;.*>;>3is^
 
 LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY
 
 ^^-^
 
 THE FIRST PUBLISHED LIFE OF 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCCLX, BY 
 
 JOHN LOCKE SCRIPPS 
 
 REPRINTED IN THE YEAR MDCCCC, BY 
 
 THE CRANBROOK PRESS
 
 
 ccp 
 
 ./ 
 
 45105
 
 SOMETIME in 1894 I received a. letter from the Me Joseph 
 P. Smith, Librarian of the Ohio State Library, asking for 
 information about, or copies of, a pamphlet Life of Abraham 
 Lincoln luritten in J 860 by John Locke Scripps of the Chicago 
 Tribune. In his letter he 'wrote : " It, the pamphlet, ivas pub- 
 lished in J 860 immediately prior to or shortly after Mr, Lin- 
 coln's nomination. Passages are quoted from it by Holland, 
 Thayer, and other early biographers of Lincoln, and there is no 
 doubt but that most of the biography, if not all, passed under Mr. 
 Lincoln's immediate personal revision, and hence its value," 
 J- This letter revealed to me the fact that this publication, 'ujhich 
 at that time I had never seen, would possess rare value in collec- 
 tions pertaining to the history of this great man, and at once led 
 me to make search for a copy, or for information in regard to it. 
 Old family letters, yellowed and dimmed with age, were searched^ 
 but almost ivithout success, 
 
 ^ Finally after hours and days of research, in which members of 
 the family no^i) ividely scattered over the United States joined me, 
 the following portion of a letter was discovered by my father's 
 brother, the late George W, Scripps of Detroit: 
 
 I ha'oe been getting out a. campa.ign Life of Lincoln for the million •which is published 
 simultaneously by us and by the New York Tribune establishment. I presume a very large 
 edition 'will be sold. I 'will send you a copy by this day's mail. We sell them at the very 
 Lrju rate of $20.00 per thousand. I do not believe that any comhination can defeat Lincoln. 
 Will the running of the Bell-Everett ticket in this State lose us arty votes in Schuyler ? 
 
 Affectionately, J. L. SCRIPPS.
 
 j^In a tetter received from my father's sister, Mrs. M. A. *Bagby, 
 <wife of the late Judge J. C. Bagby of Rushvitle, EL, she says: 
 " I remember very 'well ivhen Brother John 'was in Springfield, at 
 the time he 'wrote Lincoln's Life, and I heard him talk a great deal 
 about it, and of the great, noble nature of that 'wonderful man/' 
 ^ A cousin, James E. Scripps of Detroit, adds the following testi- 
 mony : " In regard to the authorship of the pioneer Life of Lin- 
 coln I have no documentary evidence, but distinctly recollect his 
 — J. L, Scripps — telling me that he had just finished 'writing such 
 a 'work, and that most of the 'writing he did in the office of the 
 Ne'w York Tribune. I inferred that the pamphlet 'was published 
 jointly by the Ne'w York Tribune and the Chicago Tribune, and 
 that your father undertook the labor of its publication. It 'was 
 as he passed through Detroit, on his 'way home from Ne'w York, 
 that he told me this, in explanation of his visit there." 
 ^ The late Joseph Medill, a former partner of my father in the Chi- 
 cago Tribune, 'wrote me in J 895 : " I remember the pamphlet very 
 'well, as I both furnished considerable material 'worked into it by 
 your father, and circulated it throughout the United States. I have 
 not seen a copy of it since the great fire of 187t in Chicago. All 
 the copies 'we had in The Tribune 'were consumed in the fire of 
 '7t. Your father 'was never satisfied 'with the pamphlet, because 
 Lincoln insisted on pruning out of it many of its most readable 
 and interesting passages in regard to Lincoln's early life and other 
 matters." 
 
 jf' My efforts to find some copies of this pamphlet — no doubt the 
 first authentic Life of Abraham Lincoln published — led me to 
 'write, north, south, east and 'west, but al'ways 'with the same dis- 
 couraging result. During my five years of untiring research, I have 
 been able to locate but four perfect copies, and it is through the 
 courtesy of the Honorable John G. Nicolay of Washington, D. C, 
 that I received from his pamphlet a manuscript copy of the missing 
 parts of my ozun mutilated copy, and that I 'was enabled to go on 
 'with my undertaking. Since I received this copy from Mr. Nico- 
 lay the other three pamphlets have come to light. 
 ^In a letter received from Mr. Nicolay in June, J 898, he says: 
 " I have one copy, bound in a volume 'with other pamphlets, of the 
 6
 
 pamphlet Life of Lincoln edited by your father, and published by 
 the Chicago Press & Tribune Co., in J 860. It has the simple 
 title * Life of Abraham Lincoln.' It is very 'well ivritten, contains 
 32 pages, printed in the size and type usual to campaign docu- 
 ments. I am satisfied he had the same manuscript material 'which 
 Mr. Lincoln furnished to W. D. Hcnvells, D. B. Bartlett, and per- 
 haps others 'who 'wrote campaign lives." 
 
 ^ Hon. Robert T. Lincoln 'wrote: *' I am very sorry to tell you 
 that I do not possess even a single copy of your father's pamphlet 
 life of my father. When it <was published I 'was myself in the 
 East at school, and 'while I have no doubt that my father had 
 some copies of it, none came to me among the books he left." 
 ^ W. H. Milbum, the blind chaplain of Congress, a great admirer 
 of my father and an intimate friend of the family, 'wrote: " I sup- 
 pose your father's influence did more to secure Mr. Lincoln's nom- 
 ination for the Presidency than that of any other man." 
 ^ Hoping still to find some of the original pamphlets in the office 
 of the Ne'w York Tribune, I 'wrote to the Hon. Whitela'W Reid, 
 who, in a very courteous 'way, replied as follcnus : "Ans'wering 
 your recent inquiry concerning the pamphlet Life of Lincoln by your 
 father, I regret to say that no trace of it can be found here. The 
 fact that forty years have elapsed, and that the Tribune counting 
 room has undergone t'wo removals, during the construction of the 
 new building, one riot and some small fires in the interval, 'will 
 serve to explain 'why papers that have served their purpose are not 
 apt to be found no'W on file. Collections of matter about Mr. 
 Lincoln have been made so carefully, and in so many different quar- 
 ters, that a search for the pamphlet itself ought not to be unsuc- 
 cessful." 
 
 j^At the time this publication 'was circulated Lincoln's fame 'was 
 only beginning to da'wn, and, 'while his name 'was in everybody's 
 mouth, and his story 'well kno'wn, yet, campaign literature 'was 
 then, as it still is, read, laid aside, forgotten and finally lost, and it 
 <was not until long years had passed a'way that its absence began 
 to be felt in the collections of Lincolniana. 
 
 ^ That my father visited Mr. Lincoln for the incidents of the nar- 
 rative is an undoubted fact, as is seen by the letters from Mrs, 
 
 7
 
 Bagby and Mr. Medttt; also from the tetters written to Mr. Hem- 
 don by my father, of<which, through the kindness of Mr, Jesse Wdk 
 of Greencastle, Ind., I have become the appreciative otuner, and 
 'which I give here in full: 
 
 Chicago, May 9th, t865. 
 ify Dear Herndon: 
 
 I am gtad you design giving as something about Lincoln. Your long acquaintance and 
 dose association •tvith him must have given you a clearer insight into his character than 
 other men obtained. I appreciate your compliment to the poor effort I made in 1860, I do 
 not think if a great stretch of modesty to say that if it 'were to be done over, I could improve 
 upon it. It is gratifying to me, however, to see that the same qualities in Lincoln to tuhich 
 I then gave greatest prominence are those on v^hich his fame ever chiefly rests. Is it not 
 true that this is the leading lesson of Lincoln's life — that true and enduring greatness, the 
 greatness that 'will survive the corrosion and abrasion of time, change and progress, mast 
 rest upon character? In certain shoviy, and •what is understood to he most desirable 
 endowments, how many Americans have surpassed him ! Yet, hov} he looms above them 
 now I Not eloquence, nor logic, nor grasp of thought; not statesmanship, nor power of 
 command, nor courage — not any or all of these have made him 'what he is — but these, 
 in the degree in 'which he possessed them, conjoined to those certain qualities composed in the 
 term character, have given him his fame — have made him for all time to come the great 
 American man — the grand central figure m American, perhaps the 'world's, history. 
 J^ Send me 'whatever you may publish on the subject. The plates on 'which the campaign 
 life toas printed 'were not preserved, and I have not been able to get a copy of it for you. 
 Very truly yours, .J. L. SCRIPPS. 
 
 Chicago, June 20th, t865. 
 Ify Dear Herndon: 
 
 The campaign Life of Lincoln, to 'which you refer in your note of the I 7th inst., <was 
 vjritten by me, 'with the exception of a smalt portion of the chapter devoted to the campaign 
 between Lincoln and Douglas in 1858. The statements therein contained, as respects the 
 facts and incidents of the early life of Lincoln, are substantially as communicated by him to 
 me — some of them in 'Written memoranda, others orally, in ans'wer to my queries. You can 
 place the fullest reliance in the accuracy of the narrative. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 Hon. W. H. Herndon. J. L. SCRIPPS. 
 
 j^ Another letter in possession of Mr. Weik, from my father to Mr. 
 Herndon, written after the death of Mr. Lincoln, stated that in his 
 book he mentioned the fact that Lincoln in his youth read Plutarch' s 
 Lives. This he did simply because, as a rule, almost every boy in 
 the West, in the early days, did read Plutarch. When the advance 
 sheets of the book reached Mr, Lincoln he sent for the author and 
 said gravely, " That paragraph ivherein you state I read Plutarch' s 
 Lives ivas not true ivhen you ivrote it, for up to that moment in 
 my life I had never seen that early contribution to human history, 
 but I want your book, even if it is nothing more than a campaign 
 sketch, to be faithful to the facts, and in order that that statement 
 8
 
 might be literally true, I secured the book a few days ago and have 
 just read it through. 
 
 ^ This information proves this to be the foundation for all subse- 
 quent and more elaborate 'works on Lincoln, since published. 
 ^ Ex-Governor William Bross, one of the co-editors of The Chicago 
 Tribune ivhile my father ivas connected ivith it, says, in his History 
 of Chicago, that John Locke Scripps ivas a ivarm personal friend 
 of Lincoln, and it is known that letters of a friendly, personal 
 nature often passed betiveen them. My father died in 1866, and 
 all his valuable correspondence ivas lost sight of by his family. 
 ^ The ivide correspondence that I have had goes to shoiv that 
 many important libraries and historical societies and Lincolniana 
 collections are 'without a copy of this valuable and important publi- 
 cation, and that it has of recent years been much sought for by col- 
 lectors. This has led me to have this limited edition put before the 
 public 'with such information regarding its original production as I 
 I could obtain. Not in my own judgment alone, but in that of 
 many most competent to speak, the literary and historical merits of 
 this little 'work render it 'worthy of being enshrined in the very 
 highest capabilities of the printer's art, and hence its appearance 
 in the elegant form in 'which it is no'w presented to the reader. 
 As a memorial of John Locke Scripps, 'who did so much for the 
 early journalistic life of Chicago, this, his Campaign Life of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, this valuable addition to Lincolnian literature, is 
 reprinted by 
 
 His devoted daughter, 
 
 GRACE LOCKE SCRIPPS DYCHE. 
 ^Evanston, HI., March, 1900.
 
 A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN LOCKE SCRIPPS, THE 
 AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING LIFE OF LINCOLN. 
 
 J- As the interest in any book is enhanced by some particular 
 knoivledge of the author, no apology is necessary for the, subjoined 
 biographical sketch of the author of this pioneer life of Lincoln. 
 J- John Locke Scripps ivas bom in Jackson, Mo., February 27th, 
 J8J8. His father ivas a native of London, England, and one of 
 the 40 delegates ivho in 1820 framed the first constitution of the 
 State of Missouri. Through his grandmother on his father's side 
 he 'was related to the family of ivhich the famous author of the 
 Essay on the Human Understanding belonged, ivhence his baptismal 
 name. While still young his parents removed to Rushville, III., 
 where the subject of this sketch ivas brought up to hard manual 
 labor in his father's tannery, farm and store. Arriving of age he 
 entered himself as a student in McKendree College, Lebanon, EL, 
 graduated in due time and became professor of mathematics in the 
 same institution. Then he took up the study of laiv and in J 847 
 established himself in that profession in the then promising young 
 city of Chicago. 
 
 ^ But his tastes ivere rather literary than forensic, and his spare 
 time he devoted to articles and sketches for a weekly literary paper 
 called the Gem of the Prairie, then published in Chicago. The Chi- 
 cago Tribune ivas founded in this same year. A feiv months later 
 the Gem ivas merged into it, and simultaneously John L. Scripps 
 became a partner in the concern. 
 
 ^ In his early newspaper days Mr. Scripps did a good deal for the 
 commercial interests of Chicago by personally editing the commer- 
 cial columns of his paper, cultivating a ivide personal acquaintance 
 among the business men of the city, and encouraging the organiza- 
 tion of the Board of Trade. He also ivas largely instrumental in 
 securing the construction of the Chicago & Galena Union Railroad, 
 the first railway to enter Chicago. In all these ivays he entered 
 largely into the commercial life of the city, of ivhose groiving pros- 
 perity he ivas alivays vastly proud. 
 
 J^In J 851 Mr. Scripps, who was politically a free-soil democrat, 
 disagreed ivith his partners in regard to the political policy of the 
 
 U
 
 Tribune, and selling out to them, established in the folloiving year, 
 in connection with William Bross, the Chicago Democratic Press, 
 <which at the outset ivas an ardent supporter of Senator Stephen A. 
 Douglas. When in 1 854 Douglas committed himself to the repeal 
 of the Missouri Compromise and thus reopened the slavery agita- 
 tion, the Press abandoned him and soon after allied itself ivith the 
 ne'wly-formed Republican party, supporting John C, Fremont for 
 the Presidency in 1856. 
 
 jf- On July 1, J 858, the Press and the Tribune were consolidated, 
 ivith Mr. Scripps as chief editor, and from that date began the 
 marked career of prosperity ivhich the Chicago Tribune has since 
 enjoyed. It ivas ivhile occupying this position that Mr. Scripps 
 had a very large share in securing the nomination and election of 
 Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, in the promotion of ivhich great and 
 glorious end he ivrote and circulated the biography of ivhich the 
 folloiving pages are an exact reprint. The pamphlet admirably 
 illustrates the author's literary style. It is simple and direct, scru- 
 pulously fair and truthful, of elegant diction and in every ivay a 
 model of descriptive ivriting. 
 
 ^ Upon Mr. Lincoln's election Mr. Scripps ivas appointed post- 
 master for Chicago, an office to ivhich he gave a vast amount of 
 close study and attention, ivinning the reputation of being the best 
 postmaster that Chicago had up to that time ever had. Upon the 
 outbreak of the ivar of the rebellion he raised and organized at his 
 oivn expense a company of infantry, popularly knoivn as the 
 Scripps Guard, but enrolled as Company C, 7 2d Illinois Volun- 
 teers. At the close of his term of office failing health compelled 
 retirement from active duties, and on September 21st, 1866, he 
 passed aivay. 
 
 ^ He ivas married in 1848 to Mary Elizabeth Blanchard of Green- 
 ville, III., by ivhom he had three children, the eldest of ivhich died 
 in infancy. Mrs. Scripps died a feiv months before her husband. 
 ^John L. Scripps ivas a man of the purest morals and possessed 
 of the highest conceptions of honor. Anything in itself ivrong or 
 ignoble he scorned, no matter hoiv much his personal interests might 
 be concerned. While tender and conscientious in his relations ivith 
 men, he ivas bold and unflinching in defense of principles. He 
 12
 
 Hvas a. strong and polished ivriter, a ivise and prudent business 
 man, an affectionate husband and father and a ivarm and generous 
 friend to all ivho commended themselves to his notice. 
 
 He 1VAS a. man, take him for all in all, 
 1 ne'er shall look upon his like again. 
 
 ^ Feiv purer and nobler men have ever lived and fevj, from pro- 
 found sympathy ivith his high qualities, have been better fitted to 
 be the historian of the lamented Lincoln. 
 
 JAMES E. SCRIPPS. 
 .^Detroit, March, 1900.
 
 LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. — OF HIS ANCESTRY, THE HARDSHIPS 
 OF HIS EARLY LIFE, AND HIS SELF-EDUCATION. 
 
 T is not known at what period the ancestors of Abraham 
 Lincoln came to America. The first account that has been 
 obtained of them dates back about one hundred and fifty 
 years, at which time they were living in Berks County, 
 Pennsylvania, and were members of the Society of Friends. 
 Whence or when they came to that region is not known. About 
 the middle, of the last century, the great-grandfather of Abraham 
 Lincoln removed from Berks County, Pennsylvania, to Rocking- 
 ham County, Virginia. There Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather, 
 and Thomas Lincoln, the father of the subject of this sketch, were 
 bom. Abraham, the grandfather, had four brothers — Isaac, Jacob, 
 John, and Thomas — descendants of whom are now living in Vir- 
 ginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. Abra- 
 ham removed to Kentucky about the year 1780, and four years 
 thereafter, while engaged in opening a farm, he was surprised and 
 killed by Indians ; leaving a widow, three sons, and two daughters. 
 The eldest son, Mordecai, remained in Kentucky until late in life, 
 when he removed to Hancock County, Illinois, where he shortly 
 afterward died, and where his descendants still live. The second 
 son, Josiah, settled many years ago on Blue River, in Harrison 
 County, Indiana. The eldest daughter, Mary, was married to 
 Ralph Crume, and some of her descendants are now living in 
 Breckenridge County, Kentucky. The second daughter, Nancy, 
 was married to William Brumfield, and her descendants are sup- 
 posed to be living in Kentucky. 
 
 .^Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the subject of this 
 sketch, by the death of his father and the very narrow circumstan- 
 ces of his mother, was thrown upon his own resources while yet a 
 child. Traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood, working 
 wherever he could find employment, he grew up literally without 
 education. He finally settled in Hardin County, where, in 1806, 
 he was married to Nancy Hanks, whose family had also come from 
 Virginia. The fruits of this union were a daughter and two sons. 
 
 15
 
 One of the latter died in infancy ; the daughter died later in lite, 
 having been married, but leaving no issue. The sole survivor is 
 the subject of this sketch. 
 
 ^ Abraham Lincoln was bom in Hardin County, Kentucky, Feb- 
 ruary 1 2th, 1809. It would be difficult to conceive of more unprom- 
 ising circumstances than those under which he was ushered into 
 life. His parents were poor and uneducated. They were under 
 the social ban which the presence of slavery always entails upon 
 poverty. Their very limited means and the low grade of the 
 neighboring schools, precluded the expectation of conferring upon 
 their children the advantages of even a common English educa- 
 tion. The present inhabitants of the Western States can have but 
 a faint idea of the schools which fifty years ago constituted the only 
 means of education accessible to the poorer classes. The teachers 
 were, for the most part, ignorant, uncultivated men, rough of 
 speech, uncouth in manners, and rarely competent to teach beyond 
 the simplest rudiments of learning — " spelling, reading, writing," 
 and sometimes a very little arithmetic. The books of study then 
 in vogue, would not now be tolerated in schools of the lowest 
 grade. The school-house, constructed of logs, floorless, window- 
 less, and without inclosure, was in admirable harmony with teacher, 
 text-books, and the mode of imparting instruction. 
 1^ In his seventh year, Abraham was sent for short periods to two 
 of these schools, and while attending them progressed so far as to 
 learn to write. For this acquirement he manifested a great fond- 
 ness. It was his custom to form letters, to write words and sen- 
 tences wherever he found suitable material. He scrawled them 
 with charcoal, he scored them in the dust, in the sand, in the 
 snow — anywhere and everywhere that lines could be drawn, there 
 he improved his capacity for writing. 
 
 ►^ Meanwhile, the worldly condition of the elder Lincoln did not 
 improve. He realized in his daily experience and observation how 
 slavery oppresses the poorer classes, making their poverty and 
 social disrepute a permanent condition through the degradation 
 which it affixes to labor. Revolving this matter in his mind, he 
 wisely resolved to remove his young family from its presence. 
 Accordingly, in the autumn of J 816, he emigrated to Spencer 
 16
 
 County, Indiana— one of the States consecrated forever to freedom 
 and free labor by the Jeffersonian Ordinance of 1787, and which, 
 with the States now comprising the territory included in that mem- 
 orable instrument, has afforded asylum — an open field and fair 
 play — to thousands upon thousands who have, in like manner, 
 been driven from their homes by that great social scourge of the 
 " poor whites " of the South. 
 
 1^ Young Lincoln was in his eighth year when the family removed 
 to Indiana. They settled in an unbroken forest, gladly taking 
 upon themselves all the privations and hardships of a pioneer life, 
 in view of what they had left behind them. The erection of a 
 house and the felling of the forest was the first work to be done. 
 Abraham was young to engage in such labor, but he was large of 
 his age, stalwart, and willing to work. An ax was at once placed 
 in his hands, and from that time until he attained his twenty-third 
 year, when not employed in labor on the farm, he was almost con- 
 stantly wielding that most useful implement. 
 ^ Upon the arrival of the family in Indiana, the friends who were 
 left behind were to be written to. The elder Lincoln could do 
 nothing more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his 
 name. The mother, though a ready reader, had not been taught 
 the accomplishment of writing. In this emergency Abraham's 
 skill as a penman was put into requisition, and with highly satis- 
 factory results. From that time onward he conducted the family 
 correspondence. This fact soon becoming public, little Abraham 
 was considered a marvel of learning and wisdom by the simple- 
 minded settlers; and ever afterward, as long as he remained in 
 Indiana, he was the letter-writer for the neighbors generally, as 
 well as for his father's family. That he was selected for this pur- 
 pose was doubtless owing not more to his proficiency in writing 
 than to his ability to express the wishes and feelings of those for 
 whom he wrote in clear and forcible language, and to that oblig- 
 ing disposition that has always distinguished him in subsequent 
 life. It cannot be doubted that something of Mr. Lincoln's style 
 and facility of composition in later years, both as a writer and 
 Speaker, is to be traced back to these earlier efforts as an amanu- 
 ensis for the neighborhood. 
 
 c 17
 
 i^In the autumn of J 818, Abraham, in the loss of his mother, expe- 
 rienced the first great sorrow of his life. Facts in the possession 
 of the writer have impressed him with the belief that, although of 
 but limited education, she was a woman of great native strength 
 of intellect and force of character ; and he suspects that those admi- 
 rable qualities of head and heart which characterized her distin- 
 guished son are inherited mostly from her. She, as well as her 
 husband, was a devout member of the Baptist Church. It was her 
 custom on the Sabbath, when there was no religious worship in 
 the neighborhood — a thing of frequent occurrence — to employ a 
 portion of the day in reading the Scriptures aloud to her family. 
 After Abraham and his sister had learned to read, they shared by 
 turns in this duty of Sunday reading. This practice, continued 
 faithfully through a series of years, could not fail to produce certain 
 effects. Among other things, its tendency was to impart an accu- 
 rate acquaintance with Bible history and Bible teachings; and it 
 must also have been largely instrumental in developing the reli- 
 gious element in the character of the younger members of the fam- 
 ily. The facts correspond with this hypothesis. There are few 
 men in public life so familiar with the Scriptures as Mr Lincoln, 
 while to those pious labors of his mother in his early childhood arc 
 doubtless to be attributed much of that purity of life, that elevation 
 of moral character, that exquisite sense of justice, and that senti- 
 ment of humanity which now form distinguishing traits of his 
 character. A year after the death of his mother, his father married 
 Mrs. Sally Johnston, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, a widow with 
 three children. She proved a good and kind mother to Abraham. 
 She survives her husband, and is now living in Coles County, 
 Illinois. 
 
