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HIS CERTIFIES THAT
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OF THE AUTHORIZED LIFE OF
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IS NUMBERED AND
REGISTERED AND STRICTLY
LIMITED FOR THOSE WHO
HAVE LENT THEIR SUPPORT
TO THE LINCOLN PROGRAM
OF THE AMERICAN
HISTORICAL FOUNDATION
THIS 15 COPY
NUMBER /v?
IN WITNESS WHEREOF THE SEAL
OF THE FOUNDATION AND THE
SIGNATURE OF THE SECRETARY
ARE ATTACHED HERETO fi
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
^^U^k^ri^r
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
A History
The Full and Authorized Record
of His Private Life and
Public Career
By His Two Private Secretaries
JOHN G. NICOLAY and JOHN HAY
With the assistance of
Robert Todd Lincoln and the
Private Papers and Manuscripts
in His Possession
Rare Photographs, Maps, Private
and Official Papers in Facsimile
INDEXED— VOLUME I
Issued by
The American Historical Foundation
Copyright 1886 and 1890
by John G. Nicolat
and John Hay
Copyright renewed, 1914
by Helen G. Nicolat
TO THE HONORABLE
ROBERT TODD LINCOLN
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED
IN TOKEN OF
A LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP
AND ESTEEM
AUTHORS' PREFACE
A GENERATION born since Abraham Lincoln died
has already reached manhood and womanhood.
Yet there are millions still living who sympathized with
him in his noble aspirations, who labored with him in his
toilsome life, and whose hearts were saddened by his
tragic death. It is the almost unbroken testimony of
his contemporaries that by virtue of certain high traits
of character, in certain momentous lines of purpose and
achievement, he was incomparably the greatest man of
his time. The deliberate j udgment of those who knew him
has hardened into tradition ; for although but twenty-five
years have passed since he fell by the bullet of the
assassin, the tradition is already complete. The voice of
hostile faction is silent, or unheeded; even criticism is
gentle and timid. If history had said its last word, if no
more were to be known of him than is already written,
his fame, however lacking in definite outline, however dis-
torted by fable, would survive undiminished to the latest
generations. The blessings of an enfranchised race would
forever hail him as their liberator ; the nation would ac-
knowledge him as the mighty counselor whose patient
courage and wisdom saved the life of the republic in its
darkest hour; and illuminating his proud eminence as
ix
X AUTHORS' PREFACE
orator, statesman, and ruler, there would forever shine
around his memory the halo of that tender humanity and
Christian charity in which he walked among his fellow-
countrymen as their familiar companion and friend.
It is not, therefore, with any thought of adding mate-
rially to his already accomplished renown that we have
written the work which we now offer to our fellow-citizens.
But each age owes to its successors the truth in regard
to its own annals. The young men who have been born
since Sumter was fired on have a right to all their elders
know of the important events they came too late to share
in. The life and fame of Lincoln will not have their
legitimate effect of instruction and example unless the
circumstances among which he lived and found his
opportunities are placed in their true light before the
men who never saw him.
To write the life of this great American in such a way as
to show his relations to the times in which he moved, the
stupendous issues he controlled, the remarkable men by
whom he was surrounded, has been the purpose which
the authors have diligently pursued for many years. We
can say nothing of the result of our labor; only those
who have been similarly employed can appreciate the
sense of inadequate performance with which we regard
what we have accomplished. We claim for our work that
we have devoted to it twenty years of almost unremitting
assiduity; that we have neglected no means in our power
to ascertain the truth ; that we have rejected no authentic
facts essential to a candid story ; that we have had no
theory to establish, no personal grudge to gratify, no
una vowed objects to subserve. We have aimed to write
a sufficiently full and absolutely honest history of a great
man and a great time; and although we take it for
AUTHORS' PREFACE XI
granted that we have made mistakes, that we have fallen
into such errors and inaccuracies as are unavoidable in
so large a work, we claim there is not a line in all these
volumes dictated by malice or unfairness.
Our desire to have this work placed under the eyes of
the greatest possible number of readers induced us to
accept the generous offer of "The Century Magazine"
to print it first in that periodical. In this way it re-
ceived, as we expected, the intelligent criticism of a very
large number of readers, thoroughly informed in regard
to the events narrated, and we have derived the greatest
advantage from the suggestions and corrections which
have been elicited during the serial publication, which
began in November, 1886, and closed early in 1890. We
beg, here, to make our sincere acknowledgments to the
hundreds of friendly critics who have furnished us with
valuable information.
As " The Century " had already given, during several
years, a considerable portion of its pages to the elucida-
tion and discussion of the battles and campaigns of the
civil war, it was the opinion of its editor, in which we
coincided, that it was not advisable to print in the maga-
zine the full narrative sketch of the war which we had
prepared. We omitted also a large number of chapters
which, although essential to a history of the time, and
directly connected with the life of Mr. Lincoln, were still
episodical in their nature, and were perhaps not indis-
pensable to a comprehension of the principal events of
his administration. These are all included in the present
volumes ; they comprise additional chapters almost equal
in extent and fully equal in interest to those which have
already been printed in "The Century." Interspersed
throughout the work in their proper connection and
Xil AUTHOKS' PEEFACE
sequence, and containing some of the most important of
Mr. Lincoln's letters, they lend breadth and unity to the
historical drama.
We trust it will not be regarded as presumptuous if we
say a word in relation to the facilities we have enjoyed
and the methods we have used in the preparation of this
work. We knew Mr. Lincoln intimately before his elec-
tion to the Presidency. We came from Illinois to Wash-
ington with him, and remained at his side and in his
service — separately or together — until the day of his
death. We were the daily and nightly witnesses of the
incidents, the anxieties, the fears, and the hopes which
pervaded the Executive Mansion and the National
Capital. The President's correspondence, both official
and private, passed through our hands ; he gave us his
full confidence. We had personal acquaintance and
daily official intercourse with Cabinet Officers, Members
of Congress, Governors, and Military and Naval Officers
of all grades, whose affairs brought them to the White
House. It was during these years of the war that we
formed the design of writing this history and began to
prepare for it. President Lincoln gave it his sanction
and promised his cordial cooperation. After several
years' residence in Europe, we returned to this country
and began the execution of our long-cherished plan. Mr.
Robert T. Lincoln gave into our keeping all the official
and private papers and manuscripts in his possession, to
which we have added all the material we could acquire
by industry or by purchase. It is with the advantage,
therefore, of a wide personal acquaintance with aL. the
leading participants of the war, and of perfect familiarity
with the manuscript material, and also with the assist-
ance of the vast bulk of printed records and treatises
AUTHOKS' PKEFACE XLU
which have accumulated since 1865, that we have prose-
cuted this work to its close.
If we gained nothing else by our long association with
Mr. Lincoln we hope at least that we acquired from him
the habit of judging men and events with candor and
impartiality. The material placed in our hands was un-
exampled in value and fullness ; we have felt the obliga-
tion of using it with perfect fairness. We have striven
to be equally just to friends and to adversaries; where the
facts favor our enemies we have recorded them ungrudg-
ingly ; where they bear severely upon statesmen and gen-
erals whom we have loved and honored we have not
scrupled to set them forth, at the risk of being accused
of coldness and ingratitude to those with whom we have
lived on terms of intimate friendship. The recollection
of these friendships will always be to us a source of pride
and joy ; but in this book we have known no allegiance
but to the truth. We have in no case relied upon our
own memory of the events narrated, though they may
have passed under our own eyes ; we have seen too often
the danger of such a reliance in the reminiscences of
others. We have trusted only our diaries and memoranda
of the moment; and in the documents and reports we
have cited we have used incessant care to secure authen-
ticity. So far as possible, every story has been traced to
its source, and every document read in the official record
or the original manuscript.
We are aware of the prejudice which exists against a
book written by two persons, but we feel that in our
case the disadvantages of collaboration are reduced to the
minimum. Our experiences, our observations, our ma-
terial, have been for twenty years not merely homoge-
neous— they have been identical. Our plans were made
XIV
AUTHORS' PREFACE
with thorough concert ; our studies of the subject were
carried on together ; we were able to work simultaneously
without danger of repetition or conflict. The apportion-
ment of our separate tasks has been dictated purely by
convenience ; the division of topics between us has been
sometimes for long periods, sometimes almost for alter-
nate chapters. Each has written an equal portion of the
work ; while consultation and joint revision have been con-
tinuous, the text of each remains substantially unaltered.
It is in the fullest sense, and in every part, a joint work.
We each assume responsibility, not only for the whole,
but for all the details, and whatever credit or blame the
public may award our labors is equally due to both.
We commend the result of so many years of research
and diligence to all our countrymen, North and South, in
the hope that it may do something to secure a truthful
history of the great struggle which displayed on both
sides the highest qualities of American manhood, and
may contribute in some measure to the growth and
maintenance throughout all our borders of that spirit
of freedom and nationality for which Abraham Lincoln
lived and died.
^^^^^
ILLUSTRATIONS
Vol. I
Abraham Lincoln Frontispiece.
From a photograph taken about 1860 by Hesler, of Chicago ;
from the original negative owned by George B. Ayres, Phila-
delphia.
PAGE
Land "Warrant, issued to Abraham Linkhorn (Lincoln). . . 10
Fac-simile from the Field-Book of Daniel Boone 12
Surveyor's Certificate for Abraham Linkhorn (Lincoln). 14
House in which Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were
Married 16
Fac-simile of the Marriage Bond of Thomas Lincoln 22
Certificate, or Marriage List, containing the names of
Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks 26
Sarah Bush Lincoln at the Age of 76 32
From a photograph in possession of William H. Herndon.
Cabin on Goose-Nest Prairie, III., in which Thomas
Lincoln Lived and Died 48
Model of Lincoln's Invention for Buoying Vessels 72
Fac-simile of Drawings in the Patent Office 73
Leaf from Abraham Lincoln's Exercise Book 82
Soldier's Discharge from the Black Hawk War, signed
by A. Lincoln, Captain 92
Black Hawk 96
From a portrait by Charles B. King, from McKenny & Hall's
" Indian Tribes of North America."
xv
Xvi ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Stephen T. Logan 112
From the portrait in possession of his daughter. Mrs. L. H.
Coleman.
Abraham Lincoln's Surveying Instruments, Saddle Bag,
etc 114
Plan of Roads Surveyed by A. Lincoln and others 116
Fac-simile of Lincoln's Report of the Road Survey 118
O. H. Browning 128
From a photograph by Waide.
Martin Van Buren 144
From a photograph by Brady.
Col. E. D. Baker 160
From a photograph by Brady, about 1861.
Lincoln and Stuart's Law-Office, Springfield 168
Lincoln's Bookcase and Inkstand 170
From the Keyes Lincoln Memorial Collection, Chicago.
Globe Tavern, Springfield 174
Where Lincoln lived after his marriage.
"William Henry Harrison 176
From a painting, in 1841, by Henry Inman, owned by Benja-
min Harrison.
Fac-simile of Marriage Certificate of Abraham Lincoln. 188
By courtesy of the S. S. McClure Co.
Joshua Speed and Wife 192
From a painting by Healy, about 1864.
House in which Abraham Lincoln was Married 208
Gen. James Shields 224
From a photograph owned by David Delany.
Henry Clay 240
After a photograph by Rockwood, from the daguerreotype
owned by Alfred Hassack.
Zachary Taylor 256
From the painting by Vanderlyn in the Corcoran Gallery.
Joshua R. Giddings 288
From a photograph by Brady.
David Davis 304
From a photograph by Brady.
James K. Polk 320
From a photograph by Brady.
Franklin Pierce 336
From a photograph by Brady.
ILLUSTRATIONS xvii
PAGE
Lyman Trumbull 368
From a photograph by Brady.
Owen Lovejoy 384
From a photograph.
David R. Atchison 400
From a daguerreotype.
Andrew H. Reeder 416
From a photograph by R. Knecht.
James H. Lane 432
By permission of the Strowbridge Lithographing Co.
MAPS
Vol. I
PAGE
Map showing Localities connected with Early Events in
the Lincoln Family 20
Map op New Salem, 111., and Vicinity 80
Map op the Boundaries of Texas 256
Historical Map op the United States in 1854 354
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Vol. I
Chapter I. Lineage
The Lincobis in America. Intimacy with the Boones.
Kentucky in 1780. Death of Abraham Lincoln the
Pioneer. Marriage of Thomas Lincoln. Birth and
Childhood of Abraham 1
Chapter II. Indiana
Thomas Lincoln leaves Kentucky. Settles at Gentry-
ville. Death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Sarah Bush
Johnston. Pioneer Life in Indiana. Sports and
Superstitions of the Early Settlers. The Youth of
Abraham. His Great Physical Strength. His Voyage
to New Orleans. Removal to Illinois 28
Chapter III. Illinois in 1830
The Winter of the Deep Snow. The Sudden Change.
Pioneer Life. Religion and Society. French and
Indians. Formation of the Political System. The
Courts. Lawyers and Politicians. Early Super-
annuation 47
Chapter IV. New Salem
Denton Offutt. Lincoln's Second Trip to New Orleans.
His Care of His Family. Death of Thomas Lincoln.
Offutt's Store in New Salem. Lincoln's Initiation by
the " Clary's Grove Boys." The Voyage of the
Talisman 70
XX TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter V. Lincoln in the Black Hawk War
Black Hawk. The Call for Volunteers. Lincoln
Elected Captain. Stillraan's Run. Lincoln Reenlists.
The Spy Battalion. Black Hawk's Defeat. Disband-
ment of the Volunteers 87
Chapter VI. Surveyor and Representative
Lincoln's Candidacy for the Legislature. Runs as a
Whig. Defeated. Berry and Lincoln Merchants.
Lincoln Begins the Study of Law. Postmaster.
Surveyor. His Popularity. Elected to the Legis-
lature, 1834 101
Chapter VII. Legislative Experience
Lincoln s First Session in the Legislature. Douglas
and Peck. Lincoln Reelected. Bedlam Legislation.
Schemes of Railroad Building. Removal of the Capi-
tal to Springfield 123
Chapter VIII. The Lincoln-Stone Protest
The Pro-Slavery Sentiment in Illinois. Attempt to
Open the State to Slavery. Victory of the Free-
State Party. Reaction. Death of Lovejoy. Pro-
Slavery Resolutions. The Protest 140
Chapter IX. Collapse of "The System"
Lincoln in Springfield. The Failure of the Railroad
System. Fall of the Banks. First Collision with
Douglas. Tampering with the Judiciary 153
Chapter X. Early Law Practice
Early Legal Customs. Lincoln's Popularity in Law
and Politics. A Speech in 1840. The Harrison
Campaign. Correspondence with Stuart. Harrison
Elected. Melancholia 167
Chapter XI. Marriage
Courtship and Engagement. The Pioneer Tempera-
ment. Lincoln's Love Affairs. Joshua F. Speed.
Lincoln's Visit to Kentucky. Correspondence with
Speed. Marriage 186
TABLE OF CONTENTS XXi
Chaptee XII. The Shields Duel
A Political Satire. James Shields. Lincoln Chal-
lenged. A Fight Arranged and Prevented. Subse-
quent Wranglings. The Whole Matter Forgotten.
An Admonition 203
Chaptee XIII. The Campaign of 1844
Partnership with Stephen T. Logan. Lincoln Becomes
a Lawyer. Temperance Movement. Baker and Lin-
coln Candidates for the Whig Nomination to Congress.
Baker Successful. Clay Nominated for President.
The Texas Question. Clay Defeated 213
Chaptee XIV. Lincoln's Campaign foe Congeess
Schemes of Annexation. Opposition at the North.
Outbreak of War. Lincoln Nominated for Congress.
His Opponent Peter Cartwright. Lincoln Elected.
The Whigs in the War. E. D. Baker in Washington
and Mexico 237
Chaptee XV. The Thietieth Congeess
Robert C. Winthrop Chosen Speaker. Debates on the
War. Advantage of the Whigs. Acquisition of Terri-
tory. The Wilmot Proviso. Lincoln's Resolutions.
Nomination of Taylor for President. Cass the Demo-
cratic Candidate. Lincoln's Speech, July 27, 1848.
Taylor Elected 258
Chaptee XVI. A Foetunate Escape
Independent Action of Northern Democrats. Lin-
coln's Plan for Emancipation in the District of Co-
lumbia. His Bill Fails to Receive Consideration. A
Similar BUI Signed by Him Fifteen Years Later.
Logan Nominated for Congress and Defeated. Lin-
coln an Applicant for Office. The Fascination of
Washington # 283
Chaptee XVII. The Ciecuit Lawyee
The Growth and Change of Legal Habits. Lincoln on
the Circuit. His Power and Value as a Lawyer.
xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Opinion of David Davis. Of Judge Drummond. In-
cidents of the Courts. Lincoln's Wit and Eloquence.
His Life at Home 298
Chapter XVIII. The Balance of Power
Origin of the Slavery Struggle. The Ordinance of
1787. The Compromises of the Constitution. The
Missouri Compromise. Cotton and the Cotton-Gin.
The Race between Free and Slave States. The Admis-
sion of Texas. The Wilmot Proviso. New Mexico
and California. The Compromise Measures of 1850.
Finality 310
Chapter XIX. Repeal of the Missouri
Compromise
Stephen A. Douglas. Old Fogies and Young America.
The Nomination of Pierce. The California Gold Dis-
covery. The National Platforms on the Slavery Issue.
Organization of Western Territories. The Three Ne-
braska Bills. The Caucus Agreement of the Senate
Committee. Dixon's Repealing Amendment. Douglas
Adopts Dixon's Proposition. Passage of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act 330
Chapter XX. The Drift of Politics
The Storm of Agitation. The Free Soil Party. The
American Party. The Anti-Nebraska Party. Dissolu-
tion of the Whig Party. The Congressional Elections.
Democratic Defeat. Banks Elected Speaker .... 352
Chapter XXI. Lincoln and Trumbull
The Nebraska Question in Illinois. Douglas's Chicago
Speech. Lincoln Reappears in Politics. Political
Speeches at the State Fair. A Debate between Lincoln
and Douglas. Lincoln's Peoria Speech. An Anti-
Nebraska Legislature Elected. Lincoln's Candidacy
for the Senate. Shields and Matteson. Trumbull
Elected Senator. Lincoln's Letter to Robertson. . . 365
Chapter XXII. The Border Ruffians
The Opening of Kansas Territory. Andrew H. Reeder
Appointed Governor. Atchison's Propaganda. The
TABLE OF CONTENTS xxiii
Missouri Blue Lodges. The Emigrant Aid Company.
The Town of Lawrence Founded. Governor Reeder's
Independent Action. The First Border Ruffian In-
vasion. The Election of Whitfield 393
Chapteb XXIII. The Bogus Laws
Governor Reeder's Census. The Second Border Ruffian
Invasion. Missouri Voters Elect the Kansas Legis-
lature. Westport and Shawnee Mission. The Governor
Convenes the Legislature at Pawnee. The Legislature
Returns to Shawnee Mission. Governor Reeder's
Vetoes. The Governor's Removal. Enactment of the
Bogus Laws. Despotic Statutes. Lecompton Founded 408
Chapter XXIV. The Topeka Constitution
The Bogus Legislature Defines Kansas Politics. The
Big Springs Convention. Ex-Governor Reeder's Res-
olutions. Formation of the Free-State Party. A
Constitutional Convention at Topeka. The Topeka
Constitution. President Pierce Proclaims the Topeka
Movement Revolutionary. Refusal to Recognize the
Bogus Laws. Chief -Justice Lecompte's Doctrine of
Constructive Treason. Arrests and Indictment of the
Free- State Leaders. Colonel Sumner Disperses the
Topeka Legislature 425
Chapter XXV. Civil War in Kansas
Wilson Shannon Appointed Governor. The Law and
Order Party Formed at Leavenworth. Sheriff Jones.
The Branson Rescue. The Wakarusa War. Sharps
Rifles. Governor Shannon's Treaty. Guerrilla Leaders
and Civil War. The Investigating Committee of Con-
gress. The Flight of Ex-Governor Reeder. The
Border Ruffians March on Lawrence. Burning of the
Free- State Hotel 438
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CHAPTER I
LINEAGE
IN the year 1780, Abraham Lincoln, a member of chap, l
a respectable and well-to-do family in Rocking- nso.
ham County, Virginia, started westward to establish
himself in the newly-explored country of Kentucky.
He entered several large tracts of fertile land, and
returning to Virginia disposed of his property
there, and with his wife and five children went
back to Kentucky and settled in Jefferson County.
Little is known of this pioneer Lincoln or of his
father. Most of the records belonging to that
branch of the family were destroyed in the civil
war. Their early orphanage, the wild and illiterate
life they led on the frontier, severed their con-
nection with their kindred in the East. This
often happened; there are hundreds of families
in the West bearing historic names and probably
descended from well-known houses in the older
States or in England, which, by passing through
one or two generations of ancestors who could not
read or write, have lost their continuity with the
past as effectually as if a deluge had intervened
Vol. I.— 1
I ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. i. between the last century and this. Even the patro-
nymic has been frequently distorted beyond recog-
nition by slovenly pronunciation during the years
when letters were a lost art, and by the phonetic
spelling of the first boy in the family who learned
the use of the pen. There are Lincoln s in Ken-
tucky and Tennessee belonging to the same stock
with the President, whose names are spelled " Link-
horn" and "Linkhern." All that was known of
the emigrant, Abraham Lincoln, by his immediate
descendants was that his progenitors, who were
Quakers, came from Berks County, Pennsylvania,
into Virginia, and there throve and prospered.1 But
we now know, with sufficient clearness, through the
wide-spread and searching luster which surrounds
the name, the history of the migrations of the
family since its arrival on this continent, and the
circumstances under which the Virginia pioneer
started for Kentucky,
less. The first ancestor of the line of whom we have
knowledge was Samuel Lincoln, of Norwich, Eng-
land, who came to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638,
and died there. He left a son, Mordecai, whose son,
of the same name, — and it is a name which persists
in every branch of the family,2 — removed to Mon-
mouth, New Jersey, and thence to Amity township,
i We desire to express our obli- arisen in the attempt to trace
gations to Edwin Salter, Samuel their genealogy. For instance,
L. Smedley, Samuel Shackford, Abraham Lincoln, of Chester
Samuel W. Pennypacker, How- County, son of one Mordecai and
ard M. Jenkins, and John T. brother of another, the President's
Harris, Jr., for information and ancestors, left a fair estate, by
suggestions which have been of will, to his children, whose names
use to us in this chapter. were John, Abraham, Isaac,
2 The Lincolns, in naming their Jacob, Mordecai, Rebecca, and
children, followed so strict a tra- Sarah — precisely the same names
dition that great confusion has we find in three collateral families.
LINEAGE i
now a part of Berks County, Pennsylvania, where chap. i.
he died in 1735, fifty years old. From a copy of his
will, recorded in the office of the Register in Phila-
delphia, we gather that he was a man of considerable
property. In the inventory of his effects, made after
his death, he is styled by the appraisers, " Mordecai
Lincoln, Gentleman." His son John received by his
father's will " a certain piece of land lying in the
Jerseys, containing three hundred acres," the other
sons and daughters having been liberally provided
for from the Pennsylvania property. This John
Lincoln left New Jersey some years later, and about
1750 established himself in Rockingham County, 175a
Virginia. He had five sons, to whom he gave the
names which were traditional in the family: Abra-
ham,— the pioneer first mentioned, — Isaac, Jacob,
Thomas, and John. Jacob and John remained in Vir-
ginia ; the former was a soldier in the War of the
Revolution, and took part as lieutenant in a Virginia
regiment at the siege of Yorktown. Isaac went to a
place on the Holston River in Tennessee ; Thomas
followed his brother to Kentucky, lived and died
there, and his children then emigrated to Ten-
nessee.1 With the one memorable exception the
family seem to have been modest, thrifty, unambi-
tious people. Even the great fame and conspicu-
ousness of the President did not tempt them out
of their retirement. Robert Lincoln, of Hancock
County, Illinois, a cousin-german, became a captain
and commissary of volunteers ; none of the others,
1 It is an interesting coinci- tive of the President, performed,
dence, for the knowledge of which on the 17th of May, 1837, the
we are indebted to Colonel John marriage ceremony of Andrew
B. Brownlow, that a minister Johnson, Mr. Lincoln's succes-
named Mordecai Lincoln, a rela- sor in the Presidency.
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
so far as we know, ever made their existence known
to their powerful kinsman during the years of his
glory.1
It was many years after the death of the Presi-
dent that his son learned the probable circum-
stances under which the pioneer Lincoln removed
to the West, and the intimate relations which sub-
sisted between his family and the most celebrated
man in early Western annals. There is little doubt
that it was on account of his association with the
famous Daniel Boone that Abraham Lincoln went
to Kentucky. The families had for a century been
closely allied. There were frequent intermarriages 2
among them — both being of Quaker lineage. By
the will of Mordecai Lincoln, to which reference
has been made, his " loving friend and neighbor "
1 Soon after Mr. Lincoln arrived
in Washington in 1861, he re-
ceived the following letter from
one of his Virginia kinsmen, the
last communication which ever
came from them. It was written
on paper adorned with a portrait
of Jefferson Davis, and was in-
closed in an envelope emblazoned
with the Confederate flag :
"To Abraham Lincoln, Esq.,
President of the Northern Con-
federacy.
" Sir : Having just returned
from a trip through Virginia,
North Carolina, and Tennessee,
permit me to inform you that you
will get whipped out of your boots.
To-day I met a gentleman from
Anna, Illinois, and although he
voted for you he says that the
moment your troops leave Cairo
they will get the spots knocked
out of them. My dear sir, these
are facts which time will prove to
be correct.
"I am, sir, with every consid-
eration, yours respectfully,
"Minor Lincoln,
"Of the Staunton stock of Lin-
colns."
There was a young Abraham
Lincoln on the Confederate side
in the Shenandoah distinguished
for his courage and ferocity. He
lay in wait and shot a Dunkard
preacher, whom he suspected of
furnishing information to the
Union army. (Letter from Samuel
W. Pennypacker.)
2 A letter from David J. Lin coin,
of Birdsboro, Berks County, Penn-
sylvania, to the writers, says, " My
grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,
was married to Anna Boone, a
first cousin of Daniel Boone, July
10, 1760." He was half-brother
of John Lincoln, and afterwards
became a man of some prominence
in Pennsylvania, serving in the
Constitutional Convention in
1789-90.
LINEAGE I
George Boone was made a trustee to assist his chap, l
widow in the care of the property. Squire Boone,
the father of Daniel, was one of the appraisers who
made the inventory of Mordecai Lincoln's estate.
The intercourse between the families was kept up
after the Boones had removed to North Carolina
and John Lincoln had gone to Virginia. Abraham
Lincoln, son of John, and grandf ather of the Presi-
dent, was married to Miss Mary Shipley * in North
Carolina. The inducement which led him to leave
Virginia, where his standing and his fortune were
assured, was, in all probability, his intimate family
relations with the great explorer, the hero of the
new country of Kentucky, the land of fabulous
richness and unlimited adventure. At a time when
the Eastern States were ringing with the fame of
the mighty hunter who was then in the prime of
his manhood, and in the midst of those achieve-
ments which will forever render him one of the
1 In giving to the wife of the Augusta County" says he married
pioneer Lincoln the name of Mary Elizabeth Winter, a cousin of
Shipley we follow the tradition Daniel Boone. The Boone and
in his family. The Hon. J. L. Lincoln families were large and
Nail, of Missouri, grandson of there were frequent intermar-
Nancy (Lincoln) Brumfield, Abra- riages among them, and the patri-
ham Lincoln's youngest child, has archal name of Abraham was a
given us so clear a statement of favorite one. There was still
the case that we cannot hesitate another Lincoln, Hannaniah by
to accept it, although it conflicts name, who was also intimately as-
with equally positive statements sociated with the Boones. Hissig-
from other sources. The late nature appears on the surveyor's
Gideon Welles, Secretary of the certificate for Abraham Lincoln's
Navy, who gave much intelligent land in Jefferson County, and he
effort to genealogical researches, joined Daniel Boone in 1798 in
was convinced that the Abraham the purchase of the tract of land
Lincoln who married Miss Han- on the Missouri Eiver where
nah Winters, a daughter of Boone died. (Letter from Rich-
Ann Boone, sister of the famous ard V. B. Lincoln, printed in the
Daniel, was the President's grand- ' ' Williamsport [Pa.] Banner,"
father. Waddell's "Annals of Feb. 25, 1881.)
3 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. i. most picturesque heroes in all our annals, it is not
to be wondered at that his own circle of friends
should have caught the general enthusiasm and
felt the desire to emulate his career.
Boone's exploration of Kentucky had begun some
ten years before Lincoln set out to follow his trail.
In 1769 he made his memorable journey to that
virgin wilderness of whose beauty he always loved
to speak even to his latest breath. During all that
year he hunted, finding everywhere abundance of
game. " The buffalo," Boone says, "were more fre-
quent than I have seen cattle in the settlements,
browsing on the leaves of the cane, or cropping the
herbage on these extensive plains, fearless because
ignorant of the violence of man. Sometimes we
saw hundreds in a drove, and the numbers about
the salt springs were amazing." In the course of
the winter, however, he was captured by the Indians
while hunting with a comrade, and when they had
contrived to escape they never found again any
trace of the rest of their party. But a few days
later they saw two men approaching and hailed
them with the hunter's caution, " Hullo, strangers ;
who are you ? " They replied, " White men and
friends." They proved to be Squire Boone and
another adventurer from North Carolina. The
younger Boone had made that long pilgrimage
through the trackless woods, led by an instinct of
doglike affection, to find his elder brother and share
his sylvan pleasures and dangers. Their two com-
panions were soon waylaid and killed, and the
Boones spent their long winter in that mighty
solitude undisturbed. In the spring their ammuni-
tion, which was to them the only necessary of life,
LINEAGE
ran low, and one of them must return to the settle-
ments to replenish the stock. It need not be said
which assumed this duty ; the cadet went uncom-
plaining on his way, and Daniel spent three months
in absolute loneliness, as he himself expressed it,
"by myself, without bread, salt, or sugar, without
company of my fellow-creatures, or even a horse or
dog." He was not insensible to the dangers of his
situation. He never approached his camp without
the utmost precaution, and always slept in the cane-
brakes if the signs were unfavorable. But he makes
in his memoirs this curious reflection, which would
seem like affectation in one less perfectly and simply
heroic : " How unhappy such a situation for a man
tormented with fear, which is vain if no danger
comes, and if it does, only augments the pain. It
was my happiness to be destitute of this afflicting
passion, with which I had the greatest reason to be
afflicted." After his brother's return, for a year
longer they hunted in those lovely wilds, and then
returned to the Yadkin to bring their families to
the new domain. They made the long journey
back, five hundred miles, in peace and safety.
For some time after this Boone took no con-
spicuous part in the settlement of Kentucky. The
expedition with which he left the Yadkin in 1773
met with a terrible disaster near Cumberland Gap,
in which his eldest son and five more young men
were killed by Indians, and the whole party, dis-
couraged by the blow, retired to the safer region of
Clinch River. In the mean time the dauntless spec-
ulator Richard Henderson had begun his occupation
with all the pomp of viceroyalty. Harrodsburg had
been founded, and corn planted, and a flourishing
J ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. i. colony established at the Falls of the Ohio. In 1774
Boone was called upon by the Governor of Virginia
to escort a party of surveyors through Kentucky,
and on his return was given the command of three
garrisons; and for several years thereafter the
history of the State is the record of his feats of
arms. No one ever equaled him in his knowledge
of Indian character, and his influence with the
savages was a mystery to him and to themselves.
Three times he fell into their hands and they did
not harm him. Twice they adopted him into their
tribes while they were still on the war-path. Once
they took him to Detroit,1 to show the Long-Knife
chieftains of King George that they also could ex-
hibit trophies of memorable prowess, but they
refused to give him up even to their British allies.
In no quality of wise woodcraft was he wanting.
He could outrun a dog or a deer ; he could thread
the woods without food day and night; he could
find his way as easily as the panther could. Al-
though a great athlete and a tireless warrior, he
hated fighting and only fought for peace. In coun-
cil and in war he was equally valuable. His advice
was never rejected without disaster, nor followed but
with advantage ; and when the fighting once began
there was not a rifle in Kentucky which could rival
his. At the nine days' siege of Boonesboro' he
took deliberate aim and killed a negro renegade who
was harassing the garrison from a tree five hundred
and twenty-five feet away, and whose head only
was visible from the fort. The mildest and the
quietest of men, he had killed dozens of enemies
1 Silas Farmer, historiographer on the 10th of March, 1778,
of Detroit, informs us that Dan- and that he remained there a
iel Boone was brought there month.
LINEAGE
with his own hand, and all this without malice and,
strangest of all, without incurring the hatred of his
adversaries. He had self-respect enough, but not
a spark of vanity. After the fatal battle of the Blue
Licks, — where the only point of light in the day's
terrible work was the wisdom and valor with which
he had partly retrieved a disaster he foresaw but
was powerless to prevent, — when it became his
duty, as senior surviving officer of the forces, to
report the affair to Governor Harrison, his dry and
naked narrative gives not a single hint of what he
had done himself, nor mentions the gallant son
lying dead on the field, nor the wounded brother
whose gallantry might justly have claimed some
notice. He was thinking solely of the public good,
saying, "I have encouraged the people in this
country all that I could, but I can no longer justify
them or myself to risk our lives here under such
extraordinary hazards." He therefore begged his
Excellency to take immediate measures for relief.
During the short existence of Henderson's legis-
lature he was a member of it, and not the least
useful one. Among his measures was one for the
protection of game.
Everything we know of the emigrant Abraham
Lincoln goes to show that it was under the auspices
of this most famous of our pioneers that he set out
from Rockingham County to make a home for him-
self and his young family in that wild region which
Boone was wresting from its savage holders. He
was not without means of his own. He took with
him funds enough to enter an amount of land
which would have made his family rich if they had
retained it. The county records show him to have
LAND WARRANT I8SUED TO ABRAHAM LINKHORN (LINCOLN).
The original, of which this is a reduced fac-simile, is in the possession of Colonel
R. T. Durrett, Louisville, Ky.
LINEAGE
11
been the possessor of a domain of some seventeen
hundred acres. There is still in existence1 the
original warrant, dated March 4, 1780, for four
hundred acres of land, for which the pioneer had
paid " into the publick Treasury one hundred and
sixty pounds current money," and a copy of the
surveyor's certificate, giving the metes and bounds
of the property on Floyd's Fork, which remained
for many years in the hands of Mordecai Lincoln,
the pioneer's eldest son and heir. The name was
misspelled " Linkhorn " by a blunder of the clerk in
the land-office, and the error was perpetuated in
the subsequent record.
Kentucky had been for many years the country
of romance and fable for Virginians. Twenty years
before Governor Spotswood had crossed the Alle-
ghanies and returned to establish in a Williams-
burg tavern that fantastic order of nobility
l In the possession of Colonel
Eeuben T. Durrett, of Louisville,
a gentleman who has made the
early history of his State a sub-
ject of careful study, and to
whom we are greatly indebted
for information in regard to the
settlement of the Lincolns in
Kentucky. He gives the follow-
ing list of lands in that State
owned by Abraham Lincoln :
1. Four hundred acres on Long
Run, a branch of Floyd's Fork, in
Jefferson County, entered May
29, 1780, and surveyed May 7,
1785. We have in our posses-
sion the original patent issued by
Governor Garrard, of Kentucky,
to Abraham Lincoln for this prop-
erty. It was found by Col. A. C.
Matthews, of the 99th Illinois,
in 1863, at an abandoned resi-
dence near Indianola, Texas.
2. Eight hundred acres on
Green River, near Green River
Lick, entered June 7, 1780,
and surveyed October 12,
1784.
3. Five hundred acres in Camp-
bell County, date of entry not
known, but surveyed September
27, 1798, and patented June
30, 1799 — the survey and
patent evidently following his
entry after his death. It is pos-
sible that this was the five-hun-
dred-acre tract found in Boone's
field-book, in the possession of
Lyman C. Draper, Esq., Secre-
tary of the Wisconsin Historical
Society, and erroneously sup-
posed by some to have been in
Mercer County. Boone was a
deputy of Colonel Thomas Mar-
shall, Surveyor of Fayette
County.
Jefferson
County
Records.
12
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
which he called the
Knights of The Gold-
en Horseshoe,1 and,
with a worldly wisdom
which was scarcely
consistent with these
medieval affecta-
tions, to press upon
the attention of the
British Government
the building of a line
of frontier forts to
guard the Ohio River
from the French.
Maoy years after him
the greatest of all Vir-
ginians crossed the
mountains again, and
became heavily inter-
ested in those schemes
of emigration which
filled the minds of
many of the leading
men in America un-
til they were driven
out by graver cares
and more imperative
duties. Washington
had acquired claims
and patents to the
amount of thirty or
forty thousand acres
of land in the West ;
i Their motto was
Sic jurat transcendere monies.
LINEAGE 13
Benjamin Franklin and the Lees were also large chap. i.
owners of these speculative titles. They formed, it
is true, rather an airy and unsubstantial sort of
possession, the same ground being often claimed
by a dozen different persons or companies under
various grants from the crown or from legislatures,
or through purchase by adventurers from Indian
councils. But about the time of which we are speak-
ing the spirit of emigration had reached the lower
strata of colonial society, and a steady stream of
pioneers began pouring over the passes of the moun-
tains into the green and fertile valleys of Kentucky
and Tennessee. They selected their homes in the
most eligible spots to which chance or the report of
earlier explorers directed them, with little knowl-
edge or care as to the rightful ownership of the
land, and too often cleared their corner of the wil-
derness for the benefit of others. Even Boone, to
whose courage, forest lore, and singular intuitions
of savage character the State of Kentucky owed
more than to any other man, was deprived in his
old age of his hard-earned homestead through his
ignorance of legal forms, and removed to Missouri
to repeat in that new territory his labors and his
misfortunes.
The period at which Lincoln came West was one nso
of note in the history of Kentucky. The labors of
Henderson and the Transylvania Company had
begun to bear fruit in extensive plantations and a
connected system of forts. The land laws of Ken-
tucky had reduced to something like order the
chaos of conflicting claims arising from the various
grants and the different preemption customs under
which settlers occupied their property. The victory
5 * *Ss
r
^ >
to a
S a
LINEAGE 15
of Boone at Boonesboro' against the Shawnees, and chap. i.
the capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes by the brill-
iant audacity of George Eogers Clark, had brought
the region prominently to the attention of the At-
lantic States, and had turned in that direction the
restless and roving spirits which are always found
in communities at periods when great emigrations
are a need of civilization. Up to this time few
•persons had crossed the mountains except hunters,
trappers, and explorers — men who came merely to
kill game, and possibly Indians, or to spy out the
fertility of the land for the purpose of speculation.
But in 1780 and 1781 a large number of families
took up their line of march, and in the latter year
a considerable contingent of women joined the little
army of pioneers, impelled by an instinct which
they themselves probably but half comprehended.
The country was to be peopled, and there was no
other way of peopling it but by the sacrifice of
many lives and fortunes; and the history of every
country shows that these are never lacking when
they are wanted. The number of those who came
at about the same time with the pioneer Lincoln
was sufficient to lay the basis of a sort of social
order. Early in the year 1780 three hundred "large
family boats" arrived at the Falls of the Ohio,
where the land had been surveyed by Captain Bul-
litt seven years before, and in May the Legislature
of Virginia passed a law for the incorporation of
the town of Louisville, then containing some six
hundred inhabitants. At the same session a law
was passed confiscating the property of certain
British subjects for the endowment of an institu-
tion of learning in Kentucky, " it being the interest
16 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. i. of this commonwealth," to quote the language of
the philosophic Legislature, " always to encourage
and promote every design which may tend to the
improvement of the mind and the diffusion of use-
ful knowledge even among its remote citizens,
whose situation in a barbarous neighborhood and a
savage intercourse might otherwise render them
unfriendly to science." This was the origin of the
Transylvania University of Lexington, which rose
and nourished for many years on the utmost verge
of civilization.
The " barbarous neighborhood" and the " savage
intercourse " undoubtedly had their effect upon the
manners and morals of the settlers ; but we should
fall into error if we took it for granted that the
pioneers were all of one piece. The ruling motive
which led most of them to the wilds was that Anglo-
Saxon lust of land which seems inseparable from
the race. The prospect of possessing a four-
hundred-acre farm by merely occupying it, and the
privilege of exchanging a basketful of almost worth-
less continental currency for an unlimited estate at
the nominal value of forty cents per acre, were
irresistible to thousands of land-loving Virginians
and Carolinians whose ambition of proprietorship
was larger than their means. Accompanying this
flood of emigrants of good faith was the usual froth
and scum of shiftless idlers and adventurers, who
were either drifting with a current they were too
worthless to withstand, or in pursuit of dishonest
gains in fresher and simpler regions. The vices
and virtues of the pioneers were such as proceeded
from their environment. They were careless of
human life because life was worth comparatively
LINEAGE 17
little in that hard struggle for existence ; but they chap. i.
had a remarkably clear idea of the value of property,
and visited theft not only with condign punish-
ment, but also with the severest social proscrip-
tion. Stealing a horse was punished more swiftly
and with more feeling than homicide. A man
might be replaced more easily than the other animal.
Sloth was the worst of weaknesses. An habitual
drunkard was more welcome at "raisings " and "log-
rollings" than a known faineant. The man who did
not do a man's share where work was to be done was
christened " Lazy Lawrence," and that was the end
of him socially. Cowardice was punished by inex-
orable disgrace. The point of honor was as strictly
observed as it ever has been in the idlest and most
artificial society. If a man accused another of
falsehood, the ordeal by fisticuffs was instantly
resorted to. Weapons were rarely employed in
these chivalrous encounters, being kept for more
serious use with Indians and wild beasts ; neverthe-
less fists, teeth, and the gouging thumb were often
employed with fatal effect. Yet among this rude
and uncouth people there was a genuine and re-
markable respect for law. They seemed to recog-
nize it as an absolute necessity of their existence.
