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ABRAHAM LINCOLN
BY
CARL SCHURZ
THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH
AND OTHER PAPERS
BY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
rOGETHER WITH TESTIMONIES BY EMERSON, WHITTIER
HOLMIS, AND LOWELL, AND A BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH OF CARL SCHURZ
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 187I, BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
COPYRIGHT, iSSS AND 1S99, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN * CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1S9I, BY CARL SCHURZ AND HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN * CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1S99, BY MABEL LOWELL BURNETT
COPYRIGHT, I913, BY MOORFIELD STOREY, EXECUTOR
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
AN ESSAY
BY
CARL SCHURZ
TOGETHER WITH TESTIMONIES BY EMERSON WHITTIER, HOLMES, AND LOWELL
AND A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CARL SCHURZ
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Biographical Sketch of Carl Schurz . . . .5
Chronological List of Events in the Life of Abraham
Lincoln 9
Abraham Lincoln. By Carl Schurz 11
Abraham Lincoln. Remarks at the Funeral Services held in Concord, April 19, 1865. By Ralph Waldo
Emerson 71
The Emancipation Group. By John Greenleaf Whittier 84 For the Services in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, Bos- ton, June 1, 1865. By Oliver Wendell Holmes . 86 Extract from the Ode recited at the Harvard Commem- oration, July 21, 1865. By James Russell Lowell 88
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF CARL SCHURZ.
It is interesting to note that one of the best studies of an American statesman and the best brief summary of Abraham Lincoln's career came from the hand of one born out of the country ; for the fact points two ways, — it indicates the hospitality of America, and it intimates how great a contribution the rest of the world is constantly making to the development of American life. We sometimes think and speak as if Americans and American institutions all sprang from the colonization which took jjlace from England in the seventeenth century, forgetting that the nineteenth century has seen a far more exten- sive and more varied migi-ation from all Europe.
Carl Schurz was born March 2, 1829, near Cologne, Prussia, and was a student in the University of Bonn in 1848, when the revolutionary movement in Ger- many drew to itself many enthusiastic young men who thought they saw the opportunity for the estab- lishment of republican principles. The movement was quickly suppressed by the existing government, and led to the exile of some of the most promising men of intellectual powers. Many came to this coun- try and found positions in colleges and universities. One of the conspicuous men was Francis Lieber, who continued his academic life and was long a force as a political thinker and writer. Another was Carl Schurz, who, with more of the qualities of a public
6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
man, began at once, on coming to this country in 1852, to prepare himself for active life. He knew little or no English when he landed, but in three years he had so mastered the study of law that he was admitted to the bar in Jefferson, Wisconsin. He found himself amongst his former countrymen in the Northwest, and at once threw himself ardently into politics in sympathy with the movement against the extension of slavery.
So rapidly did he come to the front that he was candidate for the office of Lieutenant-Governor of Wisconsin in 1857, and came within two hundred votes of an election. In the great debate between Lincoln and Douglas in 1858, he joined himself to Lincoln and took an active part in that political cam- paign. That was the beginning of his friendship with Lincoln ; and though as chairman of the Wiscon- sin delegation to the convention in 1860, he persist- ently'- advocated the nomination of Mr. Seward, he accepted heartily the choice of Lincoln, and from that time till the election was incessantly working for him and addressing political meetings.
Mr. Lincoln set so high a value on Mr. Schurz's worth that he appointed him Minister to Spain. At the time, he was actively engaged in organizing the first cavalry regiment of volunteers ; and when after a few months at Madrid he returned to lay before the administration the result of his observation of the political attitude of European governments, he was appointed Brigadier-General, and a few months later Major-General, and served in the field till the end of the war.
His clear intelligence of public affairs was recog- nized in his appointment by President Johnson as
CARL SCHURZ. 7
special commissioner to repoi"t on the condition of the seaboard and Gulf States. His report had great weight with Congress in its subsequent legislation, but Mr. Schurz made his political judgment still more effective in the years of reconstruction by his writings as a journalist. Successively a special correspondent of The Neio York Tribune and editor of the Detroit Post, he became in 1867 part owner and editor of the Westllche Post of St. Louis. So strong a power did lie now become that in 1869 he was elected United States senator from Missouri.
He was, however, a man who held firmly to what 1)6 conceived to be political principles when they came into conflict with party policy, and he threw himself into the movement known as the Liberal Republican party in 1872. In 1876 he returned to the support of the Republican party, and President Hayes invited him into his cabinet as Secretary of the Interior, His administration of that office afforded a fresh illustra- tion of his application of political principles to con- duct. He had identified himself with the movement for the reform of the civil service, and being now in a position where he could put his belief into practice, he made the department a witness to the efficacy of the merit system, and gave a striking object lesson of the possibility of carrying on the government on this basis.
At the close of Mr. Hayes's administration Mr. Schurz abandoned official life, and returned to jour- nalism, giving also a few years to business, but he did not abandon the public service. An independent in politics, he continued to give his powerful influence, in speech and in writing, on all the great political questions, maintaining a devotion to high ideals, so that it is doubtful if any private citizen in the last
8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
twenty years has been listened to more attentively. When the seventieth anniversary of his birthday came, there was a large popular expression of grati- tude and admiration.
One source of Mr. Schurz's influence may be traced to the singular ability with which he has made him- self at home in American political history. Another German, Dr. Von Hoist, has also shown this remark- able faculty, but Dr. Von Hoist has been especially a political philosopher ; Mr. Schurz has been a politi- cal historian, and his " Henry Clay," in the American Statesmen series, displays an intimate familiarity with the ins and outs of politics. He has written it from an American, not a German-American point of view ; and it is this identification of himself with his adopted country, illustrated also by his idiomatic use of the English language, while yet retaining the power of speaking freely in his mother tongue to his former countrymen, which lies at the basis of his moral influ- ence. He brought an ardent love of free institutions with him when he came to this country, and he has always lived enveloped with this atmosphere while having a firm hold of the soil of American life.
Slight as the sketch is which follows, it has a double value. It is a fine, discriminating analysis of Lincoln's greatness, couched in a strong, lucid style, and it reflects a habit of mind which political stu- dents may wisely cultivate : the habit, that is, of re- ferring political careers to standards of righteousness and not of expediency. Such a habit is of untold worth in a democratic country like America, where the disposition, inherent in the political consciousness, of accepting the judgment of the majority is liable to be misled into a too hasty following of the crowd which is making the loudest xioise.
Z^HRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Born in a log-cabin near Hodgensville, now Larue County,
Kentucky February 12, 1809
His father moves with his family into the wilderness near Gen-
tryville, Indiana 1816
His mother dies, at the age of 35 . . . • • . 1818
His father's second marriage 1819
Walks nine miles a day, going to and returning from school . 182.6 Makes a trip to New Orleans and back, at work on a flat-boat 1828 Drives in an ox-cart with his father and stepmother to a clear- ing on the Sangamon River, near Decatur, Illinois . . 1829 Splits rails, to surround the clearing with a fence . . . 1829 Makes another flat-boat trip to New Orleans and back, on which trip he first sees negroes shackled together in chains, and forms his opinions concerning slavery . , . May, 1831 Begins work in a store at New Salem, Illinois . . August, 1831 Enlists in the Black Hawk War ; elected a captain of volun- teers 1832
Announces himself a Whig candidate for the Legislature, and
is defeated 1832
Storekeeper, Postmaster, and Surveyor 1833
Elected to the Illinois Legislature 1834
Reelected to the Legislature 1835 to 1842
Studies law at Springfield 1837
Is a Presidential elector on the Whig national ticket . . 1840
Marries Mary Todd November 4, 1842
Canvasses Illinois for Henry Clay 1844
Elected to Congress 1846
Supports General Taylor for President 1S4S
Engages in law practice 1849-1854
Debates with Douglas at Peoria and Springfield . . . 1855 Aids in organizing the Republican party . . . 1855-1856 Joint debates in Illinois with Stephen A. Douglas . . . 1858
10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Makes political speeches in Ohio 1859
Visits New York, and speaks at Cooper Union . Fehruary, 1860 Attends Republican State Convention at Decatur ; declared to
be the choice of Illinois for the Presidency . . May, 1860 Nominated at Chicago as the Republican candidate for Presi- dent May 16, 1860
Elected President over J. C Breckenridge, Stephen A. Douglas,
and John Bell November, 1860
Inaugurated President March 4, 1861
Issues first order for troops to put down the Rebellion, April 15, 1861
Urges MeClellan to advance April, 1862
Appeals for the support of border States to the Union cause,
March to July, 1862
Calls for 300,000 more troops July, 1862
Issues Emancipation Proclamation . . . January 1, 1863
Thanks Grant for capture of Vicksburg .... July, 1863 His address at Gettysburg .... November 19, 186^3
Calls for 500,000 volunteers July, 1864
Renominated and reelected President 1864
Thanks Sherman for capture of Atlanta . . . September, 1864
His second inauguration March 4, 1865
Assassinated April 14, 1865
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By carl SCHURZ.
No American can study the character and career of Abraham Lincohi without being carried away by sen- timental emotions. We are always inclined to ideal- ize that which we love, — a state of mind very unfa- vorable to the exercise of sober critical judgment. It is therefore not surprising that most of those who have written or spoken on that extraordinary man, even while conscientiously endeavoring to draw a life-like portraiture of his being, and to form a just estimate of his public conduct, should have drifted into more or less indiscriminating eulogy, painting his great fea- tures in the most glowing colors, and covering with tender shadings whatever might look like a blemish.
But his standing before posterity will not be exalted by mere praise of his virtues and abilities, nor by any concealment of his limitations and faults. The stature of the great man, one of whose peculiar charms con- sisted in his being so unlike all other great men, will rather lose than gain by the idealization which so easily runs into the commonplace. For it was dis- tinctly the weird mixture of qualities and forces in him, of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that made him so fascinating a character among his fellow men, gave him his singu- lar power over their minds and hearts, and fitted him to be the greatest leader in '■•lie greatest crisis of our national life.
12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
His was indeed a marvellous growth. The states- man or the military hero born and reared in a log cabin is a familiar figure in American history ; but we may search in vain among our celebrities for one whose origin and early life equalled Abraham Lin- coln's in wretchedness. He first saw the light in a miserable hovel in Kentucky, on a farm consisting of a few barren acres in a dreary neighborhood ; his father a typical " poor Southern white," shiftless and impiovident, without ambition for himself or his chil- dren, constantly looking for a new piece of land on which he might make a living without much work ; his mother, in her j'outh handsome and bright, grown prematurely coarse in feature and soured in mind by daily toil and care ; the whole household squalid, cheerless, and utterly void of elevating inspirations. Only when the family had " moved " into the malari- ous backwoods of Indiana, the mother had died, and a stepmother, a woman of thrift and energy, had taken chai-ge of the children, the shaggy-headed, ragged, barefooted, forlorn boy, then seven years old, " began to feel like a human being." Hard work was his early lot. When a mere boy he had to help in sup- porting the family, either on his father's clearing, or hired out to other farmers to plough, or dig ditches, or chop wood, or drive ox teams ; occasionally also to " tend the baby " when the farmer's wife was other- wise engaged. He could regard it as an advancement to a higher sphere of activity when he obtained work in a " cross-roads store," where he amused the cus- tomers by his talk over the counter ; for he soon distinguished himself among the backwoods folk as Due who had something to say worth listening to. To mn that distinction, he had to draw mainly upon
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 13
his wits ; for while his thirst for knowledge was great, his opportunities for satisfying that thirst were woefully slender.
In the log schoolhouse, which he could visit but little, he was taught only reading, writing, and ele- mentary arithmetic. Among the people of the settle- ment, bush farmers and small tradesmen, he found none of uncommon intelligence or education ; but some of them had a few books, which he bori-owed eagerly. Thus he read and re-read ^Esop's Fables, learning to tell stories with a point and to argue by parables ; he read Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress, a short histoi-y of the United States, and Weems's Life of Washington. To the town con- stable's he went to read the Revised Statutes of Indi- ana. Every printed page that fell into his hands he would greedily devour, and his family and friends watched him with wonder, as the uncouth boy, after his daily work, crouched in a corner of the log cabin or outside under a tree, absorbed in a book while munching his supper of corn bread. In this manner he began to gather some knowledge, and sometimes he would astonish the girls with such startling re- marks as that the earth was moving around the sun, and not the sun around the earth, and they marvelled where "Abe" could have got such queer notionSo Soon he also felt the impulse to write, not only mak- ing extracts from books he wished to remember, bi? also composing little essays of his own. First h(. sketched these with charcoal on a wooden shovel scraped white with a drawing-knife, or on basswood shingles. Then he transferred them to paper, which was a scarce commodity in the Lincoln household,: taking care to cut his expressions close, so that they
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
might not cover too much space, — a style-forming method greatly to be commended. Seeing boys put a burning coal on the back of a wood turtle, he was moved to write on cruelty to animals. Seeing men intoxicated with whiskey, he wrote on temperance. In verse-making, too, he tried himself, and in satire on persons offensive to him or others, — satire the rustic wit of which was not always fit for ears polite. Also political thoughts he put upon paper, and some of his pieces were even deemed good enough for pub- lication in the county weekly.
Thus he won a neighborhood reputation as a clever young man, which he increased by his performances as a speaker, not seldom drawing upon himself the dissatisfaction of his employers by mounting a stump in the field, and keeping the farm hands from their work by little speeches in a jocose and sometimes also a serious vein. At the rude social frolics of the settle- ment he became an important person, telling funny stories, mimicking the itinerant preachers who had happened to pass by, and making his mark at wres- tling matches, too ; for at the age of seventeen he had attained his full height, six feet four inches in his stockings, if he had any, and a terribly muscular clod- hopper he was. But he was known never to use his extraordinary strength to the injury or humiliation of others ; rather to do them a kindly turn, or to enforce justice and fair dealing between them. All this made him a favorite in backwoods society, although in some things he appeared a little odd to his friends. Far more than any of them, he was given, not only to read- ing, but to fits of abstraction, to quiet musing with himself, and also to strange spells of melanclioly, from ivhich he often would pass in a moment to rollicking
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 15
outbursts of droll humor. But on the whole he was one of the people among whom he lived ; in appear- ance perhaps even a little more uncouth than most of them, — a very tall, rawboned youth, with large fea- tures, dark, shrivelled skin, and rebellious hair ; his arms and legs long, out of proportion ; clad in deer- skin trousers, which from frequent exposure to the rain had shrunk so as to sit tightly on his limbs, leaving several inches of bluish shin exposed between their lower end and the heavy tan-colored shoes ; the nether garment held usually by only one suspender, that was strung over a coarse home-made shirt ; the head covered in winter with a coonskin cap, in sum- mer with a rough straw hat of uncertain shape, with- out a band.
It is doubtful whether he felt himself much superior to his surroundings, although he confessed to a yearn- ing for some knowledge of the world outside of the circle in which he lived. This wish was gratified ; but how ? At the age of nineteen he went down the Mississippi to New Orleans as a flatboat hand, tem- porarily joining a trade many members of which at that time still took pride in being called " half horse and half alligator." After his return he worked and lived in the old way until the spring of 1830, when his father " moved again," this time to Illinois ; and on the journey of fifteen days " Abe " had to drive the ox wagon which carried the household goods. Another log cabin was built, and then, fencing a field, Abraham Lincoln split those historic rails which were destined to play so picturesque a part in the presiden- tial campaign twenty-eight years later.
Having come of age, Lincoln left the family, anrl "struck out for himself." He had to "take jobs
16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
whenever he could get them." The first of these carried him again as a flatboat hand to New Orleans. There something happened that made a lasting im- pression upon his soul : he witnessed a slave auction. "His heart bled," wrote one of his companions; " said nothing much ; was silent ; looked bad. I can say, knowing it, that it was on this trip that he formed his opinion on slavery. It run its iron in him then and there. May, 1831. I have heard him say so often." Then he lived several years at New Salem, in Illinois, a small mushroom village, with a mill, some " stores " and whiskey shops, that rose quickly, and soon disappeared again. It was a desolate, dis- jointed, half-working, and half-loitering life, without any other aim than to gain food and shelter from day to day. He served as pilot on a steamboat trip, then as clerk in a store and a mill ; business failing, he was adrift for some time. Being compelled to measure his strength with the chief bully of the neighborhood, and overcoming him, he became a noted person in that muscular community, and won the esteem and friendship of the ruling gang of ruffians to such a degree that, when the Black Hawk war ^ broke out, they elected him, a young man of twenty-three, captain of a volunteer company, composed mainly of roughs of their kind. He took the field, and his most note- worthy deed of valor consisted, not in killing an Indian, but in protecting against his own men, at the
1 Black Hawk was a chief of the Indian tribe of Sacs. The Sacs and Foxes made a treaty in 1830, by which their lands in Illinois were ceded to the United States, and the Indians were to remove beyond the Mississippi. Black Hawk refused sub- mission, and in 1832 appeared with a thousand men ; but a force was raised in Illinois which destroyed, dispersed, or made captive the whole body. — Ed.
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 17
peril of his own life, the life of an old savaj^e who had strayed into his camp.
The Black Hawk war over, he turned to politics. The s^ep from the captaincy of a volunteer company to a candidacy for a seat in the legislature seemed a natural one. But his popularity, although great in New Salem, had not spread far enough over the district, and he was defeated. Then the wretched hand-to-mouth struggle began again. He " set up in store business " with a dissolute partner, who drank wliiskey while Lincoln was reading books. The result was a disastrous failure and a load of debt. There- upon he became a deputy surveyor, and was appointed postmaster of New Salem, the business of the post- oftice, being so small that he could carry the incoming and outgoing mail in his hat. All this could not lift him from poverty, and his surveying instruments and horse and saddle were sold by the sheriff for debt.
But while all this misery was upon him, his ambi- tion rose to higher aims. He walked many miles to borrow from a schoolmaster a grammar with which to improve his language. A lawyer lent him a copy of Blackstone, and he began to study law. People would look wonderingly at the grotesque figure lying in the grass, " with his feet up a tree," or sitting on a fence, as, absorbed in a book, he learned to construct correct sentences and made himself a jurist. At once he gained a little practice, pettifogging before a jus- tice of the peace for friends, without expecting a fee. Judicial functions, too, were thrust upon him, but only at horse-races or wrestling matches, where his acknowledged honesty and fairness gav'^e his verdicts undisputed authority. His popularity grew apace, and soon he could be a candidate for the legislature
18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
again. Although he called himself a Whig, an ardent admirer of Henry Clay, his clever stump speeches won him the election in the strongly Democratic district. Then for the first time, perhaps, he thought seriously of his outward appearance. So far he had been content with a garb of " Kentucky jeans," not seldom ragged, usually patched, and always shabby. Now he borrowed some money from a friend to buy a new suit of clothes — "store clothes" — fit for a Sangamon County statesman ; and thus adorned he set out for the state capital, Vandalia, to take his seat among the lawmakers.
His legislative career, which stretched over several sessions, for he was thrice reelected, in 1836, 1838, and 1840, was not remarkably brilliant. He did, indeed, not lack ambition. He dreamed even of making himself " the De Witt Clinton of Illinois," and he actually distinguished himself by zealous and effective work in those " log-rolling " operations by which the young State received " a general S3'stem of internal improvements " in the shape of railroads, canals, and banks, — a reckless policy, buixlening the State with debt, and producing the usual crop of political demoralization, but a policy characteristic of the time and the impatiently enterprising spirit of the Western people. Lincoln, no doubt with the best intentions, but with little knowledge of the subject, simply followed the popular current. The achieve- ment in which, perhaps, he gloried most was the removal of the state government from Vandalia to Springfield, — one of those triumphs of political man- agement which are apt to be the pride of the small politician's statesmanship. One thing, however, he did iu which his true nature asserted itself, and whicli gave
SCHURZ'S ESS A Y. 19
distinct promise of the future pursuit o£ high aims. Against an overwhelming preponderance of sentiment in the legislature, followed by only one other member, he recorded his protest against a proslavery resolu- tion, — that protest declaring '"' the institution of slavery to be founded on both injustice and bad policy." This was not only the irrepressible voice of his conscience ; it was true moral valor, too ; for at that time, in many parts of the West, an abolitionist was regarded as little better than a horse-thief, and even " Abe Lincoln " would hardly have been forgiven his anti-slavery principles, had he not been known as such an " uncommon good fellow." But here, in obedience to the great conviction of his life, he mani- fested his courage to stand alone, — that courage which is the first requisite of leadership in a great cause.
Together with his reputation and influence as a politician grew his law practice, especially after he had removed from New Salem to Springfield, and associated himself with a practitioner of good stand- ing. He had nov^^ at last won a fixed position in society. He became a successful lawyer, less, indeed, by his learning as a jurist than by his effectiveness as an advocate and by the striking uprightness of his character ; and it may truly be said that his vivid sense of truth and justice had much to do with his effectiveness as an advocate. He would refuse to act as the attorney even of personal friends when he saw the right on the other side. He would abandon cases, even during trial, when the testimony convinced him that his client was in the wrong. He would dissuade those who sought his service from pursuing an obtain- able advantage when their claims seemed to him
20 A BRA RAM LINCOLN.
unfair. Presenting his very first case in the United States Circuit Court, tlie only question being one uf authority, he declared that, upon careful examina- tion, he found all the authorities on the other side, and none on his. Persons accused of crime, when he thought them guilty, he would not defend at all, or, attempting their defence, he was unable to put forth his powers. One notable exception is on record, when his personal sympathies had been strongly aroused. But when he felt himself to be the protector of inno- cence, the defender of justice, or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed such unexpected re- sources of reasoning, such depth of feeling, and rose to such fervor of appeal as to astonish and overwhelm his hearers and make him fairly irresistible. Even an ordi- nary law argument, coming from him, seldom failed to produce the impression that he was profoundly con- vinced of the soundness of his position. It is not sur- prising that the mere appearance of so conscientious an attorney in any case should have carried, not only to juries, but even to judges, almost a presumption of right on his side, and that the people began to call him, sincerely meaning it, "honest Abe Lincoln."
In the mean time he liad piivate sorrows and ti-ials of a painfully afflicting nature. He had loved and been loved by a fair and estimable girl, Ann Rutledge, who died in the flower of her youth and beauty, and he mourned her loss with such intensity of grief that his friends feared for his reason. Recovering from his morbid depression, he bestowed what he thought a new affection upon another lady, who refused him. And finally, moderately prosperous in his worldly affairs, and having prospects of political distinction before him, he paid his addresses to Mary Todd, of
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 21
Kentucky, and was accepted. But then tormenting doubts of the genuineness of his own affection for her, of the compatibility of their characters, and of their future happiness came ui)on him. His distress was so great that he felt himself in danger of suicide, and feared to carry a pocket-knife with him ; and he gave mortal offence to his bride by not appearing on the appointed wedding day. Now the torturing conscious* ness"^»f the wrong he had done her grew unendurable He won back her affection, ended the agony by marry- ing her, and became a faithful and patient husband and a good father. But it was no secret, to those who knew the family well, that his domestic life was full of trials. The erratic temper of his wife not seldom put the gentleness of his nature to the severest tests ; and these troubles and struggles, which accompanied him through all the vicissitudes of his life from the modest home in Springfield to the White House at Washington, adding untold private heartburnings to his public cares, and sometimes precipitating upon him incredible embarrassments in the discharge of his public duties, form one of the most pathetic features of his career.
He continued to " ride the circuit," read books while travelling in his buggy, told funny stories to his fellow lawyers in the tavern, chatted familiarly with his neighbors around the stove in the store and at the post-office, had his hours of melancholy brooding as of old, and became more and more widely known and trusted and beloved among the people of his State for his ability as a lawyer and politician, for the upright ness of his character and the ever-flowing spring oi sympathetic kindness in his heart. His main ambi- tion was confessedly that of political distinction ; but
22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
hardly any one would at that time have seen in him the man destined to lead the nation through the great- est crisis of the centur3^
His time had not yet come when, in 1846, he was elected to Congress. In a clever speech in the House of Representatives, he denounced President Polk for having unjustly forced war upon Mexico, and he amused the Committee of the Whole by a witty nt- tack upon General Cass. More important was the expression he gave to his anti-slavery impulses by offering a bill looking to the emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia, and by his repeated votes for the famous Wilmot Proviso, intended to exclude slavery from the Territories acquired from Mexico. But when, at the expii-ation of his term, in March, 1849, he left his seat, he gloomily despaired of ever seeing the day when the cause nearest to his heart would be rightly grasped by the people, and when he would be able to render any service to his countr}^ in solving the great problem. Nor had his career as a member of Congress in any sense been such as to gratify his ambition. Indeed, if he ever had any be- lief in a great destiny for himself, it must have been weak at that period; for he actually sought to obtain from the new Whig President, General Taylor, the place of Commissioner of the General Land Office, willing to bury himself in one of the administrative bureaus of the government. Fortunately for the coun- try, he failed ; and no less fortunately, when, later, the territorial governorship of Oregon was offered to him, Mrs. Lincoln's protest induced him to decline it. Returning to Springfield, he gave himself with renewed zest to his law practice, acquiesced in the Compromise of 1850 with reluctance and a mentai
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 23
reservation, supported in the presidential campaign of 1852 the Whig candidate in some spiritless speeches, and took but a languid interest in the politics of the day". But just then his time was drawing near.
