, 199; 
 in cartoons of 1860, 171, 193, 197, 
 
 206, 207, 211, 218; denounces Le- 
 compton (Kansas) constitution, 192; 
 loses democratic majority leader- 
 ship, 199-202; member of the Il- 
 linois legislature with Lincoln, 54 
 opposes Lincoln in debate over re 
 moval of capital to Springfield, 54 
 in political debate, 77; portraits of, 
 56, 194; replies to Lincoln's argu- 
 ment in address to the Springfield 
 convention (1858), 207-208; Spring- 
 field statue of, 202; United States 
 Senator, 1847, 124; visits Cuba in 
 summer of 1859, 2i2, 234. 
 
 Douglass, Frederick, in cartoon, 256. 
 
 Doyle, Richard, cartoons in London 
 Punch by, 71, 144. 
 
 "Dred Scott Decision" (1857), 191- 
 192 ; cartoon of 1860 showing effect 
 on candidacies, 193. 
 
 aLducation of Abraham Lincoln, 21- 
 31. 
 
 Elections of Lincoln, to Illinois Legis- 
 lature, 52, 53; to Congress, 123. 
 
 Emancipation, gradual in District of 
 Columbia, Lincoln's bill for, 64, 69- 
 74. 
 
 Expansion, attitude of President Buch- 
 anan (cartoon), 221. 
 
 .Tifty-four Forty or Fight," the 
 Oregon slogan of 1846, 121-122. 
 
 Field, David Dudley, attends River and 
 Harbor Convention at Chicago, 126. 
 
 Fillmore, Millard, in cartoons of 1856, 
 184, 188, 189, 191 ; named by Whigs 
 for Vice-President in 1848, 150; 
 President, in cartoon of 1852, 165 ; 
 portrait, 159. 
 
 Flatboat voyages of Lincoln, first 
 (1828), 31, 34; second (1831), 32, 
 34. 
 
 Forsyth, Constance, drawings by, 30, 
 31, 94. 
 
 France, election of president in (1848), 
 cartoon in London Punch, 144 ; ideal- 
 izes Lincoln (1873), 16; pays spolia- 
 tion claims, poster cartoon, 80. 
 
 Freeport, 111., statue of Lincoln to 
 commemorate Lincoln-Douglas de- 
 bate, 212. 
 
 Free Soil party nominates Van Buren 
 and Adams in 1848, 151; nomina- 
 tions of 1848 endorsed by Liberty 
 party (cartoon), 153 ; in 1856, forced 
 to accept slavery (cartoon), 176. 
 
 Frelinghuysen, Theodore, cartoons of 
 1844, 100, 102, 111, 117; portrait, 
 108. 
 
 Fremont, John C, Republican can- 
 didate for President, in cartoons of 
 1856, 174, 184-191; portrait, 182. 
 
 Fugitive Slave Law, in cartoons, 173, 
 205; northern nullification of, 178- 
 179. 
 
 Fugitive slaves escaping north, illus- 
 tration from "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 
 (1852), 73. 
 
 Fun, a London periodical, cartoons by 
 Matt Morgan and others, 2, 11, 17. 
 
 vJalesburc.Ill., re-enactment of Lin- 
 coln-Douglas debate scene at, 213. 
 
 Gardner, William, comments in his life 
 of Douglas on Lincoln-Douglas de- 
 bates, 196. 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, in cartoons, 
 117, 228; headings in Liberator 
 (1831-32), 66; dragged through 
 Boston streets by a mob, 67 ; por- 
 trait, 225. 
 
 Gentry, Allen, accompanies Lincoln on 
 flatboat to New Orleans, 32. 
 
 Giddings, Joshua R., Ohio, in cartoon, 
 256. 
 
 Gillray, James, English caricaturist, 
 cartoon by, 36. 
 
 Great Britain, abolition of slavery by 
 (1834), 74. 
 