In the territory of Kentucky, and afterwards in
that of Illinois, it occurred at several periods in the
transition from counties to territories and states,
that the country was without any organized author-
ity. But the people were a law unto themselves.
Their improvised courts and councils administered
law and equity ; contracts were enforced, debts
were collected, and a sort of order was maintained.
It may be said, generally, that the character of
Vol. L— 2
18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. i. this people was far above their circumstances. In
all the accessories of life, by which we are accus-
tomed to rate communities and races in the scale
of civilization, they were little removed from prim-
itive barbarism. They dressed in the skins of wild
beasts killed by themselves, and in linen stuffs
woven by themselves. They hardly knew the use
of iron except in their firearms and knives. Their
food consisted almost exclusively of game, fish, and
roughly ground corn-meal. Their exchanges were
made by barter; many a child grew up without
ever seeing a piece of money. Their habitations
were hardly superior to those of the savages with
whom they waged constant war. Large families
lived in log huts, put together without iron, and
far more open to the inclemencies of the skies
than the pig-styes of the careful farmer of to-day.
An early schoolmaster says that the first place
where he went to board was the house of one
Lucas, consisting of a single room, sixteen feet
square, and tenanted by Mr. and Mrs. Lucas, ten
children, three dogs, two cats, and himself. There
were many who lived in hovels so cold that they
had to sleep on their shoes to keep them from
freezing too stiff to be put on. The children grew
inured to misery like this, and played barefoot in
the snow. It is an error to suppose that all this
could be undergone with impunity. They suffered
terribly from malarial and rheumatic complaints,
and the instances of vigorous and painless age
were rare among them. The lack of moral and
mental sustenance was still more marked. They
were inclined to be a religious people, but a sermon
was an unusual luxury, only to be enjoyed at long
LINEAGE 19
intervals and by great expense of time. There chap. i.
were few books or none, and there was little oppor-
tunity for the exchange of opinion. Any variation
in the dreary course of events was welcome. A
murder was not without its advantages as a stim-
ulus to conversation ; a criminal trial was a kind of
holiday to a county. It was this poverty of life,
this famine of social gratification, from which
sprang their fondness for the grosser forms of
excitement, and their tendency to rough and brutal
practical joking. In a life like theirs a laugh
seemed worth having at any expense.
But near as they were to barbarism in all the
circumstances of their daily existence, they were
far from it politically. They were the children of
a race which had been trained in government for
centuries in the best school the world has ever seen,
and wherever they went they formed the town, the
county, the court, and the legislative power with
the ease and certainty of nature evolving its results.
And this they accomplished in the face of a savage
foe surrounding their feeble settlements, always
alert and hostile, invisible and dreadful as the
visionary powers of the air. Until the treaty of
Greenville, in 1795, closed the long and sanguinary
history of the old Indian wars, there was no day in
which the pioneer could leave his cabin with the
certainty of not finding it in ashes when he re-
turned, and his little flock murdered on his thresh-
old, or carried into a captivity worse than death.
Whenever nightfall came with the man of the
house away from home, the anxiety and care of
the women and children were none the less bitter
because so common.
LINEAGE 21
The life of the pioneer Abraham Lincoln soon chap, l
came to a disastrous close. He had settled in
Jefferson County, on the land he had bought from
the Government, and cleared a small farm in the
forest.1 One morning in the year 1784, he started 1734.
with his three sons, Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas,
to the edge of the clearing, and began the day's work.
A shot from the brush killed the father ; Mordecai,
the eldest son, ran instinctively to the house,
Josiah to the neighboring fort, for assistance, and
Thomas, the youngest, a child of six, was left with
the corpse of his father. Mordecai, reaching the
cabin, seized the rifle, and saw through the loop-
hole an Indian in his war-paint stooping to raise
the child from the ground. He took deliberate aim
at a white ornament on the breast of the savage
and brought him down. The little boy, thus re-
leased, ran to the cabin, and Mordecai, from the
loft, renewed his fire upon the savages, who began
to show themselves from the thicket, until Josiah
returned with assistance from the stockade, and
the assailants fled. This tragedy made an indelible
impression on the mind of Mordecai. Either a
spirit of revenge for his murdered father, or a
sportsmanlike pleasure in his successful shot, made
him a determined Indian-stalker, and he rarely
stopped to inquire whether the red man who came
within range of his rifle was friendly or hostile.2
1 Lyman C. Draper, of the Wis- into captivity, and forced to run
consin Historical Society, has the gauntlet. The story rests on
kindly furnished us with a MS. the statement of a single person,
account of a Kentucky tradition Mrs. Sarah Graham,
according to which the pioneer 2 Late in life Mordecai Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was captured removed to Hancock County, Hli-
by the Indians, near Crow's Sta- nois, where his descendants still
tion, in August^ 1782, carried live,
LINEAGE 23
The head of the family being gone, the widow chap. i.
Lincoln soon removed to a more thickly settled
neighborhood in Washington County. There her
children grew up. Mordecai and Josiah became
reputable citizens ; the two daughters married two
men named Crume and Brumfield. Thomas, to
whom were reserved the honors of an illustrious
paternity, learned the trade of a carpenter. He
w&s an easy-going man, entirely without ambition,
but not without self-respect. Though the friend-
liest and most jovial of gossips, he was not insen-
sible to affronts; and when his slow anger was
roused he was a formidable adversary. Several
border bullies, at different times, crowded him
indiscreetly, and were promptly and thoroughly
whipped. He was strong, well-knit, and sinewy ;
but little over the medium height, though in other
respects he seems to have resembled his son in ap-
pearance.
On the 12th of June, 1806,1 while learning his
trade in the carpenter shop of Joseph Hanks, in
Elizabethtown, he married Nancy Hanks, a niece
of his employer, near Beechland, in Washington
County.2 She was one of a large family who had
1 All previous accounts give "Know all men by these pres-
the date of this marriage as Sep- ents, that we, Thomas Lincoln
tember 23d. This error arose and Richard Berry, are held and
from a clerical blunder in the firmly bound unto his Excellency,
county record of marriages. The the Governor of Kentucky, in the
minister, the Rev. Jesse Head, in just and full sum of fifty pounds
making his report, wrote the date current money, to the payment of
before the names ; the clerk, in which well and truly to be made to
copying it, lost the proper se- the said Governor and his succes-
quence of the entries, and gave to sors, we bind ourselves, our heirs,
the Lineolns the date belonging etc., jointly and severally, firmly
to the next couple on the list. by these presents, sealed with our
2 The following is a copy of the seals and dated this 1 Oth day of
marriage bond : June, 1806. The condition of
24 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. i. emigrated from Virginia with the Lincolns and
with another family called Sparrow. They had
endured together the trials of pioneer life; their
close relations continued for many years after,
and were cemented by frequent intermarriage.
Mrs. Lincoln's mother was named Lucy Hanks ;
her sisters were Betty, Polly, and Nancy who
married Thomas Sparrow, Jesse Friend, and Levi
Hall. The childhood of Nancy was passed with
the Sparrows, and she was oftener called by their
name than by her own. The whole family connec-
tion was composed of people so little given to let-
ters that it is hard to determine the proper names
and relationships of the younger members amid
the tangle of traditional cousinships.1 Those who
went to Indiana with Thomas Lincoln, and grew
up with his children, are the only ones that need
demand our attention.
There was no hint of future glory in the wedding
or the bringing home of Nancy Lincoln. All
accounts represent her as a handsome young
woman of twenty-three, of appearance and intel-
lect superior to her lowly fortunes. She could
read and write, — a remarkable accomplishment in
her circle, — and even taught her husband to form
the letters of his name. He had no such valuable
the above obligation is such that " Witness, John H. Parrott,
whereas there is a marriage Guardian."
shortly intended between the Richard Berry was a connection
above bound Thomas Lincoln and of Lincoln ; his wife was a Shipley.
Nancy Hanks, for which a license 1 The Hanks family seem to
has issued, now if there be no have gone from Pennsylvania
lawful cause to obstruct the said and thence to Kentucky about
marriage, then this obligation to the same time with the Lincolns.
be void, else to remain in full They also belonged to the Corn-
force and virtue in law. munion of Friends. — "Historical
Thomas Lincoln [Seal]. Collections of Grwynnedd," by H.
Richard Berry [Seal]. M. Jenkins.
LINEAGE 25
wedding gift to bestow upon her ; he brought her to chap, l
a little house in Elizabethtown, where he and she
and want dwelt together in fourteen feet square.
The next year a daughter was born to them ; and
the next the young carpenter, not finding his work
remunerative enough for his growing needs, re-
moved to a little farm which he had bought on the
easy terms then prevalent in Kentucky. It was on
the Big South Fork of Nolin Creek, in what was
then Hardin and is now La Rue County, three
miles from Hodgensville. The ground had nothing
attractive about it but its cheapness. It was hardly
more grateful than the rocky hill slopes of New
England. It required full as earnest and intelli-
gent industry to persuade a living out of those
barren hillocks and weedy hollows, covered with
stunted and scrubby underbrush, as it would amid
the rocks and sands of the northern coast.
Thomas Lincoln settled down in this dismal soli-
tude to a deeper poverty than any of his name had
ever known ; and there, in the midst of the most
unpromising circumstances that ever witnessed the
advent of a hero into this world, Abraham Lincoln
was born on the 12th day of February, 1809. isoo.
Four years later, Thomas Lincoln purchased a
fine farm of 238 acres on Knob Creek, near where
it flows into the Rolling Fork, and succeeded in
getting a portion of it into cultivation. The title,
however, remained in him only a little while, and
after his property had passed out of his control he
looked about for another place to establish himself.
Of all these years of Abraham Lincoln's early
childhood we know almost nothing. He lived a
solitary life in the woods, returning from his lone-
4 Ttw&S
}
W J! ;
~dst***
1
/&£>
m
H
r
>jl.
II
it
This Certificate, or Marriage List (here shown in reduced fac-simile). WTitten~by the
Key. Jesse Head, was lost sight of for many years, and about 1886 was discovered
through the efforts of W. F. Booker, Clerk of Washington County, Kentucky.
26
LINEAGE 27
some little games to Ms cheerless home. He never chap, l
talked of these days to his most intimate friends.1
Once, when asked what he remembered abont the
war with Great Britain, he replied : " Nothing bnt
this. I had been fishing one day and caught a little
fish which I was taking home. I met a soldier
in the road, and, having been always told at home
that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him
my fish." This is only a faint glimpse, but what it
shows is rather pleasant — the generous child and
the patriotic household. But there is no question
that these first years of his life had their lasting
effect upon the temperament of this great mirthful
and melancholy man. He had little schooling.
He accompanied his sister Sarah2 to the only schools
that existed in their neighborhood, one kept by
Zachariah Biney, another by Caleb Hazel, where
he learned his alphabet and a little more. But of
all those advantages for the cultivation of a young
mind and spirit which every home now offers to its
children, the books, toys, ingenious games, and
daily devotion of parental love, he knew absolutely
nothing.
iThereisstillliving(1886)near of partridges ; in tryingto "coon"
Knob Creek in Kentucky, at the across Knob Creek on a log, Lin-
age of eighty, a man who claims coin fell in and Gollaher fished
to have known Abraham Lincoln him out with a sycamore branch
in his childhood — Austin Golla- — a service to the Republic, the
her. He says he used to play value of which it would be diffi-
with Abe Lincoln in the shavings cult to compute,
of his father's carpenter shop. 2 This daughter of Thomas Lin-
He tells a story which, if accurate, coin is sometimes called Nancy
entitles him to the civic crown and sometimes Sarah. She seems
which the Romans used to give to have borne the former name
to one who saved the life of a during her mother's life-time, and
citizen. When Gollaher was to have taken her stepmother's
eleven and Lincoln eight the two name after Mr. Lincoln's second
boys were in the woods in pursuit marriage.
CHAPTER II
INDIANA
chap. ii. T)Y the time the boy Abraham had attained his
me. J3 seventh year, the social condition of Ken-
tucky had changed considerably from the early
pioneer days. Life had assumed a more settled
and orderly course. The old barbarous equality
of the earlier time was gone; a difference of classes
began to be seen. Those who held slaves assumed
a distinct social superiority over those who did not.
Thomas Lincoln, concluding that Kentucky was no
country for a poor man, determined to seek his
fortune in Indiana. He had heard of rich and un-
occupied lands in Perry County in that State, and
thither he determined to go. He built a rude raft,
loaded it with his kit of tools and four hundred
gallons of whisky, and trusted his fortunes to the
winding water-courses. He met with only one
accident on his way : his raft capsized in the Ohio
River, but he fished up his kit of tools and most of
the ardent spirits, and arrived safely at the place
of a settler named Posey, with whom he left his
odd invoice of household goods for the wilderness,
while he started on foot to look for a home in the
dense forest. He selected a spot which pleased
him in his first day's journey. He then walked
INDIANA 29
back to Knob Creek and brought his family on to chap. ii.
their new home. No humbler cavalcade ever in-
vaded the Indiana timber. Besides his wife and
two children, his earthly possessions were of the
slightest, for the backs of two borrowed horses
sufficed for the load. Insufficient bedding and
clothing, a few pans and kettles, were their sole
movable wealth. They relied on Lincoln's kit of
tools for their furniture, and on his rifle for their
food. At Posey's they hired a wagon and literally
hewed a path through the wilderness to their new
habitation near Little Pigeon Creek, a mile and a
half east of Gentry ville, in a rich and fertile forest
country.
Thomas Lincoln, with the assistance of his wife
and children, built a temporary shelter of the sort
called in the frontier language "a half -faced camp" ;
merely a shed of poles, which defended the inmates
on three sides from foul weather, but left them open
to its inclemency in front. For a whole year his
family lived in this wretched fold, while he was
clearing a little patch of ground for planting corn,
and building a rough cabin for a permanent resi-
dence. They moved into the latter before it was
half completed ; for by this time the Sparrows had
followed the Lincolns from Kentucky, and the
half-faced camp was given up to them. But the
rude cabin seemed so spacious and comfortable
after the squalor of " the camp," that Thomas Lin-
coln did no further work on it for a long time. He
left it for a year or two without doors, or windows,
or floor. The battle for existence allowed him no
time for such superfluities. He raised enough
corn to support life ; the dense forest around him
30 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. abounded in every form of feathered game ; a little
way from his cabin an open glade was full of deer-
licks, and an hour or two of idle waiting was
generally rewarded by a shot at a fine deer, which
would furnish meat for a week, and material for
breeches and shoes. His cabin was like that of other
pioneers. A few three-legged stools; a bedstead
made of poles stuck between the logs in the angle
of the cabin, the outside corner supported by a
crotched stick driven into the ground ; the table, a
huge hewed log standing on four legs ; a pot, kettle,
and skillet, and a few tin and pewter dishes were
all the furniture. The boy Abraham climbed at
night to his bed of leaves in the loft, by a ladder of
wooden pins driven into the logs.
This life has been vaunted by poets and roman-
cers as a happy and healthful one. Even Dennis
Hanks, speaking of his youthful days when his
only home was the half-faced camp, says, "I tell
you, Billy, I enjoyed myself better then than I ever
have since." But we may distrust the reminiscences
of old settlers, who see their youth in the flattering
light of distance. The life was neither enjoyable
nor wholesome. The rank woods were full of ma-
laria, and singular epidemics from time to time
ravaged the settlements. In the autumn of 1818
the little community of Pigeon Creek was almost
exterminated by a frightful pestilence called the
milk-sickness, or, in the dialect of the country, "the
milk-sick." It is a mysterious disease which has
been the theme of endless wrangling among West-
ern physicians, and the difiiculty of ascertaining
anything about it has been greatly increased by the
local sensitiveness which forbids any one to admit
INDIANA 31
that any well-defined case has ever been seen in his chap. n.
neighborhood, " although just over the creek (or in
the next county) they have had it bad." It seems
to have been a malignant form of fever — attributed
variously to malaria and to the eating of poisonous
herbs by the cattle — attacking cattle as well as
human beings, attended with violent retching and
a burning sensation in the stomach, often ter-
minating fatally on the third day. In many cases
those who apparently recovered lingered for years
with health seriously impaired. Among the
Pioneers of Pigeon Creek, so ill-fed, ill-housed, and
uncared for, there was little prospect of recovery
from such a grave disorder. The Sparrows, hus-
band and wife, died early in October, and Nancy
Hanks Lincoln followed them after an interval of
a few days. Thomas Lincoln made the coffins for
his dead " out of green lumber cut with a whip-
saw," and they were all buried, with scant ceremony,
in a little clearing of the forest. It is related of
young Abraham, that he sorrowed most of all that
his mother should have been laid away with such
maimed rites, and that he contrived several months
later to have a wandering preacher named David
Elkin brought to the settlement, to deliver a funeral
sermon over her grave, already white with the early
winter snows.1
This was the dreariest winter of his life, for
before the next December came his father had
brought from Kentucky a new wife, who was to
1 A stone has been placed over Hanks Lincoln, mother of Presi-
the site of the grave by P. E. dent Lincoln, died October 5th,
Studebaker, of South Bend, In- A. D. 1818, aged 35 years.
diana. The stone bears the Erected by a friend of her mar-
following inscription: "Nancy tyred son, 1879."
32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. change the lot of all the desolate little family very
much for the better. Sarah Bush had been an
acquaintance of Thomas Lincoln before his first
marriage ; she had, it is said, rejected him to marry
one Johnston, the jailer at Elizabethtown, who had
died, leaving her with three children, a boy and two
girls. When Lincoln's widowhood had lasted a
year, he went down to Elizabethtown to begin
again the wooing broken off so many years before.
He wasted no time in preliminaries, but promptly
made his wishes known, and the next morning
they were married. It was growing late in the
autumn, and the pioneer probably dreaded another
lonely winter on Pigeon Creek. Mrs. Johnston was
not altogether portionless. She had a store of
household goods which filled a four-horse wagon
borrowed of Ealph Crume, Thomas Lincoln's
brother-in-law, to transport the bride to Indiana.
It took little time for this energetic and honest
Christian woman to make her influence felt, even
in those discouraging surroundings, and Thomas
Lincoln and the children were the better for her
coming all the rest of their lives. The lack of
doors and floors was at once corrected. Her honest
pride inspired her husband to greater thrift and
industry. The goods she brought with her com-
pelled some effort at harmony in the other fittings
of the house. She dressed the children in warmer
clothing and put them to sleep in comfortable beds.
With this slight addition to their resources the fam-
ily were much improved in appearance, behavior,
and self-respect.
Thomas Lincoln joined the Baptist church at
leas. Little Pigeon in 1823 ; his oldest child, Sarah, fol-
SU.'AH BUSH LINCOLN AT THE AGE OF SEVENTY-SIX.
INDIANA 33
lowed his example three years later. They were chap. n.
known as active and consistent members of that
communion. Lincoln was himself a good carpenter M^j*ter
when he chose to work at his trade ; a walnut table t!v. &-
made by him is still preserved as part of the furni- e tor™' the8"
ture of the church to which he belonged. pigeon
Such a woman as Sarah Bush could not be care- church,
less of so important a matter as the education of
her children, and they made the best use of the
scanty opportunities the neighborhood afforded.
" It was a wild region," writes Mr. Lincoln, in one
of those rare bits of autobiography which he left
behind him, " with many bears and other wild ani-
mals still in the woods. There were some schools
so-called, but no qualification was ever required of
a teacher beyond ' readin', writin', and cipherin' to
the Rule of Three.' If a straggler supposed to
understand Latin happened to sojourn in the
neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard.
There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition
for education." But in the case of this ungainly
boy there was no necessity of any external incen-
tive. A thirst for knowledge as a means of rising
in the world was innate in him. It had nothing
to do with that love of science for its own sake
which has been so often seen in lowly savants, who
have sacrificed their lives to the pure desire of
knowing the works of God. All the little learning
he ever acquired he seized as a tool to better his
condition. He learned his letters that he might
read books and see how men in the great world
outside of his woods had borne themselves in the
fight for which he longed. He learned to write,
first, that he might have an accomplishment his
Vol. I.— 3
34 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. playmates had not ; then that he might help his
elders by writing their letters, and enjoy the feel-
ing of usefulness which this gave him ; and finally
that he might copy what struck him in his reading
and thus make it his own for future use. He
learned to cipher certainly from no love of mathe-
matics, but because it might come in play in some
more congenial business than the farm-work which
bounded the horizon of his contemporaries. Had
it not been for that interior spur which kept his
clear spirit at its task, his schools could have done
little for him ; for, counting his attendance under
Einey and Hazel in Kentucky, and under Dorsey,
Crawford, and Swaney in Indiana, it amounted to
less than a year in all. The schools were much
alike. They were held in deserted cabins of round
logs, with earthen floors, and small holes for win-
dows, sometimes illuminated by as much light as
could penetrate through panes of paper greased
with lard. The teachers were usually in keeping
with their primitive surroundings. The profession
offered no rewards sufficient to attract men of edu-
cation or capacity. After a few months of desultory
instruction young Abraham knew all that these
vagrant literati could teach him. His last school-
days were passed with one Swaney in 1826, who
taught at a distance of four and a half miles from
the Lincoln cabin. The nine miles of walking
doubtless seemed to Thomas Lincoln a waste of
time, and the lad was put at steady work and saw
no more of school.
But it is questionable whether he lost anything
by being deprived of the ministrations of the back-
woods dominies. When his tasks ended, his studies
INDIANA 35
became the chief pleasure of his life. In all the chap. ii.
intervals of his work — in which he never took
delight, knowing well enough that he was born for
something better than that — he read, wrote, and
ciphered incessantly. His reading was naturally
limited by his opportunities, for books were among
the rarest of luxuries in that region and time. But
he read everything he could lay his hands upon,
and he was certainly fortunate in the few books of
which he became the possessor. It would hardly
be possible to select a better handful of classics for
a youth in his circumstances than the few volumes
he turned with a nightly and daily hand — the
Bible, "^Esop's Fables," " Robinson Crusoe," "The
Pilgrim's Progress," a history of the United
States, and Weem's " Life of Washington." These
were the best, and these he read over and over till
he knew them almost by heart. But his voracity
for anything printed was insatiable. He would sit
in the twilight and read a dictionary as long as he
could see. He used to go to David Turnham's, the
town constable, and devour the " Revised Statutes
of Indiana," as boys in our day do the "Three
Guardsmen." Of the books he did not own he took
voluminous notes, filling his copy-book with choice
extracts, and poring over them until they were
fixed in his memory. He could not afford to waste
paper upon his original compositions. He would
sit by the fire at night and cover the wooden shovel
with essays and arithmetical exercises, which he
would shave off and then begin again. It is touch-
ing to think of this great-spirited child, battling year
after year against his evil star, wasting his ingenu-
ity upon devices and makeshifts, his high intelli-
36 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. n. gence starving for want of the simple appliances of
education that are now offered gratis to the poorest
and most indifferent. He did a man's work from
the time he left school ; his strength and stature
were already far beyond those of ordinary men.
He wrought his appointed tasks ungrudgingly,
though without enthusiasm; but when his em-
ployer's day was over, his own began.
John Hanks says : " When Abe and I returned
to the house from work he would go to the cup-
w H. board, snatch a piece of corn-bread, take down a
^Life0St- book, sit down, cock his legs up as high as his
p?37D' head, and read." The picture may be lacking in
grace, but its truthfulness is beyond question. The
habit remained with him always. Some of his
greatest work in later years was done in this gro-
tesque Western fashion, — " sitting on his shoulder-
blades."
Otherwise his life at this time differed little
from that of ordinary farm-hands. His great
strength and intelligence made him a valuable
laborer, and his unfailing good temper and flow of
rude rustic wit rendered him the most agreeable of
comrades. He was always ready with some kindly
act or word for others. Once he saved the life of
the town drunkard, whom he found freezing by the
roadside, by carrying him in his strong arms to
the tavern, and working over him until he revived.
It is a curious fact that this act of common human-
ity was regarded as something remarkable in the
neighborhood ; the grateful sot himself always
said " it was mighty clever of Abe to tote me so
far that cold night." It was also considered an
eccentricity that he hated and preached against
INDIANA 37
cruelty to animals. Some of his comrades remem- chap. ii.
ber still his bursts of righteous wrath, when a boy,
against the wanton murder of turtles and other
creatures. He was evidently of better and finer
clay than his fellows, even in those wild and igno-
rant days. At home he was the life of the singularly
assorted household, which consisted, besides his par-
ents and himself, of his own sister, Mrs. Lincoln's
two girls and boy, Dennis Hanks, the legacy of the
dying Sparrow family, and John Hanks (son of the
carpenter Joseph with whom Thomas Lincoln
learned his trade), who came from Kentucky
several years after the others. It was probably as
much the inexhaustible good nature and kindly
helpfulness of young Abraham which kept the
peace among all these heterogeneous elements,
effervescing with youth and confined in a one-
roomed cabin, as it was the Christian sweetness and
firmness of the woman of the house. It was a
happy and united household : brothers and sisters
and cousins living peacefully under the gentle rule
of the good stepmother, but all acknowledging from
a very early period the supremacy in goodness and
cleverness of their big brother Abraham. Mrs.
Lincoln, not long before her death, gave striking
testimony of his winning and loyal character. She
said to Mr. Herndon : " I can say, what scarcely ^l™™'
one mother in a thousand can say, Abe never gave
me a cross word or look, and never refused in fact
or appearance to do anything I asked him. His
mind and mine — what little I had — seemed to run
together. ... I had a son John, who was raised
with Abe. Both were good boys, but I must say,
both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I
38 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. ever saw or expect to see." Such were the begin-
nings of this remarkable career, sacred as we
see from childhood, to duty and to human kind-
liness.
"We are making no claim of early saintship for
him. He was merely a good boy, with sufficient
wickedness to prove his humanity. One of his
employers, undazzled by recent history, faithfully
remembers that young Abe liked his dinner and
his pay better than his work : there is surely noth-
ing alien to ordinary mortality in this. It is also
reported that he sometimes impeded the celerity of
harvest operations by making burlesque speeches,
or worse than that, comic sermons, from the top of
some tempting stump, to the delight of the hired
hands and the exasperation of the farmer. His
budding talents as a writer were not always used
discreetly. He was too much given to scribbling
coarse satires and chronicles, in prose, and in some-
thing which had to him and his friends the air of
verse. From this arose occasional heart-burnings
and feuds, in which Abraham bore his part accord-
ing to the custom of the country. Despite his
Quaker ancestry and his natural love of peace, he
was no non-resistant, and when he once entered
upon a quarrel the opponent usually had the worst
of it. But he was generous and placable, and some
of his best friends were those with whom he had
had differences, and had settled them in the way
then prevalent, — in a ring of serious spectators,
calmly and judicially ruminant, under the shade of
some spreading oak, at the edge of the timber.
Before we close our sketch of this period of
Lincoln's life, it may not be amiss to glance for a
INDIANA 39
moment at the state of society among the people chap. ii.
with whom his lot was cast in these important
years.
In most respects there had been little moral or
material improvement since the early settlement
of the country. Their houses were usually of one
room, built of round logs with the bark on. We
have known a man to gain the sobriquet of " Split-
log Mitchell " by indulging in the luxury of build-
ing a cabin of square-hewn timbers. Their dress
was still mostly of tanned deer-hide, a material to
the last degree uncomfortable when the wearer was
caught in a shower. Their shoes were of the same,
and a good Western authority calls a wet moccasin
" a decent way of going barefoot." About the time,
however, when Lincoln grew to manhood, garments
of wool and of tow began to be worn, dyed with
the juice of the butternut or white walnut, and the
hides of neat-cattle began to be tanned. But for a
good while it was only the women who indulged in
these novelties. There was little public worship.
Occasionally an itinerant preacher visited a county,
and the settlers for miles around would go nearly
in mass to the meeting. If a man was possessed
of a wagon, the family rode luxuriously ; but as a
rule the men walked and the women went on horse-
back with the little children in their arms. It was
considered no violation of the sanctities of the oc-
casion to carry a rifle and take advantage of any
game which might be stirring during the long walk.
Arriving at the place of meeting, which was some
log cabin if the weather was foul, or the shade of
a tree if it was fair, the assembled worshipers threw
their provisions into a common store and picnicked
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. in neighborly companionship. The preacher would
then take off his coat, and go at his work with an
energy unknown to our days.
There were few other social meetings. Men came
together for " raisings," where a house was built in
a day; for " log-rollings," where tons of excellent
timber were piled together and wastefully burned;
for wolf -hunts, where a tall pole was erected in the
midst of a prairie or clearing, and a great circle of
hunters formed around it, sometimes of miles in
diameter, which, gradually contracting with shouts
and yells, drove all the game in the woods together
at the pole for slaughter; and for horse-races,
which bore little resemblance to those magnificent
exhibitions which are the boast of Kentucky at
this time. In these affairs the women naturally
took no part ; but weddings, which were entertain-
ments scarcely less rude and boisterous, were their
own peculiar province. These festivities lasted
rarely less than twenty-four hours. The guests as-
sembled in the morning. There was a race for the
whisky bottle ; a midday dinner ; an afternoon of
rough games and outrageous practical jokes ; a sup-
per and dance at night, interrupted by the successive
withdrawals of the bride and of the groom, attended
with ceremonies and jests of more than Rabelaisian
crudeness ; and a noisy dispersal next day.
The one point at which they instinctively clung
to civilization was their regard for law and rever-
ence for courts of justice. Yet these were of the
simplest character and totally devoid of any ad-
smith, ventitious accessories. An early jurist of the
indfail country writes : " I was Circuit Prosecuting At-
P. ass. torney at the time of the trials at the falls of Fall
INDIANA 41
Creek, where Pendleton now stands. Four of the chap. ii.
prisoners were convicted of murder, and three of
them hung, for killing Indians. The court was held
in a double log cabin, the grand jury sat upon a
log in the woods, and the foreman signed the bills
of indictment, which I had prepared, upon his knee;
there was not a petit juror that had shoes on ; all
wore moccasins, and were belted around the waist,
and carried side-knives used by the hunters." Yet
amidst all this apparent savagery we see justice was
done, and the law vindicated even against the
bitterest prejudices of these pioneer jurymen.
They were full of strange superstitions. The
belief in witchcraft had long ago passed away with
the smoke of the fagots from old and New England,
but it survived far into this century in Kentucky
and the lower halves of Indiana and Illinois —
touched with a peculiar tinge of African magic.
The pioneers believed in it for good and evil. Their
veterinary practice was mostly by charms and in-
cantations; and when a person believed himself
bewitched, a shot at the image of the witch with a
bullet melted out of a half-dollar was the favorite
curative agency. Luck was an active divinity in
their apprehension, powerful for blessing or bane,
announced by homely signs, to be placated by
quaint ceremonies. A dog crossing the hunter's
path spoiled his day, unless he instantly hooked
his little fingers together, and pulled till the animal
disappeared. They were familiar with the ever- ^i™?*
recurring mystification of the witch-hazel, or divin-
ing-rod ; and the "cure by faith" was as well known
to them as it has since become in a more sophisti-
cated state of society. The commonest occurrences
42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. were heralds of death and doom. A bird lighting
in a window, a dog baying at certain hours, the
cough of a horse in the direction of a child, the
sight, or worse still, the touch of a dead snake,
heralded domestic woe. A wagon driving past the
house with a load of baskets was a warning of at-
mospheric disturbance. A vague and ignorant
astronomy governed their plantings and sowings,
the breeding of their cattle, and all farm-work.
They must fell trees for fence-rails before noon,
and in the waxing of the moon. Fences built
Lamon, -, , -. i i •
p. 44. when there was no moon would give way;
but that was the proper season for planting
potatoes and other vegetables whose fruit grows
underground ; those which bore their product in
the air must be planted when the moon shone.
The magical power of the moon was wide in its
influence; it extended to the most minute details
of life.
Among these people, and in all essential respects
one of them, Abraham Lincoln passed his childhood
and youth. He was not remarkably precocious.
His mind was slow in acquisition, and his powers
of reasoning and rhetoric improved constantly to
the end of his life, at a rate of progress marvelously
regular and sustained. But there was that about
him, even at the age of nineteen years, which
might well justify his admiring friends in presaging
for him an unusual career. He had read every
book he could find, and could " spell down " the
whole county at their orthographical contests. By
dint of constant practice he had acquired an admi-
rably clear and serviceable handwriting. He occa-
sionally astounded his companions by such glimpses
INDIANA 43
of occult science as that the world is round and that chap. ii.
the sun is relatively stationary. He wrote, for his
own amusement and edification, essays on politics,
of which gentlemen of standing who had been
favored with a perusal said with authority, at the
cross-roads grocery, " The world can't beat it."
One or two of these compositions got into print
and vastly increased the author's local fame. He
was also a magnanimous boy, with a larger and
kindlier spirit than common. His generosity,
courage, and capability of discerning two sides to a
dispute, were remarkable even then, and won him
the admiration of those to whom such qualities
were unknown. But perhaps, after all, the thing
which gained and fixed his mastery over his fellows
was to a great degree his gigantic stature and
strength. He attained his full growth, six feet
and four inches, two years before he came of age.
He rarely met with a man he could not easily
handle. His strength is still a tradition in Spencer p™™'
County. One aged man says that he has seen him
pick up and carry away a chicken-house weigh-
ing six hundred pounds. At another time, seeing
some men preparing a contrivance for lifting some
large posts, Abe quickly shouldered the posts and
took them where they were needed. One of his
employers says, " He could sink an axe deeper into
wood than any man I ever saw." With strength
like this and a brain to direct it, a man was a
born leader in that country and at that time.
There are, of course, foolish stories extant that
Abraham used to boast, and that others used to
predict, that he would be President some day.
The same thing is daily said of thousands of boys
44 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. who will never be constables. But there is evi-
dence that he felt too large for the life of a farm-
hand on Pigeon Creek, and his thoughts naturally
turned, after the manner of restless boys in the
West, to the river, as the avenue of escape from the
narrow life of the woods. He once asked an old
friend to give him a recommendation to some
steamboat on the Ohio, but desisted from his pur-
pose on being reminded that his father had the
right to dispose of his time for a year or so more.
1828. But in 1828 an opportunity offered for a little
glimpse of the world outside, and the boy gladly
embraced it. He was hired by Mr. Gentry, the
proprietor of the neighboring village of Gentry-
ville, to accompany his son with a flat-boat of
produce to New Orleans and intermediate land-
ings. The voyage was made successfully, and
Abraham gained great credit for his management
and sale of the cargo. The only important incident
of the trip occurred at the plantation of Madame
Duchesne, a few miles below Baton Rouge. The
young merchants had tied up for the night and
were asleep in the cabin, when they were aroused
by shuffling footsteps, which proved to be a gang
of marauding negroes, coming to rob the boat.
Abraham instantly attacked them with a club,
knocked several overboard and put the rest to
flight; flushed with battle, he and Allen Gentry
carried the war into the enemy's country, and pur-
sued the retreating Africans some distance in the
darkness. They then returned to the boat, bleed-
ing but victorious, and hastily swung into the
stream and floated down the river till daylight.
Lincoln's exertion in later years for the welfare of
INDIANA 45
the African race showed that this nocturnal battle chap. ii.
had not led him to any hasty and hostile general-
izations.
The next autumn, John Hanks, the steadiest
and most trustworthy of his family, went to Illi-
nois. Though an illiterate and rather dull man, he
had a good deal of solidity of character and conse-
quently some influence and consideration in the
household. He settled in Macon County, and was
so well pleased with the country, and especially
with its admirable distribution into prairie and
timber, that he sent repeated messages to his
friends in Indiana to come out and join him.
Thomas Lincoln was always ready to move. He
had probably by this time despaired of ever own-
ing any unencumbered real estate in Indiana, and
the younger members of the family had little to
bind them to the place where they saw nothing in
the future but hard work and poor living. Thomas
Lincoln handed over his farm to Mr. Gentry, sold iaao.
his crop of corn and hogs, packed his household
goods and those of his children and sons-in-law
into a single wagon, drawn by two yoke of oxen,
the combined wealth of himself and Dennis Hanks,
and started for the new State. His daughter
Sarah or Nancy, for she was called by both names,
who married Aaron Grrigsby a few years before,
had died in childbirth. The emigrating family
consisted of the Lincolns, John Johnston, Mrs.
Lincoln's son, and her daughters, Mrs. Hall and
Mrs. Hanks, with their husbands.
Two weeks of weary tramping over forest roads
and muddy prairie, and the dangerous ford-
ing of streams swollen by the February thaws,
46 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ii. brought the party to John Hanks's place near De-
catur. He met them with a frank and energetic
welcome. He had already selected a piece of
ground for them a few miles from his own, and
had the logs ready for their house. They num-
bered men enough to build without calling in their
neighbors, and immediately put up a cabin on the
north fork of the Sangamon River. The family
thus housed and sheltered, one more bit of filial
work remained for Abraham before assuming his
virile independence. With the assistance of John
Hanks he plowed fifteen acres, and split, from the
tall walnut-trees of the primeval forest, enough
rails to surround them with a fence. Little did
either dream, while engaged in this work, that the
day would come when the appearance of John
Hanks in a public meeting, with two of these rails
on his shoulder, would electrify a State convention,
and kindle throughout the country a contagious
and passionate enthusiasm, whose results would
reach to endless generations.
CHAPTER III
ILLINOIS IN 1830
THE Lincolns arrived in Illinois just in time chap. in.
to entitle themselves to be called pioneers.
When, in after years, associations of " Old Settlers "
began to be formed in Central Illinois, the qualifi-
cation for membership agreed upon by common
consent was a residence in the country before " the
winter of the deep snow." This was in 1830-31, a
season of such extraordinary severity that it has
formed for half a century a recognized date in the
middle counties of Illinois, among those to whom
in those days diaries and journals were unknown.
The snowfall began in the Christmas holidays and Eev j M
continued until the snow was three feet deep on s* J^f
level ground. Then came a cold rain, freezing as Setti?rsdof
it fell, until a thick crust of ice gathered over the cSuiSy"
snow. The weather became intensely cold, the
mercury sinking to twelve degrees below zero,
Fahrenheit, and remaining there for two weeks.
The storm came on with such suddenness that all
who were abroad had great trouble in reaching XK,
their homes, and many perished. One man relates °couCnty^n
that he and a friend or two were out in a hunting
party with an ox-team. They had collected a
wagon-load of game and were on their way home
48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. hi. when the storm struck them. After they had gone
four miles they were compelled to abandon their
wagon; the snow fell in heavy masses "as if
thrown from a scoop-shovel " ; arriving within two
miles of their habitation, they were forced to trust
to the instinct of their animals, and reached home
hanging to the tails of their steers. Not all were
so fortunate. Some were found weeks afterwards
in the snow-drifts, their flesh gnawed by famished
wolves ; and the fate of others was unknown until
the late spring sunshine revealed their resting-
places. To those who escaped, the winter was
tedious and terrible. It is hard for us to under-
stand the isolation to which such weather con-
demned the pioneer. For weeks they remained in
their cabins hoping for some mitigation of the
frost. When at last they were driven out by the
fear of famine, the labor of establishing communi-
J'"E>a0i7yer' cations was enormous. They finally made roads
^uSmcm by " wallowing through the snow," as an Illinois
Copm6l' historian expresses it, and going patiently over the
same track until the snow was trampled hard and
rounded like a turnpike. These roads lasted far
into the spring, when the snow had melted from
the plains, and wound for miles like threads of
silver over the rich black loam of the prairies.
After that winter game was never again so plenti-
ful in the State. Much still remained, of course,
but it never recovered entirely from the rigors of
that season and the stupid enterprise of the pio-
neer hunters, who, when they came out of their
snow-beleaguered cabins, began chasing and killing
the starved deer by herds. It was easy work ; the
crust of the snow was strong enough to bear the
ILLINOIS IN 1830 49
weight of men and dogs, but the slender hoofs of chap. hi.
the deer would after a few bounds pierce the
treacherous surface. This destructive slaughter
went on until the game grew too lean to be worth
the killing. All sorts of wild animals grew scarce
from that winter. Old settlers say that the slow
cowardly breed of prairie wolves, which used to be 'J^mcSSE?
caught and killed as readily as sheep, disappeared c™4if;"
about that time and none but the fleeter and
stronger survived.
Only once since then has nature shown such ex-
travagant severity in Illinois, and that was on a
day in the winter of 1836, known to Illinoisans as
" the sudden change." At noon on the 20th of
December, after a warm and rainy morning, the
ground being covered with mud and slush, the
temperature fell instantly forty degrees. A man
riding into Springfield for a marriage license says
a roaring and crackling wind came upon him and
the rain-drops dripping from his bridle-reins and
beard changed in a second into jingling icicles.
He rode hastily into the town and arrived in a few
minutes at his destination ; but his clothes were
frozen like sheet iron, and man and saddle had to
be taken into the house together to be thawed
apart. Greese and chickens were caught by the feet
and wings and frozen to the wet ground. A drove
of a thousand hogs, which were being driven to
St. Louis, rushed together for warmth, and became
piled in a great heap. Those inside smothered
and those outside froze, and the ghastly pyramid
remained there on the prairie for weeks: the
drovers barely escaped with their lives. Men killed
their horses, disemboweled them, and crept into
Vol. I.— 4
50 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. in. the cavity of their bodies to escape the murderous
wind.1
The pioneer period of Illinois was ending as
Thomas Lincoln and his tall boy drove their ox-team
over the Indiana line. The population of the State
had grown to 157,447. It still clung to the wooded
borders of the water-courses ; scattered settlements
were to be found all along the Mississippi and its
affluents, from where Cairo struggled for life in the
swamps of the Ohio to the bustling and busy min-
ing camps which the recent discovery of lead had
brought to Galena. A line of villages from Alton
to Peoria dotted the woodland which the Illinois
Eiver had stretched, like a green baldric, diagonally
across the bosom of the State. Then there were
long reaches of wilderness before you came to Fort
Dearborn, where there was nothing as yet to give
promise of that miraculous growth which was soon
to make Chicago a proverb to the world. There
were a few settlements in the fertile region called
the Military Tract ; the southern part of the State
was getting itself settled here and there. People
were coming in freely to the Sangamon country.