 •^ After the removal of the family to Indiana, Abraham attended 
 school a little, chiefly in the winter, when work was less pressing ; 
 but the aggregate of all the time thus spent, both in Kentucky and 
 Indiana, did not amount to one year He is, therefore, indebted to 
 schools for but a very small part of his education. All men who 
 become in any respect distinguished, are, in one sense at least, self- 
 made ; that is to say, the development and the discipline of the intel- 
 lect can only be secured by self-effort. Without this, assistance on 
 18
 
 the part of teachers, however long and continuously offered, wiD 
 yield no fruit. With it, assistance is valuable mainly in that it 
 directs and encourages effort. He is said to be a self-made man 
 who attains to distinction without having enjoyed the advantages 
 of teachers and of institutions of learning ; and in this sense Abra- 
 ham Lincoln is peculiarly entitled to the appellation. His early 
 teachers were men of scarcely any learning, and what he mastered 
 through their assistance consisted only of the simplest rudiments of 
 education. That subsequent training and disciplining of the intel- 
 lect, that habit of close investigation, that power of intense thought, 
 which enable him to master every subject he investigates, and 
 that faculty of clear and forcible expression, of logical arrangement, 
 and of overwhelming argument, by which he enforces his own well- 
 grounded convictions — all this is the result of his own unaided 
 exertions, and of a naturally sound and vigorous understanding. 
 So far from being indebted to institutions of learning for any of the 
 qualities which characterize him, he was never in a college or an 
 academy as a student, and was never, in fact, inside of a college or 
 academy building until after he had commenced the practice of the 
 law. He studied English grammar after he was twenty-three 
 years of age ; at twenty-five he mastered enough of geometry, trig- 
 onometry, and mensuration to enable him to take the field as a 
 surveyor; and he studied the six books of Euclid after he had 
 served a term in Congress, and when he was forty years of age, 
 amid the pressure of an extensive legal practice, and of frequent 
 demands upon his time by the public. 
 
 ■^ Books were another means of education which young Lincoln 
 did not neglect; but in a backwoods settlement of Indiana, forty 
 years ago, books were somewhat rarer than now. They had this 
 advantage, however, over a majority of the books of the present 
 time : the few that were to be had possessed solid merit, and well 
 repaid the time and labor given to their study. Abraham's first 
 book, after Dilworth's spelling-book, was, as has been stated, the 
 Bible. Next to that came Esop's Fables, which he read with 
 great zest, and so often as to commit the whole to memory. After 
 that he obtained a copy of Pilgrim's Progress — a book which, per- 
 haps, has quickened as many dormant intellects and started into 
 
 19
 
 vigorous growth the religious element of as many natures, as any 
 other in the English language. Then came the life of Franklin, 
 Weems' Washington, and Riley's Narrative. Over the two for- 
 mer the boy lingered with rapt delight. He followed Washington 
 and brave Ben. Franklin through their early trials and struggles as 
 well as through their later triumphs ; and even then, in the midst 
 of his cramped surroundings, and in the face of the discourage- 
 ments which beset him on every hand, his soul was lifted upwards, 
 and noble aspirations which never afterwards forsook him, grew 
 up within him, and great thoughts stirred his bosom— thoughts of 
 emancipated nations, of the glorious principles which lie at the 
 foundation of human freedom, and of honorable fame acquired by 
 heroic endeavors to enforce and maintain them. These books con- 
 stituted the boy's library. When he was fourteen or fifteen years 
 of age, he learned that one Mr. Crawford, a distant neighbor, had 
 in his house Ramsey's Life of Washington — a book which he was 
 told gave a fuller and better account of Washington and the Rev- 
 olution than the volume he had read with so much pleasure. He 
 at once borrowed the book, and devoured its contents. By some 
 accident the volume was exposed to a shower and badly damaged. 
 Young Lincoln had no money, but he knew how to work. He 
 went to Crawford, told him what had happened, and expressed his 
 readiness to work out the full value of the book. Crawford had 
 a field of com, which had been stripped of the blades as high as 
 the ear, preparatory to cutting off the tops for winter fodder for his 
 cattle. He expressed his willingness to square accounts if Lincoln 
 would cut the tops from that field of com. The offer was promptly 
 accepted, and with three days of hard labor the book was paid for, 
 and young Lincoln returned home the proud possessor of another 
 volume. Not long after this incident, he was fortunate enough 
 to get possession of a copy of Plutarch's Lives. What fields of 
 thought its perusal opened up to the stripling, what hopes were 
 excited in his youthful breast, what worthy models of probity, of 
 justice, of honor, and of devotion to great principles he resolved to 
 pattern after, can be readily imagined by those who are familiar 
 with his subsequent career, and who have themselves lingered 
 over the same charmed page. 
 20
 
 •^Listening occasionally to the early backwoods preachers, was 
 another means which, more than schools, and, perhaps, quite as 
 much as books, aided in developing and forming the character of 
 young Lincoln. It has already been stated that his parents were 
 pious members of the Baptist Church. Among the backwoods- 
 men of Indiana, at that period, sectarianism did not run as high as 
 it probably does in the same section now. The people were glad 
 of an opportunity to hear a sermon, whether delivered by one of 
 their own religious faith or not. Thus it was at least with the 
 father and mother of young Lincoln, who never failed to attend, 
 with their family, upon religious worship, whenever held within 
 reasonable distance. They gladly received the word, caring less 
 for the doctrinal tenets of the preacher than for the earnestness and 
 zeal with which he enforced practical godliness. No class of men 
 are more deserving of admiration than those who have been the 
 first to carry the gospel to our frontier settlements. If ever men 
 have labored in the cause of their Divine Master and for the salva- 
 tion of their fellow-mortals, impelled by motives entirely free from 
 any dross of selfishness, surely that honor should be awarded to 
 them Many of these early pioneer preachers were gifted with a 
 rare eloquence. Inspired always with the grandeur of their theme, 
 communing daily with nature while on their long and solitary jour- 
 neyings from settlement to settlement, they seemed to be favored, 
 beyond human wont, with a very near approach to the source of 
 all inspiration; and coming with this preparation before an audi- 
 ence of simple-minded settlers, preacher and people freed from con- 
 ventional restraint, these men almost always moved the hearts and 
 wrought upon the imagination of their hearers as only those gifted 
 with the truest eloquence can. Of course the immediate result of 
 such preaching was to awaken the religious element, rather than 
 to inform the understanding as to doctrines and dogmas — to lead 
 to spiritual exaltation and religious fervor, rather than to a clear 
 knowledge and appreciation of those points of theological contro- 
 versy which for so many centuries have engaged the attention of 
 disputatious divines. It is not intended to decide which of the two 
 methods is the better calculated to evangelize the world. But as 
 to the great value of the preaching here spoken of, and its singular 
 
 21
 
 adaptation to the people to whom it was addressed, there can be 
 but one opinion. That it exerted a marked influence upon the 
 character of young Lincoln, that it thoroughly awakened the reli- 
 gious element within him, and that his subsequent life has been 
 greatly influenced by it, are facts which the writer desires to place 
 upon record for the encouragement of other laborers in the same 
 field, and as a distinct recognition of the further fact that there can 
 be no true and lasting greatness unless its foundation be laid in the 
 truths of the Bible. 
 
 ^ And thus young Lincoln grew to manhood, constantly engaged 
 in the various kinds of labor incident to the country and the times 
 — felling the forest, clearing the ground of the undergrowth and of 
 logs, splitting rails, pulling the cross-cut and the whip-saw, driving 
 the frower, plowing, harrowing, planting, hoeing, harvesting, assist- 
 ing at house-raisings, log-rollings and com-huskings ; mingling cor- 
 dially with the simple-minded, honest people with whom his lot 
 was cast, developing a kindly nature, and evincing social qualities 
 which rendered his companionship desirable; remarkable even 
 then for a wonderful gift of relating anecdotes, and for a talent of 
 interspersing them with acute and apt reflections ; everywhere a 
 favorite, always simple, genial, truthful, and unpretending, and 
 always chosen umpire on occasions calling for the exercise of sound 
 judgment and inflexible impartiality. It is scarcely necessary to 
 add that he also greatly excelled in all those homely feats of 
 strength, agility, and endurance, practiced by frontier people in his 
 sphere of life. In wrestling, jumping, running, throwing the maul 
 and pitching the crow-bar, he always stood first among those of his 
 own age. As in height he loomed above all his associates, so in 
 these customary pastimes he as far surpassed his youthful competi- 
 tors, and even when pitted against those of maturer years, he was 
 almost always victorious. In such daily companionship, he grew 
 up in full sympathy with the people, rejoicing in their simple joys 
 and pleasures, sorrowing in their trials and misfortunes, and united 
 to them all by that bond of brotherhood among the honest poor — 
 a common heritage of labor. 
 
 22
 
 CHAPTER IL-REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS IN 1830, AND 
 THE CHARACTER OF THE STATE IN THOSE DAYS. 
 
 ROM 1829 until the financial revulsion of 1837-40, a 
 vast flood of immigration poured into Illinois. At the 
 first-named date, the population of the State was only 
 about 150,000 — a number scarcely equal to the present 
 population of the city of Chicago. This population was 
 confined mostly to the southern part of the State. There were 
 comparatively few people north of Alton, and these, as is always 
 the case in the settlement of a new country, were scattered along 
 the rivers and smaller water-courses. And even south of Alton, 
 in the older-settled portion of the State, most of the population still 
 clung either to the water-courses or close to the edges of the timber- 
 land. The large prairies, with the exception of a narrow belt 
 along the fringes of timber, were wholly uncultivated and without 
 population. Indeed, at that time, and for many years after, it was 
 the opinion of even the most intelligent people, that the larger 
 prairies of Illinois would never be used for any other purpose than 
 as a common pasturage for the cattle of adjacent settlers. It is 
 only of later years, and since the introduction of railroads, that the 
 true value and destiny of these prairies have come to be understood 
 and appreciated. Thus, in 1829, only an infinitesimal portion of 
 the better part of Illinois was occupied. At the same time, the 
 people of the other States entertained very imperfect notions of the 
 character of the country and of its wonderful natural resources. 
 The first settlement by an indigenous American population had 
 been the result of the accounts carried back to the old States by 
 the soldiers who accompanied the gallant George Rogers Clark in 
 that memorable expedition in 1 778, which resulted in the conquest 
 of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. Another impetus was 
 given in the same direction after the war of 1 8 12, by similar reports 
 of the beauty and fertility of the country taken back by rangers and 
 other troops who had done service in the then territory of Illinois. 
 But from that time until the year 1829, the increase of population 
 by immigration had been very slow. The era of financial pros- 
 perity which terminated in the memorable financial break-down 
 of 1837-40, gave another impulse to western immigration. The 
 
 23
 
 Anglo-Saxon greed for land was stimulated to unusual activity by 
 the abundance of money, and explorers started out in search of new 
 and desirable countries. Entering Illinois by the great lines of 
 travel— at Vincennes, at Terre Haute, at Paducah, at Shawnee- 
 town, and journeying westward and northward, these explorers 
 were struck with the wonderful beauty and fertility of the country, 
 and the ease with which it could be reduced to immediate cultiva- 
 tion. Its rich, undulating prairies, its vast natural pasturage for 
 cattle, the accessibility to navigable water-courses, the salubrity 
 of its climate, and, above all, its millions of acres of government 
 land, conspired to render it peculiarly attractive to men who had 
 been accustomed all their lives to mountainous and rocky districts, 
 or to a country covered with heavy forests. Other explorers, 
 entering the State from the direction of the great Northwestern 
 Lakes, and traversing it southward and westward to the Missis- 
 sippi, saw at every stage of their journey, a country no less fertile 
 and inviting, the sylvan beauty of which no pen or pencil could 
 adequately portray. The reports spread by these travelers, on their 
 return to the older States, regarding the wonderful region they had 
 seen, together with occasional letters contributed to leading journals 
 by delighted and enthusiastic tourists, awakened a spirit of emigra- 
 tion the like of which the country had never before witnessed. 
 The stream of population that set at once Illinoisward continued, 
 from this and other causes, to grow constantly broader and deeper 
 — coming in from the South, setting westward from the belt of 
 Middle States, pouring in by way of the Northwestern Lakes — 
 dotting every praii'ie with new homes, opening thousands of farms, 
 making roads, building bridges, founding schools, churches, vil- 
 lages, and cities — until the crash of 1837 came suddenly and unex- 
 pectedly upon the country, putting an immediate and effectual check 
 upon the human movement. 
 
 ^ Among those who heard the earliest reports concerning this land 
 of promise, were the Lincoln family, in their quiet home in Indiana, 
 and they resolved to try their fortunes in it. Accordingly, on 
 the first day of March, 1830, Abraham having just completed his 
 twenty-first year, his father and family, together with the families 
 of the two daughters and sons-in-law of his step-mother, bidding 
 24
 
 adieu to the old homestead in Indiana, turned their faces towards 
 Dlinois. In those days, when people changed their residence from 
 one State or settlement to another, they took all their movable pos- 
 sessions with them — their household goods, their kitchen utensils, 
 including provisions for the journey, their farming implements, their 
 horses and cattle. The former were loaded into wagons drawn, 
 for the most part, by oxen, and the latter were driven by the 
 smaller boys of the family, who were sometimes assisted by their 
 sisters and mother. Thus arranged for a journey of weeks, — not 
 unfrequcntly of months, — the emigrant set out, thinking but little 
 of the hardships before him— of bad roads, of unbridged streams, of 
 disagreeable weather, of sleeping on the ground or in the wagon, of 
 sickness, accident, and, sometimes, death, by the way — dwelling 
 chiefly in thought upon the novelty and excitement of the trip, the 
 rumored attractions of the new country whither he was going, and 
 of the probable advantages likely to result from the change. By 
 stages of ten or fifteen miles per day, over untravelcd roads, now 
 across mountains, swamps, and water-courses, and now through 
 dense, umbrageous forests, and across broad prairies where the hor- 
 izon alone bounded the vision, the caravan of wagons, men, women 
 and children, flocks and herds, toiled onward by day, sleeping 
 under the broad canopy of stars by night, patiently accomplishing 
 the destined journey, sometimes of weeks' — sometimes of months' 
 — duration. 
 
 i^It was by this primitive and laborious method that the Lincoln 
 family made the journey from Spencer County, Indiana, to Macon 
 County, Illinois— Abraham himself driving one of the ox-teams. 
 He had now arrived at manhood, and both by law and by univer- 
 sal custom, was at liberty to begin the world for himself. But he 
 was the only son of his father, now advanced in years, and it was 
 not in his nature to desert his aged sire at a time when all the 
 hardships, privations, and toil of making a new home in a new 
 country, were about to be entered upon. Whatever the future 
 may have seemed to hold in it as a reward for effort specially 
 directed to that end, he cheerfully put aside in obedience to his 
 sense of duty, and engaged at once and heartily in the work before 
 him. That summer's labor consisted, mainly, in building a log 
 d 25
 
 house, into which the family moved, making rails for, and fencing 
 in ten acres of prairie, breaking the sod, and raising upon it a crop 
 of com. This farm was situated on the north side of the Sanga- 
 mon River, at the junction of the timber land and prairie, and about 
 ten miles west of Decatur. The rails used in fencing in the ten- 
 acre field are those of which so much, of late, has been said in the 
 newspapers. Their existence was brought to the public attention 
 during the sitting of the Republican State Convention, at Decatur, 
 on the 9th of May last, on which occasion a banner attached to 
 two of these rails, and bearing an appropriate inscription, was 
 brought into the assemblage, and formally presented to that body, 
 amid a scene of unparalleled enthusiasm. Since then, they have 
 been in great demand in every State of the Union in which free 
 labor is honored, where they have been borne in processions of the 
 people, and hailed by hundreds of thousands of freemen as a sym- 
 bol of triumph, and as a glorious vindication of freedom, and of the 
 rights and the dignity of free labor. These, however, were far 
 from being the first or only rails made by young Lincoln. He was 
 a practiced hand at the business. His first lesson had been taken 
 while yet a boy in Indiana. Some of the rails made by him in 
 that State have been clearly identified, and are now eagerly sought 
 after. The writer has seen a cane, now in the possession of Mr. 
 Lincoln, made since his nomination by one of his old Indiana 
 acquaintances, from one of those rails split by his own hands in 
 boyhood.
 
 CHAPTER III.-NAVIGATES THE MISSISSIPPI, RUNS 
 A STORE AND SERVES BSf THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 
 
 HOSE who have come into Illinois since steamboats 
 became numerous on the Western waters, and since the 
 introduction of railroads, and the opening of the Illinois 
 and Michigan Canal, have no correct idea how small an 
 amount of business was transacted in the State so late 
 as 1830, or of the great commercial revolution which has taken 
 place since that time. At the period named there was but little 
 inducement for growing surplus productions. The merchants of 
 the country did not deal in com, wheat, flour, beef, pork, lard, but- 
 ter, or any of the great staples of the State. Beyond the purchase 
 of a few furs and peltries, small quantities of feathers, beeswax, and 
 tallow, the merchant rarely engaged in barter. The old United 
 States Bank was then in existence, and through it the exchanges 
 of the country were conducted at a rate so satisfactory that no 
 Western merchant thought of shipping the products of the country 
 to liquidate his Eastern balances. He bought his goods for cash, 
 or on credit, and collected his debts, if so fortunate as to collect at 
 all, in the same commodity, and never paid any of it out again, 
 except for goods. The dependence of the country for money was 
 chiefly upon that brought in by new settlers. Occasionally an 
 adventurer appeared who paid out money for sufficient of the pro- 
 ducts of the country to load a flat-boat, which he floated off to find 
 a market. Sometimes the more enterprising of the farmers, find- 
 ing no market at home for the surplus of their farms, loaded a flat- 
 boat on their own account, and by this means some money found 
 its way into the country. Within the last twenty years this order 
 of things has entirely changed, and at the present time every 
 description of surplus product meets a ready cash market at home. 
 While the old order lasted, however, the business of shipping by 
 flat-boats was maintained on all the Western rivers, though the 
 multiplication and competition of steamboats rendered the number 
 less every year. The business itself was one of exposure, of hard 
 labor, and of constant peril. It developed and nurtured a race of 
 men peculiar for courage, herculean strength, hardihood, and great 
 contempt of danger. Western annals abound in stories of these 
 
 27
 
 men. As a class they have become extinct, and the world will 
 never see their like again; but their memory remains, and will 
 constitute a part of the country's history, and mingle with our 
 national romance forever. This much it seemed necessary to say 
 for the benefit of the uninitiated reader, by way of preface to some 
 account of young Lincoln's experiences as a flat-boatman. Going 
 back then to the new home on the Sangamon River, we take up 
 again the thread of the narrative. 
 
 i^The winter of 1830-31 is memorable to this day among the early 
 settlers of Illinois, by reason of the deep snow which fell about the 
 last of December, and which continued upon the ground for more 
 than two months. It was a season of unusual severity, both upon 
 the settlers and their stock. Many of the latter perished from 
 exposure to the cold and from hunger, while the former, especially 
 the more recently arrived of their number, were often put to great 
 straits to obtain provisions. Of these hardships the Lincolns and 
 their immediate neighbors had their full share, and but for Abra- 
 ham, whose vigor of constitution and remarkable power of endur- 
 ance fitted him for long and wearisome journeys in search of 
 provisions, their sufferings would have been often greater. 
 J^ Some time during the winter, one of those adventurers previ- 
 ously spoken of — Denton Offut — engaged in buying a boat-load 
 of produce to ship in the spring, fell in with young Lincoln. Con- 
 ceiving a liking for him, and having learned also that he had previ- 
 ously taken a flat-boat down the Mississippi, Offut engaged him, 
 together with his step-mother's son, John D. Johnston, and his 
 mother's cousin, John Hanks to take a flat-boat from Beardstown, 
 on the Illinois River, to New Orleans. 
 
 ^ Lincoln's first trip to New Orleans had been made from the Ohio 
 River, while living in Indiana, and when he was in the nineteenth 
 year of his age. On that occasion also he was a hired hand merely, 
 and he and the son of the owner, without other assistance, made 
 the trip. A part of the cargo had been selected with special refer- 
 ence to the wants of the sugar plantations, and the young adven- 
 turers were instructed to linger upon the sugar coast for the pur- 
 pose of disposing of it. On one occasion they tied up their boat 
 for the night near a plantation at which they had been trading dur- 
 
 2a
 
 ing the afternoon. The negroes observing that the boat was in 
 charge of but two persons, seven of them formed a plan to rob it 
 during the night. Their intention evidently was to murder the 
 young men, rob the boat of whatever money there might be on it, 
 carry off such articles as they could secrete in their cabins, and 
 then, by sinking the boat, destroy all traces of their guilt. They 
 had not, however, properly estimated the courage and prowess of 
 the two young men in charge. The latter, being on their guard, 
 gave the would-be robbers and assassins a warm reception, and, 
 notwithstanding the disparity in numbers, after a severe struggle, 
 in which both Lincoln and his companion were considerably hurt, 
 the former were driven from the boat. At the close of the fight, the 
 young navigators lost no time in getting their boat again under way. 
 ^ The trip in the main was successful, and in due time the young 
 men returned to their homes in Indiana. 
 