 Greeley, Horace, account of overland 
 journey to California (1859), 230; 
 in cartoons, 62-63, 256; in cartoon of 
 1848, 153 ; in cartoon of 1852, 165 ; in 
 cartoons of 1856, 184, 185, 187, 189, 
 191; in cartoon of 1860, 141; comes 
 out for Lincoln (I860), 256; edi- 
 torials regularly read by Lincoln, 
 1848, 143, on the Lincoln-Douglas 
 contest for the senatorship, 194; in 
 new Republican party (1854), 175; 
 ride from Carson City (drawing), 
 231; visits the far west (1859), 231. 
 
 .Hale, John P., of New Hampshire, 
 named by abolitionists for President 
 in 1848, 151; Free Soil candidate 
 for President in 1852 (portrait), 
 158. 
 
 Halleck, Gen. Henry W., in cartoon, 
 62-63. 
 
 Hanks, John, accompanies Lincoln on 
 flatboat to New Orleans, 32. 
 
 Harper's Ferry, Va., arsenal at, 
 taking of engine house (drawing), 
 239; John Brown's raid on, 237-241. 
 
 Harper's Weekly (New York), sym- 
 bolic cartoons in, 254, 255. 
 
 Harrison, Frederic, contemporary Brit- 
 ish opinion of Lincoln, 8. 
 
 Harrison, William Henry, career of, 
 89-91; in cartoons, 68, 86; in car- 
 toons of 1836, 52, 55; in cartoons of 
 1840, 89, 92, 93, 94; defeated for 
 President in 1836, 56; elected Presi- 
 dent in 1840, 94; home of, at North 
 Bend, Ohio, 90, 95; at Vincennes, 
 Ind., 94. 
 
 Harrison, William Henry, President, 
 cabinet of, 99; death of, 97; por- 
 traits, 91. 
 
 Hartford Convention (1814), 35. 
 
 Hay, John, and John G. Nicolay, bio- 
 graphy and works of Lincoln, 10. 
 
 Helper, Hinton R., sentiments of, at- 
 tacked in Congress (1859), 245-246. 
 
 Herndon, William H., Lincoln's junior 
 law partner, portrait, 78; on Lin- 
 coln's reading, 26. 
 
 Hobbies of American politicians (1838), 
 cartoon, 68. 
 
 Hodgenville, Ky., Memorial at Lin- 
 coln's birthplace, 23. 
 
 Houston, Sam, in cartoons of 1848, 
 
INDEX 
 
 261 
 
 132, 154; in cartoons of 18S2, 162, 
 163. 
 "Hunkers" in campaign of 1848, 148. 
 
 Illinois, conditions when Lincoln was 
 in the Legislature, 25. 
 
 Illinois Legislature, Journal of the 
 House, March 3, 1837, protest of 
 Abraham Lincoln against resolutions 
 on slavery, 62-63 ; Lincoln a candi- 
 date for, 1832, 46-47 ; Lincoln's ex- 
 perience in, 5, 96. 
 
 Internal Improvements, demonstra- 
 tion for, River and Harbor Con- 
 vention at Chicago (1847), 126; 
 Lincoln favors, 47. 
 
 J ackson, Andrew, career of, 40 ; in 
 cartoons, 41, 99, 114; in cartoon of 
 1824, 37; in cartoon of 1828, 43; in 
 cartoons of 1836, 50, 55 ; in cartoon 
 of 1840, 58; in cartoons of 1844, 103, 
 104, 106; death of (1845), 142; per- 
 sonality of, characterized by John 
 C. Ridpath, 45-46; home of (the 
 Hermitage), 46; adoption of prin- 
 ciple, "To the victors belong the 
 spoils," by, 46 ; portrait, 47 ; visits 
 General Harrison at North Bend, 
 Ohio, 90. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, President, in car- 
 toons, 80, 81, 83, 86 ; Jackson policies, 
 Lincoln opposed to, 61 
 
 Johnson, Allen, account of Lincoln- 
 Douglas debates in biography of 
 Douglas, 198. 
 