But a grassy solitude stretched from Galena to Chi-
cago, and the upper half of the State was generally
a wilderness. The earlier emigrants, principally
of the poorer class of Southern farmers, shunned
the prairies with something of a superstitious
dread. They preferred to pass the first years of
their occupation in the wasteful and laborious work
i Although the old settlers of to cite only those incidents of the
Sangamon County are acquainted sudden change which are given
with these facts, and we have in the careful and conscientious
often heard them and many compilation entitled "The Early
others like them from the lips of Settlers of Sangamon County,"
eye-witnesses, we have preferred by John Carroll Power.
ILLINOIS IN 1830 51
of clearing a patch of timber for corn, rather than chap. hi.
enter upon those rich savannas which were ready
to break into fertility at the slightest provocation
of culture. Even so late as 1835, writes J. F.
Speed, "no one dreamed the prairies would ever
be occupied." It was thought they would be used
perpetually as grazing-fields for stock. For years
the long processions of " movers " wound over
those fertile and neglected plains, taking no hint
of the wealth suggested by the rank luxuriance of
vegetable growth around them, the carpet of
brilliant flowers spread over the verdant knolls,
the strong, succulent grass that waved in the
breeze, full of warm and vital odor, as high as the
waist of a man. In after years, when the emigra-
tion from the Northern and Eastern States began
to pour in, the prairies were rapidly taken up, and
the relative growth and importance of the two
sections of the State were immediately reversed.
Governor Ford, writing about 1847, attributes this
result to the fact that the best class of Southern
people were slow to emigrate to a State where they
could not take their slaves; while the settlers from
the North, not being debarred by the State Consti-
tution from bringing their property with them,
were of a different class. " The northern part of
the State was settled in the first instance by
wealthy farmers, enterprising merchants, millers,
and manufacturers. They made farms, built mills,
churches, school-houses, towns, and cities, and
constructed roads and bridges as if by magic ; so
that although the settlements in the southern part
of the State are from twenty to fifty years in ad-
vance on the score of age, yet are they ten years
52 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. in. behind in point of wealth and all the appliances
Thomas of a higher civilization."
"Historyof At the time which we are specially considering,
p. 280.' however, the few inhabitants of the south and the
center were principally from what came afterwards
to be called the border slave States. They were
mostly a simple, neighborly, unambitious people,
contented with their condition, living upon plain
fare, and knowing not much of anything better.
Luxury was, of course, unknown ; even wealth,
if it existed, could procure few of the comforts
of refined life. There was little or no money in
circulation. Exchanges were effected by the most
primitive forms of barter, and each family had to
rely chiefly upon itself for the means of living.
The neighbors would lend a hand in building a
cabin for a new-comer ; after that he must in most
cases shift for himself. Many a man arriving from
an old community, and imperfectly appreciating
the necessities of pioneer life, has found suddenly,
on the approach of winter, that he must learn to
make shoes or go barefoot. The furniture of their
houses was made with an axe from the trees of the
forest. Their clothing was all made at home. The
buckskin days were over to a great extent, though
an occasional hunting-shirt and pair of moccasins
were still seen. But flax and hemp had begun to
be cultivated, and as the wolves were killed off the
sheep-folds increased, and garments resembling
those of civilization were spun and woven, and cut
and sewed, by the women of the family. When a
man had a suit of jeans colored with butternut-
dye, and his wife a dress of linsey, they could
appear with the best at a wedding or a quilting
ILLINOIS IN 1830 53
frolic. The superfluous could not have been said to chap, iil
exist in a community where men made their own
buttons, where women dug roots in the woods to
make their tea with, where many children never
saw a stick of candy until after they were grown.
The only sweetmeats known were those a skillful
cook could compose from the honey plundered from
the hollow oaks where the wild bees had stored it.
Yet there was withal a kind of rude plenty ; the
woods swarmed with game, and after swine began
to be raised, there was the bacon and hoe-cake
which any south-western farmer will say is good
enough for a king. The greatest privation was the
lack of steel implements. His axe was as precious
to the pioneer as his sword to the knight errant.
Governor John Eeynolds speaks of the panic felt
in his father's family when the axe was dropped
into a stream. A battered piece of tin was care-
fully saved and smoothed, and made into a grater
for green corn.
They had their own amusements, of course ; no
form of society is without them, from the anthro-
poid apes to the Jockey Club. As to the grosser
and ruder shapes taken by the diversions of the
pioneers, we will let Mr. Herndon speak — their
contemporary annalist and ardent panegyrist:
" These men could shave a horse's mane and tail,
paint, disfigure, and offer it for sale to the owner.
They could hoop up in a hogshead a drunken man,
they themselves being drunk, put in and nail fast
the head, and roll the man down hill a hundred
feet or more. They could run down a lean and
hungry wild pig, catch it, heat a ten-plate stove
furnace hot, and putting in the pig, could cook it,
54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. in. they dancing the while a merry jig." Wild oats
of this kind seem hardly compatible with a harvest
of civilization, but it is contended that such of
these roysterers as survived their stormy begin-
nings became decent and serious citizens. Indeed,
Mr. Herndon insists that even in their hot youth
they showed the promise of goodness and piety,
wiiiiam h. "They attended church, heard the sermon, wept
?peeS? at and prayed, shouted, got up and fought an hour,
tiers' Meet- and then went back to prayer, just as the spirit
cbunty. moved them." The camp-meeting may be said,
with no irreverent intention, to have been their
principal means of intellectual excitement. The
circuit preachers were for a long time the only cir-
culating medium of thought and emotion that kept
the isolated settlements from utter spiritual stag-
nation. They were men of great physical and
moral endurance, absolutely devoted to their work,
which they pursued in the face of every hardship
and discouragement. Their circuits were frequently
so great in extent that they were forced to be con-
stantly on the route; what reading they did was
done in the saddle. They received perhaps fifty
dollars from the missionary fund and half as much
to Mciian more from their congregations, paid for the most
p. 194.' part in necessaries of life. Their oratory was suited
to their longitude, and was principally addressed
to the emotions of their hearers. It was often very
effective, producing shouts and groans and genu-
flections among the audience at large, and terrible
convulsions among the more nervous and excit-
able. We hear sometimes of a whole congregation
prostrated as by a hurricane, flinging their limbs
about in furious contortions, with wild outcries.
ILLINOIS IN 1830 55
To this day some of the survivors of that period chap. hi.
insist that it was the spirit of the Almighty, and
nothing less, that thus manifested itself. The
minister, however, did not always share in the de-
lirium of his hearers. Governor Eeynolds tells us
of a preacher in Sangamon County, who, before
his sermon, had set a wolf -trap in view from his
pulpit. In the midst of his exhortations his keen
eyes saw the distant trap collapse, and he continued
in the same intonation with which he had been
preaching, " Mind the text, brethren, till I go kill
that wolf ! " With all the failings and eccentricities
of this singular class of men, they did a great deal
of good, and are entitled to especial credit among
those who conquered the wilderness. The emotions
they excited did not all die away in the shouts and
contortions of the meeting. Not a few of the
cabins in the clearings were the abode of a fervent
religion and an austere morality. Many a traveler,
approaching a rude hut in the woods in the gather-
ing twilight, distrusting the gaunt and silent
family who gave him an unsmiling welcome, the
bare interior, the rifles and knives conspicuously
displayed, has felt his fears vanish when he sat
down to supper, and the master of the house, in a
few fervent words, invoked the blessing of heaven
on the meal.
There was very little social intercourse ; a visit
was a serious matter, involving the expenditure of
days of travel. It was the custom among families,
when the longing for the sight of kindred faces
was too strong to withstand, to move in a body to
the distant settlement where their relatives lived
and remain with them for months at a time. The
56 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. hi. claims of consanguinity were more regarded than
now. Almost the only festivities were those that
accompanied weddings, and these were, of course,
of a primitive kind. The perils and adventures
through which the young pioneers went to obtain
their brides furnish forth thousands of tales by
Western firesides. Instead of taking the rosy
daughter of a neighbor, the enterprising bachelor
would often go back to Kentucky, and pass
through as many adventures in briDging his wife
home as a returning crusader would meet between
Beirut and Vienna. If she was a young woman
who respected herself, the household gear she
would insist on bringing would entail an Iliad of
embarrassments. An old farmer of Sangamon
County still talks of a feather-bed weighing fifty-
four pounds with which his wife made him swim
six rivers under penalty of desertion.
It was not always easy to find a competent au-
thority to perform the ceremony. A justice in
McLean County lived by the bank of a river, and
his services were sometimes required by impatient
lovers on the other bank when the waters were too
torrential to cross. In such cases, being a consci-
entious man, he always insisted that they should
ride into the stream far enough for him to discern
their features, holding torches to their faces by
night and by storm. The wooing of those days was
prompt and practical. There was no time for the
gradual approaches of an idler and more conven-
tional age. It is related of one Stout, one of the
legendary Nimrods of Illinois, who was well and
frequently married, that he had one unfailing foi*-
mula of courtship. He always promised the ladies
ILLINOIS IN 1830 57
whose hearts he was besieging that " they should chap.iii.
live in the timber where they could pick up their
own firewood."
Theft was almost unknown ; property, being so
hard to get, was jealously guarded, as we have
already noticed in speaking of the settlement of
Kentucky. The pioneers of Illinois brought with
them the same rigid notions of honesty which their
environment maintained. A man in Macoupin
County left his wagon, loaded with corn, stuck in
the prairie mud for two weeks near a frequented
road. When he returned he found some of his corn
gone, but there was money enough tied in the
sacks to pay for what was taken. Men carrying
bags of silver from the towns of Illinois to St.
Louis rather made a display of it, as it enhanced
their own importance, and there was no fear of
robbery. There were of course no locks on the
cabin doors, and the early merchants sometimes
left their stores unprotected for days together when
they went to the nearest city to replenish their
stock. Of course there were rare exceptions to
this rule, but a single theft alarmed and excited a
whole neighborhood. When a crime was traced
home, the family of the criminal were generally
obliged to remove.
There were still, even so late as the time to which
we are referring, two alien elements in the popula-
tion of the State — the French and the Indians.
The French settlements about Kaskaskia retained
much of their national character, and the pioneers
from the South who visited them or settled among
them never ceased to wonder at their gayety, their
peaceable industry and enterprise, and their domes-
58 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. hi. tic affection, which they did not care to dissemble
and conceal like their shy and reticent neighbors.
It was a daily spectacle, which never lost its
strangeness for the Tennesseeans and Kentnckians,
to see the Frenchman returning from his work
greeted by his wife and children with embraces of
welcome "at the gate of his door-yard, and in
view of all the villagers." The natural and kindly
fraternization of the Frenchmen with the Indians
was also a cause of wonder to the Americans. The
friendly intercourse between them, and their
occasional intermarriages, seemed little short of
monstrous to the ferocious exclusiveness of the
Anglo-Saxon.1 The Indians in the central part of
Illinois cut very little figure in the reminiscences
of the pioneers ; they occupied much the same
relation to them as the tramp to the housewife of
to-day. The Winnebago war in 1827 and the Black
Hawk war in 1831 disturbed only the northern
portion of the State. A few scattered and vagrant
lodges of Pottawatomies and Kickapoos were all the
pioneers of Sangamon and the neighboring counties
ever met. They were spared the heroic struggle of
the advance-guard of civilization in other States.
A woman was sometimes alarmed by a visit from a
drunken savage ; poultry and pigs occasionally
disappeared when they were in the neighborhood ;
but life was not darkened by the constant menace
of massacre. A few years earlier, indeed, the re-
lations of the two races had been more strained, as
may be inferred from an act passed by the territo-
rial Legislature in 1814, offering a reward of fifty
1 Michelet notices this exclu- style. " Crime contre la nature !
siveness of the English, and in- Crime contre l'humanite" ! II sera
veighs against it in his most lyric expie par la sterility de l'esprit."
ILLINOIS IN 1830
59
dollars to any citizen or ranger who should kill
or take any depredating Indian. As only two
dollars was paid for killing a wolf, it is easy to see
' how the pioneers regarded the forest folk in point
of relative noxiousness. But ten years later a
handful only of the Kickapoos remained in San-
gamon County, the specter of the vanished people.
A chief named Machina came one day to a family
who were clearing a piece of timber, and issued an
order of eviction in these words : " Too much come
white man. T'other side Sangamon." He threw a
handful of dried leaves in the air to show how he
would scatter the pale faces, but he never fulfilled
his threats further than to come in occasionally
and ask for a drink of whisky. That such trivial
details are still related, only shows how barren of
incident was the life of these obscure founders of a
great empire. Any subject of conversation, any
cause of sensation, was a godsend. When Vannoy
murdered his wife in Springfield, whole families
put on their best clothes and drove fifty miles
through bottomless mud and swollen rivers to see
him hanged.
It is curious to see how naturally in such a state
of things the fabric of political society developed
itself from its germ. The county of Sangamon
was called by an act of the Legislature in 1821 out
of a verdant solitude of more than a million acres,
inhabited by a few families. An election for
county commissioners was ordered ; three men were
chosen; they came together at the cabin of John
Kelly, at Spring Creek. He was a roving bachelor
from North Carolina, devoted to the chase, who
had built this hut three years before on the margin
Chap. m.
N. W.
Edwards,
" Life and
Times of
Niiiian
Edwards,"
p. 163.
60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. in. of a green-bordered rivulet, where the deer
passed by in hundreds, going in the morning from
the shady banks of the Sangamon to feed on the
rich green grass of the prairie, and returning in
the twilight. He was so delighted with this
power, hunters' paradise that he sent for his brothers to
" Early Set- x
saneramon J0"1 nmi* They came and brought their friends,
c^^f,M and so it happened that in this immense county,
several thousand square miles in extent, the settle-
ment of John Kelly at Spring Creek was the only
place where there was shelter for the commis-
sioners; thus it became the temporary county-
seat, duly described in the official report of the
commissioners as "a certain point in the prairie
near John Kelly's field, on the waters of Spring
Creek, at a stake marked Z and D (the initials of
the commissioners), to be the temporary seat of
justice for said county ; and we do further agree
that the said county-seat be called and known by
the name of Springfield." In this manner the
future capital received that hackneyed title, when
the distinctive and musical name of Sangamon was
ready to their hands. The same day they agreed
with John Kelly to build them a court-house, for
which they paid him forty-two dollars and fifty
cents. In twenty-four days the house was built —
one room of rough logs, the jury retiring to any
sequestered glade they fancied for their deliberation.
They next ordered the building of a jail, which
cost just twice as much money as the court-house.
Constables and overseers of the poor were ap-
pointed, and all the machinery of government
prepared for the population which was hourly
expected. It was taken for granted that malefactors
ILLINOIS IN 1830
61
would come and the constables have employment ; chap. hi.
and the poor they would have always with them,
when once they began to arrive. This was only a
temporary arrangement, but when, a year or two
later, the time came to fix upon a permanent seat
of justice for the county, the resources of the
Spring Creek men were equal to the emergency.
When the commissioners came to decide on the rel-
ative merits of Springfield and another site a few
miles away, they led them through brake, through
brier, by mud knee-deep and by water-courses so
exasperating that the wearied and baffled officials
declared they would seek no further, and Spring-
field became the county-seat for all time; and
greater destinies were in store for it through
means not wholly dissimilar. Nature had made it
merely a pleasant hunting-ground; the craft and
the industry of its first settlers made it a capital.
The courts which were held in these log huts were
as rude as might be expected ; yet there is evidence
that although there was no superfluity of law or of
learning, justice was substantially administered.
The lawyers came mostly from Kentucky, though
an occasional New Englander confronted and lived
down the general prejudice against his region and
obtained preferment. The profits of the profession
were inconceivably small. One early State's At-
torney describes his first circuit as a tour of shifts
and privations not unlike the wanderings of a
mendicant friar. In his first county he received a
fee of five dollars for prosecuting the parties to a
sanguinary affray. In the next he was equally
successful, but barely escaped drowning in Spoon
River. In the third there were but two families at
'HiBtoryof
Sangamon
County,"
p. 83.
p. 255.
62 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. in. the county-seat, and no cases on the docket.
Thence he journeyed across a trackless prairie sixty
miles, and at Quincy had one case and gained five
dollars. In Pike County our much-enduring jurist
took no cash, but found a generous sheriff who
entertained him without charge. " He was one of
nature's noblemen, from Massachusetts," writes the
grateful prosecutor. The lawyers in what was called
good practice earned less than a street-sweeper
to-day. It is related that the famous Stephen A.
Douglas once traveled from Springfield to Bloom-
ington and made an extravagant speech, and hav-
«« oid Times ing gained his case received a fee of five dollars.
'coimtl^ In such a state of things it was not to be wondered
at that the technicalities of law were held in some-
what less veneration than what the pioneer
regarded as the essential claims of justice. The
infirmities of the jury system gave them less annoy-
ance than they give us. Governor Ford mentions
a case where a gang of horse-thieves succeeded in
placing one of their confederates upon a jury which
was to try them ; but he was soon brought to
reason by his eleven colleagues making prepara-
tions to hang him to the rafters of the jury room.
The judges were less hampered by the limitations of
their legal lore than by their fears of a loss of
popularity as a result of too definite charges in
civil suits, or too great severity in criminal cases.
They grew very dexterous in avoiding any com-
mitment as to the legal or moral bearings of the
questions brought before them. They generally
refused to sum up, or to comment upon evidence ;
when asked by the counsel to give instructions
they would say, " Why, gentlemen, the jury under-
ILLINOIS IN 1830
63
stand this ease as well as you or I. They will do
justice between the parties." One famous judge,
who was afterwards governor, when sentencing a
murderer, impressed it upon his mind, and wished
him to inform his friends, that it was the jury and
not the judge who had found him guilty, and then
asked him on what day he would like to be hanged.
It is needless to say that the bench and bar were
not all of this class. There were even at that early
day lawyers, and not a few, who had already won
reputation in the older States, and whose names
are still honored in the profession. Cook, McLean,
Edwards, Kane, Thomas, Eeynolds, and others, the
earliest lawyers of the State, have hardly been
since surpassed for learning and ability.
In a community where the principal men were
lawyers, where there was as yet little commerce,
and industrial enterprise was unknown, it was
natural that one of the chief interests of life should
be the pursuit of politics. The young State
swarmed with politicians; they could be found
chewing and whittling at every cross-roads inn;
they were busy at every horse-race, arranging their
plans and extending their acquaintance; around
the burgoo-pot of the hunting party they discussed
measures and candidates; they even invaded the
camp-meeting and did not disdain the pulpit as a
tribune. Of course there was no such thing as
organization in the pioneer days. Men were voted
for to a great extent independently of partisan
questions affecting the nation at large, and in this
way the higher offices of the State were filled for
many years by men whose personal character com-
pelled the respect and esteem of the citizens. The
Chap. III.
Ford,
" History of
Illinois,"
p. 83.
64 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. in. year 1826 is generally taken as the date which
witnessed the change from personal to partisan
politics, though several years more elapsed before
the rule of conventions came in, which put an end
to individual candidacy. In that year, Daniel
Pope Cook, who had long represented the State in
Congress with singular ability and purity, was de-
feated by Governor Joseph Duncan, the candidate
of the Jackson men, on account of the vote given
by Cook which elected John Quincy Adams to the
Presidency. The bitter intolerance of the Jackson
party naturally caused their opponents to organize
against them, and there were two parties in the
State from that time forward. The change in polit-
ical methods was inevitable, and it is idle to
deplore it ; but the former system gave the better
men in the new State a power and prominence
which they have never since enjoyed. Such men
as Governor Ninian Edwards, who came with the
prestige of a distinguished family connection, a
large fortune, a good education, and a distinction
of manners and of dress — ruffles, gold buttons,
and fair-topped boots — which would hardly have
been pardoned a few years later; and Governor
Edward Coles, who had been private secretary
to Madison, and was familiar with the courts of
Europe, a man as notable for his gentleness of
manners as for his nobility of nature, could never
have come so readily and easily to the head of
the government after the machine of the caucus
had been perfected. Real ability then imposed
itself with more authority upon the ignorant and
unpretending politicians from the back timber ; so
that it is remarked by those who study the early
ILLINOIS IN 1830 65
statutes of Illinois that they are far better drawn chap. m.
up, and better edited, than those of a later period, «Hf8to?y0f
when illiterate tricksters, conscious of the party ^S'"
strength behind them, insisted on shaping legisla-
tion according to their own fancy. The men of
cultivation wielded an influence in the Legislature
entirely out of proportion to their numbers, as the
ruder sort of pioneers were naturally in a large
majority. The type of a not uncommon class in
Illinois tradition was a member from the South
who could neither read nor write, and whose appar-
ently ironical patronymic was Grammar. When
first elected he had never worn anything except
leather; but regarding his tattered buckskin as
unfit for the garb of a lawgiver, he and his sons
gathered hazel-nuts enough to barter at the nearest
store for a few yards of blue strouding such as the
Indians used for breech-clouts. When he came
home with his purchase and had called together
the women of the settlement to make his clothes,
it was found that there was only material enough
for a very short coat and a long pair of leggins, and
thus attired he went to Kaskaskia, the territorial
capital. Uncouth as was his appearance, he had in
him the raw material of a politician. He invented
a system — which was afterwards adopted by many
whose breeches were more fashionably cut — of
voting against every measure which was proposed.
If it failed, the responsibility was broadly shared ;
if it passed and was popular, no one would care
who voted against it ; if it passed and did not meet
the favor of the people, John Grammar could vaunt
his foresight. Between the men like Coles and the
men like Grammar there was a wide interval, and
Vol. I.— 5
66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. hi. the average was about what the people of the State
deserved and could appreciate. A legislator was
as likely to suffer for doing right as for doing
wrong. Governor Ford, in his admirable sketch of
the early history of the State, mentions two acts
of the Legislature, both of them proper and bene-
ficial, as unequaled in their destructive influence
upon the great folks of the State. One was a bill
for a loan to meet the honest obligations of the
commonwealth, commonly called " the Wiggins
loan " ; and the other was a law to prevent bulls of
inferior size and breed from running at large. This
latter set loose all the winds of popular fury : it was
cruel, it was aristocratic ; it was in the interest of
rich men and pampered foreign bulls ; and it ended
the career of many an aspiring politician in a blast
of democratic indignation and scorn. The poli-
tician who relied upon immediate and constant
contact with the people certainly earned all the
emoluments of office he received. His successes
were hardly purchased by laborious affability. "A
friend of mine," says Ford, " once informed me
that he intended to be a candidate for the Legisla-
ture, but would not declare himself until just before
the election, and assigned as a reason that it was
so very hard to be clever for a long time at once."
Before the caucus had eliminated the individual
initiative, there was much more of personal feeling
in elections. A vote against a man had something
of offense in it, and sometimes stirred up a defeated
candidate to heroic vengeance. In 1827 the Legis-
lature elected a State treasurer after an exciting
contest, and before the members had left the house
the unsuccessful aspirant came in and soundly
ILLINOIS IN 1830 67
thrashed, one after the other, four of the represent- chap. hi.
atives who had voted against him. Such energy Ford, P. si.
was sure to meet its reward, and he was soon after
made clerk of the Circuit Court. It is related by
old citizens of Menard County, as a circumstance
greatly to the credit of Abraham Lincoln, that
when he was a candidate for the Legislature a man
who wanted his vote for another place walked to
the polls with him and ostentatiously voted for
him, hoping to receive his vote in return. Lincoln
voted against him, and the act was much admired
by those who saw it.
One noticeable fact is observed in relation to the
politicians of the day — their careers were generally
brief. Superannuation came early. In the latter
part of the last century and the first half of this,
men were called old whom we should regard as in
the prime of life. When the friends of Washington
were first pressing the Presidency upon him in
1788, he urged his " advanced age" as an imperative
reason for declining it : he was fifty-six years old.
When Ninian Edwards was a candidate for Gov-
ernor of Illinois in 1826, he was only fifty-one, and
yet he considered it necessary in his published ad-
dresses to refer to the charge that he was too old
for the place, and, while admitting the fact that he
was no longer young, to urge in extenuation that
there are some old things, — like old whisky, old
bacon, and old friends, — which are not without
their merits. Even so late as 1848, we find a
remarkable letter from Mr. Lincoln, who was then
in Congress, bearing upon the same point. His
partner, William H. Herndon, had written him a
letter, complaining that the old men in Sangamon
68 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. hi. County were unwilling to let the young ones have
any opportunity to distinguish themselves. To
this Lincoln answered in his usual tone of grave
kindness : " The subject of your letter is exceed-
ingly painful to me ; and I cannot but think there
is some mistake in your impression of the motives
of the old men. I suppose I am now one of the
old men, and I declare on my veracity, which I
think is good with you, that nothing could afford
me more satisfaction than to learn that you and
others of my young friends at home were doing
battle in the contest and endearing themselves to
the people and taking a stand far above any I have
ever been able to reach in their admiration. I
cannot conceive that other old men feel differently.
Of course, I cannot demonstrate what I say ; but I
was young once, and I am sure I was never un-
generously thrust back."
The man who thus counseled petulant youth with
the experienced calmness of age was thirty-nine
years old. A state of society where one could at
that age call himself or be called by others an old
man, is proved by that fact alone to be one of
wearing hardships and early decay of the vital
powers. The survivors of the pioneers stoutly in-
sist upon the contrary view. " It was a glorious
life," says one old patriarch ; " men would fight for
the love of it, and then shake hands and be friends ;
there is nothing like it now." Another says, "I
never enjoy my breakfast now as I used to, when I
got up and ran down a deer before I could have
anything to eat." But they see the past through
a rosy mist of memory, transfigured by the eternal
magic of youth. The sober fact is that the life
ILLINOIS IN 1830 69
was a hard one, with few rational pleasures, few chap.iii.
Wholesome appliances. The strong ones lived, and
some even attained great length of years ; but to
the many age came early and was full of infirmity
and pain. If we could go back to what our fore-
fathers endured in clearing the Western wilderness,
we could then better appreciate our obligations to
them. It is detracting from the honor which is
their due to say that their lives had much of happi-
ness or comfort, or were in any respect preferable
to our own.
CHAPTER IV
NEW SALEM
DURING the latter part of " the winter of the
deep snow," Lincoln became acquainted
with one Denton Offutt, an adventurous and dis-
cursive sort of merchant, with more irons in the
fire than he could well manage. He wanted to take
a flat-boat and cargo to New Orleans, and having
heard that Hanks and Lincoln had some experience
of the river, he insisted on their joining him. John
Johnston was afterwards added to the party, prob-
ably at the request of his foster-brother, to share
in the golden profits of the enterprise; for fifty
cents a day, and a contingent dividend of twenty
dollars apiece, seemed like a promise of immediate
opulence to the boys. In the spring, when the
rivers broke up and the melting snows began to
pour in torrents down every ravine and gully, the
three young men paddled down the Sangamon in
a canoe to the point where Jamestown now stands ;
whence they walked five miles to Springfield,
where Offutt had given them rendezvous. They
met him at Elliott's tavern and far from happy.
Amid the multiplicity of his engagements he had
failed to procure a flat-boat, and the first work his
new hands must do was to build one. They cut
NEW SALEM 71
the timber, with frontier innocence, from "Con- chap.iv.
gress land," and soon had a serviceable craft
afloat, with which they descended the current of
the Sangamon to New Salem, a little village
which seems to have been born for the occasion,
as it came into existence just before the arrival
of Lincoln, flourished for seven years while he
remained one of its citizens, and died soon after
he went away. His introduction to his fellow-
citizens was effected in a peculiar and somewhat
striking manner. Offutt's boat had come to serious
embarrassment on Rutledge's mill-dam, and the un-
wonted incident brought the entire population to
the water's edge. They spent a good part of the day
watching the hapless flat-boat, resting midships on
the dam, the forward end in the air and the stern
taking in the turbid Sangamon water. Nobody knew
what to do with the disaster except " the bow-oar,"
who is described as a gigantic youth "with his
trousers rolled up some five feet," who was wading
about the boat and rigging up some undescribed
contrivance by which the cargo was unloaded, the
boat tilted and the water let out by boring a hole
through the bottom, and everything brought safely
to moorings below the dam. This exploit gained for
young Lincoln the enthusiastic admiration of his
employer, and turned his own mind in the direction
of an invention which he afterwards patented " for
lifting vessels over shoals." The model on which
he obtained this patent — a little boat whittled by
his own hand in 1849, after he had become promi-
nent as a lawyer and politician — is still shown to
visitors at the Department of the Interior. We have
never learned that it has served any other purpose.
72
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
Chap. IV.
Lamon,
p. 83.
They made a quick trip
down the Sangamon, the
Illinois, and the Missis-
sippi rivers. Although
it was but a repetition
in great part of the trip
young Lincoln had made
with Gentry, it evidently
created a far deeper im-
pression on his mind than
the former one. The sim-
ple and honest words of
John Hanks leave no
doubt of this. At New
Orleans, he said, they
saw for the first time
" negroes chained, mal-
treated, whipped, and
scourged. Lincoln saw
it; his heart bled; said
nothing much, was silent,
looked bad. I can say,
knowing it, that it was on
this trip that he formed
his opinion of slavery.
It run its iron in him
then and there, May,
1831. I have heard him say so often." The sight
of men in chains was intolerable to him. Ten
years after this he made another journey by
water with his friend Joshua Speed, of Kentucky.
Writing to Speed about it after the lapse of four-
teen years, he says : "In 1841 you and I had to-
gether a tedious low- water trip on a steamboat from
«*1 ^m ;
74 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. iv. Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I
well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the
Ohio there were on board ten or a dozen slaves
shackled together with irons. That sight was
a continual torment to me, and I see something
like it every time I touch the Ohio or any other
slave border. It is not fair for you to assume
that I have no interest in a thing which has, and
continually exercises, the power of making me
miserable."
There have been several ingenious attempts to
show the origin and occasion of Mr. Lincoln's
antislavery convictions. They seem to us an
idle waste of labor. These sentiments came with
the first awakening of his mind and conscience,
and were roused into active life and energy by
the sight of fellow-creatures in chains on an
Ohio River steamboat, and on the wharf at New
Orleans.
The party went up the river in the early summer
and separated in St. Louis. Abraham walked in
company with John Johnston from St. Louis to
Coles County, and spent a few weeks there with
his father, who had made another migration the
year before. His final move was to Goose Nest
Prairie, where he died in 1851,1 at the age of seventy-
three years, after a life which, though not success-
ful in any material or worldly point of view, was
probably far happier than that of his illustrious
son, being unvexed by enterprise or ambition.
Abraham never lost sight of his parents. He con-
tinued to aid and befriend them in every way, even
1 His grave, a mile and a half propriate monument erected by
west of the town of Farmington, his grandson, the Hon. Robert T.
Illinois, is surmounted by an ap- Lincoln.
NEW SALEM 75
when he could ill afford it, and when his benefac- chap. iv.
tions were imprudently used. He not only com-
forted their declining years with every aid his
affection could suggest, but he did everything in
his power to assist his stepbrother Johnston — a
hopeless task enough. The following rigidly truth-
ful and yet kindly letters will show how mentor-
like and masterful, as well as generous, were the
relations that Mr. Lincoln held to these friends and
companions of his childhood :
Dear Johnston : Your request for eighty dollars I do
not think it best to comply with now. At the various
times when I have helped you a little, you have said to
me, " We can get along very well now," but in a very
short time I find you in the same difiiculty again. Now
this can only happen by some defect in your conduct.
What that defect is I think I know. You are not lazy,
and still you are an idler. I doubt whether, since I saw
you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one
day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still
you do not work much, merely because it does not seem
to you that you could get much for it. This habit of
uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty, and it is
vastly important to you, and still more so to your chil-
dren, that you should break the habit. It is more impor-
tant to them because they have longer to live, and can
keep out of an idle habit before they are in it easier than
they can get out after they are in.
You are now in need of some money ; and what I pro-
pose is that you shall go to work "tooth and nail" for
somebody who will give you money for it. Let father
and your boys take charge of things at home, prepare for
a crop, and make the crop ; and you go to work for the
best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe,
that you can get ; and to secure you a fair reward for your
labor, I now promise you that for every dollar you will,
between this and the first of next May, get for your own
labor, either in money or as discharging your own indebted-
ness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you
76 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. iv. hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will
get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your
work. In this I do not mean you should go off to
St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in Cali-
fornia ; but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages
you can get close to home, in Coles County. Now, if
you will do this you will soon be out of debt, and, what
is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from
getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out
of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever.
You say you would almost give your place in heaven for
seventy or eighty dollars. Then you value your place
in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can with the
offer I make get the seventy or eighty dollars for four
or five months' work. You say if I will furnish you
the money you will deed me the land, and if you don't
pay the money back you will deliver possession. Nonsense.
If you can't now live with the land, how will you then
live without it ? You have always been kind to me, and
I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if
you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth
more than eighty times eighty dollars to you.
Here is a later epistle, still more graphic and
terse in statement, which has the unusual merit of
painting both confessor and penitent to the life :
Shelbyville, Nov. 4, 1851.
Dear Brother: When I came into Charleston, day
before yesterday, I learned that you were anxious to sell
the land where you live and move to Missouri. I have
been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but think
such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in
Missouri better than here ? Is the land any richer ? Can
you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and
oats without work ? Will anybody there, any more than
here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to
work, there is no better place than right where you
are ; if you do not intend to go to work, you cannot get
along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from
place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop
this year, and what you really want is to sell the land,
NEW SALEM 77
get the money, and spend it. Part with the land you chap. rv.
have, and, my life upon it, you will never after own a
spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for
the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the
other half you will eat and drink and wear out, and no
foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it is my duty
to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel that
it is so even on your own account, and particularly on
mother's account. The eastern forty acres I intend to
keep for mother while she lives ; if you will not cultivate
it, it will rent for enough to support her; at least,
it will rent for something. Her dower in the other
two forties she can let you have, and no thanks to me.
Now do not misunderstand this letter. I do not write it
in any unkindness. I write it in order, if possible, to
get you to face the truth, which truth is, you are destitute
because you have idled away all your time. Your thou-
sand pretenses deceive nobody but yourself. Go to work
is the only cure for your case.
A volume of disquisition could not put more
clearly before the reader the difference between
Abraham Lincoln and the common run of Southern
and Western rural laborers. He had the same dis-
advantages that they had. He grew up in the
midst of poverty and ignorance ; he was poisoned
with the enervating malaria of the Western woods,
as all his fellows were, and the consequences of it
were seen in his character and conduct to the close
of his life. But he had, what very few of them
possessed any glimmering notion of, a fixed and
inflexible will to succeed. He did not love work,
probably, any better than John Johnston ; but he
had an innate self-respect, and a consciousness that
his self was worthy of respect, that kept him from
idleness as it kept him from all other vices, and
made him a better man every year that he lived.
We have anticipated a score of years in speaking
78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. iv. of Mr. Lincoln's relations to his family. It was in
August of the year 1831 that he finally left his
father's roof, and swung out for himself into the
current of the world to make his fortune in his
own way. He went down to New Salem again to
assist Offutt in the business that lively specula-
tor thought of establishing there. He was more
punctual than either his employer or the merchan-
dise, and met with the usual reward of punctuality
in being forced to waste his time in waiting for
the tardy ones. He seemed to the New Salem
people to be " loafing " ; several of them have given
that description of him. He did one day's work
acting as clerk of a local election, a lettered loafer
being pretty sure of employment on such an
occasion.1 He also piloted a boat down the San-
gamon for one Dr. Nelson, who had had enough of
New Salem and wanted to go to Texas. This was
probably a task not requiring much pilot-craft, as the
river was much swollen, and navigators had in
most places two or three miles of channel to count
upon. But Offutt and his goods arrived at last,
and Lincoln and he got them immediately into
position, and opened their doors to what commerce
could be found in New Salem. There was clearly
not enough to satisfy the volatile mind of Mr.
Offutt, for he soon bought Cameron's mill at the
historic dam, and made Abraham superintendent
also of that branch of the business.
i Mrs. Lizzie H. Bell writes of come. They were looking around
this incident : " My father, Men- for a man to fill his place when
ton Graham, was on that day, as my father noticed Mr. Lincoln
usual, appointed to be a clerk, and asked if he could write. He
and Mr. McNamee, who was to be answered that ' he could make a
the other, was sick and failed to few rabbit tracks.' "
NEW SALEM 79
It is to be surmised that Offutt never inspired chap.iv.
his neighbors and customers with any deep regard
for his solidity of character. One of them says of
him with injurious pleonasm, that he " talked too
much with his mouth." A natural consequence of
his excessive fluency was soon to be made dis-
agreeably evident to his clerk. He admired Abra-
ham beyond measure, and praised him beyond
prudence. He said that Abe knew more than any
man in the United States; and he was certainly
not warranted in making such an assertion, as his
own knowledge of the actual state of science in
America could not have been exhaustive. He also
said that Abe could beat any man in the county
running, jumping, or "wrastling." This proposi-
tion, being less abstract in its nature, was more
readily grasped by the local mind, and was not
likely to pass unchallenged.
Public opinion at New Salem was formed by a
crowd of ruffianly young fellows who were called
the " Clary's Grove Boys." Once or twice a week
they descended upon the village and passed the
day in drinking, fighting, and brutal horse-play.
If a stranger appeared in the place, he was likely
to suffer a rude initiation into the social life of
New Salem at the hands of these jovial savages.
Sometimes he was nailed up in a hogshead and
rolled down hill ; sometimes he was insulted into a
fight and then mauled black and blue ; for despite
their pretentions to chivalry they had no scruples
about fair play or any such superstitions of civil-
ization. At first they did not seem inclined to
molest young Lincoln. His appearance did not
invite insolence; his reputation for strength and
80
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
activity was a greater pro-
tection to him than his in-
offensive good-nature. But
the loud admiration of
Offutt gave them umbrage.
It led to dispute, contradic-
tions, and finally to a formal
banter to a wrestling-match.
Lincoln was greatly averse
to all this "wool-
ing and pulling,"
as he called it.
But Offutt's indis-
cretion had made
it necessary for
him to show his
mettle. Jack Arm-
strong, the leading
bully of the gang,
was selected to
throw him, and
expected an easy
victory. But he
soon found him-
self in different
hands from any
he had heretofore
engaged with. See-
ing he could not
manage the tall stranger, his friends swarmed in,
and by kicking and tripping nearly succeeded in
getting Lincoln down. At this, as has been said of
another hero, " the spirit of Odin entered into him,"
and putting forth his whole strength, he held the
NEW SALEM 81
pride of Clary's Grove in his arms like a child, and chap.iv.
almost choked the exuberant life out of him. For
a moment a general fight seemed inevitable ; but
Lincoln, standing undismayed with his back to the
wall, looked so formidable in his defiance that an
honest admiration took the place of momentary fury,
and his initiation was over. As to Armstrong, he
was Lincoln's friend and sworn brother as soon as
he recovered the use of his larynx, and the bond
thus strangely created lasted through life. Lincoln
had no further occasion to fight his own battles
while Armstrong was there to act as his champion.
The two friends, although so widely different, were
helpful to each other afterwards in many ways,
and Lincoln made ample amends for the liberty his
hands had taken with Jack's throat, by saving, in
a memorable trial, his son's neck from the halter.
This incident, trivial and vulgar as it may seem,
was of great importance in Lincoln's life. His
behavior in this ignoble scufile did the work of
years for him, in giving him the position he
required in the community where his lot was cast.
He became from that moment, in a certain sense, a
personage, with a name and standing of his own.
The verdict of Clary's Grove was unanimous that
he was " the cleverest fellow that had ever broke
into the settlement." He did not have to be con-
stantly scuffling to guard his self-respect, and at
the same time he gained the good- will of the better
sort by his evident peaceableness and integrity.
He made on the whole a satisfactory clerk for
Mr. Offutt, though his downright honesty must
have seemed occasionally as eccentric in that posi-
tion as afterwards it did to his associates at the
Vol. I.— 6
J9.W ■
It
tdrZUtMHOn.
LEAP FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S EXERCISE BOOK.
The page here shown in reduced facsimile is from
the Exercise Boob presented by William H. Herndon
to the Keyes-Lincoln Memorial Collection. When the
book was written Lincoln was about seventeen.
NEW SALEM 83
bar. Dr. Holland has preserved one or two inci- chap.iv.
dents of this kind, which have their value. Once,
after he had sold a woman a little bill of goods and
received the money, he found on looking over the
account again that she had given him six and a
quarter cents too much. The money burned in his
hands until he locked the shop and started on a
walk of several miles in the night to make restitu-
tion before he slept. On another occasion, after
weighing and delivering a pound of tea, he found
a small weight on the scales. He immediately
weighed out the quantity of tea of which he had
innocently defrauded his customer and went in
search of her, his sensitive conscience not permit-
ting any delay. To show that the young merchant
was not too good for this world, the same writer
gives an incident of his shop-keeping experience of
a different character. A rural bully having made
himself especially offensive one day, when women
were present, by loud profanity, Lincoln requested
him to be silent. This was of course a cause of
war, and the young clerk was forced to follow the
incensed ruffian into the street, where the combat
was of short duration. Lincoln threw him at once
to the ground, and gathering a handful of the dog-
fennel with which the roadside was plentifully bor-
dered, he rubbed the ruffian's face and eyes with it
until he howled for mercy. He did not howl in
vain, for the placable giant, when his discipline
was finished, brought water to bathe the culprit's
smarting face, and doubtless improved the occasion
with quaint admonition.