 ^ Lincoln and his associates for a second trip, Johnston and Hanks, 
 were to join Offut at Springfield, Illinois, as soon as the snow had 
 disappeared, whence they were to go with him to Beardstown, the 
 port of departure, for New Orleans. When the snow melted, 
 which was about the first of March, the whole country was so 
 flooded as to render traveling impracticable. This led the party to 
 purchase a canoe, in which they descended the Sangamon River 
 to a point within a few miles of Springfield. This was the time 
 and this the method of Lincoln's first entrance into Sangamon 
 County — a county which was to be the field of his future tri- 
 umphs, which was to become proud of him as her most distin- 
 guished citizen, and which, in time, was to be honored through 
 him with being the home of a President of the United States. On 
 arriving at Springfield, they learned from Offut that, not having 
 been able to purchase a boat in Beardstown, he had concluded to 
 build one on the Sangamon River. Lincoln, Hanks, and Johnston 
 were hired for that purpose, at twelve dollars per month, and going 
 into the woods, they got out the necessary timber and built a boat 
 at the town of Sangamon, near where the Chicago, Alton, and St. 
 Louis Railroad now crosses the Sangamon River, which they took 
 to New Orleans upon the old contract. 
 
 ^ The writer has not been put in possession of any of the incidents 
 
 29
 
 connected with this trip. It is sufficient for the present purpose, 
 however, to know that so well did young Lincoln bear himself 
 throughout— so faithful in all the trusts reposed in him by his 
 employer; so active, prompt, and efficient in all necessary labor; 
 so cool, determined, and full of resources in the presence of danger 
 —that before reaching New Orleans, Offut had become greatly 
 attached to him, and on their return engaged him to take the gen- 
 eral charge of a store and mill in the village of New Salem, then 
 in Sangamon, now in Menard Countv. 
 
 ■^ In July, J 83 1, Lincoln was fairly installed in this new business. 
 In those primitive times the country merchant was a personage of 
 vast consequence. He was made the repository of all the news of 
 the surrounding settlements, and as he " took the papers," he was 
 able to post his customers as to the affairs of state and the news of 
 the world generally. His acquirements in this last respect were as 
 astounding to the country people as were those of Goldsmith's vil- 
 lage schoolmaster to the simple rustics. His store was a place of 
 common resort for the people on rainy days, and at those periods 
 of the year when farm-work was not pressing, and nearly always 
 on Saturday afternoons. There all the topics of the neighborhood 
 and of the times were discussed, the merchant usually bearing the 
 leading part, and all disputed points of past history or of current 
 events were always referred to him, as the ultimate tribunal, for 
 decision. His word and opinion, in these respects, were supreme, 
 never disputed, and triumphantly repeated by the fortunate first- 
 hearers at all casual meetings with neighbors, and at all the little 
 neighborhood gatherings at which the oracle was not present. 
 .^ Young Lincoln's acquirements and natural gifts most admirably 
 fitted him for the distinction awarded to men engaged in his new 
 occupation. He had read a few books, as we have seen, had been 
 twice to New Orleans, and otherwise had observed a good deal of 
 the world, treasuring up whatever he had seen faithfully in his 
 memory. He had an unfailing fund of anecdote ; he was an admi- 
 rable talker, sharp, witty, good-humored, and possessed also of an 
 accommodating spirit which always led him to exert himself for 
 the entertainment of his friends, as well as to be ever ready to do 
 any of them a kind and neighborly turn when his assistance was 
 30
 
 needed. In a very little time he had become the most popular man 
 in the neighborhood. His new acquaintances respected him for 
 his uprightness, honored him for his intelligence, admired him for 
 his genial and social qualities, and loved him for that deep, earnest 
 sympathy which he ever manifested for those who were unfortu- 
 nate in their enterprises, or who were overtaken by some great 
 sorrow. How much they confided in him, honored and loved him, 
 will be seen a little further on. 
 
 1^ Early in the following spring (1832) the Black Hawk war broke 
 out in the northwestern part of the State. The previous year a 
 part of the tribes of the Sac and Fox Indians had recrossed the 
 Mississippi from its western bank, and taken possession of their 
 old town on Rock River, a few miles above its mouth, and about 
 four miles from where the city of Rock Island is now situated. 
 The Indian title to the lands in that vicinity had been extinguished 
 by a treaty made with the chiefs of the Sac and Fox Nations at 
 St. Louis, in 1804, which treaty was afterwards confirmed by a 
 portion of the tribes in 1 81 5, and by another portion in 1 81 6. 
 Black Hawk always denied the validity of these treaties, and, in 
 fact, of all the treaties made by his people with the whites. In the 
 war of 1 8 12, he had co-operated with the British army, and had 
 conceived an unconquerable hatred of the Americans. The lands 
 on which the great town of his nation was situated had recently 
 been surveyed and brought into market, and a number of white 
 settlers had gone upon them. This aroused the enmity of the old 
 chieftain, and taking with him his women and children, and as 
 many warriors as he could inspire with the same feeling, he 
 returned to his former haunts, took possession of the ancient 
 metropolis of his people, ordered the white settlers away, killed their 
 stock, unroofed their houses, pulled down their fences, and cut up 
 their growing grain. News of these outrages reaching Gov. Rey- 
 nolds, at his request Gen. Gaines proceeded at once to Rock Island. 
 Becoming convinced that Black Hawk meditated war on the set- 
 tlers. Gen. Gaines called upon Gov. Reynolds for a small force of 
 mounted volunteers. These were soon in the field, and in a short 
 time, together with a few regular troops, appeared before Black 
 Hawk's town. The latter, with his women and children and 
 
 3J
 
 fighting men, retreated across the Mississippi without firing a gun ; 
 the volunteers destroyed the town, and encamped upon the Missis- 
 sippi, on the site of the present city of Rock Island. Black Hawk, 
 anticipating that the troops would follow him to the west side of 
 the river, came into Fort Armstrong and sued for peace. A treaty 
 was then made in which it was stipulated that Black Hawk's peo- 
 ple should remain forever after on the west side of the river, never 
 to recross it without permission of the President of the United States 
 or the Governor of Illinois. This treaty proved to be but an Indian 
 stratagem. Black Hawk's sole object in making it was to gain 
 time in order to perfect his preparations. He was fully bent upon 
 war, and early in the following spring he recrossed the Mississippi, 
 in force, moving up the valley of the Rock River to the country of 
 the Pottawattomies and the Winnebagoes, whom he hoped to 
 make his allies. 
 
 ^ As soon as apprized of these facts. Gov. Reynolds issued a call 
 for four regiments of volunteers. Among the earliest in his neigh- 
 borhood to enroll himself for this service was young Lincoln. A 
 company was formed in New Salem, and to his own great sur- 
 prise, though doubtless not to the surprise of anyone else, Lin- 
 coln was chosen captain. This was the first evidence he had ever 
 received of popularity among his acquaintances, and he has often 
 said, later in life and since he has won the distinction of a leading 
 man in the nation, that no other success ever gave him so much 
 unalloyed satisfaction. The volunteers rendezvoused at Beards- 
 town. Here Lincoln's company joined its regiment, and after a 
 few days of rapid marching the scene of conflict was reached. It 
 is not the intention to give an account of this war. It was of short 
 duration. Black Hawk took the field early in April. In the last 
 days of the following July the decisive battle of the Bad Axe was 
 fought, which put an end to the war; and a few days thereafter 
 Black Hawk, and his principal braves who had escaped the bullet 
 and the bayonet, were prisoners of war at Fort Armstrong, on 
 Rock Island. But short as it was, the Indians showed themselves 
 to be courageous, desperate, and merciless. Their war parties 
 traversed the whole country from Rock Island to the neighborhood 
 of Chicago, and from the Illinois River into the territory of Wiscon- 
 32
 
 sin ; they occupied every grove, waylaid every road, hung around 
 every settlement, picked off many of the settlers without regard to 
 age, sex, or condition, and attacked every small party of white 
 men that attempted to penetrate the country. 
 
 .^ The first levy of volunteers was called out for but thirty days. 
 At the end of that time they were disbanded at Ottawa without 
 having seen the enemy. 
 
 iS^ When the troops were disbanded, most of them returned home. 
 Lincoln, however, had gone out for the war, and, a new levy being 
 called for, he again volunteered and served as a private. A second 
 time his regiment was disbanded, and again he volunteered. When 
 his third term of service had expired the war was about concluded, 
 and he returned home. Having lost his horse, near where the 
 town of Janesville, Wisconsin, now stands, he went down Rock 
 River to Dixon in a canoe. Thence he crossed the country on foot 
 to Peoria, where he again took canoe to a point on the Illinois 
 River within forty miles of home. The latter distance he accom- 
 plished on foot, having been in active service nearly three months. 
 We have been told by men who were with Lincoln during this 
 campaign, that he was always prompt and energetic in the per- 
 formance of duty, never shrinking from danger or hardships ; that 
 he was a universal favorite, the best talker, the best story-teller, 
 and the best at a wrestling-match or a foot-race in the whole army. 
 He still owns the land in Iowa on which his own warrants for this 
 service were located.
 
 CHAPTER IV. — BECOMES SUCCESSIVELY A MER- 
 CHANT, SURVEYOR, LEGISLATOR AND LAWYER. 
 
 RIOR to the adoption of the present constitution of Illi- 
 nois, in J 847, elections for State officers and Members 
 of the Legislature were held on the first Monday in 
 August — for the former once in four years, for the latter 
 once in every two years. Lincoln's return to New Salem 
 was, therefore, but a few days before the election of that year for 
 Members of the Legislature. The system of nominating candidates 
 for office by county and State conventions had not then been intro- 
 duced into Illinois. Indeed, party lines and party designations 
 were at that time scarcely known in the State. There were " Clay 
 Men," "Jackson Men," "Adams Men," "Crawford Men," and so 
 on, but no clearly defined party creeds around which men of simi- 
 lar views rallied to make common cause against those holding 
 opposite opinions. Men announced themselves as candidates for 
 the various elective offices. It was a very rare circumstance that 
 a contest for an office was narrowed down to two candidates. 
 More frequently a half dozen eager aspirants contested the prize. 
 ■^ The county of Sangamon was entitled to four members in the 
 lower branch of the Legislature, and there were at the time of Lin- 
 coln's return, more than twice that number of candidates. Among 
 the number were some of the ablest, best known, and most popular 
 men of the county, of whom may be mentioned John T. Stuart, 
 afterwards Representative in Congress, Col. E. D. Taylor, Peter 
 Cartwright, the famous eccentric Methodist preacher, and others of 
 considerable note. These gentlemen had been in the field some 
 time before the return of Lincoln — had canvassed the county thor- 
 oughly, defining their position on local and other questions, and 
 obtaining promises of support. 
 
 .?» Lincoln had no sooner returned than he was urgently besought 
 by his friends at New Salem to enter the lists for the Legislature 
 against this array of strong men and old citizens. These entreat- 
 ies, continued from day to day, together with the cordial reception 
 he had just received at the hands of all his old acquaintances, 
 induced him, against his better judgment, to give a reluctant assent, 
 knowing very well that, under the circumstances, his election was 
 34
 
 entirely out of the question. It will be remembered that the county 
 was a large one ; that he had lived in it only from July to the fol- 
 lowing April ; that he had but few acquaintances outside of the pre- 
 cinct of New Salem ; and that the election was so near at hand as 
 to deprive him of the opportunity of visiting other portions of the 
 county, and making himself known to the people. Nevertheless, 
 when the election came off, he was but a few votes behind the suc- 
 cessful candidates. His own precinct — New Salem — gave him 
 277 votes in a poll of 284 ; and this too in face of his avowed pref- 
 erences for Mr. Clay, and notwithstanding the same precinct at the 
 Presidential election, three months later, gave a majority of 115 for 
 General Jackson. The result of this election, though practically a 
 defeat, was, all circumstances considered, a most brilliant triumph, 
 clearly presaging success in any future trial he might make. And 
 never since that day has Mr. Lincoln been beaten in any direct 
 vote of the people. 
 
 J^ Having received such generous treatment at the hands of his 
 New Salem friends, Mr. Lincoln resolved to make the place his 
 permanent home. He was wholly without means, and at a loss 
 as to what he should try to do. At one time he had almost con- 
 cluded to learn the trade of a blacksmith. Those who discerned 
 in the young man qualities which he had not yet suspected himself 
 to be the possessor of, urged him to turn his attention to the profes- 
 sion of law ; but he always met suggestions of this character with 
 objections based upon his lack of education. While yet in a quan- 
 dary as to the future, he was very unexpectedly met with a proposi- 
 tion to purchase on credit, in connection with another man as poor 
 himself, an old stock of goods. The offer was accepted, and forth 
 with he was installed at the head of a village store. It is needless 
 to recount the difficulties which beset him as a merchant. It is 
 enough to say that after a manly struggle with certain adverse cir- 
 cumstances for which he was not responsible, he relinquished the 
 business, finding himself encumbered with debt — which he after- 
 wards paid to the last farthing. While engaged in this business 
 he received the appointment of post-master of New Salem — the 
 profits of the office being too insignificant to make his politics an 
 objection. 
 
 35
 
 •^ Again thrown out of employment, Mr. Lincoln now turned his 
 attention more than ever to books. He read everything that fell 
 in his way; he kept himself well posted in national politics; he 
 accustomed himself to write out his views on various topics of gen- 
 eral interest, though not for the public eye ; and realizing in these 
 exercises the importance of a correct knowledge of English Gram- 
 mar, he took up that study for the first time. About this period he 
 made the acquaintance of John Calhoun, then living in Springfield, 
 and afterwards notorious for his efforts to maintain Democratic 
 supremacy in Kansas, and as President of the Lecompton Consti- 
 tutional Convention. Mr. Calhoun was then County Surveyor for 
 Sangamon county. The great influx of immigrants before spoken 
 of, and the consequent active entry of the government lands, gave 
 him more business in the way of establishing comers, and tracing 
 boundary lines, than he could well attend to. Conceiving a liking 
 for Mr. Lincoln, Calhoun offered to depute to him that portion of 
 the work contiguous to New Salem. Lincoln had no knowledge 
 of surveying, or of the science on which it is based ; but he was 
 now too much absorbed by a desire for improvement to decline a 
 position which, while securing a livelihood, would enable him to 
 increase his acquirements. He accepted the kind proffer of Mr. 
 Calhoun, contrived to procure a compass and chain, set himself 
 down to the study of Flint and Gibson, and in a very short time 
 took the field as a surveyor. Mr. Lincoln never forgot or ceased 
 to be grateful for this kindness. Although he and Mr. Calhoun 
 were ever afterwards political opponents, he always treated him 
 fairly, placed the most charitable construction possible upon his 
 actions, and never lost an opportunity to do a kindly act either for 
 him or his family. 
 
 i^In the summer of 1834, Mr. Lincoln was again a candidate for 
 the Legislature. He had now become acquainted with the people 
 throughout the county ; and although they had not seen enough of 
 him to have learned to appreciate him quite as highly as the people 
 of New Salem precinct, nevertheless he was this time elected by 
 an overwhelming majority, and by the largest vote cast for any 
 candidate. Up to this period, and, indeed, for the two years after, 
 Mr. Lincoln was not aware that he possessed any faculty for pub- 
 36
 
 lie speaking. His acquaintances knew him to be an admirable 
 talker, full of original thought, a close reasoner, united to a match- 
 less gift of illustration ; and from their eager desire to get him into 
 the Legislature, it is more than probable that they believed he 
 would there develop into a forcible and ready debater. Whatever 
 they had known him to undertake he had done well; and they 
 therefore had faith in his success, should he enter this new and 
 untried field of effort. In one of his memorable debates with 
 Stephen A. Douglas, in 1858, the latter, in alluding to the early 
 experiences in life, as well as to the later efforts of his opponent, 
 said: — "Lincoln is one of those peculiar men ivho perform 'with 
 admirable skill everything they undertake." Douglas had known 
 and watched him closely for a quarter of a century — watched him 
 not as an admirer and friend, but as a political opponent whom he 
 always dreaded to encounter, and whose failure in anything would 
 have given him sincere gratification, — and this was the conclusion 
 to which he had been forced to come contrary to his wishes. To 
 be able to rise with the occasion, and to never fall below it, is one of 
 the surest marks of genius ; and we have the authority of the man, 
 who, of all men in the world, is the least likely to be biased in Mr. 
 Lincoln's favor, for saying that he has never failed to come up to 
 this standard. The trait of character to which Mr. Douglas thus 
 bore reluctant testimony, had been early remarked by Lincoln's 
 friends. It was not wonderful, therefore, that they had implicit 
 faith in him— that, although young and wholly inexperienced in 
 legislation, they cheerfully confided their [interests to his keeping, 
 for in his past life they had the strongest possible guarantee that in 
 this new sphere he would make himself " master of the situation," 
 and fully equal to all of its duties. 
 
 .^But in the session of 1834-5, Mr. Lincoln did not attempt to 
 make a speech. He was faithful in his attendance, watchful of the 
 interests of his constituents, acquired the confidence of his fellow- 
 members as a man of sound judgment and patriotic purposes, and 
 in this manner he wielded a greater influence in shaping and con- 
 trolling legislation than many of the noisy declaimers and most 
 frequent speakers of the body. His constituents were satisfied — 
 so well satisfied, indeed, that they re-elected him in 1836, again in 
 
 37
 
 J 838, and again in 1840, and would have continued electing him, 
 had he desired it ; but by this time, as we shall presently see, his 
 circumstances and position were greatly changed, and there were 
 higher duties before him. 
 
 ■^During the canvass for the Legislature, in 1834, Mr. Lincoln 
 was thrown considerably into the company of Hon. John T. Stu- 
 art, of Springfield, then a candidate for re-election. The latter 
 gentleman, with his accustomed penetration, was not long in dis- 
 covering in his retiring and unassuming companion powers of 
 mind which, if properly developed, could not fail to confer distinc- 
 tion upon their possessor. To Lincoln's great surprise, Mr. Stuart 
 warmly urged him to study law. Mr. Stuart was a gentleman of 
 education, an able lawyer, and in every respect one of the foremost 
 men of the State. Advice of this character, tendered by one so 
 competent to give it, could not be otherwise than gratifying to a 
 young man as yet unknown to fame outside of New Salem pre- 
 cinct, and being accompanied by a generous offer to loan him 
 whatever books he might need, Lincoln resolved to follow it. As 
 soon as the election was over, he took home with him a few books 
 from the law library of Mr. Stuart, and entered upon their study 
 in his usually earnest way. When the Legislature met, in the 
 following December, the law books were laid aside, but were 
 resumed again immediately after the adjournment. In the autumn 
 of 1 836, Mr. Lincoln was admitted to the bar, and on the 1 5th day 
 of the following April, having formed a copartnership with his old 
 friend Stuart, he removed to Springfield, and entered upon his pro- 
 fessional career. 
 
 •^ During all this time— that is, from his acceptance of the post of 
 deputy-surveyor under Calhoun until he removed to Springfield, in 
 1837 — he supported himself by occasional jobs of surveying. Of 
 course he was compelled to live as cheaply as possible, to dress, as 
 he had always done before and always has done since, in plain, 
 simple garb, and to study at night by the light of the fire — candles 
 being a luxury he could not then afford. Yet he was always buoy- 
 ant, enjoyed life, and never once fancied that his condition was 
 otherwise than an enviable one. His most severe annoyances grew 
 out of his rare gifts as a talker. His friends ivould come to see 
 38
 
 him and to hear him talk, and whenever a stranger sojourned for 
 a day or more in New Salem, these friends could not forego the 
 gratification of showing off the fine points of the village favorite. 
 Apropos to incidents of this character, is the following, related by 
 Hon. Richard Yates, the distinguished Republican candidate for 
 Governor of Illinois, in a speech delivered at Springfield, on the 7th 
 of June last, to a meeting composed of Mr. Lincoln's old friends 
 and neighbors, many of whom had known him intimately at the 
 time referred to. Said Mr. Yates : 
 
 " I recollect the first time I ever saw Old Abe, and I have a great mind to tell you, though I 
 don't know that I ought to. (* Yes, go on — go on.') It was more than a quarter of a century 
 ago. ( A voice, * He was " Young A'oe " then.' ) I was down at Salem with a friend, who 
 remarked to me one day, ' 111 go over and introduce you to a fine young fellow we have here 
 — a smart, genial, active young fellow, and Tue 'II be certain to ha've a good talk. ' I con- 
 sented, and he took me down to a collection of four or five houses, and, looking over the w^y, I 
 saw^ a young man partly lying or resting on a cellar door, intently engaged in reading. My 
 friend took me up and introduced me to young Lincoln, and I tell you, as he rose up, I would not 
 have shot at him then for a President. (Laughter.) Well, after some pleasant conversation — 
 for Lincoln talked then just as he does new — we all went up to dinner. You know we all 
 lived in a very plain way in those times. The house was a rough log house, with a puncheon 
 floor and clapboard roof, and might have been built, like Solomon's Temple, 'without the 
 sound of hammer or nail,' for there was no iron in it. (Laughter.) The old lady, whose house 
 it was, soon provided us with a dinner, the principal ingredient of which was a great bov/l of 
 milk, which she handed to each. Somehow in serving Lincoln there was a mistake made, and 
 his bowl tipped up, and the bowl and milk rolled over the floor. The good old lady was in 
 deep distress, and exclaimed, * Oh dear me I that's all my fault.' Lincoln picked up the bowl 
 in the best natured way in the world, remarking to her, 'Aunt Lizzy, we'll not discuss whose 
 fault it was; only if it don't worry you, it don't worry me.' (Laughter and applause.) The 
 old lady was comforted, and gave him another bowl of milk. (Renewed laughter.) 
 