 Johnson, Cave, in cartoons of 1844, 
 100, 101. 
 
 Johnston, John D., accompanies Lin- 
 coln on flatboat to New Orleans, 32. 
 
 Judd, Norman B., and Lincoln's visit 
 to Council Bluffs, Iowa (1859), 233. 
 
 K, 
 
 ^ansas, Border Ruffians in, illustra- 
 tions from "The War in Kansas," by 
 Brewerton, 168; cartoon, 169; war- 
 fare, 179-180; election of 1854, con- 
 trolled by armed men from Missouri 
 (contemporary engraving), 177; free 
 state convention in (Topeka, 1855), 
 210. 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill becomes a law, 
 May 30, 1854, 171. 
 
 Keitt, Laurence M., in cartoon, 228. 
 
 Kendall, Amos, in cartoons,, 52, 89; 
 in cartoon of 1848, 132, 154. 
 
 King, William Rufus, elected Vice- 
 President in 1852, portrait, 158. 
 
 Kladderadatsck of Berlin, cartoon on 
 American slavery question, 70. 
 
 "Know-Nothing party," see American 
 party. 
 
 Knox College, Galesburg, 111., scene of 
 Lincoln-Douglas debate, 1858, 213, 
 214. 
 
 Lafayette, General, reception in 
 United States, 1824-25, 44; re- 
 ceived by Jackson at the Hermitage, 
 
 1824, 45; at Independence Hall, 
 Philadelphia, 28; at the tomb of 
 Washington, 29; cartoon, 29. 
 
 Lawson, F. W., cartoon by, 17. 
 
 Lecompton, (Kansas) constitution, 192. 
 
 Lee, Col. Robert E., leads U.S. Marines 
 in taking John Brown at Harper's 
 Ferry, 238. 
 
 Leech, John, cartoons in London Punch 
 by, 65, 121. 
 
 Lexington, Kentucky, Lincoln visits to 
 hear Clay speak, 130; accepts Clay's 
 invitation to visit Ashland, 130. 
 
 Liberator of William Lloyd Garrison, 
 headings printed during 1831-32, 66. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, in cartoons, 3, 6, 
 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 128, 201, 251; in 
 cartoons of 1860, 141, 171, 193, 197, 
 218; stature: statement by Leonard 
 Volk (1860), 15; London Fun's com- 
 ment on re-election (1864), 17; 
 growth in appreciation, 20; educa- 
 tion, 21-31; birthplace, 22, 23; 
 genealogy, 23, 24; autobiography, 
 24-25 ; homes, 24 ; reading, 26-28 ; fa- 
 vors National Bank, 47 ; appointed 
 postmaster of New Salem, 1833, 51 ; 
 deputy county surveyor, 51; elec- 
 tion to the legislature 1834, 52; re- 
 elected to the legislature, 1836, 53; 
 portrait (about 1858), 61; protest 
 against resolutions on slavery by Il- 
 linois legislature, 1837, 62-63; bill 
 for gradual emancipation in District 
 of Columbia, 64, 69-74; speech on 
 United States Bank (1839), 78-86; 
 warns against destructive partisan- 
 ship, 98; aspiring for congressional 
 honors, 1844-46, 104; on the annexa- 
 tion of Texas, 113-114; nominated 
 for Congress May 1, 1846, 115; con- 
 tests election to Congress with Peter 
 Cartwright, 116-123; elected to 
 Congress, 1846, 123; in Congress 
 December 1847, 123; Whig member 
 of Congress from Illinois, 127; bio- 
 graphers of, 127; Thomas Nast's 
 conception of (cartoon), 128; 
 sketched for Vanity Fair (New 
 York) in 1860, 128; saw Chicago 
 and Lake Michigan in 1847, 129; 
 earliest known portrait, (daguerreo- 
 type) 129; personal appearance and 
 dress, 130-131; Barnard's statue of, 
 131; first journey to Washington, 
 135; as head of Whig; party in Il- 
 linois (1848), 140; addresses Mas- 
 sachusetts Whigs at Worcester 
 on September 13, 1848, 153; de- 
 clines to run for second term in 
 Congress, 156-157; commissioned as 
 secretary of Oregon Territory, 159; 
 affiliates with southerners, 169; de- 
 bates Missouri Compromise with 
 Douglas at Peoria, 111., 172; joins 
 new Republican party in 1856, 176; 
 addresses convention of Republican 
 party of Illinois, 1856, 176; 
 designated as Republican candidate 
 for the Senatorship (1858), 192- 
 193 ; debates with Douglas in con- 
 