A few passages at arms of this sort gave Abra-
ham a redoubtable reputation in the neighborhood.
84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. rv. But the principal use he made of his strength and
his prestige was in the capacity of peacemaker, an
office which soon devolved npon him by general
consent. "Whenever old feuds blossomed into fights
by Offutt's door, or the chivalry of Clary's Grove
attempted in its energetic way to take the conceit
out of some stranger, or a canine duel spread con-
tagion of battle among the masters of the beasts,
Lincoln usually appeared upon the scene, and with
a judicious mixture of force and reason and invinci-
ble good-nature restored peace.
While working with Offutt his mind was turned
in the direction of English grammar. From what
he had heard of it he thought it a matter within
his grasp, if he could once fall in with the requisite
machinery. Consulting with Menton1 Graham, the
schoolmaster, in regard to it, and learning the
whereabouts of a vagrant " Kirkham's Grammar,"
he set off at once and soon returned from a walk
of a dozen miles with the coveted prize. He
devoted himself to the new study with that pecu-
liar intensity of application which always remained
his most valuable faculty, and soon knew all that
can be known about it from rules. He seemed sur-
prised, as others have been, at the meager dimen-
sions of the science he had acquired and the ease
with which it yielded all there was of it to the
student. But it seemed no slight achievement to
the New Salemites, and contributed not a little to
the prevalent impression of his learning.
His name is prominently connected with an
event which just at this time caused an excitement
1 This name has always been daughter, Mrs. Bell, says that
written in Illinois " Minter," but her father's name is as given in
a letter from Mr. Graham's the text.
NEW SALEM 85
and interest in Salem and the neighboring towns chap.iv.
entirely out of proportion to its importance. It
was one of the articles of faith of most of the
settlers on the banks of the Sangamon River that
it was a navigable stream, and the local politicians
found that they could in no way more easily hit
the fancy of their hearers than by discussing this
assumed fact, and the logical corollary derived from
it, that it was the duty of the State or the nation
to clear out the snags and give free course to the
commerce which was waiting for an opportunity
to pour along this natural highway. At last one
Captain Vincent Bogue, of Springfield, determined
to show that the thing could be done by doing it.
The first promise of the great enterprise appears in
the " Sangamo Journal " of January 26, 1832, in a
letter from the Captain, at Cincinnati, saying he
would ascend the Sangamon by steam on the
breaking up of the ice. He asked that he might
be met at the mouth of the river by ten or twelve
men, having axes with long handles, to cut away
the overhanging branches of the trees on the
banks. From this moment there was great excite-
ment,— public meetings, appointment of commit-
tees, appeals for subscriptions, and a scattering
fire of advertisements of goods and freight to be
bargained for, — which sustained the prevailing
interest. It was a day of hope and promise when
the advertisement reached Springfield from Cin-
cinnati that "the splendid upper-cabin steamer
Talisman" would positively start for the Sangamon
on a given day. As the paper containing this joy-
ous intelligence also complained that no mail had
reached Springfield from the east for three weeks,
86 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. iv. it is easy to understand the desire for more rapid
and regular communications. From week to week
the progress of the Talisman, impeded by bad
weather and floating ice, was faithfully recorded,
until at last the party with long-handled axes
went down to Beardstown to welcome her. It is
needless to state that Lincoln was one of the party.
His standing as a scientific citizen of New Salem
would have been enough to insure his selection
even if he had not been known as a bold navigator.
He piloted the Talisman safely through the wind-
ings of the Sangamon, and Springfield gave itself
up to extravagant gayety on the event that proved
she " could no longer be considered an inland
town." Captain Bogue announced "fresh and
seasonable goods just received per steamboat
Talisman," and the local poets illuminated the
columns of the " Journal " with odes on her advent.
The joy was short-lived. The Talisman met the
natural fate of steamboats a few months later,
being burned at the St. Louis wharf. Neither
State nor nation has ever removed the snags from
the Sangamon, and no subsequent navigator of its
waters has been found to eclipse the fame of the
earliest one.
CHAPTEE V
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR
ANEW period in the life of Lincoln begins chap. v.
with the summer of 1832. He then obtained 1832-
his first public recognition, and entered upon the
course of life which was to lead him to a position
of prominence and great usefulness.
The business of Offutt had gone to pieces, and
his clerk was out of employment, when Governor
Reynolds issued his call for volunteers to move the
tribe of Black Hawk across the Mississippi. For
several years the raids of the old Sac chieftain upon
that portion of his patrimony which he had ceded to
the United States had kept the settlers in the neigh-
borhood of Rock Island in terror, and menaced the
peace of the frontier. In the spring of 1831 he
came over to the east side of the river with a con-
siderable band of warriors, having been encouraged
by secret promises of cooperation from several other
tribes. These failed him, however, when the time
of trial arrived, and an improvised force of State
volunteers, assisted by General E. P. Gaines and
his detachment, had little difficulty in compelling
the Indians to recross the Mississippi, and to enter
into a solemn treaty on the 30th of June by which
the former treaties were ratified and Black Hawk
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
and his leading warriors bound themselves never
again to set foot on the east side of the river, with-
out express permission from the President or the
Governor of Illinois.
But Black Hawk was too old a savage to learn
respect for treaties or resignation under fancied
wrongs. He was already approaching the allotted
term of life. He had been a chief of his nation for
more than forty years. He had scalped his first
enemy when scarcely more than a child, having
painted on his blanket the blood-red hand which
marked his nobility at fifteen years of age. Peace
under any circumstances would doubtless have been
irksome to him, but a peace which forbade him free
access to his own hunting-grounds and to the
graves of his fathers was more than he could now
school himself to endure. He had come to believe
that he had been foully wronged by the treaty
which was his own act ; he had even convinced him-
self that "land cannot be sold," a proposition in polit-
LAfe°and ical economy which our modern socialists would be
p. 325! puzzled to accept or confute. Besides this, the ten-
derest feelings of his heart were outraged by this
exclusion from his former domain. He had never
passed a year since the death of his daughter with-
out making a pilgrimage to her grave at Oquawka
and spending hours in mystic ceremonies and con-
Fordi templation. He was himself prophet as well as war-
'nuffi''* rior, and had doubtless his share of mania, which is
the strength of prophets. The promptings of his
own broken heart readily seemed to him the whisper-
ings of attendant spirits ; and day by day these un-
seen incitements increased around him, until they
could not be resisted even if death stood in the way.
Reynolds,
p. 110.
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR 89
He made his combinations during the winter, and chap. v.
had it not been for the loyal attitude of Keokuk, he
could have brought the entire nation of the Sacs
and Foxes to the war-path. As it was, the flower
of the young men came with him when, with the
opening spring, he crossed the river once more. He
came this time, he said, " to plant corn," but as a
preliminary to this peaceful occupation of the land
he marched up the Rock River, expecting to be
joined by the Winnebagoes and Pottawatomies.
But the time was passed for honorable alliances
among the Indians. His oath-bound confederates
gave him little assistance, and soon cast in their
lot with the stronger party.
This movement excited general alarm in the State.
General Henry Atkinson, commanding the United
States troops, sent a formal summons to Black
Hawk to return; but the old chief was already well
on his way to the lodge of his friend, the prophet
Wabokishick, atProphetstown, and treated the sum-
mons with contemptuous defiance. The Governor
immediately called for volunteers, and was him-
self astonished at the alacrity with which the call
was answered. Among those who enlisted at the
first tap of the drum was Abraham Lincoln, and
equally to his surprise and delight he was elected
captain of his company. The volunteer organiza-
tions of those days were conducted on purely
democratic principles. The company assembled
on the green, an election was suggested, and three-
fourths of the men walked over to where Lincoln
was standing ; most of the small remainder joined
themselves to one Kirkpatrick, a man of some sub-
stance and standing from Spring Creek. We have
90
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Reynolds,
" Life and
Times,"
p. 356.
the word of Mr. Lincoln for it, that no subsequent
success ever gave him such unmixed pleasure as
this earliest distinction. It was a sincere, unsonght
tribute of his equals to those physical and moral
qualities which made him the best man of his hun-
dred, and as such was accepted and prized.
At the Beardstown rendezvous, Captain Lincoln's
company was attached to Colonel Samuel Thomp-
son's regiment, the Fourth Illinois, which was organ-
ized at Richland, Sangamon County, on the 21st of
April, and moved on the 27th, with the rest of the
command under General Samuel Whitesides, for
Yellow Banks, where the boats with provisions had
been ordered to meet them. It was arduous march-
ing. There were no roads and no bridges, and the
day's task included a great deal of labor. The
third day out they came to the Henderson River,
a stream some fifty yards wide, swift and swollen
with the spring thaws, with high and steep banks.
To most armies this would have seemed a serious
obstacle, but these backwoodsmen swarmed to the
work like beavers, and in less than three hours the
river was crossed with the loss of only one or two
horses and wagons. When they came to Yellow
Banks, on the Mississippi, the provision-boats had
not arrived, and for three days they waited there
literally without food ; very uncomfortable days
for Governor Reynolds, who accompanied the ex-
pedition, and was forced to hear the outspoken
comments of two thousand hungry men on his
supposed inefficiency. But on the 6th of May
the William Wallace arrived, and " this sight," says
the Governor with characteristic sincerity, " was,
I presume, the most interesting I ever beheld."
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR 91
From there they marched to the mouth of Eock chap. v.
River, and thence General Whitesides proceeded
with his volunteers up the river some ninety miles
to Dixon, where they halted to await the arrival of
General Atkinson with the regular troops and pro-
visions. There they found two battalions of fresh
horsemen under Majors Stillman and Bailey, who
had as yet seen no service and were eager for the
fray. Whitesides's men were tired with their forced
march, and besides, in their ardor to get forward,
they had thrown away a good part of their pro-
visions and left their baggage behind. It pleased
the Governor, therefore, to listen to the prayers of
Stillman's braves, and he gave them orders to
proceed to the head of Old Man's Creek, where it
was supposed there were some hostile Indians,, and
coerce them into submission. " I thought," says
the Governor in his memoirs, " they might discover
the enemy."
The supposition was certainly well founded.
They rode merrily away, came to Old Man's Creek,
thereafter to be called Stillman's Run, and en-
camped for the night. By the failing light a small
party of Indians was discovered on the summit of
a hill a mile away, and a few courageous gentle-
men hurriedly saddled their horses, and, without
orders, rode after them. The Indians retreated,
but were soon overtaken, and two or three of them
killed. The volunteers were now strung along a
half mile of hill aod valley, with no more order or
care than if they had been chasing rabbits. Black
Hawk, who had been at supper when the running
fight began, hastily gathered a handful of warriors
and attacked the scattered whites. The onset of
Q2
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR 93
the savages acted like an icy bath on the red-hot chap. v.
valor of the volunteers ; they turned and ran for
their lives, stampeding the camp as they fled.
There was very little resistance — so little that
Black Hawk, fearing a ruse, tried to recall his
warriors from the pursuit, but in the darkness and
confusion could not enforce his orders. The
Indians killed all they caught up with; but the
volunteers had the fleeter horses, and only eleven
were overtaken. The rest reached Dixon by twos
and threes, rested all night, and took courage.
General "Whitesides marched out to the scene of
the disaster the next morning, but the Indians
were gone. They had broken up into small parties,
and for several days they reaped the bloody fruit
of their victory in the massacre of peaceful settle-
ments in the adjacent districts.
The time of enlistment of the volunteers had
now come to an end, and the men, seeing no pros-
pect of glory or profit, and weary of the work and
the hunger which were the only certain incidents
of the campaign, refused in great part to continue in
service. But it is hardly necessary to say that
Captain Lincoln was not one of these homesick
soldiers. Not even the trammels of rank, which
are usually so strong among the trailers of the
saber, could restrain him from what he considered
his simple duty. As soon as he was mustered out
of his captaincy, he reenlisted on the same day,
May 27, as a private soldier. Several other officers
did the same, among them General Whitesides and
Major John T. Stuart. Lincoln became a member of
Captain Elijah Hes's company of mounted volun-
teers, sometimes called the " Independent Spy Bat-
94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap.v. talion," an organization unique of its kind, if we
may judge from the account given by one of its
troopers. It was not, says Mr. George M. Harrison,
" under the control of any regiment or brigade, but
received orders directly from the Commander-in-
Chief, and always, when with the army, camped
within the lines, and had many other privileges,
such as having no camp duties to perform and
drawing rations as much and as often as we
pleased," which would seem to liken this battalion
as nearly as possible to the fabled " regiment of
brigadiers." With this elite corps Lincoln served
through his second enlistment, though it was not
his fortune to take part in either of the two
engagements in which General James D. Henry,
at the Wisconsin Bluffs and the Bad Axe, broke
and destroyed forever the power of Black Hawk
and the British band of Sacs and Foxes.
After Lincoln was relieved of the weight
of dignity involved in his captaincy, the war
became a sort of holiday, and the tall private
from New Salem enjoyed it as much as any one.
He entered with great zest into the athletic sports
with which soldiers love to beguile the tedium of
camp. He was admitted to be the strongest man
in the army, and, with one exception, the best
wrestler. Indeed, his friends never admitted the
exception, and severely blamed Lincoln for confess-
ing himself defeated on the occasion when he met
the redoubtable Thompson, and the two fell
together on the turf. His popularity increased
from the beginning to the end of the campaign,
and those of his comrades who still survive always
speak with hearty and affectionate praise of his
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR 95
character and conduct in those rough yet pleasantly chap. v.
remembered days.
The Spy Battalion formed no part of General
Henry's forces when, by a disobedience of orders
as prudent as it was audacious, he started with his
slender force on the fresh trail which he was sure
would lead him to Black Hawk's camp. He found
and struck the enemy at bay on the bluffs of the
Wisconsin River on the 21st of July, and inflicted
upon them a signal defeat. The broken remnant
of Black Hawk's power then fled for the Missis-
sippi River, the whole army following in close pur-
suit— General Atkinson in front and General
Henry bringing up the rear. Fortune favored the
latter once more, for while Black Hawk with a
handful of men was engaging and drawing away
the force under Atkinson, General Henry struck
the main trail, and brought on the battle of the
Bad Axe, if that could be called a battle which was
an easy slaughter of the weary and discouraged
savages, fighting without heart or hope, an army in
front and the great river behind. Black Hawk
escaped the fate of his followers, to be captured a
few days later through the treachery of his allies.
He was carried in triumph to Washington and pre-
sented to President Jackson, to whom he made
this stern and defiant speech, showing how little
age or disaster could do to tame his indomitable
spirit : " I am a man and you are another. I did
not expect to conquer the white people. I took
up the hatchet to avenge injuries which could no
longer be borne.1 Had I borne them longer my
1 It is a noteworthy coincidence calls for troops "to redress
that President Lincoln's procla- wrongs already long enough en-
mation at the opening of the war dured."
96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. v. people would have said : ' Black Hawk is a squaw ;
he is too old to be a chief; he is no Sac' This
caused me to raise the war-whoop. I say no more
of it ; all is known to you." He returned to Iowa,
and died on the 3d of October, 1838, at his camp
on the river Des Moines. He was buried in gala
dress, with cocked hat and sword, and the medals
presented him by two governments. He was not
allowed to rest even in his grave. His bones were
M8. letters exhumed by some greedy wretch and sold from
ThoTas hand to hand till they came at last to the Burling-
oetler8n ton Museum, where they were destroyed by fire.
It was on the 16th of June, a month before the
slaughter of the Bad Axe, that the battalion to
which Lincoln belonged was at last mustered out,
at Whitewater, Wisconsin. His final release from
the service was signed by a young lieutenant of
artillery, Robert Anderson, who, twenty-nine years
later, in one of the most awful crises in our annals,
was to sustain to Lincoln relations of prodigious
importance, on a scene illuminated by the flash
of the opening guns of the civil war.1 The men
1A story to the effect that gamon County, Illinois, April 21,
Lincoln was mustered into serv- 1832. The muster-in roll is not
ice by Jefferson Davis has for a on file, but the records show that
long time been current, but the the company was mustered out
strictest search in the records at the mouth of Fox River, May
fails to confirm it. We are 27, 1832, by Nathaniel Buck-
indebted to General R. C. Drum, master, Brigade-Major to General
Adjutant-General of the Army, Samuel Whitesides's Illinois Vol-
for an interesting letter giving unteers. On the muster-roll of
all the known facts in relation to Captain Elijah Hes's company,
this story. General Drum says : Illinois Mounted Volunteers, A.
"The company of the Fourth Lincoln (Sangamon County)
Regiment Illinois Mounted Vol- appears as a private from May
unteers, commanded by Mr. 27, 1832, to June 16, 1832,
Lincoln, was, with others, called when the company was mustered
out by Governor Reynolds, and out of service by Lieutenant
was organized at Richland, San- Robert Anderson, Third United
BLACK HAWK.
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR
97
started home the next day in high spirits, like chap. v.
school-boys for their holidays. Lincoln had need,
like Horatio, of his good spirits, for they were his
only outfit for the long journey to New Salem, he
and his mess-mate Harrison1 having had their
horses stolen the day before by some patriot over-
anxious to reach home. But, as Harrison says, " I
laughed at our fate, and he joked at it, and we all
started off merrily. The generous men of our com-
pany walked and rode by turns with us, and we
fared about equal with the rest. But for this gen-
erosity our legs would have had to do the better
work ; for in that day this dreary route furnished
no horses to buy or to steal ; and, whether on horse
States Artillery and Colonel
(Assistant Inspector -General)
Illinois Volunteers. Brigadier-
General Henry Atkinson, in his
report of May 30, 1832, stated
that the Illinois Volunteers were
called out by the Governor of
that State, but in haste and for
no definite period of service. On
their arrival at Ottawa they
became clamorous for their dis-
charge, which the Governor
granted, retaining — of those who
were discharged and volunteered
for a further period of twenty
days — a sufficient number of men
to form six companies, which
General Atkinson found at Ottawa
on his arrival there from Eock
River. General Atkinson further
reports that these companies and
some three hundred regular
troops, remaining in position at
Rock River, were all the force
left him to keep the enemy in
check until the assemblage of the
three thousand additional Illinois
militia called out by the Governor
upon his (General A.'s) requisi-
Vol. I.— 7
tion, to rendezvous at Ottawa,
June 12-15, 1832.
"There can be no doubt that
Captain Hes's company, men-
tioned above, was one of the six
which served until June 16,
1832, while the fact is fully
established that the company of
which Mr. Lincoln was a member
was mustered out by Lieutenant
Robert Anderson, who, in April,
1861, was in command of Fort
Sumter. There is no evidence to
show that it was mustered in by
Lieutenant Jefferson Davis. Mr.
Davis's company (B, First United
States Infantry) was stationed at
Fort Crawford, Wisconsin, during
the months of January and Feb-
ruary, 1832, and he is borne on
the rolls as ' absent on detached
service at the Dubuque mines by
order of Colonel Morgan.' From
March 26 to August 18, 1832,
the muster-rolls ofhis company re-
port him as absent on furlough."
1 George M. Harrison, who
gives an account of his personal
experiences in Lamon, p. 116.
98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. v. or afoot, we always had company, for many of the
horses' backs were too sore for riding." It is not
hard to imagine with what quips and quirks of
native fancy Lincoln and his friends beguiled the
way through forest and prairie. With youth, good
health, and a clear conscience, and even then the
dawn of a young and undefiled ambition in his
heart, nothing was wanting to give zest and spice
to this long, sociable walk of a hundred leagues.
One joke is preserved, and this one is at the
expense of Lincoln. One chilly morning he com-
plained of being cold. "No wonder," said some
facetious cavalier, " there is so much of you on the
ground." * We hope Lincoln's contributions to the
fun were better than this, but of course the pros-
perity of these jests lay rather in the liberal ears
that heard them than in the good-natured tongues
that uttered them.
Lincoln and Harrison could not have been alto-
gether penniless, for at Peoria they bought a canoe
and paddled down to Pekin. Here the ingenious
Lincoln employed his hereditary talent for car-
pentry by making an oar for the frail vessel while
Harrison was providing the commissary stores.
The latter goes on to say: "The river, being very
low, was without current, so that we had to pull
hard to make half the speed of legs on land; in
fact, we let her float all night, and on the next
morning always found the objects still visible that
were beside us the previous evening. The water
was remarkably clear for this river of plants, and
the fish appeared to be sporting with us as we
1 Dr. Holland gives this homely later, when Lincoln had perma-
joke (Life of Lincoln, p. 71), but nently assumed shoes and had a
transfers it to a time four years horse of his own.
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAK 99
moved over or near them. On the next day after chap. v.
we left Pekin we overhauled a raft of saw-logs,
with two men afloat on it to urge it on with poles
and to guide it in the channel. We immediately
pulled up to them and went on the raft, where we
were made welcome by various demonstrations,
especially by an invitation to a feast on fish, corn-
bread, eggs, butter, and coffee, just prepared for
our benefit. Of these good things we ate almost
immoderately, for it was the only warm meal we
had made for several days. While preparing it,
and after dinner, Lincoln entertained them, and
they entertained us for a couple of hours very
amusingly." Kindly human companionship was a
luxury in that green wilderness, and was readily
appreciated and paid for.
The returning warriors dropped down the river
to the village of Havana — from Pekin to Havana
in a canoe ! The country is full of these geograph-
ical nightmares, the necessary result of freedom of
nomenclature bestowed by circumstances upon
minds equally destitute of taste or education.
There they sold their boat, — no difficult task, for a
canoe was a staple article in any river-town, — and
again set out " the old way, over the sand-ridges,
for Petersburg. As we drew near home, the im-
pulse became stronger and urged us on amazingly.
The long strides of Lincoln, often slipping back in
the loose sand six inches every step, were just
right for me ; and he was greatly diverted when he
noticed me behind him stepping along in his tracks
to keep from slipping." Thus the two comrades
came back from their soldierings to their humble
homes, from which Lincoln was soon to start on
100 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. v. the way marked out for him by Providence, with
strides which no comrade, with whatever good-
will, might hope to follow.
He never took his campaigning seriously. The
politician's habit of glorifying the petty incidents
of a candidate's life always seemed absurd to him,
and in his speech, made in 1848, ridiculing the
effort on the part of General Cass's friends to draw
some political advantage from that gentleman's
respectable but obscure services on the frontier in
the war with Great Britain, he estopped any
future eulogist from painting his own military
achievements in too lively colors. " Did you
know, Mr. Speaker," he said, " I am a military
hero ! In the days of the Black Hawk war I
fought, bled, and came away. I was not at Still-
man's defeat, but I was about as near it as General
Cass was to Hull's surrender ; and, like him, I saw
the place very soon afterwards. It is quite certain
I did not break my sword, for I had none to break,
but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion.
If General Cass went in advance of me picking
whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges
on the wild onions. If he saw any live fighting In-
dians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many
bloody struggles with the mosquitoes ; and although
I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say I
was often very hungry. If ever I should conclude
to doff whatever our Democratic friends may sup-
pose there is of black-cockade Federalism about me,
and thereupon they shall take me up as their can-
didate for the Presidency, I protest that they shall
not make fun of me, as they have of General Cass,
by attempting to write me into a military hero."
CHAPTER VI
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE
THE discharged volunteer arrived in New chap.vi.
Salem only ten days before the August elec- u®*.
tion, in which he had a deep personal interest.
Before starting for the wars he had announced
himself, according to the custom of the time, by a
handbill circular, as a candidate for the Legislature
from Sangamon County.1 He had done this in
accordance with his own natural bent for public
life and desire for usefulness and distinction, and
not without strong encouragement from friends
whose opinion he valued. He had even then con-
siderable experience in speaking and thinking on
his feet. He had begun his practice in that
direction before leaving Indiana, and continued it
everywhere he had gone. Mr. William Butler tells
us that on one occasion, when Lincoln was a farm-
hand at Island Grove, the famous circuit-rider,
Peter Cartwright, came by, electioneering for the
Legislature, and Lincoln at once engaged in a
discussion with him in the cornfield, in which the
We are aware that all former circular is dated March 9, 1832,
biographers have stated that and the " Sangamo Journal"
Lincoln's candidacy for the Leg- mentions his name among the
islature was subsequent to his candidates in July, and apologizes
return from the war, and a con- for having accidentally omitted
sequence of his service. But his it in May.
101
102 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. great Methodist was equally astonished at the close
reasoning and the uncouth figure of Mr. Brown's
extraordinary hired man. At another time, after
one Posey, a politician in search of office, had
made a speech in Macon, John Hanks, whose
admiration of his cousin's oratory was unbounded,
said that " Abe couid beat it." He turned a keg
on end, and the tall boy mounted it and made his
speech. "The subject was the navigation of the
Sangamon, and Abe beat him to death," says the
loyal Hanks. So it was not with the tremor of
a complete novice that the young man took the
stump during the few days left him between his
return and the election.
He ran as a Whig. As this has been denied on
authority which is generally trustworthy, it is
well enough to insist upon the fact. We have a
memorandum in Mr. Lincoln's own handwriting in
which he says he ran as " an avowed Clay man."
In one of the few speeches of his, which, made at
this time, have been remembered and reported, he
said : " I am in favor of a national bank ; I am in
favor of the internal improvement system, and of
a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments
and political principles." Nothing could be more
unqualified or outspoken than this announcement
of his adhesion to what was then and for years
afterwards called "the American System" of
Henry Clay. Other testimony is not wanting to
the same effect. Both Major Stuart and Judge
Logan x say that Lincoln ran in 1832 as a Whig,
and that his speeches were unevasively in defense of
i The Democrats of New Salem was the general understanding
worked for Lincoln out of their of the matter here at the time,
personal regard for him. That In this he made no concession of
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE 103
the principles of that party. Without discussing chap.vi.
the merits of the party or its purposes, we may
insist that his adopting them thus openly at the
outset of his career was an extremely characteristic
act, and marks thus early the scrupulous con-
scientiousness which shaped every action of his
life. The State of Illinois was by a large majority
Democratic, hopelessly attached to the person and
policy of Jackson. Nowhere had that despotic
leader more violent and unscrupulous partisans
than there. They were proud of their very
servility, and preferred the name of "whole-hog
Jackson men " to that of Democrats. The Whigs
embraced in their scanty ranks the leading men
of the State, those who have since been most
distinguished in its history, such as S. T. Logan,
Stuart, Browning, Dubois, Hardin, Breese, and
many others. But they were utterly unable to do
anything except by dividing the Jackson men,
whose very numbers made their party unwieldy,
and by throwing their votes with the more decent
and conservative portion of them. In this way, in
the late election, they had secured the success of
Governor Reynolds — the Old Ranger — against
Governor Kinney, who represented the vehement
and proscriptive spirit which Jackson had just
breathed into the party. He had visited the
General in Washington, and had come back giving
out threatenings and slaughter against the Whigs
in the true Tennessee style, declaring that "all
Whigs should be whipped out of office like dogs
principle "whatever. He was as popular — because he was Lin-
stiff as a man could be in his coin.
Whig doctrines. They did this Stephen T. Logan.
for him simply because he was July 6, 1875.
104
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
Reynolds,
" My Own
Times,"
p. 291.
out of a meat-house " ; the force of south-western
simile could no further go. But the great
popularity of Eeynolds and the adroit manage-
ment of the Whigs carried him through success-
fully. A single fact will show on which side the
people who could read were enlisted. The " whole-
hog" party had one newspaper, the opposition
five. Of course it would have been impossible for
Reynolds to poll a respectable vote if his loyalty
to Jackson had been seriously doubted. As it was,
he lost many votes through a report that he had
been guilty of saying that " he was as strong for
Jackson as any reasonable man should be." The
Governor himself, in his na'ive account of the
canvass, acknowledges the damaging nature of this
accusation, and comforts himself with quoting an
indiscretion of Kinney's, who opposed a projected
canal on the ground that "it would flood the
country with Yankees."
It showed some moral courage, and certainly an
absence of the shuffling politician's fair-weather
policy, that Lincoln, in his obscure and penniless
youth, at the very beginning of his career, when
he was not embarrassed by antecedents or family
connections, and when, in fact, what little social
influence he knew would have led him the other
way, chose to oppose a furiously intolerant
majority, and to take his stand with the party
which was doomed to long-continued defeat in
Illinois. The motives which led him to take this
decisive course are not difficult to imagine. The
better sort of people in Sangamon County were
Whigs, though the majority were Democrats, and
he preferred through life the better sort to the
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE 105
majority. The papers lie read were the Louisville chap. vi.
" Journal " and the " Sangamo Journal," both
Whig. Reading the speeches and debates of the
day, he sided with Webster against Calhoun, and
with Clay against anybody. Though his notions
of politics, like those of any ill-educated young
man of twenty-two, must have been rather crude,
and not at all sufficient to live and to die by, he
had adopted them honestly and sincerely, with no
selfish regard to his own interests ; and though he
ardently desired success, he never abated one jot
or tittle of his convictions for any possible personal
gain, then or thereafter.
In the circular in which he announced his candi-
dacy he made no reference to national politics, but
confined himself mainly to a discussion of the
practicability of improving the navigation of the
Sangamon, the favorite hobby of the place and
time. He had no monopoly of this "issue." It
formed the burden of nearly every candidate's
appeal to the people in that year. The excitement
occasioned by the trip of the Talisman had not yet
died away, although the little steamer was now
dust and ashes, and her bold commander had left
the State to avoid an awkward meeting with the
sheriff. The hope of seeing Springfield an emporium
of commerce was still lively among the citizens of
Sangamon County, and in no one of the handbills
of the political aspirants of the season was that
hope more judiciously encouraged than in the
one signed by Abraham Lincoln. It was a well-
written circular, remarkable for its soberness and
reserve when we consider the age and the limited
advantages of the writer. It concluded in these
106 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. words : " Upon the subjects of which I have treated,
I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong
in regard to any or all of them ; but holding it a
sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be
right than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover
my opinions to be erroneous I shall be ready to
renounce them. . . . Every man is said to have
his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not,
I can say for one, that I have no other so great as
that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by
rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How
far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is
yet to be developed. I am young, and unknown to
many of you. I was born and have ever remained
in the most humble walks of life. I have no
wealthy or powerful relations or friends to recom-
mend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon
the independent voters of the county; and, if
elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me,
for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to
compensate. But if the good people in their wis-
dom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I
have been too familiar with disappointments to be
very much chagrined."
This is almost precisely the style of his later
years. The errors of grammar and construction
which spring invariably from an effort to avoid
redundancy of expression remained with him
through life. He seemed to grudge the space
required for necessary parts of speech. But his
language was at twenty-two, as it was thirty years
later, the simple and manly attire of his thought,
with little attempt at ornament and none at dis-
guise. There was an intermediate time when he
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE 107
sinned in the direction of fine writing; but this chap.vi.
ebullition soon passed away, and left that marvel-
ously strong and transparent style in which his
two inaugurals were written.
Of course, in the ten days left him after his
return from the field, a canvass of the county,
which was then — before its division — several
thousand square miles in extent, was out of the
question. He made a few speeches in the neigh-
borhood of New Salem, and at least one in Spring-
field. He was wholly unknown there except by
his few comrades in arms. We find him mentioned
in the county paper only once during the summer,
in an editorial note adding the name of Captain
Lincoln to those candidates for the Legislature
who were periling their lives on the frontier and
had left their reputations in charge of their gener-
ous fellow-citizens at home. On the occasion of
his speaking at Springfield, most of the candidates
had come together to address a meeting there to
give their electors some idea of their quality.
These were severe ordeals for the rash aspirants
for popular favor. Besides those citizens who
came to listen and judge, there were many whose
only object was the free whisky provided for the
occasion, and who, after potations pottle-deep,
became not only highly unparliamentary but even
dangerous to life and limb. This wild chivalry of
Lick Creek was, however, less redoubtable to Lin-
coln than it might be to an urban statesman unac-
quainted with the frolic brutality of Clary's Grove.
Their gambols never caused him to lose his self-
possession. It is related that once, while he was
speaking, he saw a ruffian attack a friend of his in
108 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. the crowd, and the rencontre not resulting according
to the orator's sympathies, he descended from the
stand, seized the objectionable fighting man by the
neck, "threw him some ten feet," then calmly
mounted to his place and finished his speech, the
course of his logic undisturbed by this athletic
parenthesis. Judge Logan saw Lincoln for the
first time on the day when he came up to
Springfield on his canvass this summer. He thus
speaks of his future partner : " He was a very tall,
gawky, and rough-looking fellow then ; his panta-
loons did n't meet his shoes by six inches. But
after he began speaking I became very much inter-
ested in him. He made a very sensible speech.
His manner was very much the same as in after life;
that is, the same peculiar characteristics were
apparent then, though of course in after years he
evinced more knowledge and experience. But he
had then the same novelty and the same peculiarity
in presenting his ideas. He had the same indi-
viduality that he kept through all his life."
There were two or three men at the meeting
whose good opinion was worth more than all the
votes of Lick Creek to one beginning life : Stephen
T. Logan, a young lawyer who had recently come
from Kentucky with the best equipment for a nisi
prius practitioner ever brought into the State;
Major Stuart, whom we have met in the Black
Hawk war, once commanding a battalion and then
marching as a private ; and William Butler, after-
wards prominent in State politics, at that time a
young man of the purest Western breed in body
and character, clear-headed and courageous, and
ready for any emergency where a friend was to be
SUKVEYOK AND KEPKESENTATIVE 109
defended or an enemy punished. We do not know chap.vi.
whether Lincoln gained any votes that day, but
he gained what was far more valuable, the active
friendship of these able and honorable men, all
Whigs and all Kentuckians like himself.
The acquaintances he made in his canvass, the
practice he gained in speaking, and the added
confidence which this experience of measuring his
abilities with those of others gave, were all the
advantages which Lincoln derived from this
attempt. He was defeated, for the only time in
his life, in a contest before the people. The for-
tunate candidates were E. D. Taylor, J. T. Stuart,
Achilles Morris, and Peter Cartwright, the first of
whom received 1127 votes and the last 815. Lin-
coln's position among the eight defeated candidates
was a very respectable one. He had 657 votes, and
there were five who fared worse, among them his
old adversary Kirkpatrick. What must have been
especially gratifying to him was the fact that he
received the almost unanimous vote of his own
neighborhood, the precinct of New Salem, 277
votes against 3, a result which showed more
strongly than any words could do the extent of "sangamo
the attachment and the confidence which his genial August u,
and upright character had inspired among those
who knew him best.
Having been, even in so slight a degree, a soldier
and a politician, he was unfitted for a day laborer;
but being entirely without means of subsistence, he
was forced to look about for some suitable occupa-
tion. We know he thought seriously at this time
of learning the trade of a blacksmith, and using in
that honest way the sinew and brawn which nature
110 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. had given him. But an opening for another kind
of business occurred, which prevented his entering
upon any merely mechanical occupation. Two of
his most intimate friends were the brothers Hern-
don, called, according to the fashion of the time,
which held it unfriendly to give a man his proper
name, and arrogant for him to claim it, "Row" and
"Jim." They kept one of those grocery stores in
which everything salable on the frontier was sold,
and which seem to have changed their occupants
as rapidly as sentry-boxes. " Jim " sold his share
to an idle and dissolute man named Berry, and
"Row" soon transferred his interest to Lincoln.
It was easy enough to buy, as nothing was ever
given in payment but a promissory note. A short
time afterwards, one Eeuben Radford, who kept
another shop of the same kind, happened one even-
ing to attract the dangerous attention of the Clary's
Grove boys, who, with their usual prompt and
practical facetiousness, without a touch of malice
in it, broke his windows and wrecked his store.
The next morning, while Radford was ruefully
contemplating the ruin, and doubtless concluding
that he had had enough of a country where the
local idea of neighborly humor found such eccen-
tric expression, he hailed a passer-by named
Greene, and challenged him to buy his establish-
ment for four hundred dollars. This sort of trade
was always irresistible to these Western specu-
lators, and Greene at once gave his note for the
amount. It next occurred to him to try to find out
what the property was worth, and doubting his
own skill, he engaged Lincoln to make an invoice
of it. The young merchant, whose appetite for
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE 111
speculation had just been whetted by his own chap.vi.
investment, undertook the task, and, finding the
stock of goods rather tempting, offered Greene
$250 for his bargain, which was at once accepted.
Not a cent of money changed hands in all these
transactions. By virtue of half a dozen signatures,
Berry and Lincoln became proprietors of the only
mercantile establishment in the village, and the
apparent wealth of the community was increased
by a liberal distribution of their notes among the
Herndons, Radford, Greene, and a Mr. Eutledge,
whose business they had also bought.
Fortunately for Lincoln and for the world, the
enterprise was not successful. It was entered into
without sufficient reflection, and from the very
nature of things was destined to fail. To Berry
the business was merely the refuge of idleness.
He spent his time in gossip and drank up his share
of the profits, and it is probable that Lincoln was far
more interested in politics and general reading
than in the petty traffic of his shop. In the spring
of the next year, finding that their merchandise
was gaining them little or nothing, they concluded
to keep a tavern in addition to their other business,
and the records of the County Court of Sangamon
County show that Berry took out a license for that
purpose on the 6th of March, 1833.1 But it was
even then too late for any expedients to save the
moribund partnership. The tavern was never
opened, for about this time Lincoln and Berry
1 The following is an extract tinue twelve months from this
trom the court record: "March date, and that they pay one
R 1833. Ordered that William dollar in addition to six dollars
jf. Berry, in the name of Berry heretofore prepaid as per Treas-
and Lincoln, have license to keep urer's receipt, and that they he
a tavern in New Salem, to con- allowed the following rates, viz. :
112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. were challenged to sell out to a pair of vagrant
brothers named Trent, who, as they had no idea of
paying, were willing to give their notes to any
amount. They soon ran away, and Berry expired,
extinguished in rum. Lincoln was thus left loaded
with debts, and with no assets except worthless
notes of Berry and the Trents. It is greatly to his
credit that he never thought of doing by others
as others had done by him. The morality of the
frontier was deplorably loose in such matters, and
most of these people would have concluded that
the failure of the business expunged its liabilities.
But Lincoln made no effort even to compromise the
claims against him. He promised to pay when he
could, and it took the labor of years to do it ; but
he paid at last every farthing of the debt, which
seemed to him and his friends so large that it was
called among them " the national debt."
He had already begun to read elementary books
of law, borrowed from Major Stuart and other
kindly acquaintances. Indeed, it is quite possible
that Berry and Lincoln might have succeeded
better in business if the junior member of the firm
had not spent so much of his time reading Black-
stone and Chitty in the shade of a great oak just
outside the door, while the senior quietly fuddled
himself within. Eye-witnesses still speak of the
grotesque youth, habited in homespun tow, lying
on his back with his feet on the trunk of the tree,
and poring over his book by the hour, " grinding
French brandy, per pint, 25 ; 12}£ ; Horse for night, 25 ;
Peach, 18%; Apple, 12; Hoi- Single feed, 12% ; Breakfast,
land gin, 18%; Domestic, 12^; dinner, or supper, for stage
Wine, 25 ; Rum, 18% ; Whisky, passengers, 37}^.
12^; Breakfast, dinner, or "Who gave bond as required
supper, 25 ; Lodging for night, by law."
JUDGE STEPHEN T. LOGAN.
SUKVEYOK AND KEPRESENTATIVE 113
around with the shade," as it shifted from north to chap.vi.
east. After his store, to use his own expression,
had " winked out," he applied himself with more
continuous energy to his reading, doing merely
what odd jobs came to his hand to pay his current
expenses, which were of course very slight. He
sometimes helped his friend Ellis in his store;
sometimes went into the field and renewed his
exploits as a farm-hand, which had gained him a
traditional fame in Indiana; sometimes employed
his clerkly hand in straightening up a neglected
ledger. It is probable that he worked for his board
oftener than for any other compensation, and his
hearty friendliness and vivacity, as well as his
industry in the field, made him a welcome guest
in any farm-house in the county. His strong arm
was always at the disposal of the poor and needy ;
it is said of him, with a graphic variation of a well-
known text, "that he visited the fatherless and
the widow and chopped their wood."
In the spring of this year, 1833, he was appointed 1833.
Postmaster of New Salem, and held the office for
three years. Its emoluments were slender and its
duties light, but there was in all probability no
citizen of the village who could have made so
much of it as he. The mails were so scanty that
he was said to carry them in his hat, and he is
also reported to have read every newspaper that
arrived ; it is altogether likely that this formed the
leading inducement to his taking the office. His
incumbency lasted until New Salem ceased to be
populous enough for a post-station and the mail
went by to Petersburg. Dr. J. Gr. Holland relates a
sequel to this official experience which illustrates
Vol. L— 8
114 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. the quaint honesty of the man. Several years
later, when he was a practicing lawyer, an agent of
the Post-office Department called upon him, and
asked for a balance due from the New Salem office,
some seventeen dollars. Lincoln rose, and open-
ing a little trunk which lay in a corner of the room,
took from it a cotton rag in which was tied up
the exact sum required. " I never use any man's
money but my own," he quietly remarked. When
we consider the pinching poverty in which these
years had been passed, we may appreciate the self-
A. LINCOLN'S 8URVEYING INSTRUMENTS AND RADDLE-BAG.
IN THE POSSESSION OF THE LINCOLN MONUMENT COLLECTION.
denial which had kept him from making even a
temporary use of this little sum of government
money.
John Calhoun, the Surveyor of Sangamon
County, was at this time overburdened with work.
