But within the very shade of the Capitol, the slave girl was coined into drachmas. He felt the world shame that had come upon the nation by this blot on its professions. The desire to strike another blow grew strong in him. As he tried a decade before in the legislative halls of Illinois, so now in the national assembly, in a very home of slavery, he rang forth his hate of the old injustice. Still he did not give way to an outburst of vengeance; he husbanded his anger; thought only of the consequence, planned with wisdom themost effective stab at the national disgrace.
The politician walked hand in hand with the patriot. He gathered discordant elements to the support of a common cause calling forth admiration at the unrivalled policy. He consecrated to the high purpose of dedicating the national Capitol to a free citizenship, a devotion and sagacity that made him the peer of any strategist of his day. He conceived and carried out a daring plan of securing the support to his astounding proposal of the Mayor of Washington, a representative of the intelligent slave-holding citizens of that community. With equal skill, he secured the reinforcement of the radical Giddings, who says in his diary that Lincoln's bill to abolish slavery was approved by all; that he believed it as good a bill as we could get at this time, and was willing to pay for slaves in order to save them from the southern market, as he supposed every man in the District would sell his slaves if he saw that slavery was to be abolished.[255]Lincoln held together two such leaders in advocacy of the same measure affecting the sore subject, thus revealing the supreme tactician, who in later years held to the public service a Seward, a Stanton and a Chase in the same cabinet.
He persuaded the slave holder that it was wiser to adopt his measure than in later years confront the danger of more exacting legislation. He convinced the Abolitionists that his law was the best then attainable. His alarming proposition was as innocent in expression as patience and wisdom could make it. It provided for the ultimate emancipation of all slaves born after 1850 and the manumission of existing slaves on full payment to willing owners. After soberly providing for the return of all fugitive slaves the whole plan was made dependent upon the approval of a popular vote.[256]
The slaveholders were more illiberal than the Abolitionists.They spurned all compromise. They would admit no suggestion that laid bare the injustice of their institution. They knew that when an inroad was once made, its days would be numbered; that compromise was the dawn of the end. They brought all their power into being. The social influences of Washington were called into polite requisition and the Mayor, under this duress, withdrew his sanction.[257]The biographers, who knew Lincoln in the days of trial, have given expression to a splendid tribute to his constancy. "Fifteen years afterwards, in the stress and tempest of a terrible war, it was Mr. Lincoln's strange fortune to sign a bill sent him by Congress for the abolition of slavery in Washington; and perhaps the most remarkable thing about the whole transaction was that while we were looking politically upon a new heaven and a new earth,—for the vast change in our moral and economical condition might justify so audacious a phrase,—when there was scarcely a man on the continent who had not greatly shifted his point of view in a dozen years, there was so little change in Mr. Lincoln. The same hatred of slavery, the same sympathy with the slave, the same consideration for the slaveholder as the victim of a system he had inherited, the same sense of divided responsibility between the South and the North, the same desire to effect great reforms with as little individual damage and injury, as little disturbance of social conditions as possible, were equally evident when the raw pioneer signed the protest with Dan Stone of Vandalia, when the mature man moved the resolution of 1849 in the Capitol and when the President gave the sanction of his bold signature of the act which swept away the slave shambles from the City of Washington."[258]
He warred against slavery not the slave holder. He tookfull account of the conditions leading to the ownership of human property. He realized that it was a legacy of a former age, that it was not a product of present and individual responsibility, that it was a national fault not a private one, that the slave holder was the victim of the system not the cause. So he would not have the change come with a rush lest it might not be abiding. He was willing to wait. Lincoln knew that progress is a slow and labored process and that haste is often the companion of reaction. He would awaken no just and general resentment, a resentment that still lingers in the hearts of men from a war-won emancipation. It would have been well for the North and South had this measure of gradual compensated emancipation have become the settled policy of the nation. The most cankerous conflict of the age might have been spared and the problems resulting therefrom less perplexing. Like a wise surgeon, he dared an early operation rather than delay the necessity of a more drastic remedy. When passion forged to the front as the guide, when North and South had ample occasion to dwell on mutual wrongs, when the Constitution of the Union ceased to be the prevailing measure of the individual and general welfare, the days of peace were being numbered. Lincoln realized that compromise is only available when wisely adapted to opposing forces at the fitting time.
Thus, there stood forth in Congress a man who subdued his passion for the Declaration of Independence and yet who was not willing that the down-trodden should eternally remain in the darkness of vicarious government. He knew that slavery could not always dwell in the seat of government, that the time would come when there would be no human chattel on American soil. Still, Lincoln did not shift to others the whole burden of bringing the day to pass, buttook his stand against the iniquity of human bondage with sublime wisdom. He tempered but did not dull his sense of justice. He struck a second blow at the national evil, a sign that he still was true to his vow at New Orleans and his protest at Vandalia.
Like other legislators, Lincoln was obliged to deal with the issue of handing out offices as party spoil. Trade and industry were still in their infancy and had not yet begun to attract the activity of the aspiring. The highway to general distinction and to honor was largely that of public office. Hence, there ensued, in the words of Lincoln, a "wriggle and struggle for office" and an effort to find "a way to live without work."[259]
The attitude of Lincoln in days when the Jackson theory was in its full vigor is noteworthy. As the sole Whig representative, beside Colonel Baker, Lincoln asked, in 1849, to be heard on all appointments in Illinois. His remarkable action is seen in the following letter: "Mr. Bond I know to be personally every way worthy of the office; and he is very numerously and most respectably recommended. His papers I send to you; and I solicit for his claims a full and fair consideration. Having said this much, I add that in my individual judgment the appointment of Mr. Thomas would be better.... I add that from personal knowledge I consider Mr. Bond every way worthy of the office, and qualified to fill it. Holding the individual opinion that the appointment of a different gentleman would be better, I ask especial attention and consideration for his claim, and for the opinions expressed in his favor by those over whom I can claim no superiority."[260]As Congressman he selected a postman of a village with the same precision that he later did a war minister.