 test for senatorship, 1858, 193-218; 
 Lincoln suggests arrangement for 
 dividing time and addressing same 
 audiences, 195 ; Douglas proposes 
 seven joint debates and indicates 
 places, 195 ; dates are arranged from 
 August 21 to October 15, 1858; map 
 of Illinois with speaking places 
 numbered in chronological order of 
 the debates, 196; scene re-enacted in 
 1928, 213; in 1858 (portrait from 
 ambrotype), 195; Springfield statue 
 of, 203; speaks to the Springfield 
 convention when named for the 
 Senate, 204; on "Dred Scott Deci- 
 sion," 204-206; statue at Freeport, 
 111., to commemorate Lincoln-Doug- 
 las debate, 212; statue at Urbana, 
 111., by Lorado Taft, 212; proposed 
 for President in 1858 (Sandusky 
 Commercial Register), 217; address- 
 ing Kentuckians, 228; speaks at Wis- 
 consin State Fair, Milwaukee, 229- 
 230; travels of in summer of 1859, 
 232-234; Illinois Central Railroad 
 pass (1857), 233; visits New York 
 and speaks at Cooper Union (1860), 
 250-256; letter to John J. Critten- 
 den (December 22, 1859), 250; ad- 
 dresses Missourians at Atchison, 
 Kansas, 250; portrait of period 1858- 
 60, 253. 
 
 Lincoln, Mary Todd (wife of Abraham 
 Lincoln), an early portrait, 76. 
 
 Lincoln, Thomas, new baby at home 
 of, cartoon by Webster in N. Y. 
 World, 21; ancestry and character, 
 23-24. 
 
 "Loco-Focos" in campaign of 1848, 148. 
 
 "Long Nine" in Illinois' Legislature, 54. 
 
 Logan, Stephen T., Lincoln's law part- 
 ner (1841-44), 77; portrait, 78. 
 
 Louis Napoleon, candidate for French 
 presidency in 1848, in cartoon by 
 Daumier, 140; elected president of 
 France, 1848 (cartoon in Punch), 
 144. 
 
 Louis Philippe, King of France, in car- 
 toons, 80, 120, 123. 
 
 Lovejoy, Elijah P., murdered by pro- 
 slavery mob at Alton, 111., 64, 67. 
 
 JVIagee, J. L., cartoons by, 165, 179. 
 
 Maine, Agricultural Society of, Jeffer- 
 son Davis addresses (1859), 230. 
 
 Mansfield, Ohio, Lincoln proposed for 
 President at (November, 1858), 217. 
 
 Marcy, William L., in cartoon of 1852, 
 162; in cartoon of 1856, 169. 
 
 Marshall, John, portrait, 27 ; as a pro- 
 totype of Lincoln, 28-30. 
 
 Mason, John Y., in cartoon of 1856, 
 181. 
 
 Mason and Dixon's Line, Miss Colum- 
 bia's unruly pupils on either side of 
 (cartoon of 1860), 249. 
 
 Maurer, Louis, cartoons by, 174, 181, 
 189, 190. 
 
 McLenan, John, cartoon by, 249. 
 
 McNevin, J., designer of symbolic car- 
 toons, Harper's Weekly, 254, 255. 
 
 Medill, Joseph, editor of Chicago 
 
262 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tribune, comes out for Lincoln 
 (I860), 256. 
 