The principal local industry was speculation in
land. Every settler of course wanted his farm
surveyed and marked out for him, and every
community had its syndicate of leading citizens
who cherished a scheme of laying out a city some-
where. In many cases the city was plotted, the
sites of the principal buildings, including a court-
house and a university, were determined, and a
sonorous name was selected out of Plutarch, before
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE 115
its location was even considered. For this latter chap.vi.
office the intervention of an official surveyor was
necessary, and therefore Mr. Calhoun had more
"business than he could attend to without assist-
ance. Looking about for a young man of good
character, intelligent enough to learn surveying
at short notice, his attention was soon attracted
to Lincoln. He offered young Abraham a book
containing the elements of the art, and told him
when he had mastered it he should have employ-
ment. The offer was a nattering one, and Lincoln,
with that steady self-reliance of his, accepted it,
and armed with his book went out to the school-
master's (Menton Graham's), and in six weeks' close
application made himself a surveyor.1
It will be remembered that Washington in his
youth adopted the same profession, but there
were few points of similarity in the lives of the
two great Presidents, in youth or later man-
hood. The Virginian had every social advantage
in his favor, and was by nature a man of more
1 There has been some discus- from town, any persons wishing
sion as to whether Lincoln served their land surveyed will do well
as deputy under Calhoun or to call at the Recorder's office
Neale. The truth is that he and enter his or their names in a
served under both of them. Cal- book left for that purpose, stat-
houn was surveyor in 1833, ing township and range in which
when Lincoln first learned the they respectively live, and their
business. Neale was elected in business shall be promptly at-
1835, and immediately appointed tended to.
Lincoln and Calhoun as his dep- T. M. Neale."
of Sept. 12, 1835, contains the „.nOTO _^wi a™i oi iqq-i
following official advertisement: ^f^W 18J?>
° in the Chicago "Inter-Ocean," de-
" Surveyor's Notice.— I have scribes an interview held in that
appointed John B. Watson, month with W.G. Green, of Menard
Abram Lincoln, and John Cal- County, in which this matter is
houn deputy surveyors for San- referred to. But Mr. Green relies
gamon County. In my absence more on the document in his
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE
117
thrift and greater sagacity in money matters. He
used the knowledge gained in the practice of his
profession so wisely that he became rather early in
life a large land-holder, and continually increased
his possessions until his death. Lincoln, with
almost unbounded opportunities for the selection
and purchase of valuable tracts, made no use
whatever of them. He employed his skill and
knowledge merely as a bread-winner, and made so
little provision for the future that when Mr. Van
Bergen, who had purchased the Radford note, sued
and got judgment on it, his horse and his survey-
ing instruments were taken to pay the debt, and
only by the generous intervention of a friend was
he able to redeem these invaluable means of living.
He was, nevertheless, an excellent surveyor. His
portion of the public work executed under the
directions of Mr. Calhoun and his successor, T. M.
Neale, was well performed, and he soon found his
time pretty well employed with private business
which came to him from Sangamon and the adjoin-
possession than on his recollec-
tion of what took place in 1833.
"'Where did Lincoln learn his
surveying ? ' I asked. ' Took it up
himself/ replied Mr. Green, ' as
he did a hundred things, and
mastered it too. When he acted
as surveyor here he was deputy of
T. M. Neale, and not of Calhoun,
as has often been said. There
was a dispute about this, and
many sketches of his life gave
Calhoun (Candle-box Calhoun,
as he was afterwards known dur-
ing the Kansas troubles and
election frauds) as the surveyor,
but it was Neale.' Mr. Green
turned to his desk and drew out
an old certificate, in the hand-
writing of Lincoln, giving the
boundaries of certain lands, and
signed, ' T. M. Neale, Surveyor,
by A. Lincoln, Deputy,' thus
settling the question. Mr. Green
was a Democrat, and has leaned
towards that party all his life,
but what he thought and thinks
of Lincoln can be seen by an in-
dorsement on the back of the
certificate named, which is as
follows : "
Preserve this, as it is the
noblest of God's creation —A.
Lincoln, the 2d preserver of
his country. May 3, 1865.—
Penned by W. G. Green, who
taught Lincoln the English
grammar in 1831.
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE
119
ing counties. Early in the year 1834 we find him
appointed one of three " viewers " to locate a road
from Salt Creek to the county line in the direction
of Jacksonville. The board seems to have con-
sisted mainly of its chairman, as Lincoln made the
deposit of money required by law, surveyed the
route, plotted the road, and wrote the report.1
Though it is evident that the post-office and the
surveyor's compass were not making a rich man of
him, they were sufficient to enable him to live
decently, and during the year he greatly increased
his acquaintance and his influence in the county.
The one followed the other naturally ; every ac-
quaintance he made became his friend, and even
before the end of his unsuccessful canvass in 1832
i As this is probably the earli-
est public document extant writ-
ten and signed by Lincoln, we
give it in full :
" March 3, 1834. Reuben
Harrison presented the following
petition: We, the undersigned,
respectfully request your honor-
able body to appoint viewers to
view and locate a road from
Musick's ferry on Salt Creek, via
New Salem, to the county line in
the direction of Jacksonville.
' ' And Abram Lincoln deposited
with the clerk $10, as the law
directs. Ordered, that Michael
Killion, Hugh Armstrong, and
Abram Lincoln be appointed to
view said road, and said Lincoln
to act as surveyor.
"To the County Commission-
ers' Court for the county of San-
gamon, at its June term, 1834.
We, the undersigned, being ap-
pointed to view and locate a
road, beginning at Musick's ferry
on Salt Creek, via New Salem, to
the county line in the direction
to Jacksonville, respectfully re-
port that we have performed the
duties of said view and location)
as required by law, and that we
have made the location on good
ground, and believe the estab-
lishment of the same to be neces-
sary and proper.
"The inclosed map gives the
courses and distances as required
by law. Michael Killion, Hugh
Armstrong, A. Lincoln."
(Indorsement in pencil, also in
Lincoln's handwriting :)
"A. Lincoln, 5 days at $3.00,
$15.00. John A. Kelsoe, chain-
bearer, for 5 days at 75 cents,
$3.75. Robert Lloyd, at 75
cents, $3.75. Hugh Armstrong,
for services as axeman, 5 days
at 75 cents, $3.75. A. Lincoln,
for making plot and report,
$2.50."
(On Map.)
"Whole length of road, 26
miles and 70 chains. Scale, 2
inches to the mile."
120 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. it had become evident to the observant politicians
of the district that he was a man whom it would
not do to leave out of their calculations. There
seemed to be no limit to his popularity nor to his
aptitudes, in the opinion of his admirers. He was
continually called on to serve in the most incon-
gruous capacities. Old residents say he was the
best judge at a horse-race the county afforded ; he
was occasionally second in a duel of fisticuffs,
though he usually contrived to reconcile the adver-
saries on the turf before any damage was done ; he
was the arbiter on all controverted points of litera-
ture, science, or woodcraft among the disputatious
denizens of Clary's Grove, and his decisions were
never appealed from. His native tact and humor
were invaluable in his work as a peacemaker, and
his enormous physical strength, which he always
used with a magnanimity rare among giants, placed
his off-hand decrees beyond the reach of contempt-
uous question. He composed differences among
friends and equals with good-natured raillery, but
he was as rough as need be when his wrath was
roused by meanness and cruelty. We hardly know
whether to credit some of the stories, apparently
well-attested by living witnesses, of his prodigious
muscular powers. He is said to have lifted, at
Rutledge's mill, a box of stones weighing over half
a ton ! It is also related that he could raise a bar-
rel of whisky from the ground and drink from the
bung — but the narrator adds that he never swal-
lowed the whisky. "Whether these traditions are
strictly true or not, they are evidently founded on
the current reputation he enjoyed among his fel-
lows for extraordinary strength, and this was an
SURVEYOR AND REPRESENTATIVE 121
important element in his influence. He was known chap.vi.
to be capable of handling almost any man he met,
yet he never sought a quarrel. He was every-
body's friend and yet used no liquor or tobacco.
He was poor and had scarcely ever been at school,
yet he was the best-informed young man in the
village. He had grown up on the frontier, the
utmost fringe of civilization, yet he was gentle and
clean of speech, innocent of blasphemy or scandal.
His good qualities might have excited resentment
if displayed by a well-dressed stranger from an
Eastern State, but the most uncouth ruffians of
New Salem took a sort of proprietary interest and
pride in the decency and the cleverness and the
learning of their friend and comrade, Abe Lincoln.
It was regarded, therefore, almost as a matter of
course that Lincoln should be a candidate for the
Legislature at the next election, which took place
in August, 1834. He was sure of the united sup-
port of the "Whigs, and so many of the Democrats
also wanted to vote for him that some of the lead-
ing members of that party came to him and pro-
posed they should give him an organized support.
He was too loyal a partisan to accept their over-
tures without taking counsel from the Whig
candidates. He laid the matter before Major
Stuart, who at once advised him to make the can-
vass. It was a generous and chivalrous action, for
by thus encouraging the candidacy of Lincoln he
was endangering his own election. But his success
two years before, in the face of a vindictive oppo-
sition led by the strongest Jackson men in the
district, had made him somewhat confident, and
he perhaps thought he was risking little by giving
122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vi. a helping hand to his comrade in the Spy Battalion.
Before the election Lincoln's popularity developed
itself in rather a portentous manner, and it required
some exertion to save the seat of his generous
friend. At the close of the poll, the four success-
ful candidates held the following relative positions:
Lincoln, 1376; Dawson, 1370; Carpenter, 1170; and
Stuart, at that time probably the most prominent
young man in the district, and the one marked out
by the public voice for an early election to Con-
gress, 1164.
CHAPTER VII
LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE
THE election of Mr. Lincoln to the Legislature chap.vil
may be said to have closed the pioneer portion
of his life. He was done with the wild carelessness
of the woods, with the jolly ruffianism of Clary's
Grove, with the petty chaffering of grocery stores,
with odd jobs for daily bread, with all the uncouth
squalor of the frontier poverty. It was not that his
pecuniary circumstances were materially improved.
He was still, and for years continued to be, a very
poor man, harassed by debts which he was always
working to pay, and sometimes in distress for the
means of decent subsistence. But from this time
forward his associations were with a better class of
men than he had ever known before, and a new
feeling of self-respect must naturally have grown
up in his mind from his constant intercourse with
them — a feeling which extended to the minor
morals of civilized life. A sophisticated reader
may smile at the mention of anything like social
ethics in Vandalia in 1834; but, compared with
Gentryville and New Salem, the society which
assembled in the winter at that little capital was
polished and elegant. The State then contained
nearly 250,000 inhabitants, and the members of the
124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap.vh. Legislature, elected purely on personal grounds,
nominated by themselves or their neighbors with-
out the intervention of party machinery, were
necessarily the leading men, in one way or another,
in their several districts. Among the colleagues of
Lincoln at Vandalia were young men with destinies
only less brilliant than his own. They were to
become governors, senators, and judges ; they were
to organize the Whig party of Illinois, and after-
wards the Republican ; they were to lead brigades
and divisions in two great wars. Among the first
persons he met there — not in the Legislature proper,
but in the lobby, where he was trying to appropriate
an office then filled by Colonel John J. Hardin —
was his future antagonist, Stephen A. Douglas.
Neither seemed to have any presentiment of the
future greatness of the other. Douglas thought
little of the raw youth from the Sangamon timber,
and Lincoln said the dwarfish Vermonter was " the
least man he had ever seen." To all appearance,
Vandalia was full of better men than either of
them — clever lawyers, men of wit and standing,
some of them the sons of provident early settlers,
but more who had come from older States to seek
their fortunes in these fresh fields.
During his first session Lincoln occupied no
especially conspicuous position. He held his own
respectably among the best. One of his colleagues
tells us he was not distinguished by any external
eccentricity; that he wore, according to the custom
of the time, a decent suit of blue jeans ; that he
was known simply as a rather quiet young man,
good-natured and sensible. Before the session
ended he had made the acquaintance of most of
LEGISLATIVE EXPEKIENCE 125
the members, and had evidently come to be looked chap.vii.
upon as possessing more than ordinary capacity.
His unusual common-sense began to be recognized.
His name does not often appear in the records of
the year. He introduced a resolution in favor of
securing to the State a part of the proceeds of the
sales of public lands within its limits ; he took part
in the organization of the ephemeral " White "
party, which was designed to unite all the anti-
Jackson elements under the leadership of Hugh L.
White, of Tennessee; he voted with the minority
in favor of Young against Robinson for senator,
and with the majority that passed the Bank and
Canal bills, which were received with great enthu-
siasm throughout Illinois, and which were only the
precursors of those gigantic and ill-advised schemes
that came to maturity two years later, and inflicted
incalculable injury upon the State.
Lincoln returned to New Salem, after this win-
ter's experience of men and things at the little
capital, much firmer on his feet than ever before.
He had had the opportunity of measuring himself
with the leading men of the community, and had
found no difficulty whatever in keeping pace with
them. He continued his studies of the law and
surveying together, and became quite indispen-
sable in the latter capacity — so much so that Gen-
eral Neale, announcing in September, 1835, the
names of the deputy surveyors of Sangamon
County, placed the name of Lincoln before that
of his old master in the science, John Calhoun.
He returned to the Legislature in the winter of
1835-6, and one of the first important incidents of
the session was the election of a senator to fill the
126 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vii. vacancy occasioned by the death of Elias Kent
Kane. There was no lack of candidates. A journal
of the time says : " This intelligence reached Van-
dalia on the evening of the 26th of December, and
in the morning nine candidates appeared in that
place, and it was anticipated that a number more
would soon be in, among them 'the lion of the
"sangamo North,' who, it is thought, will claim the office by
January '2. preemption." It is not known who was the roaring
celebrity here referred to, but the successful candi-
date was General William L. D. Ewing, who was
elected by a majority of one vote. Lincoln and the
other Whigs voted for him, not because he was a
" White " man, as they frankly stated, but because
" he had been proscribed by the Van Buren party."
Mr. Semple, the candidate for the regular Demo-
cratic caucus, was beaten simply on account of his
political orthodoxy.
A minority is always strongly in favor of inde-
pendent action and bitterly opposed to caucuses,
and therefore we need not be surprised at finding
Mr. Lincoln, a few days later in the session, joining
in hearty denunciation of the convention system,
which had already become popular in the East, and
which General Jackson was then urging upon his
faithful followers. The missionaries of this new
system in Illinois were Stephen A. Douglas, re-
cently from Vermont, the shifty young lawyer from
Morgan County, who had just succeeded in having
himself made circuit attorney in place of Colonel
Hardin, and a man who was then regarded in
Vandalia as a far more important and dangerous
person than Douglas, Ebenezer Peck, of Chicago.
Peck was looked upon with distrust and suspicion
LEGISLATIVE EXPEKIENCE 127
for several reasons, all of which seemed valid to chap.vii.
the rural legislators assembled there. He came from
Canada, where he had been a member of the pro-
vincial parliament ; it was therefore imagined that
he was permeated with secret hostility to republican
institutions ; his garb, his furs, were of the fashion
of Quebec; and he passed his time indoctrinating
the Jackson men with the theory and practice of
party organization, teachings which they eagerly
absorbed, and which seemed sinister and ominous
to the Whigs. He was showing them, in fact, the
way in which elections were to be won ; and though
the Whigs denounced his system as subversive of
individual freedom and private judgment, it was
not long before they were also forced to adopt it,
or be left alone with their virtue. The organiza-
tion of political parties in Illinois really takes its
rise from this time, and in great measure from the
work of Mr. Peck with the Vandalia Legislature.
There was no man more dreaded and disliked
than he was by the stalwart young Whigs against
whom he was organizing that solid and disci-
plined opposition. But a quarter of a century
brings wonderful changes. Twenty-five years
later Mr. Peck stood shoulder to shoulder with
these very men who then reviled him as a Cana-
dian emissary of tyranny and corruption, — with
S. T. Logan, 0. H. Browning, and J. K. Dubois, —
organizing a new party for victory under the name
of Abraham Lincoln.
The Legislature adjourned on the 18th of Janu-
ary, having made a beginning, it is true, in the
work of improving the State by statute, though its
modest work, incorporating canal and bridge com-
128 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vii. panies and providing for public roads, bore no
relation to the ambitious essays of its successor.
Among the bills passed at this session was an
Apportionment act, by which Sangamon County
became entitled to seven representatives and two
senators, and early in the spring eight " White "
statesmen of the county were ready for the field
— the ninth, Mr. Hern don, holding over as State
Senator. It seems singular to us of a later day
that just eight prominent men, on a side, should
have offered themselves for these places, without
the intervention of any primary meetings. Such a
thing, if we mistake not, was never known again
in Illinois. The convention system was afterwards
seen to be an absolute necessity to prevent the dis-
organization of parties through the restless vanity
of obscure and insubordinate aspirants. But the
eight who " took the stump " in Sangamon in the
summer of 1836 were supported as loyally and as
energetically as if they had been nominated with
all the solemnity of modern days. They became
famous in the history of the State, partly for their
stature and partly for their influence in legisla-
tion. They were called, with Herndon, the "Long
Nine"; their average height was over six feet,
and their aggregate altitude was said to be fifty-
five feet. Their names were Abraham Lincoln,
John Dawson, Dan Stone, Ninian W. Edwards,
William F. Elkin, R. L. Wilson, and Andrew
McCormick, candidates for the House of Repre-
sentatives, and Job Fletcher for the Senate, of
Illinois.
Mr. Lincoln began his canvass with the following
circular :
O. H. BROWNING.
LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE 129
New Salem, June 13, 1836. chap.vil
To the Editor of the " Journal."
In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication
over the signature " Many Voters " in which the candi-
dates who are announced in the " Journal " are called
upon to " show their hands." Agreed. Here 's mine.
I go for all sharing the privileges of the Government
who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently I go for
admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay
taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).
If elected, I shall consider the whole people of San-
gamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as
those that support me.
While acting as their representative I shall be gov-
erned by their will on all subjects upon which I have the
means of knowing what their will is, and upon all others
I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best
advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for
distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands
to the several States, to enable our State, in common with
others, to dig canals and construct railroads without bor-
rowing money and paying interest on it.
If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote
for Hugh L. White for President.1
Very respectfully,
A. Lincoln.
It would be hard to imagine a more audacious
and unqualified declaration of principles and inten-
tions. But it was the fashion of the hour to prom-
ise exact obedience to the will of the people, and
the two practical questions touched by this circu-
lar were the only ones then much talked about.
The question of suffrage for aliens was a living
problem in the State, and Mr. Lincoln naturally
took liberal ground on it ; and he was also in favor
of getting from the sale of public lands a portion
of the money he was ready to vote for internal
1 This phrase seems to have anti- Jackson party. The "cards"
been adopted as a formula by the of several candidates contain it.
Vol. I.— 9
130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vii. improvements. This was good Whig doctrine at
that time, and the young politician did not fancy
he could go wrong in following in such a matter
the lead of his idol, Henry Clay.
He made an active canvass, and spoke frequently
during the summer. He must have made some
part of the campaign on foot, for we find in the
county paper an advertisement of a horse which
had strayed or been stolen from him while on a
visit to Springfield. It was not an imposing
animal, to judge from the description; it was
" plainly marked with harness," and was " believed
to have lost some of his shoes " ; but it was a large
horse, as suited a cavalier of such stature, and
" trotted and paced " in a serviceable manner. In
July a rather remarkable discussion took place
at the county-seat, in which many of the leading
men on both sides took part. Ninian Edwards,
son of the late Governor, is said to have opened the
debate with much effect. Mr. Early, who followed
him, was so roused by his energetic attack that he
felt his only resource was aflat contradiction, which
in those days meant mischief. In the midst of
great and increasing excitement Dan Stone and
John Calhoun made speeches which did not tend
to pour oil on the waters of contention, and then
came Mr. Lincoln's turn. An article in the "Jour-
nal" states that he seemed embarrassed in his
opening, for this was the most important contest in
which he had ever been engaged. But he soon felt
the easy mastery of his powers come back to him,
and he finally made what was universally regarded
as the strongest speech of the day. One of his col-
leagues says that on this occasion he used in his
LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE 131
excitement for the first time that singularly effective chap. vii.
clear tenor tone of voice which afterwards became
so widely known in the political battles of the West.
The canvass was an energetic one throughout,
and excited more interest in the district than even
the presidential election, which occurred some
months later. Mr. Lincoln was elected at the head
of the poll by a majority greatly in excess of the
average majority of his friends, which shows con-
clusively how his influence and popularity had
increased. The Whigs in this election effected a
revolution in the politics of the county. By force
of their ability and standing they had before man-
aged to divide the suffrages of the people, even
while they were unquestionably in the minority ;
but this year they completely defeated their oppo-
nents and gained that control of the county which
they never lost as long as the party endured.
If Mr. Lincoln had no other claims to be re-
membered than his services in the Legislature of
1836-7, there would be little to say in his favor. Its
history is one of disaster to the State. Its legislation
was almost wholly unwise and hurtful. The most
we can say for Mr. Lincoln is that he obeyed the
will of his constituents, as he promised to do, and
labored with singular skill and ability to accom-
plish the objects desired by the people who gave
him their votes. The especial work intrusted to
him was the subdivision of the county, and the
project for the removal of the capital of the State
to Springfield.1 In both of these he was successful.
i "Lincoln was at the head of manage. The members were all
the project to remove the seat of elected on one ticket, but they all
government to Springfield ; it looked to Lincoln as the head." —
was entirely intrusted to him to Stephen T. Logan.
132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vii. In the account of errors and follies committed by
the Legislature to the lasting injury of the State,
he is entitled to no praise or blame beyond the rest.
He shared in that sanguine epidemic of financial
and industrial quackery which devastated the
entire community, and voted with the best men of
the country in favor of schemes which appeared
then like a promise of an immediate millennium,
and seem now like midsummer madness.
He entered political life in one of those eras of
delusive prosperity which so often precede great
financial convulsions. The population of the State
was increasing at the enormous rate of two
hundred per centum in ten years. It had extended
northward along the lines of the wooded valleys of
creeks and rivers in the center to Peoria ; on the
west by the banks of the Mississippi to Galena ;
on the east with wide intervals of wilderness to
Ford, p. 102. Chicago. The edge of the timber was everywhere
pretty well occupied, though the immigrants from
the forest States of Kentucky and Tennessee had
as yet avoided the prairies. The rich soil and
equable climate were now attracting an excellent
class of settlers from the older States, and the
long-neglected northern counties were receiving
the attention they deserved. The war of Black
Hawk had brought the country into notice; the
utter defeat of his nation had given the guarantee
of a permanent peace ; the last lodges of the
Reynolds, Pottawatomies had disappeared from the country
Ttoes." in 1833. The money spent by the general Govern-
ment during the war, and paid to the volunteers
at its close, added to the common prosperity.
There was a brisk trade in real estate, and there
LEGISLATIVE EXPEKIENCE 133
was even a beginning in Chicago of that passion chap.vii.
for speculation in town lots which afterwards be-
came a frenzy.
It was too much to expect of the Illinois Leg-
islature that it should understand that the best
thing it could do to forward this prosperous
tendency of things was to do nothing ; for this is a
lesson which has not yet been learned by any leg-
islature in the world. For several years they had
been tinkering, at first modestly and tentatively,
at a scheme of internal improvements which should
not cost too much money. In 1835 they began to
grant charters for railroads, which remained in
embryo, as the stock was never taken. Surveys
for other railroads were also proposed, to cross the
State in different directions; and the project of
uniting Lake Michigan with the Illinois Eiver by
a canal was of too evident utility to be overlooked.
In fact, the route had been surveyed, and estimates
of cost made, companies incorporated, and all
preliminaries completed many years before, though
nothing further had been done, as no funds had
been offered from any source. But at the special
session of 1835 a law was passed authorizing a loan
of half a million dollars for this purpose ; the loan
was effected by Governor Duncan the following
year, and in June, a board of canal commissioners
having been appointed, a beginning was actually
made with pick and shovel.
A restless feeling of hazardous speculation
seemed to be taking possession of the State. " It
commenced," says Governor Ford, in his admirable
chronicle, "at Chicago, and was the means of Ford, p. mi.
building up that place in a year or two from a
134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vii. village of a few houses to be a city of several
thousand inhabitants. The story of the sudden
fortunes made there excited at first wonder and
amazement ; next, a gambling spirit of adventure ;
and lastly, an all-absorbing desire for sudden and
splendid wealth. Chicago had been for some time
only one great town-market. The plots of towns
for a hundred miles around were carried there to
be disposed of at auction. The Eastern people had
caught the mania. Every vessel coming west was
loaded with them, their money and means, bound
for Chicago, the great fairy-land of fortunes. But
as enough did not come to satisfy the insatiable
greediness of the Chicago sharpers and speculators,
they frequently consigned their wares to Eastern
markets. In fact, lands and town lots were the
staple of the country, and were the only article of
export." The contagion spread so rapidly, towns
and cities were laid out so profusely, that it was a
standing joke that before long there would be no
land left in the State for farming purposes.
The future of the State for many years to come
was thus discounted by the fervid imaginations of
its inhabitants. "We have every requisite of a
great empire," they said, " except enterprise and
inhabitants," and they thought that a little enter-
prise would bring the inhabitants. Through the
spring and summer of 1836 the talk of internal im-
provements grew more general and more clamor-
ous. The candidates for office spoke about little
else, and the only point of emulation among the
parties was which should be the more reckless and
grandiose in its promises. When the time arrived
for the assembling of the Legislature, the members
LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE 135
were not left to their own zeal and the recollection chap.vii.
of their campaign pledges, but meetings and con-
ventions were everywhere held to spur them up to
the fulfillment of their mandate. The resolutions
passed by the principal body of delegates who came
together in December directed the Legislature to
vote a system of internal improvements "com-
mensurate with the wants of the people," a phrase
which is never lacking in the mouth of the char-
latan or the demagogue.
These demands were pressed upon a not re-
luctant Legislature. They addressed themselves
at once to the work required of them, and soon
devised, with reckless and unreasoning haste, a
scheme of railroads covering the vast uninhabited
prairies as with a gridiron. There was to be a rail-
road from Galena to the mouth of the Ohio River ;
from Alton to Shawneetown ; from Alton to Mount
Carmel ; from Alton to the eastern State boundary
— by virtue of which lines Alton was to take the
life of St. Louis without further notice ; from
Quincy to the Wabash River ; from Bloomington to
Pekin ; from Peoria to Warsaw ; — in all, 1350 miles
of railway. Some of these terminal cities were not
in existence except upon neatly designed surveyor's
maps. The scheme provided also for the improve-
ment of every stream in the State on which a
child's shingle-boat could sail ; and to the end that
all objections should be stifled on the part of those
neighborhoods which had neither railroads nor
rivers, a gift of two hundred thousand dollars was
voted to them, and with this sop they were fain to
be content and not trouble the general joy. To
accomplish this stupendous scheme, the Legislature
136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. vii. voted eight million dollars, to be raised by loan.
Ford's Four millions were also voted to complete the
p. is*. ' canal. These sums, monstrous as they were,
were still ridiculously inadequate to the purpose in
view. But while the frenzy lasted there was no
consideration of cost or of possibilities. These vast
works were voted without estimates, without sur-
veys, without any rational consideration of their
necessity. The voice of reason seemed to be silent
in the Assembly; only the utterances of fervid
prophecy found listeners. Governor Ford speaks
of one orator who insisted, amid enthusiastic
plaudits, that the State could well afford to borrow
one hundred millions for internal improvements.
The process of reasoning, or rather predicting, was
easy and natural. The roads would raise the price
of land ; the State could enter large tracts and sell
them at a profit ; foreign capital would be invested
in land, and could be heavily taxed to pay bonded
interest ; and the roads, as fast as they were built,
could be operated at a great profit to pay for their
own construction. The climax of the whole folly
was reached by the provision of law directing that
work should be begun at once at the termini of all
the roads and the crossings of all rivers.
It is futile and disingenuous to attempt, as some
have done, to fasten upon one or the other of the
political parties of the State the responsibility of this
bedlam legislation. The Governor and a majority
of the Legislature were elected as Jackson Dem-
ocrats, but the Whigs were as earnest in passing
these measures as their opponents ; and after they
were adopted, the superior wealth, education, and
business capacity of the Whigs had their legitimate
LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE 137
influence, and they filled the principal positions chap. vn.
upon the boards and commissions which came into
existence under the acts. The bills were passed, —
not without opposition, it is true, but by sufficient
majorities, — and the news was received by the peo-
ple of the State with the most extravagant demon-
strations of delight. The villages were illuminated ;
bells were rung in the rare steeples of the churches ;
"fire-balls," — bundles of candle-wick soaked in
turpentine, — were thrown by night all over the
country. The day of payment was far away, and
those who trusted the assurances of the sanguine
politicians thought that in some mysterious way
the scheme would pay for itself.
Mr. Lincoln is continually found voting with his
friends in favor of this legislation, and there is
nothing to show that he saw any danger in it.
He was a Whig, and as such in favor of internal
improvements in general and a liberal construction
of constitutional law in such matters. As a boy,
he had interested himself in the details of local
improvements of rivers and roads, and he doubt-
less went with the current in Vandalia in favor
of this enormous system. He took, however, no
prominent part in the work by which these rail-
road bills were passed. He considered himself as
specially commissioned to procure the removal of
the State capital from Vandalia to Springfield, and
he applied all his energies to the accomplishment
of this work. The enterprise was hedged round
with difficulties; for although it was everywhere
agreed, except at Vandalia, that the capital ought
to be moved, every city in the State, and several
which existed only on paper, demanded to be made
138 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. tii. the seat of government. The question had been
submitted to a popular vote in 1834, and the result
showed about as many cities desirous of opening
their gates to the Legislature as claimed the honor
of being the birthplace of Homer. Of these
Springfield was only third in popular estimation,
and it was evident that Mr. Lincoln had need of
all his wits if he were to fulfill the trust confided to
him. It is said by Governor Ford that the " Long
Nine " were not averse to using the hopes and fears
of other members in relation to their special rail-
roads to gain their adherence to the Springfield
programme, but this is by no means clear. We are
rather inclined to trust the direct testimony of
Jesse K. Dubois, that the success of the Sangamon
County delegation in obtaining the capital was due
to the adroit management of Mr. Lincoln — first in
inducing all the rival claimants to unite in a vote
to move the capital from Vandalia, and then in
carrying a direct vote for Springfield through the
joint convention by the assistance of the southern
counties. His personal authority accomplished
this in great part. Mr. Dubois says : " He made
Webb and me vote for the removal, though we
belonged to the southern end of the State. We
defended our vote before our constituents by say-
ing that necessity would ultimately force the seat
of government to a central position. But in reality
we gave the vote to Lincoln because we liked him,
because we wanted to oblige our friend, and because
we recognized him as our leader." To do this, they
were obliged to quarrel with their most intimate
associates, who had bought a piece of waste land
at the exact geographical center of the State and
LEGISLATIVE EXPERIENCE 139
were striving to have the capital established there chap. vii.
in the interest of their own pockets and territorial
symmetry.
The bill was passed only a short time before the
Legislature adjourned, and the " Long Nine " came
back to their constituents wearing their well-won
laurels. They were complimented in the news-
papers, at public meetings, and even at subscrip-
tion dinners. We read of one at Springfield, at
the " Rural Hotel," to which sixty guests sat down,
where there were speeches by Browning, Lin-
coln, Douglas (who had resigned his seat in the
Legislature to become Register of the Land Office
at the new capital), S. T. Logan, Baker, and others,
whose wit and wisdom were lost to history
through the absence of reporters. Another dinner
was given them at Athens a few weeks later.
Among the toasts on these occasions were two
which we may transcribe : " Abraham Lincoln :
He has fulfilled the expectations of his friends, and
disappointed the hopes of his enemies " ; and " A.
Lincoln : One of Nature's noblemen."
CHAPTEE VIII
THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST
ON the 3d of March, the day before the Legis-
lature adjourned, Mr. Lincoln caused to be
entered upon its records a paper which excited but
little interest at the time, but which will probably
be remembered long after the good and evil actions
of the Vandalia Assembly have faded away from
the minds of men. It was the authentic record of
the beginning of a great and momentous career.
The following protest was presented to the
House, which was read and ordered to be spread
on the journals, to wit :
Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery hav-
ing passed both branches of the General Assembly at its
present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the
passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded
on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulga-
tion of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than
abate its evils.
They believe that the Congress of the United States
has no power under the Constitution to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the different States.
They believe that the Congress of the United States
has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery
in the District of Columbia, but that the power ought not
THE LINCOLN-STONE PKOTEST
141
to be exercised, unless at the request of the people of the
District.
The difference between these opinions and those con-
tained in the above resolutions is their reason for enter-
ing this protest.
(Signed) Dan Stone,
A. Lincoln,
Representatives from the county of Sangamon.
It may seem strange to those who shall read
these pages that a protest so mild and cautious as
this should ever have been considered either neces-
sary or remarkable. We have gone so far away
from the habits of thought and feeling prevalent
at that time that it is difficult to appreciate such
acts at their true value. But if we look a little care-
fully into the state of politics and public opinion in
Illinois in the first half of this century, we shall
see how much of inflexible conscience and reason
there was in this simple protest.
The whole of the North-west territory had, it
is true, been dedicated to freedom by the ordi-
nance of 1787, but in spite of that famous prohibi-
tion, slavery existed in a modified form throughout
that vast territory wherever there was any con-
siderable population. An act legalizing a sort of
slavery by indenture was passed by the Indiana
territorial Legislature in 1807, and this remained
in force in the Illinois country after its separation.
Another act providing for the hiring of slaves from
Southern States was passed in 1814, for the osten-
sible reason that " mills could not be successfully
operated in the territory for want of laborers, and
that the manufacture of salt could not be success-
fully carried on by white laborers." Yet, as an un-
conscious satire upon such pretenses, from time to
Edwards,
"History of
Illinois,"
p. 179.
Edwards,
p. 180.
142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. viii. time the most savage acts were passed to prohibit
the immigration of free negroes into the territory
which was represented as pining for black labor.
Those who held slaves under the French domina-
tion, and their heirs, continued to hold them and
their descendants in servitude, after Illinois had
become nominally a free territory and a free State,
on the ground that their vested rights of property
could not have been abrogated by the ordinance,
and that under the rule of the civil law partus
sequitur ventrem.
But this quasi-toleration of the institution was
not enough for the advocates of slavery. Soon
after the adoption of the State Constitution, which
prohibited slavery " hereafter," it was evident that
there was a strong under-current of desire for its
introduction into the State. Some of the leading
politicians, exaggerating the extent of this desire,
imagined they saw in it a means of personal
advancement, and began to agitate the question of
a convention to amend the Constitution. At that
time there was a considerable emigration setting
through the State from Kentucky and Tennessee
to Missouri. Day by day the teams of the movers
passed through the Illinois settlements, and wher-
ever they halted for rest and refreshment they would
affect to deplore the short-sighted policy which, by
prohibiting slavery, had prevented their settling in
that beautiful country. When young bachelors
came from Kentucky on trips of business or pleas-
ure, they dazzled the eyes of the women and
excited the envy of their male rivals with their
black retainers. The early Ulinoisans were per-
plexed with a secret and singular sense of inferi-
THE LINCOLN-STONE PKOTEST 143
ority to even so new and raw a community as chap.viii.
Missouri, because of its possession of slavery.
Governor Edwards, complaining so late as 1829
of the superior mail facilities afforded to Missouri,
says : " I can conceive of no reason for this prefer-
ence, unless it be supposed that because the people
of Missouri have negroes to work for them they
are to be considered as gentlefolks entitled to
higher consideration than us plain 'free-State'
folks who have to work for ourselves."
The attempt was at last seriously made to open
the State to slavery by the Legislature of 1822-3.
The Governor, Edward Coles, of Virginia, a strong
antislavery man, had been elected by a division of
the pro-slavery party, but came in with a Legisla-
ture largely against him. The Senate had the
requisite pro-slavery majority of two-thirds for a
convention. In the House of Representatives
there was a contest for a seat upon the result of
which the two-thirds majority depended. The seat
was claimed by John Shaw and Nicholas Hansen,
of Pike County. The way in which the contest
was decided affords a curious illustration of the
moral sense of the advocates of slavery. They
wanted at this session to elect a senator and pro-
vide for the convention. Hansen would vote for
their senator and not for the convention. Shaw
would vote for the convention, but not for Thomas,
their candidate for senator. In such a dilemma
they determined not to choose, but impartially to
use both. They gave the seat to Hansen, and with
his vote elected Thomas; they then turned him
out, gave the place to Shaw, and with his vote
carried the act for submitting the convention ques-
144 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. viii. tion to a popular vote. They were not more mag-
nanimous in their victory than scrupulous in the
means by which they had gained it. The night
after the vote was taken they formed in a wild and
drunken procession, and visited the residences of
the Governor and the other free-State leaders, with
loud and indecent demonstrations of triumph.
They considered their success already assured ;
but they left out of view the value of the moral
forces called into being by their insolent challenge.
The better class of people in the State, those here-
tofore unknown in politics, the schoolmasters, the
ministers, immediately prepared for the contest,
which became one of the severest the State has ever
known. They established three newspapers, and
sustained them with money and contributions.
The Governor gave his entire salary for four years
to the expenses of this contest, in which he had
no personal interest whatever. The antislavery
members of the Legislature made up a purse of a
thousand dollars. They spent their money mostly
in printer's ink and in the payment of active and
zealous colporteurs. The result was a decisive
defeat for the slave party. The convention was
beaten by 1800 majority, in a total vote of 11,612,
and the State saved forever from slavery.
But these supreme efforts of the advocates of
public morals, uninfluenced by considerations of
personal advantage, are of rare occurrence, and
necessarily do not survive the exigencies that call
them forth. The apologists of slavery, beaten in
the canvass, were more successful in the field of
social opinion. In the reaction which succeeded
the triumph of the antislavery party, it seemed as
MAETtN VAN BUREX.
THE LINCOLN-STONE PEOTEST 145
if there had never been any antislavery sentiment chap.viil
in the State. They had voted, it is true, against
the importation of slaves from the South, but they
were content to live under a code of Draconian
ferocity, inspired by the very spirit of slavery,
visiting the immigration of free negroes with
penalties of the most savage description. Even
Governor Coles, the public-spirited and popular
politician, was indicted and severely fined for having
brought his own freedmen into the State and
having assisted them in establishing themselves
around him upon farms of their own. The Leg-
islature remitted the fine, but the Circuit Court
declared it had no constitutional power to do so,
though the Supreme Court afterwards overruled
this decision. Any mention of the subject of
slavery was thought in the worst possible taste,
and no one could avow himself opposed to it with-
out the risk of social ostracism. Every town had
its one or two abolitionists, who were regarded as
harmless or dangerous lunatics, according to the
energy with which they made their views known.
From this arose a singular prejudice against New
England people. It was attributable partly to the
natural feeling of distrust of strangers which is
common to ignorance and provincialism, but still
more to a general suspicion that all Eastern men
were abolitionists. Mr. Cook, who so long rep-
resented the State in Congress, used to relate with
much amusement how he once spent the night in a
farmer's cabin, and listened to the honest man's
denunciations of " that Yankee Cook." Cook
was a Kentuckian, but his enemies could think of no
more dreadful stigma to apply to him than that of
Vol. I.— 10
146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. viii. calling him a Yankee. Senator James A. McDougall
once told us that although he made no pretense of
concealing his Eastern nativity, he never could
keep his ardent friends in Pike County from denying
the fact and fighting any one who asserted it. The
great preacher, Peter Cartwright, used to denounce
Eastern men roundly in his sermons, calling them
"imps who lived on oysters" instead of honest
corn-bread and bacon. The taint of slavery, the
contagion of a plague they had not quite escaped,
was on the people of Illinois. They were strong
enough to rise once in their might and say they
would not have slavery among them. But in the
petty details of every day, in their ordinary talk,
and in their routine legislation, their sympathies
were still with the slave-holders. They would not
enlist with them, but they would fight their battles
in their own way.
Their readiness to do what came to be called
later, in a famous speech, the " dirty work" of the
South was seen in the tragic death of Rev. Elijah
P. Lovejoy, in this very year of 1837. He had
for some years been publishing a religious news-
paper in St. Louis, but finding the atmosphere of
that city becoming dangerous to him on account of
the freedom of his comments upon Southern insti-
tutions, he moved to Alton, in Illinois, twenty-five
miles further up the river. His arrival excited an
immediate tumult in that place; a mob gathered
there on the day he came — it was Sunday, and the
good people were at leisure — and threw his press
into the Mississippi. Having thus expressed their
determination to vindicate the law, they held a
meeting, and cited him before it to declare his
THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST 147
intentions. He said they were altogether peaceful chap.viii.
and legal ; that he intended to publish a religious
newspaper and not to meddle with politics. This
seemed satisfactory to the people, and he was
allowed to fish out his press, buy new types, and
set up his paper. But Mr. Lovejoy was a predes-
tined martyr. He felt there was a " woe " upon him
if he held his peace against the wickedness across
the river. He wrote and published what was in
his heart to say, and Alton was again vehemently
moved. A committee appointed itself to wait upon
him; for this sort of outrage is usually accom-
plished with a curious formality which makes it
seem to the participants legal and orderly. The
preacher met them with an undaunted front and
told them he must do his duty as it appeared to
him; that he was amenable to law, but nothing
else; he even spoke in condemnation of mobs.