The activity of Lincoln in securing the nomination and election of Taylor commanded the regard of some leading politicians. They advised his candidacy for the General Land Office. Lincoln was poorly equipped to seek the favor of those dispensing patronage. He was not gifted with assiduity or forwardness so often essential to bearing away the palm. Seldom has a hunter for alluring official service so gently put obstacles in the way of his success. Though it is claimed he was even eager for the prize, he was careful to a nicety, to avoid a false position, while others were bending every effort and using every means at their disposal.
To several friends he wrote the following unique letter: "Some months since I gave my word to secure the appointment to that office of Mr. Cyrus Edwards, if in my power, in a case of a vacancy; and more recently I stipulated with Colonel Baker that if Mr. Edwards and Colonel J. L. D. Morrison could arrange with each other for one of them to withdraw, we would jointly recommend the other. In relation to these pledges, I must not only be chaste, but above suspicion. If the office shall be tendered to me, I must be permitted to say: 'Give it to Mr. Edwards, or if so agreed by them, to Colonel Morrison, and I decline it; if not, I accept.' With this understanding you are at liberty to procure me the offer of the appointment if you can; and I shall feel complimented by your effort, and still more by its success."[261]
But even his patience gave way when Justin Butterfield, a late opponent of Taylor, was considered for the place. He burst forth with the statement that if anything should be given to the State, it should be so given as to gratify friends, and to stimulate them to future exertions, and that it would mortify him deeply if General Taylor's administrationshould trample all his wishes in the dust merely to gratify friends of Clay.[262]
It was not surprising that the laggard procedure of Lincoln lost him this place. Political offices, like opportunity, do not wait long. And so it came to pass that the former opponent of the President was selected in the place of one who was his earnest advocate from the beginning. Though not backward in his claim for an elective office, he was still little inclined to play the servile part in an appointive position. He was willing enough to submit to the democratic judgment of his fellow men when he was given a public opportunity to present his claim, but he timidly shrank from a personal solicitation of a Presidential favor.
His final letter on the history of this affair is rather tinged with another sorrow. Mr. Edwards being offended with him, he wrote that the better part of one's life consisted of his friendships; that at a word he could have had the office any time before the Department was committed to Mr. Butterfield; and that word he forbore to speak chiefly for Mr. Edwards' sake,—losing the office that he might gain it, and that to lose hisfriendship, by the effort for him would oppress him very much, were he not sustained by the utmost consciousness of rectitude.[263]
The selection of Butterfield for the General Land Office did not shake the efforts of the friends of Lincoln to secure recognition of his valiant services in the Whig ranks. He was tendered the governorship of Oregon by Fillmore. The new land held forth enticing political promises, it was soon to become a state and a senatorship was a fair prospect. Close associates advised acceptance. Lamon says that Lincoln saw it all, and would have accepted "if his wife consented," but she refused to do so; and that time has shownthat she was right.[264]What part Lincoln would have played in history if he had become a senator from Oregon may be interesting but none the less vain speculation. If the Lincoln and Douglas debates had been shifted from the prairies of Illinois to the national arena at Washington, who can say that Lincoln and Douglas might not have become rivals for the Presidency? It has been quite the fashion to assume that the Senate would have been destructive to the future of Lincoln, overlooking the plain fact that the National Assembly was the home of the renown of Douglas and his ladder to the Presidential nomination. Lincoln was not spoiled by the highest office in the land and there is no surety that the senate would have proved the grave of his career.
Two scant years of Congressional life worked a change in the politician from Illinois. He had come in a subdued mood to mingle in national affairs. Shrinkingly, he measured his humble equipment with that of illustrious legislators in Washington. While he left a respectable, but not an eminent record of achievement, he departed with a store of confidence in his worth. His intimate association with northern and southern leaders, his sure, inner knowledge of national legislative methods, his insight into the uncompromising character of the slavery controversy were not wasted in the part he was soon to play in events that would shake the very foundation of the nation.
Still, he returned to Springfield unhonored. In the opinion of his constituency, he made a series of blunders. His attitude on the war lost the district to the Whig party. His "Spot Resolutions" had become a by-word in the community, they were liberally satired in song and story. The political career of Lincoln had seemingly come to an inglorious conclusion.
Upon his return from Washington, Abraham Lincoln attended to a growing legal practice. He apparently lost his interest in communal matters, having tasted the allurements and bitterness of public service. He had largely outgrown the passion for ordinary official distinction. He was ready to go back to the circuit with its hardships and rudeness. To win renown as a lawyer now seemed his sole ambition.
Still as the compromise measures of 1850 ended another national crisis, he readily renewed his interest in the march of events. A loyal Whig, still, he acceded to the Clay and Webster solution of the perturbed political conditions with some misgiving. He poorly tolerated the burdens added to the yoke of the fugitive slave—the premium placed upon bondage rather than freedom. During this stormy period of general controversy, in his lonely way he settled the main issue. A story told by a close friend is significant of the seriousness of the struggle. As they were coming down a hill, Herndon said to Lincoln that the time was coming when they should all have to be either Abolitionists or Democrats. Lincoln thought a moment and then answered ruefully that when that time came his mind would be made up, for he believed the slavery question could never be successfully compromised.[265]
Though zealous for action, for a time, he was in the gloom of despair. Most men were lost in their own affairs. The furtive Abolitionist raised his voice as in a wilderness. The busy world took mean note of the cry of anguished slave. About this time Herndon states that Lincoln was speculating with him about the deadness of things, and deeply regretted that his human strength was limited by his nature to rouse the world, and despairingly exclaimed that it was hard to die and to leave one's country no better than if one had never lived for it.[266]Here is again communion with the soul whose thoughts were of the despised and the lowly. To Lamon and other men who cannot rise to kinship with him in such an hour, he must forever remain a mystery. It is for this reason that some who were near him seldom comprehended the extensiveness of his sympathy, seldom knew the divinity of his hopes, and his surpassing love of kind.