The peace promised, and apparently inaugurated, by the Compromise of 1850 was rudely broken by the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the Terrffories of the United States, the heritage of com- ing generations, to the invasion of slavery, suddenly revealed the whole significance of the slavery question to the peojDle of the free States, and thrust itself into the politics of the country as the paramount issue. Something like an electric shock flashed through the North. Men who but a short time before had been absorbed by their business pursuits, and deprecated all political agitation, were startled out of their secu- rity by a sudden alarm, and excitedly took sides. That restless trouble of conscience about slavery, which even in times of apparent repose had secretly disturbed the souls of Northern people, broke forth in an utterance louder than ever. The bonds of ac- customed party allegiance gave way. Anti-slavery Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs felt themselves drawn together by a common overpowering sentiment, and soon they bega,n to rally in a new organization. The Kepublican party sprang into being to meet the overruling call of the hour. Then Abraham Lincoln's time was come. He rapidly advanced to a position of conspicuous championship in the struggle. This, however, was not owing to his virtues and abili- ties alone. Indeed, the slavery question stirred his soul in its profoundest depths ; it was, as one of his intimate friends said, " the only one on which he
24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
would become excited ; " it called forth all his facul ties and energies. Yet there were many others who, having long and arduously fought the anti-slavery battle in the popular assembly, or in the press, or in the halls of Congress, far surpassed him in prestige, and compared with whom he was still an obscure and untried man. His reputation, although highly honor- able and well earned, had so far been essentially loeaL As a stump-speaker in Whig canvasses outside of his State, he had attracted comparatively little attention ; but in Illinois he had been recognized as one of the foremost men of the Whig party. Among the oppo- nents of the Nebraska bill he occupied in his State so. important a position, that in 1854 he was the choice of a large majority of the " Anti-Nebraska men " in the legislature for a seat in the Senate of the United States wliich then became vacant ; and when he, an old Whig, could not obtain the votes of the Anti- Nebraska Democrats necessary to make a majority, he generously urged his friends to transfer their votes to Lyman Trumbull, who was then elected. Two years later, in the first national convention of the Re- publican party, the delegation from Illinois brought him forward as a candidate for the vice-presidency, and he received respectable support. Still, the name of Abraham Lincoln was not widely known beyond the boundaries of his own State. But now it was this local prominence in Illinois that put him in a position of peculiar advantage on the battlefield of national jjolitics. In the assault on the Missouri Compromise which broke down all legal barriers to the spread of slavery, Stephen Arnold Douglas was the ostensible leader and central figure ; and Douglas was a senator from Illinois, Lincoln's State. Douglas's national
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 25
theatre of action was the Senate, but in his constitu- ency in Illinois were the roots of his official position and power. What he did in the Senate he had to justify before the people of Illinois, in order to main- tain himself in place ; and in Illinois all eyes turned to Lincoln as Douglas's natural antagonist.
As very young men they had come to Illinois, Lin- coln fi^Mn Indiana, Douglas from Vermont, and had gi'own up together in public life, Douglas as a Demo- crat, Lincoln as a Whig. They had met first in Van- dalia, in 1834, when Lincoln was in the legislature and Douglas in the lobby ; and again in 1836, both as members of the legislature. Douglas, a very able politician, of the agile, combative, audacious, " push- ing " sort, rose in political distinction with remarkable rapidity. In quick succession he became a membei' of the legislature, a State's attorney. Secretary of State, a judge on the supreme bench of Illinois, three times a representative in Congress, and a senator of the United States when only thirty-nine years old. In the national Democratic convention of 1852, he appeared even as an aspirant to the nomination for the presidency, as the favorite of "young America," and received a respectable vote. He had far out- stripped Lincoln in what is commonly called political success and in reputation. But it had frequently happened that in political campaigns Lincoln felt him- self impelled, or was selected by his Whig friends, to answer Douglas's speeches ; and thus the two were looked upon, in a large part of the State at least, as the representative combatants of their respective parties in the debates before popular meetings. As soon, therefore, as, after the passage of his Kansas- Nebraska bill, Douglas returned to Illinois to defend
26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
his cause before his constituents, Lincoln, obeying not only his own impulse, but also general expectation, stepped forward as his principal opponent. Thus the struggle about the principles involved in the Kansas- Nebraska bill, or, in a broader sense, the struggle be- tween freedom and slavery, assumed in Illinois the outward form of a personal contest between Lincoln and Douglas ; and as it continued and became more animated, that personal contest in Illinois was watchea with constantly increasing interest by the whole coun try. When, in 1858, Douglas's senatorial term bein^ about to expire, Lincoln was formally designated by the ReiDublican convention of Illinois as their candi- date for the Senate, to take Douglas's place, and the two contestants agreed to debate the questions at issue face to face in a series of public meetings, the eyes of the whole American jieople were turned eagerly to that one point ; and the spectacle reminded one of those lays of ancient times telling of two armies, in battle array, standing still to see their two principal cham- pions fight out the contested cause between the lines in single combat.
Lincoln had then reached the full maturity of his powers. His equipment as a statesman did not em brace a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs. What he had studied he had indeed made his own, with the eager craving and that zealous tenacity char- acteristic of superior minds learning under difficulties But his narrow opportunities and the unsteady life ht had led during his younger years had not permitted the accumulation of Large stores in his mind. It is true, in political campaigns he had occasionally spoken on the ostensible issues between the Whigs and the Democrats, the tariff, internal improvements, banks,
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 27
and so on, but only in a perfunctory manner. Had he ever given much serious thought and study to these subjeqts, it is safe to assume that a mind so prolific of original conceits as his would certainly have pro- duced sonie utterance upon them worth remembering. His soul had evidently never been deeply stirred by such topics. But when his moral nature was aroused, his brain developed an untiring activity until it had mastered all the knowledge within reach. As soon as the repeal of the Missouri Compromise had thrust the slavery question into politics as the paramount issue, Lincoln plunged into an arduous study of all its legal, historical, and moral aspects, and then his mind became a complete arsenal of argument. His rich natural gifts, trained by long and varied practice, had made him an orator of rare persuasiveness. In his immature days, he had pleased himself for a short period with that inflated, high-flown style which, among the uncultivated, passes for " beautiful speak- ing." His inborn truthfulness and his artistic instinct soon overcame that aberration, and revealed to him the noble beauty and strength of simplicity. He possessed an uncommon power of clear and compact statement, which might have reminded those who knew the story of his early youth of the efforts of the poor boy, when he copied his compositions from the scraped wooden shovel, carefully to trim his expressions in order to save paper. His language had the energy of honest directness, and he was a master of logical lucid- ity. He loved to point and enliven his reasoning by humorous illustrations, usually anecdotes of \\'estern life, of which he had an inexhaustible store at his command. These anecdotes had not seldom a flavor of rustic robustness about them, but he used them with
28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
great effect, while amusing the audience, to give life to an abstraction, to explode an absurdity, to clinch an argument, to drive home an admonition. The natural kindliness of his tone, softening prejudice and dis- arming partisan rancor, would often open to his rea- soning a way into minds most unwilling to receive it. Yet his greatest ]X)wer consisted in the charm of his individuality. That charm did not, in the ordi- nary way, appeal to the ear or to the eye. His voice was not melodious ; rather shrill and piercing, espe- cially when it rose to its high treble in moments of great animation. His figure was unhandsome, and the action of his unwieldy limbs awkward. He com- Bianded none of the outward graces of oratory as they are commonly understood. His charm was of a dif- ferent kind. It flowed from the rare depth and gen- uineness of his convictions and his sympathetic feel- ings. Sympathy was the strongest element in his nature. One of his biographers, who knew him before he became President, says : " Lincoln's compassion might be stirred deeply by an object pi-esent, but never by an object absent and unseen. In the former case he would most likely extend relief, Avitli little inquiry into the merits of the case, because, as he expressed it himself, it ' took a pain out of his own heart.' " Only half of this is correct. It is certainly true that he could not witness any individual distress or oppression, or any kind of suffering, without feel ing a pang of pain himself, and that by relieving as much as he could the suffering of others he put an end to his own. This compassionate impulse to help he felt not only for human beings, but for every liv- ing creature. As in his boyhood he angrily reproved the boys who tormented a wood turtle by putting a
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 29
burning coal on its back, so, we are told, he would, when a mature man, on a journey, dismount from his buggy and wade waist-deep in mire to rescue a pig struggling in a swamp. Indeed, appeals to his com- passion were so irresistible to him, and he felt it so difficult to refuse anything when his refusal could give •pain, thjttvhe himself sometimes spoke of his inability to say " no " as a positive weakness. But that cer- tainly does not prove that his compassionate feeling was confined to individual cases of suffering witnessed with his own eyes. As the boy was moved by the as- pect of the tortured wood turtle to compose an essay against cruelty to animals in general, so the aspect of other cases of suffering and wrong wrought up his moral nature, and set his mind to work against cruelty, injustice, and oppression in general.
As his sympathy went forth to others, it attracted others to him. Especially those whom he called the " plain people " felt themselves drawn to him by the instinctive feeling that he understood, esteemed, and appreciated them. He had grown up among the poor, the lowly, the ignorant. He never ceased to re- member the good souls he had met among them, and the many kindnesses they had done him. Although in his mental development he had risen far above them, he never looked down upon them. How they felt and how they ■ reasoned he knew, for so he had once felt and reasoned himself. How they could be moved he knew, for so he had once been moved him- self, and he practised moving others. His mind was much larger than theirs, but it thoroughly compre- hended theirs ; and while he thought much farther than they, their thoughts were ever present to him- Nor had the visible distance between them grown as
BO ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
wide as his rise in the world would seem to have warranted. Much of his backwoods speech and man- ners still clung to him. Although he had become " Mr. Lincoln " to his later acquaintances, he was still " Abe " to the " Nats " and " Billys " and " Daves " of his youth ; and their familiarity neither appeared unnatural to them, nor was it in the least awkward to him. He still told and enjoyed stoiies similar to those he had told and enjoyed in the In- diana settlement and at New Salem. His wants remained as modest as they had ever been ; his do- mestic habits had by no means completely accom- modated themselves to those of his more high-born wife ; and though the " Kentucky jeans "' apparel had long- been dropped, his clothes of better material and better make would sit ill sorted on his gigantic limbs. His cotton umbrella, without a handle, and tied to- gether with a coarse string to keep it from flapping, which he carried on his circuit rides, is said to be re- membered still by some of his surviving neighbors. This rusticity of habit was utterly free from that affected contempt of refinement and comfort which self-made men sometimes carry into their more afflu- ent circumstances. To Abraham Lincoln it was en- tirely natural, and all those who came into contact with him knew it to be so. In his ways of thinking and feeling he had become a gentleman in the highest sense, but the refining process had polished but little the outward form. The plain people, tlierefore. still considered " honest Abe Lincoln " one of themselves: and when they felt, which they no doubt frequently did, that his thoughts and aspirations moved in a sphere above their own, they were all the more ]>roud of him, without any diminution of fellow feehng. It
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 31
^as this relation of mutual sympathy and understand- ing between Lincoln and the plain people that gave him his peculiar power as a public man, and singu« larly fitted him, as we shall see, for that leadership which was preeminently required in the great crisis then cofhing on, — the leadershijD which indeed thinks and moves ahead of the masses, but always remains within sight and sympathetic touch of them.
He entered upon the campaign of 1858 better equipped than he had ever been before. He not only instinctively felt, but he had convinced himself by arduous study, that in this struggle against tlie spread of slavery he had right, justice, philosophy, the enlightened opinion of mankind, history, the Constitu- tion, and good policy on his side. It was observed that after he began to discuss the slavery question his speeches were pitched in a much loftier key than his former oratorical efforts. While he remained fond of telling funny stories in private conversation, they dis- appeared more and more from his public discourse. He would still now and then point his argument with expressions of inimitable quaintness, and flash out rays of kintlly humor and witty irony ; but his general tone was serious, and rose sometimes to genuine so- lemnity. His masterly skill in dialectical thrust and parry, his wealth of knowledge, his power of reason, ing, and elevation of sentiment, disclosed in language of rare precision, strength, and beauty, not seldom astonished his old friends.
Neither of the two champions could have found a more formidable antagonist than each now met in the other. Douglas was by far the most conspicuous member of his party. His admirers had dubbed him ** the little giant," contrasting in that nickname the
32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
greatness of his mind with the smailness of his body. But though of low stature, his broad-shouldered figure appeared uncommonly sturdy, and there was some- thing lion-like in the squareness of his brow and jaw, and in the defiant shake of his long hair. His loud and persistent advocacy of territorial expansion, in the name &f patriotism and " manifest destiny,'' had given him an enthusiastic following among the young and ardent. Great natural parts, a highly combative temperament, and long training had made him a de» bater unsurpassed in a Senate filled with able men. He could be as forceful in his appeals to patriotic feel- ings as he was fierce in denunciation and thoroughly skilled in all the baser tricks of parliamentary pugil ism. While genial and rollicking in his social inter- course, — the idol of the " boys," — he felt himself one of the most renowned statesmen of his time, and would frequently meet his opponents with an over- bearing haughtiness, as persons more to be pitied than to be feared. In his speech opening the campaign of 1858, he spoke of Lincoln, whom the Republicans had dared to advance as their candidate for " his " I3lace in the Senate, with an air of patronizing if not contemptuous condescension, as " a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman and a good citizen." The little giant would have been pleased to pass off his antago- nist as a tall dwarf. He knew Lincoln too well, how- ever, to indulge himself seriously in such a delusion. But the political situation was at that moment in a curious tangle, and Douglas could expect to derive from the confusion great advantage over his opponent. By the rejjeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the Territories to the ingress of slavery, Douglas had pleased the South, but greatly alarmed the Nortk-
SCHURZS ESSAY. 33
He had sought to conciliate Northern sentiment by appending to his Kansas-Nebraska bill the declaration that its'intent was " not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their institutions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States." This he called " the great principle of popular sovereignty." When asked whether, under this act, the people of a Territory, before its admission as a State, would have the right to exclude slavery, he answered, "That is a question for the courts to decide." Then came the famous "Dred Scott decision," in which the Su- preme Court held substantially that the right to hold slaves as property existed in the Territories by virtue of the Federal Constitution, and that this right could not be denied by any act of a territorial government. This, of course, denied the right of the people of any Territory to exclude slavery while they were in a terri- torial condition, and it alarmed the Northern people still more. Douglas recognized the binding force of the decision of the Supreme Court, at the same time maintaining, most illogically, that his great principle of popular sovereignty remained in force nevertheless. Meanwhile, the pro-slavery people of western Missouri, the so-called " border ruffians," had invaded Kansas, set up a constitutional convention, made a constitution of an extreme pro-slavery type, the " Lecompton Con- stitution," refused to submit it fairly to a vote of the people of Kansas, and then referred it to Congress for acceptance, — • seeking thus to accomplish the admission of Kansas as a slave State. Had Douglas supported such a scheme, he would have lost all foothold in the North. In the name of popular sovereignty he loudlv
S4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
declared his opposition to the acceptance of any consti- tution not sanctioned by a formal popular vote. He " did not care,'' he said, " whether slavery be voted up or down," but there must be a fair vote of the people. Thus he drew upon himself the hostility of the Buch- anan administration, which was controlled by the pro- slavery interest, but he saved his Northern follow= ing. More than this, not only did his Democratic admirers now call him " the ti*ue champion of free- dom," but even some Republicans of large influence, prominent among them Horace Greeley, sympathizing with Douglas in his fight against the Lecompton Con- stitution, and hoping to detach him permanently from the pro-slavery interest and to force a lasting breach in the Democratic party, seriously advised the Kepubli- cans of Illinois to give up their opposition to Douglas, and to help reelect him to the Senate. Lincoln was not of that opinion. He believed that great popular movements can succeed only when guided by their faithful friends, and that the anti-slavery cause could not safely be intrusted to the keeping of one who "did not care whether slavery be voted up or down." This opinion prevailed in Illinois ; but the influences within the Republican party, over which it prevailed, yielded only a reluctant acquiescence, if they acqui- esced at all, after having materially strengthened Douglas's position. Such was the situation of things when the campaign of 1858 between Lincoln and Douglas began.
Lincoln opened the campaign on his side, at th. convention which nominated him as the Repul)licaii candidate for the senatorr.hij), with a memorable say- ing which sounded like a shout from the watch-tower of history : " A house divided against itself cannot
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 35
stand. I believe this government cannot enclu-'^ j»er- manently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall, but I expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all cme thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place^it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction % or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as South." Then he proceeded to point out that the Nebraska doctrine combined with the Dred Scott decision worked in the direction or making the nation " all slave." Here was the ^ irre- pressible conflict " spoken of by Seward a short time later, in a speech made famous mainly by that phrase. If there was any new discovery in it, the right of pri- ority was Lincoln's. This utterance pi'oved not only his statesmanlike conception of the issue, but also, in his situation as a candidate, the firmness of his moral courage. The friends to whom he had read the draught of this speech before he delivered it warned him anxiously that its delivery might be fatal to his success in the election. This was shrewd advice, in the ordinary sense. While a slaveholder could threaten disunion with impunity, the mere suggestion that the existence of slavery was incompatible with ^reedom in the Union would hazard the political 'chances of any public man in the North. But Lin- '^oln was inflexible. " It is true," said he, " and I will deliver it as written. ... I would rather be de- feated with these expressions in my speech held up and discussed before the people than be victorious ivithout them." The statesman was ri^ht in his far*
36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
seeing jiuliijment and his conscientious statement of the truth, but the practical politicians were also right in their prediction of the immediate effect. Douglas instantly seized upon the declaration that a house divided against itself cannot stand as the main objec- tive point of his attack, interpreting it as an incite- ment to a " relentless sectional war," and there is no doubt that the persistent reiteration of this charge served to frighten not a few timid souls.
Lincoln constantly endeavored to bring the moral and philosophical side of the subject to the fore- ground. " Slavery is wrong " was the keynote of all his speeches. To Douglas's glittering sophism that the right of the people of a Territory to have slavery or not, as they might desire, was in accordance with the principle of true popular sovereignty, he made the pointed answer : " Then true popular sovereignty, according to Senator Douglas, means that, when one man makes another man his slave, no third man shall be allowed to object." To Douglas's argument that the principle which demanded that the people of a Territory should be permitted to choose whether they would have slavery or not " originated when God made man, and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose upon his own responsibility," Lincoln solemnly replied : " No ; God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. On the contrary, God did tell him there was one tree of the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of death." He did not, however, place himself on the most advanced ground taken by the radical anti-sla- very men. He admitted that, under the Constitution, "the Southern people were entitled to a congressional fugitive slave law," although he did not approve the
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 57
fugitive slave law then existing. He declaracl also that, if "slaveiy were kept out of the Territories dur- jng their territorial existence, as it should be, and if then the people of any Territory, having a fair chance and a clear field, should do such an extraordinary thing as to^ adojst a slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, he saw no alternative but to admit such a Territory into the Union. He declared further that, while he should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of Columbia, he would, as a member of Congress, with his present views, not endeavor to bring on that abolition except on condition that emancipation be gradual, that it be approved by the decision of a majority of voters in the District, and that compensation be made to unwilling owners. On every available occasion, he pronounced himself in favor of the deportation and colonization of the blacks, of course with their consent. He repeatedly disavowed any wish on his part to have social and po- litical equality established between whites and blacks. On this point he summed up his views in a reply to Douglas's assertion that the Declaration of Independ- ence, in speaking of all men as being created equal, did not include the negroes, saying : " I do not under- stand the Declaration of Independence to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. They are not equal in color. But I believe that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some respects ; they are equal in their right to life, libert}', and the pursuit of happiness."
With regard to some of these subjects Lincoln modified his position at a later period, and it has been suggested that he would have professed more advanced
88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
principles in his debates with Douglas, had he not feared thereby to lose votes. This view can hardly be sustained. Lincoln had the courage of his opin- ions, but he was not a radical. The man who risked his election by delivering, against the urgent protest of his friends, the speech about " the house divided against itself " would not have shrunk from the ex- pression of more extreme views, had he really enter= tained them. It is only fair to assume that he said what at the time he really thought, and that if, subse- quently, his opinions changed, it was owing to new conceptions of good policy and of duty brought forth by an entirely new set of circumstances and exigen- cies. It is characteristic that he continued to adhere to the impracticable colonization plan even after the Emancipation Proclamation had already been issued. But in this contest Lincoln proved himself not only a debater, but also a political strategist of the first order. The " kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman," as Douglas had been pleased to call him, was by no means as harmless as a dove. He pos- sessed an uncommon share of that worldly shrewdness which not seldom goes with genuine simplicity of character ; and the political experience gathered in the legislature and in Congress and in many election \^ampaigns, added to his keen intuitions, had made him as far-sighted a judge of the probable effects of a public man's sayings or doings upon the popular mind, and as accurate a calculator in estimating polit- ical chances and forecasting results, as could be found among the party managers in Illinois. And now he perceived keenly the ugly dilemma in which Douglas found himself, between the Dred Scott decision, which declared the ri^ht to hold slaves to exist in the Terri-
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 89
tories by virtue of the Federal Constitution, and his "• great })rinciple of popuhir sovereignty," according to which the people of a Territory, if they saw lit, were to have the right to exclude slavery therefrom. Douglas was twisting and squirming to the best of his abilitys^o avoid the admission that the two were i-acompatible. The question then presented itself if it would be good policy for Lincoln to force Douglas ti) a clear expression of his opinion as to whether, the Dred Scott decision notwithstanding, " the people of a Territory could in any lawful way exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state con- stitution." Lincoln foresaw and predicted what Doug- las would answer : that slavery could not exist in a Territory unless the people desired it and gave it protection by territorial legislation. In an impro- vised caucus the policy of pressing the interrogatory on Douglas was discussed. Lincoln's friends unani- mously advised against it, because the answer fore- seen would sufficiently commend Douglas to the peo- ple of Illinois to insure his reelection to the Senate. But Lincoln persisted. " I am after larger game," said he. " If Douglas so answers, he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." The interrogatory was pressed upon Doug- las, and Douglas did answer that, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court might be on the abstract question, the people of a Tei^ritory had the lawful means to introduce or exclude slavery by terri- torial legislation friendly or unfriendly to the institu- tion. Lincoln found it easy to show the absurdity of the proposition that, if slavery were admitted to exist of right in the Territories by virtue of the supreme law, the Federal Constitution, it could be kept out
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
or expelled by an inferior law, one made by a terri- torial legislature. Again the judgment of the poli- ticians, having only the nearest object in view, proved correct : Douglas was reelected to the Senate. But Lincoln's judgment proved correct also: Douglas, by resorting to the expedient of his " unfriendly legisla- tion doctrine," forfeited his last chance of becoming President of the United States. He might .have hoped to win, by sufficient atonement, his pardon from the South for his opposition to the Lecomptoi^ Constitution ; but that he taught the people of the Territories a trick by which they could defeat what the pro-slavery men considered a constitutional right, and that he called that trick lawful, — this the slave power would never forgive. The breach between the Southern and the Northern democracy was thence- forth irremediable and fatal.
The presidential election of 1860 approached. The struggle in Kansas, and the debates in Congress which accompanied it, and which not unfrequently provoked violent outbursts, continually stirred the popular excitement. Within the Democratic party raged the war of factions. The national Democratic convention met at Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860. After a struggle of ten days between the ad- herents and the opponents of Douglas, during which the delegates from the cotton States had withdrawn, the convention adjourned without having nominated any candidates, to meet again in Baltimore on the 18th of .June. There was no prospect, however, of reconciling the hostile elements. It appeared very probable that the Baltimore convention would nomi- nate Douglas, while the seceding Southern Democrats would set up a candidate of their own, 'representing axtrenie pro-slavery principles.
SCH'URZ'S ESSAY. 4t
Meanwhile, the national Republican convention as- sembled at Chicago on the 16th of May, full of enthu- siasm and hope. The situation was easily understood. Tiie Democrats would have the South. In order to succeed in the election, the Republicans had to win, in addition to the States carried by Fremont in 1856, those that were classed as " doubtful," — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, or Illinois in the place of either New Jersey or Indiana. The most eminent Republican statesmen and leaders of the time thought of for the presidency were Seward and Chase, both regarded as belonging to the more advanced order of anti-slavery men. Of the two, Seward had the largest following, mainly from New York, New England, and the Northwest. Cautious politicians doubted seri- ously whether Seward, to whom some phrases in liis speeches had undeservedly given the reputation of a reckless radical, would be able to command the whole Republican vote in the doubtful States. Besides, during his long public career lie had n:)ade enemies. It was evident that those who thought Sewai'd's nomi- nation too hazardous an experiment would consider Chase unavailable for the same reason. They would then look round for an " available " man ; and among the " available " men Abraham Lincoln wa.s easily discovered to stand foremost. His great debate with Douglas had given him a national reputation. The people of the East being eager to see the hero or so dramatic a contest, he had been induced to visit several Eastern cities, and had astonished and de- lighted large and distinguished audiences with speeches of singular power and originality. An addi-ess deliv- ered by him in the Cooper Institute in New York, fbefore an audience containinir a larsfe number of im-
42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
portant persons, was then, and has ever since been, especially praised as one o£ the most logical and con- vincing political speeches ever made in this country. The people of the West had grown proud of him as a distinctively Western great man, and his popularity at home had some peculiar features which could be exi^ected to exercise a potent charm. Nor was Lin- coln's name as that of an available candidate left tc the chance of accidental discovery. It is indeed not probable that he thought of himself as a presidential possibility, during his contest with Douglas for the senatorship. As late as April, 1859, he had written to a friend who had approached him on the subject that he did not think himself fit for the ])residency. The vice-presidency was then the limit of his ambi- tion. But some of his friends in Illinois took the matter seriously in hand, and Lincoln, after some hesitation, then formally authorized " the use of his name." The matter was managed with such energy and excellent judgment that in the convention he had not only the v/hole vote of Illinois to start with, but won votes on all sides without offending any rival. A lai-ge majority of the opponents of Seward went over to Abraham Lincoln, and gave him the nomination on the third ballot. As had been fore- seen, Douglas was nominated by one wing of the Democratic party at Baltimore, while the extreme pro-slavery wing put Breckinridge into tlie field as its candidate. After a campaign conducted with the energy of genuine enthusiasm on the anti-slavery side, the united Republicans defeated the divided Democrats, and Lincoln was elected President by a majority of fifty-seven votes in the electoral colleges. The result of the election had hardly been declared
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 43
when the disunion movement in the South, long threatened and carefully planned and j^repared, broke out in the shape of open revolt, and nearly a month before Lincoln could bo inaugurated as President of the United States, seven Southern States had adopted ordinances of secession, formed an independent con- federacy, framed a constitution for it, and elected Jefferson Davis its pi*esident, expecting the other slaveholding States soon to join them. On the 11th of February, 1861, Lincoln left Springfield for Wash- ington ; having, with characteristic simplicity, asked his law partner not to change the sign of the firm " Lincoln and Herndon " during the four years' una- voidable absence of the senior partner, and having taken an affectionate and touching leave of his neigh- bors.