Such language "from a minister of the gospel"
shocked and infuriated the committee and those
whom they represented. " The people assembled,"
says Governor Ford, " and quietly took the press
and types and threw them into the river." We
venture to say that the word "quietly" never
before found itself in such company. It is not
worth while to give the details of the bloody drama
that now rapidly ran to its close. There was a
fruitless effort at compromise, which to Lovejoy
meant merely surrender, and which he firmly
rejected. The threats of the mob were answered
by defiance from the little band that surrounded
the abolitionist. A new press was ordered, and
arrived, and was stored in a warehouse, where
Lovejoy and his friends shut themselves up, de-
148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CHAP.vm. termined to defend it with their lives. They were
there besieged by the infuriated crowd, and after a
short interchange of shots Lovejoy was killed, his
friends dispersed, and the press once more — and
this time finally — thrown into the turbid flood.
These events took place in the autumn of 1837,
but they indicate sufficiently the temper of the
people of the State in the earlier part of the year.
The vehemence with which the early antislavery
apostles were conducting their agitation in the
East naturally roused a corresponding violence of
expression in every other part of the country.
William Lloyd Garrison, the boldest and most
aggressive non-resistant that ever lived, had, since
1831, been pouring forth once a week in the
" Liberator " his earnest and eloquent denuncia-
tions of slavery, taking no account of the expedient
or the possible, but demanding with all the fervor
of an ancient prophet the immediate removal of
the cause of offense. Oliver Johnson attacked the
national sin and wrong, in the " Standard," with
zeal and energy equally hot and untiring. Their
words stung the slave-holding States to something
like frenzy. The Georgia Legislature offered a
approved reward of five thousand dollars to any one who
i83i. ' should kidnap Garrison, or who should bring to
conviction any one circulating the " Liberator " in
the State. Yet so little known in their own
neighborhoods were these early workers in this great
reform that when the Mayor of Boston received
remonstrances from certain Southern States against
such an incendiary publication as the " Liberator,"
he was able to say that no member of the city
government and no person of his acquaintance had
THE LINCOLN-STONE PEOTEST 149
ever heard of the paper or its editor; that on chap.viil
search being made it was found that "his office
was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a
negro boy, and his supporters a very few insignifi-
cant persons of all colors." But the leaven worked
continually, and by the time of which we are writ-
ing the antislavery societies of the North-east had
attained a considerable vitality, and the echoes of
their work came back from the South in furious
resolutions of legislatures and other bodies, which,
in their exasperation, could not refrain from this
injudicious advertising of their enemies. Petitions
to Congress, which were met by gag-laws, constantly
increasing in severity, brought the dreaded dis-
cussion more and more before the public. But
there was as yet little or no antislavery agitation
in Illinois.
There was no sympathy with nor even toleration
for any public expression of hostility to slavery.
The zeal of the followers of Jackson, although he
had ceased to be President, had been whetted by
his public denunciations of the antislavery propa-
ganda ; little more than a year before he had called
upon Congress to take measures to "prohibit under
severe penalties " the further progress of such
incendiary proceedings as were " calculated to
stimulate the slaves to insurrection and to produce
all the horrors of civil war." But in spite of all
this, people with uneasy consciences continued
to write and talk and petition Congress against
slavery, and most of the State legislatures began
to pass resolutions denouncing them. In the last
days of 1836 Governor Duncan sent to the Illinois
Legislature the reports and resolutions of several
150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. viii. States in relation to this subject. They were
referred to a committee, who in due time reported
a set of resolves " highly disapproving abolition
societies"; holding that "the right of property in
slaves is secured to the slave-holding States by the
Federal Constitution"; that the general Govern-
ment cannot abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia against the consent of the citizens of
said District, without a manifest breach of good
faith ; and requesting the Governor to transmit to
the States which had sent their resolutions to him
a copy of those tranquilizing expressions. A long
and dragging debate ensued of which no record
has been preserved; the resolutions, after num-
berless amendments had been voted upon, were
1837. ' finally passed, in the Senate, unanimously, in the
House with none but Lincoln and five others in the
negative.1 No report remains of the many speeches
which prolonged the debate; they have gone the
way of all buncombe ; the sound and fury of them
have passed away into silence ; but they woke an
echo in one sincere heart which history will be glad
to perpetuate.
There was no reason that Abraham Lincoln
should take especial notice of these resolutions,
more than another. He had done his work at this
session in effecting the removal of the capital. He
had only to shrug his shoulders at the violence and
untruthfulness of the majority, vote against them,
and go back to his admiring constituents, to his
dinners and his toasts. But his conscience and
his reason forbade him to be silent ; he felt a word
1 We are under obligations to the State records bearing on this
John M. Adair for transcripts of matter.
THE LINCOLN-STONE PEOTEST 151
must be said on the other side to redress the dis- chap.vjii.
torted balance. He wrote his protest, saying not
one word he was not ready to stand by then and
thereafter, wasting not a syllable in rhetoric or
feeling, keeping close to law and truth and justice.
When he had finished it he showed it to some of
his colleagues for their adhesion ; but one and all
refused, except Dan Stone, who was not a candi-
date for reelection, having retired from politics to
a seat on the bench. The risk was too great for
the rest to run. Lincoln was twenty-eight years
old ; after a youth of singular privations and
struggles he had arrived at an enviable position in
the politics and the society of the State. His inti-
mate friends, those whom he loved and honored,
were Browning, Butler, Logan, and Stuart — Ken-
tuckians all, and strongly averse to any discussion
of the question of slavery. The public opinion of
his county, which was then little less than the
breath of his life, was all the same way. But all
these considerations could not withhold him from
performing a simple duty — a duty which no one
could have blamed him for leaving undone. The
crowning grace of the whole act is in the closing
sentence: "The difference between these opinions
and those contained in the said resolutions is their
reason for entering this protest." Reason enough
for the Lincolns and Luthers.
He had many years of growth and development
before him. There was a long distance to be trav-
ersed between the guarded utterances of this pro-
test and the heroic audacity which launched the
proclamation of emancipation. But the young
man who dared declare, in the prosperous begin-
152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. viii. nmg of his political life, in the midst of a com-
munity imbued with slave-State superstitions, that
"he believed the institution of slavery was founded
both on injustice and bad policy," — attacking thus
its moral and material supports, while at the same
time recognizing all the constitutional guarantees
which protected it, — had in him the making of a
statesman and, if need be, a martyr. His whole
career was to run in the lines marked out by these
words, written in the hurry of a closing session,
and he was to accomplish few acts, in that great
history which God reserved for him, wiser and
nobler than this.
CHAPTER IX
COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM
MR. LINCOLN had made thus far very little chap. ix.
money — nothing more, in fact, than a sub-
sistence of the most modest character. But he
had made some warm friends, and this meant
much among the early Illinoisans. He had be-
come intimately acquainted, at Vandalia, with
William Butler, who was greatly interested in the
removal of the capital to Springfield, and who
urged the young legislator to take up his residence
at the new seat of government. Lincoln readily
fell in with this suggestion, and accompanied his
friend home when the Legislature adjourned, shar-
ing the lodging of Joshua F. Speed, a young Ken-
tucky merchant, and taking his meals at the house
of Mr. Butler for several years.
In this way began Mr. Lincoln's residence in
Springfield, where he was to remain until called to
one of the highest of destinies intrusted to men,
and where his ashes were to rest forever in monu-
mental marble. It would have seemed a dreary
village to any one accustomed to the world, but in
a letter written about this time, Lincoln speaks of
154
ABEAHAM LINCOLN
Journal,"
November
7, 1835.
Reynolds,
" Life and
Times,"
p. 237.
it as a place where there was a " good deal of
flourishing about in carriages " — a town of some
pretentions to elegance. It had a population of
1500. The county contained nearly 18,000 souls,
of whom 78 were free negroes, 20 registered inden-
tured servants, and six slaves. Scarcely a percep-
tible trace of color, one would say, yet we find in
the Springfield paper a leading article beginning
with the startling announcement, "Our State is
threatened to be overrun with free negroes." The
county was one of the richest in Illinois, possessed
of a soil of inexhaustible fertility, and divided to
the best advantage between prairie and forest. It
was settled early in the history of the State, and
the country was held in high esteem by the
aborigines. The name of Sangamon is said to mean
in the Pottawatomie language "land of plenty."
Its citizens were of an excellent class of people, a
large majority of them from Kentucky, though
representatives were not wanting from the Eastern
States, men of education and character.
There had been very little of what might be
called pioneer life in Springfield. Civilization
came in with a reasonably full equipment at the
beginning. The Edwardses, in fair-top boots and
ruffled shirts ; the Ridgelys brought their banking
business from Maryland; the Logans and Conk-
lings were good lawyers before they arrived;
another family came from Kentucky, with a cot-
ton manufactory which proved its aristocratic
character by never doing any work. With a popu-
lation like this, the town had, from the beginning,
a more settled and orderly type than was usual in
the South and West. A glance at the advertising
COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM 155
columns of the newspaper will show how much at- chap.ix.
tention to dress was paid in the new capital. " Cloths,
cassinetts, cassimeres, velvet, silk, satin, and Mar-
seilles vestings, fine calf boots, seal and morocco
pumps, for gentlemen," and for the sex which in
barbarism dresses less and in civilization dresses
more than the male, " silks, bareges, crepe lisse, lace
veils, thread lace, Thibet shawls, lace handker-
chiefs, fine prunella shoes, etc." It is evident that
the young politician was confronting a social
world more formidably correct than anything he
had as yet seen.
Governor Ford began some years before this to
remark with pleasure the change in the dress of
the people of Illinois: the gradual disappearance
of leather and linsey-woolsey, the hunting-knife
and tomahawk, from the garb of men ; the deer-
skin moccasin supplanted by the leather boot and
shoe ; the leather breeches tied around the ankle
replaced by the modern pantaloons ; and the still
greater improvement in the adornment of women,
the former bare feet decently shod, and homespun
frocks giving way to gowns of calico and silk, and
the heads tied up in red cotton turbans disappear-
ing in favor of those surmounted by pretty bonnets
of silk or straw. We admit that these changes were
not unattended with the grumbling ill-will of the
pioneer patriarchs ; they predicted nothing but ruin
to a country that thus forsook the old ways " which
were good enough for their fathers." But with the
change in dress came other alterations which were
all for the better — a growing self-respect among
the young ; an industry and thrift by which they
could buy good clothes; a habit of attending
156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ix. religious service, where they could show them; a
Ford's progress in sociability, civility, trade, and morals.
p. m. ' The taste for civilization had sometimes a whim-
sical manifestation. Mr. Stuart said the members
of the Legislature bitterly complained of the
amount of game — venison and grouse of the most
delicious quality — which was served them at the
taverns in Vandalia ; they clamored for bacon —
they were starving, they said, "for something
civilized." There was plenty of civilized nourish-
ment in Springfield. "Wheat was fifty cents a
bushel, rye thirty-three ; corn and oats were
twenty-five, potatoes twenty-five ; butter was eight
cents a pound, and eggs were eight cents a dozen ;
pork was two and a half cents a pound.
The town was built on the edge of the woods,
the north side touching the timber, the south en-
croaching on the prairie. The richness of the soil
was seen in the mud of the streets, black as ink,
and of an unfathomable depth in time of thaw.
There were, of course, no pavements or sidewalks ;
an attempt at crossings was made by laying down
large chunks of wood. The houses were almost all
wooden, and were disposed in rectangular blocks.
A large square had been left in the middle of the
town, in anticipation of future greatness, and there,
when Lincoln began his residence, the work of
clearing the ground for the new State-house was
already going forward. In one of the largest
houses looking on the square, at the north-west
corner, the county court had its offices, and other
rooms in the building were let to lawyers. One of
these was occupied by Stuart and Lincoln, for the
friendship formed in the Black Hawk war and
COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM 157
strengthened at Vandalia induced " Major" Stuart chap.ix.
to offer a partnership to " Captain " Lincoln.1
Lincoln did not gain any immediate eminence at
the bar. His preliminary studies had been cursory
and slight, and Stuart was then too much en-
grossed in politics to pay the unremitting attention
to the law which that jealous mistress requires. He
had been a candidate for Congress the year before,
and had been defeated by W. L. May. He was a
candidate again in 1838, and was elected over so
agile an adversary as Stephen Arnold Douglas.
His paramount interest in these canvasses neces-
sarily prevented him from setting to his junior
partner the example which Lincoln so greatly
needed, of close and steady devotion to their pro-
fession. It was several years later that Lincoln
found with Judge Logan the companionship and
inspiration which he required, and began to be
really a lawyer. During the first year or two he is
principally remembered in Springfield as an excel-
lent talker, the life and soul of the little gatherings
about the county offices, a story-teller of the first
rank, a good-natured, friendly fellow whom every-
body liked and trusted. He relied more upon his
influence with a jury than upon his knowledge of
law in the few cases he conducted in court, his
acquaintance with human nature being far more
extensive than his legal lore.
Lincoln was not yet done with Vandalia, its
dinners of game, and its political intrigue. The
i It is not unworthy of notice Lincoln, who had actually been
that in a country where military commissioned, and had served
titles were conferred with ludi- as captain, never used the des-
crous profusion, and borne with ignation after he laid down his
absurd complacency, Abraham command.
158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ix. archives of the State were not removed to Spring-
field until 1839, and Lincoln remained a member
of the Legislature by successive reflections from
1834 to 1842. His campaigns were carried on
almost entirely without expense. Joshua Speed
told the writers that on one occasion some of the
Whigs contributed a purse of two hundred dollars
which Speed handed to Lincoln to pay his personal
expenses in the canvass. After the election was
over, the successful candidate handed Speed
$199.25, with the request that he return it to the
subscribers. " I did not need the money," he said.
" I made the canvass on my own horse ; my enter-
tainment, being at the houses of friends, cost me
nothing; and my only outlay was seventy-five
cents for a barrel of cider, which some farm-hands
insisted I should treat them to." He was called
down to Vandalia in the summer of 1837, by a
special session of the Legislature. The magnificent
schemes of the foregoing winter required some
repairing. The banks throughout the United
States had suspended specie payments in the
spring, and as the State banks in Illinois were the
fiscal agents of the railroads and canals, the Gov-
ernor called upon the law-makers to revise their
own work, to legalize the suspension, and bring
their improvement system within possible bounds.
They acted as might have been expected : complied
with the former suggestion, but flatly refused to
touch their masterpiece. They had been glorifying
their work too energetically to destroy it in its
infancy. It was said you could recognize a leg-
islator that year in any crowd by his automatic
repetition of the phrase, " Thirteen hundred —
COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM 159
fellow-citizens! — and fifty miles of railroad!" chap.ix.
There was nothing to be done but to go on with
the stupendous folly. Loans were effected with
surprising and fatal facility, and, " before the end
of the year, work had begun at many points on the
railroads. The whole State was excited to the
highest pitch of frenzy and expectation. Money
was as plenty as dirt. Industry, instead of being
stimulated, actually languished. We exported
nothing," says Governor Ford, " and everything
from abroad was paid for by the borrowed money
expended among us." Not only upon the railroads,
but on the canal as well, the work was begun on a
magnificent scale. Nine millions of dollars were
thought to be a mere trifle in view of the colossal
sum expected to be realized from the sale of canal
lands, three hundred thousand acres of which had
been given by the general Government. There
were rumors of coming trouble, and of an unhealthy
condition of the banks; but it was considered
disloyal to look too curiously into such matters.
One frank patriot, who had been sent as one of a
committee to examine the bank at Shawneetown,
when asked what he found there, replied with win-
ning candor, " Plenty of good whisky and sugar to Ford,g>
sweeten it." "™ m?'"
But a year of baleful experience destroyed a
great many illusions, and in the election of 1838 the
subject of internal improvements was treated with
much more reserve by candidates. The debt of the
State, issued at a continually increasing discount,
had already attained enormous proportions ; the
delirium of the last few years was ending, and
sensible people began to be greatly disquieted.
160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ix. Nevertheless, Mr. Cyrus Edwards boldly made his
canvass for Governor as a supporter of the sys-
tem of internal improvements, and his opponent,
Thomas Carlin, was careful not to commit himself
strongly on the other side. Carlin was elected,
and finding that a majority of the Legislature was
still opposed to any steps backward, he made no
demonstration against the system at the first
session. Lincoln was a member of this body, and,
being by that time the unquestioned leader of the
Whig minority, was nominated for Speaker, and
came within one vote of an election. The Leg-
islature was still stiff-necked and perverse in regard
to the system. It refused to modify it in the least,
and voted, as if in bravado, another eight hundred
thousand dollars to extend it.
But this was the last paroxysm of a fever that
was burnt out. The market was glutted with Illi-
nois bonds ; one banker and one broker after
another, to whose hands they had been recklessly
confided in New York and London, failed, or made
away with the proceeds of sales. The system had
utterly failed ; there was nothing to do but repeal
it, stop work upon the visionary roads, and en-
deavor to invent some means of paying the
enormous debt. This work taxed the energies of
the Legislature in 1839, and for some years after.
It was a dismal and disheartening task. Blue
Monday had come after these years of intoxication,
and a crushing debt rested upon a people who
had been deceiving themselves with the fallacy
that it would somehow pay itself by acts of the
Legislature.
Many were the schemes devised for meeting
COLONEL E. D. BAKER.
COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM 161
these oppressive obligations without unduly taxing chap.ix.
the voters ; one of them, not especially wiser than
the rest, was contributed by Mr. Lincoln. It pro-
vided for the issue of bonds for the payment of the
interest due by the State, and for the appropriation
of a special portion of State taxes to meet the
obligations thus incurred. He supported his bill
in a perfectly characteristic speech, making no
effort to evade his share of the responsibility for
the crisis, and submitting his views with diffidence
to the approval of the Assembly. His plan was
not adopted; it was too simple and straightfor-
ward, even if it had any other merits, to meet the
approval of an assembly intent only upon getting
out of immediate embarrassment by means which
might save them future trouble on the stump.
There was even an undercurrent of sentiment in
favor of repudiation. But the payment of the
interest for that year was provided for by an
ingenious expedient which shifted upon the Fund
Commissioners the responsibility of deciding what
portion of the debt was legal, and how much
interest was therefore to be paid. Bonds were sold
for this purpose at a heavy loss.
This session of the Legislature was enlivened by
a singular contest between the Whigs and Demo-
crats in relation to the State banks. Their suspen-
sion of specie payments had been legalized up to
"the adjournment of the next session of the Legis-
lature." They were not now able to resume, and it
was held by the Democrats that if the special ses-
sion adjourned sine die the charter of the banks
would be forfeited, a purpose the party was eager
to accomplish. The Whigs, who were defending
Vol. L— 11
162 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ix. the banks, wished to prevent the adjournment of
the special session until the regular session should
begin, during the course of which they expected to
renew the lease of life now held under sufferance
by the banks — in which, it may be here said, they
were finally successful. But on one occasion, being
in the minority, and having exhausted every other
parliamentary means of opposition and delay, and
seeing the vote they dreaded imminent, they tried
to defeat it by leaving the house in a body, and,
the doors being locked, a number of them, among
whom Mr. Lincoln's tall figure was prominent,
jumped from the windows of the church where
the Legislature was then holding its sessions. " I
think," says Mr. Joseph Gillespie, who was one of
those who performed this feat of acrobatic politics,
" Mr. Lincoln always regretted it, as he deprecated
everything that savored of the revolutionary."
Two years later the persecuted banks, harried by
the demagogues and swindled by the State, fell
with a great ruin, and the financial misery of the
State was complete. Nothing was left of the brill-
iant schemes of the historic Legislature of 1836
but a load of debt which crippled for many years
the energies of the people, a few miles of embank-
ments which the grass hastened to cover, and a
few abutments which stood for years by the sides
of leafy rivers, waiting for their long delaying
bridges and trains.
During the winter of 1840-1 occurred the first
clash of opinion and principle between Mr. Lincoln
and his life-long adversary, Mr. Douglas. There
are those who can see only envy and jealousy in
that strong dislike and disapproval with which Mr.
COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM 163
Lincoln always regarded his famous rival. But chap.ix.
we think that few men have ever lived who were
more free from those degrading passions than
Abraham Lincoln, and the personal reprobation
with which he always visited the public acts of
Douglas arose from his sincere conviction that,
able as Douglas was, and in many respects admi-
rable in character, he was essentially without fixed
political morals. They had met for the first time
in 1834 at Vandalia, where Douglas was busy in
getting the circuit attorneyship away from John
J. Hardin. He held it only long enough to secure
a nomination to the Legislature in 1836. He went
there to endeavor to have the capital moved to
Jacksonville, where he lived, but he gave up the
fight for the purpose of having himself appointed
Register of the Land Office at Springfield. He held
this place as a means of being nominated for Con-
gress the next year ; he was nominated and defeated.
In 1840 he was engaged in another scheme to
which we will give a moment's attention, as it
resulted in giving him a seat on the Supreme
Bench of the State, which he used merely as a
perch from which to get into Congress.
There had been a difference of opinion in Illinois
for some years as to whether the Constitution,
which made voters of all white male inhabitants
of six months' residence, meant to include aliens
in that category. As the aliens were nearly all
Democrats, that party insisted on their voting,
and the Whigs objected. The best lawyers in the
State were Whigs, and so it happened that most of
the judges were of that complexion. A case was
made up for decision and decided adversely to the
164 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. ix. aliens, who appealed it to the Supreme Court.
This case was to come on at the June term in 1840,
and the Democratic counsel, chief among whom
was Mr. Douglas, were in some anxiety, as an un-
favorable decision would lose them about ten thou-
sand alien votes in the Presidential election in
November. In this conjuncture one Judge Smith,
of the Supreme Court, an ardent Democrat, willing
to enhance his value in his party, communicated
to Mr. Douglas two important facts : first, that a
majority of the court would certainly decide against
the aliens ; and, secondly, that there was a slight
imperfection in the record by which counsel might
throw the case over to the December term, and
save the alien vote for Van Buren and the Demo-
cratic ticket. This was done, and when the Legisla-
ture came together with its large Democratic major-
ity, Mr. Douglas handed in a bill " reforming" the
Judiciary — for they had learned that serviceable
word already. The circuit judges were turned out
of office, and five new judges were added to the
Supreme Court, who were to perform circuit duty
also. It is needless to say that Judge Douglas was
one of these, and he had contrived also in the
course of the discussion to disgrace his friend
Smith so thoroughly by quoting his treacherous
communication of matters which took place within
the court, that Smith was no longer a possible
rival for political honors.
It was useless for the Whigs to try to prevent
this degradation of the bench. There was no
resource but a protest, and here again Lincoln
uttered the voice of the conscience of the party.
He was joined on this occasion by Edward D.
COLLAPSE OF THE SYSTEM
165
Baker1 and some others, who protested against the chap.ix.
act because
1st. It violates the principles of free government by
subjecting the Judiciary to the Legislature.
2d. It is a fatal blow at the independence of the
judges and the constitutional term of their offices.
3d. It is a measure not asked for or wished for by the
people.
4th. It will greatly increase the expense of our courts
or else greatly diminish their utility.
5th. It will give our courts a political and partisan
character, thereby impairing public confidence in their
decisions.
6th. It will impair our standing with other States and
the world.
7th. It is a party measure for party purposes from
which no practical good to the people can possibly arise,
but which may be the source of immeasurable evils.
The undersigned are well aware that this protest will
be altogether unavailing with the majority of this body.
The blow has already fallen; and we are compelled to
stand by, the mournful spectators of the ruin it will cause.
It will be easy to ridicule this indignant protest
as the angry outcry of beaten partisans ; but for-
tunately we have evidence which cannot be gain-
said of the justice of its sentiments and the wisdom
of its predictions. Governor Ford, himself a Dem-
ocratic leader as able as he was honest, writing
seven years after these proceedings, condemns
them as wrong and impolitic, and adds, "Ever
since this reforming measure the Judiciary has
been unpopular with the Democratic majorities.
Many and most of the judges have had great
i Afterwards senator from Ore- Pennsylvania (called the 1st Cali-
gon, and as colonel of the 71st fornia) killed at Ball's Bluff .
Ford's
'History,1
p. 221.
166
AEKAHAM LINCOLN
Chap. IX.
personal popularity — so much so as to create
complaint of so many of them being elected or
appointed to other offices. But the Bench itself
has been the subject of bitter attacks by every
Legislature since." It had been soiled by unclean
contact and could not be respected as before.
CHAPTER X
EARLY LAW PRACTICE
DURING all the years of his service in the chap, x
Legislature, Lincoln was practicing law in
Springfield in the dingy little office at the corner of
the square. A youth named Milton Hay, who
afterwards became one of the foremost lawyers of
the State, had made the acquaintance of Lincoln at
the County Clerk's office and proposed to study law
with him. He was at once accepted as a pupil,
and his days being otherwise employed he gave his
nights to reading, and as his vigils were apt to be
prolonged he furnished a bedroom adjoining the
office, where Lincoln often passed the night with
him. Mr. Hay gives this account of the practice
of the law in those days :
" In forming our ideas of Lincoln's growth and
development as a lawyer, we must remember that
in those early days litigation was very simple as
compared with that of modern times. Population
was sparse and society scarcely organized, land
was plentiful and employment abundant. There
was an utter absence of the abstruse questions and
complications which- now beset the law. There
was no need of that close and searching study into
principles and precedents which keeps the modern
168
ABEAHAM LINCOLN
law-student buried
in his office. On
the contrary, the
very character of
this simple litiga-
tion drew the law-
yer into the street
and neighborhood,
and into close and £
active intercourse
with all classes of
his fellow-men.
The suits consisted
of actions of tort
and assumpsit. If
a man had a debt
not collectible, the
current phrase
was, 'I'll take it
out of his hide.'
" This would bring on an action for assault and
battery. The free comments of the neighbors
on the fracas or the character of the parties
would be productive of slander suits. A man
would for his convenience lay down an iras-
cible neighbor's fence, and indolently forget to
put it up again, and an action of trespass would
grow out of it. The suit would lead to a free
fight, and sometimes furnish the bloody incidents
for a murder trial. Occupied with this class of
business, the half-legal, half -political lawyers were
never found plodding in their offices. In that
case they would have waited long for the recog-
nition of their talents or a demand for their
LINCOLN AND STUART'S LAW-OFFICE,
SPRINGFIELD.
EARLY LAW PRACTICE 169
services. Out of this characteristic of the times chap. x.
also grew the street discussions I have adverted to.
There was scarcely a day or hour when a knot of
men might not have been seen near the door of
some prominent store, or about the steps of the
court-house eagerly discussing a current political
topic — not as a question of news, for news was not
then received quickly or frequently, as it is now,
but rather for the sake of debate ; and the men from
the country, the pioneers and farmers, always
gathered eagerly about these groups and listened
with open-mouthed interest, and frequently mani-
fested their approval or dissent in strong words,
and carried away to their neighborhoods a report
of the debaters' wit and skill. It was in these
street talks that the rising and aspiring young
lawyer found his daily and hourly forum. Often
by good luck or prudence he had the field entirely
to himself, and so escaped the dangers and dis-
couragements of a decisive conflict with a trained
antagonist."
Mr. Stuart was either in Congress or actively
engaged in canvassing his district a great part
of the time that his partnership with Lincoln
continued, so that the young lawyer was thrown
a good deal on his own resources for occupation.
There was not enough business to fill up all his
hours, and he was not at that time a close student,
so that he soon became as famous for his racy talk
and good-fellowship at all the usual lounging-
places in Springfield as he had ever been in New
Salem. Mr. Hay says, speaking of the youths who
made the County Clerk's office their place of rendez-
vous, " It was always a great treat when Lincoln got
LINCOLN'S BOOKCASE AND INKSTAND.
EARLY LAW PRACTICE 171
amongst us. We were sure to have some of those chap. x.
stories for which he already had a reputation, and
there was this peculiarity about them, that they
were not only entertaining in themselves, but
always singularly illustrative of some point he
wanted to make." After Mr. Hay entered his office,
and was busily engaged with his briefs and decla-
rations, the course of their labors was often broken
by the older man's wise and witty digressions.
Once an interruption occurred which affords an odd
illustration of the character of discussion then
prevalent. "We will give it in Mr. Hay's words:
" The custom of public political debate, while it
was sharp and acrimonious, also engendered a
spirit of equality and fairness. Every political
meeting was a free fight open to every one who had
talent and spirit, no matter to which party the
speaker belonged. These discussions used often to
be held in the court-room, just under our office, and
through a trap-door, made there when the building
was used for a store-house, we could hear every-
thing that was said in the hall below. One night
there was a discussion in which E. D. Baker took
part. He was a fiery fellow, and when his impul-
siveness was let loose among the rough element that
composed his audience there was a fair prospect of
trouble at any moment. Lincoln was lying on the
bed, apparently paying no attention to what was
going on. Lamborn was talking, and we suddenly
heard Baker interrupting him with a sharp remark,
then a rustling and uproar. Lincoln jumped from
the bed and down the trap, lighting on the platform
between Baker and the audience, and quieted the
tumult as much by the surprise of his sudden
172 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. x. apparition as by his good-natured and reasonable
words."
He was often unfaithful to his Quaker traditions
in those days of his youth. Those who witnessed
his wonderful forbearance and self-restraint in
later manhood would find it difficult to believe
how promptly and with what pleasure he used to
resort to measures of repression against a bully or
brawler. On the day of election in 1840, word
came to him that one Radford, a Democratic con-
tractor, had taken possession of one of the polling-
places with his workmen, and was preventing the
Whigs from voting. Lincoln started off at a gait
which showed his interest in the matter in hand.
He went up to Eadford and persuaded him to
leave the polls without a moment's delay. One of
his candid remarks is remembered and recorded:
" Radford ! you '11 spoil and blow, if you live much
longer." Radford's prudence prevented an actual
collision, which, it must be confessed, Lincoln
regretted. He told his friend Speed he wanted
Radford to show fight so that he might " knock
'jfm' him down and leave him kicking."
Early in the year 1840 it seemed possible that
the Whigs might elect General Harrison to the
Presidency, and this hope lent added energy to the
party even in the States where the majority was
so strongly against them as in Illinois. Lincoln
was nominated for Presidential Elector and threw
himself with ardor into the canvass, traversing a
great part of the State and speaking with remark-
able effect. Only one of the speeches he made
during the year has been preserved entire: this
was an address delivered in Springfield as one of a
EARLY LAW PRACTICE 173
series — a sort of oratorical tournament partici- chap. x.
pated in by Douglas, Calhoun, Lamborn, and
Thomas on the part of the Democrats, and Logan,
Baker, Browning, and Lincoln on the part of the
Whigs. The discussion began with great enthu-
siasm and with crowded houses, but by the time
it came to Lincoln's duty to close the debate the
fickle public had tired of the intellectual jousts,
and he spoke to a comparatively thin house. But
his speech was considered the best of the series,
and there was such a demand for it that he wrote
it out, and it was printed and circulated in the
spring as a campaign document.
It was a remarkable speech in many respects —
and in none more than in this, that it represented
the highest expression of what might be called his
" first manner." It was the most important and the
last speech of its class which he ever delivered —
not destitute of sound and close reasoning, yet
filled with boisterous fun and florid rhetoric. It
was, in short, a rattling stump speech of the kind
then universally popular in the West, and which is
still considered a very high grade of eloquence
in the South. But it is of no kindred with his
inaugural addresses, and resembles the Gettysburg
speech no more than " The Comedy of Errors "
resembles "Hamlet." One or two extracts will
give some idea of its humorous satire and its lurid
fervor. Attacking the corruptions and defalca-
tions of the Administration party he said : " Mr.
Lamborn insists that the difference between the Van
Buren party and the Whigs is that, although the
former sometimes err in practice they are always
correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong
GLOBE TAVERN, SPRINGFIELD, WHERE LINCOLN LIVED AFTER HIS
MARRIAGE.
EAKLY LAW PEACTICE 175
in principle ; and the better to impress this propo- chap. x.
sition he uses a figurative expression in these
words, ' The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel,
but they are sound in the heart and head.' The
first branch of the figure — that is, the Democrats
are vulnerable in the heel — I admit is not merely
figuratively but literally true. Who that looks
but for a moment at their Swartwouts, their
Prices, their Harringtons, and their hundreds of
others scampering away with the public money to
Texas, to Europe, and to every spot of the earth
where a villain may hope to find refuge from jus-
tice, can at all doubt that they are most distress-
ingly affected in their heels with a species of
running itch ? It seems that this malady of their
heels operates on the sound-headed and honest-
hearted creatures, very much as the cork leg in the
comic song did on its owner, which, when he once
got started on it, the more he tried to stop it the
more it would run away. At the hazard of wear-
ing this point threadbare, I will relate an anec-
dote which seems to be too strikingly in point
to be omitted. A witty Irish soldier who was
always boasting of his bravery when no danger
was near, but who invariably retreated without
orders at the first charge of the engagement, being
asked by his captain why he did so, replied, ' Cap-
tain, I have as brave a heart as Julius Caesar ever
had, but somehow or other whenever danger
approaches, my cowardly legs will run away with
it.' So with Mr. Lamborn's party — they take the
public money into their hands for the most laud-
able purpose that wise heads and honest hearts
can dictate ; but before they can possibly get it
176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. x. out again, their rascally vulnerable heels will run
away with them."
The speech concludes with these swelling words :
"Mr. Lamborn refers to the late elections in the
States, and from their results confidently predicts
every State in the Union will vote for Mr. Van
Buren at the next Presidential election. Address
that argument to cowards and slaves : with the
free and the brave it will affect nothing. It may
be true; if it must, let it. Many free countries
have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers ; but
if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I
was the last to desert, but that I never deserted
her. I know that the great volcano at Washington,
aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns
there, is belching forth the lava of political corrup-
tion in a current broad and deep, which is sweep-
ing with frightful velocity over the whole length
and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave un-
scathed no green spot or living thing ; while on its
bosom are riding, like demons on the wave of Hell,
the imps of the Evil Spirit, and fiendishly taunting
all those who dare to resist its destroying course
with the hopelessness of their efforts ; and know-
ing this, I cannot deny that all may be swept
away. Broken by it I, too, may be; bow to it, I
never will. The probability that we may fall in the
struggle ought not to deter us from the support of
a cause we believe to be just. It shall not deter
me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and
expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy
of its almighty architect, it is when I contemplate
the cause of my country, deserted by all the world
beside, and I standing up boldly alone, hurling
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON.
EARLY LAW PRACTICE 177
defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, with- chap. x.
out contemplating consequences, before Heaven,
and in face of the world, I swear eternal fealty to
the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life,
my liberty, and my love. And who that thinks
with me will not fearlessly adopt that oath that I
take ? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and
we may succeed. But if after all we should fail,
be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation
of saying to our consciences, and to the departed
shade of our country's freedom, that the cause
approved of our judgment, and adored of our
hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death,
we never faltered in defending."
These perfervid and musical metaphors of devo-
tion and defiance have often been quoted as Mr. Lin-
coln's heroic challenge to the slave power, and
Bishop Simpson gave them that lofty significance
in his funeral oration. But they were simply the
utterances of a young and ardent Whig, earnestly
advocating the election of "old Tippecanoe" and
not unwilling, while doing this, to show the people
of the capital a specimen of his eloquence. The
whole campaign was carried on in a tone some-
what shrill. The Whigs were recovering from the
numbness into which they had fallen during the
time of Jackson's imperious predominance, and in
the new prospect of success they felt all the excite-
ment of prosperous rebels. The taunts of the
party in power, when Harrison's nomination was
first mentioned, their sneers at " hard cider " and
" log-cabins," had been dexterously adopted as the
slogan of the opposition, and gave rise to the dis-
tinguishing features of that extraordinary cam-
Vol. I.— 12
178
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. x. paign. Log-cabins were built in every "Western
county, tuns of hard cider were filled and emptied
at all the Whig mass meetings ; and as the canvass
gained momentum and vehemence a curious kind
of music added its inspiration to the cause; and
after the Maine election was over, with its augury
of triumph, every Whig who was able to sing, or
even to make a joyful noise, was roaring the
inquiry, " Oh, have you heard how old Maine
went?" and the profane but powerfully accented
response, " She went, hell-bent, for Governor Kent,
and Tippecanoe, and Tyler too."
It was one of the busiest and most enjoyable
seasons of Lincoln's life. He had grown by this
time thoroughly at home in political controversy,
and he had the pleasure of frequently meeting Mr.
Douglas in rough-and-tumble debate in various
towns of the State as they followed Judge Treat
on his circuit. If we may trust the willing testi-
mony of his old associates, Lincoln had no diffi-
culty in holding his own against his adroit
antagonist, and it was even thought that the
recollection of his ill success in these encounters
was not without its influence in inducing Douglas
and his followers, defeated in the nation, though
victorious in the State, to wreak their vengeance on
the Illinois Supreme Court.
In Lincoln's letters to Major Stuart, then in
Washington, we see how strongly the subject of
politics overshadows all others in his mind. Under
date of November 14, 1839, he wrote : " I have
been to the Secretary's office within the last hour,
and find things precisely as you left them ; no new
arrivals of returns on either side. Douglas has not
Copied
from the
MS. in
Major
Stuart's
possession.
Clerk.
EARLY LAW PEACTICE 179
been here since you left. A report is in circulation chap. x.
here now that he has abandoned the idea of going
to Washington; but the report does not come in
very authentic form so far as I can learn. Though,
speaking of authenticity, you know that if we had
heard Douglas say that he had abandoned the con-
test, it would not be very authentic. There is no
news here. Noah, I still think, will be elected very Noah w.
easily. I am afraid of our race for representative, county'
Dr. Knapp has become a candidate ; and I fear
the few votes he will get will be taken from us.
Also some one has been tamperiDg with old squire
Wyckoff, and induced him to send in his name to
be announced as a candidate. Francis refused to
announce him without seeing him, and now I sup-
pose there is to be a fuss about it. I have been so
busy that I have not seen Mrs. Stuart since you
left, though I understand she wrote you by
to-day's mail, which will inform you more about
her than I could. The very moment a speaker is
elected, write me who he is. Your friend, as
ever."
Again he wrote, on New Year's Day, 1840, a let-
ter curiously destitute of any festal suggestions :
" There is a considerable disposition on the part of
both parties in the Legislature to reinstate the law
bringing on the Congressional elections next sum-
mer. What motive for this the Locos have, I can-
not tell. The Whigs say that the canal and other
public works will stop, and consequently we shall
then be clear of the foreign votes, whereas by
another year they may be brought in again. The
Whigs of our district say that everything is in
favor of holding the election next summer, except
180 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. x. the fact of your absence ; and several of them have
requested me to ask your opinion on the matter.
Write me immediately what you think of it.
"On the other side of this sheet I send you a
copy of my Land Resolutions, which passed both
branches of our Legislature last winter. Will you
show them to Mr. Calhoun, informing him of the
fact of their passage through our Legislature? Mr.
Calhoun suggested a similar proposition last win-
ter; and perhaps if he finds himself backed by one
of the States he may be induced to take it up
again."
After the session opened, January 20, he wrote
to Mr. Stuart, accurately outlining the work of the
winter: "The following is my guess as to what
will be done. The Internal Improvement System
will be put down in a lump without benefit of
clergy. The Bank will be resuscitated with some
trifling modifications."
State affairs have evidently lost their interest,
however, and his soul is in arms for the wider fray.
" Be sure to send me as many copies of the Life of
Harrison as you can spare. Be very sure to send
me the Senate Journal of New York for September,
1814," — he had seen in a newspaper a charge of dis-
loyalty made against Mr. Van Buren during the war
with Great Britain, but, as usual, wanted to be sure
of his facts, — " and in general," he adds, " send me
everything you think will be a good war-club.
The nomination of Harrison takes first-rate. You
know I am never sanguine ; but I believe we will
carry the State. The chance for doing so appears
to me twenty-five per cent, better than it did
for you to beat Douglas. A great many of the
EAKLY LAW PRACTICE 181
grocery sort of Van Buren men are out for Harrison, chap. x.
Our Irish blacksmith Gregory is for Harrison. . . .
You have heard that the Whigs and Locos had a
political discussion shortly after the meeting of the
Legislature. Well, I made a big speech which is
in progress of printing in pamphlet form. To en-
lighten you and the rest of the world, I shall send
you a copy when it is finished." The " big speech "
was the one from which we have just quoted.
The sanguine mood continued in his next letter,
March 1 : "I have never seen the prospects of
our party so bright in these parts as they are now.
We shall carry this county by a larger majority
than we did in 1836 when you ran against May.
I do not think my prospects individually are very
flattering, for I think it probable I shall not be
permitted to be a candidate; but the party ticket
will succeed triumphantly. Subscriptions to the
' Old Soldier ' pour in without abatement. This
morning I took from the post-office a letter from
Dubois, inclosing the names of sixty subscribers,
and on carrying it to Francis [Simeon Francis,
editor of the ' Sangamo Journal'] I found he had
received one hundred and forty more from other
quarters by the same day's mail. . . . Yesterday
Douglas, having chosen to consider himself insulted
by something in the ' Journal,' undertook to cane
Francis in the street. Francis caught him by the
hair and jammed him back against a market-cart,
where the matter ended by Francis being pulled
away from him. The whole affair was so ludicrous
that Francis and everybody else, Douglas excepted,
have been laughing about it ever since."
Douglas seems to have had a great propensity to
182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. x. such rencontres, of which the issue was ordinarily
his complete discomfiture, as he had the untoward
habit of attacking much bigger and stronger men
than himself. He weighed at that time little, if
anything, over a hundred pounds, yet his heart was
so valiant that he made nothing of assaulting men of
ponderous flesh like Francis, or of great height and
strength like Stuart. He sought a quarrel with the
latter, during their canvass in 1838, in a grocery,
with the usual result. A bystander who re-
members the incident says that Stuart "jest
mopped the floor with him." In the same letter
Mr. Lincoln gives a long list of names to which he
wants documents to be sent. It shows a remark-
able personal acquaintance with the minutest needs
of the canvass: this one is a doubtful Whig; that
one is an inquiring Democrat ; that other a zealous
young fellow who would be pleased by the atten-
tion; three brothers are mentioned who "fell out
with us about Early and are doubtful now " ; and
finally he tells Stuart that Joe Smith is an admirer
of his, and that a few documents had better be
mailed to the Mormons ; and he must be sure, the
next time he writes, to send Evan Butler his com-
pliments.