Lincoln was a stumbling student in the domain of eulogy. His mind scorned fanciful statement. He was no hero worshipper. Washington, alone, remained the shrine of his homage. He mastered indiscriminate devotion to person in his loyalty to principle. For this reason, to many, he seemed impassive and self centered. It is strange that the man so little prone to adulation should, himself, be the recipient of almost universal adoration. So his address in 1852 on the death of Clay shows little of the devotional element. Even in the shadow of the grave of the great Compromiser, there is no chant of an admiring friend—no speech leaping from the heart. Lincoln himself felt its limitations.[267]In this address, he called attention to the striking fact that Clay never spoke merely to be heard, that his eloquence was always directed to practical action.
It is only when Lincoln approached the discussion of theslavery question that he ceased commonplace commendation. He gave much time to that issue. That he brooded over the solemn statement of the patriots of the Republic is shown in his use of the far-famed utterance of Jefferson: "I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers or to pay any attention to public affairs, confident that they were in good hands and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for a moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, and every irritation will mark it deeper and deeper."[268]
He likewise dwelt on the exulting protest of Clay against the enemies of liberty and ultimate emancipation, who would go back to the era of our liberty and independence and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return, who would blow out the moral light and penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the love of liberty.[269]
We learn something of the trend of his thoughts in his discussion of the colonization proposal of Clay that there was a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children, whose ancestors had been torn from her by the ruthless hand of fraud and violence, who, transplanted in a foreign land, would carry back to their native soil the rich fruits of religion, civilization, law and liberty. Lincoln passes this benediction on the plan: "May it indeed be realized. Pharaoh's country was cursed with plagues, and hishosts were lost in the Red Sea, for striving to retain a captive people who had already served them more than four hundred years. May like disasters never befall us! If, as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and at the same time in restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland with bright prospects for the future, and this too so gradually that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation."[270]
Lincoln was seeking no temporary expedient. He saw that abolitionism was only a step in the problem, that beyond freedom was the greater question that still terrifies the Union. Statesmanlike, he was not willing merely to trifle with the casual remedy. Like Clay, he would have put an end to the baffling issue by an operation titanic in contemplation and astounding in sweep. So this eulogy on Clay is largely a discussion of a looming problem of his time, a safe sign that he was awake to the gathering storm.
The campaign of 1852 was colorless. Both parties were arrayed on the side maintaining the sacredness of the Compromise Measures. All slavery agitation was severely deprecated. While the South feared and shunned the triumph of the Whig party, there was still scant surface appearance of a sectional contest. There was little in the issues involved to awaken moral vitality. Lincoln took no glowing part in the electoral contest. Lamon declares that his speeches during the campaign were coarse, strained in humor, petulant, unworthy of the orator, and pervasive with jealousy at the success of his rival—Douglas.[271]
Though Lincoln was sure from the first, of the sin ofslavery, still, even at this period, he continued in conduct with slow paced movement as if half afraid of being ahead of the sweep of events. Herndon aided in helping him keep abreast with advanced abolition literature, and sought to win him to a championship of the radical school. Like Washington, he marked out his own path. Neither friend nor foe could swerve him, hasten or check his advance. Broad-minded, open to appeal, no man was less influenceable in final judgment. Herndon's weighty statement confirms this distinctiveness of Lincoln's individuality. "I was never conscious of having made this impression on Mr. Lincoln, nor do I believe I ever changed his views. I will go further and say, that, from the profound nature of his conclusions and the labored method by which he arrived at them, no man is entitled to the credit of having either changed or greatly modified them."[272]
At first, he began in his office in plain speech to comment upon the virulent contest between freedom and slavery, contending that delay was intensifying the ultimate clash, that like two wild beasts in sight of each other, but chained and held apart, the deadly antagonists would some day break their bonds, and then the question would be settled.[273]
He spoke bitterly of the attitude of the judiciary, the men who should have been in the very front of the fight; who seemed more zealous of the right of property than that of personal liberty. He said that it was singular that the Courts would hold that a man never lost his right to his property that has been stolen from him, but that he instantly lost his right to himself if he was stolen.[274]Thus his mind moved faster than public sentiment, and thus he became prepared for decisive action before the culminating Kansas and Nebraska affair threw the North into commotion. Heseemed the barometer of the national conscience, and though his slow progress appeared painful to the radical yet it was genuine and far more remorseless than immature reform. When the conservative mind of Lincoln was stirred to action, it was a definite sign of progress. He saw that the steady march of slavery was slowly perverting the very principles of democracy, that it was a challenge to the integrity of the republic, that sooner or later it would subvert the government or be subverted by the government.
He noted that there were about six hundred thousand men non-slaveholding whites in Kentucky to about thirty-three thousand slave holders; that when a convention recently assembled, there was not a single representative of the non-slaveholding class. He told a friend that the thing was spreading like wildfire over the country and that in a few years Illinois would be ready to accept the institution. When asked to what he attributed the change that was going on in public opinion, he said that he had put that question to a Kentuckian shortly before, who answered by saying that one might have any amount of land, money or bank-stock, and while travelling around, nobody would be wiser; but, if one had a darky trudging at his heels, everybody would see him, and know that he owned a slave; that if a young man went courting, the only inquiry was, how many negroes he or she owned. He added, that the love for slave property was swallowing up every other mercenary possession; that its ownership betokened, not only the possession of wealth, but indicated the gentleman of leisure, who was above and scorned labor.[275]
It has been a historical fashion to brand Douglas as the author of all the ills that came in the course of the Kansas-Nebraska agitation. He has suffered more than any othernorthern leader for participation therein. He did not inaugurate; he reluctantly adopted radical action to maintain his leadership in the Democratic party. The abolitionists were growing more resolute and exacting in their demands, startling the northern conscience. No compromise could still their protests; they would not tolerate constitutional obligations that stood in the way of immediate emancipation. At the South, the slave dynasty was daily growing more restless under the real or assumed danger from northern agitation. New enactments were deemed indispensable, as if legislation could stay the rising tide of sentiment against the return of fugitive slaves. The South was, under the educational tutelage of Calhoun, prepared to demand the right to carry slaves throughout every inch of the national territory without restraint from Congress.