The situation which confronted the new President was appalling : the larger part of the South in open rebellion, the rest of the slaveholding States wavering, preparing to follow ; the revolt guided by determined, daring, and skilful leaders ; the Southern people, apparently full of enthusiasm and military spirit, rushing to arms, some of the forts and arsenals already in their possession ; the government of the Union, before the accession of the new President, in the hands of men some of whom actively sympathized with the revolt, while others were hampered by their traditional doctrines in dealing with it, and really gave it aid and comfort by their irresolute attitude : all the departments full of " Southern sympathizers ' and honeycombed with disloyalty; the treasury empty, and the public credit at the lowest ebb ; the arsenals ill supplied with arms, if not emptied by treacherous practices ; the regular army of insignificant strength,
44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
dispersed over an immense surface, and dejjrived by defection of some of its best officers ; the navy small and antiquated. But that was not all. The threat of disunion had so often been resorted to by the slave power in years gone by that most Northern people had ceased to believe in its seriousness. But when disunion actually appeared as a stern reality, some- thing like a chill swept through the whole Northern country. A cry for union and peace at any price rose on all sides. Democratic partisanship reiterated this cry with vociferous vehemence, and even many liepublicans gi-ew afraid of the victory they had just achieved at the ballot-box, and spoke of compromise. The country fairly i-esounded with the noise of " anti- coercion meetings." Expressions of firm resolution from determined anti-slavery men were indeed not wanting, but they were for a while almost drowned by a bewildering (confusion of discordant voices. Even this was not all. Potent influences in Europe, with an ill-concealed desire for the permanent disruption of the American Union, eagerly espoused the cause of the Southern seceders, and the two principal maritime powers of the Old World seemed only to be waiting for a favorable opportunity to lend them a helping hand.
This was the state of things to be mastered by " honest Abe Lincoln " when he took his seat in the presidential chair, — "honest Abe Lincoln," who was so good natured that he could not say "■ no ; " the greatest achievement in whose life had been a debate on tlie slavery question ; who had never been in any position of power ; who was without the slightest ex- perience of high executive duties, and who had only ft speaking acquaintance with the men upon whose
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 45
counsel and cooperation he was to depend. Nor was his accession to power under such circumstanceg greeted with general confidence even by the members of his party. While he had indeed won much popu- larity, many Republicans, especially among those who had advocated Seward's nomination for the presi= dency, with a feeling little short of dismay, saw the simple " Illinois lawyer " take the reins of govern ment. The oi'ators and journals of the opposition were ridiculing and lampooning him without measure. Many people actually wondered how such a man could dare to undertake a task which, as he himself had said to his neighbors in his parting speech, was " more! difPxCult than that of Washington himself had been.'' But Lincoln brought to that task, aside from othet uncommon qualities, the first requisite, — an intuitive comprehension of its nature. While he did not in- dulge in the delusion that the Union could be main- tained or restored without a conflict of arms, he could indeed not foresee all the problems he would have to solve. He instinctively understood, however, by what means that conflict would have to be conducted by the government of a democracy. He knew that the impending war, whether great or small, would not be like a foreign war, exciting a united national enthu- siasm, but a civil war, likely to fan to uncommon heat the animosities of party even in the localities controlled by the government ; that this war would have to be carried on, not by means of a read^z-madt machinery, ruled by an undisputed, absolute will, but by means to be furnished by the voluntary action of the people : — armies to be formed by voluntary enlistment ; large sums of money to be raised by the people, through their representatives, voluntarily tax-
46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ing themselves ; trusts of extraordinary power to be voluntarily granted ; and war measures, not seldom restricting the rights and liberties to which the citizen ivas accustomed, to be voluntarily accepted and sub- mitted to by the people, or at least a large majority of them ; — and that this would have to be kept up, not merely during a short period of enthusiastic excite- ment, but possibly through weary years of alternating success and disaster, hope and despondency. He knew that in order to steer this government by public opinion successfully through all the confusion created by the prejudices and doubts and differences of sen- timent distracting the popular mind, and so to propi- tiate, inspire, mould, organize, unite, and guide the popular will that it might give forth all the means re- quired for the performance of his great task, he would have to take into account all the influences strongly affecting the current of popular thought and feeling, and to direct while appearing to obey.
This was the kind of leadershij) he intuitively conceived to be needed when a free people were to be led forward en masse to overcome a great common dan- ger under circumstances of appalling difficulty, — the leadership which does not dash ahead with brilliant daring, no matter who follows, but which is intent upon rallying all the available forces, gathering in the stragglers, closing up the column, so that the front may advance well supported. For this leadership Abraham Lincoln was admirably fitted, — better than any other American statesman of his day ; for he understood the plain peojjle, with all their loves and hates, their prejudices and their noble impulses, their weaknesses and their strength, as he understood him- self, and his sympathetic nature was apt to draw their sympathy to him.
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 47
His inaugural address ^ foreshadowed his official course in characteristic manner. Although yielding nothing in point of principle, it was by no means a flaming anti-slavery manifesto, such as would have pleased the more ardent Republicans, It was rather the entreaty of a sorrowing father speaking to his wayward children. In the kindliest language he pointed out to the secessionists how ill-advised their attempt at disunion was, and why, for their own sakes, they should desist. Almost plaintively he told them that, while it was not their duty to destroy the Union, it was his sworn duty to preserve it ; that the least he could do, under the obligations of his oath, was to possess and hold the property of the United States ; that he hoped to do this peaceably ; that he abhorred war for any purpose, and that they would have none unless they themselves were the aggressors. It was a masterpiece of persuasiveness ; and while Lincoln had accepted many valuable amendments suggested by Seward, it was essentially his own. Probably Lincoln himself did not expect his inaugural address to have any effect upon the secessionists, for he must have known them to be resolved upon disunion at any cost. But it was an appeal to the wavering minds in the North, and upon them it made a profound impression. Every candid man, however timid and halting, had to admit that the President was bound by his oath to do his duty ; that under that oath he could do no less than he said he would do; that if the secessionists resisted such an appeal as the President had made, they were bent upon mischief, and that the govern- ment must be supported against them. The partisan sympathy with the Southern insurrection which still ^ Printed in Number 32, Riverside Literature series
48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
existed in tlie North did indeed not disappear, but it diminished perceptibly under the influence of such reasoning. Those who still resisted it did so at the risk of appearing unpatriotic.
It must not be supposed, however, that Lincoln at once succeeded in pleasing everybody, even among his friends, — even among those nearest to him. In select- ing his cabinet, which he did substantially before he left Springfield for Washington, he thought it wise to call to his assistance the strong men of his party, espe- cially those who had given evidence of the support they commanded as his competitors in the Chicago convention. In them he found at the same time repre- sentatives of the different shades of opinion within the party, and of the different elements — former Whigs and former Democrats — from which the party had recruited itself. This was sound policy under the circumstances. It might indeed have been foreseen that among the members of a cabinet so composed, troublesome disagreements and rivalries would break out. But it was better for the President to have these strong and ambitious men near him as his coopera- tors than to have them as his critics in Congress, where their differences might have been composed in a common opposition to him. As members of his cabinet he could hope to control them, and to keep them busily employed in the service of a common pur- pose, if he had the strength to do so. Whether he did possess this strength was soon tested by a singu- larly rude trial.
There can be no doubt that the foremost members of his cabinet, Sewai-d and Chase, the most eminenf Republican statesmen, had felt themselves wronged by their party when in its national convention it
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 49
preferred to them for the presidency a man whom, not unnaturally, they thouglit greatly their inferior in ability and experience as well as in service. The sore- ness of that disappointment was intensified when they saw this Western man in the White House, with so much of rustic manner and speech as still clung to him, meeting his fellow citizens, high and low, on a footing of equality, with the simplicity of his good nature unburdened by any conventional dignity of deportment, and dealing with the great business of state in an easy-going, unmethodical, and apparently somewhat irreverent way. They did not understand such a man. Especially Seward, who, as Secretary of State, considered himself next to the Chief Executive, and who quickly accustomed himself to giving or- ders and making arrangements upon his own motion, thought it necessary that he should rescue the direc- tion of public affairs from hands so unskilled, and take full charge of them himself. At the end of the first month of the administration he submitted a " memorandum " to President Lincoln, which has been first brought to light by Nicolay and Hay,^ and is one of their most valuable contributions to the history of those days. In that paper Seward actually told the President that, at the end of a month's administration, the government was still without a policy, either do- mestic or foreign ; that the slavery question should be eliminated from the struggle about the Union ; that the matter of the maintenance of the forts and other possessions in the South shoidd be decided with tha< view ; that explanations should be demanded categor' ically from the governments of Spain and France,
1 In their Life of Lincoln, in ten volumes, published by The Century Company, New York.
\ 50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN'.
which were then preparing, one for the annexation of San Domingo, and both for the invasion of Mexico •, that if no satisfactory explanations were received war should be declared against Spain and France by the United States ; that explanations should also be sought from Russia and Great Britain, and a vigorous conti- nental spirit of independence against European inter- vention be aroused all over the American continent ; that this policy should be incessantly pursued and di- rected by somebody ; that either the President should devote himself entirely to it, or devolve the direction on some member of his cabinet, whereupon all debate on this policy must end.
This could be understood only as a formal demand that the President should acknowledge his own incom- petency to perform his duties, content himself with the amusement of distributing post offices, and resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day incomprehen- sible how a statesman of Seward's calibi-e could at that period conceive a plan of policy in which the slavery question had no place ; a polic}' which rested upon the utterly delusive assumption that the seces- sionists, who had already formed their Southern Con- federacy, and were with stern resolution preparing to fight for its independence, could be hoodwinked back into the Union by some sentimental demonstration against Eui-opean interference ; a policy which, at that critical moment, would have involved the Union in a foreign war, thus inviting foreign intervention in favor of the Southern Confederacy, and increasing- tenfold its chances in the struggle for independence. But it is equally incomprehensible how Seward could ^ail to see that this demand of an unconditional
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 61
surrender was a mortal insult to the head of the gov- ernment, and that by putting his proposition on paper he delivered himself into the hands of the very man he had insulted ; for had Lincoln, as most Presidents would have done, instantly dismissed Seward, and pul)lished the true reason for that dismissal, it would inevitably have been the end of Seward's career. But Lincoln did what not many of the noblest and great- est men in history would have been noble and great enough to do. He considered that Seward, if rightly controlled, was still capable of rendering great service to his country in the place in which he was. He ignored the insult, but firmly established his superior- ity. In his reply, which he forthwith dispatched, he told Seward that the administration had a domestic policy as laid down in the inaugural address with Seward's approval ; that it had a foreign policy as traced in Seward's dispatches with the President's approval ; that if any policy was to be m.aintained or changed, he, the President, was to direct that on his responsibility ; and that in performing that duty the President had a right to the advice of his secretaries. Seward's fantastic schemes of foreign war and conti- nental policies Lincoln brushed aside by passing them over in silence. Nothing more was said, Seward must have felt that he was at the mercy of a superior man ; that his offensive proposition had been gener« ously pardoned as a temporary aberration of a great mind, and that he could atone for it only by devoted personal loyalty. This he did. He was thoroughly subdued, and thenceforth submitted to Lincoln his dispatches for revision and amendment without a murmur. The war with European nations was no longer thought of ; the slavery question found in due
52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
time its proper place in the struggle for the Union ; and when, at a later period, the dismissal of Seward was demanded by dissatisfied senators who attributed to him the shortcomings of the administration, Lin- coln stood stoutly by his faithful Secretary of State.
Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, a man of superb presence, of eminent ability and ardent pa- triotism, of great natural dignity and a certain out- ward coldness of manner, which made him appear more difficult of approach than he really was, did not permit his disappointment to burst out in such ex- travagant demonstrations. But Lincoln's ways were so essentially different from his that they never be- came quite intelligible, and certainly not congenial to him. It might, perhaps, have been better had there been, at the beginning of the administration, some decided clash between Lincoln and Chase, as there was between Lincoln and Seward, to bring on a full mutual explanation, and to make Chase appreciate the real seriousness of Lincoln's nature. But as it was, their relations always remained somewhat formal, and Chase never felt quite at ease under a chief whom he could not understand, and whose character and powers he never learned to esteem at their true value. At the same time, he devoted himself zealously to the duties of his department, and did the countiy arduous service under circumstances of extreme difli- culty. Nobody recognized this more heartily than Lincoln himself, and they managed to work together until near the end of Lincoln's first presidential term, when Chase, after some disagreements concerning ap- pointments to office, resigned from the treasury ; and after Taney's death, the President made him Chief JusticCc
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 53
The rest of the cabinet consisted of men of less eminence, who subordinated themselves more easily. In January, 1862, Lincoln found it necessary to bow Cameron out of the war office, and to put in his place Edwin ]\I. Stanton, a man of intensely practical mind, vehement impulses, fierce positiveness, ruthless energy, immense working power, lofty patriotism, and severest devotion to duty. He accepted the war office, not as a partisan, for he had never been a Republican, but only to do all he could in " helping to save the coun. try." The manner in which Lincoln succeeded ifl taming this lion to his will, by frankly recognizing his great qualities, by giving him the most generous confidence, by aiding him in his work to the full of his power, by kindly concession or affectionate per- suasiveness in cases of differing opinions, or, when it was necessary, by firm assertions of superior authority, bears the highest testimony to his skill in the manage- ment of men. Stanton, who had entered the service with rather a mean opinion of Lincoln's character and capacity, became one of his warmest, most de- voted, and most admiring friends, and with none of his secretaries was Lincoln's intercourse more intimate. To take advice with candid readiness, and to weigh it without any pride of his own opinion, was one of Lin- coln's preeminent virtues ; but he had not long pre- sided over his cabinet council when his was felt by all its members to be the ruling mind.
The cautious policy foreshadowed in his inaugural address, and pursued during the first period of the civil war, was far from satisfying all his party friends. The ardent spirits among the Union men thought that the whole North should at once be called to arms, to crush the rebellion by one powerful blow. The
54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ardent spirits among the anti-slavery men insisted that, shivery having brought forth the rebellion, this povsrerful blow should at once be aimed at slavery. Both complained that the administration was spiritless, undecided, and lamentably slow in its proceedings. Lincoln reasoned otherwise. The ways of thinking and feeling of the masses, of the plain people, were constantly present to his mind. The masses, the plain people, had to furnish the men for the fighting, if fighting was to be done. He believed that the i^lain. people would be ready to fight when it clearly ap- peared necessary, and that they would feel that neces- sity when they felt themselves attacked. He there- fore waited until the enemies of the Union struck the first blow. As soon as, on the 12th of April, 1861, the first gun was fired in Charleston harbor on the Union flag upon Fort Sumter, the call was sounded, and the Northern people rushed to arms.
Lincoln knew that the plain people were now in- deed ready to fight in defence of the Union, but not yet ready to fight for the destruction of slavery. He declared openly that he had a right to summon the people to fight for the Union, but not to summon them to fight for the abolition of slavery as a primary object ; and this declaration gave him numberless sol- diers for the Union who at that period would have hesitated to do battle against the institution of slavery. For a time he succeeded in rendering harmless the cry of the partisan opposition that the Republican administration was perverting the war for the Union into an "abolition war." But when he went so far as to countermand the acts of some generals in the field, looking to the emancipation of the slaves in the districts covered by their commands, loud complaints
SCHURZS ESSAY. 55
arose from earnest anti-slavery men, who accused the President of turning his back upon the anti-slavery cause. Many of these anti-slavery men will now, after a calm retrospect, be willing- to admit that it would have been a hazardous policy to endanger, by precipitating a demonstrative fight against slavery, the success of the struggle for the Union.
Lincoln's views and feelings concerning slavery had not changed. Those who conversed with him in- timately upon the subject at that period know that he did not expect slavery long to survive the triumph of the Union, even if it were not immediately destroyed by the war. In this he was right. Had the Union armies achieved a decisive victory in an early period of the conflict, and had the seceded States been re- ceived back with slavery, the " slave power " would then have been a defeated power, — defeated in an attempt to carry out its most effective threat. It would have lost its prestige. Its menaces would have been hollow sound, and ceased to make any one afraid. It could no longer have hoped to expand, to maintain an equilibrium in any branch of Congress, and to con- trol the government. The victorious free States would have largely overbalanced it. It would no longer have been able to withstand the onset of a hostile age. It could no longer have ruled, — and slavery had to rule in order to live. It would have lingered for a while, but it would surely have been " in the course of ultimate extinction." A prolonged war precipi- tated the destruction of slavery; a short war might only have prolonged its death struggle. Lincoln saw this clearly ; but he saw also that, in a protracted ieath struggle, it might still have kept disloyal senti- ments alive, bred distracting commotions, and caused
56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
o^reat mischief ' to the country. He therefore hoped that slavery would not survive the war.
But the question how he could rightfully employ his power to bring on its speedy destruction was to him not a qiiestion of mere sentiment. He himself set forth his reasoning upon it, at a later period, in cue of his inimitable letters. " I am naturally anti- slavery," said he. " If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember the time when I did not so think and feel. And yet I have never under- stood that the presidency conferred upon me an unre- stricted right to act upon that judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitu- tion of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using that power. I understood, too, that, in ordi- nary civil administration, this oath even forbade me practically to indulge my private abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I did understand, however, also, that my oath imposed upon me the duty of preserving, to the best of my ability, by every indispensable means, that government, that nation, of which the Constitution was the organic law. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wi-eck of government, country, and Constitution all together." In other words, if the salvation of the government, the Constitution, and the Union demanded the destruction of slavery, he felt it to be not only his right, but his sworn duty to destroy it. Its destruction became a necessity of the war for the Union.
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 57
As the war dragged on and disaster followed dis* aster, the sense of that necessity steadily grew upon him. Early in 1862, as some of his friends well re- member, he saw, what Seward seemed not to see, that to give the war for the Union an anti-slavery charac- ter was the surest means to prevent the recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an independent nation by European powers ; that, slavery being abhorred by the moral sense of civilized mankind, no Euro= pean government would dare to offer so gross an insult to the public opinion of its people as openly to favor the creation of a state founded upon slavery to the prejudice of an existing nation fighting against slavery. He saw also that slavery untouched was to the rebellion an element of power, and that in order to overcome- that power it was necessary to turn it into an element of weakness. Still, he felt no assur- ance that the plain people were prepared for so radical a measure as the emancipation of the slaves by act cf the government, and he anxiously considered that, if they were not, this great step might, by exciting dis- sension at the Noi^th, injure the cause of the Union in one quarter more than it would help it in another. He heartily welcomed an effort made in New York to mould and stimulate public sentiment on the slavery question by public meetings boldly pronouncing for emancipation. At the same time he himself cau« tiously advanced with a recommendation, expressed in a special message to Congress, that the United States should cooperate with any State which might adopt the gradual abolishment of slavery, giving such State pecuniary aid to compensate the former owners of emancipated slaves. The discussion was started, and spread rapidly. Congress adopted the resolution re
58 ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
commended, and soon went a step farther in passing a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. The plain people began to look at emancipation on a larger scale, as a thing to be considered seriously by patriotic citizens ; and soon Lincoln thought that the time was ripe, and that the edict of freedom could be ventui-ed upon without danger of serious confusion in the Union ranks.
The failure of McClellan's movement upon Rich mond increased immensely the prestige of the enemy. The need of some great act to stimulate the vitality of the Union cavise seemed to grow daily moi-e press, ing. On July 21, 1862, Lincoln surprised his cabinet with the draught of a proclamation declaring free the slaves in all the States that should be still in rebel- lion against the United States on the 1st of January, 1863. As to the matter itself he announced that he had fully made up his mind ; he invited advice only concerning the form and the time of publication. Seward suggested that the proclamation, if then brought out, amidst disaster and distress, would sound like the last shriek of a perishing cause. Lincoln accepted the suggestion, and the proclamation was postponed. Another defeat followed, the second at Bull Run. But when, after that battle, the Confed-= erate army, under Lee, crossed the Potomac and in= vaded Maryland, Lincoln vowed in his heart that, if the Union army were now blessed with success, the decree of freedom should surely be issued. The vic- tory of Antietam was won on September 17, and the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation came forth on the 22d. It was Lincoln's own resolution and act ; but practically it bound the nation, and permitted no Btep backward. In spite of its limitations, it was the
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 59
actual abolition of slavery. Thus he wrote his name upon the books of history with the title dearest to his heart, — the liberator of the slave.
It is true, the great proclamation, which stamped the war as one for " union and freedom," did not at once mark the turning of the tide on the field of mili- tary operations. There were more disasters, — Fred- ericksburg and Chancellors ville. But with Gettys- burg and Vicksburg the whole aspect of the war changed. Step by step, now more slowly, then more rapidly, but with increasing steadiuess, the flag of the Union advanced from field to field toward the final consummation. The decree of emancipation was naturally followed by the enlistment of emancipated negroes in the Union armies. This measure had a farther reaching effect than merely giving the Union armies an increased supply of men. The laboring force of the rebellion was hopelessly disorganized. The war became like a problem of arithmetic. As the Union armies pushed forward, the area from which the Southei-n Confederacy could draw recruits and supplies constantly grew smaller, while the area from which the Union recruited its strength con- stantly grew larger : and everywhere, even within the Southern lines, the Union had its allies. The fate of the rebellion was then virtually decided ; but it still required much bloody work to convince the brave warriors who fought for it that they were really beaten.
Neither did the Emancipation Proclamation ^ forth- with command universal assent among the people who were loyal to the Union. There were even signs of a
1 The text of the Emancipation Proclamation will be found in Number 32, Riverside Literature series.
60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
reaction against the administration in the fall elec* iions of 1862, seemingly justifying the opinion, enters tained by many, that the President had really antici- pated the development of popular feeling. The cry that the v/ar for the Union had been turned into an " abolition war " was raised again by the opposition and more loudly than ever. But the good sense an« patriotic instincts of the plain people gradually mar- shalled themselves on Lincoln's side, and he lost no opportunity to help on tliis process by personal argu- ment and admonition. There never has been a Presi- dent in such constant and active contact with the public opinion of the country, as there never has been a President who, while at the head of the government, remained so near to the people. Beyond the circle of those who had long known him, the feeling steadily grew that the man in the White House was '' honest Abe Lincoln " still, and that every citizen might ap~ proach him with complaint, expostulation, or advice, without danger of meeting a rebuff from power-proud authority or humiliating condescension ; and this privilege was used by so many and with such unspar- ing freedom that only superhuman patience could have endured it all. There are men now living who would to-day read with amazement, if not regret, what they then ventured to say or write to him. But Lin- coln repelled no one whom he believed to speak to him in good faith and with patriotic i)urpose. No good advice would go vmheeded. No candid criticism woukl offend him. No honest opposition, while it might pain him, would produce a lasting alienation of feeling between him and the opponent. It may truly be said that few men in power have ever been ex- posed to more daring attempts to direct their course,
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 61
to severer censure of their acts, and to more cruel misrepresentation of their motives. And all this he met with that good-natured humor peculiarly his own, and with untiring effort to see the right and to im- press it upon those who differed from him. The con- versations he had and the correspondence he carried on upon matters of public interest, not only with men in official position, but with private citizens, were al- most unceasing, and in a large number of public let- ters, written ostensibly to meetings, or committees, or persons of importance, he addressed himself directly to the popular mind. Most of these letters stand among the finest monuments of our political litera- ttu'e. Thus he presented the singular spectacle of a President who, in the midst of a great civil war, with unprecedented duties weighing upon him, was con- stantly in person debating the great features of his policy with the people.
While in this manner he exercised an ever-increas- ing influence upon the popular understanding, his sympathetic nature endeared him more and more to the popular heart. In vain did journals and speakers of the opposition represent him as a light-minded trifler, who amused himself with frivolous story-tell- ing and coarse jokes, while the blood of the people was flowing in streams. The people knew that the man at the head of affairs, on whose haggard face the twinkle of humor so frequently changed into an ex- pression of profoundest sadness, was more than any other deeply distressed by the suffering he witnessed ; that he felt the pain of every wound that was inflicted on the battlefield, and the anguish of every woman or child who had lost husband or father ; that whenever he could he was eajrer to alleviate sori-ow, and that
62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
his mercy was never imjjlorecl in vain. They lookerl to him as one who was with them and of them in aJl their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows, — who laughed with them and wept with them ; and as his heart was theirs, so their hearts turned to him. Plis popularity was far different from that of Washington, who was revered with awe, or that of Jackson, the unconquerable hero, for whom party enthusiasm never grew weary of shouting. To Abraham Lincoln the people became bound by a genuine sentimental attach- ment. It was not a matter of respect, or confidence, or party pride, for this feeling spread far beyond the boundary lines of his party ; it was an affair of the heart, independent of mere reasoning. When the soldiers in the field or their folks at home spoke of " Father Abraham," there was no cant in it. They felt that their President was really caring for them as a father would, and that they could go to him, every one of them, as they would go to a father, and talk to him of what ti'oubled them, sure to find a willing ear and tender sympathy. Thus, their President, and his cause, and his endeavors, and his success gradually became to them almost matters of family concern. And this popularity carried him triumphantly through the presidential election of 1864, in spite of an oppo- sition within his own party which at first seemed very formidable.
Many of the radical anti-slavery men were never quite satisfied with Lincoln's ways of meeting the problems of the time. They were very earnest and mostly very able men, who had positive ideas as to " how this rebellion should be put down." They would not recognize the necessity of measuring the steps of the government according to the progress of
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 63
opinion among the plain people. They criticised Lincoln's cautious management as irresolute, halting, lacking in definite purpose and in energy ; he should not have delayed emancipation so long ; he should not have confided important commands to men of doubt- ful views as to slavery ; he should have authorized military commanders to set the slaves free as they went on ; he dealt too leniently with unsuccessful generals ; he should have put down all factious oppo- sition with a strong hand instead of trying to pacify it ; he should have given the people accomplished facts instead of arguing with them, and so on. It is true, these criticisms were not always entirely im- founded. Lincoln's policy had, with the virtues of democratic government, some of its weaknesses, which in the presence of pressing exigencies were apt to deprive governmental action of the necessary vigor ; and his kindness of heart, his disposition always to respect the feelings of others, frequently made him recoil from anything like severity, even when severity was urgently called for. But many of his radical critics have since then revised their judgment suffi- ciently to admit that Lincoln's policy was, on the whole, the wisest and safest ; that a policy of heroic methods, while it has sometimes accomplished great results, could in a democracy like ours be maintained only by constant success ; that it would have quickly broken down under the weight of disaster ; that it might have been successful from the start, had the Union, at the beginning of the conflict, had its Grants and Shermans and Sheridans, its Farraguts and Por- ters, fully matured at the head of its forces ; but tiiat, as the great commanders had to be evolved slowly from the developments of the war, constant success
64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
could not be counted upon, and it was Lest to follow a policy which was in friendly contact with the popu- lar force, and therefore more fit to stand the trial of misfortune on the battlefield. But at that period they thought differently, and their dissatisfaction with Lincoln's doings was greatly increased by the ste^^s he took toward the reconstruction of rebel States then partially in possession of the Union forces.