 Mexican War, 116-120; in cartoons, 71, 
 119, 136, 146; Lincoln joins rallies 
 for, 117; Lincoln's attitude toward, 
 145 ; challenges President Polk as to 
 invasion of frontier, 145 ; terms given 
 to Mexico liberal, 146. 
 
 Militia, caricature of (1829), 49; Mex- 
 ican War, 136. 
 
 Milwaukee, Wis., Lincoln speaks at 
 Wisconsin State Fair, 229-230. 
 
 Mississippi River, in Lincoln's youth, 
 32. 
 
 Missouri Compromise of 1820, Lin- 
 coln debates with Douglas at Peoria, 
 111., 172. 
 
 Monroe, James, President, 37. 
 
 Morgan, Matthew Somerville, cartoons 
 in Fun (London), 2, 11. 
 
 Mullen, cartoon by, 227. 
 
 R 
 
 I ast, Thomas, cartoonist, draws 
 
 Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, 128. 
 Negro, north and south, (a New York 
 
 cartoon), 227. 
 Negroes in Virginia, effect of John 
 
 Brown's raid (cartoons of 1859), 
 
 238. 
 New England, Lincoln visits in 1860, 
 
 256. 
 New England Emigrant Aid Society, 
 
 organization of, 179. 
 New Hampshire, Lincoln visits in 1860, 
 
 256. 
 New Orleans, Lincoln's flatboat 
 
 voyages to, 32, 34; slave market at, 
 
 35. 
 New Salem, Lincoln's home, 47. 
 New York City, Lincoln's Cooper 
 
 Union speech at, 251-256. 
 New York State, law operating against 
 
 the rights of Negroes (1840), 72. 
 Nicholas, Emperor, in cartoon, 123. 
 Nicolay and Hav, biographers of Lin- 
 coln, 10, 127-128. 
 Nicolay, John G., on Lincoln's expec- 
 tations in 1834, 51. 
 North Bend, Ohio, home of William 
 
 Henry Harrison, 90, 95. 
 Nosey, cartoon by, 94. 
 Nott, Charles C, invites Lincoln to 
 
 lecture in New York City (1860), 
 
 251. 
 Nullification of Fugitive Slave Law, 
 
 178-179. 
 
 o 
 
 _''Connell, Daniel, in cartoon, 123. 
 
 Ohio River, Lincoln's early knowledge 
 of, 30, 31. 
 
 "Old Hickory"— cutting down the 
 hickory tree (cartoon), 86. 
 
 Oregon boundary question, as cam- 
 paign issue, 1844, 110, 118; in car- 
 toons, 119, 120, 121, 123, 124. 
 
 Ostend Manifesto, 181-182; cartoon of 
 1856, 181. 
 
 eel, Sir Robert, ready for a duel 
 with President Polk, in Punch car- 
 toon, 120. 
 
 Pennington, Representative from New 
 Jersey, elected Speaker of House 
 (1860), 245. 
 
 Peoria, 111., Lincoln replies to Douglas 
 on the Missouri compromise, 172. 
 
 Perkins, J. R., biographer of Gen. G. 
 M. Dodge gives account of Lincoln's 
 visit to Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1859, 
 234. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, portrait, 225; calls 
 Lincoln "the slave hound of Illinois," 
 72; protest against the murder of 
 Lovejoy at Alton, 111., 64. 
 
 Phunny Phellow (New York), cartoon 
 in campaign of 1860 from, 171. 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, Democratic candidate 
 for the Presidency in cartoons of 
 1852, 155, 162, 164, 165, 167, 176. 
 
 Pierce, Franklin, President, portrait, 
 166; cabinet of, 180; in cartoons of 
 1856, 169, 176, 183, 184, 190. 
 
 Polk, James K., in cartoons of 1844, 
 99, 101, 102, 103, 106, 107, 112, 113; 
 as a "dark horse" candidate for the 
 Presidency, 103-111; elected Presi- 
 dent in 1844, 105, 111. 
 