 " My friend Green, who introduced me to Lincoln, told me the first time he ever saw him he 
 w^as in the Sangamon River, with his pants rolled up some five feet, more or less (great merri- 
 ment), trying to pilot a flat-boat over a mill-dam. The boat had got so full of water that it was 
 very difficult to manage, and almost impossible to get it over the dam. Lincoln finally con- 
 trived to get her prow over so that it projected a few feet, and there it stood. But he then 
 invented a ne:^ way of bailing a flat-boat. He bored a hole through the bottom to let the water 
 run out, and then corked her up, and she launched right over. (Great laughter.) I think the 
 captain who proved himself so fitted to navigate the broad-horn over the dam, is no doubt the 
 man who is to stand upon the deck of the old ship, ' The Constitution,' and guide her safely 
 over the billows and breakers that surround her." (Enthusiastic and prolonged applause.) 
 
 ■^ It has been already stated that Lincoln was a luorking member 
 of the Legislature at the session of 1834-5, but did not attempt the 
 role of a speaker. The convention system had been introduced 
 into Illinois by Stephen A. Douglas, in 1834; and about that time 
 the opponents of the administration began calling themselves 
 "Whigs," and laying the foundation of a party organization. 
 
 39
 
 Party spirit soon began to run high, and political discussions 
 between leading men of the two parties were of frequent occur- 
 rence. Lincoln's first speech was made during the canvass for the 
 Legislature in 1836. The candidates had met at Springfield by 
 appointment for the purpose of a public discussion. A large con- 
 course of citizens had assembled in the court-house to listen to the 
 speeches. Ninian W. Edwards, then a Whig, led off. He was 
 followed by Dr. Early, who was regarded as one of the most effec- 
 tive debaters on the Democratic side in the State. Early was 
 severe upon Edwards, and the latter was desirous of making an 
 immediate rejoinder. But Early's speech had aroused Lincoln. 
 His name was the next on the program, and telling Edwards to be 
 patient, he arose to reply. Although embarrassed at the begin- 
 ning, his exordium gave indications of what was to come. He 
 began in that slow and deliberate manner which is still one of his 
 marked characteristics as a speaker, succinctly and lucidly stating 
 the principles of the two parties, carefully laying down his prem- 
 ises, and weaving a network of facts and deductions around his 
 adversary, from which escape was utterly impossible. Li less than 
 five minutes all traces of embarrassment had disappeared. As he 
 warmed with his subject, his tall form grew proudly erect, his gray 
 eye burning and flashing with an intensity never witnessed before, 
 and all his features in full play — now mantling with humor, as 
 some well-aimed shaft of ridicule penetrated and disclosed a weak 
 place in his opponent's argument, and now glowing with an hon- 
 est indignation, as he laid bare the sophisms and misrepresenta- 
 tions with which it abounded. When he sat down, his reputation 
 was made. Not only had he achieved a signal victory over the 
 acknowledged champion of Democracy, but he had placed him- 
 self, by a single effort, in the very front rank of able and eloquent 
 debaters. The surprise of his audience was only equalled by their 
 enthusiasm; and of all the surprised people on that memorable 
 occasion, perhaps no one was more profoundly astonished than 
 Lincoln himself. In the election which followed. Early was 
 defeated, and with him every Democratic candidate on the ticket 
 —a result to which Lincoln's masterly efforts before the people 
 largely contributed. 
 40
 
 ^ In the following December, Lincoln took his seat a second time 
 in the Legislature. It is proper to state here that Illinois, until of 
 late years, has always been strongly Democratic. It gave its elec- 
 toral vote to Jackson in 1832, to Van Buren in 1836 and in 1840, 
 to Polk in 1844, to Cass in 1848, and to Pierce in 1852. During 
 these twenty years, with the exception of a part of Gov. Duncan's 
 term, who was elected as a Jackson man, but identified himself 
 with the Whig party before the close of his administration, all the 
 State offices and the State Legislature were in the possession of the 
 Democratic party. The whole responsibility of the State govern- 
 ment devolved upon that party. The Whigs in the Legislature, as 
 a party, had no power to inaugurate a policy of their own. Their 
 hands were effectually tied. The most they could do was, in cases 
 in which their opponents differed among themselves on questions 
 of policy, to throw their votes on the side that seemed to them the 
 least mischievous. Such was the condition of things when Mr. 
 Lincoln entered the Legislature in 1 834. It had not altered in any 
 respect when he took his seat a second time in that body in 1836, 
 nor indeed at any subsequent period while he remained a member 
 of it. During the session of J 836-37, he was recognized from the 
 start as a leader of his party on the floor of the House, and made 
 such a reputation for himself in that capacity, that both in 1838 
 and 1840, he received the unanimous vote of his party friends for 
 speaker. 
 
 .^The details of State legislation afford but few matters of interest 
 to the general reader, and for that reason it is not proposed to fol- 
 low Mr. Lincoln through this portion of his career. It is enough 
 to say on this head, that he was always watchful of the public 
 interests, labored zealously and with great efficiency for whatever 
 he believed would promote the welfare of the State, and opposed 
 with untiring energy every measure that he thought would have 
 an opposite tendency. He entered the body in 1834, the youngest 
 member in it, with a fame that had not extended beyond the limits 
 of his own county ; distrustful of himself by reason of his lack of 
 education ; inexperienced in legislation ; and having no knowledge 
 of the arts and chicanery with which he would have to contend. 
 He left it in 1840, by common consent the ablest man in it; the 
 f 4J
 
 recognized leader of his party in the House and in the State ; his 
 name familiar as a household word from Cairo to Galena, and 
 from the Wabash to the Mississippi ; and with a reputation for hon- 
 esty and integrity which not even the bitterest of his political oppo- 
 nents had the hardihood to asperse.
 
 CHAPTER V.-TAKES UP THE LEGAL PROFESSION 
 AND TWICE RUNS FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR. 
 
 N retiring from the Legislature it was the intention of 
 Mr. Lincoln to devote himself exclusively to the labors 
 of his profession. His own convictions on the questions 
 which divided parties were deeply-rooted and immov- 
 able. His party in the State was in a hopeless minor- 
 ity. There seemed but small opportunity for a man of his views 
 to succeed in politics, while the qualities that he had by this time 
 developed insured both an honorable fame and a lucrative income 
 in his profession. To this he now turned with all the earnestness 
 of his nature, and with a firm resolve to win laurels in it worth the 
 wearing. But he was not permitted long to give his exclusive 
 attention to professional pursuits. The ground-swell of that politi- 
 cal revolution which in 1 840 carried the Whig party into power in 
 the national government, had no sooner been felt, than there was a 
 universal desire awakened among the Whigs of Illinois to make 
 one more effort to carry the State over to the Whig column. Mr. 
 Lincoln was assigned a place on the Electoral ticket— a position 
 which he accepted with reluctance, but which he filled with great 
 zeal and ability. In that memorable canvass he repeatedly met 
 Mr. Douglas on the stump; and it is no disparagement to that 
 gentleman to say, that then, as in later years, Mr. Lincoln proved 
 himself to be immeasurably his superior — superior in logic, in 
 argument, in resources as a debater, in broad and comprehensive 
 views of national policy, in fairness and in gentlemanly courtesy 
 towards his competitor. 
 
 ^ After the election of that year, Mr. Lincoln returned to his pro- 
 fessional duties. He had now obtained a reputation at the bar 
 which placed him in the front rank of the many able and profound 
 jurists of the State. His services were eagerly sought in almost 
 every case of importance ; and perhaps no lawyer in Illinois or any 
 other State has been more uniformly successful in the cases which 
 he has undertaken. It is one of the peculiarities of Mr. Lincoln as 
 a lawyer, that he holds himself bound in honor and in conscience, 
 having accepted a fee, to thoroughly master the case of his client. 
 In this regard he is noted among his professional brethren for the 
 
 43
 
 greatness of his labors. He not only studies the side of his client, 
 but that of his opponent also. Consequently he is never taken 
 unawares, but has ample resources for whatever turn the inge- 
 nuity, skill, or learning of opposing counsel may give to the case. 
 To this peculiarity, in part, is owing the well-known fact that 
 whenever Mr. Lincoln is employed in connection with other emi- 
 nent counsel, before the conclusion of the case the sole manage- 
 ment of it is almost invariably surrendered to him. Not by any 
 ostentatious thrusting of himself forward is this position obtained, 
 for nothing could be more foreign to Mr. Lincoln's manner, either 
 at the bar or elsewhere ; but proving himself to be more completely 
 master of the case than his associates, the latter voluntarily award 
 the position to him, and even insist upon his taking it. Another 
 peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln as a lawyer, is the fact that he is ever 
 ready to give his assistance gratuitously to a poor client who has 
 justice and right on his side. He has managed many such cases 
 from considerations of a purely benevolent character, which he 
 would not have undertaken for a fee. More than this, in cases of 
 peculiar hardship, he has been known, again and again, after 
 throwing all of his power and ability as a lawyer into the manage- 
 ment of the case, without charge, or any other reward than the 
 gratification of a noble nature, on bidding his client adieu, and 
 when receiving his cordial thanks and the warm grasp of his hand, 
 to slip into his palm a five or a ten dollar bill, bidding him to say 
 nothing about it, but to take heart and be hopeful. Those who 
 know him intimately will not be surprised at this relation, because 
 it harmonizes well with his whole character ; but so careful has he 
 always been to conceal his charitable deeds that the knowledge of 
 such actions on his part is confined to those who have come into 
 possession of it without his agency. 
 
 i^In November, 1842, Mr. Lincoln was united in marriage to 
 Miss Mary Todd, daughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd, of Lexing- 
 ton, Kentucky. The fruits of this union are three sons now living, 
 and one dead. The eldest, now in his seventeenth year, is a stu- 
 dent at Exeter Academy, New Hampshire, preparatory to entering 
 Harvard University. The other sons are intelligent, promising 
 lads. Mrs. Lincoln is a ladv of charming presence, of superior 
 44
 
 intelligence, of accomplished manners, and, in every respect well 
 fitted to adorn the position in which the election of her husband to 
 the Presidency will place her. The courtesies and hospitalities of 
 the White House have never been more appropriately and grace- 
 fully dispensed than they will be during the administration of Mr. 
 Lincoln. 
 
 ■^ From the retirement of his professional avocations, Mr. Lincoln 
 was again called by his party to perform the labors of an elector 
 for the State at large in the canvass of 1844. He entered upon the 
 duties with his accustomed zeal, and with even more than his 
 accustomed ability. John Calhoun (of Kansas notoriety), then 
 regarded as one of the ablest debaters on the Democratic side in the 
 State, was an elector at large on the ticket of his party. The 
 meetings between these gentlemen in different parts of the State 
 will not soon be forgotten by those who witnessed them. Calhoun 
 exerted himself as he had never done before. Not even Douglas, 
 in his palmiest days, ever bore aloft the Democratic standard more 
 gallantly, or brought more strength of intellect to the defense of its 
 principles. But it was only the endeavor of a pigmy against an 
 intellectual giant. His arguments were torn to tatters by Lincoln, 
 his premises were left without foundation, and he had only the one 
 course of the demagogue left— to raise the party cry, and to urge 
 the faithful to a union of effort. The issues of that day made the 
 discussion of the tariff a prominent part of every political speech. It 
 is believed by the most intelligent of Mr. Lincoln's hearers, that the 
 doctrine of tariff for the protection of home industry has never 
 received, in this country, a more exhaustive exposition, and a more 
 triumphant vindication than in his speeches during that canvass. 
 It is to be regretted that the newspaper enterprise of Illinois, at that 
 day, did not embrace among its objects verbatim reports of public 
 speeches There is no trace of these efforts of Mr. Lincoln remain- 
 ing, save in the recollection of those who were present at their 
 delivery. 
 
 ^ Before the close of the campaign, Mr. Lincoln accepted the earn- 
 est and oft-repeated invitation of leading Whigs in Indiana to visit 
 that State. The result of the August election had demonstrated 
 that Mr. Clay could not carry Illinois, while Indiana was consid- 
 
 45
 
 reed debatable ground. The efforts of Mr. Lincoln— continu- 
 ing through several weeks, and until the day of election— gave 
 unbounded satisfaction to his political friends in Indiana, thousands 
 of whom flocked to hear him at every appointment.
 
 CHAPTER VL-IS ELECTED TO CONGRESS AND 
 TAKES DECISIVE POSITION ON THE MEXICAN WAR. 
 
 n 1846 Mr. Lincoln received the unanimous nomination for 
 Congress by the Whig Convention for the Springfield Dis- 
 trict. In 1844 the district had given a majority of 914 to Mr. 
 Clay, and the Democracy expected, in the Congressional 
 election of 1846, to greatly lessen, if not entirely overcome, 
 this majority. With the hope of securing the latter result, they 
 put in nomination Rev. Peter Cartwright, the famous Methodist 
 preacher, a man of great popularity with the people generally, and 
 especially popular with his own denomination, which embraced a 
 very large and influential portion of the population of the district. 
 Mr. Lincoln spoke in the principal towns in the district, on the 
 political issues of the day. His opponent did not meet him in dis- 
 cussion, but chose his own peculiar way of electioneering. The 
 canvass resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln by a majority of 
 1,5 n, — a majority unprecedented in the district, and conclusive as 
 to the estimation in which he was held by his immediate neighbors. 
 ^ Mr. Lincoln took his seat in the National House of Representa- 
 tives on the 7th of December, 1847— the beginning of the first ses- 
 sion of the Thirtieth Congress. He met there such men as John 
 Quincy Adams, George Ashmun, Jacob Collamer, John M. Botts, 
 Washington Hunt, J. R. Ingersoll, T. Butler King, Henry W. Hil- 
 liard, George P. Marsh, Charles S. Morehead, Merideth P. Gen- 
 try, James Pollock, Caleb B. Smith, Truman Smith, Robert C. 
 Schenck, Alexander H. Stephens, John B. Thompson, Robert 
 Toombs, Samuel F. Vinton, and other prominent Whig leaders ; 
 and although a new man in Congress, and comparatively young, 
 he at once took a prominent position among this brilliant array of 
 distinguished men. Throughout his Congressional career, his 
 record is that of a consistent Whig. On all the issues that divided 
 parties which were brought before Congress for action, his name 
 will be found recorded on the same side on which Clay and Web- 
 ster had so often before recorded theirs. 
 
 .^A great deal has been said by his political opponents in regard 
 to his action on the subject of the Mexican War ; and in the can- 
 vass of 1858 with Mr. Douglas, that gentleman and his newspa- 
 
 47
 
 per organs made a very disingenuous but characteristic attempt to 
 fasten upon Mr. Lincoln a charge of having voted against supplies 
 for the American army in Mexico. The charge was without 
 foundation in fact, and utterly untrue in every particular. 
 i^When Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Congress, Gen. Scott had 
 been nearly three months in possession of the city of Mexico. All 
 the great battles of that war had been fought, and the negotiations 
 which resulted in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on the 2d of 
 February, 1848, had progressed very far towards a favorable con- 
 clusion. The American army, however, was still in Mexico ; and 
 various supply measures, resolutions of thanks, acts for extra pay, 
 and for the relief of the widows and orphans of officers and soldiers 
 who had fallen in the war, were brought before the Thirtieth Con- 
 gress, and passed. Mr. Lincoln voted in favor of every measure 
 of this kind which came before Congress, A careful examination 
 of the Journals and the Congressional Globe discloses the fact that 
 fourteen Acts and eight Joint Resolutions of the character referred 
 to, were passed by this Congress. Of these, three Acts and two 
 Joint Resolutions were passed under a call for the Ayes and Nays ; 
 the remainder without. We have the assurance of those who 
 served in Congress with Mr. Lincoln— both his political friends 
 and opponents— that he voted in favor of all the latter; while as 
 to the former, the House Journal contains the proof. 
 ^The first of these Acts which passed the House by Ayes and 
 Nays, will be found in U. S. Statutes at Large, page 215, chap. 23, 
 being '*An act further to supply deficiencies in the Appropriations 
 for the Service of the Fiscal Year ending the thirtieth of June, eigh- 
 teen hundred and forty-eight;" and it appropriates, among other 
 items, various sums distinctly for the benefit of volunteers in the 
 Mexican War, amounting to $7,508,939 74. Mr. Lincoln's name 
 is recorded in the affirmative. (See House Journal, 1st Sess. 30th 
 Congress, pages 520-1.) 
 
 i^The next Act will be found in the Statutes at Large, page 217, 
 chap. 26, being "An Act to authorize a loan not to exceed the sum 
 of sixteen millions of dollars." This act was passed to provide 
 money to meet appropriations in general, including those of the 
 Mexican War, and would not have been necessary but for that 
 48
 
 war. Mr. Lincoln's name stands recorded in the affirmative. (See 
 House Journal, pages 426-7.) 
 
 ^ The last Act of this character passed by Ayes and Nays, will 
 be found in Statutes at Large, page 247, chap. 104, being "An Act 
 to amend an Act, entitled 'An Act supplemental to An Act entitled 
 An Act providing for the prosecution of the existing war between 
 the United States and the Republic of Mexico, and for other pur- 
 poses.' " This Act, among other things, provided for giving three 
 months' extra pay to officers, non-commissioned officers musicians 
 and privates, engaged in the Mexican war, and to their relations, 
 in case of their dying in the service. Mr. Lincoln's name is 
 recorded in favor of this Act. (See House Journal, page 768.) 
 •^ The two Joint Resolutions spoken of will be found in Statutes at 
 Large, pages 333 and 334. They were expressive of the thanks 
 of Congress to Major-General Winfield Scott and Major-General 
 Zachary Taylor, and to the troops under their command respec- 
 tively, for their distinguished gallantry and good conduct in the 
 Mexican campaign of J 847. Mr. Lincoln's name is recorded in 
 favor of both resolutions. (See House Journal, pages 365-6.) 
 ^ These are the only instances that occurred while Mr. Lincoln 
 was in Congress in which supplies, extra pay, or thanks were voted 
 or proposed, under a call of the Ayes and Nays, for the American 
 Army in Mexico ; and in each case he is recorded in the affirm- 
 ative. 
 
 ■^ Mr. Lincoln held, in common with the entire Whig party of that 
 day, that the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitu- 
 tionally begun ; and all who desire to know the reasons on which 
 the Whig party based this opinion, will find them most ably set 
 forth in a speech delivered in Congress by Mr. Lincoln, Jan. 12, 
 J 848 ; and which may be found in the Appendix to the Congres- 
 sional Globe, 1st session, 30th Congress, beginning at page 93. 
 Previous to the delivery of that speech, Mr. Lincoln had intention- 
 ally refrained from taking exceptions publicly to what he honestly 
 believed to be the unjustifiable conduct of President Polk in pre- 
 cipitating the country into a war with Mexico. The following 
 extract from the speech contains the reasons which, in his judg- 
 ment, demanded a departure from this line of policy : 
 
 g 49
 
 "When the war began, it was my opinion that all those who, because of knowing too IHtte, 
 or because of knowing too much, could not conscientiously approve the conduct of the President 
 (in the beginning of it), should, nevertheless, as good citizens and patriots, remain silent on that 
 point, at least till the war should be ended. Some leading Democrats, including ex-President 
 Van Buren, have taken this same view, as I understand them i and I adhered to it, and acted 
 upon it, until since I took my seat here, and I think I should still adhere to it, were it not that 
 the President and his friends will not allow it to be so. Besides the continual effort of the Pres- 
 ident to argue every silent vote given for supplies into an indorsement of the justice and wisdom 
 of his conduct i besides that singularly candid paragraph in his late message, in which he tells 
 us that Congress, with great unanimity (only two in the Senate and fourteen in the House dis- 
 senting) had declared that 'by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between 
 that Government and the United States,' when the same journals that informed him of this, also 
 informed fiim that, when that declaration stood disconnected from the question of supplies, 
 sixty-seven in the House, and not fourteen, merely, voted against it i besides this open attempt 
 to prove by telling the truth, what he could not prove by telling the 'whole truth, — demanding 
 of all who will not submit to be misrepresented, in justice to themselves, to speak out t besides 
 all this, one of my colleagues (Mr. Richardson), at a very early day in the session, brought in 
 a set of resolutions, expressly indorsing the original justice of the war on the part of the Presi- 
 dent. Upon these resolutions when they shall be put on their passage, I shall be compelled to 
 vote ) so that I cannot be silent if I would." 
 
 i^As before observed, Mr. Lincoln did not stand alone in holding 
 these views. They were held substantially by the entire Whig 
 party, both at the North and the South ; as well as by Mr. Cal- 
 houn and those Southern men who at that time had adopted his 
 peculiar political opinions. The following, from the House Jour- 
 nal, 1st session, 30th Congress, pages 183-4 (January 3d, J 848), 
 shows the position of the Whig party on the subject : 
 
 " In pursuance of previotjs notice, Mr. John W. Houston asked, and obtained leave, and intro- 
 duced a joint resolution of thanks to Major-General Taylor; and which was read a first and 
 second time ) when 
 
 "Mr. Schenck moved tfiat the said resolution be referred to the Committee on Military 
 Affairs. 
 
 " Mr. Henly moved to amend the said motion of Mr. Schenck by adding thereto the follow- 
 ing : With instructions to insert in said resolution the following : ' Engaged as they 'were, in 
 defending the rights and honor of the country.' 
 
 Mr. Ashmun moved to amend the said proposed instructions by adding at the end of the 
 same : ' In a 'war unnecessarily and unconstitutiotudly begun by the President of the United 
 States.' 
 
 "And the question was put, Will the House agree to the amendment offered by Mr. Ashmun? 
 
 "And decided in the affirmative — Yeas 82) Nays 81. 
 
 The yeas and nays being desired by one-fifth of the members present. 
 
 " Those who voted in the affirmative are : 
 
 "Mr. John Quincy Adams, George Ashmun, Daniel M. Barringer, Washington Barrow, 
 Hiram Belcher, John M. Botts, Jasper E. Brady, Aylett Buckner, Richard S. Canby, Thomas 
 L. Cllngman, William M. Cocke, Jacob Collamer, Harmon S. Conger, Robert B. Cranston, 
 John Crowell, John H. Crozier, John Dickey, James Dixon, Richard S. Donnell, William Duer, 
 Daniel EHmcan, Gamett Duncan, George G. Dunn, George N. Eckert, Thomas O. Edwards, 
 Alexander Evans, Nathan Evans, David Fisher, Andrew S. Fulton, John Gayle, Meredith P. 
 Gentry, Joshua R. Giddings, William M. Goggin, Joseph Grinnell, Artemas Hale, Nathan K. 
 