In December, 1863, Lincoln issued an amnesty proclamation, offering pardon to all implicated in the rebellion, with certain specified exceptions, on condi- tion of their taking and maintaining an oath to sup- port the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States and the proclamations of the President witli regard to slaves ; and also promising that when, in any of the rebel States, a number of citizens equal to one tenth of the voters in 1860 should reestablish a state government in conformity with the oath above mentioned, such should be recognized by the Execu- tive as the true government of the State. The pro- clamation seemed at first to be received with general favor. But soon another scheme of reconstruction, much more stringent in its provisions, was put for- ward in the House of Representatives by Henry Winter Davis. Benjamin Wade championed it in the Senate. It passed in the closing moments of the session in July, 1864, and Lincoln, instead of making it a law by his signature, embodied the text of it in a proclamation as a plan of reconstruction worthy of being earnestly considered. The differences of opin- ion concerning this subject had only intensified the feeling against Lincoln which had long been nursed among the radicals, and some of them openly declared then* purpose of resisting his reelection to the presi-
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 65
dency. Similar sentiments wei-e manifested by tiie advanced anti-slavery men of Missouri, who, in their hot faction-fight with the ^ conservatives " of that State, had not received from Lincoln the active sup- port they demanded. Still another class of Union men, mainly in the East, gravely shook their heads when considering the question whether Lincoln should he reelected. They w^ere those who cherished in their minds an ideal of statesmanship and of personal bear- ing in high office with which, in their opinion, Lin- coln's individuality was much out of accord. They were shocked when they heard him cap an argument upon grave affairs of state with a story about " a man out in Sangamon County," — a story, to be sure, strikingly clinching his point, but sadly lacking in dignity. They could not understand the man wdio was capable, in opening a cabinet meeting, of reading to his secretaries a funny chapter from a recent book of Artemus Ward, with which in an unoccupied mo- ment he had relieved his care-burdened mind, and who then solemnly informed the executive council that he had vowed in his heart to issue a proclamation eman- cipating the slaves as soon as God blessed the Union arms with another victory. They were alarmed at the weakness of a President who would indeed resist the urgent remonstrances of statesmen against his policy, but could not resist the prayer of an old woman for the pardon of a soldier who was sentenced to be shot for desertion. Such men, mostly sincere and ardent patriots, not only wished, but earnestly set to work, to prevent Lincoln's renomination. Not a few of them actually believed, in 1863, that, if the na- tional convention of the Union party were held then, Lincoln would not be supported by the delegation o$
66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
a single State. But when the convention met at Baltimore, in June, 1864, the voice of the people was heard. On the first ballot Lincoln received the votes of the delegations from all the States except Missouri ; and even the Missourians turned over their votes to him before the result of the ballot was declared.
But even after his renomination, the opposition to Lincoln within the ranks of the Union party did not subside. A convention, called by the dissatisfied radi- cals in Missouri, and favored by men of a similar way of thinking in other States, had been held already in May, and had nominated as its candidate for the presidency General Fremont. He, indeed, did not attract a strong following, but opposition movements from different quarters appeared more formidable. Henry Winter Davis and Benjamin Wade assailed. Lincoln in a flaming manifesto. Other Union men, of undoubted patriotism and high standing, persuaded themselves, and sought to persuade tlie people, that Lincoln's renomination was ill advised and dangerous to the Union cause. As the Democrats had put oft" their convention until the 29th of August, the Union party had, during the larger part of the summer, no opposing candidate and platform to attack, and the political campaign languished. Neither were the tidings from the theatre of war of a cheering charac- ter. The terrible losses suffered by Grant's army in the battles of the Wilderness spread general gloom. Sherman seemed for a while to be in a precarious position before Atlanta. The opposition to Lincoln within the Union party grew louder in its comjjlaints and discouraging predictions. Earnest demands were heard that his candidacy should be withdrawn. Lin- coln himself, not knowing how strongly the masses
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 67
were attached to him, was haunted by dai-k forebod- ings of defeat. Then the scene suddenly changed as if by magic. The Democrats, in their national con- vention, declared the war a failure, demanded, sub- stantially, peace at any price, and nominated on such a platform General McClellan as their candidate„ Their convention had hai-dly adjourned when the capture of Atlanta gave a new aspect to the military- situation. It was like a sun-ray bursting through a dark cloud. The rank and file of the Union party rose with rapidly growing enthusiasm. The song " We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong," resounded all over the land. Long before the decisive day arrived, the result was beyond doubt, and Lincoln was reelected President by over- whelming majorities. The election over, even his sevei-est critics found themselves forced to admit that Lincoln was the only possible candidate for the Union party in 1864, and that neither political combinations nor campaign speeches, nor even victories in the field, were needed to insure his success. The plain people had all the while been satisfied witli Abraham Lincoln : they confided in him ; they loved him ; they felt them- selves near to him ; they saw personified in him the cause of Union and freedom ; and they went to the ballot-box for him in their strength.
The hour of triumph called out the characteristic impulses of his nature. The opposition within the Union party had stung him to the quick. Now he had his opponents before him, baffled and humiliated. Not a moment did he lose to stretch out the hand of friendship to all. " Now that the election is over," he said, in i-esponse to a serenade, " may not all, hav- ing a common interest, reunite in a common effort to
68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
save our common country ? For my own part, I have striven, and will strive, to place no obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a reelec- tion, it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be pained or disappointed by the result. May I ask those who were with me to join with me in the same spirit toward those who were against me ? " This was Abraham Lincoln's character as tested in the furnace of prosperity.
Tlie war was virtually decided, but not yet ended. Sherman was irresistibly carrying the Union flag through the South. Grant had his iron hand upon the ramparts of Richmond. The days of the Confederacy were evidently numbered. Only the last blow re- mained to be struck. Then Lincoln's second inaugu- ration came, and with it his second inaugural address. Lincoln's famous " Gettysburg speech " ^ has been much and justly admired. But far greater, as well as far more characteristic, was that inaugural in which he poured out the whole devotion and tenderness of his great soul. It had all the solemnity of a father's last admonition and blessing to his children before he lay down to die. These were its closing words : " Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unre- quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand
* Both the second inangiirnl address and the Gettysburg Bpeech are printed in No. 32, Riverside Literature series.
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 69
years ago, so still it must be said, ' The judgnieiits of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
This was like a sacred poem. No American Pre- sident had ever spoken words like these to the Ameri- can jjeople. America never had a President who found such words in the depth of his heart.
Now followed the closing scenes of the war. The Southern armies fought bravely to the last, but all in vain. Richmond fell. Lincoln himself entered the city on foot, accompanied only by a few officers and a squad of sailors who had rowed him ashore from the flotilla in the James River, a negro picked up on the way serving as a guide. Never had the world seen a more modest conqueror and a more characteristic triumphal procession, — no army with banners and drums, only a throng of those who had been slaves, hastily run together, escorting the victorious chief into the capital of the vanquished foe. We are told that they pressed around him, kissed his hands and his garments, and shouted and danced for joy, while tears ran down the President's care-fuiTOwed cheeks.
A few days more brought the surrender of Lee's army, and peace was assured. The people of the North were wild with joy. Everywhere festive guns were booming, bells pealing, the churches ringing with thanksgivings, and jubilant multitudes thi'onging the thoronahfares, when suddenly the news flashed over
70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
the land that Abraham Lincohi had been murdered. The people were stunned by the blow. Then a wail j)f sorrow went up such as America had never heard before. Thousands of Northern households grieved as if they had lost their dearest member. Many a Southern man cried out in his heart that his people had been robbed of their best friend in their humilia- tion and distress, when Abraham Lincoln was struck down. It was as if the tender affection which his countrymen bore him had inspii'ed all nations with a common sentiment. All civilized mankind stood mourning around the coffin of the dead President. Many of those, here and abroad, who not long before had ridiculed and reviled him were among the first to hasten on with their flowers of eulogy, and in that universal chorus of lamentation and praise there was not a voice that did not tremble with genuine emotion. Never since Washington's death had there been such unanimity of judgment as to a man's virtues and great- ness ; and even Washington's death, although his name was held in greater reverence, did not touch so sympathetic a chord in the people's hearts.
Nor can it be said that this was owing to the tragic character of Lincoln's end. It is true, the death of this gentlest and most merciful of rulei-s by the hand of a mad fanatic was well apt to exalt him beyond h'u merits in the estimation of those who loved him, and to make his renown the object of peculiarly tender solicitude. But it is also true that the verdict pro- nounced upon him in those days has been affected little by time, and that historical inquiry has served rather to increase than to lessen the appreciation of his virtues, his abilities, his services. Giving the full- est measure of credit to his great ministers, — to Sew
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 71
arJ for Ins conduct of foreign affairs, to Chase for the management of the finances under terrible difficulties, to Stanton for the performance of his tremendous task as war secretary, — and readily acknowledging that without the skill and fortitude of the great command- ers, and the heroism of the soldiers and sailors under them, success could not have been achieved, the histo 1 ian still finds that Lincoln's judgment and will were by no means governed by those around him ; that tiie most important steps were owing to his initiative; that his was the deciding and directing mind ; and that it was preeminently he whose sagacity and wh<»se character enlisted for the administration in its strug- gles the countenance, the sympathy, and the support of the people. It is found, even, that his judgment on military matters was astonishingly acute, and that the advice and instructions he gave to the generals commanding in the field would not seldom have done honor to the ablest of them. History, therefore, with- out overlooking or palliating or excusing any of his shortcomings or mistakes, continues to place him fore- most among the saviours of the Union and the libera- tors of the slave. More than that, it awards to him the merit of having accomplished what but few polit- ical philosophers would have recognized as possible, — • of leading the republic through four years of furious civil conflict without any serious detriment to its free institutions.
He was, indeed, while President, violently de- nounced by the opposition as a tyrant and a usurper, for having gone beyond his constitutional powers in authorizing or permitting the temporary suppression of newspapers, and in wantonly suspending the writ of habeas corpus and resorting to arbitrary arrestSi
72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Nobody should be blamed who, when such things are done, in good faith and from patriotic motives pro- tests against them. In a republic, arbitrary stretches of power, even when demanded by necessity, shoulc^ never be permitted to pass without a protest on the one hand, and without an apology on the other. It is well they did not so pass during our civil war. That arbitrary measures were resorted to, is true. That they were resorted to most sparingly, and only when the government thought them absolutely required by the safety of the republic, will now hardly be denied. But certain it is that the history of the world does not furnish a single example of a government passing tlnxHigh so tremendous a crisis as our civil war was with so small a record of arbiti'ary acts, and so little interference with the ordinary course of law outside the field of military operations. No American President ever wielded such power as that which was thrust into Lincoln's hands. It is to be hoped that no American President ever will have to be intrusted with such power again. But no man was ever intrusted with it to whom its seductions wei-e less dangerous than they proved to be to Abraham Lincoln. With scrupulous care he endeavored, even under the most trying cir- cumstances, to remain strictly within the constitutional limitations of his authority ; and whenever the bound- ary became indistinct, or when the dangers of the situ- ation forced him to cross it, he was equally careful to mark his acts as exceptional measures, justifiable only by the imperative necessities of the civil war, so that they might not pass into history as precedents for similar acts in time of peace. It is an unquestiona- ble fact that during the reconstruction period which followed tlie war, more things were done capable of
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. 73
serving as dangerous precedents than during the war itself. Thus it may truly be said of him not only that under his guidance the republic was saved from dis- ruption and the country was purified of the blot of slavery, but that, during the stormiest and most peril- ous crisis in our history, he so conducted the govern- ment and so wielded his almost dictatorial power as to leave essentially intact our free institutions in all things that concern the rights and liberties of the cit- izen. He understood well the nature of the problem. In his first message to Congress he defined it in admirably pointed language : " Must a government be of necessity too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence? Is there in all republics this inherent weakness ? " This question he answered in the name of the great American republic, as no man could have answered it better, with a triumphant "' No."
It has been said that Abraham Lincoln died at the right moment for his fame. However that may be, he had, at the time of his death, certainly not ex- hausted his usefulness to his country. He was proba- bly the only man who could have guided the nation through the perplexities of the reconstruction period in such a manner as to prevent in the work of peace the revival of the passions of the war. He would indeed not have escaped serious controversy as to details of policy ; but he could have weathered it far better than any other statesman of his time, for his prestige with the active politicians had been inimenselv strengthened by his triumphant reelection ; and wliat is more important, he would have been supported by the confidence of the victorious Northern people that he would do all to s(>eure the safety of the Union and
74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
the rights of the emancipated negro, and at the same time by the confidence of the defeated Southern peo- ple that nothing would be done by him from motives of vindictiveness, or of unreasonable fanaticism, or of a selfish party spirit. " With malice toward none, with charity for all," the foremost of the victors would have personified in himself the genius of reconcilia- tion.
He might have rendered the country a great ser- vice in another direction. A few days after the fall of Richmond, he pointed out to a friend the crowd of office-seekers besieging his door. " Look at that," said he. " Now we have conquered the rebellion, but here you see something that may become more danger- ous to this republic than the rebellion itself." It is true, Lincoln as Pi-esident did not profess what we now call civil service reform principles. He used the patronage of the government in many cases avowedly to rewai'd party work, in many others to form combi- nations and to produce political effects advantageous to the Union cause, and in still others simply to put the right man into the right place. But in his endeavors to strengthen the Union cause, and in his search for able and useful men for public duties, he frequently went beyond the limits of his party, and gradually accustomed himself to the thought that, while party service had its value, considerations of the public interest were, as to appointments to office, of far greater consequence. Moreover, there had been such a mingling of different political elements in support of the Union during the civil war that Lincoln, standing at the head of that temporarily united motley mass, hardly felt himself, in the narrow sense of the term, a 'party man. And as he became
SCHURZ'S ESSAY. lb
strongly impressed with the clangers brought upon the republic by the use of public offices as party spoils, it is by no means improbable that had he survived the all-absorbing crisis and found time to turn to other objects, one of the most important reforms of later days would have been pioneered by his powerful au= thority. This was not to be. But the measure of his achievements was full enough for immortality.
To the younger generation Abraham Lincoln has already become a half-mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of outline and feature. This is indeed the common lot of popular heroes ; but the Lincoln legend will be more than ordinarily apt to become fanciful, as his individuality, assembling seemingly incongruous qual- ities and forces in a character at the same time grand and most lovable, was so unique, and his career so abounding in startling contrasts. As the state of society in which Abraham Lincoln grew up passes away, the world will read with increasing wonder of the man who, not only of the humblest origin, but remaining the simplest and most unpretending of citi- zens, was raised to a position of power unprecedented in our history ; who was the gentlest and most peace- loving of mortals, unable to see any creature suffer without a pang in his own bi'east, and suddenly found himself called to conduct the greatest and bloodiest of our wars ; who wielded the power of government when otern resolution and relentless force were the order of iJie day, and then won and ruled the popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature ; who was a cautious conservative by temperament and mental habit, and led the most sudden and sweejiing
76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
social revolution of our time ; who, preserving his homely speech and rustic manner even in the most conspicuous position of that period, drew upon him- self the scoffs of polite society, and then thrilled tlie soul of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur ; who, in his heart the best friend of the defeated South, was murdered because a crazy fanatic took him for its most cruel enemy ; who, while in power, was beyond measure lampoonsd and ma= ligned by sectional passion and an excited party spirit, and around whose bier friend and foe gathered to praise him — which they have since never ceased to do — as one of the greatest of Americans and the best of men.
, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
REMARKS AT THE FUNERAL SERVICES HELD IN CON- CORD, APRIL 19, 1865.
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
We meet under the gloom of a calamity which darkens down over the minds of good men in all civil society, as the fearful tidings travel over sea, over land, from countiy to country, like the shadow of an uncalculated eclipse over the planet. Old as history is, and manifold as are its tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain to mankind as this has caused, or will cause, on its announcement ; and this, not so much because nations are by modern arts brought so closely together, as because of the mysteri- ous hopes and fears which, in the present day, are con- nected with the name and institutions of America.
In this country, on Saturday, every one was struck dumb, and saw at first only deep below deep, as he meditated on the ghastly blow. And perhaps, at this hour, when the coffin which contains the dust of the President sets forward on its long march through mourning States, on its way to his home in Illinois, we might well be silent, and suffer the awful voices of the time to thunder to us. Yes, but that fii'st despair was brief : the man was not so to be mourned. He was the most active and hopeful of men ; and his work had not perished : but acclamations of praise tor the task he had accomplished burst out into a
78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
song of triumph, which even tears for his death can- not keep down.
The President stood before lis as a man of the peo. pie. He was thoroughly American, had never crossed the sea, had never been spoiled b}^ English insularity or French dissipation; a quite native, aboriginal man, as an acorn from the oak ; no aping of foreigners, no frivolous accomplishments, Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a flatboat-man, a captain in the Black Hawk war, a country lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Illinois ; — on such modest foun- datious the broad structure of his fame was laid. How slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to his place. All of us remember — it is only a history of five or six years — the surprise and the disappointment of the country at his first nomination by the convention at Chicago. Mr. Seward, then in the culmination of his good fame, was the favorite of the Eastern States. And when the new and compara- tively unknown name of Lincoln was announced (notwithstanding the report of the acclamations of that convention), we heard the result coldly and sadly It seemed too rash, on a purely local reputa= tion, to build so grave a trust in such anxious times ; and men naturally talked of the chances in politics as incalculable. But it turned out not to be chancCo The profound good opinion which the people of Illi- nois and of the West had conceived of him, and which they had imparted to their colleagues, that they also might justify themselves to their constituents at home, was not rash, though they did not begin to know the riches of his worth.
A plain man of the people, an extraordinary for- tune attended him. He offered no shining qualities
EMERSON'S REMARKS. 79
at the first encounter ; he did not offend by superior- ity. He had a face and manner whicli disarmed sus- picion, which iusj)ired confidence, which confirmed good wilh He was a man without vices. He had a strong sense of duty, which it was very easy for him to obey. Then he had what farmers call a long head ; was excellent in working out the sum for himself ; in arguing his case and convincing you fairly and firmly. Then it turned out that he was a great worker ; had prodigious faculty of performance ; worked easily. A good worker is so rare ; everybody has some disabling quality. In a host of young men that start together and promise so many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial ; one by bad health, one by conceit, or by love of pleasure, or lethargy, or an ugly temper, — each has some dis- qualifying fault that throws him out of the career. But this man was sound to the core, cheerful, persist- ent, all right for labor, and liked nothing so well.
Then he had a vast good natui^e, which made him tolerant and accessible to all ; fair minded, leaning to the claim of the petitioner ; affable, and not sensible to the affliction which the innumei'able visits paid to him when President would have brought to any one else. And how this good nature became a noble humanity, in many a tragic case which the events of the war brought to him, every one will remember ; and with what increasing tenderness he dealt when a whole race was thrown on his compassion. The poor negro said of him, on an impressive occasion, " Massa Linkum am eberywhere."
Then his broad good humor, running easily into jocular talk, in which he delighted and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man. It enabled
80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
him to keep his secret ; to meet every kind of man and every rank in society ; to take off the edge of the severest decisions ; to mask his own purpose and sound his companion ; and to catch with true instinct the temper of every company he addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep, and is the protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and insanity.
He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as jests ; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the lioui-. I am sure if this man had ruled in a period of Jess facil- ity of printing, he would have become mythological in a very few yeai'S, like ^sop or Pilpay, or one of the Seven Wise Masters, by his fables and proverbs. But the weight and penetration of many passages in his letters, messages, and speeches, hidden now by the very closeness of their application to tlie moment, are destined hereafter to wide fame. What ])regnant definitions ; what unerring common sense ; what fore ■ siglit ; and, on great occasion, what lofty, and more than national, what humane tone ! His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by words on any recorded occasion. This, and one other Amer- ican s}ieech, that of John Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of Kossuth's speech at Birming- ham, can only be compared with each other, and with no fourth.
His occupying the chair of State was a triumph of the good sense of mankind, and of the public con- Bcienoe. This middle-class country had got a middle^
EMERSON'S REMARKS. 81
class President, at last. Yes, in manners and sympa» thies, but not in powers, for his powers were superior. This man grew according to the need. His mind mastered the problem of the day ; and as the pro- blem grew, so did his comprehension of it. Rarely was man so fitted to the event. In the midst of fears and jealousies, in the Babel of counsels and parties, this man wrought incessantly with all his might and all his honesty, laboring to find what the people wanted, and how to obtain that. It cannot be said there is any exaggeration of his worth. If ever a man was fairly tested, he was. There was no lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of ridicule. The times have allowed no state secrets ; the nation has been in such ferment, such multitudes had to be trusted, that no secret could be kept. Every doou was ajar, and we know all that befell.
Then, what an occasion was the whirlwind of the war. Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no fair-weather sailor ; the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four years, — four years of battle-days, — his endurance, his fertility of resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the centre of a heroic epoch. He is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by step he walked before them ; slow with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true representative of this continent ; an entirely publi( man ; father of his country, the pulse of twenty mil lions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their rrinds articulated by his tongue.
'^dam Smith remai-ks that the axe, which in Ho'-
82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
braken's portraits of British kings and worthies is engraved under those who have suffered at the block, adds a certain lofty charm to the picture. And who does not see, even in this tragedy so recent, how fast the terror and ruin of the massacre are already burn- ing into glory around the victim ? Far happier this fate than to have lived to be wished away ; to have watched the decay of his own faculties ; to have seen ■ — perhaps even he — the proverbial ingratitude of statesmen ; to have seen mean men preferred. Had he not lived long enough to keep the greatest prom.ise that ever man made to his fellow men, — the jjractical abolition of slavery ? He had seen Tennessee, Mis- souri, and Maryland emancipate their slaves. He had seen Savannah, Charleston, and Richmond surren- dered ; had seen the main army of the rebellion lay down its arms. He had conquered the public opinion of Canada, England, and France. Only Washington can compare with him in fortune.
And what if it should turn out, in the unfolding of the web, that he had reached the term ; that this heroic deliverer could no longer serve us ; that the rebellion had touched its natural conclusion, and what remained to be done required new and uncommitted hands, — a new spirit born out of the ashes of the war ; and that Heaven, wishing to show the world a completed benefactor, shall make him serve his coun- try even more by his death than by his life ? Nations, like kings, are not good by facility and complaisance. " The kindness of kings consists in justice and strength." Easy good nature has been the dangerous foible of the Republic, and it was necessary that its enemies should outrage it, and drive us to unwonted ttrmness, to secure the salvation of this country in the next ajres.
EMERSON'S REMARKS. 83
The ancients believed in a serene and beautiful Genius which ruled in the affairs of nations ; which, with a slow but stern justice, carried forward the for- tunes of certain chosen houses, weeding out single offenders or offending families, and securing at last the firm prosperity of the favorites of Heaven. It was too narrow a view of the Eternal Nemesis. There is a serene Providence which rules the fate of nations, which makes little account of time, little of one generation or race, makes no account of disasters, conquers alike by what is called defeat or by what is called victory, thrusts aside enemy and obstruction, crushes everything immoral as inhuman, and obtains the ultimate triumph of the best race by the sacrifice of everything which resists the moral laws of the world. It makes its own instruments, creates the man for the time, trains him in poverty, inspires his genius, and arms him for his task. It has given every race its own talent, and ordains that only that race which combines perfectly with the virtues of all shaU endure.
THE EMANCIPATION GROUP.'
BY JOHN GEEENLEAF WHITTIER.
Moses Kimball, a citizen of Boston, presented to the city a duplicate of the Freedman's Memorial Statue erected in Lincoln Square, Washington, after a design by Thomas Ball. The group, which stands in Park Square, represents the figure of a slave, from whose limbs the broken fetters have fallen, kneeling in gratitude at the feet of Lincoln. The verses which follow were written for the unveiling of the statue, December 9, 1879.
Amidst thy sacred effigies
Of old renown give place, O city, Freedom-loved ! to his
Whose hand unchained a race.
Take the worn frame, that rested not
Save in a martyr's grave ; The care-lined face, that none forgot.
Bent to the kneeling slave.
Let man be free ! The mighty word
He spake was not his own ; An impulse from the Highest stirred
These chiselled lips alone.
The cloudy sign, the fiery guide, Along his pathway ran,
THE EMANCIPATION GROUP. 85
And Nature, through his voice, denied The ownership of man.
We rest in peace where these sad eyes
Saw peril, strife, and pain ; His was the nation's sacrifice,
And ours the priceless gain.
O symbol of God's will on earth
As it is done above ! Bear witness to the cost and worth
Of justice and of love.
Stand in thy place and testify
To coming ages long. That truth is stronger than a lie,
And righteousness than wrong.
FOR THE SERVICES IN MEMORY OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
CHORAL : " Luther'' s Judgment Hymn.''^
O Thou of soul and sense and breath
The ever-present Giver, Unto thy mighty Angel, Death,
All flesh thou dost deliver ; What most we cherish we resign, For life and death alike are thine,
Who reignest Lord forever !
Our hearts lie buried in the dust
With him so true and tender, The patriot's stay, the people's trust,
The shield of the offender ; Yet every murmuring voice is still. As, bowing to thy sovereign will,
Our best-loved we surrender.
Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold
This martyr generation, Which thou, through trials manifold,
Art showing thy salvation ! Oh, let the blood by murder spilt Wash out thy stricken children's guilt,
And sanctify our nation 1
IN MEMORY OF LINCOLN. 87
Be thou thy orphaned Israel's friend,
Forsake thy people never, In One our broken Many blend
That none again may sever ! Hear us, O Father, while we raise With trembling lips our song of praise,
And bless thy name forever 1
EXTKACT FKOM ODE
RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION, JULY 21, 1865.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
V.
Whither leads the path To ampler fates that leads ? Not down through flowery meads,
To reap an aftermath Of youth's vainglorious weeds ; But up the steep, amid the wrath And shock of deadly-hostile creeds, Where the world's best hope and stay By battle's flashes gropes a desperate way, And every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds. Peace hath her not ignoble wreath, Ere yet the sharp, decisive word Light the black lips of cannon, and the sword
Dreams in its easeful sheath ; But some day the live coal behind the thought, Whether from Baal's stone obscene, Or from the shrine serene Of God's pure altar brought, Bursts up in flame ; tlie war of tongue and pen Learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught. And, helpless in the fiery passion caught,
LOWELL'S ODE. 89
Shakes all tlie pillared state with shock of men : Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued, And cries reproachful : " Was it, then, my praise. And not myself was loved ? Prove now thy truth; I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; Give me thy life, or cower in empty phrase, The victim of thy genius, not its mate ! " Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to Truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field,
So bountiful is Fate ;
But then to stand beside her,
When craven churls deride her. To front a lie in arms and not to yield,
This shows, methinks, God's plan
And measure of a stalwart man.
Limbed like the old heroic breeds. Who stands self -poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth. Fed from within with all the strength he needs.