 Polk, James K., President, acquisition 
 of national territory under (map), 
 118; in cartoons 118, 120, 124, 152, 
 154; challenged by Lincoln on 
 grounds of Mexican War, 145 ; on 
 slavery, 69 ; vetoes a river and har- 
 bor appropriation, 125. 
 
 Presidential office, development of, 
 13-18. 
 
 Protective tariff, Lincoln favors, 47. 
 
 Punch, London, cartoons in, 3, 6, 17, 
 71, 180, 209, 219, 220. 
 
 Putnam, George Haven, on Lincoln's 
 Cooper Union speech in 1860, 253- 
 255. 
 
 y uincy, HI., site of Lincoln-Douglas 
 debate, 215. 
 
 IV ail-splitter" (Chicago), Repub- 
 lican campaign paper, 1860, cartoons 
 of Douglas, 206, 207. 
 
 Ransom, Louis, engraving of John 
 Brown, 242. 
 
 Raymond, Henry J., in cartoons of 
 1856, 185, 191. 
 
 Republican party, birth of, 166-176; 
 in cartoon, 141 ; in cartoon of 1856, 
 174; in convention at Philadelphia 
 nominates Fremont and Dayton, 
 1856, 182; Republican party, founded 
 in 1854, 175. 
 
 Republican party of Illinois, Lincoln 
 addresses state convention of 1856, 
 176. 
 
 Rhode Island, Dorr's Rebellion in 
 (1840), 58; Lincoln visits in 1860, 
 256. 
 
 Ridpath, John Clark, characterization 
 of Jackson by, 45-46. 
 
 River and Harbor Convention at Chi- 
 cago (1847), 125-127. 
 
 Rockport, Ind., where Lincoln began 
 flatboat voyage in 1828, 31. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, President, car- 
 toons, 8, 9. 
 Rutledge, Ann, death of, 52. 
 
 ut. Louis, Missouri, Lincoln's ac- 
 quaintance in, 137. 
 
 Sangamo Journal, Lincoln's Spring- 
 field organ, 130. 
 
 "Sangamon Chief," name applied to 
 Lincoln in Illinois legislature, 54. 
 
 Sangamon River, Lincoln studies im- 
 provement of, 47. 
 
 Saratoga, N. Y., meeting-place of na- 
 tional politicians in 1840, 59. 
 
 Schurz, Carl, on Lincoln, 9-10. 
 
 Scott, Winfield, in cartoons of 1852, 
 163, 165, 167, 176. 
 
 Seward, William H., in cartoon, 62-63 ; 
 in cartoon of 1856, 187; in cartoons 
 of 1860, 249, 256; "irrepressible con- 
 flict" speech of (1858), 226-227; 
 visits Europe and the Holy Land 
 (1859), 231. 
 
 Sherman, John, of Ohio, in cartoons, 
 246, 247 ; portrait, 245 ; unsuccess- 
 ful candidate for Speaker of the 
 House, 244-246; visits Europe 
 (1859), 231-232. 
 
 Sherman, William T., correspondence 
 of, referring to Helper's "Impend- 
 ing Crisis," 246. 
 
 Shields, James, wounded in Mexican 
 War (drawing), 172. 
 
 Shunk, Francis R., Governor of Penn- 
 sylvania, in cartoon, 110. 
 
 Slaveholders, no communion with, 
 (cartoon), 229. 
 
 Slave Market, New Orleans, 35 ; Wash- 
 ington, D. C, 75. 
 
 Slave trade, proposed re-opening of, 
 223-225. 
 
 Slaves, religious instruction of (illus- 
 tration from reply to "Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin," 1852), 226. 
 
 Slavery, abandonment of by the 
 world, 75; in cartoon of 1856, 190; 
 cause of division between North and 
 South, as seen by Punch (cartoon, 
 1856), 209; a German view as ex- 
 pressed in cartoon from Klad- 
 deradatsch, 70; in Illinois, Lincoln 
 takes stand on, 61 ; Lincoln's early 
 contacts with, 34; Lincoln frankly 
 discusses with Douglas at Peoria, 
 111., 172. 
 