Compromise could delay but not settle such a contest. When moral instincts were aroused on one side and fear on the other, the inevitable clash could not be permanently avoided. Dixon of Kentucky, through his far-reaching statement upon the question of slavery he knew no "Whiggery" and no Democracy,[276]decisively noted the new era in American politics, and showed the desperate chasm that daily grew more divisive, not to be covered over until the blood of a million men was offered up as a sacrifice to the most momentous martyrdom in history. Atchison of Missouri, who declared he would sacrifice everything but his hope of heaven for slavery,[277]was anxious for the place of Douglas that he might champion the legislation that would secure the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. To gain this position, he would relinquish his distinction as Acting President pro tem of the Senate.
For twenty years, Douglas had fought in the party ranksuntil he stood fair to become its leader. He had either to become champion of the new policy, or as he saw it, to sacrifice the work of a lifetime. In the party councils he contested the wisdom of the policy and eloquently portrayed its far-reaching consequences. He loved his country but not all of his kind. Patriot but not humanitarian, he would not peer behind the curtain of a clashing North and South. The nature of the bitter conflict through which Douglas passed before he submitted to the southern policy, appears from his counsel to a young student and friend never to go into politics; that if he did, no matter how clear it might be to him that the present was an inheritance from the past, no matter how conscientiously he might feel that his hands were tied, with loyalty to ancient institutions rather than what he might prefer to do if free to choose, still he would be vilified, traduced, and finally sacrificed to some local interest or unreasoning passion like Adams, Webster and Clay. He continued that he was surprised that the proposal to repeal came from the South and dreaded the effect, and said so; still for nearly twenty years he had fought for a place among the leaders of the party which seemed to him most likely to promote the prosperity of his country, and had won it.... If he retained his leadership, he argued that he might help to guide the party aright in some graver crisis, and if he threw it away, he not only destroyed himself, but he became powerless for good forever after.
He then impetuously contended that an individual ought not to oppose his judgment to that of a great party, and besides though surprised at its source, he believed that the repeal would work to the advancement of freedom rather than otherwise, as his vilifiers charged. He finally pleaded that he was politically right in keeping within the pale of the Constitution; and right as to the moral effect, and rightas a party leader anxious to help in keeping his party true to the whole country.[278]Thus Douglas made his way to the sons of the South and became the father of the Nebraska controversy and of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
Douglas had not trained himself in the school of political defeat and hesitated to forego his prestige of leadership. To gain the South, he risked his hold on the North. Had he had the courage to dare, the wisdom to know, the moral heroism to do, he might have become the foremost personality in American politics, honoring instead of shadowing the history of his time. In a solemn moment he took counsel of his fears rather than his integrity, and doubted the triumph of the one cause that has revolutionized history. With all his political sagacity, he lacked the supreme instinct that transcends the shrewdness of the day and links itself to the final triumphing movement.
During the spring and summer of 1854 when the whole North quivered with the hurrying march of events following the Nebraska agitation, and thundered its protests into Washington, Lincoln grew to the demands of the hour with his wonted sureness. He turned over and over the whole issue. He did not halt at the injustice of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, but went beyond its consideration to the problems of the age, of which that act was only a grave symptom.
Now and then in small meetings, he spoke out of the fullness of his feelings. His friends scanned a strange change. Coming to listen to his quaint stories, they returned, exalted by hearing a speaker who raised the controversy above the shifting events of the hour to the broad tableland where right and wrong meet on the field of battle. They beheld a man who lifted the discussion into the pure realms of eternaljustice, above all questions of policy, into the arena of the higher humanity. Prejudices of a lifetime trembled in the balance. Men were baptised with a new political faith. They instinctively turned to the master and yielded, to the power of a personality speaking in the name of immortal righteousness. He was no longer in his former haunts, the tavern or the grocery. He was seen "mousing" around libraries. He was communing with the Fathers of the Republic, seeking wisdom from them.
These five years following his Congressional experience are noteworthy in his life, though scantily known. Now and then a chance remark, the eulogy on Clay, a letter to a friend, reveal a strong man struggling with a giant problem. During all this time, he was thinking out the portentous question that was agitating a tempest. The greatest contests of the world are not fought on the battlefield, in the presence of vast armies, when the drum beats or the bugle calls to action. The sublimest battles in history are waged in the lonely soul. There, the destiny of nations is determined before its formal expression in legislative discussion, judicial decision or national controversy.
The grasping disposition of slavery convinced Lincoln that the encounter was inevitable. Before the formation of the Republican party, he sanctioned the statement that the time was approaching when it would be necessary to take a determined stand either for or against slavery. During this period, he waited and bided his time; all these years he saw with joy, clouded with occasional despair, the day approaching when another blow could be struck for freedom, for the principles of the fathers and for the spreading of democratic influence. These were splendid years of preparation.
The indignation that rushed through Illinois when the first news from the Capitol forecast the repeal of the Missouri Compromise had not yet abated, when Douglas dauntlessly sought to explain his course of conduct in Chicago. He was howled down and denied liberty of speech. This naturally brought on a reaction. The contention that the distinguished senator had been struck before being heard, added martyrdom to his bold conduct.