 50
 
 Hall, James G. Hampton, William T. Haskell, William Henry, John W. Houston, Samuel D. 
 Hubbard, Charles Hudson, Alexander Irvin, Orlando Kellogg, T. Butler King, Daniel P. King, 
 Abraham Lincoln, Abraham R. Mcllvane, George P. Marsh, Dudley Marvin, Joseph Mullin, 
 Henry Nes, William A. Newell, William B. Preston, Harvey Putnam, Gideon Reynolds, 
 Julius Rockwell, John A. Rockwell, Joseph M. Root, David Rumsey, Jr., Daniel B. St. John, 
 Robert C. Schenck, Augustine H. Shepperd, Kliakim Sherrill, John L Slingerland, Caleb B. 
 Smith, Truman Smith, Alexander H. Stephens, Andrew Stewart, John Strohm, Peter H. Syl- 
 vester, Bannon G. Thibodeaux, John L. Taylor, Patrick W. Tompkins, Richard W. Thomp- 
 son, John B. Thompson, Robert Toombs, Amos Tuck, John Van Dyke, Samuel F. Vinton, 
 Cornelius Warren, lames Wilson." 
 
 ^ It will be seen, by inspection of the foregoing names, that some 
 of the most distinguished leaders of the Democracy of the present 
 day voted with Mr. Lincoln. It will also be seen that, while the 
 resolution censured the President for the manner in which he 
 began the war, it also conveyed the thanks of Congress to the offi- 
 cers and soldiers of the American army, for their gallant defense of 
 the rights and honor of the country. 
 
 •j^ Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion expressed by this vote, as 
 subsequently stated in his speech on the war, were, briefly, that the 
 President had sent Gen. Taylor into an inhabited part of the country 
 belonging to Mexico, and thereby had provoked the first act of hos- 
 tility ; that the place at which these hostilities were provoked, being 
 the country bordering on the east bank of the Rio Grande, was in- 
 habited by native Mexicans, bom there under the Mexican govern- 
 ment, and had never submitted to, nor been conquered by, Texas 
 or the United States, nor transferred to either by treaty; that 
 although Texas claimed the Rio Grande as her boundary, Mexico 
 had never recognized it, the people on the ground had never recog- 
 nized it, and neither Texas nor the United States had ever enforced 
 it; that there was a broad desert between that and the country 
 over which Texas had actual control ; that the country where hos- 
 tilities commenced, having once belonged to Mexico, must remain 
 so, until it was somehow legally transferred, which had never been 
 done. Mr. Lincoln thought the act of sending an armed force 
 among the Mexicans was unnecessaty, inasmuch as Mexico was 
 in no way molesting or menacing the United States or the people 
 thereof, and that it was unconstitutional, because the power of 
 levying war was vested in Congress, and not in the President. He 
 thought the principal motive for the act was to divert public atten- 
 tion from the surrender by the Democratic party, of "Fifty-four 
 
 51
 
 forty, or fight," to Great Britain, on the Oregon boundary question. 
 He also, doubtless, believed that it was an intentional bid of the 
 Democratic party for Southern support, inasmuch as the conquest 
 of all or any portion of Mexico would be hailed by the South as 
 an assurance of the extension of slavery, and an increase of the 
 political power, in the federal government, of the slaveholding 
 interest. 
 
 .^The adoption of Ashmun's amendment was not the first occa- 
 sion the Whig party, through its representatives in Congress, had 
 condemned the act of the President in involving the country in a 
 war with Mexico. On the Uth of May, 1846, as will be seen by 
 reference to the House Journal, pp. 792-3, the following action was 
 had: 
 
 "On motion to amend a bill for an act providing for the prosecution of the existing war 
 between the United States and the Republic of Mexico, by inserting the following preamble : 
 
 " ' Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between tliat govern- 
 ment and the United States — ' 
 
 " It was decided in the affirmative — yeas J 23, noes 67." 
 
 ^ The Northern Whigs voted solidly in the negative, as well as 
 the following Southern members : 
 
 " Daniel M. Barringer (N. C), Thomas H. Bayly (Va.), Henry Bedinger (Va.), Armistei 
 Burt (S. C), John H. Crozier (Tenn.), Garrett Davis, (Ky.), Alfred Dockery (N. C), Henry 
 Grider (Ky.), Henry W. Hilliard (Ala.), Isaac E. Holmes (S. C), John W. Houston (Del.), 
 Edmund W. Hubard (Va.), Robert T. M. Hunter (Va.), T. Butler King (Ga.), John H. Mc- 
 Henry (Ky.), John S. Pendleton (Va.), R. BamweU Rhett (S. C), James A. Seddon (Va), 
 Alexander D. Sims (S. C), Richard F. Simpson (S. C), Alexander H. Stephens (Ga.), Robert 
 Toombs (Ga.), Joseph A. Woodward (S. C.), William L. Yancey (Ala.)." 
 
 ^ It will be seen that the above list includes a number of the most 
 prominent of the leaders of modem Democracy. Like Mr. Lincoln, 
 they believed the war to have been " unnecessarily and unconsti- 
 tutionally begun ; " but like him, they also discriminated between 
 the honor of the country and the gallant services of the American 
 troops on the one hand, and the act of the President on the other. 
 This point was brought out very clearly by Mr. Lincoln in a 
 speech delivered in the House of Representatives, July 27th, 1848, 
 of which the following is an extract : 
 
 " The declaration that we have always opposed the war b true or false accordingly as we 
 may understand the term, 'opposing the war.' If to say, 'the war was unnecessarily and 
 unconstitutionally commeaced by the President,' be opposing the war, then the Whigs have 
 
 52
 
 very generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken at all they have said this and they have 
 said it on what has appeared good reason to them. The marching an army into the midst of a 
 peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and 
 other property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoked pro- 
 ceeding ; but it does not appear so to vs. So to call such an act, to us appears no other than a 
 naked, impudent absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had begun, 
 and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money and our blood, in common 
 with yours, was support of the war, then it is not true that we have always opposed the war. 
 With few individual exceptions, 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 politi- 
 cal brethren in every trial, and on every field. The beardless boy and the mature man — the 
 humble and the distinguished — you have had them. Through suffering and death — by dis- 
 ease and in battle — they have endured, and fought, and fallen ^th you. Clay and Webster 
 each gave a son, never to be returned. From the State of my own residence, besides other wor- 
 thy but less-known Whig names, we sent Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and Hardin : they all 
 fought and one fell ; and in the fall of that one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the 
 Whigs few in number, or laggard in the day of danger. In that fearful, bloody, breathless 
 struggle at Buena Vista, where each man's hard task was to beat back five foes, or die himself, 
 of the five liigh officers who perished, four were Whigs. 
 
 " In speaking of this, I mean no odious comparison bet-ween the lion-hearted Whigs and Dem- 
 ocrats who fought there. On other occasions, and among the lower officers and privates on ihat 
 occasion, I doubt not the proportion was different. I Tvish to do justice to all. I think of all 
 those brave men as Americans, in whose proud fame, as an American, I too have a share. 
 Many of them, Whigs and Democrats, are my constituents and personal friends ; and I thank 
 them — more than thank them — one and all, for the high, imperishable honor they have con- 
 ferred on our common State. 
 
 " But the distinction between the cause of the President in beginning the war, and the cause 
 of the country after it was begun, is a distinction which you cannot perceive. To you the Pres- 
 ident and the country seem to be all one. You are interested to see no distinction between them, 
 and I venture to suggest that possibly your interest blinds you a little. We see the distinction, 
 as we think, clearly enough, and our friends who have fought in the war, have no difficulty in 
 seeing it also. What those who have fallen would say, were they alive and here, of course we 
 can never know ; but with those who have returned there is no difficulty. Colonel Haskell and 
 Major Gaines, members here, both fought in the war, and one of them underwent extraordinary 
 perils and hardships ; and they, Uke all other Whigs here, vote on the record that the war was 
 unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President. And even General Taylor 
 himself, the noblest Roman of them all, has declared that, as a citizen, and particularly as a 
 soldier, it is sufficient for him to know that his country is at war with a foreign nation, to do ail 
 in his power to bring it to a speedy and honorable termination by the most vigorous and ener- 
 getic operations, without inquiring about its justice, or anything else connected with it." 
 
 .^The Thirtieth Congress was made famous by the introduction 
 and discussion of the Wilmot Proviso. Mr. Lincoln supported this 
 measure from first to last, being then as now, uncompromisingly 
 opposed to the extension of slavery into free territory. He is also 
 on record in favor of the improvement of rivers and harbors, and 
 the appropriation of public lands in aid of great and important pub- 
 lic improvements. The subject of slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia was also before the Thirtieth Congress. Mr. Lincoln prepared 
 and submitted a bill embodying his views on that subject, which is 
 
 53
 
 here presented to the reader. The bill is entitled, "A Bill to 
 abolish Slavery in the District of Columbia, by consent of the free 
 white people of said District, and with compensation to owners," 
 and may be found in the Congressional Globe, vol. 20, page 212, 
 as follows : 
 
 " Sec U Be it enacted by the Senate And House of Representathies of the United States in 
 Congress assembled. That no person not now -withm the District of Columbia nor now owned 
 by any person or persons now resident within it, nor hereafter bom within it, shall ever be held 
 in slavery within said District. 
 
 " § 2. That no person now within said District, or now owned by any person or persons now 
 resident within the same, or hereafter bom within it, shall ever be held in slavery without the 
 limits of said District : Provided, That officers of the Government of the United States, being 
 citizens of the slaveholding States, coming into said District on public business, and remaining 
 only so long as may be reasonably necessary for that object, may be attended into and out of 
 said District, and while there, by the necessary servants of themselves and their families, with- 
 out their right to hold such servants in service being thereby impaired. 
 
 " § 3. That all children bom of slave mothers, within said District, on or after the first day of 
 January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, shall be free ; but shall 
 be reasonably supported and educated by the respective owners of their mothers, or by their heirs 
 or representatives, and shall owe reasonable service, as apprentices, to such owners, heirs and 
 
 representatives, until they respectively arrive at the age of years, when they shall be 
 
 entirely free. And the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, within their 
 respective jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered and required to make all suitable and 
 necessary provisions for enforcing obedience to this section, on the part of both masters and 
 apprentices. 
 
 " S 4. That all persons now within said District lawfully held as slaves, or now owned by 
 any person or persons now resident within said District, shall remain such at the will of their 
 respective owners, their heirs and legal representatives : Provided, That any such owner, or his 
 legal representatives, may at any time receive from the treasury of the United States the full 
 value of his or her slave of the class in this section mentioned ; upon which such slave shall be 
 forthwith and forever free : And provided further. That the President of the United States, the 
 Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury, shall be a board for determining the value 
 of such slaves as their owners may desire to emancipate under this section, and whose duty it 
 shall be to hold a session for the purpose on the first Monday of each calendar month ; to receive 
 all applications, and, on satisfactory evidence in each case that the person presented for valuation 
 is a slave, and of the class in this section mentioned, and is owned by the applicant, shall value 
 such slave at his or her full cash value, and give to the applicant an order on the treasury for 
 the amount, and also to such slaves a certificate of freedom. 
 
 " ^ 5. That the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown within their respective 
 jurisdictional limits, are hereby empowered and required to provide active and efficient means 
 to arrest and deliver up to their owners all fugitive slaves escaping into said District. 
 
 " § 6. That the election officers w^ithin said District of Columbia are hereby empowered and 
 required to open polls at all the usual places of holding elections on the first Monday of April 
 next, and receive the vote of every free white male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, 
 having resided within said District for the period of one year or more next preceding the time 
 of such voting for or against this act, to proceed in taking said votes in all respects not herein 
 specified, as at elections under the municipal laws, and with as little delay as possible to trans- 
 mit correct statements of the votes so cast to the President of the United States ; and it shall be 
 the duty of the President to canvass said votes immediately, and if a majority of them be found 
 to be for this act, to forthwith issue his proclamation giving notice of the fact i and this act shall 
 only be in full force and effect on and after the day of such proclamation. 
 
 54
 
 ** § 7. That involuntary servitude for the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have 
 been duly convicted, shall in nowise be prohibited by this act- 
 
 " S 8. That for all the purposes of this act, the jurisdictional limits of Washington are extended 
 to all parts of the District of Columbia not now included within the present limits of Georgetown." 
 
 •^ In submitting this proposition, Mr Lincoln stated that it had the 
 approval of a number of the leading citizens of the District. Among 
 them, it is understood, were Messrs. Gales and Seaton, of the 
 National Intelligencer, the latter of whom was then Mayor of the 
 city of Washington. 
 
 •^ These views were not new with Mr. Lincoln. As early as in 
 1837, while a member of the State Legislature, he had given them 
 expression in the following protest which was entered on the 
 House Journal : 
 
 "March 3d, J 837. 
 " The following protest was presented to the House, which was read and ordered to be spread 
 on the journals, to wit : 
 
 " Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both fjranches of the General 
 Assembly 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 abate the evils. 
 
 " They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power, under the Constitution, 
 to interfere with the institution of slavery in the different States. 
 
 " They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power, under the Constitution, 
 to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; but that that power ought not to be exercised 
 unless at the request of the people of said District. 
 
 " The difference between these opinions and those contained in the said resolutions, is their 
 reason for entering this protest. 
 
 DAN STONE, 
 A. LINCOLN, 
 Representatmes from the county of Sa.nga.m.oni* 
 
 ^ That his opinions on this subject have undergone no change is 
 evident from his reply to an interrogatory of Mr. Douglas at the 
 Freeport debate, in J 858, as to whether he (Lincoln) did not stand 
 pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Mr. 
 Lincoln said he was not so pledged, and added : 
 
 " In relation to that, I have my mind very distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad 
 to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the con- 
 stitutional power to abolish it. Yet as a member of Congress, I should not, with my present 
 views, be in favor of endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would 
 be upon these conditions ; First, that the abolition should be gradual ; second, that it should be 
 on a vote of the majority of the qualified voters in the District ; and third, that compensation 
 should be made to unwilling owners. With these three conditions, I confess I would be exceed- 
 ingly glad to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and, in the language of 
 Henry Clay, ' sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation.' " 
 
 55
 
 CHAPTER VI I. -HE MAGNANIMOUSLY YIELDS THE 
 SENATORSHIP TO JUDGE TRUMBULL. 
 
 R. Lincoln was not a candidate for re-election to 
 Congress. This was determined upon and publicly 
 declared before he went to Washington, in accordance 
 with an understanding among leading Whigs of the 
 district, and by virtue of which Col. John J. Hardin 
 and Col. E. D. Baker had each previously served a single term 
 from the same district. After the adjournment he spoke several 
 times, by invitation, in advocacy of the election of Gen. Taylor, 
 both in Maryland and Massachusetts ; and on his return to Illinois, 
 he canvassed his own district very thoroughly, which was fol- 
 lowed by a majority in the district of over 1 500 for the Whig elec- 
 toral ticket. 
 
 ■^ After the Presidential election of J 848, Mr. Lincoln applied 
 himself more closely than ever to the practice of his profession. In 
 1852 he was again placed by his Whig friends upon the Scott elec- 
 toral ticket; but his professional engagements, together with the 
 utter hopelessness of the cause in Illinois, deterred him from mak- 
 ing as active and thorough a canvass of the State as he had done on 
 former like occasions. In 1854 his profession had almost super- 
 seded all thought of politics. He had abandoned all political aspi- 
 rations, content, as it seemed, with the honors which his profession 
 brought him. The country was once more free from excitement. 
 The agitation which grew out of the acquisition of territory from 
 Mexico had been quieted by the compromise measure of J 850. 
 Each of the political parties had expressed a determination, in 
 national convention, to abide by that settlement of the slavery ques- 
 tion. The status of all our unsettled territory was now fixed by 
 law, so far as this subject was concerned. Sectional jealousies 
 were obliterated, sectional strife healed, and concord and repose 
 marked our enviable condition. From this peaceful and happy 
 state the country was suddenly and unexpectedly aroused as " by 
 the sound of a fire-bell at night," by the introduction of a bill into 
 the United States Senate for the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise. What followed is painfully fresh in the public recollection. 
 The country was convulsed as it never had been before, and wise 
 56
 
 men clearly foresaw the evils that have since come upon us, and 
 from which we have not yet recovered. 
 
 i^The repeal of this time-honored compact aroused Mr. Lincoln 
 as he had never been before. He at once perceived the conflicts 
 that must grow out of it ; the angry strife between the North and 
 the South, and the struggles in Kansas. He saw in the Kansas- 
 Nebraska Bill a wide departure from the mode pursued by the 
 fathers of dealing with slavery— that while the policy of the latter 
 was based upon a recognition of its wrongfulness, the Nebraska 
 Bill proceeded upon the opposite hypothesis, that it is not wrong. 
 He saw, and he foretold, before the Supreme Court had decided the 
 Dred Scott case, that the judiciary would not be slow to indorse 
 the doctrine of Congress and the President, and that thus each of 
 the co-ordinate branches of the federal government would stand 
 committed against the early belief that slavery is wrong, as well as 
 against the early policy based upon that belief. Not only did he 
 regard the Nebraska Bill, therefore, as inaugurating a complete rev- 
 olution in the policy of the government, but as artfuily designed to 
 lay the foundation for a revolution in the moral sentiment of the 
 country, preparatory to the establishment of slavery in the free 
 States as well as in the Territories, and the revival of the African 
 slave trade. 
 
 i^On his return to Illinois, after the passage of his Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill, Mr. Douglas saw the mischief which that measure 
 had wrought in the ranks of his party in his own State, and forth- 
 with undertook to repair it. A Legislature was to be elected in 
 November of that year, on which would devolve the duty of elect- 
 ing a successor to Gen. Shields in the U. S. Senate. It was a 
 matter of great importance to Mr. Douglas to secure the re-election 
 of Gen. Shields, as his defeat would be tantamount to a censure 
 upon himself. He commenced his labors in Chicago, where he 
 met with anything but a flattering reception from a constituency 
 whom he had deceived, and whose moral sense he had grossly 
 outraged. Thence he went to Springfield, the capital of the State. 
 He arrived there at the time the State Agricultural Society was 
 holding its annual fair. The occasion brought together a vast 
 multitude of people from all parts of the State. Hundreds of poli- 
 h 57
 
 ticians had also assembled, among whom were many of the ablest 
 men of the State. Much time was devoted to political speaking ; 
 but the great event of the occasion was the debate between Lin- 
 coln and Douglas. It had been nearly fourteen years since these 
 gentlemen had been pitted against each other in a public discus- 
 sion. In the canvass of J 840, Lincoln had proved himself more 
 than a match for Douglas in debate. But during most of the inter- 
 vening years, the latter had occupied a position either in the 
 National House of Representatives or in the United States Senate, 
 where he had made a national reputation, and become the recog- 
 nized leader of his party, and had grown more self-confident, and 
 arrogant than ever ; while the former, his party being in a minor- 
 ity in the State, had been in public life for only a brief period, had 
 devoted himself almost exclusively to the labors of his profession, 
 and had no claim to a national reputation. Douglas through his 
 newspaper organs and street trumpeters, a class to whom no man 
 is more greatly indebted for his reputation, had contrived to create an 
 impression in the minds of many people that he had grown to pro- 
 portions too gigantic to render it safe for so unpretending and mod- 
 est a man as Lincoln to encounter him. Douglas entered upon the 
 debate in this spirit. He displayed all of his most offensive pecu- 
 liarities. He was arrogant, insolent, defiant, and throughout his 
 speech maintained the air of one who had already conquered. On 
 the next day, Lincoln replied. No report was made of either of 
 the speeches; but the following extract from the Springfield /oor- 
 na.1 of the following day (Oct. 6th), will show how Lincoln acquit- 
 ted himself, and how greatly Douglas had over-estimated his own 
 abilities, and underrated those of his antagonist : 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln commenced at two o'clock P. M., and spoke three hours and ten minutes. 'We 
 propose to give our views and those of many Northerners and many Southerners upon the 
 debate. We intend to give it as fairly as we can. Those Tvho know Mr. Lincoln, know Imn 
 to be a conscientious and honest man, who makes no assertions that he does not know to be true. 
 This Anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln, was the profoundest, in our opinion, that he has 
 made in his whole life. He felt upon his soul the truths bum which he uttered, and all present 
 felt that he was true to his own souL His feelings once or twice swelled within and came near 
 stifling utterance, and particularly so, when he said that the Declaration of Independence taught 
 us tliat ' all men are created equal ' — that by the laws of nature and nature's God, all men were 
 free — that the Nebraska Law chained men, and that there was as much difference between the 
 glorious truths of the immortal Declaration of Independence and the Nebraska Bill, as there was 
 between God and Mammon. These are his own words. They were spoken with emphasis, 
 
 58
 
 feeling and true eloquence j eloquent because tnie, and because he felt, and felt deeply, what he 
 said. We only wish others all over the State had seen him while uttering those truths only as 
 Lincoln can utter a felt and deeply-felt truth. He quivered with feeling and emotion. The 
 whole house was as still as death. He attacked the Nebraska Bill with unusual warmth and 
 energy, and all felt that a man of strength was its enemy, and that he intended to blast it if he 
 could, by strong and manly efforts. He was most successful, and the house approved the glo- 
 rious triumph of truth by loud and continued huzzas. Women waved their white handker- 
 chiefs in token of woman's silent but heartfelt assent. Douglas felt the sting. He frequently 
 interrupted Mr. Lincoln. His friends felt that he was crushed by Lincoln's powerful argument, 
 manly logic, and illustrations from nature around us. The Nebraska Bill was shivered, and 
 like a tree of the forest, was torn and rent asunder by the hot bolts of truth. Mr. Lincoln exhib- 
 ited Douglas in all the attitudes he could be placed, in a friendly debate. He exhibited the Bill 
 in all its aspects, to show its humbuggery and falsehoods i and when thus torn to rags, cut into 
 slips, held up to the gaze of the vast crowd, a kind of scorn and mockery was visible upon the 
 face of the crowd, and upon the lips of the most eloquent speaker. It was a proud day for Lin- 
 coln. His friends will never forget it. 
 