VI.
Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,
Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head. Wept with the passion of an angry grief : Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will beat and burn. And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.
Nature, they say, doth dote.
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan.
Repeating us by rote :
90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
For him her Old- World moulds aside she threw, And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth. But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! They knew that outward grace is dust ; They could not choose but trust In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again ancj thrust. His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind. Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined. Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind. Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here. Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, Ere any names of Serf and Peer Could Nature's equal scheme deface
And thwart her genial will ; Here was a type of the true elder race. And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not ; it were too late ; And some innative weakness there must be
LOWELL'S ODE. 91
In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, Safe in himself as in a fate. So always firmly he : He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still pationt in his simple faith sublime, Till the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns and drums, Disturb our judgment for the hour. But at last silence comes ; These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame.
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American.
THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH
AND OTHER PAPERS
BY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
AND
AN ESSAY ON LINCOLN
BY
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL WITH PREFACE AND NOTES
CONTENTS.
FAQS
Abraham Lincoln : an Essay by James Russell Lowell . 7
Mr Lincoln's Speeches, Papers, and Letters
I. The Gettysburg Speech 37
II. The First Inaugural Address 40
III. Letter to Horace Greeley 53
IV. Reply to a Commifctee 54
V. The Emancipation Proclamation 59
VI. Account of the Emancipation Proclamation . . 62
VII. Letter to Dissatisfied Friends ...... 65
VIII. Proclamation appointing a National Fast Day . . 71 IX. Announcement of News from Gettysburg . . .73
X. Letter to A. G. Hodges 74
XL The Second Inaugural Address 77
XII. Speech in Independence Hall 80
XIII. Last Public Address 82
O Captain ! my Captain. By Walt Whitman . . 89
Appendix
Address at Cooper Union 91
Lincoln's Birthday Programmes 124
COPYRIGHT, 187I, BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
copyright, 1899, BY MABEL LOWELL BURNETT
copyright, 1913, BY MOORFIELD storey, EXECUTOR
ALL rights RESERVED
PREFACE.
It is still too early to know Abraham Lincoln, but it is none too soon to use such knowledge as we have for adding to our conception of him, and for shaping our praise and honor. He lived so openly among men, and he was surrounded by such a mass of eager, posi- tive men and women in a time when the mind of man was especially alert, he was so much the object of criti- cism and of eulogy, and above all he was himself a man of such varied attitude toward other men, that we are likely for years to come to have an increasing volume of testimony concerning him.
Meanwhile there is slowly taking form in the general apprehension of men a figure so notable, so individual, so powerful, that men everywhere are rec- ognizing the fact, that however other Americans may be regarded, there is one man who holds the interest, the profound respect, and the afPection of the people as none other has yet done. Franklin has been widely influential, but he has not appealed to the highest spirit. He does not invite reverence, and only he is truly great to whom we look up. Washington has a place by himself, so aloof from other men, that with all our efforts we cannot perfectly succeed in human- izing him, but are content to leave him heroic. Jack- son is the idol of a part}^ ; but Lincoln, appearuig at a critical period, and showing himself a great leader, is
4 PREFACE.
so humane, he comes so close to the eye, his homely nature seems so familiar, that every one makes him a personal i^cquaintance. He had detractors during his lifetime; there are a few now who are repelled by some characteristics of the man, but his death did much to hallow his memory and the emphatic testi- mony of ooets and statesmen, who are quick to recogw nize their jeers and their superiors, has been accumii. lating an 3xpression of feeling which represents the common sentiment that has never been absent from the minds of plain people.
Every year the anniversary ct l^mcoln's birth is likely to have increased honor : lis nearness to Wash- ington's birthday is likely to cause a joint celebration of the two great AmericanSo Both then and at other times, Lincoln's career will loe studied, and this pam- phlet is pui forth as a modest aid to those who desire some brief handbook. It contains as an introduction the importauii essay bynames Eusseli Lowell, who was one of the earliest, and he has been the most persistent, of American scholars to recognize the greatness and the peculiar power of Lincoln, Lowell's own sympa- thy with the soil quickened his apprehension of sons of the soil. As a tail-piece, so to speak, it has the threnody by Walt Whitman, one of the notable bits of verse called out by Lincoln's death, and so rhyth- mical, so charged with feeling, that one scarcely ob serves the almost random use of rhyme, — it all seems rhymed ; nor does one resent what on close inspection might seem an arrogant assumption of the poet's indi- vidual grief, for every one wiii feel that he is himself a solitary mourner for the dead captain.
The body of the pamphlet is occupied with a few of ytie most striking speeches, messages, and letters of the
PREFACE. 5
President. It would be easy to increase the number, but these will be found significant of Lincoln's char- acter and political policy. Introductions and notes have been added wherever it seemed desirable to make the* matter clearer. But it is to be hoped that our schools will take the opportunity afforded by the great mass of material easily accessible to acquaint them= selves in detail with Lincoln's life.
In order to aid teachers and scholars in this work, we have added to the pamphlet some pages which give suggestions for the celebration of Lincoln's birthday, a brief chronology of the leading events in his life, and a sketch of the material which is at the service of every one for carrying on a study of this most inter- esting and important subject. No one can ajiply him- self carefully to an inquiry into Lincoln's life in its whole course without acquainting himself with the most vital principles of American national life. He must study the democratic social order, the slavery conflict, and the war for the Union. It is greatly to be hoped that the growing interest in American histoiy, and the increasing attention paid to the investigating rather than the mere memorizing method of study, will tend to give a conspicuous place to the biography of Abraham Lincoln.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
There have been many painful crises since the im« patient vanity of South Carolina hurried ten prosper- ous Commonwealths into a crime whose assured retri- bution was to leave them either at the mercy of the nation they had wronged, or of the anarchy they had summoned but could not control, when no thoughtful American opened his morning paper without dreading to find that he had no longer a country to love and honor. Whatever the result of the convulsion whose first shocks were beginning to be felt, there would still be enough square miles of earth for elbow-room ; but that ineffable sentiment made up of memory and hope, of instinct and tradition, which swells every man's heart and shapes his thought, though perhaps never present to his consciousness, would be gone from it, leaving it common earth and nothing mora Men might gather rich crops from it, but that ideal harvest of priceless associations would be reaped no longer ; that fine virtue which sent up messages of courage and security from every sod of it would h;iv evaporated beyond recall. "We should be irrevocrsi '
^ This paper was published by Mr. Lowell orig-inallv in the Nwf_ American Review for January, 1864. When he reprinted it in his v«d- \ime, My Study Windows, he added the final paragraph.
8 ABRAHAM LINCOL]^.
cut off from our past, and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our lives upon whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us.
We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotism of our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace the proportions of national peril. We felt an only too natural distrust of im- mense public meetings and enthusiastic cheers.
That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusl=. asm with which the war was entered-on, that it should follow soon, and that the slackening of public spirifc should be proportionate to the previous over-tension, might well be foreseen by all who had studied human nature or history. Men acting gregariously are al- ways in extremes ; as they are one moment capable of higher courage, so they are liable, the next, to baser depression, and it is often a matter of chance whether numbers shall multiply confidence or discouragement. Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust of men, than self-deception to suspicion of principles. The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience. Enthusi- a,sm is good material for the orator, but the statesman needs something more durable to work in, — must be able to rely on the deliberate reason and consequent tlrmness of the people, without which that presence of mind, no less essential in times of moral than of ma- terial peril, will be wanting at the critical moment. Would this fervor of the Free States hold out ? Was it kindled by a just feeling of the value of constitu- tional liberty ? Had it body enough to withstand the inevitable dampening of checks, reverses, delays? Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend
LOWELVS ESSAY. 9
that the choice was between order and anarchy, be- tween the equilibrium of a government by law and the tussle of misrule by proniuicianilento ? Could a war be maintained without the ordinary stimulus of hatred and plunder, and with the impersonal loyalty of principle ? These were serious questions, and with no precedent to aid in answering them.
At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, oc- casion for the most anxious apprehension. A Presi- dent known to be infected with the political heresies, and suspected of sympathy with the treason, of the Southern conspirators, had just surrendered the reins, we will not say of power, but of chaos, to a successor known only as the representative of a party whose leaders, with long training in opposition, had none in the conduct of affairs ; an empty treasury was called on to supply resources beyond precedent in the history of finance ; the trees were yet growing and the iron unmined with which a navy was to be built and ar- mored ; officers without discipline were to make a mob into an array ; and, above all, the public opinion of Europe, echoed and reinforced with every vague hint and every specious argument of despondency by a powerful faction at home, was either contemptuously sceptical or actively hostile. It would be hard to over-estimate the force of this latter element of disin- tegration and discouragement among a people where every citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is a reader of newspapers. The pedlers of rumor in the North were the most effective allies of the rebel- lion. A nation can be liable to no more insidious treachery than that of the telegraph, sending hourly its electric thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the community, till the excited imagination makes
10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
every real danger loom heightened with its unreal double.
And even if we look only at more palpable difficul- ties, the problem to be solved by our civil war was so vast, both in its immediate relations and its future consequences ; the conditions of its solution were sc intricate and so greatly dependent on incalculable and uncontrollable contingencies ; so many of the data, whether for hope or fear, were, from their novelty, incapable of arrangement under any of the categories of historical precedent, that there were moments of crisis when the firmest believer in the strength and sufficiency of the democratic theory of government might well hold his breath in vague apprehension of disaster. Our teachers of political philosophy, sol- emnly arguing from the precedent of some petty Gre- cian, Italian, or Fbmish city, whose long pei'iods of aristocracy were broken now and then by awkward parentheses of mob, had always taught us that democ- racies were incapable of the sentiment of loyalty, of concentrated and prolonged effort, of far-reaching conceptions ; were absorbed in material interests ; im- patient of regular, and much more of exceptional re- straint ; had no natural nucleus of gravitation, nor any forces but centrifugal ; were always on the verge of civil war, and slunk at last into the natural almshouse of bankrupt popular government, a military despotism. Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who knew democracy, not by rubbing shoulders with it lifelong, but merely from books, and America only by the report of some fellow-Briton, who, having eaten a bad dinner or lost a carpet-bag here, had written to TTie Times demanding redress, and drawing a mournful inference of democratic instability. Nor
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 11
were men wanting- among ourselves who had so steeped their brains in London literature as to m^- take Cockney ism for European culture, and contempt of their country for cosmopolitan breadth of view, and who, owing all they had and all they were to demo' ci-acy, thought it had an air of high-breeding to join m the shallow epicedium that our bubble had burst.
But beside any disheartening influences which might affect the timid or the despondent, there were reasons enough of settled gravity against any over-confidence of hope. A war — which, whether we consider the expanse of the territory at stake, the hosts brought into the field, or the reach of the principles involved, may fairly be reckoned the most momentous of mod- ern times — was to be waged by a people divided at home, unnerved by fifty years of peace, under a chief magistrate without experience and without rei3utation, whose every measure was sure to be cunningly ham- pered by a jealous and unscrupulous minority, and who, while dealing with unheard-of complications at home, must soothe a hostile neutrality abroad, waiting only a pretext to become war. All this was to be done without warning and without preparation, while at the same time a social revolution was to be accom- plished in the political condition of four millions o£ people, by softening the prejudices, allaying the fears, and gradually obtaining the cooperation, of their un- willing liberators. Surely, if ever there were an occasion when the heightened imagination of the his- torian might see Destiny visible intervening in human affairs, here was a knot wortliy of her shears. Never, perhaps, was any system of government tried by so continuous and searching a strain as ours during the last three years; never has any shown itself stronger;
12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
and never could that strength be so directly traced to the virtue and intelligence of the people, — to that general enlightenment and prompt efficiency of public opinion possible only under the influence of a jjolitical framework like our own. We find it hard to luider- stand how even a foreigner should be blind to the grandeur of the combat of ideas that has been going on here, — to the heroic energy, persistency, and self- reliance of a nation proving that it knows how much dearer greatness is than mere power ; and we own that it is impossible for us to conceive the mental and moral condition of the American who does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by being even a spectator of such qualities and achievements. That a steady purpose and a definite aim have been given to the jarring foi-ces which, at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the discussion of schemes which could only become operative, if at all, after the war was over ; that a popular excitement has been slowly intensified into an earnest national will ; that a some- v/hat impracticable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious instrument of a practical moral end ; that the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been made not only useless for mischief, but even useful for good ; that the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the Iiorrors of civil conflict has been prevented from com- plicating a domestic with a foreign war ; — ail these results, any one of which might suffice to prove great- ness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good sense, the good-humor, the sagacity, the large-minded- ness, and the unselfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the most dansrerous and difficult eminence
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 13
of modern times. It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested ; it is by the sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty to admit, whatever of truth there may be in an adverse opinion, in order more convincingly tc expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a reasoned' at length gains for his mere statement of a fact th^ force of argument ; it is by a wise forecast whick allows hostile combinations to go so far as by the in» evitable reaction to become elements of his own power, that a politician proves his genius for state-craft ; and especially it is by so gently guiding public sentiment that he seems to follow it, by so yielding doubtful points that he can be firm without seeming obstinate in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of com- promise without the weakness of concession ; by so in-^ stinctively comprehending the temper and prejudices of a people as to make them gradually conscious of the superior wisdom of his freedom from temper and prejudice, — it is by qualities such as these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be chief in a commonwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities such as these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the most prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish to appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevita^ ble chaos in which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise one been chosen in his stead.
" Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, " without brother behind it " ; and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of prestige^ of sentiment, of superstition, of
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presenti- ment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long habit had accustomed the American people to the notion of a party in power, and of a President as its creature and organ, while the more vital fact, that the executive for the time being represents the abstract idea of government as a permanent principle superior to all party and all private interest, had gradually become unfamiliar. They had so long seen the pub- lic policy more or less directed by views of party, and often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to sus- pect tho motives of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our history, to feel himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to act upon the fun- damental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that the first duty of a government is to defend and maintain its own existence. Accordingly, a powerful weapon seemed to be put into the hands of the opposition by the necessity under which the administration found ?tself of applying this old truth to new relations. Nor "were the opposition his only nor his most dangerous Opponents.
The Republicans had carried the country upon an issue in which ethics were more directly and visibly mingled with politics than usual. Their leaders were trained to a method of oratory which relied for its ef- fect rather on the moral sense than the understanding. Their arguments were drawn, not so much from experi- ence as from general principles of right and wrong.
LOWELUS ESSAY. 15
When the war came, their system continued to be ap- plicable and effective, for here again the reason of the people was to be reached and kindled through their sentiments. It was one of those' periods of excitement, gathering, contagious, imiversal, which, while they last, exalt and clarify the mindj of men, giving to the mere words country, human rights, democracy, a meaning and a force beyond that of sober and logical argument. They were convictions, maintained and de- fended by the supreme logic of passion. That pene- trating fire ran in and roused those primary instincts that make their lair in the dens and caverns of the mind. What is called the great popular heart was awakened, that indefinable something which may be, according to circumstances, the highest reason or the most brutish unreason. But enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed over into anything better than cant, — and phrases, when once the inspiration that filled them with beneficent power has ebbed away, retain only that semblance of meaning which enables them to supplant reason in hasty minds. Among the lessons taught by the French Revolution there is none sadder or more striking than this, that you may make everything else out of the passions of men except a political system that will work, and that thei^e is noth= ing so pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma. It is always demoralizing to extend the domain of sentiment over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction ; and perhaps the se- verest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a ten- dency of his own supporters which chimed with his own private desires while wholly opposed to his con- victions of what would be wise policy.
The change which three years have brought about
16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
is too remarkable to be passed over without comment, too weighty in its lesson not to be laid to heart. Never did a President enter upon office with less means at his command, outside his own strength of heart and steadiness of understanding, for inspiring confidence in the people, and so winning it for himself, than Mr. Lincoln. Ail that was known of him wa3 that he was a good stump-speaker, nominated for hi3 availability^ — that is, because he had no history, — = and chosen by a party with whose more extreme opin= ions he was not in sympathy. It might well be feared that a man past fifty, against whom the ingenuity of hostile partisans could rake up no accusation, must be lacking in manliness of character, in decision of prin- ciple, in strength of will ; that a man who was at best only the representative of a party, and who yet did not fairly represent even that, would fail of political, much more of popular, support. And certainly no one ever entered upon office with so few resources of power in the past, and so many materials of weakness in the present, as Mr. Lincoln. Even in that half of the Union which acknowledged him as President, there v/as a large, and at that time dangerous minor- ity, that hardly admitted his claim to the office, andl even in the party that elected him there was also a large minority that suspected him of being secretly g communicant with the church of Laodieea.^ All thai he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra b;; one side ; all that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of lukewarmness and backsliding by the other Meanwhile he was to carry on a truly colossal war by means of both ; he was to disengage the country from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril un 1 See the Book of Revelation, chapter 3, verse 15.
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 17
disturbed by the help or the hinderance of either, and to win from the crowning dangers of his administra- tion, in the confidence of the people, the means of his safety and their own. He has contrived to do it, and perhaps none of our Presidents since Washington has stood so firm in the confidence of the people as he does after three years of stormy administration.
Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and rightly so. He laid down no programme which must compel him to be either inconsistent or unwise, no cast-iron theorem to which circumstances must be fitted as they rose, or else be useless to his ends. He seemed to have chosen Mazarin's motto, Xe temj)s et mo{.^ The wio?', to be sure, was not very prominent at first ; but it has grown more and more so, till the world is beginning to be pei'suaded that it stands for a character of marked individuality and capacity for af- fairs. Time was his prime-minister, and, we began to think, at one period, his general-in-chief also. At first he was so slow that he tired out all those who see no evidence of progress but in blowing up the engine ; then he was so fast, that he took the breath away from those who think there is no getting on safely while there is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the only being who has time enough ; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. Mr, Lincoln, as it seems to us in reviewing his career, though we have sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise, has always waited, as a wise man should, till the right mo- ment brought np all his reserves. Sempe?' nocnit dif- fcrre paratis^ is a sound axiom, but the reaUy effica-
^ Time and I. Cardinal Mazarin was prime-minister of Louis XIV. of France. Time, Mazarin said, was his prime-minister.
It is always bad for those who are ready to put off action.
18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
cious man will also be sure to know when he is not ready, and be firm against all persuasion and reproach till he is.
One would be apt to think, from some of the criti- cisms made on Mr. Lincoln's course by those who mainly agree with him in principle, that the chief ob- ject of a statesman should be rather to proclaim his adhesion to certain doctrines, than to achieve their triumph by quietly accomplishing his ends. In our opinion, there is no more unsafe politician than a con- scientiously rigid doctrinaire^ nothing more sure to end in disaster than a theoretic scheme of policy that admits of no pliability for contingencies. True, there is a popular image of an impossible He, in whose plas- tic hands the submissive destinies of mankind become as wax, and to whose commanding necessity the tough- est facts yield with the graceful pliancy of fiction ; but in real life we commonly find that the men who con- trol circumstances, as it is called, are those who have learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, and have the nerve to turn them to account at the happy- instant. Mr. Lincoln's perilous task has been to carry a rather shaky raft through the rapids, making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity, and the country is to be congratulated that he did not think it his duty to run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to assure himself with his setting-pole where the main current was, and keep steadily to that. He is still in wild water, but we have faith that his skill and sureness of eye will bring him out right at last.
A curious, and, as we think, not inapt parallel, might be drawn between Mr. Lincoln and one of the most striking figures in modern history, — Henry IV. of France. The career of the latter may be more pic-
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 19
turesque, as that of a daring- captain always is ; but in all its vicissitudes there is nothing- more romantic than that sudden change, as by a rub of Aladdin's lanij), from the attorney's office in a country town of Illinois to the helm of a great nation in times like these. The analogy between the characters and circumstances of the two men is in many respects singularly close. Succeeding- to a rebellion rather than a crown, Henry's chief material dependence was the Huguenot party, whose doctrines sat upon him with a looseness dis= tasteful certainly, if not suspicious, to the more fanati- cal among them. King only in name over the greater part of France, and with his capital barred against him, it yet gradually became clear to the more far-see- ing even of the Catholic party that he was the only centre of order and legitimate authority round which France could reorganize itself. While preachers who held the divine right of kings made the churches of Paris ring with declamations in favor of democracy rather than submit to the heretic dog of a B^arnois,-' • — much as our soi-disant Democrats have lately beeffi preaching the divine right of slavery, and denouncing the heresies of the Decla,ration of Independence, — Henry bore both parties in hand till he was convinced that only one course of action could possibly combine his own interests and those of France. Meanwhile the Protestants believed somewhat doubtfully that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped somewhat doubtfully that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned aside remonstrance, advice, and curiosity alike with a jest or a proverb (if a little hir/h, he liked them none the worse), joking continually as his manner was.
^ One of Henry's titles was Prince of Be'arn, that being the old province of France from which he came.
20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously eomparecl to Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating one of the deepest pieces of wisdom in the profoundest romance ever written ; namely, that, while Don Quix* ote was incomparable in theoretic and ideal statesmao. ship, Sancho, with his stock of pi-overbs, the ready money of human experience, made the best possiblo practical governor. Henry IV. was as full of wise saws and modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but beneath all this was the thoughtful, practical, humane, and thor- oughly earnest man, around whom the fragments of France were to gather themselves till she took her place again as a planet of the first magnitude in the European system. In one respect Mr. Lincoln was more fortunate than Henry. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find no ^,aint of apostasy in any measure of his, nor can the lost bitter charge him with being influenced by mo- ives of personal interest. The leading distinction be- tween the policies of the two is one of circumstances. Henry went over to the nation ; Mr. Lincoln has stead- ily drawn the nation over to him. One left a united France : the other, we hope and believe, will leave a reunited America. We leave our readers to trace the further points of difference and resemblance for them- selves, merely suggesting a general similarity whicb bas often occurred to us. One only point of melan= 3holy interest we will allow ourselves to touch upon That Mr. Lincoln is not handsome nor elegant, wt learn from certain English tourists who would considei' similar revelations in regard to Queen Victoria as thoroughly American in their want of hienseance. It is no concern of ours, nor does it affect his fitness for the high place he so worthily occupies ; but he is
LOWELL' 3 ESSAY, 21
certainly as fortunate as Henry in the matter of good looks, if we may trust contemporary evidence. Mr, Lincoln has also been reproached with Americanism by some not unf i-iendly British critics ; but, with all deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse for it, or see in it any reason why he should govern Americans the less wisely.
People of more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we are glad that in this our true war of independence, which is to free us forever from the Old World, we have had at the head of our affairs a man whom America made, as God made Adtim, out of the very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown, to show us how much truth, how much magnanimity, and how much statecraft await the call of opportunity in simple manhood when it believes in the justice of God and the worth of man. Conventionalities are all very well in their proper place, but they shrivel at the touch of nature like stubble in the fire. The genius that sways a nation by its arbitrary will seems less august to us than that which multiplies and reinforces itself in the instincts and convictions of an entire people. Au- tocracy may have something in it more melodramatic than this, but falls far short of it in human value and interest.
Experience would have bred in us a rooted distrust of improvised statesmanship, even if we did not believe politics to be a science, which, if it cannot always com- mand men of special aptitude and great powers, at least demauds the long and steady application of tho best powers of such men as it can command to mastei' even its first principles. It is curious, that, in a coun- try which boasts of its intelligence the theory should be so generally held that the most complicated of
2'2 ABRAHAM LINCOLR.
human contrivances, and one which every day be* comes more complicated, can be worked at sight by any man able to talk for an hour or two without stop- ping to think.
Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an example of a ready-made ruler. But no case could well be less in point ; for, besides that he was a man of such fair- mindedness as is always the raw material of wisdom^ he had in his profession a training precisely the oppo= site of that to which a partisan is subjected. His ex- perience as a lawyer compelled him not only to see that there is a principle underlying every phenomenon in human affairs, but that there are always two sides to every question, both of which must be fully under- stood in order to understand either, and that it is of greater advantage to an advocate to appreciate the strength than the weakness of his antagonist's position. Nothing is more remarkable than the unerring tact with which, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, he went straight to the reason of the question ; nor have we ever had a more striking lesson in political tactics than the fact, that opposed to a man exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice and bigotry to his purpose, exception- ally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of barba= rians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of the people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu politician. His wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as of men ; his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and honest acknowl= edgment of difficulties, which enabled him to see that the only durable triumph of political opinion is based, not on any abstract right, but upon so much of justice, the highest attainable at any given moment in human
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 23
affairs, as may be had in tlie balance of mutual conces- sion. Doubtless he had an ideal, bat it was the ideal of a practical statesman, — to aim at the best, and to take the next best, if he is lucky enough to get even that. His slow, but singularly masculine, intelligence caught him that precedent is only another name for embodied experience, and that it counts for even more in the guidance of communities of men than in that of the individual life. He was not a man who held it good public economy to pull down on the mere chance of rebuilding bettei*. Mr. Lincoln's faith in God was qualified by a very well-founded distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was his want of self-confidence that more than anything else won him the unlimited confi.deuce of the people, for they felt that there would be no need of retreat from any position he had delib- eratel}' taken. The cautious, but steady, advance of his policy during the war was like that of a Roman army. He left behind him a firm road on which pub- lic confidence could follow ; he took America with him where he went ; what he gained he occupied, and his advanced posts became colonies. The very homeliness of his genius was its distinction. His kingship was conspicuous by its workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute as he, nor so little conscious of itj for he was the incarnate common-sense of the people^ With all that tenderness of nature whose sweet sadnesc touched whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, there was no trace of sentimentalism in his speech or action. He seems to have had but one rnl-^ of conduct, always that of practical and successful p >i itics, to let himself be guided by events, when the?}/ were sure to bring him out wliere he wished to go, though by what seemed to unpractical minds, whicli
24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
let go the possible to grasp at the desirable, a longer road.
Undoubtedly the highest function of statesmanship is by degrees to accommodate the conduct of commu» nities to ethical laws, and to subordinate the conflict^ lug self-interests of the day to higher and more perma- jaent concerns. But it is on the understanding, and mot on the sentiment, of a nation that all safe legisla- tion must be based. Voltaire's saying, that " a consid- eration of petty circumstances is the tomb of great things," may be true of nidividual men, but it cer- tainly is not true of governments. It is by a multi- tude of such considerations, each in itself trifling, but all together weighty, that the framers of policy can qlone divine what is practicable and therefore wise. J?he imputation of inconsistency is one to which every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later subject hiuiself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of eon- cession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human com merce through what seem the eternal barriers of both. It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to com- bine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them ; it is the anchored cling to solid prin- ciples of duty and action, which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it, — that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy,
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 25
or a conscientious persistency in what is impracticable. For the impracticable, however theoretically enticing, is always politically unwise, sound statesmanship being the application of that prudence to the public business which is the safest guide in that of private men.