As he wandered down the State closer to the home of ardent democracy, he was met with growing enthusiasm. His ingenious sophistry turned popular sovereignty into a seeming contest for a principle and Illinois was being carried away by his triumphant oratory and logic. There is little wonder that the man who breasted the storm of debate in the Senate should make headway in the land of his friends where office holders and supporters gloried in his fame and were elated when he chanted forth his alluring doctrine as a solution to political conditions.
His main effort was made at the State Fair in October, 1854, an occasion that called together the intelligence of Illinois in days when few occasions permitted the satisfaction of social life. Enhancing its importance, this political gathering was to mark the opening of the campaign to determine the selection of a Senator. The speech of Douglas was to be almost a national event. Upon him the hopes of theState democracy centered in the conditions following the late political tempest. Douglas was equal to the occasion and his friends rejoiced.
Lincoln had made such a profound impression at the time among the Whig orators, that he was chosen to bear the brunt of the reply to the "State Fair Speech" of the wily leader of the Democratic party. Lincoln surpassed every expectation. Neither side was prepared for the terrible onslaught. A new and dauntless advocate appeared giving power to the gathering protesting elements against the aggressive championship of Douglas. Herndon, himself, was thoroughly amazed, and tells us that the speaker quivered with emotion, that he felt upon his soul the truths burn which he uttered, that crushing with his logic the Nebraska bill he rent it into shreds and held it up to the scorn and the mockery of the crowds, that he took the heart captive and broke like a sun over the understanding.[279]In his reply Douglas was excited, and his voice loud and shrill. Lamon relates that shaking his forefinger at the democratic malcontents, and declaiming rather than debating, he occupied to little purpose the brief interval remaining until the adjournment for supper; that then, promising to resume his address in the evening, he went his way, and evening came but not the orator.[280]
While Lincoln was moving in the moral realm, still, at this very time, note must be taken of the politician in the valley. The enthusiasm that followed his baptismal oration had not calmed when Lovejoy announced a gathering that evening of the friends of freedom. The Nebraska movement fed the Abolitionists with abounding faith in a speedy triumph. With a rising sense of their strength, fairly "snuffing" the coming victory they looked for, Lovejoy andhis associates hastened to command Lincoln's attendance at their meeting. Herndon vividly describes the occasion, saying that their plan was to induce Lincoln to speak for them, yet he doubted the propriety of Lincoln's taking any stand yet. Lincoln was ambitious to climb to the United States Senate, and on grounds of policy it would not do for him to occupy at that time such advance ground as they were taking. On the other hand, it was equally dangerous to refuse a speech for the Abolitionists. Herndon then hunted up Lincoln and urged him to avoid meeting the enthusiastic champion of Abolitionism. "Go home at once," he said. "Take Bob with you and drive somewhere into the country and stay till this thing is over." Lincoln under the pretense of having business in Tazewell County drove out of town in his buggy, and did not return until the apostles of Abolitionism had gone to their homes. Herndon believes that this arrangement saved Lincoln, for if he had endorsed the resolutions passed at the meeting, or spoken simply in favor of freedom that night, he would have been identified with all the rancor and extremes of Abolitionism, and if, on the contrary, he refused to take a position as advanced as theirs, he would have lost their support.[281]
Another incident told by the same writer makes it necessary ever to keep track of Lincoln, the wary politician: "One day I read in theRichmond Enquireran article endorsing slavery, and arguing that from principle the enslavement of either whites or blacks was justifiable and right. I showed it to Lincoln, who remarked that it was 'rather rank doctrine for northern Democrats to endorse. I should like to see,' he said, with emphasis 'some of these Illinois newspapers champion that.' I told him if he would only wait and keep his own counsel I would have a pro-slavery organ inSpringfield publish that very article. He doubted it, but when I told him how it was to be done, he laughed and said, 'Go in.' I cut the slip out and succeeded in getting it in the paper named. Of course it was a trick but it acted admirably. Its appearance in the new organ, although without comment, almost ruined that valuable journal, and my good natured friend the editor was nearly overcome by the denunciation of those who were responsible for the organ's existence. My connection and Lincoln's too,—for he endorsed the trick,—with the publication of the condemned article was eventually discovered, and we were thereafter effectually prevented from getting another line in the paper. The anti-slavery people quoted the article as having been endorsed by a democratic newspaper in Springfield and Lincoln himself used it with telling effect. He joined in the popular denunciation, expressing great astonishment that such a sentiment could find lodgment in any paper in Illinois, although he knew full well how the whole thing had been carried through."[282]
Lincoln was alive to the best methods of persuasion. He knew that men were the children of emotion and that while many would be calloused to the slavery of the black man, nothing would arouse the North quicker than this doctrine of the bondage of the white man. While slavery was making every effort to fasten its fangs on the nation, Lincoln was not averse to take advantage of a shrewd move to strike heavy blows at the potent institution.
He entered deeply into the contest. Lincoln knew that it involved the painful rending of party allegiance. His letter to Palmer sheds light on the intensity of the struggle, the heroism of the democratic minority whose loyalty to country and righteousness surpassed a deep-seated partisanship:"You are," he said, "and always have been, honestly and sincerely a Democrat; and I know how painful it must be to an honest sincere man to be urged by his party to the support of a measure, which in his conscience he believes to be wrong. You have had a severe struggle with yourself, and you have determined not to swallow the wrong. Is it just to yourself that you should, in a few public speeches, state your reasons, and thus justify yourself? I wish you could; and yet I say, 'Don't do it if you think it will injure you.'"[283]
Lincoln recognized that political progress is not alone the result of intellectual supremacy; that it is a painful struggle; that policy must be mingled with principle; that the world does not welcome the unadulterated gospel; that through the centuries, humanity has groped its way to the far light with eyes blinded by the superstition of ages and selfishness.