 " Nowhere, in the whole speech of Mr. Lincoln, was he more grand than at the conclusion. He 
 said this people were degenerating from the sires of the Revolution — from Washington, Jefferson, 
 Madison, and Monroe, as it appeared to him ; yet he called upon the spirit of the brave, valiant 
 free sons of all and every clime, to defend freedom and the institutions that our fathers and Wash- 
 ington gave us t and that now was the time to show to the world that we were not rolling back 
 towards despotism. At the conclusion of this speech, every man and child felt that it was unan- 
 swerable ; that no human power could overthrow it or trample it under foot. The long and 
 repeated applause evinced the feelings of the crowd, and gave token of universal assent to Lin- 
 coln's whole argument ; and every mind present did homage to the man who took captive the 
 heart and broke like a sun over the understanding." 
 
 J|.The following extract is taken from an account of the same 
 debate, given by the Chicago Press and Tribune : 
 
 " It would be impossible, in these limits, to give an idea of the strength of Mr. Lincoln's argu- 
 ment. We deemed it by far the ablest effort of the campaign — from whatever source. The 
 occasion was a great one, and the speaker was every way equal to it. The effect produced on 
 the listeners was magnetic No one who was present will ever forget the power and vehemence 
 of the following passage : 
 
 " ' My distinguished friend says it is an insult to the emigrants to Kansas and Nebraska to 
 suppose they are not able to govern themselves. We must not slur over an argument of this 
 kind because it happens to tickle the ear. It must be met and answered. I admit that the emi- 
 grant to Kansas and Nebraska is competent to govern himself, but,' the speaker rising to his full 
 height, 'I deny his right to govern any other person 'without that person's consent.' The 
 applause which followed this triumphant refutation of a cunning falsehood was but an earnest 
 of the victory at the polls which followed just one month from that day. 
 
 " When Mr. Lincoki had concluded, Mr. Douglas strode hastily to the stand. As usual he 
 employed ten minutes in telling how grossly he had been abused. Recollecting himself, he added, 
 ' though in a perfectly courteous manner ' — abused in a perfectly courteous manner 1 He then 
 devoted half an hour to showing that it was indispensably necessary to California emigrants, 
 Santa Fe traders and others, to have organic acts provided for the Territories of Kansas and 
 Nebraska —■ that being precisely the point which nobody disputed. Having established this pre- 
 mise to his satisfaction, Mr. Douglas launched forth into an argument wholly apart from the 
 position taken by Mr. Lincoln. He had about half finished at six o'clock, when an adjournment 
 to tea was effected. The speaker insisted strenuously upon his right to resume in the evening, 
 but we believe the second part of that speech has not been delivered to this day." 
 
 59 
 
 -ij
 
 1^ From Springfield the parties went to Peoria, where they again 
 discussed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. On this occasion the tri- 
 umph of Mr. Lincoln was even more marked than at Springfield. 
 His speech occupied over three hours in the delivery ; and so mas- 
 terly was it in argument, so crushing in its sarcasm, so compact in 
 its logic, that Mr. Douglas did not even undertake to reply to the 
 points raised by Mr. Lincoln. It was a thorough and unanswer- 
 able exposition of all the sophisms and plausible pretences with 
 which Douglas up to that time had invested the Kansas-Nebraska 
 Bill, and he stood before the audience in the attitude of a mounte- 
 bank, whose tricks are clearly seen through by those whom he 
 attempts to deceive. Mr. Lincoln's speech on this occasion was 
 reported. As a specimen of the manner in which he drove Doug- 
 las to the wall on every point, take the following extract. Douglas 
 had urged that the question of slavery in a Territory concerned 
 only the people of the Territory — that it could be of no interest to 
 the people of Illinois whether slavery was "voted up or voted 
 down " in Kansas. To this Lincoln replied that, in the first place, 
 the whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of all 
 the Territories, and that this end can alone be reached by preserv- 
 ing them as homes for free white people. His other point was the 
 following, and certainly a more conclusive and unanswerable argu- 
 ment has never been uttered : 
 
 "By the constitution, each State has two senators — each has a number of representatives, in 
 proportion to the number of its people — and each has a number of Presidential electors, equal to 
 the whole number of its senators and representatives together. But in ascertaining the number 
 of the people, for the purpose, five slaves are counted as being equal to three whites. The slaves 
 do not vote ( they are only counted and so used as to swell the influence of the white people's votes. 
 The practical effect of this is more aptly shown by a comparison of the States of South Carolina 
 and Maine. South Carolina has six representatives, and so has Maine; South Carolina has 
 eight Presidential electors, and so has Maine. This is precise equality so far ; and of course they 
 are equal in senators, each having two. Thus, in the control of the government, the two States 
 are equals precisely. But how are they in the number of their wtiite people? Maine has 581,- 
 8J3, while South Carolina has 274,567. Maine has twice as many as South Carolina, and 32,- 
 679 over. Thus each white man in South Carolina is more than the double of any man in 
 Maine. This is all because South Carolina, besides her free people, has 384,984 slaves. The 
 South Carolinian has precisely the same advantage over the white man in every other free State, 
 as well as in Maine. He is more than the double of any one of us. The same advantage, but 
 not to the same extent, is held by all the citizens of the slave States, over those of the free ; and 
 it is an absolute truth, without an exception, that there is no voter in any slave State, but who 
 has more legal power in the government, than any voter in any free State. There is no 
 instance of exact equality ( and the disadvantage is against us the whole chapter through. This 
 
 60
 
 principle, in the aggregate, gives the slave States in the present Congress twenty additional rep- 
 resentatives — being seven more than the whole majority by which they passed the Nebraska 
 BiU. 
 
 " Now all this is manifestly unfair ! yet I do not mention it to complain of it, in so far as it 
 is already settled. It is in the Constitution, and I do not, for that cause, or any other cause, pro- 
 pose to destroy, or alter, or disregard the Constitution. I stand to it fairly, fully, and firmly. But 
 when I am told that I must leave it altogether to other people to say whether new partners are 
 to be bred up and brought into the firm on the same degrading terms against me, I respectfully 
 demur. I insist, that whether I shall be a whole man, or only the half of one, in comparison 
 with others, is a question in which I am somewhat concerned ; and one which no other man 
 can have a ' sacred right ' of deciding for me. If I am wrong in this — if it really be a ' sacred 
 right ' of self-government, in the man who shall go to Nebraska, to decide whether he will be 
 the equal of me or the double of me, then after he shall have exercised that right, and thereby 
 shall have reduced me to a still smaller fraction of a man than I already am, I should like for 
 some gentleman deeply skilled in the mysteries of ' sacred rights ' to provide himself with a 
 microscope, and peep about and find out if he can, what has become of my ' sacred rights ' ? 
 They will surely be too small for detection with the naked eye, 
 
 " Finally, I insist that if there is anything which it is the duty of the Tohole people to never 
 entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own 
 liberties and institutions. And if they shall think, as I do, that the extension of slavery endan- 
 gers them, more than any or all other causes, how recreant to themselves, if they submit the 
 question, and with it the fate of their country, to a mere handful of men, bent only on tempo- 
 rary self-interest 1 If this question of slavery extension were an insignificant one — one having 
 no power to do harm — it might be shuffled aside in this way. But being, as it b, the great 
 Behemoth of danger, shall the strong gripe of the nation be loosened upon him, to entrust him to 
 the hands of such feeble keepers ?" 
 
 i^It was Mr. Lincoln's purpose and desire to continue the discus- 
 sion with Mr. Douglas during the remainder of the canvass, but 
 that gentleman shrank from a repetition of the discomfiture he had 
 suffered at Springfield and Peoria. He gave Mr. Lincoln no fur- 
 ther opportunity of meeting him. But notwithstanding his antag- 
 onist withdrew from the unequal contest, Mr. Lincoln continued 
 in the field. He pressed the slavery issue which the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise had forced upon the country, upon the peo- 
 ple of central and southern Illinois, who were largely made up of 
 emigrants from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and North Caro- 
 lina, with all the powers of his mind. He felt the force of the 
 moral causes that must influence the final settlement of the ques- 
 tion, and he never failed to appeal to the moral sentiment of the 
 people in aid of the argument drawn from political sources, and to 
 illuminate his theme with the lofty inspirations of true eloquence 
 pleading for the rights of humanity. 
 
 ^ A revolution swept the State. For the first time since the organ- 
 ization of the Democratic party, a majority of those elected to the 
 
 61 
 
 II
 
 Legislature of Illinois were opposed to the Democratic administra- 
 tion of the federal government. While Mr. Lincoln was engaged 
 in the canvass in other parts of the State, his friends in Sangamon 
 County, without his consent or knowledge, presented his name for 
 the Legislature, and he was elected to that body by a handsome 
 majority. It was not in his power to serve, and he was compelled 
 to decline the well-meant honor conferred upon him by the people 
 of Sangamon. This was Lincoln's first triumph over Douglas in 
 an appeal to the people of the State ; his second triumph occurred 
 two years later in the election of the entire Republican State ticket ; 
 and his third was in the memorable Senatorial contest of J 858, 
 when his majority over Douglas exceeded four thousand votes. 
 ^ The opposition in the Legislature was made up of Whigs, Amer- 
 icans, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. The Republican party was 
 not organized in Illinois until 1856— two years later. These three 
 divisions of the opposition had no common platform, except that of 
 hostility to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and to the revo- 
 lutionary principles of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The old Whigs 
 were still looking for a revival of their own organization— the 
 Anti-Nebraska Democrats had not abandoned the hope that the 
 repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the principles of the Kan- 
 sas-Nebraska Bill would yet be repudiated by the Democratic 
 party. When the election of a United States Senator came on, the 
 latter declined going into caucus with the Opposition. They had 
 never acted politically with the Whigs as a party. To preserve 
 their identity, to be able to exert a due influence on the Democratic 
 party, and to force it into the abandonment of its new and danger- 
 ous dogma, they believed sound policy required them to nominate 
 and adhere to one of their own number. The remainder of the 
 Opposition went into caucus and nominated Mr. Lincoln. When 
 the two houses met in joint session, February 8, J 855, the Whigs 
 presented the name of Abraham Lincob ; the Anti-Nebraska Dem- 
 ocrats that of Lyman Trumbull ; the Democrats that of Gen. James 
 Shields. The whole number of votes was 99, of which 50 were 
 necessary to a choice. On the first ballot the vote stood, for Abra- 
 ham Lincob 45; James Shields 41 ; for Lyman Trumbull 5; scat- 
 tering 8. On the seventh ballot the Democrats dropped Gen. 
 62
 
 Shields, and voted for Joel A. Matteson, then holding the office of 
 Governor of the State. Gov. Matteson had never openly taken 
 ground for or against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. He was a 
 shrewd man, and had long been arranging and planning for the 
 emergency which had now occurred. On the seventh ballot (first 
 for him) he received 44 votes, two higher than Shields had at any 
 time received ; on the eighth he received 46 votes, and on the ninth 
 47, within three of an election. On that ballot, for a second time, 
 the joint vote of Lincoln and Trumbull was just sufficient to elect, 
 if thrown, for a single person, viz. for Trumbull 35 ; for Lincoln 
 J5; and this, too, was the first time that Trumbull's vote had 
 exceeded Lincoln's. Perceiving the danger of electing Matteson 
 unless his own and Trumbull's strength could be united at once, 
 Lincoln went to his friends and begged them to cast their united 
 vote on the next ballot for Trumbull. They yielded to his urgent 
 entreaties, and on the next ballot Mr. Trumbull received 51 votes, 
 and was declared elected. 
 
 •It The scene will long be remembered by those who witnessed it. 
 The excitement was most intense. The Democrats had never 
 doubted their ability to elect some non-committal man like Matte- 
 son. They did not believe the Opposition could be brought to unite. 
 Thev were not prepared for such a display of magnanimity as that 
 exhibited by Mr. Lincoln. The result filled them with astonish- 
 ment as well as chagrin. On the other hand, the old political asso- 
 ciates of Mr. Lincoln felt that he was entitled to the place, and that 
 all portions of the Opposition ought to have united in awarding it 
 to him. Strong men wept at the necessity which required them to 
 withdraw their votes from him. He alone was calm and unmoved, 
 in the midst of all these different phases of excitement. 
 •^ Zealous efforts have since been made to awaken unkind feelings 
 on the part of Mr. Lincoln against Senator Trumbull and those 
 Anti-Nebraska Democrats who brought him forward as a candi- 
 date; but all to no purpose. The relations subsisting between 
 him and them were of the most frank and cordial character at the 
 time, and such they have been ever since. He justly ranks 
 them among his best friends; and surely none have gone or 
 can go beyond ^them in manifestation of zeal in his behalf, both 
 
 63
 
 as a candidate for the Senate in 1858, and for the Presidency 
 in I860. 
 
 1^ In June, 1856, a convention of those opposed to the Democratic 
 party, was held at Bloomington, Illinois, at which time the Repub- 
 lican party was organized in that State, a Platform adopted, a State 
 Ticket nominated, and delegates appointed to the National Repub- 
 lican Convention to meet at Philadelphia. Mr. Lincoln bore a 
 leading part in securing these results. Perhaps no other man 
 exerted so wide and salutary an influence in harmonizing differ- 
 ences, in softening and obliterating prejudices, and bringing into a 
 cordial union those who for years had been bitterly hostile to each 
 other. His speech before that Convention will ever be regarded 
 by many of those who heard it, as the greatest effort of his life. 
 Never was an audience more completely electrified by human elo- 
 quence. Again and again, during the progress of its delivery, they 
 sprang to their feet and upon the benches, and testified by long- 
 continued shouts and the waving of hats, how deeply the speaker 
 had wrought upon their minds and hearts. It fused the mass of 
 hitherto incongruous elements into perfect homogeneity, and from 
 that day to the present, they have worked together in harmonious 
 and fraternal union. It kindled also an enthusiasm in the bosoms of 
 those who heard it, which they carried home with them, and with 
 which they imbued their neighbors, and by which the Republican 
 party of Illinois, in the first year of its existence, was carried tri- 
 umphantly into power. 
 
 i^At the National Republican Convention of that year, Mr. Lin- 
 coln's name was presented by the Western delegates for nomina- 
 tion for the Vice-Presidency. Although, had his own wishes been 
 consulted in the matter, he would not have consented to this use 
 of his name, it was nevertheless a well-deserved compliment, as 
 well as a recognition of the fact that his reputation had now become 
 national. Mr. Lincoln's vote on the informal ballot was 1 10— Mr. 
 Dayton's, 259. 
 
 .^During the recess of Congress in 1857, Mr. Douglas made a 
 speech at Springfield in further vindication of his Kansas-Nebraska 
 Bill, known as his " Grand Jury Speech," from the fact that he was 
 invited to deliver it by the Grand Jury of the U. S. District Court 
 64
 
 for Southern Illinois. In that speech, he first promulgated the doc- 
 trine that the framers of the Declaration of Independence, in assert- 
 ing that "all men are created equal," simply meant to say that 
 "British subjects on this continent were equal to British subjects 
 bom and residing in Great Britain." Mr. Lincoln, by invitation of 
 a large number of his fellow citizens, replied to Douglas. When 
 he came to that part of the speech which contained his (Douglas's) 
 theory of the Declaration, as above given, Mr. Lincoln said :— 
 
 " My good friends, read that carefully over, some leisure hour, and ponder well upon h. See 
 what a mere wreck — a mangled ruin — it makes of our glorious Declaration 1 
 
 " They were speaking of British subjects on this continent being equal to British subjects bom 
 and residing in Great Britain 1 Why, according to this, not only negroes, but white people out- 
 side of Great Britain and America, were not spoken of in that instrument. The English, Irish, 
 and Scotch, along with white Americans, were included, to be sure, but the French, Germans, 
 and other white people of the world are all gone to pot along with the Judge's inferior races. 
 
 " I had thought the Declaration promised something better than the condition of British sub- 
 jects ; but no, it only meant that we should be equal to them in their own oppressed and une- 
 qual condition. According to that, it gave no promise that, having kicked off the King and 
 Lords of Great Britain, we should not at once be saddled with a King and Lords of our own. 
 
 " I had thought the Declaration contemplated a progressive improvement in the condition of 
 all men everywhere ; but no, it merely ' was adopted for the purpose of justifying the colonists 
 in the eyes of the civilized world in withdrawing their allegiance from the British crown, and 
 dissolving their connection with the mother country.' Why, that object having been effected 
 some eighty years ago, the Declaration is of no practical use now — mere rubbish — old wad- 
 ding left to rot on the battle-field after the victory is won. 
 
 "I understand you are preparing to celebrate the 'Fourth,' to-morrow week, What for? 
 The doings of that day had no reference to the present ; and quite half of you are not even 
 descendants of those who were referred to at that day. But I suppose you will celebrate, and 
 w^ill even go so far as to read the Declaration. Suppose after you read it once in the old-fash- 
 ioned way, you read it once more with Judge Douglas's version. It will then run thus : ' We 
 hold these truths to be self-evident, that all British subjects who were on this continent eighty- 
 one years ago, were created equal to all British subjects bom and then residing in Great Britain.' 
 
 "And now, I appeal to all — to Democrats as well as others — are you really willing that the 
 Declaration shall thus be frittered away? — thus left no more at most, than an interesting 
 memorial of the dead past ? — thus shorn of its vitality and practical value, and left without the 
 germ, or even the suggestion, of the inalienable rights of man in it ?" 
 
 iS^Mr. Lincoln then gave his own views of the intention of the 
 framers of the Declaration ; and in the contrast between his theory 
 and that of Douglas, the relative moral and philosophic status 
 of the two men is most clearly shown. This is Mr. Lincoln's 
 theory : — 
 
 " I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include alt men, but they did not 
 intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in 
 color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable dis- 
 tinctness in what respects they did consider ail men created equal — equal in 'certain inalien^ 
 
 i 65
 
 able rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' This they said, and 
 this they meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually 
 enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In 
 fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the righi, so that 
 the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. 
 
 " They meant to set up a. standard maxim for free society, 'which should be familiar to 
 all, and re^uered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and e-ven though never 
 perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening 
 its influence, and augmenting the happiness and 'value of life to all people of all colors, 
 everywhere. The assertion that * all men are created equal,' was of no practical use in effect- 
 ing our separation from Great Britain ; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for 
 future use. Its authors meant it to be as, tliank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling-block 
 to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of des- 
 potism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such 
 should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at 
 least one hard nut to crack." 
 
 .^Let the reader decide on which theory the heroes of the Revolu- 
 tion are most entitled to the veneration of posterity— on which the 
 assertion and defense of the natural and inalienable rights of man 
 can be most successfully maintained.
 
 CHAPTER VIII.-LINCOLN'S SENATORIAL CONTEST 
 WITH STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS IN 1858. 
 
 HE Democratic State Convention met at Springfield on 
 the 2 1st of April, J 858, and published a declaration of 
 the principles on which they proposed to make their 
 battle. They resolved : " That the Democracy of Illi- 
 nois are unalterably attached to, and will maintain invi- 
 olate, the principles declared in the National Democratic Conven- 
 tion at Cincinnati, in June, 1856 " 
 
 ■^ Several supplementary resolutions were adopted, all tending to 
 the same conclusion. Senator Douglas and his Democratic col- 
 leagues in the House of Representatives were warmly indorsed, 
 and promised the " earnest and efficient support " of the party in the 
 coming campaign. No rebuke was offered to the Administration 
 for its course on Lecompton, except by a misty inference. The last 
 resolution was as follows:— 
 
 " Resot'oed, That in all things wherein the National Administration sustain and carry out 
 the principles of the Democratic party, as expressed in the Cincinnati platform and affirmed in 
 their resolutions, it is entitled to and will receive our hearty support." 
 
 i^The distinct and unqualified endorsement of the Cincinnati plat- 
 form by the friends of Mr. Douglas, their neglect to pass any 
 censure on the corruptions and tergiversations of President 
 Buchanan, and their violent speeches in the Convention against 
 the Republicans, destroyed whatever hope of union and compro- 
 mise might have been entertained by members of either party. 
 The challenge had passed, and the Republicans were not slow in 
 accepting it. Their State Convention was held at Springfield on 
 the 16th of June, seven weeks later than the other. Nearly one 
 thousand delegates and alternates were present, and the chairman 
 of the committee on credentials reported fourteen hundred persons 
 in attendance, other than the resident population of the capital. It 
 was very soon ascertained that the convention was all for Lincoln. 
 Immediately after the organization, a Chicago delegate brought 
 into the hall a banner on which were inscribed the words, " Cook 
 County for Abraham Lincob." The whole Convention rose sim- 
 ultaneously, and gave three cheers for the candidate upon whom it 
 
 67
 
 was proposed to confer the perilous honor of a nomination against 
 Senator Douglas. The precarious ground which Mr. Douglas's 
 opposition to the Lecompton Constitution had left for a distinctive 
 Republican candidate before the masses, was carefully considered 
 by the committee on resolutions. The alleged sympathy enter- 
 tained for him by prominent Republicans in other parts of the 
 country; the odor of free-soil which he had collected in his gar- 
 ments during the recent session of Congress, notwithstanding his 
 obstinate and blind adherence to the Dred Scott decision ; the uni- 
 versal favor to which he had been commended by the persecutions 
 of the Administration ; the flagrant apportionment of the State into 
 Legislative Districts, by which ninety-three thousand people in the 
 Republican counties were virtually disfranchised,— combined to 
 give a very unpromising complexion to the campaign. Nothing 
 was to be done, however, but to lay down a platform of straight 
 Republican principles and trust to their potency, and the popularity 
 of their leader, for a successful issue. It was agreed that any result 
 was to be courted rather than allow the Republican party to 
 become the tail for a kite patched together from the Cincinnati plat- 
 form and the Dred Scott decision. The Convention then pro- 
 ceeded to the adoption of a platform of principles, and the nomina- 
 tion of candidates for State Treasurer and Superintendent of Pub- 
 lic Instruction. It was not deemed advisable by the committee on 
 resolutions to give Mr. Lincoln a formal nomination for the Senate, 
 but many members of the convention deemed it proper to do so, 
 in order to destroy the force of allegations, which had already been 
 put forth by Mr. Douglas from his seat in the Senate, that the 
 Republicans designed to elect a different man provided they were 
 successful in securing a majority of the Legislature. The follow- 
 ing resolution was therefore offered by a delegate, and adopted 
 unanimously : 
 
 " Resolved, That the Hon. Abraham Lincoto is our first and only choice for U. S. Senator, 
 to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas's term of office." 
 