 Smith, Gerrit, in cartoon, 256; por- 
 trait, 225. 
 
 Soule, Pierre, in cartoon of 1856, 181. 
 
 South, growth of, before Civil War, 
 38; population elements of, 167. 
 
 Springfield, 111., Douglas statue in, 
 202 ; Illinois capital transferred from 
 Vandalia to, 53 ; Lincoln settles in 
 (1837), 53, 76; Lincoln statue in, 
 203. 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., in cartoon, 62-63. 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H., of Georgia, 
 portrait, 138; Lincoln's friend and 
 colleague in Congress, 139; traveling 
 in Northwest (1859), 230-231. 
 
 Stephens, Henry L., cartoons by, 7, 69, 
 208, 211, 220, 221, 228. 
 
INDEX 
 
 263 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, in cartoon, 
 62-63; portrait, 178. 
 
 Stuart, John T., elected to Illinois 
 legislature, 52 ; Lincoln's law partner, 
 (1837-41), 76; portrait, 78. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, U. S. Senator, as- 
 saulted by Preston S. Brooks (car- 
 toon), 179; in cartoon, 62-63. 
 
 Iaft, Lorado, statue of Lincoln by, 
 212. 
 
 Taney, Roger Brooke, Chief Justice of 
 the U. S., portrait, 192. 
 
 Tarbell, Ida M., biographer of Lincoln, 
 portrait, 127. 
 
 Tariff of 1842, cartoon, 110. 
 
 Tariff, protective, Clay advocates, (car- 
 toon), 113. 
 
 Taylor, Zachary, advised by Lincoln 
 on campaign in 1848, 147; in cam- 
 paign cartoons of 1848, 137, 152; 
 elected President in 1848, carrying 
 eight slave States, 152 ; nominated by 
 Whigs for President (1848), 131; 
 portraits: Mexican War sketch, 126, 
 as military hero, 145, as candidate in 
 1848, 149. 
 
 Taylor Zachary, President, early 
 months of administration, 155-156. 
 
 Tenniel, John, in Punch (London), 
 first portrait of Lincoln (May 11, 
 1861), 3; cartoon of Washington 
 and Lincoln, 6; cartoon — "Mrs. 
 North and Her Attorney" — by 
 (1864), 19. 
 
 Territories, Lincoln's fight to keep 
 slavery out of (cartoon), 201. 
 
 Texas, annexation of, as a political 
 issue, 106-109; in cartoons of 1844, 
 106, 107, 117; Lincoln's views in 
 1845, 113-114. 
 
 Thompson, George, Scotch anti-slavery 
 agitator, unpopularity of in New 
 England, 66-67. 
 
 Toombs, Robert, of Georgia, portrait, 
 138. 
 
 Tracy, Gilbert A., collector of Lincoln 
 letters, 135. 
 
 Tribune (New York), regularly read 
 by Lincoln (1848), 143. 
 
 Trumbull Lyman, U. S. Senator from 
 Illinois, portrait, 172; chosen in 1855 
 by Lincoln's aid, 175. 
 
 Tyler, John, President, in cartoon, 99; 
 in cartoons of 1844, 100, 101, 102, 
 104, 111, 114; portrait, 96; veto of 
 
 United States Bank bill, 100-101; 
 resignations from cabinet, 101 ; 
 "Kitchen Cabinet" of, 101. 
 
 U ncle tom's cabin," by Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe, illustrations from, 73, 
 
 179, 226. 
 
 Union, spirit of, cartoon in Harper's 
 Weekly, 255. 
 
 United States, addition of territory to, 
 in cartoon, 122, in 1854 (map), 170. 
 
 United States Bank, Lincoln's speech 
 on (1839), 78-86; cartoon on Pres- 
 ident Jackson's withdrawal of funds 
 from the bank (1833), 83. 
 
 United States Congress, December, 
 1859, 242-248; contest for Speaker- 
 ship of, 244-245. 
 