The moral prophet is seldom the political leader of his time. He stands above his age. The politician is part of it. One sees things as they should be, the other as they are. One is splendidly indifferent to results, the other keenly appreciative of them. Lincoln made no false step. Had he walked too fast for his day he might have been the Garrison of the West, but not the party guide. With sure instinct he felt that the time was not ripe for companionship with the Abolitionists. Illinois was not ready. If he was to continue his hold on public sentiment, to guide it, he could not flash the truth before the gaze of humanity. Despite the suffering of martyrs, the heroism of statesmen, the sacrifices of seekers of the truth, wrong was still "upon the throne," and "truth upon the scaffold," the world was not slow in crucifying its heroes of speech and deed. Lincoln recognized the weaknesses of men, the shortcomings of human nature, the superstition of centuries. He was content withslow progress, uncowed by disappointment, and realized that the grumbling world emancipated its heart and mind slowly.
Under the spell of the State Fair speech, Whig leaders earnestly besought Lincoln to follow Douglas up until election.[284]So again at Peoria, Lincoln broke forth in impassioned utterances that took captive the judgment. His logic throbbed with passion for freedom, for liberty and emancipation. He lifted his hearers above the jangling of everyday life, above the mists of hate, of jealousy, of selfishness, into a region of the brotherhood of man. Unlike his speech at Springfield, this was written out. It demonstrates that his supremacy among the eminent leaders of Illinois was not a matter of the choice of the hour.
With marvelous power of directness, he plotted out the line of discussion. He made much of the fact that the Fathers of the Republic regarded slavery as an evil worthy of restriction and looked forward to the day of its ultimate abolition, saying that as the subject was no other than part of the larger question of domestic slavery, he wished to make the distinction between the existing institution and the extension of it so clear that no honest man could misunderstand him, and no dishonest man could successfully misrepresent him.[285]
With telling effect he quoted the words of Douglas himself as to the sincere observance of the Missouri Compromise that put a barrier in the way of the progress of slavery: "It had its origin," said Douglas, "in the hearts of all patriotic men, who desired to preserve and perpetuate the blessings of our glorious Union—an origin akin to that of the Constitution of the United States, conceived in the same spirit of fraternal affection, and calculated to remove forever the only danger which seemed to threaten, at some distant day,to sever the social bond of Union. All the evidences of public opinion of that day seemed to indicate that this Compromise had been canonized in the hearts of the American people, as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb."[286]His comment on this unanswerable statement of Douglas is significant of the nature of Lincoln's peculiar fairness and consequent strength. Lincoln said that he did not read the extract to involve Judge Douglas in an inconsistency, for if he afterward thought he was wrong, it was right for him to change, but he brought it forward merely to show the high estimate placed on the Missouri Compromise by all parties up to so late as the year 1849.[287]
In the North and South passion had unloosed its tongue and crimination and recrimination were daily becoming steady servants in debate and discussion on the slavery question. With it all, Lincoln calmly sat in judgment.
"Before proceeding let me say that I think I have no prejudices against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist between them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses North and South.... When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the same. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own nativeland. But a moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible—what then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted, but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.
"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them—not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives which should not in its stringency be more likely to carry a free man into slavery than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more excuse for permitting slavery to go into our free territory than it would for reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long forbidden the taking of them into Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any moral principle, and the repeal of the former could find quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter."[288]
In the domain of literature on the slavery question there is no statement that surpasses this in charity, sanity and wisdom. With his overflowing hatred to slavery, he still kept justice as his guide and was slow to blame the South for the long standing sin. In this he towers above the Abolitionists who put upon the slave holders the burdens of a past as well as a present wrong. Yet unlike the politician he did not lose his ideal and become palsied and apologetic. He saw the need of keeping alive the principles of the Republic. Hastening the coming of the better humanity, with patience for human shortcoming, with zeal for the triumph of emancipation, he continued in his peculiar, lonely and potent way the advocacy of justice to God's dusky children.
In the Senate Douglas with triumphant eloquence charged Seward and Sumner and the North with having repudiated the Missouri Compromise through the Wilmot Proviso and the measures of 1850. Anti-slavery leaders in the Senate were confounded by this sudden charge and grandiloquent accusation. Lincoln took up the challenge and met the arrogant claim of Douglas without flinching. His analysis exposed the glittering sophistry of the man who enraptured the Northern statesmen in the solemn Senate. He not only held his ground in the face of the brilliant strategy of his opponent, but even carried the war into the camp of the foe.
He argued that the contention of Douglas that the North repudiated the Missouri Compromise was no less absurd than it would be to argue that because they had so far forborne to acquire Cuba, they would have thereby, in principle, repudiated former acquisitions and determined to throw them out of the Union; that it was no less absurd than it would be to say that because he may have refused to build an addition to his house, he thereby decided to destroy the existing house.
This speech abounds in plain, hard English, travelling direct to the intellect on a straight line. No labored argument could be half as sure of a welcome to the human mind as his graphic exposal of the injustice of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise: "After an angry and dangerous controversy, the parties made friends by dividing the bone of contention. The one party first appropriates its own share, beyond all power to be disturbed in the possession of it, and then seizes the share of the other party. It is as if two starving men had divided their own loaf; the one had hastily swallowed his half, and then grabbed the other's half just as he was putting it to his mouth."[289]
In nothing did Douglas show greater genius than in hallowing his doctrine of popular sovereignty. The leaders in Congress feared openly to fight his vaunted "sacred right of self government," they were not sure of their ground. Lincoln with confidence, born of lonely struggle, rushed on the angry battlefield to run the gantlet of debate on the conquering doctrine of popular sovereignty: "When the white man," he said, "governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self government—that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.
"Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by saying: 'The white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable negroes!' Well! I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are and will continue to be as good as the average of people elsewhere.I do not say the contrary. What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."[290]In a single weighty phrase he crushed the elaborate argument of the Senator of Illinois and left its fair form so that only a shattered frame remains.