 .^Mr. Lincoln had been frequently called for during the session, 
 but did not make his appearance. The Secretary of State, how- 
 ever, announced that, if it was the desire of his friends, he would 
 68
 
 address the members of the convention in the Representatives' 
 Hall in the evening. About 8 o'clock, therefore, the room was 
 filled to its utmost capacity, and Mr. Lincoln spoke about half an 
 hour. The limits of this work do not permit the introduction of 
 any speeches at full length, but the masterly manner in which the 
 pending topics were discussed, the wide celebrity which this speech 
 acquired, and more especially the fact that it contained the essence 
 of the whole campaign, require that more than a passing notice 
 should be given to it. The exceeding terseness of all Mr. Lin- 
 coln's efforts render it difficult to condense his utterances without 
 impairing or destroying their force, yet the reader will be able to 
 catch the essential points of his argument from the following sum- 
 mary. We quote the opening paragraph entire : 
 
 " Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : If we could first know wliere we are, 
 and whither we are tending, v/e could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now 
 in the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of 
 putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of ttiat policy, that agitation has not 
 only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis 
 shall have been reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe 
 this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
 to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
 It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery wiU arrest the 
 further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
 course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike 
 lawful in all the States, Old as well as New — North as well as South. 
 
 " Have we no tendency to the latter condition ? 
 
 " Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination 
 — piece of machinery, so to speak — compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott 
 decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to, and how well 
 adapted ; but also, let him study the history of its construction, and trace if he can, — or rather 
 fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action, among its chief architects, 
 from the beginning." 
 
 i^Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to show that prior to 1854 slavery 
 had been excluded from more than half the States by local laws or 
 constitutions, and from the greater portion of the national territory 
 by congressional prohibition. On the 4th of January, 1854, the 
 struggle commenced, which ended with the repeal of the congres- 
 sional prohibition, accomplished on the grounds of squatter sover- 
 eignty, and "sacred right of self-government," which meant that 
 ** if any one man chooses to enslave another, no third man shall be 
 allowed to object." This is shown to be a correct definition by the 
 fact that when Mr. Chase, in the Senate, and Mr. Mace, in the 
 
 69
 
 House of Representatives, offered their amendments to the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill, declaring that the people of the territories might 
 exclude slavery if they wanted to, Mr. Douglas and the other 
 friends of the measure voted them doivn. But while the Nebraska 
 Bill was going through Congress the Dred Scott case was going 
 through the courts, and when Senator Trumbull asked Senator 
 Douglas whether in his opinion the people of a territory could 
 exclude slavery, the latter replied that it was " a question for the 
 Supreme Court," — the Nebraska Bill having provided that the 
 rights of the people should be " subject to the Constitution of the 
 United States." The Nebraska Bill was passed by both branches 
 of Congress, and received the signature of the President ; the elec- 
 tion of 1856 was carried by the Democracy, on the issue of " sacred 
 right of self-government;" and then the Supreme Court decided, 
 in the Dred Scott case, that neither Congress nor a Territorial Leg- 
 islature could exclude slavery from any United States Territory. 
 But the Dred Scott judges refused to decide whether the holding 
 of Dred Scott in the free State of Illinois, by his master, made him 
 a free man. One member of the Court (Judge Nelson) approached 
 this branch of the case so nearly as to say that " except in cases 
 where the power is restrained ' by the Constitution of the United 
 States' the law of_ the State is supreme over the subject of slavery, 
 within its jurisdiction." In view of this strange decision, does it 
 not appear that the phrase, "subject to the Constitution of the 
 United States," in the Nebraska Bill, was interpolated for the pur- 
 pose of leaving room for the Dred Scott decision? We quote 
 again from Mr. Lincoln's words : — 
 
 " We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert. But 
 ^rhen we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know Iiave been gotten out 
 at different times and places and by different workmen — Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, 
 for instance — and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the 
 frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and 
 proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too 
 many or too few — not omitting even scaffolding — or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the 
 place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in — in such a case, we 
 find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood 
 one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft, drawn up before 
 the first blow was struck." 
 
 f^ So far as to Territories. How as to States ? Singularly enough, 
 70
 
 the Nebraska Bill said that it was *' the true intent and meaning of 
 this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to 
 exclude it therefrom." Why was the word "State" employed? 
 The Nebraska conspirators were legislating for Territories, not 
 States. It would seem, from the ominous expression of Judge Nel- 
 son, quoted above, as though a second niche had been left in the 
 Nebraska Bill, to be filled by a second Dred Scott decision,— pos- 
 sibly the decision in the Lemmon case— declaring that as no Ter- 
 ritoty can exclude slavery, neither can any State. "And," says 
 Mr. Lincoln, "this may especially be expected if the doctrine of 
 ' care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up,' shall gain 
 upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decis- 
 ion can be maintained when made." 
 
 •^ Such was Mr. Lincoln's admirable presentation of the issues 
 of 1858. It is difficult to see in what point the argument is not 
 equally good to-day. 
 
 1^ Mr. Douglas returned to Chicago on the 9th of July, and speed- 
 ily realized the expectations of the Republicans of his own State by 
 making a speech cordially and emphatically re-indorsing the Dred 
 Scott decision. 
 
 •^ On the 24th of July, Mr. Lincoln addressed the following note 
 to his antagonist : 
 
 " Hon. S. A. Douglas — My Dea.r Sir : — Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement 
 for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences during the present canvass? 
 Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized to receive your answer j and, if agreeable to 
 you, to enter into the terms of such arrangement. 
 
 "Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN." 
 
 i^Mr Douglas had too vivid a recollection of his past encounters 
 with Mr. Lincoln, to desire a repetition of them. Had he not felt 
 in his inmost soul that Mr. Lincoln was more than a match for 
 him in debate, he would not have waited for a challenge, but 
 would himself have thrown down the glove to Mr. Lincoln imme- 
 diately upon entering the State. His reply, declining the proposed 
 arrangement, was quite voluminous, and presented a singular 
 array of reasons why it would be impossible for him to meet Mr. 
 Lincoln according to the terms of the challenge. His chief objec- 
 tion was that the Democratic candidates for Congress and the Leg- 
 
 7J
 
 islaturc desired to address the people at the various county seats in 
 conjunction with him ; a pretext which, whether true or not as to 
 the *' desire/' was found to be altogether untrue as to the fulfillment. 
 Mr. Douglas, nevertheless, consented to seven meetings with his 
 opponent for joint discussion, to wit, at Ottawa, Freeport, Jones- 
 boro', Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. Mr. Lincoln, of 
 course, promptly acceded to this arrangement. As he could not 
 prevail upon Douglas to meet him in discussion in every part of 
 the State, he was willing to do the next best thing— meet him 
 wherever he could have the opportunity. 
 
 1^ Mr. Douglas having taken no notice at Chicago, Bloomington, 
 or Springfield, where he made preliminary speeches, of the " con- 
 spiracy " to which his attention had been called by Mr. Lincoln, in 
 his speech of June 1 6th, the latter deemed it proper to take a default 
 on him, and to dwell somewhat upon the enormity of his having 
 '' left a niche in the Nebraska Bill to receive the Dred Scott deci- 
 sion," which declared that a Territorial Legislature could not abol- 
 ish slavery. Mr. Douglas was not slow in discovering that this 
 charge, fortified as it was by overwhelming evidence, had begun 
 to hurt. Therefore, at Clinton, De Witt County, he took occasion 
 to read the charge to his audience, and to say in reply that " his 
 self-respect alone prevented him from calling it a falsehood." A 
 few days later, the " self-respect " broke down, and at Beardstown, 
 Cass County, he pronounced it, with much vehemence of gesture, 
 an " infamous lie I" 
 
 i^Mr. Lincoln commenced his canvass of the State at Beards- 
 town, a place of considerable importance on the Illinois River, on 
 the 1 2th of August. At the conclusion of his speech on this occa- 
 sion, he reviewed the conspiracy charge in a manner so forcible 
 that it can only be told in his own language:— 
 
 " I say to you, gentlemen, that it would be more to the purpose for Judge Douglas to say that 
 he did not repeal the Missouri Compromise ; that he did not make slavery possible where it was 
 impossible before ; that he did not leave a niche in the Nebraska Bill for the Dred Scott decision 
 to rest in ; that he did not vote down a clause giving the people the right to exclude slavery if 
 they wanted to ; that he did not refuse to give his individual opinion whether a Territorial Leg- 
 islature could exclude slavery ; that he did ttoi make a report to the Senate in which he said that 
 the rights of the people in tliis regard were * held in abeyance ' and could not be immediately 
 exercised ; that he did not make a hasty indorsement of the Dred Scott decision over at Spring- 
 field ; that he does not now indorse the decision ; that that decision does not take away from 
 
 72
 
 the Territorial Legislature tlie power to exclude slavery ; and that he did not in the original 
 Nebraska Bill so couple the words St^te and Territory together, that what the Supreme Court 
 has done in forcing open all the Territories for slavery, it may yet do in forcing open all the 
 States — I say it would be vastly more to the point for Judge Douglas to say he did rjot do some 
 of these things, did not forge some of these Unks of overwhelming testimony, than to go to vocif- 
 erating about the country that possibly he may be obliged to hint that somebody is a liar I " 
 
 i^From Beardstown, Mr. Lincoln went up the Illinois River to 
 Havana and Bath, Mason County, Lewiston and Canton, Fulton 
 County, Peoria, Henry, Marshall County, speaking at each place, 
 and thence to Ottawa on the 2 1st of August, where the first joint 
 debate was appointed to take place. An immense audience, esti- 
 mated by the friends of both parties at about twelve thousand, had 
 congregated to witness the first grand passage-at-arms. Mr. Doug- 
 las had appointed to himself the opening and closing of the first 
 and last of the seven discussions. Accordingly he occupied an 
 hour in opening at Ottawa, giving Mr. Lincoln an hour and a half 
 to reply and himself half an hour for rejoinder. The only thing of 
 even moderate consequence presented in Mr. Douglas's first hour 
 was a series of questions to his antagonist drawn from a series of 
 radical anti-slavery resolutions which, he alleged, had been reported 
 by Mr. Lincoln, as chairman of a committee, to the Republican 
 State Convention of Illinois, held at Springfield in October, 1854. 
 To this Mr. Lincoln merely replied, that no Republican State Con- 
 vention was held at Springfield, or anywhere else, in 1854, and 
 that he was not present at the meeting held there by a small num- 
 ber of persons, who nominated a candidate for State Treasurer ; on 
 the contrary, he was in another county, attending court. Having 
 disposed of this matter for the present, he proceeded to occupy his 
 time with the vital issues of the campaign, dwelling chiefly on the 
 Dred Scott decision, and the peculiar reasons put forth by Mr. 
 Douglas for sustaining it. " This man," said he, " sticks to a decis- 
 ion which forbids the people of a Territory from excluding slavery ; 
 and he does so not because he says it is right in itself— he does 
 not give any opinion on that— but because it has been decided by 
 the court, and being decided by the court, he is, and you are, bound 
 to take it in your political action as laiv— not that he judges at all 
 of its merits, but because a decision of the court is to him a ' Thus 
 saith the Lord/ He places it on that ground alone, and you will 
 J 73
 
 bear in mind that this committing himself unreservedly to this 
 decision, commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this. He 
 did not commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of the 
 decision, but it is a Thus saith the Lord. The next decision, as 
 much as this, will be a Thus saith the Lord. ' ' Yet, as Mr. Lin- 
 coln proceeded to show, Mr. Douglas's public record presented 
 three glaring instances of violation of Supreme Court decisions: 
 ( I ) his repeated indorsement of Gen. Jackson's course in disregard- 
 ing the decision of the Supreme Court declaring a National Bank 
 constitutional; (2) his indorsement of the Cincinnati platform, 
 which says that Congress cannot charter a National Bank, in the 
 teeth of the Supreme Court decision, declaring that Congress can 
 do so ; (3) his notorious war upon the Supreme Court of Illinois 
 which had decided that the Governor could not remove a Secretary 
 of State, which ended in the appointment of five new Judges, of 
 'whom Douglas ivas one, to vote down the four old ones. And 
 here exactly was the time and place where Mr. Douglas acquired 
 his title of "Judge 1" "These things," continued Mr. Lincoln, 
 " show there is a purpose, strong as death and eternity, for which 
 he adheres to this decision, and for which he will adhere to all 
 other decisions of the same court." 
 
 i^ The following eloquent paragraph concluded the Ottawa debate, 
 on Mr. Lincoln's part :— 
 
 " Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott decision, one more word, and I am done, Henry 
 Clay, my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my humble life — Henry 
 Qay once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate eman- 
 cipation, that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our independence, and 
 muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return ; they must blow out the moral 
 lights around us ; they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty ; 
 and then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slavery in this country 1 To my t h i nk i ng , 
 Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community, 
 when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Independence. Henry Clay 
 plainly understood the contrary. Judge Douglas is going back to the epoch of our Revolution, 
 and, to the extent of his ability, muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return. 
 When he invites any people, willing to have slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral 
 lights around us. When he says, he ' cares not whether slavery is voted down or voted up' — 
 that it is a sacred right of self-government — he is, in my judgment, penetrating the human 
 soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty in this American people. And 
 now I will only say, that when, by all these means and appliances. Judge Douglas shall succeed 
 in bringing public sentiment to an exact accordance with fiis own views — when these vast 
 assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments — when they shall come to repeat his views 
 and to avow his principles, and to say all that he says on these mighty questions — then it needs 
 
 74
 
 oflly the formality of tlie second Dred Scott decision, which he endorses in advance, to make 
 slavery alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South." 
 
 ■It When Mr. Douglas had occupied his half-hour, and the debate 
 was finished, Mr. Lincoln was borne away from the stand on the 
 shoulders of his friends, in a frenzy of enthusiasm. 
 J^ Directly after the Ottawa debate, it was discovered that the res- 
 olutions which Mr. Douglas produced there, and declared to have 
 been written by Mr. Lincoln, at Springfield, in J 854, were never 
 adopted at that place by anybody, but had been passed by a local 
 convention at Aurora, Kane County. Common people very natu- 
 rally called it a forgery. At the Freeport debate, six days later, 
 Mr. Lincoln referred to it in the following crushing paragraph :— 
 
 "I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some further purpose tfian any- 
 thing yet advanced. Judge Douglas did not make his statement upon that occasion as of mat- 
 ters that he believed to be true, but he stated them roundly as being true, in such form as to 
 pledge his veracity for their truth. When the whole matter turns out as it does, and when we 
 consider who Judge Douglas is — that he is a distinguished Senator of the United States — that 
 he has served nearly twelve years as such — that his character is not at all limited as an ordinary 
 Senator of the United States, but tliat his name has become of world-wide renown — it is most 
 extraordinary that he should so far forget all the suggestions of justice to an adversary, or of 
 prudence to himself, as to venture upon the assertion of that wliich the slightest investigation 
 would have shown him to be wholly false. I can only account for his having done so upon the 
 supposition that that evil genius which has attended him through Jiis life, giving to him an 
 astonishing prosperity, such as to lead very many good men to doubt there being any advantage 
 in virtue over vice — I say, I can only account for it on the supposition that that evil genius has 
 at last made up its mind to forsake him." 
 
 iS^The questions propounded by Mr. Douglas to his antagonist at 
 Ottawa were still outstanding, unanswered. At Freeport, Mr. Lin- 
 coln took them up, and replied to them seriatim, as follows :— 
 
 Question I. "I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands pledged, as he did in J 854, in 
 favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law?" 
 
 Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged in favor of the unconditional repeal of 
 the Fugitive Slave law. 
 
 Q. 2. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in J 854, against 
 the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want them ?" 
 
 A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States 
 Into the Union. 
 
 0. 3. "I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into 
 the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union, with such a 
 Constitution as the people may see fit to make. 
 
 Q. 4. "I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in tlie 
 District of Columbia ?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 75
 
 0. 5. " I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade 
 between the different States ?" 
 
 A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States. 
 
 Q. 6. " I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories 
 of the United States, north as well as south of the Missouri Compromise line?" 
 
 A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to 
 prohibit slavery in all the United States' Territories. 
 
 Q. 7. " I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any new territory 
 unless slavery is first prohibited therein?" 
 
 A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of territory ; and, in any given case, I 
 would or would not oppose such acquisition, according as I might think such acquisition would 
 or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves. 
 
 Now my friends it will be perceived, upon an examination of these questions and answers, 
 that so far I have only answered that I ^'as not pledged to this, that, or the other. The Judge 
 has not framed his interrt^atories to ask me anything more than this, and I have answered in 
 strict accordance with the interrogatories, and have answered truly that I am not pledged at all 
 upon any of the points to which I have answ^ered. But I am not disposed to hang upon the 
 exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather disposed to take up at least some of these questions, 
 and state what I really think upon them. 
 
 As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave law, I have never hesitated to say, and I 
 do not now hesitate to say, that I tliink, under the Constitution of the United States, the people 
 of the Southern States are entitled to a Congressional Fugitive Slave law. Having said that, I 
 have had nothing to say in regard to the existing Fugitive Slave law, further than that I think 
 it should have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections that pertain to it, without 
 lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an alter* 
 ation or modfication of that law, I would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of 
 agitation upon the general question of slavery. 
 
 In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the admission of any more slave 
 States into the Union, I state to you very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be 
 put in a position of fiaving to pass upon that question. I should be exceedingly glad to know 
 that there would never be another slave State admitted into the Union ; but I must add that, if 
 slavery shall be kept out of the Territories during the territorial existence of any one given Ter- 
 ritory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to 
 adopt the Constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a Slave Constitution, unin- 
 fluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own 
 the country, but to admit them into the Union. 
 
 The third interrogatory b answered by the answer to the second, it being, as I conceive, the 
 same as the second. 
 
 The fourth one b in regard to the abolition of slavery in the Dbtrict of Columbia. In rela- 
 tion to that, I have my mind very dbtinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see 
 slavery abolbhed in the Dbtrict of Columbia. I believe that Congress possesses the Constitu- 
 tional power to abolbh it. Yet as a member of Congress, I should not, with my present views, 
 be in favor of endeavoring to abolbh slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it would be 
 upon these conditions: First, that the abolition should be gradual. Second, that it should be 
 on a vote of the majority of qualified voters in the Dbtrict ; and third, that compensation should 
 be made to unwilling owners. With these three conditions, I confess I would be exceedingly 
 glad to see Congress abolbh slavery in the Dbtrict of Columbia, and, in the language of Henry 
 Clay, " sweep from our Capital that foul blot upon our nation." 
 
 I4 regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that as to the question of the abolition of 
 the slave-trade between the different States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am pledged to 
 oothing about it. It b a subject to wfiich I have not given that mature consideration that would 
 make me feel authorized to state a position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other 
 words, that question has never been prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate 
 
 76
 
 whether we really have the constitutional power to do it. I could investigate it if I had suffi- 
 cient time, to bring myself to a conclusion upon that subject ; but I have not done so, and I say 
 so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglas. I must say, however, that if I should be of 
 opinion that Congress does possess the constitutional power to abolish the slave-trade among the 
 different States, I should still not be in favor of the exercise of that power unless upon some con- 
 servative principle, as I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation to the abolition of 
 slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 My answ^er as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohibited in all the Territories of 
 the United States, b full and explicit within itself, and cannot be made clearer by any comments 
 of mine. So I suppose in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the acquisition of any 
 more territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is such that I could add noth- 
 ing by way of illustration, or making myself better understood, than the answer which I fiave 
 placed in writing. 
 
 1^ Mr. Lincoln having answered all the questions propounded by 
 his adversary, as Senator Benjamin observes, " with no equivoca- 
 tion, no evasion," it now became his turn to interrogate. The 
 two prominent facts of the campaign, in Mr. Lincoln's view, were 
 "Popular Sovereignty," so called, and the Dred Scott decision — 
 each a sham and a fraud, yet directly antagonistic. Mr. Lincoln 
 therefore resolved to present them to Mr. Douglas in the form of a 
 brief interrogatory, so worded that even the latter could find no 
 avenue for escaping or dodging the contradiction. He mentioned 
 to some of his friends at Freeport that such was his purpose. They 
 unanimously counseled him to let that topic alone, " for," said they, 
 "if you put that question to him, he will perceive that an answer 
 giving practical force and effect to the Dred Scott decision in the 
 Territories inevitably loses him the battle, and he will therefore 
 reply by affirming the decision as an abstract principle, but denying 
 its practical application." " But," said Mr. Lincoln, " if he does that, 
 he can never be President." His friends replied, with one voice, 
 " That's not your lookout ; you are after the Senatorship" " No, 
 gentlemen," rejoined Mr. Lincoln, "/ am killing larger game. 
 The battle of I860 is worth a hundred of this!" So the questions 
 were put, and Mr. Douglas was forced to avow his dogma of 
 *' unfriendly legislation." His present position as the candidate for 
 the Presidency of a faction of his party, verifies Mr. Lincoln's 
 prediction. 
 
 ^ The third joint discussion was held nineteen days later, at Jones- 
 borough, Union County (Lower Egypt), on the 1 5th of September. 
 The intervening time was occupied by Mr. Lincoln in active can- 
 
 77
 
 vassing. He spoke successively to large audiences at Fremont, 
 Carlinville, Clinton, Bloomington, Monticello, Mattoon, Paris, Hills- 
 borough, Edwardsville, and Greenville. 
 