No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embar- rassing question with which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, and it was one which no man in his posi- tion, whatever his opinions, could evade ; for, though he might withstand the clamor of partisans, he must sooner or later yield to the persi'stent importunacy of circumstances, which thrust the problem upon him at every turn and in every shape.
It has been brought against us as an accusation abroad, and repeated here by people who measure their country rather by what is thought of it than by what it is, that our war has not been distinctly and avow- edly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather for the preservation of our national power and greatness, in which the emancipation of the negro has been forced upon us by circumstances and accepted as a necessity. We are very far from denying this; nay, we admit that it is so far true that we were slow to renounce our constitutional obligations even toward those who had absolved us by their own act from the letter ot our duty. We are speaking of the government which, le« gaily installed for the whole country, was bound, so long as it was possible, not to overstep the limits o£ orderly prescription, and could not, without abnega- ting its own very nature, take the lead in making re- bellion an excuse for revolution. Thei^e were, no doubt, many ardent and sincere persons who seemed to think this as simple a thing to do as to lead off a Virginia reel. They forgot, what should be forgotten least of
26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
all in a system like ours, that the administration fo3? the time being represents not only the majority which elects it, but the minority as well, — a minority in this case powerful, and so little ready for emancipation that it was opposed even to war. Mr. Lintel ;l iiad ^aot been chosen as general agent of an anti-slavery society^ ?out President of the United States, to perform certain functions exactly defined by law. Whatever were his wishes, it was no less duty than policy to mark out for himself a line of action that would not further distract the country, by raising before their time questions which plainly would soon enough compel attention, and for which every day was making the answer more easy.
Meanwhile he must solve the riddle of this new Sphinx, or be devoured. Though Mr. Lincoln's 23olicy in this critical affair has not been such as to satisfy those who demand an heroic treatment for even the most trifling occasion, and who will not cut their coat according to their cloth, unless they can borrow tho scissors of Atropos,^ it has been at least not unworthy of the long-headed king of Ithaca.^ Mr. Lincoln Had the choice of Bassanio ^ offered him. Which ot the three caskets held the prize that was to redeem the fortunes of the country ? There was the golden one whose showy spaciousness might have tempted a vaic man ; the silver of compromise, which might have de- cided the choice of a merely acute one : and the leaden, — dull and homely-looking, as prudence al- ways is, — yet with something about it sure to attract the eye of practical wisdom. Mr. Lincoln dallied
^ One of the three Fates.
^ Odysseus, or Ulysses, the hero of Homer's Odyssey.
^ See Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 27
mith his decision perhaps longer than seemed needful to those on whom its awful responsibility was not to rest, but when he made it, it was worthy of his cau- tious but sure-footed understanding. The moral of the Sphinx-riddle, and it is a deep one, lies in the childish simplicity of the solution. Those who fail in guessing it, fail becar.se they are over-ingenious, and cast about for an answer that shall suit their own no- tion of the gravit}^ of the occasion and of their own dignity, i-ather than the occasion itself.
In a matter which must be finally settled by public opinion, and in regard to which the ferment of preju- dice and passion on both sides has not yet subsided to that equilibrium of compromise from which alone a sound public oi^inion can result, it is proper enough for the private citizen to press his own convictions with all possible force of argument and jDcrsuasion ; but the popular magistrate, whose judgment must be- come action, and whose action involves the whole country, is bound to wait till the sentiment of the people is so far advanced toward his own point of view, that what he does shall find suppoi't in it, in- stead of nierel}^ confusing it with new elements of di- vision. It was not unnatural that men earnestly devoted to the saving of their country, and profoundly convinced that slavery was its only real enemy, should demand a decided policy round which all patriots might I'ally, — and this might have been the wisest course for an absolute ruler. But in the then unset- tled state of the public mind, with a large party de- crying even resistance to the slaveholders' rebellion as not only unwise, but even unlawful ; with a majority, perhaps, even of the would-be loyal so long accus- tomed to regard the Constitution as a deed of gift
28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
conveying to the South their own judgment as to pel. icy and instinct as to right, that they were in doubt at first wliether their loyalty were due to the country or to slavery ; and with a respectable body of honest and influential men who still believed in the possibility of conciliation, — Mr. Lincoln judged wisely, that, in laying down a policy in deference to one party, he should be giving to the other the very fulcrum for which their disloyalty had been waiting.
It behooved a clear-headed man in his position not to yield so far to an honest indignation against the brokers of treason in the North as to lose sight of the materials for misleading which were their stock in Jrade, and to forget that it is not the falsehood of sophistry which is to be feared, but the grain of truth mingled with it to make it specious, — that it is not the knavery of the leaders so much as the honesty of the followers they may seduce, that gives them power for evil. It was especially his duty to do nothing which might help the people to forget the true cause of the war in fruitless disputes about its inevitable consequences.
The doctrine of State rights can be so handled by an adroit demagogue as easily to confound the distinc- tion between liberty and lawlessness in the minds of ignorant persons, accustomed always to be influenced by the sound of certain words, rather than to reflect upon the principles which give them meaning. For, though Secession involves the manifest absurdity of denying to a State the right of making war against any foreign power wliile permitting it against the United States ; though it supposes a compact of mutual con. cessions and guaranties among States without any an biter in case of dissension ; though it contradicts com
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 29
IDon-sense iu assuming that the men who framed our government did not know what they meant when they substituted Union for Confederation ; though it falsi^ fics history, whicli shows that the main opposition to the adoption of the Constitution was based on the ar- gument that it did not allow that independence in the several States which alone would justify them in seced- ing ; — yet, as slavery was universally admitted to be a reserved right, an inference could be drawn from any direct attack ui3on it (though only in self-defence) to a natural right of resistance, logical enough to sat^ isfy minds untrained to detect fallacy, as the majority of men always are, and now too umch disturbed by the disorder of the times, to consider that the ordei of events had any legitimate bearing on the argument. Though Mr. Lincoln was too sagacious to give the Northern allies of the Rebels the occasion they desired „nd even strove to provoke, yet from the beginning of the war the most persistent efforts have been made to ronfuse the public mind as to its origin and motives, and to drag the people of the loyal States down from the national position they had instinctively taken to the old level of party squabbles and antipathies. The wholly unprovoked rebellion of an oligarchy proclaim- ing negro slavery the corner-stone of free institutional and in the first flush of over-hasty confidence ventur- ing to parade the logical sequence of their leading dogma, " that slavery is right in principle, and baa Toothing to do with difference of complexion," has been represented as a legitimate and gallant attempt to maintain the true principles of democracy. The rightful endeavor of an established government, the least onerous that ever existed, to defend itself againsr 4 treacherous attack on its very existence, has been
30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
cunningly made to seem the wicked effort of a fanati" cal clique to force its doctrines on an oppressed popu- lation.
Even so long ago as when Mr. Lincoln, not yet con-' vinced of the danger and magnitude of the crisis, was ^ideavoring to persuade himself of Union majorities at liie South, and to carry on a war that was half peace in the hope of a peace that would have been all war, — while he was still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, under some theory that Secession, however it might absolve States from their obligations, could not es- cheat them of their claims under the Constitution, and that slaveholders in rebellion had alone among mortals the privilege of having their cake and eating it at the same time, — the enemies of free government were striving to persuade the people that the war was an Abolition crusade. To rebel without reason was pro- claimed as one of the rights of man, while it was care- fully kept out of sight that to suppress rebellion is the first duty of government. All the evils that have come ujDon the country have been attributed to the Abolitionists, though it is hard to see how any party can become permanently powerful except in one of fcwo ways, — either by the greater truth of its princi- ples, or the extravagance of the party opposed to it- To fancy the ship of state, riding safe at her constitu= tional moorings, suddenly engulfed by a huge kraken of Abolitionism, rising from unknown depths and grasping it with slimy tentacles, is to look at the nat- ural history of the matter with the eyes of Pontop- pidan.i To believe that the leaders in the Southern treason feared any danger from Abolitionism, would be to deny them ordinary intelligence, though there 1 A Danisn antiquary and theologian.
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 31
can be little doubt that they made use of it to stir the passions and excite the fears of their deluded accom- plices. They rebelled, not because they thought slav- ery weak, but because they believed it strong enough, not to overthrow the government, but to get posses- sion of it ; for it becomes daily clearer that they used rebellion only as a means of revolution, and if they got revolution, though not in the shape they looked for, is tlie American people to save them from its con- sequences at the cost of its own existence ? The elec- tion of Mr. Lincoln, which it was clearly in their power to prevent had they wished, was the occasion merely, and not the cause, of their revolt. Abolition^ ism, till within a year or two, was the despised heresy of a few earnest persons, without political weight enough to carry the election of a parish constable ; and their cardinal principle was disunion, because they were convinced that within the Union the posi- tion of slavery was impregnable. In spite of the proverb, great effects do not follow from small causes, — that is, disproportionately small, — but from ade- quate causes acting under certain required conditions. To contrast the size of the oak with that of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid all costs from its slender strong-box, may serve for a child's wonder 5 but the real miracle lies in that divine league which bound all the forces of nature to the service of the tiny germ in fidfilling its destiny. Everything has been at work for the past ten years in the cause of anti-slavery, but Garrison and Phillips have been far less successful propagandists than the slaveholders themselves, with the constantly growing arrogance of their pretensions and encroachments. They have fofced the question upon the attention of every voter
S2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
in the Free States, by defiantly putting freedom and democracy on the defensive. But, even after the Kansas outrages, there was no wide-spread desire on the part of the North to commit aggressions, though there was a growing determination to resist them. The popular unanimity in favor of the war three year& ago was but in small measure the result of anti-sl?very sentiment, far less of any zeal for abolition. But every month of the war, every movement of the allies of slavery -in the Free States, has been making Aboli- tionists by the thousand. The masses of any people, however intelligent, are very little moved by abstract principles of humanity and justice, until those prin- ciples are interpreted for them by the stinging com- mentary of some infringement upon their own rights, and then their instincts and passions, once aroused, do indeed derive an incalculable reinforcement of impulse and intensity from those higher ideas, those sublime traditions, which have no motive political force till they are allied with a sense of immediate personal wrong or imminent peril. Then at last the stars in their courses begin to fight against Sisera. Had any one doubted before that the rights of human nature are unitary, that oppression is of one hue the world over, no matter what the color of the oppressed^ — had any one failed to see what the real essence oi.' the contest was, — the efforts of the advocates of slav ery among ourselves to throw discredit upon the fun damental axioms of the Declaration of Independence and the radical doctrines of Christianity, could not fail to sharpen his eyes.
While every day was bringing the people nearer to the conclusion which all thinking men saw to be inev itable fi'om the beginning, it was wise in Mr. Lincoiu
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 33
to leave the shaping of his policy to events. In this country, where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure at last to be the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the best genius for states- manship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted in more firmly uniting public opinion. One of the things particularly admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without losing respect, something very manly in one who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher compliment was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, the fireside plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always addresses himself to the reason of the American people. This was, indeed, a true democrat, who grounded him- self on the assumption that a democracy can think. " Come, let us reason together about this matter," has been the tone of all his addresses to the people ; and accordingly we have never had a chief magistrate who so won to himself the love and at the same time the judgment of his countrymen. To us, that sim- ple confidence of his in the right-mindedness of his f ellovz-men is very touching, and its success is as strong an argument as we have ever seen in favor of the theory that men can govern themselves. He never ap- peals to any vulgar sentiment, he never alludes to the humbleness of his origin ; it probably never oo-
84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
curred to liim, indeed, that there was anything higher to start from than manhood ; and he put himself on a level with those he addressed, not by going down to them, but only by taking it for granted that they had brains and would come up to a common ground of reasoji. In an article lately printed in The Nation^ Mr. Bayard Taylor mentions the striking fact, that m the foulest dens of the Five Points he found the portrait of Lincoln. The wretched population that makes its hive there threw all its votes and more against him, and yet paid this instinctive tribute to the sweet humanity of his nature. There ignorance sold its vote and took its money, but all that was left of manhood in them recognized its saint and martyr.
Mr. Lincoln is not in the habit of saying, " This is my opinion, or my theory," but " This is the conclu- sion to which, in my judgment, the time has come, and to which, accordingly, the sooner we come the better for us." His policy has been the policy of public opinion based on adequate discussion and on a timely recognition of the influence of passing events in shaping the features of events to come.
One secret of Mr. Lincoln's i-emarkable success in captivating the popular mind is undoubtedly an un- consciousness of self which enables him, though under the necessity of constantly using the capital /, to do it without any suggestion of egotism. There is no single vowel which men's mouths can pronounce with such difference of effect. That which one shall hide away, as it were, behind the substance of his dis- course, or, if he bring it to the front, shall use merely to give an agreeable accent of individuality to what he says, another shall make an offensive challenge to the self-satisfaction of all his hearers, and an unwai>
LOWELL'S ESSAY. 35
ranted intrusion upon each man's sense of personal importance, irritating every pore of his vanity, like a dry northeast wind, to a goose-flesh of opposition and hostility. Mr. Lincoln has never studied Quinti- lian ; ^ but he has, in the earnest simplicity and un- affected Americanism of his own character, one art . of oratory worth all the rest. He forgets himself so entirely in his object as to give his I the sympathetic and persuasive effect of We with the great bcdy of his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing all the rough-edged process of his thought as it goes along, yet arriving at his conclusions with an honest kind of overy-day logic, he is so eminently our repre- sentative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the people were listening to their own thinking aloud. The dignity of his thought owes nothing to any cere- monial garb of words, but to the manly movement that comes of settled purpose and an energy of reason that knows not what rhetoric means. There has been nothing of Cleon, still less of Strepsiades ^ striving to imderbid him in demagogism, to be found in the pub- lic uttei-ances of Mr. Lincoln. He has always ad- dressed the intelligence of men, never their prejudice, their passion, or their ignorance.
On the day of his death, this simple Western attor- ney, who according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this
1 A famons Latin writer on the Art of Oratory.
'^ Two Ath^inian demagogues, satirized by the dramatist Aristo- phanes.
S6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid ou the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor was tliis ail, for it appeared that he had drawn the great majority, not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, to his side. So strong and so per- suasive is honest manliness without a single quality of romance or unreal sentiment to help it ! A civilian during times of the most captivating military achieve- ment, awkward, with no skill in the lower technicali- ties of manners, he left behind him a fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace higher than that of outward person, and of a gentlemanliness deeper than mere breeding. Never before that star- tled April morning did such multitudes of men shed tears for the death of one they had never seen, as if ■with him a friendly presence had been taken away from their lives, leaving them colder and darker. Never was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silent look of sympathy which strangers exchanged when they met on that day. Their common manhood had lost a kinsman.
1.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S SPEECH
AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY, GETTYS BURG, PENNSYLVANIA, NOVEMBER 19, 1863.
The great battles fought at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in July, 1863, made that sjjot historic ground. It was early perceived that the battles were critical, and they are now looked upon by many as the turning-point of the war for the Union. The ground where the fiercest conflict raged was taken for a national cemetery, and the dedication of the place was made an occasion of gi-eat solemnity. The orator of the day was Edward Everett, who was regarded as the most finished public speaker in the country. Mr. Everett made a long and eloquent address, and was followed by the President in a little speech which instan- taneously affected the country, whether people were educated or unlettered, as a great speech. The impression created has deep- ened with time. Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on Elo' quence says : " I believe it to be true that when any orator at th© bar or the Senate rises in his thought, he descends in his lan- guage, that is, when he rises to any height of thought or passioii, he comes down to a language level with the ear of all his au- dience. It is the merit of John Brown and of Abraham Lincoln • — one at Charlestown, one at Gettysburg — in the two best specimens of eloquence we have had in this country."
It is worth while to listen to Mr. Lincoln's own account of the education which prepared him for public speaking. Before he was nominated for the presidency he had attracted the notice of people by a remarkable contest in debate with a famous Illinois statesman, Stephen Arnold Douglas. As a consequence Mr. Lincoln received a great many invitations to speak in the East- ern States, and made, among others, a notable speech at the Cooper Union, New York. Shortly after, he spoke also at New Haven, and the Rev. J. P. Gulliver in a paper in the Npw York
38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Independent, Sept. 1, 18G4, thus reports a conversation which he held with him when traveling in the same railroad car : —
" * Ah, that reminds me,' he said, ' of a most extraordinary circumstance, which occurred in New Haven, the other day. They told me that the Professor of Rhetoric in Yale College — ■ a very learned man, is n't he ? ' ' Yes, sir, and a very fine critic, too.' ' Well, I suppose so ; he ought to be, at any rate — They told me that he came to hear me and took notes of my speech, and gave a lecture on it to liis class the next day ; and, not satis- fied with that, he followed me up to Meriden the next evening, and heard me again for the same purpose. Now, if this is so, ii is to my mind very extraordinary. I have been sufficiently as- tonished at my success in the West. It has been most unex- pected. But I had no thought of any marked success at the East, and least of all that I should draw out such commendations from literary and learned men ! '
" ' That suggests, Mr. Lincoln, an inquiry which has several times been upon my lips during this conversation. I want very much to know how you got this unusual power of " putting things." It must have been a matter of education. No man has it by nature alone. What has your education been ? '
" 'Well, as to education, the newspapers are correct. I never went to school more than six months in my life. But, as you say, this must be a product of culture in some form. I have been putting the question you ask me to myself while you have been talking. I say this, that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything else in my life. But that al- ways disturbed my temper, and has ever since. I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the pight walking up and down, and trying to make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt af- ter an idea, until I had caught it ; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me, for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north and bounded it
GETTYSBURG SPEECH. 39
aoutli and bounded it east and bounded it west. Perhaps that accounts for the characteristic you observe in my speeches, tliough I never put the two things together before.' " But to the speech itself.
FouESCORE and seven years ago, our fathers brought tcvili on this continent a new nation, conceived in lib- erty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final rest- ing-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can- not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, —that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, — that this nation, under God, shuU have a new birth of freedom, — and that government of the people, by the people, for the peoi:>le, shall not perish from the earth.
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN:
n.
THE FIRST INAUGUEAL ADDRESS.
On the 4th of March, 1861, Mr. Lincoln took the oatli of office as President of the TJnited States, and then from the east portico of the Capitol delivered to an immense throng his in» augural address. He had written it before coming to Washing- ton, and had asked criticism upon it from a few prominent men, among them William H. Seward, who was looked, upon by most as the great Republican statesman of the day. The criticism of these men was considered by Mr. Lincoln, and in some instances used to modify his address. The most interesting change was due to Mr. Seward's advice that " some words of affection, some of calm and cheerful confidence ^.hould be added." To make his meaning clear, Mr. Seward drew up a paragraph for Mr. Lin- coln's use if he chose to take it. Mr. Lincoln liked the thought, but liis style differed from Mr. Seward's, and he rewrote the paragraph in his own words. For the sake of comparison, Mr. Seward's paragraph is given in a foot-note at the proper place. He wrote full, sonorous English, Mr. Lincoln terse, nervous, di- rect speech, and the contrast between the two is very striking.
Fellow-citizens of the United States : In compliance with a custom as old as the Government it- self, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Con- stitution of the United States to be taken by the Presi- dent " before he enters on the execution of his office."
I do not consider it necessary at present for me tc discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Repub- lican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There
THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 41
has never been any reasonable cause for such appre- hension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the con- trary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that " I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere ',vith the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than this, thej' placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read :
" Resolved, that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institu* tions according to its own judgment exclusively, is es- sential to that balance of power on which the perfec- tion and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."
I now reiterate these sentiments ; and, in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most con- clusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Ad- ministration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistentlj"- with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause ^— as cheerfully to one section, as to another.
42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions :
" No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis° charged from such service or labor, but shall be deliv= ered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was in- tended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves ; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution — to this jjro- vision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves, whose cases come within the terms of tliis clause, " shall be delivered up " their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, couid they not, with nearly equal unanim- ity, fi-ame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State au- thority ; but surely that difference is not a very mate- rial one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him, or to others, by which authority it is done. And should any one, in any case, be content that his oath shall go unkept, on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept ?
Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and hu- mane jurisprudence to be introduced so that a free
THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 43
man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave ? And might it not be well at the same time to jsrovide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Consti- tution which guarantees that " the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States " ?
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reser« vations and with no purpose to construe the Constitu- tion or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while 1 do not choose now to specify particular acts of Con- gi-ess as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. Dur- ing that period fifteen different and greatly distin- guished citizens have, in succession, administered the Executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitu- tional term of four years, under great and peculiai* difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, hereto- fore only menaced, is now foi-midably attempted.
I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the union of these States is per= petual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions or our
44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
National Constitution, and the Union will endure for. ever — it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States iu the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably un- made by less than all the parties who made it ? One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak, but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitu- tion. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Asso- ciation in 1774. It was matured and continued by tiie Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was, " to form a more perfect Unions
But if destruction of the Union by one, or by a part only, of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views, that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union , that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void •, and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circum- stances.
THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 45
I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitu- tion and the laws, the Union is unbroken ; and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitu- tion itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing- this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part ; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, un- less my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared pur- pose of the Union that it will constitutionally defenc{ and maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or vio- lence ; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the prop- erty and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no inva- sion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Govern- ment to enforce the exercise of these offices, the at- tempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be fur- nished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect
46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
security whieli is most favorable to calm thovight and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a mod- ification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised accord- ing to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny ; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union, may I not speak ?
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the de- struction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to as- certain precisely why we do it ? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real exist- ence ? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from — will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake ?
All profess to be content in the Union, if all consti^ tutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, theHj that any right, plainly written in the Constitutionj has been denied ? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minor- ity of any clearly written constitutional right, it mighti
THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 47
in a moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly would, if such right were a vital one. But such is not oin' case. All the vital rights of minorities and of in- dividuals are so plainly assured to them by affirma- tions and negations, guarantees and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No fore- sight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority ? The Constitution does not expressly say. Hay Congress prohibit slav- ery in the Territories ? The Constitution does not ex. pressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Tei ritories ? The Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitu- tional conti-oversies, and we divide upon them into ma- jorities and minorities. If the minority will not acqui- esce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative ; for continuing the Gov- ernment is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, thej'^ make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them ; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be con^ trolled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it ? All who Dherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the
48 AUKAHAM LINCOLN.
States to compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession ?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitu- tional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people., Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible ; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly in- admissible ; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Su- preme Coui-t ; nor do 1 deny that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled, and never be- come a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government, upon vital questions affect- ing the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by de- cisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in per- sonal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribu« nal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the
THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 49
court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases pi-operly brought be- fore them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
One section of our country believes Slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only subscantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured ; and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sec- tions, than before. The foreign slave-trade, now im- perfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived with- out restriction in one section ; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surren- dered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can- not remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A hus- band and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other ; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more ad- vantageous or more satisfactoi'y after separation than he fore ? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends -•an make laws ? Can treaties be more faithfully en- forced between aliens than laws can among friends ?
,^0 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always ; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. "Whenever they shall grow wear}"^ of the existing Government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their rev-- olutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommenda- tion of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful au- thority of the people over the whole subject, to be ex- ercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instru- ment itself ; and I should, under existing circumstan- ces, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add, that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either acce])t or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution — which amendment, however, I have not seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the do= mestic institutions of the States, including that of per- sons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitu- tional law, I have no objections to its being made ex- press and irrevocable.
THE FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 51
The Cliief Magistrate derives all his authority from the peojile, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose ; but the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world ? In our present differences is either party without faith of being in the right ? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth aad justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
By the frame of the Government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief ; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no adminis- tration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time ; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive
52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
point, the laws of your own framing under it ; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that yon who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dis- pute, there still is no single good reason for precipi« tate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsakea this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied feUow-countrymeiij and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can havg no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while /shall have the most solemn one to " preserve, protect, and defend it." ^
I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be ei^emies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of af- fection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every liv- ing heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land,
^ The original draft, after the words " preserve, protect, and de- fend it," concluded as follows, addressing itself to "my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen " ; " You can forbear the assault upon it, I cannot shrink from the defense of it. With you, and not with me, is the sol= emn question of ' Shall it be peace or a sword ? '"
Mr. Seward submitted two separate drafts for a closing paragraph. The second of these, containing the thought adopted by Mr. Lincoln, was as follows : —
" I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fel- low-countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many bat- tlefields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and al) hearths in ims broad continent of ours, will yet again h^nnonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation."
LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY. 63
mil yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
III.
LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY.
The Administration, during the early months of the War for the Union, was greatly perplexed as to the proper mode of dealing with slavery, especially in the districts occupied by the Union forces. In the summer of 1862, when Mr. Lincoln was earnestly contemplating his Proclamation of Emancipation, Horace Greeley, the leading Republican editor, published in hia paper, the New York Tribune, a severe article in the form of a letter addressed to the President, taking him to task for failing to meet the just expectations of twenty millions of loyal people. Thereupon Mr. Lincoln sent him the following letter : —
ExECUTrvE Mansion, Washington,
August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley. — Dear Sir : I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself throug^i the JVew York Tribune. If there be in it any state- ments or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the
54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Union will be " The Union as it was." If there "be those who woul i not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing aiiy slave, I would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I woidd also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less^ when- ever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause; and I shall do 7?^ore, whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of offi- cial duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-ex- pressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. Yours, A. Lincoln.
IV. •
REPLY TO A COMMITTEE.
While the President was considering seriously the proposal to Issue a proclamation of emancipation, he was naturally urged by many to take such a step and by many not to take it. The following reply to a committee from the religious denomina- tions of Chicago, which waited on him September 13, 18G2, urging him to issue the proclamation, is a good example of how the President was iu the habit of thinking aloud and statiutf
REPLY TO A COMMITTEE. 55
both sides of a question, even when he had practically made up his I liud.
The subject presented in the memorial is one upon wLiih I Lave thought much for weeks past, and I may 3ven say for months. I am apjjroached with the most ippoiite opinions and advice, and that by religious men who are equally certain that they represent the iivina will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some respei'ts both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to saf that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me ; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is, I will do it. These are not, however, the days of jiiiracles, and I suppose it \\\\\ be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.