At times he spoke like a seer lifted above the petty prejudices of the time. He declared that the spirit of mutual concession—that first wrought the Constitution, and thrice saved the Union—and that trust in a national compromise, would thus be strangled; that the South flushed with triumph would provoke and aggress, and the North, brooding on wrong, would resent and retaliate. He alleged that already a few in the North defied all constitutional restraint, and even menaced the institution of slavery in the southern States; that already a few in the South claimed the constitutional right to hold slaves in the free States and demanded the revival of the slave trade. That it was a grave question for lovers of the Union whether the final destruction of the Missouri Compromise, and with it the spirit of all compromise, would not fatally increase the number of both.[291]
His sanity enabled him to guide the erring and confounded in the days of doubt. "Some men," he said, "mostly Whigs, who condemn the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, nevertheless hesitate to go for its restoration, lest they be thrown in company with the Abolitionists. Will they allow me, as an old Whig, to tell them, good humoredly, that I think this is very silly? Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. Stand with the Abolitionists in restoring the Missouri Compromise, and stand against him when he attempts to repeal the fugitive slave law. In the latter case you stand with the Southern disunionist. What of that?You are still right. In both cases you are right. In both cases you expose the dangerous extremes. In both you stand on middle ground, and hold the ship level and steady."[292]
Above all, this speech will live for its moral intensity, hatred of injustice and hunger for righteousness. Throughout this long appeal and uniting its links of logic is an overpowering and pervasive sentiment of the highest humanity. Now and then an outburst against oppression comes forth resistlessly, yet in the company of a sober expression, logical intensity and a broad outlook peculiar to him. These rival the most impassioned utterances of Phillips and Garrison. Like O'Connell, he sent his voice "careering like the thunderstorm against the breeze, to tell the slaveholders of the Carolinas that God's thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the bondman that the dawn of his redemption is already breaking."[293]
With elation he passed from the sordidness and the turmoil of the courtroom and daily pettiness of common political controversy to the championship of an all-mastering principle. He fed the "parched souls of men with celestial anodyne," with visions of a new and nobler era of humanity. He made the humblest voter a public participant in the high service of ridding the nation of the shame of slavery. He was educating American democracy to practice the principles of the Declaration of Independence, restoring to life seemingly dead doctrines of the fathers. Better than a course in ethics was the uplift of his utterances, the call to higher attitudes.
He declared his hate in ringing words, of the indifference to, if not covert zeal for, the spread of slavery, of depriving the Republic of its just influence in the world, of enabling the enemies of Democracy to engage in the taunt of hypocrisy,of forcing so many men into open war with the fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there was no right principle but self interest.[294]
In measured language befitting his solemn theme, Lincoln continued his prophetic condemnation of slavery, charging that, steadily as man's march to the grave, the people were giving up the old for the new faith; that they had run down from the declaration that all men were created equal to the declaration that the enslavement of some was a sacred right of self government. He dwelt upon the statement of Pettit that the Declaration of Independence was a "self evident lie" and said that Pettit did what candor required, and that of forty-odd Nebraska senators who listened, no one rebuked him; and asked if that had been said among Marion's men, Southerners though they were, what would have become of the man that said it? He added that if it had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years before, the very doorkeeper would have throttled the man and thrust him into the street.[295]
The day after the Peoria speech, Douglas told Lincoln that he understood the Territorial question better than all the opposition in the Senate, and declared that Lincoln had given him more trouble than his combined antagonists in Congress. Then Douglas proposed that he would speak no more during the campaign if Lincoln would do the same, and to that proposition Lincoln acceded.[296]So though a speech by Douglas and Lincoln had been advertised for the following day, Mr. Douglas said that he was too hoarse to speak, and Lincoln declared that he would not take advantage of the judge's indisposition, by addressing the people.His friends could not see the affair in the same light, and they "pressed him for a speech," but Lincoln mysteriously and unaccountably refused.[297]
Wisely did shrewd Douglas, the imperial leader in debate, appeal to the generosity of his opponent to conclude further controversy. Douglas was an over-match for all of the radical Abolitionists, the men who spoke of the higher law, who made war on the charter of American liberties. His better nature rejoiced in such conflicts. But his genius was rebuked in the presence of the plain product of the West, the man who neither relinquished his confidence in the Constitution nor yet in the ultimate triumph of the freedom that first gave it its being. Douglas could wage triumphant war on a Lovejoy and Chase, but the common logic and simple honesty of Lincoln disconcerted him. The elaborate oratory of the Senate never confused the Senator of Illinois. For the first time in his career the national leader was worried and perplexed. He was neither used to nor prepared for the combination of talent that could not be diverted from its way, that met every movement with a baffling complacency. There was something unanswerable in Lincoln's manner and mode of discussion. Douglas could fight other men at a distance, but this opponent made it a hand-to-hand grapple. At length a man had arisen in the American arena as skillful in defense of freedom as other men were in that of slavery. An orator had come who combined the solidity of Webster, the moral fervor of Phillips, and the logic of Calhoun; who mingled justice, patriotism and argument so as to astonish the foremost figure in Washington. It was no idle sentiment that brought Douglas to tender his rival the high tribute of a truce.