It would be strange, indeed, if such a politician
as this were slighted by his constituents, and in
his next letter we find how groundless were his
forebodings in that direction. The convention
had been held; the rural delegates took all the
nominations away from Springfield except two,
Baker for the Senate, and Lincoln for the House
of Representatives. "Ninian," he says, meaning
Ninian W. Edwards, " was very much hurt at not
EAELY LAW PKACTICE 183
being nominated, but lie has become tolerably well chap. x.
reconciled. I was much, very much, wounded my-
self, at his being left out. The fact is, the country
delegates made the nominations as they pleased, and
they pleased to make them all from the country,
except Baker and me, whom they supposed neces-
sary to make stump speeches. Old Colonel Elkin
is nominated for Sheriff — that 's right."
Harrison was elected in November, and the great
preoccupation of most of the Whigs was, of course,
the distribution of the offices which they felt
belonged to them as the spoils of battle. This
demoralizing doctrine had been promulgated by
Jackson, and acted upon for so many years that it
was too much to expect of human nature that the
Whigs should not adopt it, partially at least, when
their turn came. But we are left in no doubt as to
the way in which Lincoln regarded the unseemly
scramble. It is probable that he was asked to
express his preference among applicants, and he
wrote under date of December 17 : " This affair of
appointments to office is very annoying — more so
to you than to me doubtless. I am, as you know,
opposed to removals to make places for our friends.
Bearing this in mind, I express my preference in
a few cases, as follows: for Marshal, first, John
Dawson, second, B. F. Edwards; for postmaster
here, Dr. Henry ; at Carlinville, Joseph C. Howell."
The mention of this last post-office rouses his
righteous indignation, and he calls for justice upon
a wrong-doer. " There is no question of the pro-
priety of removing the postmaster at Carlinville.
I have been told by so many different persons as
to preclude all doubt of its truth, that he boldly
184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. x. refused to deliver from his office during the can-
vass all documents franked by Whig members
of Congress."
Once more, on the 23d of January, 1841, he
addresses a letter to Mr. Stuart, which closes the
correspondence, and which affords a glimpse of
that strange condition of melancholia into whose
dark shadow he was then entering, and which
lasted, with only occasional intervals of healthy
cheerfulness, to the time of his marriage. We give
this remarkable letter entire, from the manuscript
submitted to us by the late John T. Stuart:
Dear Stuart: Yours of the 3d instant is received,
and I proceed to answer it as well as I can, though from
the deplorable state of my mind at this time I fear I
shall give you but little satisfaction. About the matter
of the Congressional election, I can only tell you that
there is a bill now before the Senate adopting the general
ticket system ; but whether the party have fully deter-
mined on its adoption is yet uncertain. There is no sign
of opposition to you among our friends, and none that I
can learn among our enemies; though of course there
will be if the general ticket be adopted. The Chicago
" American," Peoria " Register," and Sangamo " Journal"
have already hoisted your flag upon their own responsi-
bility ; and the other Whig papers of the district are ex-
pected to follow immediately. On last evening there was
a meeting of our friends at Butler's, and I submitted the
question to them and found them unanimously in favor
of having you announced as a candidate. A few of us
this morning, however, concluded that as you were already
being announced in the papers we would, delay announc-
ing you, as by your authority, for a week or two. We
thought that to appear too keen about it might spur our
opponents on about their general ticket project. Upon
the whole I think I may say with certainty that your
reelection is sure, if it be in the power of the Whigs to
make it so.
EARLY LAW PRACTICE 185
For not giving }'ou a general summary of news, you chap. x.
must pardon me ; it is not in my power to do so. I am
now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were
equally distributed to the whole human family, there
would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I
shall ever be better I cannot tell ; I awfully forebode I
shall not. To remain as I am is impossible ; I must die
or be better, it appears to me. The matter you speak of
on my account you may attend to as you say, unless you
shall hear of my condition forbidding it. I say this
because I fear I shall be unable to attend to any business
here, and a change of scene might help me. If I could
be myself, I would rather remain at home with Judge
Logan. I can write no more. Your friend as ever.
A. Lincoln.
CHAPTER XI
MARRIAGE
THE foregoing letter brings us to the considera-
tion of a remarkable passage in Lincoln's life.
It has been the cause of much profane and idle
discussion among those who were constitutionally-
incapacitated from appreciating ideal sufferings,
and we would be tempted to refrain from adding a
word to what has already been said if it were pos-
sible to omit all reference to an experience so im-
portant in the development of his character.
In the year 1840 he became engaged to be
married to Miss Mary Todd, of Lexington, Ken-
tucky, a young lady of good education and excel-
lent connections, who was visiting her sister, Mrs.
Ninian W. Edwards, at Springfield.1 The engage-
ment was not in all respects a happy one, as both
i Mrs. Lincoln was the daugh- killed at the battle of the Blue
ter of the Hon. Robert S. Todd, Licks, in 1782. His brother Levi
of Kentucky. Her great-uncle, was also at that battle, and was
John Todd, and her grandfather, one of the few survivors of it.
Levi Todd, accompanied General Colonel John Todd was one of
George Rogers Clark to Illinois, the original proprietors of the
and were present at the capture town of Lexington, Ky. While
of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. In encamped on the site of the
December, 1778, John Todd present city, he heard of the
was appointed by Patrick Henry, opening battle of the Revolution,
Governor of Virginia, to be lieu- and named his infant settlement
tenant of the county of Illinois, in its honor. — Arnold's "Life of
then a part of Virginia. He was Lincoln," p. 68.
MAKKIAGE 187
parties doubted their compatibility, and a heart chap. xi.
so affectionate and a conscience so sensitive as
Lincoln's found material for exquisite self-tor-
ment in these conditions. His affection for his
betrothed, which he thought was not strong
enough to make happiness with her secure ; his
doubts, which yet were not convincing enough to
induce him to break off all relations with her ; his
sense of honor, which was wounded in his own
eyes by his own act ; his sense of duty, which con-
demned him in one course and did not sustain
him in the opposite one — all combined to make
him profoundly and passionately miserable. To
his friends and acquaintances, who were unused
to such finely wrought and even fantastic sor-
rows, his trouble seemed so exaggerated that
they could only account for it on the ground of
insanity. But there is no necessity of accepting
this crude hypothesis ; the coolest and most ju-
dicious of his friends deny that his depression ever
went to such an extremity. Orville H. Browning,
who was constantly in his company, says that his
worst attack lasted only about a week ; that during
this time he was incoherent and distraught; but that
in the course of a few days it all passed off, leaving
no trace whatever. " I think," says Mr. Browning,
"it was only an intensification of his constitutional
melancholy; his trials and embarrassments pressed
him down to a lower point than usual."
This taint of constitutional sadness was not
peculiar to Lincoln ; it may be said to have been
endemic among the early settlers of the West. It
had its origin partly in the circumstances of their
lives, the severe and dismal loneliness in which
MAEKIAGE 189
their struggle for existence for the most part went chap. xi.
on. Their summers were passed in the solitude of
the woods ; in the winter they were often snowed
up for months in the more desolate isolation of
their own poor cabins. Their subjects of conver-
sation were limited, their range of thoughts and
ideas narrow and barren. There was as little
cheerfulness in their manners as there was incen-
tive to it in their lives. They occasionally burst
out into wild frolic, which easily assumed the form
of comic outrage, but of the sustained cheerfulness
of social civilized life they knew very little. One of
the few pioneers who have written their observa-
tions of their own people, John L. McConnell, "ch&r£&
says, " They are at the best not a cheerful race ; peria*.
though they sometimes join in festivities, it is but
seldom, and the wildness of their dissipation is too
often in proportion to its infrequency. There is
none of that serene contentment which distin-
guishes the tillers of the ground in other lands.
. . . Acquainted with the character [of the pio-
neer], you do not expect him to smile much, but
now and then he laughs."
Besides this generic tendency to melancholy,
very many of the pioneers were subject in early
life to malarial influences, the effect of which
remained with them all their days. Hewing out
their plantations in the primeval woods amid the
undisturbed shadow of centuries, breaking a soil
thick with ages of vegetable decomposition, sleep-
ing in half-faced camps, where the heavy air of
the rank woods was in their lungs all night, or in
the fouler atmosphere of overcrowded cabins, they
were especially subject to miasmatic fevers. Many
190
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
" Western
Charac-
ters,"
p. 126.
died, and of those who survived, a great number,
after they had outgrown the more immediate
manifestations of disease, retained in nervous dis-
orders of all kinds the distressing traces of the
maladies which afflicted their childhood. In the
early life of Lincoln these unwholesome physical
conditions were especially prevalent. The country
about Pigeon Creek was literally devastated by the
terrible malady called " milk-sickness," which car-
ried away his mother and half her family. His
father left his home in Macon County, also, on
account of the frequency and severity of the attacks
of fever and ague which were suffered there ; and,
in general, Abraham was exposed through all the
earlier part of his life to those malarial influences
which made, during the first half of this century,
the various preparations of Peruvian bark a part
of the daily food of the people of Indiana and Illi-
nois. In many instances this miasmatic poison did
not destroy the strength or materially shorten the
lives of those who absorbed it in their youth ; but
the effects remained in periodical attacks of gloom
and depression of spirits which would seem incom-
prehensible to thoroughly healthy organizations,
and which gradually lessened in middle life, often
to disappear entirely in old age.
Upon a temperament thus predisposed to look
at things in their darker aspect, it might naturally
be expected that a love-affair which was not per-
fectly happy would be productive of great miseiy.
But Lincoln seemed especially chosen to the keen-
est suffering in such a conjuncture. The pioneer,
as a rule, was comparatively free from any troubles
of the imagination. To quote Mr. McConnell again:
MARRIAGE 191
"There was no romance in his [the pioneer's] com- chap, xl
position. He had no dreaminess ; meditation was
no part of his mental habit; a poetical fancy would,
in him, have been an indication of insanity. If he
reclined at the foot of a tree, on a still summer day,
it was to sleep ; if he gazed out over the waving
prairie, it was to search for the column of smoke
which told of his enemies' approach ; if he turned
his eyes towards the blue heaven, it was to prog-
nosticate to-morrow's rain or sunshine. If he bent
his gaze towards the green earth, it was to look for
* Indian sign' or buffalo trail. His wife was only a
helpmate ; he never thought of making a divinity
of her." But Lincoln could never have claimed this
happy immunity from ideal trials. His published
speeches show how much the poet in him was
constantly kept in check ; and at this time of his
life his imagination was sufficiently alert to inflict
upon him the sharpest anguish. His reverence for
women was so deep and tender that he thought an
injury to one of them was a sin too heinous to be
expiated. No Hamlet, dreaming amid the turrets
of Elsinore, no Sidney creating a chivalrous Arca-
dia, was fuller of mystic and shadowy fancies of
the worth and dignity of woman than this back-
woods politician. Few men ever lived more sensi-
tively and delicately tender towards the sex.
Besides his step-mother, who was a plain, God-
fearing woman, he had not known many others
until he came to live in New Salem. There he had
made the acquaintance of the best people the set-
tlement contained, and among them had become
much attached to a young girl named Ann Rut-
ledge, the daughter of one of the proprietors of the
192 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xi. place. She died in her girlhood, and though there
does not seem to have been any engagement
between them, he was profoundly affected by her
death. But the next year a young woman from
Kentucky appeared in the village, to whom he paid
such attentions as in his opinion fully committed
him as a suitor for her hand. He admired her, and
she seems to have merited the admiration of all the
manhood there was in New Salem. She was hand-
some and intelligent and of an admirable temper
and disposition. While they were together he was
constant in his attentions, and when he was at
Vandalia or at Springfield he continued his assid-
uities in some of the most singular love-letters
ever written. They are filled mostly with remarks
about current politics, and with arguments going
to show that she had better not marry him ! At
the same time he clearly intimates that he is at her
disposition if she is so inclined. At last, feeling
that his honor and duty were involved, he made a
direct proposal to her, and received an equally
direct, kind, and courteous refusal. Not knowing
but that this indicated merely a magnanimous
desire to give him a chance for escape, he persisted
in his offer, and she in her refusal. When the
matter had ended in this perfectly satisfactory
manner to both of them, he sat down and wrote,
by way of epilogue to the play, a grotesquely
comic account of the whole affair to Mrs. O.
H. Browning, one of his intimate Vandalia ac-
quaintances.
This letter has been published and severely
criticised as showing a lack of gentlemanlike
feeling. But those who take this view forget
MAKKIAGE 193
that he was writing to an intimate friend of a chap. xi.
matter which had greatly occupied his own mind
for a year ; that he mentioned no names, and that
he threw such an air of humorous unreality about
the whole story that the person who received it
never dreamed that it recorded an actual occurrence
until twenty-five years afterwards, when, having
been asked to furnish it to a biographer, she was
warned against doing so by the President himself,
who said there was too much truth in it for print.
The only significance the episode possesses is in
showing this almost abnormal development of
conscience in the young man who was perfectly
ready to enter into a marriage which he dreaded
simply because he thought he had given a young
woman reason to think that he had such intentions.
While we admit that this would have been an
irremediable error, we cannot but wonder at the
nobleness of the character to which it was pos-
sible.
In this vastly more serious matter, which was,
we may say at once, the crucial ordeal of his life,
the same invincible truthfulness, the same innate
goodness, the same horror of doing a wrong, are
combined with an exquisite sensibility and a
capacity for suffering which mark him as a man
"picked out among ten thousand." His habit of
relentless self -searching reveals to him a state of
feeling which strikes him with dismay ; his simple
and inflexible veracity communicates his trouble
and his misery to the woman whom he loves ; his
freedom, when he has gained it, yields him nothing
but an agony of remorse and humiliation. He
could not shake off his pain, like men of cooler
Vol. I.— 13
194 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xi. heads and shallower hearts. It took fast hold of
him and dragged him into awful depths of darkness
and torture. The letter to Stuart, which we have
given, shows him emerging from the blackest
period of that time of gloom. Immediately after
this, he accompanied his close friend and con-
fidant, Joshua F. Speed, to Kentucky, where, in a
way so singular that no writer of fiction would
dare to employ the incident, he became almost
cured of his melancholy, and came back to Illinois
and his work again.
Mr. Speed was a Kentuckian, carrying on a
general mercantile business in Springfield — a
brother of the distinguished lawyer, James Speed,
of Louisville, who afterwards became Attorney-
General of the United States. He was one of those
men who seem to have to a greater extent than
others the genius of friendship, the Pythias, the
Pylades, the Horatios of the world. It is hardly
too much to say that he was the only — as he was
certainly the last — intimate friend that Lincoln
ever had. He was his closest companion in Spring-
field, and in the evil days when the letter to Stuart
was written he took him with brotherly love and
authority under his special care. He closed up his
affairs in Springfield, and went with Lincoln to
Kentucky, and, introducing him to his own cordial
and hospitable family circle, strove to soothe his
perturbed spirit by every means which unaffected
friendliness could suggest. That Lincoln found
much comfort and edification in that genial com-
panionship is shown by the fact that after he
became President he sent to Mr. Speed's mother a
photograph of himself, inscribed, " For Mrs. Lucy
MAKKIAGE 195
G. Speed, from whose pious hand I accepted the chap. xi.
present of an Oxford Bible twenty years ago."
But the principal means by which the current of
his thoughts was changed was never dreamed of
by himself or by his friend when they left Illinois.
During this visit Speed himself fell in love, and
became engaged to be married; and either by a
singular chance or because the maladies of the
soul may be propagated by constant association,
the feeling of despairing melancholy, which he had
found so morbid and so distressing an affliction in
another, took possession of himself, and threw
him into the same slough of despondency from
which he had been laboring to rescue Lincoln.
Between friends so intimate there were no con-
cealments, and from the moment Lincoln found
his services as nurse and consoler needed, the vio-
lence of his own trouble seemed to diminish. The
two young men were in Springfield together in the
autumn, and Lincoln seems by that time to have
laid aside his own peculiar besetments, in order to
minister to his friend. They knew the inmost
thoughts of each other's hearts and each relied
upon the honesty and loyalty of the other to an
extent rare among men. When Speed returned to
Kentucky, to a happiness which awaited him there,
so bright that it dazzled and blindedhis moral vision,
Lincoln continued his counsels and encouragements
in letters which are remarkable for their tenderness
and delicacy of thought and expression. Like
another poet, he looked into his own heart and
wrote. His own deeper nature had suffered from
these same fantastic sorrows and terrors; of his
own grief he made a medicine for his comrade.
196 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xi. While Speed was still with him, he wrote a long
letter, which he put into his hands at parting, full
of wise and affectionate reasonings, to be read
when he should feel the need of it. He predicts
for him a period of nervous depression — first,
because he will be " exposed to bad weather on his
journey, and, secondly, because of the absence of
all business and conversation of friends which
might divert his mind and give it occasional rest
from the intensity of thought which will sometimes
wear the sweetest idea threadbare, and turn it to
the bitterness of death." The third cause, he says,
" is the rapid and near approach of that crisis on
which all your thoughts and feelings concentrate."
If in spite of all these circumstances he should
escape without a " twinge of the soul," his friend
will be most happily deceived ; but, he continues,
" if you shall, as I expect you will at some time, be
agonized and distressed, let me, who have some
reason to speak with judgment on the subject,
beseech you to ascribe it to the causes I have men-
tioned, and not to some false and ruinous sugges-
tion of the devil." This forms the prelude to an
ingenious and affectionate argument in which he
labors to convince Speed of the loveliness of his
betrothed and of the integrity of his own heart ; a
strange task, one would say, to undertake in behalf
of a young and ardent lover. But the two men
understood each other, and the service thus
rendered was gratefully received and remembered
by Speed all his life.
Lincoln wrote again on the 3d of February, 1842,
congratulating Speed upon a recent severe illness
of his destined bride, for the reason that "your
MARRIAGE 197
present distress and anxiety about her health must chap. xi.
forever banish those horrid doubts which you feel
as to the truth of your affection for her." As the
period of Speed's marriage drew near, Lincoln's
letters betray the most intense anxiety. He can-
not wait to hear the news from his friend, but
writes to him about the time of the wedding,
admitting that he is writing in the dark, that
words from a bachelor may be worthless to a
Benedick, but still unable to keep silence. He
hopes he is happy with his wife, " but should I be
mistaken in this, should excessive pleasure still be
accompanied with a painful counterpart at times,
still let me urge you, as I have ever done, to
remember in the depth and even agony of despond-
ency, that very shortly you are to feel well again."
Further on he says: "If you went through the
ceremony calmly, or even with sufficient compos-
ure not to excite alarm in any present, you are
safe beyond question," seeking by every device of
subtle affection to lift up the heart of his friend.
With a solicitude apparently greater than that of
the nervous bridegroom, he awaited the announce-
ment of the marriage, and when it came he wrote
(February 25) : " I opened the letter with intense
anxiety and trepidation ; so much that, although it
turned out better than I expected, I have hardly
yet, at the distance of ten hours, become calm. I
tell you, Speed, our forebodings, for which you and
I are peculiar, are all the worst sort of nonsense.
I fancied from the time I received your letter of
Saturday that the one of Wednesday was never to
come, and yet it did come, and, what is more, it is
perfectly clear, both from its tone and handwriting,
198 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xi. that . . . you had obviously improved at the very
time I had so much fancied you would have grown
worse. You say that something indescribably hor-
rible and alarming still haunts you. You will not
say that three months from now, I will venture."
The letter goes on in the same train of sympathetic
cheer, but there is one phrase which strikes the
keynote of all lives whose ideals are too high for
fulfillment : " It is the peculiar misfortune of both
you and me to dream dreams of Elysium far
exceeding all that anything earthly can realize."
But before long a letter came from Speed, who
had settled with his black-eyed Kentucky wife
upon a well-stocked plantation, disclaiming any
further fellowship of misery and announcing the
beginnings of that life of uneventful happiness
which he led ever after. His peace of mind has
become a matter of course ; he dismisses the sub-
ject in a line, but dilates, with a new planter's
rapture, upon the beauties and attractions of his
farm. Lincoln frankly answers that he cares
nothing about his farm. " I can only say that I
am glad you are satisfied and pleased with it. But
on that other subject, to me of the most intense
interest whether in joy or sorrow, I never had the
power to withhold my sympathy from you. It
cannot be told how it now thrills me with joy to
hear you say you are ' far happier than you ever
expected to be.' . . I am not going beyond the
truth when I tell you that the short space it took
me to read your last letter gave me more pleasure
than the total sum of all I have enjoyed since the
fatal 1st of January, 1841. Since then it seems to
me I should have been entirely happy, but for the
MAKRIAGE 199
never-absent idea that there is one still unhappy chap, xi
whom I have contributed to make so. That still
kills my soul. I cannot but reproach myself for
even wishing myself to be happy while she is
otherwise."
During the summer of 1842 the letters of the
friends still discuss, with waning intensity, how-
ever, their respective affairs of the heart. Speed,
in the ease and happiness of his home, thanks Lin-
coln for his important part in his welfare, and
gives him sage counsel for himself. Lincoln replies
(July 4, 1842) : " I could not have done less than
I did. I always was superstitious ; I believe God
made me one of the instruments of bringing your
Fanny and you together, which union I have no
doubt he foreordained. Whatever he designs, he
will do for me yet." A better name than " super-
stition " might properly be applied to this frame of
mind. He acknowledges Speed's kindly advice,
but says : " Before I resolve to do the one thing or
the other, I must gain my confidence in my own
ability to keep my resolves when they are made.
In that ability you know I once prided myself, as
the only or chief gem of my character ; that gem I
lost, how and where you know too well. I have
not yet regained it ; and until I do I cannot trust
myself in any matter of much importance. I
believe now, that had you understood my case at
the time as well as I understood yours afterwards,
by the aid you would have given me I should have
sailed through clear ; but that does not afford me
confidence to begin that, or the like of that, again."
Still, he was nearing the end of his doubts and
self -torturing sophistry. A last glimpse of his im-
200 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xi. perious curiosity, kept alive by saucy hopes and
fears, is seen in his letter to Speed of the 5th of
October. He ventures, with a genuine timidity, to
ask a question which we may believe has not often
been asked by one civilized man of another, with
the hope of a candid answer, since marriages were
celebrated with ring and book. "I want to ask
you a close question — Are you now, in feeling as
well as judgment, glad you are married as you are ?
From anybody but me this would be an impudent
question, not to be tolerated ; but I know you will
pardon it in me. Please answer it quickly, as I am
impatient to know." It is probable that Mr. Speed
replied promptly in the way in which such
questions must almost of necessity be answered.
On the 4th of November, 1842, a marriage license
was issued to Lincoln, and on the same day he was
married to Miss Mary Todd, the ceremony being
performed by the Rev. Charles Dresser. Four sons
were the issue of this marriage : Robert Todd, born
August 1, 1843; Edward Baker, March 10, 1846;
William Wallace, December 21, 1850; Thomas,
April 4, 1853. Of these only the eldest lived to
maturity.
In this way Abraham Lincoln met and passed
through one of the most important crises of his life.
There was so much of idiosyncrasy in it that it
has been, and will continue to be for years to come,
the occasion of endless gossip in Sangamon
County and elsewhere. Because it was not pre-
cisely like the experience of other people, who are
married and given in marriage every day without
any ado, a dozen conflicting stories have grown up,
more or less false and injurious to both contracting
MAEEIAGE 201
parties. But it may not be fanciful to suppose chap, xl
that characters like that of Lincoln, elected for
great conflicts and trials, are fashioned by different
processes from those of ordinary men, and pass
their stated ordeals in a different way. By cir-
cumstances which seem commonplace enough to
commonplace people, he was thrown for more than
a year into a sea of perplexities and sufferings
beyond the reach of the common run of souls.
It is as useless as it would be indelicate to seek to
penetrate in detail the incidents and special causes
which produced in his mind this darkness as of the
valley of the shadow of death. There was probably
nothing worth recording in them ; we are only
concerned with their effect upon a character which
was to be hereafter for all time one of the posses-
sions of the nation. It is enough for us to know
that a great trouble came upon him, and that he
bore it nobly after his kind. That the manner
in which he confronted this crisis was strangely
different from that of most men in similar circum-
stances need surely occasion no surprise. Neither
in this nor in other matters was he shaped in the
average mold of his contemporaries. In many
respects he was doomed to a certain loneliness of
excellence. There are few men that have had his
stern and tyrannous sense of duty, his womanly
tenderness of heart, his wakeful and inflexible
conscience, which was so easy towards others and
so merciless towards himself. Therefore when the
time came for all of these qualities at once to be
put to the most strenuous proof, the whole course
of his development and the tendency of his nature
made it inevitable that his suffering should be of the
202 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xi. keenest and his final triumph over himself should
be of the most complete and signal character. In
that struggle his youth of reveries and day-dreams
passed away. Such furnace-blasts of proof, such
pangs of transformation, seem necessary for excep-
tional natures. The bread eaten in tears, of which
Goethe speaks, the sleepless nights of sorrow,
are required for a clear vision of the celestial
powers. Fortunately the same qualities that
occasion the conflict insure the victory also. From
days of gloom and depression, such as we have
been considering, no doubt came precious results in
the way of sympathy, self-restraint, and that sober
reliance on the final triumph of good over evil
peculiar to those who have been greatly tried but
not destroyed. The late but splendid maturity of
Lincoln's mind and character dates from this time,
and, although he grew in strength and knowledge
to the end, from this year we observe a steadiness
and sobriety of thought and purpose, as discernible
in his life as in his style. He was like a blade
forged in fire and tempered in the ice-brook, ready
for battle whenever the battle might come.
CHAPTER XII
THE SHIELDS DUEL
AN incident which occurred during the summer chap. xn.
X\. preceding Mr. Lincoln's marriage, and which
in the opinion of many had its influence in has-
tening that event, deserves some attention, if only
from its incongruity with the rest of his history.
This was the farce — which aspired at one time to
be a tragedy — of his first and last duel. Among
the officers of the State Government was a young
Irishman named James Shields, who owed his post
as Auditor, in great measure, to that alien vote
to gain which the Democrats had overturned the
Supreme Court. The finances of the State were in
a deplorable condition: the treasury was empty;
auditor's warrants were selling at half their
nominal value; no more money was to be bor-
rowed, and taxation was dreaded by both political
parties more than disgrace. The currency of the
State banks was well-nigh worthless, but it consti-
tuted nearly the only circulating medium in the
State.
In the middle of August the Governor, Auditor,
and Treasurer issued a circular forbidding the pay-
ment of State taxes in this depreciated paper.
This order was naturally taken by the Whigs as
204 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xii. indicating on the part of these officers a keener
interest in the integrity of their salaries than in
the public welfare, and it was therefore severely
attacked in all the opposition newspapers of the
State.
The sharpest assault it had to endure, how-
ever, was in a communication, dated August 27,
and printed in the "Sangamo Journal" of Sep-
tember 2, not only dissecting the administra-
tion circular with the most savage satire, but
covering the Auditor with merciless personal
ridicule. It was written in the dialect of the
country, dated from the "Lost Townships," and
signed " Rebecca," and purported to come from a
farmer widow of the county, who expressed in
this fashion her discontent with the evil course
of affairs.
Shields was a man of inordinate vanity and a
corresponding irascibility. He was for that reason
an irresistible mark for satire. Through a long
life of somewhat conspicuous public service, he
never lost a certain tone of absurdity which can
only be accounted for by the qualities we have
mentioned. Even his honorable wounds in battle,
while they were productive of great public applause
and political success, gained him scarcely less
ridicule than praise. He never could refrain
from talking of them himself, having none of
Coriolanus's repugnance in that respect, and for
that reason was a constant target for newspaper
wits.
After Shields returned from the Mexican war,
with his laurels still green, and at the close of
the canvass which had made him Senator, he
THE SHIELDS DUEL 205
wrote an incredible letter to Judge Breese, his chap. xn.
principal competitor, in which he committed the
gratuitous folly of informing him that "he had
sworn in his heart [if Breese had been elected]
that he should never have profited by his success ;
and depend upon it," he added, in the amazing
impudence of triumph, "I would have kept that
vow, regardless of consequences. That, however,
is now past, and the vow is canceled by your
defeat." He then went on, with threats equally
indecent, to make certain demands which were
altogether inadmissible, and which Judge Breese
only noticed by sending this preposterous letter to JJjftjJJ
the press. ™>'™:
It may easily be imagined that a man who, after
being elected a Senator of the United States, was
capable of the insane insolence of signing his name
to a letter informing his defeated competitor that
he would have killed him if the result had been
different, would not have been likely, when seven
years younger, to bear newspaper ridicule with
equanimity. His fury against the unknown author
of the satire was the subject of much merriment in
Springfield, and the next week another letter
appeared, from a different hand, but adopting the
machinery of the first, in which the widow offered
to make up the quarrel by marrying the Auditor,
and this, in time, was followed by an epithalamium,
in which this happy compromise was celebrated in
very bad verses. In the change of hands all the
humor of the thing had evaporated, and nothing
was left but feminine mischief on one side and the
exasperation of wounded vanity on the other.
Shields, however, had talked so much about the
206 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xii. matter that he now felt imperatively called upon
to act, and he therefore sent General Whitesides to
demand from the " Journal " the name of its con-
tributor. Mr. Francis, the editor, was in a quan-
dary. Lincoln had written the first letter, and the
antic fury of Shields had induced two young ladies
who took a lively interest in Illinois politics — and
with good reason, for one was to be the wife of a
Senator and the other of a President — to follow
up the game with attacks in prose and verse which,
however deficient in wit and meter, were not wanting
in pungency. In his dilemma he applied to Lincoln,
who, as he was starting to attend court at Tre-
mont, told him to give his name and withhold the
names of the ladies. As soon as Whitesides received
this information, he and his fiery principal set out for
Tremont, and as Shields did nothing in silence, the
news came to Lincoln's friends, two of whom, Will-
iam Butler and Dr. Merryman, one of those combat-
ive medical men who have almost disappeared from
American society, went off in a buggy in pursuit.
They soon came in sight of the others, but loitered
in the rear until evening, and then drove rapidly
to Tremont, arriving there some time in advance
of Shields; so that in the ensuing negotiations
Abraham Lincoln had the assistance of friends
whose fidelity and whose nerve were equally be-
yond question.
It would be useless to recount all the tedious
preliminaries of the affair. Shields opened the
correspondence, as might have been expected, with
blustering and with threats; his nature had no
other way of expressing itself. His first letter was
taken as a bar to any explanation or understand-
THE SHIELDS DUEL 207
ing, and he afterwards wrote a second, a little less chap, xii-
offensive in tone, but without withdrawing the
first. At every interview of the seconds General
Whitesides deplored the bloodthirsty disposition of
his principal, and urged that Mr. Lincoln should
make the concessions which alone would prevent
lamentable results. These representations seemed
to avail nothing, however, and the parties, after
endless talk, went to Alton and crossed the river
to the Missouri shore. It seemed for a moment
that the fight must take place. The terms had
been left by the code, as then understood in the
West, to Lincoln, and he certainly made no grudg-
ing use of his privilege. The weapons chosen were
" cavalry broadswords of the largest size"; and the
combatants were to stand on either side of a board
placed on the ground, each to fight in a limit of six
feet on his own side of the board. It was evident
that Lincoln did not desire the death of his adver-
sary, and did not intend to be materially injured
himself. The advantage morally was altogether
against him. He felt intensely the stupidity of the
whole affair, but thought he could not avoid the
fight without degradation ; while to Shields such a
fracas was a delight. The duel came to its natural
end by the intervention of the usual " gods out of a
machine," the gods being John J. Hardin and one
Dr. English, and the machine a canoe in which
they had hastily paddled across the Mississippi.
Shields suffered himself to be persuaded to with-
draw his offensive challenge. Lincoln then made
the explanation he had been ready to make from
the beginning; avowing the one letter he had
written, and saying that it had been printed solely
208 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xii. for political effect, and without any intention of
injuring Shields personally.
One would think that, after a week passed in
such unprofitable trifling, the parties, principal
and secondary, would have been willing to drop
the matter forever. We are sure that Lincoln
would have been glad to banish it, even from his
memory ; but to men like Shields and Whitesides,
the peculiar relish and enjoyment of such an affair
is its publicity. On the 3d of October, therefore,
eleven days after the meeting, as public attention
seemed to be flagging, Whitesides wrote an account
of it to the " Sangamo Journal," for which he did
not forget to say, "I hold myself responsible! * Of
course he seized the occasion to paint a heroic por-
trait of himself and his principal. It was an excel-
lent story until the next week, when Dr. Merryman,
who seems to have wielded a pen like a scalpel,
gave a much fuller history of the matter, which he
substantiated by printing all the documents, and,
not content with that, gave little details of the
negotiations which show, either that Whitesides
was one of the most grotesque braggarts of the
time, or that Merryman was an admirable writer
of comic fiction. Among the most amusing facts
he brought forward was that Whitesides, being a
Fund Commissioner of the State, ran the risk of
losing his office by engaging in a duel ; and his
anxiety to appear reckless and dangerous, and yet
keep within the statute and save his salary, was
depicted by Merryman with a droll fidelity. He
concluded by charging Whitesides plainly with
" inefficiency and want of knowledge of those laws
which govern gentlemen in matters of this kind,"
fe a
THE SHIELDS DUEL 209
and with " trying to wipe out his fault by doing an chap, xh
act of injustice to Mr. Lincoln."
The town was greatly diverted by these pungent
echoes of the bloodless fight, and Shields and
Whitesides felt that their honor was still out of
repair. A rapid series of challenges succeeded
among the parties, principals and seconds chang-
ing places as deftly as dancers in a quadrille. The
Auditor challenged Mr. Butler, who had been very
outspoken in his contemptuous comments on the
affair. Butler at once accepted, and with a grim
sincerity announced his conditions — "to fight next
morning at sunrising in Bob Allen's meadow, one
hundred yards' distance, with rifles." This was
instantly declined, with a sort of horror, by Shields
and Whitesides, as such a proceeding would have
proved fatal to their official positions and their
means of livelihood. They probably cared less for
the chances of harm from Butler's Kentucky rifle
than for the certainty of the Illinois law which cut
off all duelists from holding office in the State.
But, on the other hand, — so unreasonable is
human nature as displayed among politicians, —
General Whitesides felt that if he bore patiently the
winged words of Merryman, his availability as a
candidate was greatly damaged ; and he therefore
sent to the witty doctor what Mr. Lincoln called
"a quasi-challenge," hurling at him a modified
defiance, which should be enough to lure him to
the field of honor, and yet not sufficiently explicit
to lose Whitesides the dignity and perquisites
of Fund Commissioner. Merryman, not being an
office-holder and having no salary to risk, re-
sponded with brutal directness, which was highly
Vol. L— 14
210 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xii. unsatisfactory to Whitesides, who was determined
not to fight unless he could do so lawfully; and
Lincoln, who now acted as second to the doctor in
his turn, records the cessation of the correspond-
ence amid the agonized explanations of Whitesides
and the scornful hootings of Merryman, " while
the town was in a ferment and a street fight some-
what anticipated." In respect to the last diversion
the town was disappointed.
Shields lost nothing by the hilarity which this
burlesque incident created. He was reserved for a
career of singular luck and glory mingled with
signal misfortunes. On account of his political
availability he continued throughout a long life-
time to be selected at intervals for high positions.
After he ceased to be Auditor he was elected a
judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois ; while still
holding that position he applied for the place of
Commissioner of the General Land Office, and his
application was successful. When the Mexican war
broke out he asked for a commission as brigadier-
general, although he still held his civil appointment,
and, to the amazement of the whole army, he was
given that important command before he had ever
seen a day's service. At the battle of Cerro Gordo
he was shot through the lungs, and this wound
made him a United States Senator as soon as
he returned from the war. After he had served
one term in the Senate, he removed from Illinois,
and was soon sent back to the same body from
Minnesota. In the war of the rebellion he was
again appointed a brigadier-general by his old
adversary, and was again wounded in a battle
in which his troops defeated the redoubtable
THE SHIELDS DUEL 211
Stonewall Jackson ; and many years after Lincoln chap. xn.
was laid to sleep beneath a mountain of marble at
Springfield, Shields was made the shuttlecock of
contending demagogues in Congress, each striving
to make a point by voting him money — until in
the impulse of that transient controversy, the State
of Missouri, finding the gray-headed soldier in her
borders, for the third time sent him to the Senate
of the United States for a few weeks — a history
unparalleled even in America.
We have reason to think that the affair of the
duel was excessively distasteful to Lincoln. He
did not even enjoy the ludicrousness of it, as might
have been expected. He never — so far as we can
learn — alluded to it afterwards, and the recollec-
tion of it died away so completely from the minds of
people in the State, that during the heated canvass
of 1860 there was no mention of this disagreeable
episode in the opposition papers of Illinois. It had
been absolutely forgotten.
This was Mr. Lincoln's last personal quarrel.1
i Lincoln's life was unusually my words ' imported insult.' I
free from personal disputes. We meant them as a fair set-off to
know of only one other hostile your own statements, and not
letter addressed to him. This was otherwise ; and in that light alone
from W. G-. Anderson, who being I now wish you to understand
worsted in a verbal encounter them. You ask for my 'present
with Lincoln at Lawrenceville, feelings on the subject.' I enter-
the county-seat of Lawrence tain no unkind feeling to you,
County, HI., wrote him a note and none of any sort upon the
demanding an explanation of his subject, except a sincere regret
words and of his "present feel- that I permitted myself to get
ings." Lincoln's reply shows that into any such altercation." This
his habitual peaceableness in- seems to have ended the matter —
volved no lack of dignity ; he said, although the apology was made
"Your note of yesterday is re- rather to himself than to Mr.
ceived. In the difficulty between Anderson. (See the letter of
us of which you speak, you say William C. Wilkinson in " The
you think I was the aggressor. Century Magazine " for January,
I do not think I was. You say 1889.)
212 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xii. Although the rest of his life was passed in hot and
earnest debate, he never again descended to the level
of his adversaries, who would gladly enough have
resorted to unseemly wrangling. In later years it
became his duty to give an official reprimand to a
young officer who had been court-martialed for a
quarrel with one of his associates. The reprimand
is probably the gentlest recorded in the annals of
penal discourses, and it shows in few words the
principles which ruled the conduct of this great
and peaceable man. It has never before been pub-
lished, and it deserves to be written in letters of
gold on the walls of every gymnasium and college :
The advice of a father to his son, " Beware of entrance
to a quarrel, but being in, bear it that the opposed may
beware of thee ! " is good, but not the best. Quarrel not
at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself
can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he
afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating
of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger
things to which you can show no more than equal right;
and yield lesser ones though clearly your own. Better
give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contest-
ing for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure
the bite.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844
IN the letter to Stuart which we have quoted, chap. xin.
Lincoln announced his intention to form a
partnership with Judge Logan, which was soon
carried out. His connection with Stuart was form-
ally dissolved in April, 1841, and one with Logan
formed which continued for four years. It may
almost be said that Lincoln's practice as a law-
yer begins from this time. Stuart, though even
then giving promise of the distinction at which
he arrived in his profession later in life, was at
that period so entirely devoted to politics that the
business of the office was altogether a secondary
matter to him ; and Lincoln, although no longer in
his first youth, being then thirty-two years of age,
had not yet formed those habits of close application
which are indispensable to permanent success at
the bar. He was not behind the greater part of
his contemporaries in this respect. Among all the
lawyers of the circuit who were then, or who after-
wards became, eminent practitioners,1 there were
few indeed who in those days applied themselves
1 They were Dan Stone, Jesse uel H. Treat, Ninian W. Ed-
B. Thomas, Cyrus Walker, wards, Josiah Lamborn, John
Schuyler Strong, Albert T. J. Hardin, Edward D. Baker,
Bledsoe, George Forquer, Sam- and others.
213
214 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xni. with any degree of persistency to the close study
of legal principles. One of these few was Stephen
T. Logan. He was more or less a politician, as
were all his compeers at the bar, but he was always
more a lawyer than anything else. He had that
love for his profession which it jealously exacts
as a condition of succeeding. He possessed few
books, and it used to be said of him long after-
wards that he carried his library in his hat. But
the books which he had he never ceased to read
and ponder, and we heard him say when he was
sixty years old, that once every year since he came
of age he had read " Blackstone's Commentaries "
through. He had that old-fashioned, lawyer-like
morality which was keenly intolerant of any laxity
or slovenliness of mind or character. His former
partner had been Edward D. Baker, but this
brilliant and mercurial spirit was not congenial to
Logan ; Baker's carelessness in money matters was
intolerable to him, and he was glad to escape from
an associate so gifted and so exasperating.1
Needing some one, however, to assist him in his
practice, which was then considerable, he invited
Lincoln into partnership. He had, as we have
seen, formed a favorable opinion of the young
Kentuckian the first time they had met. In his
subsequent acquaintance with him he had come to
recognize and respect his abilities, his unpretending
1 Logan's office was, in fact, a able to elect one. After he had
nursery of statesmen. Three of retired from practice, the office,
his partners, William L. May, under his son-in-law and suc-
Baker, and Lincoln, left him in cessor, Milton Hay, retained its
rapid succession to go to Congress, prestige for cradling public men.
and finally the contagion gained John M. Palmer and Shelby M.
the head of the firm, and the judge Cullom left it to be Governors of
was himself the candidate of his the State, and the latter to be a
party, when it was no longer Congressman and Senator.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 215
common sense, and his innate integrity. The chap.xiii.
partnership continued about four years, but the
benefit Lincoln derived from it lasted all his life.