The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree. For instance, the other day four gentlemen of standing and intelligence from New York called as a delegation on business connected with the war ; but, before leaving, two of them earnestly beset me to proclaim general emancipation, upon which the other, two at once attacked them. You know also that the last session of Congress had a decided majority of anti-slavery men, yet they could not unite on this policy. And the same is true of the religious people. Why, the rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more earnestness, I fear, than our own troops, and expecting God to favor their side ; for one of our sol*
56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
diers who had been taken prisoner told Senator Wil. son a few days since that he met with nothing so discouraging as the evident sincerity of those he was among in their prayers. But we will talk over the merits of the case.
What good would a proclamation of emancij^ation from me do, especially as we are now situated ? I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inopeiative, like the Pope's bull against the comet. Would my word free the slaves, when I cannot even enforce the Constitu- tion in the rebel States ? Is there a single court, or magistrate, or individual that would be influenced by it there ? And what i-eason is there to think it would have any greater effect upon the slaves than the late law of Congress, which I approved, and which offers protection and freedom to the slaves of rabel masters who come within our lines? Yet I cannot learn that that law has caused a single slave to come ovei to u?. And suppose they could be induced by a proolamatiou of freedom from me to throw themselves upon us, what should we do with them ? How can we feed and care for such a nuiltitude ? General Butler wrote me a few days since that he was issuing more rations to the slaves who have rushed to him than to ali the white troops under his command. They eat, and that is all ; though it is true General Butler is feeding the whites also by the thousand, for it nearly amounts to a famine there. If, now, the pressure of the war should call off our forces from New Orleans to defend some other point, what is to prevent the masters from reducing the blacks to slavery again? For I am told that whenever the rebels take any black prisoners, free or slave, they immediately auction them off.
REPLY TO A COMMITTEE. 5T
Tbey did so with those they took from a boat that was aground in the Tennessee River a few days ago. And then I am very ungenerously attacked for it ! For instance, when, after the late battles at and near Bull Run, an expedition went out from Washington under a flag of truce to bury the dead and bring in the wounded, and the rebels seized the blacks who went along to help, and sent them into slaver}', Horace Greeley said in his paper that the goveru- iiient would probably do nothing about it. What could I do ?
Now, then, tell me, if you please, what possible residt of good would follow the issuing of such a pro- clamation as you desire ? Understand, I raise no ob- jections against it on legal or constitutional grounds : for, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, in time of war I suppose I have a right to take any measure which may best subdue the enemy ; nor do I . ui'ge objections of a moral nature, in view of possible consequences of insurrection and massa(ne at the South. I view this matter as a practical war mea- sure, to be decided on according to the advantages or disadvantages it may offer to the suppression of the rebellion.
I admit that slavery is the root of the rebellion, or at least its sine qua non. The ambition of politicians may have instigated them to act, but they would have been impotent without slavery as their instrument. I will also concede that emancipation would help us in Europe, and convince them that we are* incited by something more than ambition. I grant, further, that it would help somewhat at the North, though not so much, I fear, as you and those you represent imagine. Still, some additional strength would be added in that
58 - ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
way to the war, and then, unquestionably, it would weaken the rebels by drawing off their laborers, which is of great importance ; but I am not so sure we could do much with the blacks. I!: we were to arm them, I fear that in a few weeks the arms would be in the hands of the rebels ; and, indeed, thus far we have not had arms enough to equip our white troops. I will mention another thing, though it meet only your scorn and contempt. There are fifty thousand bayo- nets in the Union amnies from the border slave States. It would be a serious matter if, in consequence of a proclamation such as you desire, they should go over to the rebels. I do not think they all would — not so many, indeed, as a year ago, or as six months ago — not so many to-day as yesterday. Every day increases their Union feeling. They are also getting their pride enlisted, and want to beat the rebels. Let me say one thing more : I think you should admit that we already have an important principle to rally and unite the people, in the fact that constitutional government is at stake. This is a fundamental idea going down about as deep as anything.
Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned these objections. They indicate the difficulties that have thus far prevented my action in some such way as you desire. I have not decided against a proclama- tion of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement ; and I can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do. I trust that in the freedom with which I have can- vassed your views I have not in any respect injured your feelings.
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 59
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
Some time before the letter to Mr. Greeley was written, Lhj« C!>lii had drawn up a Proclamation of Emancipation, and was only waiting for a suitable hour when to publish it. He waited mitil after the battle of Antietam, and then, on the 22d of Septem- ber, 1862, issued his provisional proclamation in which he sol- emnly declared tJiat on the first day of January following " all persons held as slaves ^vithin any State, or any designated pari; of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall he then, thenceforward and forever free." The aunouncemeiit drew forth only bitter response from the Confederacy, and on the first day of January, 1803, the Presi- dent issued the final proclamation which is here given. The parts of the South excepted in the proclamation were those which were loyal or were occupied by Union troops.
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the Presi- dent of the United States, containing, among other
" That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves v/ithin any State, or desig- nated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then- thenceforward and forever free, and the Executive Government of the United States, including the mil- itary and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
" That the Executive will, on the first day of Janu-
60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ary aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States ; and the fact that any State, or the peo- ple thereof, shall on that day be in good faith repre- sented in the Congress of the United States by mem- bers chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have partici- pated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States ; " —
JVow, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority of, and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full pe- riod of one hundred days from the day first above- mentioned, order, and designate, as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit : Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James. Ascension, Assump- tion, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orkans, Mis- sissippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Eliza-
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 61
beth City, York, Princess Ann and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which ex- cepted parts are, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be free ; and that the Executive Government of the United States, in- cluding the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in neces- sary self-defense, and I recommend to them, that in all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for rea- sonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garriaon forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man ves- sels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon mil- itary necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In Testimony whereof^ I have hereunto set my name and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
Abeaham Lincoln.
By the President : "William H. Sewakd, Secretary of State.
62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
VI.
ACCOUNT OF THF EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
Mr. Frank B. Carpenter painted a large historical picture oi the signing of the proclamation, which is now in the capitol at Wasliington. While working on it, he saw nnicli of the Presi- dent, who gave him the following account in conversation. Mr. Carpenter printed the account in his Six Months at the White House.
" It had got to be," said Mr. Lincoln, " midsummer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing ; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tac- tics or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy ; and without con- sultation with or the knowledge of the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and, after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meet- ing upon the subject. This was the last of July or the first part of the month of August, 1862. [The exact date was July 22, 1862.] . . . All were present excepting Mr. Blair, the Postmaster-Genei-ai, who was absent at the opening of the discussion, but came in subsequently. I said to the (Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, and had not called them to- gether to ask their advice, but to lay the sidiject- matter of a proclamation before them, suggestions as to which would be in order after they had heard it read. Mr. Lovejoy v/as in error when he informed you that it excitod no comment excepting on the
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 63
part of Secretary Seward. Various suggestions were offered. Secretary Chase wished the language stronger in reference to the arming of the blacks.
" Mr. Blair, after he came in, deprecated the policy on the ground that it would cost the administration the fall elections. Nothing, however, was offered that I had not already fully anticipated and settled in my own mind until Secretary Seward spoke. He said in substance : ' Mr. President, I approve of the procla- mation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear the effect of so important a step. It may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted gov- ernment, a cry for help ; the government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government.' His idea," said the President, " was that it would be con- sidered our last shriek on the retreat. [This was his precise expression.] 'Now,' continued Mr. Seward, * while I approve the measure, I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war.' " Mr. Lincoln continued : " The wisdom of the view of the Secretary of State struck me with very great force. It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I had entirely overlooked. The result was, that I put tlie draft of the proclamation aside, as you do your sketch for a picture, waiting for a victory.
" From time to time I added or changed a line, touching it up here and there, anxiously watching the progress of events. Well, the next news we had
64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Mas of Pope's disaster at Bull Run. Things lookea t^iarker than ever. Finally came the week of the bat- tle of Antietam. I determined to wait no longer. The news came, I think, on Wednesday, that the Advantage was on our side. I was then staying at the Soldier's Home (three miles out of Washington). Here I finished writing the second draft of the ]n'e- liminary proclamation, came up on Saturday, called the Cabinet together to hear it, and it was published on the following Monday."
LETTER TO DISSATISFIED FRIENDS. 05
VII.
LETTER TO DISSATISFIED FRIENDS.
Tlie Proclamation of Emancipation was received with great jitisfaction by some, with discontent by others. The people of the North were by no means unanimous as yet upon the subject of the abolition of Slavery, and the criticism made upon the Pres- ident's course indicates his wide acquaintance with public senti- ment, by which he was enabled to act in crises, neither too soon nor too late. In the early fall of 1863 he was invited to meet his old neighbors at Springfield, Illinois, and the following letter was addressed to the chairman of the Committee of Invitation : —
Executive Mansion, Washington, August 20, 1863.
My Dear Sir, — Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the capital of Illinois on the 3d day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me thus to meet my old friends at my own home ; but I cannot just now be absent from this city so long as a visit there would require.
The meeting is to be of all those who maintain un- conditional devotion to the Union ; and I am sure that my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to the nation's life. There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I w^ould say : You desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we attain it ? There are but three conceivable ways : First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for
66 ' ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
it ? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union, I am against this. If you are, you should say so, plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise.
I do not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military — its army. That army dominates all the country and all the peo- ple within its range. Any offer of any terms made by any man or men within that range in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them. To illustrate : Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the North get together in con- vention, and frame and proclaim a compromise em- bracing the restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be used to keep Gen. Lee's army out of Pennsylvania ? Gen. Meade's army can keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and I think can ulti- mately drive it out of existence. But no paper com- promise to which the controllers of Gen. Lee's army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an ef= fort at such compromise we would waste time, which the enemy would improve to our disadvantage, and that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who control the Rebel army, or with the people, first liberated from the dom ination of that army by the success of our army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word or intimation from the Rebel army, or from any of the men control- ling it, in relation to any peace compromises, has ever
LETTER TO DISSATISFIED FRIENDS. 67
come to my knowledge or belief. All charges and in- timations to the contrary are deceptive and ground- less. And I promise you that if any such proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept secret from you. I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of the people, according to the bond of service, the United States Constitution ; and that, as such, I am responsible to them.
But, to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that ail men could be free, while you, I suppose, do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor pro- posed any measure which is not consistent with even your view, provided you are for the Union. I sug- gested compensated emancipation, to which you re- plied that you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I have not asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way as to save you from greater taxa- tion, to save the Union exclusively by other means.
You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is uncon- stitutional. I think differently. I think that the Constitution invests its Commander-in-chief with the laws of war in the time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that the slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed ? And is it not needed when- ever taking it helps us or hurts the enemy ? Armies, the world over, destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it ; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their povrer to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a
68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and female. But the proc- lamation, as law, is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think that its retrac- tion would operate favorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to sup- press the rebellion before the proclamation was issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice, that it was coming unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, who have given us our most important victories, believe the emancipation policy and the aid of colored troops con- stitute the heaviest blows yet dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of those important successes could not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders hold- ing these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called abolitionism, or with " re- publican party politics," but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit their opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures, and were not adopted as such in good faith.
You say that you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem to be willing to fight for you —
LETTER TO DISSATISFIED FRIENDS. 69
but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fig-hting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare that you will not fight to fret negroes. I thought that, in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differ- ently ? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them ? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of freedom. And the prom- ise, being made, must be kept.
The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great North- west for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white. The job was a great Na- tional one, and let none be banned who bore an honor= able part in it ; and while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not alL It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and better done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of less note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all the
70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
waters' margins they have been present : not only on the deep sea, the broad bay and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou ; and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks. Tlianks to all. For the great Republic »-= for the principles by which it lives and keeps alive =■ for man's vast future — thanks to all. Peace does not appear so far distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay : and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And then thei'e will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation ; while I fear that there will be some white men unable, to forget that, with malignant heart and deceitful speech, they have striven to hinder it.
Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a s^Deedy final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in H.is own good time, will give us the rightful result. Yours, very truly, A. Lincoln,
James C. Conkling, Esq.
A NATIONAL FAST DAY. 71
VIII.
] ROCLAMATIOX APPOINTING A NATIONAL FAST DAY.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA :
A Proclamation.
Whereas, the Senate of the United States, de- voutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and luuniliation.
And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overrul- ing power of God ; to confess their sins and trans- gressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and par- don ; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scrijjtures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
And insomuch as we know that by his divine law- nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people ? We have been the recipients of the choicest boun- ties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these man^
72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown ; but we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfidness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God tliat made us :
It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, Co confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness :
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do by this my proclamation designate and set apart Thurs- day, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day fron^ their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their "-everal places of public worship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and de- voted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand,
NEWS FROM GETTYSBUHG. 73
and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Wasliington, this thir- tieth day of March, in the year of our Lord [l. S.] one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.
Abraham Lincoln.
By the Prksident : William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
IX.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEWS FROM GETTYSBURG.
Washington, July 4, 10.30 a. m. The President announces to the country that news from the Army of the Potomac, up to 10 P. m. of the 3d, is such as to cover that army with the highest honor, to promise a great success to the cause of the Union, and to claim the condolence of all for the many gallant fallen ; and that for this he especially desires that on this day He whose will, not ours, should ever be done be everywhere remembered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude.
A. Lincoln.
14 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
X.
LETTER TO A. G. HODGES.
Executive MA^■SION, Washington; April 4, 18G4.
A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Kentucky,
.My deat' Si7\ — You ask me to put in writing tiie substance of what I verbally said the other day in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows : —
" I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never understood that the presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was ii^ the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, ])rotect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in oidinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times and in many ways, and I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government, that
LETTER TO A. G. HODGES. 75
nation, of which that Constitution was the oigaiiio hiw. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet pre- serve the Constitution ? By general law life and limb must be protected, yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life ; but a life is never wisely- given to save a limb. I felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming mdispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the nation. Kight or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together. When, early in the war, General Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later. General Cameron, then Secre- tary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispen- sable necessity. When, still later. General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable neces- sity had come. When, in March and May and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity fc r military eman- cipation and arming the blacks would come unless averted by that measure. They declined the propo- sition, and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. 1 chose the latter. In choosing it I hoped for gi-eater gain than loss ; but of this ]
76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our white military force, — no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are paljiable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men ; and we could not have had them without the measure.
" And now let any Union man who complains of the measure test himself by writing down in one line that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms ; and in the next, that he is for taking these hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be but for the mea- sure he condemns. If he cannot face his case so stated, it is only because he cannot face the truth."
I add a word which was not in the verbal conver- sation. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial his- tory will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.
Yours truly,
A. Lincoln.
THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 77
XI.
THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
Linuoln was reelected President, and delivered his seeocol! inaugural on the 4th of March, 1865, only a few weeks before ho was assassinated. The words in the closing paragraph were, so to speak, his legacy to his countrymen. By a natural im- pulse, they were hung out on banners and on the signs of mourn- ing which throughout the Union marked the grief of the people at the loss of their great leader.
Fellow-Countrymen : At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then, a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting- and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is nev/ could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself 5 and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encour- aging to all. With high hope for the future, no pre diction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impend, ing civil war. All dreaded it ; all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union
78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy/ it without war — seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both par ties deprecated war ; but one of them would 77iakc war rather than let the nation survive ; and the other would accejit war rather than let it i^erish. And the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves con- stituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial en- largement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has ah-eady at- tained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the con- flict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itseif should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces : but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be an- swered ; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has* His own purposes. " Woe unto the world because of offenses 1 for it must needs be that offenses come ; but woe to that man by whom the of- fense cometh." If we shall suppose American Slav- ery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of
THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 79
God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terri- ble war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him ? Fondly do we hoj^e,, fer- vently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, " The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his or- phan ; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
XII.
SPEECH IN INDEPENDENCE HALL.
On Washington's birthday, 1861, when Lincoln was on his wsu^ CO Washington to be inaugurated as the great successor to the gieat first President, it was arranged that he should raise a new flag at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He did so, and on the occasion made the following speech. It was in this hall that his body lay when it was on its way to Springfield after his as* sassinatiou.
I AM filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle from which sprang the institutions under which we Jive. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted country. I can say in return, sirs, that all the politi- cal sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here and framed and adopted that Declara- tion. I have pondered over the toils that were en- dured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the
SPEECH IN INDEPENDENCE HALL. %\
mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was thai: which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoul- ders of all men and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the De claration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved on that basis? If it can, I will con- sider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I ^an help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course ; and I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced upon the Government. 'The Government will not use force, unless force is used against it.
My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech, I did not expect to be called on to say a word when I came here. I supposed it was merely to do something towards raising a flag — I may, therefore, 'have said something indiscreet. [Cries of " No, No."] But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.
82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
XIII.
LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS.
This address, given in Washington April 11, 1865, is espeeiallj interesting as outlining the President's policy of reconstruction.
We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in glad- ness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insur- gent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, however. He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly pro- mulgated. Nor mv_st those whose harder part give us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. Their honois must not be parcelled out with others. I myself was liear the front, and had the high pleasure of trans- mitting much of the good news to you ; but no part of the honor for plan or execution is mine. To Gen- eral Grant, his skilful officers and brave men, all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part.
By these recent successes the reinauguration of the national authority, — reconstruction, — which has had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with, — no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must
LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS. 83
begin with and mould from disorganized and discord- ant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrass- ment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruc- tion. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be pro- voked by that to which I cannot properly offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State government of Louisiana.
In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public knows. In the annual message of December, 1863, and in the accompanying proclama- tion, I presented a pian of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to and sustained by the executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable, and I also distinctly protested that the executive claimed no right to say when or whether members should be admitted to seats in Con- gress from such States. This plan was in advance submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly ap- proved by every member of it. One of them sug- gested that I should then and in that connection apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the there- tofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana ; that I should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I should omit the protest against my own power in regard to the admission of members to Congress. But even he approved every part and parcel of the plan which has since been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana,
84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring eman. cipation for the whole State, practically applies the proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed people, and it is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to Congress. So that, as it applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message went to Con- gress, and I received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal, and not a single objection to it from any professed emancipationist came to my knowledge until after the news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about July, 1862, I had corresponded with different persons sujDposed to be interested in seeking a reconstruction of a State gov- ernment for Louisiana. When the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident that the people, with his military cooperation, would recon- struct substantially on that plan. I wrote to him and some of them to try it. They tried it, and the result is known. Such has been my only agency in getting up the Louisiana government.
As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. But as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is ad- verse to the public interest ; but I have not yet been so convinced. I have been shown a letter on tliis subject, supposed to be an able one, in which the writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely fixed on the question whether the ac- ceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it,
LAST PUBLIC ADDRESS. 85
It would perhaps add astonishment to his regret were he to learn that since I have found professed Union men endeavoring to make that question, I have pur- posely forborne any public expression upon it. As appears to me, that question has not been, nor yet is, a practically material one, and that any discussion of it, while it thus remains practically immaterial, could have no effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, that question is bad as the basis of a controversy, and good for nothing at all — a merely pernicious abstraction.
We all agree that the seceded States, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those States is to again get them into that proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these States and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it. The amount of constitu- ency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana gov- ernment rests would be more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000, or 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only about 12,000, as it does. It is also unsatisfac- tory to some that the elective franchise is not given
86 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.
Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it ? Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relations with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government? Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the State, held elections, organized a State government, adopted a free-State constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and wiiite, and empowering the legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man. Their legislature has already voted to ratify the con- stitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation. These 12,000 persons are thus fully committed to the Union and to perpetual freedom in the State — committed to the very things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants — and they ask the nation's recognition and its assistance to make good their committal.
Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to the white man : You are worthless or worse ; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you. To the blacks we say : This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, hold to j^our lips we will dasli from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and un- defined when, where, and how. If this course, dis-
LAST PUBLIC ADDRECS. SI
couraging and paralyzing both white and black, has any tendenc}^ to bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If, ou the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new government of Louisiana, tlie con- verse of all this is made tiae. We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of ihe 12,000 to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte foi it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The colored man, too, in seeing all imited for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end. Gi'ant that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by sav- ing the already advanced steps toward it than by run- ning backward over them ? Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should h& as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.
Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the na- tional Constitution. To meet this ^proposition, it has been argued that no more than three fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are neces- sary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not com- mit myself against this further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by three fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable. I repeat the question : Can Louisi- ana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding lier new State government ? What has been said of Louisi- ana will apply generally to other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such im-
88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
portant and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and unprecedented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such ex- clusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement. Important principles may and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announce- ment to the people of the South. I am considering, and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper.
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN I
BY WALT WHITMAN.
O Captain I my Captain ! our fearful trip is done ; The sliip has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is wor ; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring : But O heart ! heart ! heart !
O the bleeding drops of red.
Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ;
Rise up — for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills ;
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores a-crowd<
ing; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain ! dear father !
This arm beneath your head ;
It is some dream that on the deck You 've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will ; The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won ; Exult, O shores ! and ring, O bells ! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies Fallen cold and dead.
APPENDIX
LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION
L INTRODUCTION
On Feliruary 9, 1860, Mr. Cliarles C. Nott wrote to Lincoln from 69 Wall Street, New York, inviting him, under the auspices of the Young Men's Central Republi- can Union, to deliver one of a series of lectures that, as he said, had been contrived to call out the city's better but busier citizens, " the kind who never attend political meetings." A large part of the audience, he added, would consist of ladies. He also assured Lincoln that, though he was not personally known in New York, his contest with Judge Douglas had awakened the warmest sympathy and admiration among his Republican brethren in that city.
Lincoln went East in response to this invitation, which had somehow got mixed in his mind with an earlier one, under the impression that he was to speak in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. After his arrival in New York he learned that the place was to be the Cooper Institute, and that the audience would probably include several men M'hom he felt were much more suited to be his tutors than his pupils. One of his friends had warned him not to make jokes, tell stories, or employ the arts of the Western stump speaker before an Eastern audience, but to rely upon that power of logical analysis of which he was such an irresistible master. Moved by this advice and doubt- less somewhat put upon his guard by the formidable char- acter of his prospective audience, he is .said to have spent the time, some three days, between his arrival and his ordeal, in severe preparation.
The night of February 27 was snowy, and the Cooper
92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Institute was, in consequence, not full. The audience was intelligent, respectable, and non-partisan. It included, how- ever, a number of the most distinguished citizens of New York, among them ex-Governor John A. King, James W. Nye, James A. Briggs, Cephas Brainerd, Charles C. Nott, and Horace Greeley. David D. Field, escorted the speaker to the platform, and he was introduced by William Culleu Bryant.
Though these men had never met Lincoln, they of course knew of his successful fight against Douglas. For two years his name had been constantly in the newspapers. They had come together to learn by what species of elo- quence Lincoln had contrived to attract so large a share of public attention.
To these polished citizens of the metropolis, before he rose, he seemed awed and ill at ease. They regarded his clothes with marked disapproval. His costume, one of them informs us, was the most unbecoming that a fiend's ingenuity could have devised, its most conspicuous points being a black frock coat, too short for him in the body, skirt, and arras, and a rolling collar that was so low that it disclosed his long, thin, and shriveled throat. Among the adjectives with which they sought to describe his ap- pearance before the lecture were " plain," " ungainly," " unadorned," ''uncultivated," " awkward," and " rustic."
When he rose to speak, however, all this was quickly forgotten. His gigantic frame, his deep-set eyes, the pallor of his face, and the story of hardship and struggle written in the deep furrows of his rugged features were impressive. As he proceeded with his address he seemed to be trans- formed. His eyes kindled, his voice rang, his face shone until it seemed to light up the whole assembly. For an hour and a half he held his audience spellbound. They had come expecting the turgid rhetoric, the bad grammar, The and the rude wit of the frontier. Instead they
Union'" found a man whose delivery and style were Address severely simple. The first half of his address did not contain a single illustrative figure. In the entire speech there was neither anecdote nor witticism. As Nicolay and
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 93
Hay truly write, it was the exposition of the historian and the argument of the statesman about a principle of legis- lation, in language as restrained as that of a brief. " Yet such," they continue, " was the apt choice of words, the simple strength of propositions, the fairness of every point he assumed and the force of every conclusion he drew, that his listeners followed him with the interest and delight a child feels in its easy mastery of a plain sum in arithmetic."
" That night," says Joseph H. Choate, later ambassador to Great Britain and himself one of the greatest of Ameri- can orators, '' the great hall, and the next day the whole city rang with delighted applause and congratulations." Horace Greeley said it was the wisest speech that any Kepublican had yet made, and that, although he had heard several of Webster's best addresses, he had never listened to a better one, ''Mr. Lincoln," said his paper, The Tribxine, on the following morning, " is one of na- lure's orators, using his rare powers solely to elucidate and convince, though tlieir inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this speech ; yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."
A pamphlet reprint of the speech was at once an- nounced; and in September, as a campaign document, a careful edition was published, with notes by Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, two members of the committee i;nder whose auspices the speech had been delivered. In their preface they show a keen appreciation of its value as revealed by close literary analysis. "No one," they say, " who has not actually attempted to verify its details can vinderstand the patient research and historical labor which it embodies. The history of our early politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and let- ters ; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy
94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
of statement, and in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not traveled over this grouiid apjire- ciate the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self-deny- ing impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln has turned from the testimony of the fathers on the general question of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the first line to the last, from his premises to his conclusion, he tiavels with a swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled, an argument complete and full without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A single easy sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words contains a chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to verify, and which must have cost the author months of investigation to acquire. Commencing with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as an historical work — brief, complete, profound, impartial, truthful — which will survive the time and the occasion that called it forth and be esteemed hereafter no less for its intrinsic worth than for its unpretending modesty."
After the speech Mr. Hiram Barney and Mr. Charles C. Nott took Lincoln to the Atheneeum for supper, and five or six Republican members of the club, who chanced to be' in the building, joined the party. The conversation turned to the prospects of the Republicans in the coming elections, but so little was Lincoln's real standing then comprehended in New York that one of the gentlemen, who had not heard the evening's address, asked : " Mr. Lincoln, what candidate do you really think would be most likely to carry Illinois? " Lincoln replied: " Illinois is a peculiar State, in three parts. In northern Illinois, Mr. Seward would have a larger majority than I could get. In middle Illinois, I think I couUi call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. In southern Illinois, it would make no difference who was the candidate." When the party broke lip, Mr. Nott went with Lincoln to show him the way to the Astor House. They started on foot, but finally boarded a street car, because Lincoln walked with difficulty on ac- count of the tightness of his boots, which were new. Mr.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 95
Nott did not go all the way ; instead, when the car reached his own street, he left the future President its sole occu- pant.