The Peoria and State Fair speeches created a supremeplace for Lincoln in the anti-slavery movement. He was looked to as likely to gather great strength in the transitional period of party dissolution. A dominating passion for place again took hold of him. He declared he prized a full term in the Senate more than the Presidency. To advance local political conditions Lincoln was unwisely made a candidate, in his absence, for the State Legislature that would soon elect a Senator. Mrs. Lincoln, however, had Lincoln's name taken off the list of candidates. When Mr. Lincoln returned, "I went to see him," says Jayne, "in order to get his consent to run. That was at his house. He was then the saddest man I ever saw,—the gloomiest. He walked up and down the floor, almost crying; and to all my persuasions to let his name stand in the paper, he said, 'No, I can't. You don't know all. I say you don't begin to know one-half, and that's enough!' I did, however, go and have his name reinstated." After election Lincoln resigned and by a "still hunt" a Democrat was elected in his stead. The interference of Mrs. Lincoln, the loss of a vote in the approaching close contest, according to Jayne, angered the people of Sangamon County so that for the time being they hated him.[H]
Lincoln managed his senatorial campaign with adroitness. Herndon shows that Lincoln did not calmly sit down and gather his robes around him, waiting for the people to call him. The vicissitudes of a political campaign brought into play his management, and developed to its fullest extent his latent industry. Like other politicians he never overlooked a newspaper man who had it in his power to say a good or bad thing of him. Writing to the editor of an obscure little country newspaper that he had been reading his paper for three or four years and had paid him nothing for it, heenclosed $10.00 and admonished the editor with complacency to put it into his pocket and say nothing further about it. Very soon thereafter Lincoln prepared a political article and sent it to the rural journalist, requesting its publication in the editorial columns of his valued paper. The latter, having followed Lincoln's directions, declined saying that he long ago made it a rule to publish nothing as editorial matter not written by himself. Lincoln read the editor's answer to Herndon, who remarks that although the laugh was on Lincoln the latter enjoyed the joke heartily, and said that that editor had a lofty but proper conception of true journalism.[298]
His correspondence shows that he was in constant contact with the ever shifting events of the campaign; that he was on the lookout for dangerous symptoms; that he was careful to nicety to measure his strength soberly, and displayed the same splendid generalship that distinguished him in his Congressional canvass. The history of his effort to gain a seat in the Senate may be well trailed in his own letters. A curt and crisp note advised his friends of his intention. The following is a sample of many: "You used to express a good deal of partiality for me, and if you are still so, now is the time. Some friends here are really for me, for the U. S. Senate, and I should be very grateful if you could make a mark for me among your members. Please write to me at all events giving me the name, postoffices and 'political position' of members around about you."[299]
Lovejoy had only some twenty-five adherents at the convention following the "State Fair speech" of Lincoln. Nothing daunted by the paltry attendance, they adopted a bold platform. "Ichabod raved," said the Democratic organ in derision, "and Lovejoy swelled, and all endorsed the sentimentsof that speech." Not content with this, without consent or consultation, they placed Lincoln's name on the list of their State Central Committee.[300]Lincoln's reply shows that he was not unwilling to confer with the abolition leaders and that he deemed it well to keep the way open to an understanding. "I suppose my opposition to the principle of slavery is as strong as that of any member of the Republican party; but I have also supposed that the extent to which I feel authorized to carry that opposition, practically, was not at all satisfactory to that party. The leading men who organized that party were present on the fourth of October at the discussion between Douglas and myself at Springfield, and had full opportunity to not misunderstand my position. Do I misunderstand them? Please write and inform me."[301]
Like other candidates for public office he was subjected to all manner of hostility and opposition. He was not spared the humility of defending his most cherished integrity. Lincoln was not a common egoist and he sparingly bared his view. He was little trained in the easy language of self-praise. Yet once across the bar he displayed rare skill in the presentation of his position.
"For a senator to be the impartial representative of his whole State is so plain a duty that I pledge myself to the observance of it without hesitation, but not without some mortification that any one should suspect me of an inclination to the contrary. I was eight years a representative of Sangamon County in the legislature; and although in a conflict of interest between that and other counties it perhaps would have been my duty to stick to old Sangamon, yet it is not within my recollection that the northern members ever wanted my vote for any interests of theirs without gettingit."[302]
Self interest in the campaign did not once lead him astray in partial judgment of the course of events. Early in January he informed Washburne that he did not know that it was of much advantage to have the largest number of votes at the start; that if he did know it to be an advantage, he should feel better, for he had more committals than any other man.[303]He remained a master in the study of the attitude of the individual voter and delegate. He not only had the enthusiasm of the orator, but also the keen, calm sense of the politician, knowing that battles are largely won by strategy and plan. He did not leave the decision to chance. He studied the way to reach men, the method of attaching and calling friends. He was methodical rather than brilliant.
His last letter dealing with the event opens with the statement that the agony was over at last. He then unfolded the story of his defeat, how his forty-seven adherents yielded to the five of Trumbull, how Governor Matteson by a secret candidacy gathered some anti-Nebraska men to his support; how five of the latter declared they would never vote for a Whig and twenty Whigs resentfully contended that they would not vote for the man of the five. He then stated that the signal was given to the Nebraska men to turn to Matteson on the seventh ballot; that soon he only wanted three of an election; that to detain the bolters Lincoln's friends turned to Trumbull until he had risen to thirty-five and he, Lincoln, had been reduced to fifteen; that they would never desert him except by direction; that he then determined to strike at once and accordingly advised the fifteen to go for Trumbull and thus elected him on the tenth ballot.
"Such is the way," said Lincoln, "the thing was done. I think you would have done the same under the circumstances;though Judge Davis, who came down this morning, declares he never would have consented to the forty-seven being controlled by the five. I regret my defeat moderately, but I am not nervous about it. I could have headed off every combination and been elected, had it not been for Matteson's double game—and his defeat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me pain. On the whole, it is perhaps as well for our general cause that Trumbull is elected. The Nebraska men confess that they hate it worse than anything that could have happened. It is a great consolation to see them worse whipped than I am."[304]
Here a composite Lincoln confronts the student—a politician much concerned over defeat and getting pleasure out of the failure of an unfair opponent. Yet at the same time another Lincoln reveals himself. Determined to run no risk in the cause of freedom he yielded cherished hopes and gave way to an obstinate minority. He would not allow his own fortune to stand in the way of striking a blow at the slave power. Lincoln emancipated himself from selfish egoism, rising in the hour of disappointment to the calmness of duty.