 .^At Edwardsville, Madison County, Mr. Lincoln had compara- 
 tively a small audience— three or four hundred, perhaps. This 
 county was one of four in the State which gave a plurality 
 for Mr. Fillmore in 1856— the vote standing: Fillmore, 1,658; 
 Buchanan, 1,451; Fremont, 1,111. Notwithstanding the "con- 
 servative" character of the people in this latitude, Mr. Lincoln 
 gave them a straightforward Republican speech, without altering 
 or modifying a syllable of the party creed, concluding with the fol- 
 lowing masterly appeal to the reason and consciences of his hearers : 
 
 "My friends, I have endeavored to show you the logical consequences of the Dred Scott decis- 
 ion, which holds that the people of a Territory cannot prevent the establishment of slavery in 
 their midst. I have stated what cannot be gainsayed, that the grounds upon which this decision 
 is made are equally applicable to the Free States as to the Free Territories, and that the peculiar 
 reasons put forth by Judge Douglas for endorsing this decision, commit him in advance to the 
 next decision, and to all other decisions emanating from the same source. And, when by all 
 these means you have succeeded in dehumanizing the negro ; when you have put him down, and 
 made it impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field ; when you have extinguished his 
 soul, and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out in the darkness that broods over the 
 damned, are you quite sure the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you ? What 
 constitutes the bulwark of our liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, 
 our bristling sea-coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant army. 
 These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our land. All of them may be 
 turned against our liberties without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reli- 
 ance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the pre- 
 servation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. 
 Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Famil- 
 iarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear 
 them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of 
 your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among 
 you. And let me tell you that all these things are prepared for you with the logic of history, if 
 the elections shall promise that the next Dred Scott decision and all future decisions will be qui- 
 etly acquiesced in by the people." 
 
 .^ After making a similar speech at Greenville, Bond County, 
 whose vote stood in 1856: Fillmore, 659; Buchanan, 607; Fre- 
 mont, 153,— but which was nevertheless carried in 1858 by Mr. 
 Gillespie, the Republican candidate for State Senator — Mr. Lin- 
 coln proceeded to the Jonesborough " milk-pan," as he facetiously 
 termed it, because Mr. Douglas had said at Ottawa, in his usual 
 ornate style, that he was "going to trot him (Mr. L.) down to 
 78
 
 Egypt, and bring him to his milk." In this debate, Mr. Lincoln 
 devoted considerable attention to the "unfriendly legislation" 
 dodge, clearly demonstrating that, if the Constitution confers the 
 right of taking slaves into the territories, the territorial legislature 
 cannot annul the right, and that Congress is bound to give the 
 slaveholder ample protection in the enjoyment of that right, should 
 the territorial legislature neglect to do so. Subsequently, in a 
 speech at Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Lincoln gave the finishing blow to 
 " unfriendly legislation," in the following terse and admirable defi- 
 nition :— 
 
 " The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the United States a right to carry 
 his slaves into the United States' Territories. And now there was some inconsistency in saying 
 that the decision was right, and saying, too, that the people of the Territory could lawfully 
 drive slavery out again. When all the trash, the words, the collateral matter, was cleared away 
 from it — all the chaff was fanned out of it, it was a bare absurdity — no less than that a. thing 
 may be la'wfully dri<oen a^way from 'where it has a laixiful right to he." 
 
 ■I^The fourth joint discussion took place at Charleston, Coles 
 County, on the 1 8th of September, three days after the Jonesboro' 
 debate, Mr. Lincoln having the opening and closing. This debate 
 was remarkable chiefly for the fact that Mr. Lincoln fastened upon 
 his antagonist, by incontrovertible proof, the charge of having con- 
 spired with Senator Toombs and others to bring Kansas into the 
 Union, without having her Constitution submitted to a vote of the 
 people, for the purpose of making her a. slave State. Whoever will 
 turn to that debate and examine the proofs presented by Mr. Lin- 
 coln, cannot possibly entertain a doubt as to the existence of such 
 a conspiracy, and that Douglas was a party to it. 
 1^" Negro equality," the peculiar bugaboo of Mr. Douglas, also 
 received a few moments* attention from Mr. Lincoln at Charleston, 
 in these words : — 
 
 " While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I 
 was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. While 
 I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question 
 was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to 
 it. I will say, then, that I am not, or ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way 
 the social and political equality of the white and black races — that I am not nor ever have been 
 in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to inter- 
 marry with white people ; and I will say, in addition to this, tliat there is a physical difference 
 between tlie white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living 
 
 79
 
 together on terms of social and political equality. And, inasmuch as they cannot so live, while 
 they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as 
 any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say 
 upon this occasion, I do not perceive that, because the white man is to have the superior position, 
 the negro should be denied everything. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro 
 woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is, that I can just 
 let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for 
 either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making 
 either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this, that I have never seen, to my knowledge,"* 
 man, woman or child, who was in favor of producing perfect equality, social and poUtical, 
 between negroes and white men. I recollect of but one distinguished instance that I ever heard 
 of so frequently as to be entirely satisfied of its correctness — and that is the case of Judge Doug- 
 las's old friend. Col. Richard M.Johnson. I will abo add to the remarks I have made, (for I am 
 not going to enter at large upon this subject), that I have never had the least apprehension that I 
 or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it; but as Judge 
 Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law 
 to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by 
 the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. I will add one 
 further word, which is this: that I do not understand that there is any place where an alteration 
 of the social and political relations of the negro and the white man can be made except in the 
 State Legislature — not in the Congress of the United States — and as I do not really apprehend 
 the approach of any such thing myself, and as Judge Douglas seems to be in constant horror that 
 some such danger is rapidly approaching, I propose, as the best means to prevent it, that the 
 Judge be kept at home and placed in the State Legislature to fight the measure." 
 
 i^At the Galesburg debate, held on the 7th of October, Mr. Lin- 
 cob uttered the remarkable prediction concerning his adversary 
 which we now see realized, in answer to one of Mr. Douglas's 
 tirades about "sectionalism":— 
 
 "I ask his attention also to the fact that, by the rule of nationality, he is himself fast becom- 
 ing sectional. I ask his attention to the fact that his speeches would not go as current now 
 south of the Ohio river as they have formerly gone there. I ask his attention to the fact that he 
 felicitates himself to-day that all the Democrats of the free States are agreeing with him, while 
 he omits to tell us that the Democrats of any slave State agree with him. If he ha^ not thought 
 of this, I commend to his consideration the evidence in his own declaration, on this day, of his 
 becoming sectional too. I sec it rapidly approaching. Whatever may be the result of this ephe- 
 meral contest between Judge Douglas and myself, 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." 
 
 .S^The sixth (Quincy) debate took place on the J 3th of October. 
 It was at this meeting that Mr. Lincoln made an argument to prove 
 that the Dred Scott premise as to the constitutional right to take 
 slaves into the territories, if carried to its logical results, would 
 establish the right to take and hold them in the free States also. 
 Subsequently, Mr, Douglas, in his Harper Magazine article, appro- 
 priated this argument of Mr. Lincob to his own use, without giv- 
 mg credit therefor. 
 80
 
 1^ The reader who will take the trouble to examine the volume of 
 these debates, will find that, while Mr. Lincoln made a new argu- 
 ment at each meeting, Mr. Douglas's portion of each debate was 
 substantially a repetition of his first effort at Ottawa. 
 i^Two days later, on the 1 5th of October, the final encounter 
 between the champions took place at Alton. This volume would 
 be incomplete without the admirable summing up of the issues of 
 the campaign there appropriately presented by Mr. Lincoln. Let 
 no one fail to peruse it. 
 
 I have stated upon fonnef occasions, and I may as well state again, what I understand to be 
 the real issue in this controversy between Judge Douglas and myself. On the point of my want- 
 ing to make war between the free and the slave States, there has been no issue between us. So, 
 too, when he assumes that I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and political equality 
 between the white and black races. These are false issues, upon which Judge Douglas has 
 tried to force the controversy. There is no foundation in truth for the charge that I maintain 
 either of these propositions. The real issue in this controversy — the one pressing upon every 
 mind— is the sentiment on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a 
 •wrong, and of another class that docs not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that con- 
 templates the institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Repub- 
 lican party. It is the sentiment around which all their actions — all their arguments circle — 
 from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as being a moral, social and po- 
 litical wrong ; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless have due regard for its 
 actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to 
 all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet, having a due regard for these, they de- 
 sire a policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist that it 
 should, so far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating it as a 
 wrong b to muke pro^vision that it shall grom> no larger. They also desire a policy that looks 
 to a peaceful end of slavery at some time, as being wrong. These are the views they entertain 
 in regard to it, as I understand them; and all their sentiments— all their arguments and propo- 
 sitions — are brought within this range. I have said, and I repeat it here, that if there be a man 
 amongst us who does not think that the institution of slavery is -wrong in any one of the aspects 
 of which I have spoken, he is misplaced, and ought not to be with us. And if there be a man 
 amongst us who is so impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its actual presence among us 
 and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a satisfactory way, and to disregard the consti- 
 tutional obligations thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on our platform. We dis- 
 claim sympathy with him in practical action. He is not placed properly with us. 
 
 On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limi ting its spread, let me say a word. Has 
 anything ever threatened the existence of tliis Union save and except this very institution of 
 slavery? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? Our own liberty and prosperity. 
 What has ever threatened our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of slavery? 
 If tfiis is true, how do you propose to improve the condition of things by enlarging slavery — by 
 spreading it out and making it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon your person and 
 not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to death; but surely it is no way to cure it, to engraft it 
 and spread it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating what you regard as a 
 ■wrong. You see this peaceful way of dealing with it as a wrong — restricting the spread of it, 
 and not allowing it to go into new countries where it has not already existed. That is the 
 peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the way in which the fathers themselves set us the 
 example. 
 
 k 81
 
 On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which treats it as noi being wrong. That 
 is the Democratic sentiment of this day. I do not mean to say that every man who stands 
 within that range positively asserts that it is right. That class will include all who positively 
 assert that it is right, and all who like Judge Douglas treat it as indifferent, and do not say it is 
 either right or wrong. These two classes of men fall within the general class of those who do 
 not look upon it as a wrong. And if there be among you anybody who supposes that he, as a 
 Democrat, can consider himself " as much opposed to slavery as anybody," I would like to rea- 
 son with him. You never treat it as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong 
 do you deal with as you deal with that ? Perhaps you say it is wrong, but your leader ne-ver 
 does, and you quarrel ■with anybody luho says it is <wrong. Although you pretend to say so 
 yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. You must not say anything 
 about it in the free States, because it is not here. You must not say anything about it in the 
 slave States, because it is there. You must not say anything about it in the pulpit, because 
 that is religion and has nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about it in politics, 
 because that 'will disturb the security of "my place." There is no place to talk about it as 
 being a wrong, although you may say yourself it is a wrong. But finally, you will screw 
 yourself up to the belief that if the people of the slave States should adopt a system of gradual 
 emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of it. You say that is getting it 
 in the right place, and you would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. 
 You all know that Frank Blair and Gt&tz Brown undertook to introduce that system in Missouri. 
 They fought as valiantly as they could for the system of gradual emancipation which you 
 pretend you would be glad to succeed. Now I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight, 
 they w^ere beaten, and when the news came over here you threw up your hats and hurrahed 
 for Democracy. More than that, take all the argument made in favor of the system you have 
 proposed, and it carefuUy excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in the institution of 
 slavery. The arguments to sustain that policy carefully exclude it. Even here to-day, you 
 heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me because I uttered a wish that it might sometime come to 
 an end. Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave in the United States was in 
 the country of his ancestors, I am denounced by those pretending to respect Henry Clay for utter- 
 ing a wish that it might sometime, in some peaceful way, come to an end. The Democratic 
 policy in regard to that institution will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the 
 least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judge Douglas's arguments. He says he 
 " don't care whether it is voted up or voted down " in the Territories. I do not care myself, in 
 dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to be expressive of his individual sentiments 
 on the subject, or only of the national policy he desires to have established. It is alike valuable 
 for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not see anything wrong in slavery, but no 
 man can logically say it who does see a wrong in it ; because no man can logically say he don't 
 care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He may say he don't care whether an indif- 
 ferent thing is voted up or down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing and 
 a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community wants slaves has a right to have them. 
 So they have if it is not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a right to 
 do wrong. He says that, upon the score of equality, slaves should be allowed to go into a new 
 Territory, like other property. This is strictly logical if there is no difference between it and 
 other property. If it and other property are equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you 
 insist that one is wrong and the other right, there is no use to institute a comparison between 
 right and wrong. You may turn over everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to 
 end, whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott 
 Decision, in the shape it takes in conversation, or in the shape it takes in short, maxim-like 
 arguments — it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything wrong in it. 
 
 That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor 
 tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two 
 principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the tw^o principles that have 
 stood face to face from the beginning of time ; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is 
 
 82
 
 tte common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle 
 in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, " You work and toil and 
 earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a 
 kin g who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or 
 from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical prin- 
 ciple. I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here to Judge Douglas 
 — ihat he looks to no end of the institution of sla'very. That will help the people to see where 
 the struggle really is. It will hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the wrong 
 may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the real question — 
 when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetuation — 
 we can get out from among them that class of men and bring them to the side of those who 
 treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that will be its " ultimate extinc- 
 tion." Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown out, so 
 that men can fairly see the real difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be 
 settled, and it will be done peaceably, too. There will be no war, no violence. It will be 
 placed again where the wisest and best men of the world placed it. Brooks of South Carolina 
 once declared that, when this Constitution was framed, its framers did not look to the institution 
 existing until tliis day. When he said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne out by the 
 history of the times. But he also said they w^ere better and wiser men than the men of these 
 days ; yet the men of these days had experience which they had not, and by the invention of 
 the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country that slavery should be perpetual. I now 
 say that, willingly or unwillingly, purposely or without purpose. Judge Douglas has been the 
 most prominent instrument in changing the position of the institution of slavery wtiich the fath- 
 ers of the Government expected to come to an end ere this — and putting it upon Brooks's cot- 
 ton-gin basis — placing it where he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end 
 of it. 
 
 ■^ The canvass was now finished— a canvass in some respects the 
 most remarkable ever witnessed in this country— and naught 
 remained but for the people to record their verdict. Each of the 
 speakers addressed public meetings up to the day of election. Mr. 
 Lincoln made about sixty speeches during the canvass, traversing 
 almost the entire State, by nearly every conceivable mode of 
 travel. He spoke usually from two to three hours, nearly always 
 in the open air, and to audiences so large as to require great effort 
 on his part to be heard distinctly by all. During these arduous 
 labors, he never once faltered, never exhibited signs of weariness, 
 never failed to meet an appointment. He seemed to grow fresher 
 and stronger as the campaign progressed. Exercise in the open 
 air, travel, and the excitement incident to the canvass, were, in 
 some respects, a return to the habits of his early life, and the effect 
 was plainly visible upon his physical man. His voice grew clearer 
 and stronger to the very last day ; and at the close he was heavier 
 by nearly twenty pounds than at the beginning of the canvass. He 
 exhibited powers of endurance that have rarely been equaled. The 
 
 83
 
 gallant manner in which he bore himself at his meetings with 
 Douglas, and the transcendent ability which he displayed on all 
 occasions, more than satisfied his friends. His progress through 
 the State had all the characteristics of a triumphal march. He was 
 met by large deputations from every town which he entered, ten- 
 dering him, in behalf of its citizens, a cordial welcome to their hos- 
 pitalities and a warm place in their affections. The subsequent 
 publication of his debates with Douglas, precisely as they were 
 reported by their respective friends, without a word of comment or 
 explanation, and its general circulation as a Republican campaign 
 document, is the highest testimonial that could be offered to the 
 genius, to the ability, to the broad and comprehensive views, and 
 to the statesmanlike character of Mr. Lincoln. 
 ^ The election took place on the 2d of November. The excite- 
 ment which had wrought the State up to a tempest during the pro- 
 gress of the fight, culminated on this eventful day. The whole 
 number of votes cast for President in Illinois, in 1 856, was 238,98 1 ; 
 the whole number cast for members of the Legislature, in 1858, 
 was 251,148. A drenching and chilling rain poured down all day 
 in the northern part of the State, extending southward, with more 
 or less discomfort to voters, as far as Vandalia. It did not, how- 
 ever, reach "Lower Egypt." The result of the election is matter 
 of history. Mr. Lincoln had a majority over Mr. Douglas, in the 
 popular vote, of 4,085; while, by an unfair apportionment law, the 
 latter had a small majority of the Legislature, and was therefore 
 re-elected to the Senate. A careful analysis of the official returns 
 reveals the following facts : 
 
 J^ 1st. That according to the census of 1855, the 33 districts car- 
 ried by the Democrats, and electing 40 members, contained 606,- 
 278 population, and the 25 districts carried by the Republicans and 
 electing 35 members, contained 699,840 population, or 93,562 more 
 than the districts carried by the Democrats. 
 
 .^ 2d. That in a Democratic district the ratio of representation was 
 15,156 inhabitants to a member, while in Republican districts it 
 required 19,910 inhabitants to a member. 
 
 ■S^3d. That the true ratio being 1 7,42 J inhabitants to a member, 
 had the Legislature been elected on that basis, the Republican dis- 
 84
 
 tricts would have been entitled to forty members of the House and 
 fourteen Senators, and the Democrats to thirty-five members of 
 the House and eleven Senators — exactly reversing the number 
 each side secured. Of course, this would have elected Lincoln by 
 the same majority on joint ballot that Douglas received. Had 
 every citizen possessed an equal weight and voice in the choice of 
 Senator, Mr. Douglas would now be a private citizen and Mr. 
 Lincoln a member of the U. S. Senate. Mr. Douglas is a Senator 
 from Illinois through a palpable violation of the principles of popu- 
 lar sovereignty. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 jp. The man whose history we have thus briefly traced now stands 
 before the country the chosen candidate of the Republican party 
 for President of the United States. Commencing life under circum- 
 stances the most discouraging, we have seen him courageously 
 and manfully battling his way upward from one position of honor 
 and responsibility to another, until he now stands in an attitude to 
 place his foot upon the very topmost round of honorable fame. He 
 presents in his own person the best living illustration of the true 
 dignity of labor, and of the genius of our free American institutions, 
 having been elevated through their instrumentality from poverty 
 and obscurity to his present distinguished position. 
 ■^Perhaps no more appropriate conclusion can be given to this 
 sketch of Mr. Lincoln's life, than the following, relative to his per- 
 sonal appearance, habits, tastes, &c., which is copied from the Chi- 
 cago Press and Tribune, and for the correctness of which, in every 
 particular, we can fully vouch : 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln stands six feet four inches high in his stockings. His frame b not muscular, 
 but gaunt and wiry. In walking, his gait, though firm, is never brisk. He steps slowly and 
 deliberately, almost always with his head inclined forward, and his hands clasped behind his 
 back. In manner, he is remarkably cordial, and at the same time simple. His politeness is 
 always sincere, but never elaborate or oppressive. A warm shake of the hand and a warmer 
 smile of recognition are his methods of greeting his friends. At rest, his features, though they 
 are those of a man of mark, are not such as belong to a handsome man ; but when tiis fine, 
 dark-gray eyes are lighted up by any emotion, and his features begin their play, he would be 
 chosen from among a crowd as one who had in him not only the kindly sentiments which 
 women love, but the heavier metal of which full-grown men and Presidents are made. His hair 
 is black, and though thin, is wiry. His head sits well on tiis shoulders, but beyond that it defies 
 description. It nearer resembles that of Clay than \^ebster's, but is unlike either. It is very 
 
 85
 
 large, and phrenologically well proportioned, betokening power in all its developments. A 
 slightly Roman nose, a wide<trt mouth, and a dark complexion, with the appearance of having 
 been weather-beaten, complete the description. 
 
 " In his personal habits, Mr. Lincoln is as simple as a child. He loves a good dinner, and eats 
 with the appetite which goes with a great brain ; but his food is plain and nutritious. He never 
 drinks intoxicating liquors of any sort. He is not addicted to tobacco in any of its shapes. He 
 was never accused of a licentious act in his life. He never uses profane language. He never 
 gambles. He is particularly cautious about incurring pecuniary obligations for any purpose 
 whatever t and, in debt, he is never content until the score is discharged. We presume he owes 
 no man a dollar. He never speculates. The rage for the sudden acquisition of wealth never 
 took hold of him. His gains from his profession have been moderate, but sufficient for his 
 purposes. While others have dreamed of gold, he has been in pursuit of knowledge. In all liis 
 dealings, he has the reputation of being generous but exact, and, above all, religiously honest. 
 He would be a bold man who would say that Abraham Lincoln ever wronged a man out of a 
 cent, or ever spent a dollar that he had not honestly earned. His struggles in early life have 
 made him careful of money, but his generosity with his own is proverbial. He is a regular 
 attendant upon religious worship, and, though not a communicant, is a pew-holder and liberal 
 supporter of the Presbyterian Church in Springfield, to which Mrs. Lincoln belongs. He is a 
 scrupulous teller of the truth — too exact in his notions to suit the atmosphere of Washington, as 
 it now is. His enemies may say that he tells Black Republican lies ; but no man ever charged 
 that, in a professional capacity, or as a citizen dealing with his neighbors, he would depart from 
 the scriptural command. At home, he lives like a gentleman of modest means and simple 
 tastes. A good-sized house of wood, simply but tastefully furnished, surrounded by trees and 
 flowers, is his own ; there he lives, at peace with himself, the idol of his family, and for his 
 honesty, ability and patriotism, the admiration of his countrymen. 
 
 " If Mr. Lincoln is elected President, he will carry but little that b ornamental to the White 
 House. The country must accept his sincerity, his ability, and his honesty, in the mould in 
 which they are cast. He will not be able to make so polite a bow as Franklin Pierce, but he 
 will not commence anew the agitation of the slavery question by recommending to Congress 
 any Kansas-Nebraska Bills. He may not preside at the Presidential dinners with the ease and 
 grace which distinguish the * venerable public functionary,' Mr. Buchanan ; but he will not cre- 
 ate the necessity for a Covode Committee and the disgraceful revelations of Cornelius Wendell. 
 He will take to the Presidential Chair just the qualities which the country now demands to save 
 it from impending destruction — ability that no man can question, firmness that nothing can 
 overbear, honesty that never has been impeached, and patriotism that never despairs."
 
 PRINTED AT THE CRANBROOK PRESS, DETROIT, 
 MICHIGAN, U. S. A., IN THE YEAR MDCCCC, THIS 
 EDITION BEING LIMITED TO 245 COPIES, OF WHICH 
 THIS IS NO. '^.'^.
 
 -z' S . '
 
 1