Here, too, we must leave him. To t,race the remainder of his career in a book of this size is alike impossible and unnecessary. It is impossible because it would be equiva- lent to writing the whole history of the great political cam- paign and the great Civil War which followed. It is un- necessary because every American schoolboy knows the story. Suffice it to say that, when Lincoln next came to New York, he rode at noonday in a carriage drawn by four white horses through lanes of shouting people. From that proud moment down to the moment of his tragic end his history is the history of the United States. His place since then was accurately described by Stanton when, standing by Lincoln's bedside just after the great Emancipator had breathed his last, he said : " Now he is with the ages ! "
11. Books for the Study of Lincoln" The literature which has grown up around the name and fame of Lincoln is so extensive that no one human being is likely ever to read it all. In 1906, Daniel Fish pub- lished a Lincoln Bibliography that filled 234 printed quarto pages and included 1080 titles. Fortunately, it is not necessary to read many of these, in order to gain a reasonable knowledge of the subject. The following are recommended as being, perhaps, the books most likely to be useful to a student : —
E^iERSON, Ralph Waldo : Abraham Lincoln. Remarks at the funeral services held in Concord, Mass., April 19, 1865. In Riverside Literature Series No. 133, with Schurz's Abraham Lincoln, etc. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1899. Hill, Frederick Trevor : Lincoln the Laicyer. The
Century Co., 1906, pp. xviii + 332. Lowell, James Russell : Abraham, Lincoln. In River- side Literature Series No. 133, with Schurz's Abraham Lincoln, etc. Ilouditon Mi.Tan Co. 1899.
96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
MoORES, Charles W: Tlte Life of Ahraliavi Lincoln for Boys and Girls. In Riverside Literature Series IS^o. 185. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1909. 132 pp.
Morse, JoHisr T., Jr. : Abraham Lincoln. A biography in two volumes. American Statesmen Series, vol. i, pp. 387; vol. II, pp. 373. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1893.
NicoLAY AND Hay : Abraliuin Lincoln: A History. By John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Lincoln's Secre- taries. The Century Co., 1890. Ten volumes. The standard Life of Lincoln.
NicoLAY and Hay : Comjjlete Works of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, with a general introduction by Richard "Watson Gilder; special articles by Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Wat- terson, Frank T. Black, AVilJiam jMcKinley, Phillips Brooks, Robert G. Ligersoll, George Bancroft, Charles Sumner, Henry Ward Beecher, and James A. Garfield; poems by Richard Henry Stoddard, S. Weir ]\Iitchell, Edwin Markham, Paul Laurence Dunbar, John James Piatt, William Cullen Bryant, Maurice Thompson, George Henry Boker, Walt Whitman, and Tom Taylor; an anthology ; a bibliography ; and a chronological in- dex. Twelve volumes. The Tandy-Thomas Co. A beau- tiful edition. Indispensable to the student.
EiCE, Allen Thorndike : Beminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by DistinguisJied Men of his Time. Eighth edition, pp. xl + 649. North American Review Co. A mine of information, from which several later writers have taken much.
Rothschild, Alonzo : Lincoln, Master of Men. Hough- ton Mifflin Co., 1906, pp. 531.
ScnvRZ, Caul: Abraham Lincoln. An Essay. In River- side Literature Series Xo. 133. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1899, pp. 117.
Tarbell, Ida M. : The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Two volumes. Doubleday & IMcCliire, 1900. Vol. i, pp. xiv4-426; vol. ii, pp. xi + 459. This work is readable and contains some matter not found inNicolay and Hay.
ADDRESS
Delivered at Cooper tlNiON, New York, February 27, 1860, by Abraham Lincoln
3fr. President and Felloio Citizens of Neio York :
1. The facts with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations follow- ing that presentation. In his speech last autumh at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times^ Senator Douglas said : " Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, under- stood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now."
2. I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the in- quiry : What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned ?
3. What is the frame of government under which we live? The answer must be, " The Constitution of the United States." That Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, and under which the present government first went into operation, and twelve sub- sequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were fiamed in 1789,
98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
4. Who were our fathers that framed the Constitu- tion ? I suppose the " thirty-nine " who signed the original instrument may be fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opin- ion and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. llieir names, being familiar to nearly all, and acces- sible to quite all, need not now be repeated.
5. I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as being " our fathers who framed the government under which we live." What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers understood " just as well, and even better, than we do now " ?
6. It is this : Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Government to control as to slav- ery in our Federal Territories?
7. Upon this. Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue ; and this issue — this question — is precisely what the text declares our fathers un- derstood " better than we." Let us now inquire whether the "^ thirty-nine," or any of them, ever acted upon this question ; and if they did, how they acted upon it — how they expressed that better understanding. In 1784, three years before the Constitution, the United States then owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other, the Congress of the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting slavery in that Territory ; and four of the " thirty-nine " who after- ward framed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted on that question. Of these, Roger Sher- man, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh Williamson voted
ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 99
for the prohibition, thus showing that, in their under- standing, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Federal Gov- ernment to control as to slavery in Federal territory. The other of the four, James McHenry, voted against the prohibition, showing that for some cause he thought it improper to vote for it.
8. In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the convention was in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still was the only Terri- tory owned by the United States, the same question of prohibiting slavery in the Territory again came before the Congress of the Confederation; and two more of the " thirty-nine " who afterward signed the Constitu- tion were in that Congress, and voted on the question. They were William Blount and William Few ; and they both voted for the prohibition — thus showing that in their understanding no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything else, properly foi'bade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory. This time the prohibition became a law, being part of what is now well known as the Ordinance of '87.
9. The question of Federal control of slavery in the Territories seems not to have been directly before the convention which framed the original Constitution ; and hence it is not recorded that the " thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument, expressed any opinion on that precise question.
10. In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for this act was reported by one of the "" thirty-nine " — Thomas
100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Fitzsimnions, then a member of the House of Repre- sentatives from Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of opposition, and finally passed botii branches without ayes and nays, which is equiv- alent to a unanimous passage. In this Congress there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, William S. Johnson, Roger Sher- man, Robert Morris, Thomas Fitzsimmons, William Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Pater- son, George Clymer, Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, and James Madison.
11. This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor any- thing in the Constitution, properly forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the Federal Territory ; else both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the prohibition.
12. Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then President of the United States, and as such approved and signed the bill, thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
13. No great while after the adoption of the orig- inal Constitution, North Carolina ceded to the Fed- eral Government the country now constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Qeorgia ceded that which now constitutes the States of Missis- sippi and Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the ceding States that the Fed-
'ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 101
eral Government should not prohibit slavery in the ceded country. Besides this, slavery was then actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances. Congress, on taking- charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit slavery within them. But they did interfere with it — take control of it — even there, to a certain extent. In 1798, Congi-ess organized the Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization they prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Terri- tory from any place without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so brought. This act passed both branches of Congress without 3^eas and nays. In that Congress were three of the " thirty - nine " who framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all probably voted for it. Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from Federal authority, or anything in the Con- stitution_, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
14. In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our former territorial acqui- sitions came from certain of our own States ; but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In 1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the peo- ple. Congress did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery ; but they did interfere with it — take control of it — in a more marked and extensive way than
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they did in the case of Mississippi. The substance o£ the provision therein made in relation to slaves was : —
1st. That no slave should be imported into the Ter- ritory from foreign parts.
2il. That no slave should be carried into it who had been imported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
3d. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the owner, and for his own use as a settler ; the penalty in all the nases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the slave.
15. This act also was passed without ayes or nays. In the Congress which passed it there were two of tht; " thirty-nine." They were Abraham Baldwin and Jona- than Dayton. As stated in the case of Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. They would not have allowed it to pass without recording their oppo- sition to it if, in their understanding, it violated either the line properly dividing local from Federal author- ity, or any provision of the Constitution.
16. In 1819-20 came and passed the Missouri ques- tion. Many votes were taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the various phases of the general question. Two of the "thirty-nine'' — Ruf us King and Charles Pinckney — were mem- bers of that Congress. Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted against slavery pro hihition and against all compromises. By this, Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line divid- ing local from Federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was violated by Congress prohibiting •lavery in Federal territory ; while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes,4 showed that, in his understanding, there
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was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibi- tion in that case,
17. The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the " thirty-nine," or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to discover.
18. To enumerate the persons who thus acted as being four in 1784, two in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in 1819-20, there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of those of the " thirty-nine " whom I have shovm to have acted upon the question which, by the text, they understood bet- ter than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in any way.
19. Here, then, we have twenty-three out of onr thirty-nine fathers " who framed the government under which we live," who have, upon their official respon- sibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question which the text affirms they " understood just as well, and even better, than we do now " ; and twenty- one of them — a clear majority of the whole "thirty- nine " — so acting upon it as to make them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury if, in their understanding, any proper division between local and Fedei'al authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made themselves, and sworn to support, for- bade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. Thus the twenty-one acted ; and, as actions speak louder than words, so actions under such responsibility speak still louder.
20. Two of the twenty-three voted against congres- sional prohibition of slavery in the Federal Territories,
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in the instances in which they acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not known. They may have done so because they thought a proper divi- sion of local from Federal authority, or some provision or principle of the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to them to be suffi- cient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he may think it ; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which he deems constitutional if, at the same time, he deems it inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two who voted against the prohibition as hav- ing done so because, in their understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
21. The remaining sixteen of the " thirty-nine," so far as I have discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the direct question of Federal con- trol of slavery in the Federal Territories. But there is much reason to believe that their understanding upon that question would not have appeared different from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at all.
22. For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution ; and, for the same reason, I have also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any of the "thirty-
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nine" even on any other phase of the general question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and dec- larations on those other phases, as the foreign slave- trade, and the morality and policy of slavery gener- ally, it would appear to us that, on the direct question of Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were several of the most noted anti-slavery men of those times, — as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris, — while there was not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John Rutledge, of South Carolina.
The sum of the whole is that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Constitution, twenty- one — a clear majority of the whole — certainly un- derstood that no proper division of local from Federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control slavery in the Fed- eral Territories ; while all the rest had probably the same understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the original Constitution ; and the text affirms that they under- stood the question " better than we."
23, But, so far, I have been considering the under- standing of the question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it ; and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the government under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist that Federal control of slavery in Federal Territories violates the Constitution, point us to the provisions which they sup*
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pose it thus violates ; and, as I understand, they all fix upon provisions in these amendatory articles, and not in the original instrument. The Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the Fifth Amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of " life, liberty, or property without due process of law " ; while Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the Tenth Amendment, pi'oviding that " the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" "are re- served to the States respectively, or to the people."
24. Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution — the identical Congress which passed the act, already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the same Congress, but they were the identical, same individual men wlio, at the same session, and at the same time within the session, had under consider- ation, and in progress toward maturity, these consti- tutional amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory the nation then owned. The con- stitutional amendments were introduced before, and passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so that, during the whole pendency of the act to en- force the Ordinance, the constitutional amendments were also pending.
25. The seventy-six members of that Congress, in- cluding sixteen of the framers of the original Consti- tution, as before stated, were preeminently our fathers who framed that part of "the government under which we live " which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal Government to control slavery in the Federal Territories.
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26. Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this d:iy to affirm that the two things which that Con- gress deliberately framed, and carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent with each other? And does not such affirmation become impu- dently absurd when coupled with the other affirmation, from the same mouth, that those who did the two things alleged to be inconsistent, understood whether they really were inconsistent better than we — better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent?
27. It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the original Constitution, and the seventy- six members of the Congress which framed the amend- ments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who may be fairly called " our fathei'S who framed the government under which we live." And so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his un- derstanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. I go a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I migiit almost say prior to the begin- ning of the last half of the present century), declare that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Con- stitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories. To those who now so declare I give not only "our fathers who framed the government under which we live," but with them all other living men within the century in which it was frauied, among whom to search, and they
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shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
28. Now, and here, let me guard a little against being- misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current expe- rience — to reject all progress, all improvement. What 1 do say is that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand ; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.
29. If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Govern- ment to control as to slavery in the Federal Territo- ries, he is right to say so, and to enforce his position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that " our fathers who framed the government under which we live " were of the same opinion — thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the government under which we live" used and a])- plied principles, in other cases, which ought to have led them to understand that a ])roper division of local from Federal authority, or some part of the Consti- tution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the
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responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did themselves ; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they " understood the question just as well, and even better, than we do now."
30. But enough! Let all who believe that "our fathers who framed the government under which we live understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask — all Republicans desire — in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let it be again niaiked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actunl presence among us makes that toleration and protec- tion a necessity. Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it be not grudgingly, but fully and fairly, main- tained. For this Republicans contend, and with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.
31. And now, if they would listen, — as I suppose they will not, — I would address a few words to the Southern people.
32. I would say to them : You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to " Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an un- conditional condemnation of " Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such cou' demnation of us seems to be an indispensable pre-
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requisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now can you or not be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves ? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 33. You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue ; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section — gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true ; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should therebj^ cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion ; and j^et, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by some wrong piin- ciple or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings yon to where you ought to have started — to a discus- sion of the right or wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in prac- tice, would wrong your section ; and so meet us as if
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it were possible that sometliing may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge ? No ! Then yon really believe that the principle which " our fathers who framed the government under which we live" thought so clearly I'ight as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's consideration.
34. Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washing- ton in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States, approved and signed an act of Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning ; and about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he considei-ed that jsrohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of free States.
35. Bearing this in mind, and seeing that section- alism has since arisen upon this same subject, is that wariwng a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you ? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his example point- ing to the right application of it.
36. But you say you are conservative — eminently conservative — while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new
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and untried ? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the government under which we live " ; while you with one accord re- ject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and in- sist upon substituting something new. True, you dis- agree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and de- nouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade ; some for a congressional slave code for the Territories •, some for Congress forbidding the Territories to pro- hibit slavery within their limits ; some for maintain- ing slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the " gur-reat pur-rinciple " that " if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called " popular sovereignty " ; but never a man among you is in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal Territories, according to the practice of " our fathers who framed the government under which we live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the cen- tury within which our government originated. Con- sider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations. 37. Again, you say we have made the slavery ques- tion more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who dis- carded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation ; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have
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that question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and pol- icy of the old times.
38. You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it ; and what is your proof ? Harper's Ferry ! John Brown ! ! John Brown was no Republican ; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it, or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inex- cusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.
39. Some of you admit that no Republican design- edly aided or encoui-aged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold no doctrine, and make no declara- tion, which were not held to and made by " our fathers who framed the government under which we live.'* You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to him- self at least, your charge was a slander, and he was
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not much inclined by it to cast liis vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are accompa- nied with a continual protest against any interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to re- volt. True, we do, in common with " our fathers who framed the government under which we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong ; but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know there is a Repub- lican party. I believe they would not, in fact, gener- ally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in their hearing. In your political contests among your- selves, each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism ; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simi)ly be insurrection, blood, and thunder among the slaves.
40. Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the Republican party was or- ganized. What induced the Southampton insurrec- tion, twenty-eight years ago, in which at least three times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry ? You can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was " got up by Black Republicanism." In the present state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or even a very extensive, slave insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be obtained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication ; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels ; but there neither ai-e, nor can be supplied, the indis- pensable connecting trains.
41. Much is said by Southern people about the
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affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses ; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an upris- ing could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule ; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case occur- ring under peculiar circumstances. The Gunpowder Plot of British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret ; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery ; but no gen- eral insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes, for such an event, will be alike disap- pointed.
42. In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, " It is still in our power to direct the proc- ess of emancipation and deportation peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibly ; and their places be, pari passtt, filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."
43. Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia ; and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States only. The Federal Government, however, as
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we insist, has the power of restraining the extension of the institution — the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now free from slavery.
44. John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that, the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in his- tory, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little less than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry, were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.
i5. And how much would it avail yon, if you could, by the use of John Brown, Helper's book, and the like, break up the Republican organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot de- stroy that judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire ; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it
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out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box into some other channel ? What would that other channel prob- ably be ? Would the number of John Browns be less- ened or enlarged by the operation?
46. But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your constitutional rights.
47. That has a somewhat reckless sound ; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we pro- posing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right plainly written down in the Constitu- tion. But we are proposing no such thing.
48. When you make these declarations you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as prop- erty. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.
49. Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the government, unless you be allowed to construe and force the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.
50. This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the dis- puted constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dic- tum and decision, the Court has decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court has substantially said, it is your constitutional right to take slaves into the Federal Territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a
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sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided court, by a bare majority of the judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it ; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact — the statement in the opinion that " the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly af- firmed in the Constitution."
51. An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not " distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it. Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution ; but they pledge their veracity that it is " distinctly and expressly " affirmed there — "distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything else — "expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the aid of any infer- ence, and susceptible of no other meaning.
62. If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is affirmed in the instrument by im- plication, it would be open to others to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be found in the Constitution, nor the word " property " even, in any connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery ; and that, wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a " person " ; and wherever his master's legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as " ser- vice or labor which may be due " — as a debt payable in service or labor. Also it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of allud- ing to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the Con-
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stitution the idea that there could be property in man.
53. To show all this is easy and certain.
54. When this obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to ex- pect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it ?
55. And then it is to be remembered that " our fathers who framed the government under which we live " — the men who made the Constitution — de- cided this same constitutional question in our favor long ago : decided it without division among them- selves when making the decision ; without division among themselves about the meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.
56. Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this government unless such a court decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action ? But you will not abide the election of a Republican President ! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union ; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us ! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer ! "
57. To be sure, what a robber demanded of me — my money — was my own ; and I had a clear right to keep it ; bat it was no more my own than my vote is my own ; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to
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extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.
58. A few words now to the Republicans. It is ex- ceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Con- federacy shall be at peace, and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper. Even though tLe Southern people will not so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possi- bly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.
59. Will they be satisfied if the Territories be un- conditionally surrendered to them ? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections ? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we ne^^er had anything to do with invasions and insurrections ; and yet this total abstain- ing does not exempt us from the charge and the de- nunciation.
60. The question recurs. What will satisfy them? Simply this : we must not only let them alone, but we must somehow convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no suc- cess. In all our platforms and speeches we have con- stantly protested our purpose to let them alone ; but ^this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike un-
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availing to convince tliein is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.
61. These natural and apparently adequate means all failing-, what will convince them ? This, and this only : cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free State constitutions. The whole at- mosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opjiosi- tion to slavery, before they v/ill cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
62. I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, " Let us alone ; do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone, — have never disturbed them, — so that, after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.
63. I am also aware they have not as yet in terms demanded the overthrow of our free State constitu- tions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayingi* shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these con- stitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that
122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
they do not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this con- summation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is mor- ally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing.
64. Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality — its universality ; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its en- largement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right ; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Think- ing it right, as they do, they are not to blame for de- siring its full recognition as being right ; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them ? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own ? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this ?
65. Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due CO the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Territories, and to overrun us here in these free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fear- lessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so
ADDRESS AT COOPER UNION 123
industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong: vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man ; such as a policy of " don't care" on a question about which all true men do care ; such as Union appeals beseech- ing true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance ; such as invocations to Wash- ington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said and undo what Washington did.
66. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.
PROGRAMMES.
[These programmes are merely in the way of suggestiono Teachers may find it more convenient to combine numbers? from different programmes into a new one.]
No. I.
1. Essay : Describing the scenes which take place at the inauguration of the President.
2. Recitation : Lincoln's second Inaugural.
3. Song : America.
4. A list of the Presidents of the United States, with the age of each upon inauguration.
5. Anecdotes : Descriptive of Lincoln in connection with his cabinet.
6. Reading: That portion of Lowell's Commemoration Ode descriptive of Lincoln.
No. II.
1. Description of the interior of Independence Hall, Phil» adelphia.
2. Account of the signing of the Declaration of Inde. pendence.
3. Declamation : Lincoln's speech in Independence HalL
4. Recitation : The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
5. Comparison of Washington and Lincoln.
6. Opinions by distinguished men of Lincoln's character and power given in brief by several pupils.
7. Recitation: 0 Captain, my Captain.
PROGRAMMES. 125
No. III.
1. Essay : Descriptive of the battle of Gettysburg.
2. Dedaination : Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg.
3. Estimates of the speech by eminent men.
4. Anecdotes about Lincoln, chosen by six pupilso
5. Account of the eagle, Old Abe.
6. Heading : Selections from Emerson's address.
No. IV.
1. Historical essay on the rise of the conflict with slavery.
2. Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.
3. Recitation of Whittier's The Jubilee Singers.
4. Reading of Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley.
5. Essay on the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, giving a history of its passage.
6. Recitation of Bryapt's Threnody.
No. V.
1. Essay: Lincoln's Parentage and Childhood, drawn from Chapter I. of Holland's Life of Lincoln.
2. Essay : Lincoln's Early Life and Marriage, selected from Ward H. Lamon's Life of Lincoln.
3. Essay : Lincoln's Manhood, as drawn from Lamon's Life, to his election to the Presidency.
4. Reading : From Lincoln's Speech on accepting nom^ ination to the U. S. Senate, Springfield, 111., June 17, 1858. Found in Raymond's Life of Lincoln, p. 52 et seq.
5. Essay : Descriptive of Lincoln's Famous Debate with S. A. Douglas, drawn from Chapter 11. Raymond's Life vf Lincoln.
6. Reading : Selections from Lincoln's Speech in Cooper Institute, New York, February 27, 1860. In Ray- mond's Life, p. 85.
126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
7. Heading : Selections from R. W- Emerson's Lecture on Abraham Lincoln.
8. Heading : Estimate of Lincoln's Character, Chapter XIII. Charles G. Leland's Life of Lincoln in the New Flutarch Series.
No. VI.
THE PRESIDENT.
1. Reading : From first Inaugural, March 4, 1861.
2. Essay : A Sketch of Mr. Lincoln's Presidential Life, drawn from any standard Life.
3. Reading : Descriptive of Lincoln's Tastes, from Six Months at the White House, Section XVI.
4. Reading: Herndon's Analysis of Lincoln's Charac- ter. Six Months at the White House, Section LXXIX.
5. Essay: Lincoln's Home Life as drawn from Six Months at the White House.
6. Reading: Anecdotes about Lincoln. The last forty pages of Raymond's Life are devoted to Anecdotes and Reminiscences.
7. Declamation: Exordium to Edward Everett's ^c?c?ress at Gettysburg.
8. Recitation : Selections from Bayard Taylor's Gettys- 'burg Ode.
9. Declamation : Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg.
10. Reading : Selections from Lincoln's second Inaugu- ral.
No. VII.
THE. EMANCIPATOR.
1. An Essay descriptive of the progress of the War to the Autumn of 1862.
2. Reading from Holland's Life of Lincoln, descriptive of the President's preparation and presentation of the Proclamation of Emancipation, reduced from pp. 390-395.
3. Reading : The Proclamation itself.
PROGRAMMES. 127
-*. Beading : From Whittier, The Proclamation.
5. Singing : America.
6. Readings selected from R. W. Emerson's The EnianA cipation Proclamation.
I. Reading: The Emancipation Proclamation, W. S. Robinson, " Warrington," from Pe?i Portraits.
8. Reading : The Death of Slavery, Bryant.
9. Reading : The Proclamation, as culled from tlie first part of Chapter XII. of Frederick Douglass' Life and Times.
10. Reading : Laus Deo, John G. Whittier.
II. Singing : Hymn, after the Emancipation Proclama tion, Dr. O. W. Holmes.
No. VIII.
THE MARTYR.
1. Essay : Descriptive of the Assassination.
2. Recitation : Death of Lincoln, Bryant.
Z. Reading : From Recollections of Abraham Lincoln.. Noah Brooks, Harper's Monthly, vol. xxxi., p. 222, July^ 1865.
4. Recitation : Abraham Lincoln, Alice Gary.
5. Reading : Easy Chair, Harjjer's Monthly, Vol, xxxi. p. 126, June, 1865.
6. Declamation : From Abraham Lincoln ; an Hora- tian Ode, R. H. Stoddard.
7. Reading: Mr. Lowell's Essay.
8. Recitation : Our Good President, Phoebe Cary.
9. Recitation'. Second Review of the Grand Army Bret Harte.
10. Reading : From Commemoration Ode, J. R. Lowell.
11. Song : For the Services in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, Dr. 0. W. Holmea.
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Born in a log-cabin near Hodgensville, now Lame County,
Kentucky February 12, 1809
His father moves with his family into the wilderness near Gen- try ville, Indiana 1816
His mother dies, at the age of 35 1818
His father's second marriage 1819
Walks nine miles a day, going to and returning from school . 1826 Makes a trip to New Orleans and back, at work on a flat-boat 1828 Drives in an ox-cart with his father and stepmother to a clear- ing on the Sangamon River, near Decatur, Illinois . . 1829 Splits rails, to surround the clearing with a fence . . . 1829 Makes another flat-boat trip to New Orleans and back, on which trip he first sees negroes shackled together in chains, and forms his opinions concerning slavery . . . May, 1831 Begins work in a store at New Salem, Illinois . . August, 1831 Enlists in the Black Hawk War ; elected a captain of volun- teers 1832
Announces himself a Whig candidate for the Legislature, and
is defeated 1833
Storekeeper, Postmaster, and Surveyor 1833
Elected to the Illinois Legislature 1834
Reelected to the Legislature 1835 to 1842
Studies law at Springfield 1837
Is a Presidential elector on the WTiig national ticket . . 1840
Marries Mary Todd November 4, 1842
Canvasses Illinois for Henry Clay 1844
Elected to Congress 1S46
Supports General Taylor for President 1848
Engages in law practice 1849-1854
Debates with Douglas at Peoria and Springfield . . . 1855 Aids in organizing the Republican party . . . 1855-1856 Joint debates in Illinois with Stephen A. Douglas . . . 1858
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST. 129
Makes political speeches in Ohio 1859
Visits New York, and speaks at Cooper Union . February, 1860 Attends Republican State Convention at Decatur ; declared to
be the choice of Illinois for the Presidency . . May, 1860 Nominated at Chicago as the Republican candidate for Presi- dent May 16, 1860
Elected President over J. C- Breckenridge, Stephen A. Douglas,
and John BeU ...... November, 1860
Inaugurated President March 4, 1861
Issues first order for troops to put down the Rebellion, April 15, 1861
Urges McClellan to advance April, 1862
Appeals for the support of border States to the Union cause,
March to July, 1862
Calls for 300,000 more troops July, 1862
Issues Emancipation Proclamation . . . January 1, 1863
Thanks Grant for capture of Vicksburg .... July, 1863 His address at Gettysburg .... November 19, 1863
Calls for 500,000 volunteers July, 1864
Renominated and reelected President 1864
Thanks Sherman for capture of Atlanta . . . September, 1864
His second inauguration March 4, 1865
i^sassinated April 14, 1865