 Urbana, 111., Lincoln statue by Lorado 
 Taft, 212. 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, accepts Free 
 Soil nomination for Presidency in 
 1848, 151; in cartoons, 80, 81, 86; in 
 cartoons of 1836, 52, 55 ; in car- 
 toons of 1844, 100-104, 106, 113, 114; 
 in cartoons of 1848, 153, 154; nom- 
 inated for Vice-President, 1832, 50; 
 resigns from Jackson's cabinet, 1831, 
 51 ; visits General Harrison at North 
 Bend, Ohio, 90; 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, President, in car- 
 toons, 57, 58, 68, 82, 84, 85, 88, 
 89, 95 ; the first President to discuss 
 slavery, 63 ; "The Little Magician," 
 92 ; plan for sub-treasury system in 
 campaign of 1840, 93; portrait, 87; 
 at Saratoga in 1840, 59. 
 
 Vandalia, Illinois, old Illinois capitol 
 at, 53 ; removal of capital to Spring- 
 field, 53. 
 
 Vanity Fair (N. Y.), cartoons in, 7, 69, 
 
 180, 208, 211, 220, 243; sketch of 
 Lincoln in Springfield, 128. 
 
 Vicksburg, Miss., as Lincoln saw it on 
 
 his way to New Orleans, 33. 
 Victoria, Queen, in cartoons, 122, 123. 
 Vincennes, Ind., Lincoln passes through, 
 
 30, 31. 
 Volck, Adalbert J., cartoons by, 12, 
 
 62-63. 
 Volk, Douglas, Lincoln portrait by, 5. 
 Volk, Leonard W., bust of Lincoln 
 
 (1860), 4; life mask of Lincoln 
 
 (1860), 4; statement on Lincoln's 
 stature, 15. 
 
 Washburne, Elihu B., recollections 
 of clothes worn by Lincoln in 1847, 
 130, 131. 
 
 Washington, George, portrait on en- 
 velope design of 1861, 6; in Punch 
 cartoon of 1863, 6; standard for 
 judging Presidents, 7 ; burned in ef- 
 figy, (Fun), 11 ; Lafayette at tomb of 
 (1824), 29. 
 
 Webb, James Watson, in cartoon of 
 1852, 165; in cartoons of 1856, 185, 
 191. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, in cartoons, 68, 86, 
 95, 114, 173; in cartoon of 1840, 58; 
 in cartoons of 1844, 100, 103, 104, 
 117; in cartoons of 1852, 163, 164, 
 165; portrait, 139. 
 
 Webster, H. T., Cartoonist, "A New 
 Baby Down at Tom Lincoln's" by, 
 21. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, in cartoon, 123. 
 
 Whig party, Lincoln committed to, 
 51; nominates Millard Fillmore for 
 President in 1856, 185. 
 
 White, Hugh L., Whig candidate for 
 President in 1836, 55; Lincoln's 
 original preference in 1836, 60. 
 
 William Fourth, King of England, in 
 cartoon on French spoliation claims, 
 80. 
 
 Williams, Talcott, on Lincoln's read- 
 ing, 27-28. 
 
 Wilson, Robert L., member of the 
 "Long Nine," statement about Lin- 
 coln, 54. 
 
 Winthrop, Robert C, of Massachusetts, 
 memories of Lincoln as a Congress- 
 man, 138. 
 
 Wisconsin State Fair, Lincoln speaks 
 at (1859), 229-230. 
 
 Wise, Henry A., of Virginia, in car- 
 toons, 95, 103, 117, 256. 
 
 Woodbury, Levi, in cartoon, 81 ■ 
 in cartoons of 1848, 132, 154. 
 
 Wool in the tariff debate of 1844, car- 
 toon, 112. 
 
 Worth, Wm. J., in cartoon, 154. 
 
 Wright, Silas, portrait, 108. 
 
 [ankee doodle," humorous weekly 
 (N. Y.), cartoons in, 118, 122, 134, 
 148. 
 

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