The example of Judge Logan's thrift, order, and
severity of morals ; his straightforward devotion to
his profession ; his close and careful study of his
cases, together with the larger and more important
range of practice to which Lincoln was introduced
by this new association, confirmed all those
salutary tendencies by which he had been led into
the profession, and corrected those less desirable
ones which he shared with most of the lawyers
about him. He began for the first time to study
his cases with energy and patience ; to resist the
tendency, almost universal at that day, to supply
with florid rhetoric the attorney's deficiency in
law ; in short, to educate, discipline, and train the
enormous faculty, hitherto latent in him, for close
and severe intellectual labor. Logan, who had ex-
pected that Lincoln's chief value to him would be
as a talking advocate before juries, was surprised
and pleased to find his new partner rapidly becom-
ing a lawyer. " He would study out his case and
make about as much of it as anybody," said Logan,
many years afterwards. " His ambition as a
lawyer increased ; he grew constantly. By close
study of each case, as it came up, he got to be
quite a formidable lawyer." The character of the
man is in these words. He had vast concerns in-
trusted to him in the course of his life, and dis-
posed of them one at a time as they were presented.
At the end of four years the partnership was
dissolved. Judge Logan took his son David — after-
wards a well-known politician and lawyer of Ore-
216 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xin. gon — into his office, and Lincoln opened one of his
own, into which he soon invited a yonng, bright, and
enthusiastic man named William Henry Herndon,
who remained his partner as long as Lincoln lived.
The old partners continued close and intimate
friends. They practiced at the same bar for twenty
years, often as associates, and often as adversaries,
but always with relations of mutual confidence and
regard. They had the unusual honor, while they
were still comparatively young men, of seeing their
names indissolubly associated in the map of their
State as a memorial to future ages of their friend-
ship and their fame, in the county of Logan, of
which the city of Lincoln is the county-seat.
They both prospered, each in his way. Logan
rapidly gained a great reputation and accumulated
an ample fortune. Lincoln, while he did not
become rich, always earned a respectable liveli-
hood, and never knew the care of poverty or debt
from that time forward. His wife and he suited
their style of living to their means, and were
equally removed from luxury and privation. They
went to live, immediately after their marriage, at
a boarding-house * called " The Globe," which was
" very well kept by a widow lady of the name of
Beck," and there their first child was born, who
was one day to be Secretary of War and Minister
to England, and for whom was reserved the strange
experience of standing by the death-bed of two
assassinated Presidents. Lincoln afterwards built
a comfortable house of wood on the corner of
Eighth and Jackson streets, where he lived until
he removed to the White House.
1 This house is still standing, opposite St. Paul's church.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 217
Neither his marriage nor his new professional chap.xiii.
interests, however, put an end to his participation
in politics. Even that period of gloom and depres-
sion of which we have spoken, and which has been
so much exaggerated by the chroniclers and the
gossip of Springfield, could not have interrupted
for any length of time his activity as a member of
the Legislature. Only for a few days was he
absent from his place in the House. On the 19th
of January, 1841, John J. Hardin apologized for
the delay in some committee business, alleging
Mr. Lincoln's indisposition as an excuse. On the
23d the letter to Stuart was written; but on the
26th Lincoln had so far recovered his self-posses-
sion as to resume his place in the House and the
leadership of his party. The journals of the next
month show his constant activity and prominence
in the routine business of the Legislature until it
adjourned. In August, Stuart was reelected to
Congress. Lincoln made his visit to Kentucky
with Speed, and returned to find himself generally
talked of for Governor of the State. This idea did
not commend itself to the judgment of himself or
his friends, and accordingly we find in the " San-
gamo Journal " one of those semi-official announce-
ments so much in vogue in early Western politics,
which, while disclaiming any direct inspiration
from Mr. Lincoln, expressed the gratitude of his
friends for the movement in his favor, but declined
the nomination. " His talents and services' endear
him to the Whig party ; but we do not believe he
desires the nomination. He has already made
great sacrifices in maintaining his party principles,
and before his political friends ask him to make
218 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiii. additional sacrifices, the subject should be well
considered. The office of Governor, which would
of necessity interfere with the practice of his pro-
fession, would poorly compensate him for the loss
of four of the best years of his life."
He served this year as a member of the Whig
Central Committee, and bore a prominent part in
the movement set on foot at that time to check
intemperance in the use of spirits. It was a move-
ment in the name and memory of Washington, and
the orators of the cause made effective rhetorical
use of its august associations. A passage from the
close of a speech made by Lincoln on February 22,
1842, shows the fervor and feeling of the hour:
" Washington is the mightiest name of earth —
long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty ;
still mightiest in moral reformation. On that
name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To
add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of
Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt
it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its
naked, deathless splendor leave it shining on."
A mass meeting of the Whigs of the district was
held at Springfield on the 1st of March, 1843, for
the purpose of organizing the party for the elec-
tions of the year. On this occasion Lincoln was
the most prominent figure. He called the meeting
to order, stated its object, and drew up the plat-
form of principles, which embraced the orthodox
Whig tenets of a protective tariff, national bank,
the distribution of the proceeds of the public lands,
and, finally, the tardy conversion of the party to
the convention system, which had been forced
upon them by the example of the Democrats, who
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 219
had shown them that victory could not be organ- chap. xiti.
ized without it. Lincoln was also chairman of the
committee which was charged with the address to
the people, and a paragraph from this document is
worth quoting, as showing the use which he made
at that early day of a pregnant text which was
hereafter to figure in a far more momentous con-
nection, and exercise a powerful influence upon his
career. Exhorting the Whigs to harmony, he says :
" That union is strength is a truth that has been
known, illustrated, and declared in various ways
and forms in all ages of the world. That great
fabulist and philosopher, iEsop, illustrated it by
his fable of the bundle of sticks; and He whose
wisdom surpasses that of all philosophers has
declared that 'a house divided against itself can-
not stand.' " He calls to mind the victory of 1840,
the overwhelming majority gained by the Whigs
that year, their ill success since, and the necessity
of unity and concord that the party may make its
entire strength felt.
Lincoln was at this time a candidate for the
Whig nomination to Congress; but he was con-
fronted by formidable competition. The adjoining
county of Morgan was warmly devoted to one of
its own citizens, John J. Hardin, a man of an
unusually gallant and chivalrous strain of character;
and several other counties, for reasons not worth
considering, were pledged to support any one
whom Morgan County presented. If Lincoln had
carried Sangamon County, his strength was so
great in Menard and Mason, where he was person-
ally known, that he could have been easily nomi-
nated. But Edward D. Baker had long coveted a
220 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xin. seat in Congress, and went into the contest against
Lincoln with many points in his favor. He was of
about the same age, but had resided longer in the
district, had a larger personal acquaintance, and
was a much readier and more pleasing speaker.
In fact, there are few men who have ever lived in
this country with more of the peculiar tempera-
ment of the orator than Edward Dickinson Baker.
It is related of him that on one occasion when the
circumstances called for a policy of reserve, he was
urged by his friends to go out upon a balcony
and address an impromptu audience, which was
calling for him. " No," he replied, mistrusting his
own fluency ; " if I go out there, I will make a better
speech than I want to." He was hardly capable
of the severe study and care by which great
parliamentary speakers are trained ; but before
a popular audience, and on all occasions where
brilliant and effective improvisation was called for,
he was almost unequaled. His funeral oration over
the dead body of Senator Broderick in California,
his thrilling and inspiriting appeal in Union Square,
New York, at the great meeting of April, 1861,
and his reply to Breckinridge in the Senate de-
livered upon the impulse of the moment, conceived
as he listened to the Kentuckian's peroration,
leaning against the doorway of the Chamber in full
uniform, booted and spurred, as he had ridden into
Washington from the camp, are among the most
remarkable specimens of absolutely unstudied and
thrilling eloquence which our annals contain. He
was also a man of extremely prepossessing ap-
pearance. Born in England of poor yet educated
parents, and brought as a child to this country, his
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 221
good looks and brightness had early attracted chap.xiii.
the attention of prominent gentlemen in Illinois,
especially of Governor Edwards, who had made
much of him and assisted him to a good education.
He had met with considerable success as a lawyer,
though he always relied rather upon his eloquence
than his law, and there were few juries which
could resist the force and fury of his speech, and
not many lawyers could keep their equanimity
in the face of his witty persiflage and savage sar-
casm. When to all this is added a genuine love of
every species of combat, physical and moral, we
may understand the name Charles Sumner — para-
phrasing a well-known epigram — applied to him in
the Senate, after his heroic death at Ball's Bluff,
" the Prince Rupert of battle and debate."
If Baker had relied upon his own unquestionable
merits he would have been reasonably sure of
succeeding in a community so well acquainted with
him as Sangamon County. But to make assurance
doubly sure his friends resorted to tactics which
Lincoln, the most magnanimous and placable of
men, thought rather unfair. Baker and his wife
belonged to that numerous and powerful sect
which has several times played an important part
in Western politics — the Disciples. They all sup-
ported him energetically, and used as arguments
against Lincoln that his wife was a Presbyterian,
that most of her family were Episcopalians, that
Lincoln himself belonged to no church, and that he
had been suspected of deism, and, finally, that he
was the candidate of the aristocracy. This last
charge so amazed Lincoln that he was unable to
frame any satisfactory answer to it. The memory
222 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiii. of his flat-boating days, of his illiterate youth, even
of his deer-skin breeches shrunken by rain and
exposure, appeared to have no power against this
unexpected and baleful charge. When the county
convention met, the delegates to the district con-
vention were instructed to cast the vote of San-
gamon for Baker. It showed the confidence of the
convention in the imperturbable good-nature of the
defeated candidate that they elected him a delegate
to the Congressional convention charged with the
cause of his successful rival. In a letter to Speed,
he humorously refers to his situation as that of a
rejected suitor who is asked to act as groomsman
at the wedding of his sweetheart.
It soon became evident that Baker could not get
strength enough outside of the county to nominate
him. Lincoln in a letter to Speed, written in May,
said: "In relation to our Congress matter here,
you were right in supposing I would support the
nominee. Neither Baker nor I, however, is the
man, but Hardin, so far as I can judge from
present appearances^ We shall have no split or
trouble about the matter ; all will be harmony." A
few days later this prediction was realized. The
convention met at Pekin, and nominated Hardin
with all the customary symptoms of spontaneous
enthusiasm. He was elected in August,1 after a
short but active canvass, in which Lincoln bore his
part as usual. Hardin took his seat in December.
The next year the time of holding elections was
changed, and always afterwards the candidates
were elected the year before vacancies were to
i The opposing candidate was fornia, one of the most remark-
James A. McDougall, who was able and eccentric figures in
afterwards, as Senator from Cali- Washington life.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 223
occur. In May, 1844, therefore, Baker attained chap.xiii.
the desire of his heart by being nominated, and in
August he was elected, defeating John Calhoun,
while Lincoln had the laborious and honorable
post of Presidential Elector.
It was not the first nor the last time that he
acted in this capacity. The place had become his
by a sort of prescription. His persuasive and con-
vincing oratory was thought so useful to his party
that every four years he was sent, in the character
of electoral canvasser, to the remotest regions of
the State to talk to the people in their own dialect,
with their own habits of thought and feeling, in
favor of the Whig candidate. The office had its
especial charm for him; if beaten, as generally
happened, the defeat had no personal significance;
if elected, the functions of the place were dis-
charged in one day, and the office passed from
existence. But there was something more than the
orator and the partisan concerned in this campaign
of 1844. The whole heart of the man was enlisted
in it — for the candidate was the beloved and
idolized leader of the Whigs, Henry Clay. It is
probable that we shall never see again in this
country another such instance of the personal
devotion of a party to its chieftain as that which
was shown by the long and wonderful career of
Mr. Clay. He became prominent in the politics of
Kentucky near the close of the last century at
twenty-three years of age. He was elected first to
the Senate at twenty-nine. He died a Senator at
seventy-five, and for the greater part of that long
interval he was the most considerable personal
influence in American politics. As Senator, Repre-
224 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xm. sentative, Speaker of the House, and diplomatist,
he filled the public eye for half a century, and
although he twice peremptorily retired from office,
and although he was the mark of the most furious
partisan hatred all his days, neither his own weari-
ness nor the malice of his enemies could ever keep
him for any length of time from that commanding
position for which his temperament and his nature
designed him. He was beloved, respected, and
served by his adherents with a single-hearted
allegiance which seems impossible to the more
complex life of a later generation. In 1844, it is
true, he was no longer young, and his power may
be said to have been on the decline. But there
were circumstances connected with this his last
candidacy which excited his faithful followers to a
peculiar intensity of devotion. He had been, as
many thought, unjustly passed over in 1840, and
General Harrison, a man of greatly inferior capacity,
had been preferred to him on the grounds of pru-
dence and expediency, after three days of balloting
had shown that the eloquent Kentuckian had more
friends and more enemies than any other man in
the republic. He had seemed to regain all his popu-
larity by the prompt and frank support which he
gave to the candidacy of Harrison ; and after the
President's death and the treachery of Tyler had
turned the victory of the Whigs into dust and ashes,
the entire party came back to Clay with passionate
affection and confidence, to lead them in the des-
perate battle which perhaps no man could have
won. The Whigs, however, were far from appreciat-
ing this. There is evident in all their utterances of
the spring and early summer of 1844, an ardent and
BRIG.-GEN. .JAMES SHIELDS.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 225
almost furious conviction, not only of the necessity chap.xiil
but the certainty of success. Mr. Clay was nomi-
nated long before the convention met in Baltimore.
The convention of the 1st of May only ratified the
popular will ; no other name was mentioned. Mr.
Watkins Leigh had the honor of presenting his
name, "a word," he said "that expressed more
enthusiasm, that had in it more eloquence, than
the names of Chatham, Burke, Patrick Henry,
and," he continued, rising to the requirements of
the occasion, " to us more than any other and all
other names together." Nothing was left to be
said, and Clay was nominated without a ballot;
Mr. Lumpkin, of G-eorgia, then nominated Theo-
dore Frelinghuysen for Vice-President, not hes-
itating to avow, in the warmth and expansion
of the hour, that he believed that the baptismal
name of the New Jersey gentleman had a mystical
appropriateness to the occasion.
In the Democratic convention Mr. Van Buren
had a majority of delegates pledged to support
him ; but it had already been resolved in the inner
councils of the party that he should be defeated.
The Southern leaders had determined upon the
immediate and unconditional annexation of Texas,
and Mr. Van Buren's views upon this vital ques-
tion were too moderate and conservative to suit
the adventurous spirits who most closely sur-
rounded President Tyler. During the whole of
the preceding year a steady and earnest propa-
ganda of annexation had been on foot, starting
from the immediate entourage of the President and
embracing a large number of Southern Congress-
men. A letter had been elicited from General Jack-
Vol. L— 15
226
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiii. son, declaring with his usual vehemence in favor
of the project, and urging it upon the ground that
Texas was absolutely necessary to us, as the most
easily defensible frontier against Great Britain.
Using the favorite argument of the Southern-
ers of his school, he said : " Great Britain has
already made treaties with Texas; and we know
that far-seeing nation never omits a circumstance
in her extensive intercourse with the world which
can be turned to account in increasing her military
resources. May she not enter into an alliance with
Texas ! And, reserving, as she doubtless will, the
North-western boundary question as the cause of
war with us whenever she chooses to declare it —
let us suppose that, as an ally with Texas, we are
to fight her. Preparatory to such a movement she
sends her 20,000 or 30,000 men to Texas ; organizes
them on the Sabine, where supplies and arms can
be concentrated before we have even notice of her
intentions ; makes a lodgment on the Mississippi ;
excites the negroes to insurrection; the lower
country falls, with it New Orleans ; and a servile
war rages through the whole South and West." x
These fanciful prophecies of evil were privately
circulated for a year among those whom they
would be most likely to influence, and the entire
letter was printed in 1844, with a result never
intended by the writer. It contributed greatly, in
the opinion of many, to defeat Van Buren, whom
Jackson held in great esteem and regard, and
served the purposes of the Tyler faction, whom he
detested. The argument based on imaginary
i This letter was dated at the printed a year later in the "Na-
Hermitage, near Nashville, Ten- tional Intelligencer," with the
Feb. 13, 1843, and was date altered to 1844.
T. H.
Benton,
" Thirty
Years'
View."
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 227
British intrigues was the one most relied upon by chap.xiii.
Mr. Tyler's successive secretaries of state. John C.
Calhoun, in his dispatch of the 12th of August,
1844, instructed our minister in Paris to impress
upon the Government of France the nefarious
character of the English diplomacy, which was
seeking, by defeating the annexation of Texas, to
accomplish the abolition of slavery first in that
region, and afterwards throughout the United
States, "a blow calamitous to this continent
beyond description." No denials on the part of the
British Government had any effect ; it was a fixed
idea of Calhoun and his followers that the designs
of Great Britain against American slavery could
only be baffled by the annexation of Texas. Van
Buren was not in principle opposed to the admis-
sion of Texas into the Union at the proper time
and with the proper conditions, but the more
ardent Democrats of the South were unwilling to
listen to any conditions or any suggestion of delay.
They succeeded in inducing the convention to
adopt the two- thirds rule, after a whole day of
stormy debate, and the defeat of Van Buren was
secured. The nomination of Mr. Polk was received
without enthusiasm, and the exultant hopes of the
Whigs were correspondingly increased.
Contemporary observers differ as to the causes
which gradually, as the summer advanced, changed
the course of public opinion to such an extent as
to bring defeat in November upon a party which
was so sure of victory in June. It has been the
habit of the antislavery Whigs who have written
upon the subject to ascribe the disaster to an indis-
cretion of the candidate himself. At the outset of
228 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiii. the campaign Mr. Clay's avowed opinion as to the
annexation of Texas was that of the vast majority
of his party, especially in the North. While not
opposing an increase of territory under all circum-
stances, he said, — in a letter written from Ealeigh,
N. C, two weeks before his nomination, — " I con-
sider the annexation of Texas, at this time, without
the consent of Mexico, as a measure compromising
the national character, involving us certainly in
war with Mexico, probably with other foreign
powers, dangerous to the integrity of the Union,
inexpedient in the present financial condition of
the country, and not called for by any expression
of public opinion." He supported these views with
temperate and judicious reasons which were re-
ceived with much gratification throughout the
country.
Of course they were not satisfactory to every
one, and Mr. Clay became so disquieted by letters
of inquiry and of criticism from the South, that he
was at last moved, in an unfortunate hour, to write
another letter to a friend in Alabama, which was
regarded as seriously modifying the views he had
expressed in the letter from Raleigh. He now said :
"I have no hesitation in saying that, far from
having any personal objections to the annexation
of Texas, I should be glad to see it — without dis-
honor, without war, with the common consent of
the Union, and upon just and fair terms. . . I
do not think the subject of slavery ought to affect
the question one way or the other, whether Texas
be independent or incorporated in the United
States. I do not believe it will prolong or shorten
the duration of that institution. It is destined to
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 229
become extinct, at some distant day, in my opinion, chap.xiii.
by the operation of the inevitable laws of popu-
lation. It would be unwise to refuse a permanent
acquisition, which will exist as long as the globe
remains, on account of a temporary institution."
Mr. Clay does not in this letter disclaim or disavow
any sentiments previously expressed. He says, as
any one might say, that provided certain impossible
conditions were complied with, he would be glad
to see Texas in the Union, and that he was so sure
of the ultimate extinction of slavery that he would
not let any consideration of that transitory system
interfere with a great national advantage. It
might naturally have been expected that such an
expression would have given less offense to the
opponents than to the friends of slavery. But the
contrary effect resulted, and it soon became evident
that a grave error of judgment had been committed
in writing the letter.
The principal opposition to annexation in the
North had been made expressly upon the ground
that it would increase the area of slavery, and
the comparative indifference with which Mr. Clay
treated that view of the subject cost him heavily
in the canvass. Horace Greeley, who should be ..American
regarded as an impartial witness in such a case, L^ifh
says, "The 'Liberty Party,' so-called, pushed this
view of the matter beyond all justice and reason,
insisting that Mr. Clay's antagonism to annexation,
not being founded in antislavery conviction, was
of no account whatever, and that his election
should, on that ground, be opposed." It availed
nothing that Mr. Clay, alarmed at the defection in
the North, wrote a third and final letter, reiterating
230 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap, xii r. his unaltered objections to any such annexation as
was at that time possible. The damage was irre-
trievable. It is not probable that his letters gained
or saved him a vote in the South among the
advocates of annexation. They cared for nothing
short of their own unconditional scheme of immedi-
ate action. They forgot the services rendered by
Mr. Clay in bringing about the recognition of Texan
independence a few years before.
They saw that Mr. Polk was ready to risk every-
thing — war, international complications, even the
dishonor of broken obligations — to accomplish
their purpose, and nothing the Whig candidate
could say would weigh anything in the balance
against this blind and reckless readiness. On the
other hand, Mr. Clay's cautious and moderate
position did him irreparable harm among the ar-
dent opponents of slavery. They were not willing
to listen to counsels of caution and moderation.
More than a year before, thirteen of the Whig
antislavery Congressmen, headed by the illustrious
John Quincy Adams, had issued a fervid address
to the people of the free States, declaiming in
language of passionate force against the scheme of
annexation as fatal to the country, calling it, in
fact, " identical with dissolution," and saying that
" it would be a violation of our national compact,
its objects, designs, and the great elementary
principles which entered into its formation of a
character so deep and fundamental, and would be
an attempt to eternize an institution and a power
of nature so unjust in themselves, so injurious to
the interests and abhorrent to the feelings of the
people of the free States, as in our opinion, not
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 231
only inevitably to result in a dissolution of the chap.xiii.
Union, but fully to justify it ; and we not only
assert that the people of the free States ought not
to submit to it, but we say with confidence they
would not submit to it." To men in a temper like
that indicated by these words, no arguments drawn
from consideration of political expediency could be
expected to have any weight, and it was of no use
to say to them that in voting for a third candidate
they were voting to elect Mr. Polk, the avowed
and eager advocate of annexation. If all the votes
cast for James Gr. Birney, the " Liberty " candidate,
had been cast for Clay, he would have been elected,
and even as it was the contest was close and
doubtful to the last. Birney received 62,263 votes,
and the popular majority of Polk over Clay was
only 38,792.
There are certain temptations that no govern-
ment yet instituted has been able to resist. When
an object is ardently desired by the majority, when
it is practicable, when it is expedient for the
material welfare of the country, and when the cost
of it will fall upon other people, it may be taken for
granted that — in the present condition of interna-
tional ethics — the partisans of the project will never
lack means of defending its morality. The annex-
ation of Texas was one of these cases. Moralists
called it an inexcusable national crime, conceived
by Southern statesmen for the benefit of slavery,1
carried on during a term of years with unexampled
energy, truculence and treachery ; in both houses
of Congress, in the cabinets of two Presidents, in
i This purpose was avowed by May 23, 1836; see also his
John C. Calhoun in the Senate, speech of February 24, 1847.
232 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CHAP.xni. diplomatic dealings with foreign powers, every
step of its progress marked by false professions, by
broken pledges, by a steady degradation of moral
fiber among all those engaged in the scheme. The
opposition to it — as usually happens — consisted
partly in the natural effort of partisans to baffle
their opponents, and partly in an honorable protest
of heart and conscience against a great wrong
committed in the interest of a national sin. But
looking back upon the whole transaction — even
over so short a distance as now separates us from
it — one cannot but perceive that the attitude of
the two parties was in some sort inevitable and
that the result was also sure, whatever the subor-
dinate events or incidents which may have led to
it. It was impossible to defeat or greatly to delay
the annexation of Texas, and although those who
opposed it but obeyed the dictates of common
morality, they were fighting a battle beyond ordi-
nary human powers.
Here was a great empire offering itself to us —
a State which had gained its independence, and
built itself into a certain measure of order and
thrift through American valor and enterprise. She
offered us a magnificent estate of 376,000 square
miles of territory, all of it valuable, and much
of it of unsurpassed richness and fertility. Even
those portions of it once condemned as desert now
contribute to the markets of the world vast stores
of wool and cotton, herds of cattle and flocks of
sheep. Not only were these material advantages
of great attractiveness to the public mind, but
many powerful sentimental considerations reen-
forced the claim of Texas. The Texans were not
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 233
an alien people. The few inhabitants of that vast chap. xiu.
realm were mostly Americans, who had occupied
and subdued a vacant wilderness. The heroic de-
fense of the Alamo had been made by Travis, Bowie,
and David Crockett, whose exploits and death form
one of the most brilliant pages of our border his-
tory. Fannin and his men, four hundred strong,
when they laid down their lives at Goliad1 had
carried mourning into every South-western State ;
and when, a few days later, Samuel Houston and
his eight hundred raw levies defeated and destroyed
the Mexican army at San Jacinto, captured Santa
Anna, the Mexican president, and with American
thrift, instead of giving him the death he merited
for his cruel murder of unarmed prisoners, saved
him to make a treaty with, the whole people
recognized something of kinship in the unaffected
valor with which these borderers died and the
humorous shrewdness with which they bargained,
and felt as if the victory over the Mexicans were
their own.
The schemes of the Southern statesmen who
were working for the extension of slavery were not
defensible, and we have no disposition to defend
them ; but it may be doubted whether there is a
government on the face of the earth which, under
similar circumstances, would not have yielded to
the same temptation.
1 This massacre inspired one of the most remarkable poems of
Walt Whitman, " Now I tell you what I knew of Texas in my early
youth," in which occurs his description of the rangers :
" They were the glory of the race of rangers,
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,
Not a single one over thirty years of age."
234 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiii. Under these conditions, the annexation, sooner
or later, was inevitable. No man and no party
conld oppose it except at serious cost. It is not
true that schemes of annexation are always popular.
Several administrations have lost heavily by pro-
posing them. Grant failed with Santo Domingo ;
Seward with St. Thomas ; and it required all his
skill and influence to accomplish the ratification
of the Alaska purchase. There is no general desire
among Americans for acquiring outlying territory,
however intrinsically valuable it may be; their
land-hunger is confined within the limits of that
of a Western farmer once quoted by Mr. Lincoln,
who used to say, " I am not greedy about land ;
I only want what jines mine." Whenever a region
contiguous to the United States becomes filled
with Americans, it is absolutely certain to come
under the American flag. Texas was as sure to be
incorporated into the Union as are two drops of
water touching each other to become one ; and this
consummation would not have been prevented for
any length of time if Clay or Van Buren had been
elected in 1844. The honorable scruples of the
Whigs, the sensitive consciences of the " Liberty "
men, could never have prevailed permanently
against a tendency so natural and so irresistible.
Everything that year seemed to work against
the Whigs. At a most unfortunate time for them,
there was an outbreak of that "native" fanaticism
which reappears from time to time in our politics
with the periodicity of malarial fevers, and always
to the profit of the party against which its efforts
are aimed. It led to great disturbances in several
cities, and to riot and bloodshed in Philadelphia.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844 235
The Clay party were, of course, free from any chap.xiii.
complicity with these outrages, but the foreigners,
in their alarm, huddled together almost as one man
on the side where the majority of them always
voted, and this occasioned a heavy loss to the
Whigs in several States. The first appearance of
Lincoln in the canvass was in a judicious attempt
to check this unreasonable panic. At a meeting
held in Springfield, June 12, he introduced and
supported resolutions, declaring that " the guaran-
tee of the rights of conscience as found in our
Constitution is most sacred and inviolable, and one
that belongs no less to the Catholic than the
Protestant, and that all attempts to abridge or
interfere with these rights either of Catholic or
Protestant, directly or indirectly, have our decided
disapprobation, and shall have our most effective
opposition." Several times afterwards in his life
Lincoln was forced to confront this same proscrip-
tive spirit among the men with whom he was more
or less affiliated politically, and he never failed to
denounce it as it deserved, whatever might be the
risk of loss involved.
Beginning with this manly protest against in-
tolerance and disorder, he went into the work of
the campaign and continued in it with unabated
ardor to the end. The defeat of Clay affected him,
as it did thousands of others, as a great public
calamity and a keen personal sorrow. It is impos-
sible to mistake the accent of sincere mourning
which we find in the journals of the time. The
addresses which were sent to Mr. Clay from every
part of the country indicate a depth of affectionate
devotion which rarely falls to the lot of a political
236 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiii. chieftain. An extract from the one sent by the
Clay Clubs of New York will show the earnest
attachment and pride with which the young men of
that day still declared their loyalty to their beloved
leader, even in the midst of irreparable disaster.
"We will remember you, Henry Clay, while the
memory of the glorious or the sense of the good
remains in us, with a grateful and admiring affec-
tion which shall strengthen with our strength and
shall not decay with our decline. We will remem-
ber you in all our future trials and reverses as him
whose name honored defeat and gave it a glory
which victory could not have brought. We will
remember you when patriotic hope rallies again to
successful contest with the agencies of corruption
and ruin ; for we will never know a triumph which
you do not share in life, whose glory does not
accrue to you in death."
CHAPTER XIV
CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS
IN the months that remained of his term, after chap. xiv.
the election of his successor, President Tyler
pursued with much vigor his purpose of accom-
plishing the annexation of Texas, regarding it as
the measure which was specially to illustrate his
administration and to preserve it from oblivion.
The state of affairs, when Congress came together
in December, 1844, was propitious to the project.
Dr. Anson Jones had been elected as President of
Texas ; the republic was in a more thriving condi-
tion than ever before. Its population was rapidly
increasing under the stimulus of its probable
change of flag ; its budget presented a less un-
wholesome balance; its relations with Mexico,
while they were no more friendly, had ceased to
excite alarm. The Tyler government, having been
baffled in the spring by the rejection of the treaty
for annexation which they had submitted to the
Senate, chose to proceed this winter in a different
way. Early in the session a joint resolution pro-
viding for annexation was introduced in the House
of Representatives, which, after considerable dis-
cussion and attempted amendment by the anti-
slavery members, passed the House by a majority
of twenty-two votes.
238 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiv. In the Senate it encountered more opposition, as
might have been expected in a chamber which had
overwhelmingly rejected the same scheme only a
few months before. It was at last amended by in-
serting a section called the Walker amendment,
providing that the President, if it were in his
judgment advisable, should proceed by way of
negotiation, instead of submitting the resolutions
as an overture on the part of the United States
to Texas. This amendment eased the conscience
of a few shy supporters of the Administration who
had committed themselves very strongly against
the scheme, and saved them from the shame of
open tergiversation. The President, however,
treated this subterfuge with the contempt which
it deserved, by utterly disregarding the Walker
amendment, and by dispatching a messenger to
Texas to bring about annexation on the basis of
the resolutions, the moment he had signed them,
when only a few hours of his official existence
remained. The measures initiated by Tyler were,
of course, carried out by Polk. The work was
pushed forward with equal zeal at Washington and
at Austin. A convention of Texans was called for
the 4th of July to consider the American proposi-
tions; they were promptly accepted and ratified,
and in the last days of 1845 Texas was formally
admitted into the Union as a State.
Besides the general objections which the anti-
slavery men of the North had to the project itself,
there was something especially offensive to them
in the pretense of fairness and compromise held
out by the resolutions committing the Government
to annexation. The third section provided that
CAMPAIGN FOB CONGKESS 239
four new States might hereafter be formed out of chap. xrv.
the Territory of Texas; that such States as were
formed out of the portion lying south of 36° 30',
the Missouri Compromise line, might be admitted
with or without slavery, as the people might
desire; and that slavery should be prohibited in
such States as might be formed out of the portion
lying north of that line. The opponents of slavery
regarded this provision, with good reason, as deri-
sive. Slavery already existed in the entire terri-
tory by the act of the early settlers from the South
who had brought their slaves with them, and the
State of Texas had no valid claim to an inch of
ground north of the line of 36° 30' nor anywhere
near it; so that this clause, if it had any force
whatever, would have authorized the establish-
ment of slavery in a portion of New Mexico, where
it did not exist, and where it had been expressly
prohibited by the Mexican law. Another serious
objection was that the resolutions were taken as
committing the United States to the adoption and
maintenance of the Rio Grande del Norte as the
western boundary of Texas. All mention of this
was avoided in the instrument, and it was ex-
pressly stated that the State was to be formed
" subject to the adjustment by this Government of
all questions of boundary that may arise with other
governments," but the moment the resolutions
were passed the Government assumed, as a matter
beyond dispute, that all of the territory east of the
Rio Grande was the rightful property of Texas, to
be defended by the military power of the United
States.
Even if Mexico had been inclined to submit to
240 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiv. the annexation of Texas, it was nevertheless certain
that the occupation of the left bank of the Rio
Grande, without an attempt at an understanding,
would bring about a collision. The country lying
between the Nueces and the Rio Grande was then
entirely uninhabited, and was thought uninhabit-
able, though subsequent years have shown the fal-
lacy of that belief. The occupation of the country
extended no farther than the Nueces, and the Mex-
ican farmers cultivated their corn and cotton in
peace in the fertile fields opposite Matamoras.
It is true that Texas claimed the eastern bank of
the Rio Grande from its source to its mouth ; and
while the Texans held Santa Anna prisoner, under
duress of arms and the stronger pressure of his
own conscience, which assured him that he
deserved death as a murderer, " he solemnly sanc-
tioned, acknowledged, and ratified " their independ-
ence with whatever boundaries they chose to
claim; but the Bustamente administration lost
no time in repudiating this treaty, and at once
renewed the war, which had been carried on in a
fitful way ever since.
But leaving out of view this special subject of
admitted dispute, the Mexican Government had
warned our own in sufficiently formal terms that
annexation could not be peacefully effected. When
A. P. Upshur first began his negotiations with
Texas, the Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, at
his earliest rumors of what was afoot, addressed a
note to Waddy Thompson, our Minister in Mexico,
referring to the reported intention of Texas to seek
admission to the Union, and formally protesting
against it as " an aggression unprecedented in the
August 23,
HENRY CLAY.
CAMPAIGN FOE CONGKESS 241
annals of the world," and adding " if it be indispen- chap. xiv.
sable for the Mexican nation to seek security for
its rights at the expense of the disasters of war,
it will call upon God, and rely on its own efforts
for the defense of its just cause." A little while
later General Almonte renewed this notification at
Washington, saying in so many words that the
annexation of Texas would terminate his mission,
and that Mexico would declare war as soon as it
received intimation of such an act. In June, 1845,
Mr. Donelson, in charge of the American Legation
in Mexico, assured the Secretary of State that war
was inevitable, though he adopted the fiction of
Mr. Calhoun, that it was the result of the aboli-
tionist intrigues of Great Britain, which he credited
with the intention " of depriving both Texas and
the United States of all claim to the country
between the Nueces and the Rio Grande."
No one, therefore, doubted that war would fol-
low, and it soon came. General Zachary Taylor
had been sent during the summer to Corpus Christi,
where a considerable portion of the small army of
the United States was placed under his command.
It was generally understood to be the desire of the
Administration that hostilities should begin with-
out orders, by a species of spontaneous combustion ;
but the coolness and prudence of General Taylor
made futile any such hopes, if they were enter-
tained, and it required a positive order to induce
him, in March, 1846, to advance towards the Rio
Grande and to cross the disputed territory. He
arrived at a point opposite Matamoras on the 28th
of March, and immediately fortified himself, dis-
regarding the summons of the Mexican com-
Vol. I.— 16
242 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiv. mander, who warned him that such action would
be considered as a declaration of war. In May,
General Arista crossed the river and attacked
General Taylor on the field of Palo Alto, where
Taylor won the first of that remarkable series of
victories, embracing Resaca de la Palma, Mon-
terey, and Buena Vista, all gained over superior
forces of the enemy, which made the American
commander for the brief day that was left him the
idol alike of soldiers and voters.
After Baker's election in 1844, it was generally
taken as a matter of course in the district that
Lincoln was to be the next candidate of the Whig
party for Congress. It was charged at the time,
and some recent writers have repeated the charge,
that there was a bargain made in 1840 between
Hardin, Baker, Lincoln, and Logan to succeed
each other in the order named. This sort of fiction
is the commonest known to American politics.
Something like it is told, and more or less believed,
in half the districts in the country at every
election. It arises naturally from the fact that
there are always more candidates than places, that
any one who is a candidate twice is felt to be
defrauding his neighbors, and that all candidates
are too ready to assure their constituents that they
only want one term, and too ready to forget these
assurances when their terms are ending. There is
not only no evidence of any such bargain among
the men we have mentioned, but there is the
clearest proof of the contrary. Two or more of
them were candidates for the nomination at every
election from the time when Stuart retired until
the Whigs lost the district.
CAMPAIGN FOE CONGEESS 243
At the same time it is not to be denied that chap.xiv.
there was a tacit understanding among the Whigs
of the district that whoever should, at each election,
gain the honor of representing the one Whig
constituency of the State, should hold himself
satisfied with the privilege, and not be a candidate
for reelection. The retiring member was not
always convinced of the propriety of this arrange-
ment. In the early part of January, 1846, Hardin
was the only one whose name was mentioned in
opposition to Lincoln. He was reasonably sure of
his own county, and he tried to induce Lincoln to
consent to an arrangement that all candidates
should confine themselves to their own counties in
the canvass ; but Lincoln, who was very strong in
the outlying counties of the district, declined the
proposition, alleging, as a reason for refusing, that
Hardin was so much better known than he, by rea-
son of his service in Congress, that such a stipulation
would give him a great advantage. There was fully
as much courtesy as candor in this plea, and Lin-
coln's entire letter was extremely politic and civil.
" I have always been in the habit," he says, " of
acceding to almost any proposal that a friend would
make, and I am truly sorry that I cannot to this."
A month later Hardin saw that his candidacy was
useless, and he published a card withdrawing from
the contest, which was printed and commended in
the kindest terms by papers friendly to Lincoln,
and the two men remained on terms of cordial
friendship.
It is not to be said that Lincoln relied entirely
upon his own merits and the sentiment of the
constituents to procure him this nomination. Like
244
ABEAHAM LINCOLN
Lincoln to
James,
Nov. 24,
1845. Un-
published
MS.
chap. xiv. other politicians of the time, he used all proper
means to attain his object. A package of letters,
written during the preliminary canvass, which have
recently come into our hands, show how intelligent
and how straightforward he was in the ways of
politics. He had no fear of Baker ; all his efforts
were directed to making so strong a show of force
as to warn Hardin off the field. He countenanced
no attack upon his competitor; he approved a
movement — not entirely disinterested — looking
to his nomination for Governor. He kept up an
extensive correspondence with the captains of tens
throughout the district ; he suggested and revised
the utterances of country editors; he kept his
friends aware of his wishes as to conventions and
delegates. He was never overconfident ; so late as
the middle of January, he did not share the belief
of his supporters that he was to be nominated
without a contest. " Hardin," he wrote, " is a man
of desperate energy and perseverance, and one
that never backs out ; and, I fear, to think other-
wise is to be deceived. . . I would rejoice to be
spared the labor of a contest, 'but being in' I
shall go it thoroughly. . ." His knowledge of the
district was curiously minute, though he under-
estimated his own popularity. He wrote : " As to
my being able to make a break in the lower
counties, ... I can possibly get Cass, but I do
not think I will. Morgan and Scott are beyond
my reach. Menard is safe to me ; Mason, neck and
neck; Logan is mine. To make the matter sure
your entire senatorial district must be secured. Of
this I suppose Tazewell is safe, and I have much
done in both the other counties. In Woodford I
Lincoln to
James,
Jan. 14,
184fi. Un-
published
M8.
CAMPAIGN FOK CONGRESS 245
have Davenport, Simms, Willard, Braken, Perry, chap.xiv.
Travis, Dr. Hazzard, and the Clarks, and some
others, all specially committed. At Lacon, in Mar-
shall, the very most active friend I have in the dis-
trict (if I except yourself) is at work. Through him
I have procured the names and written to three or
four of the most active Whigs in each precinct of
the county. Still, I wish you all in Tazewell to keep
your eyes continually on Woodford and Marshall.
Let no opportunity of making a mark escape.
When they shall be safe, all will be safe — I think."
His constitutional caution suggests those final
words. He did not relax his vigilance for a
moment until after Hardin withdrew. He warned
his correspondents day by day of every move on
the board ; advised his supporters at every point,
and kept every wire in perfect working order.
The convention was held at Petersburg on the
1st of May. Judge Logan placed the name of Lin-
coln before it, and he was nominated unanimously.
The Springfield "Journal," giving the news the
week after, said : " This nomination was of course
anticipated, there being no other candidate in the
field. Mr. Lincoln, we all know, is a good Whig, a
good man, an able speaker, and richly deserves, as
he enjoys, the confidence of the Whigs of this
district and of the State."
The Democrats gave Mr. Lincoln a singular
competitor — the famous Methodist preacher, Peter
Cartwright. It was not the first time they had
met in the field of politics. When Lincoln ran for
the Legislature on his return from the Black Hawk
war, in 1832, one of the successful candidates of
that year was this indefatigable circuit-rider. He
246 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiv. was now over sixty years of age, in the height of
his popularity, and in all respects an adversary not
to be despised. His career as a preacher began at
the beginning of the century and continued for
seventy years. He was the son of one of the
pioneers of the West, and grew up in the rudest
regions of the border land between Tennessee and
Kentucky. He represents himself, with the usual
inverted pride of a class-leader, as having been a
wild, vicious youth; but the catalogue of his
crimes embraces nothing less venial than card-
playing, horse-racing, and dancing, and it is hard
to see what different amusements could have been
found in southern Kentucky in 1801.
This course of dissipation did not continue long,
as he was " converted and united with the Ebenezer
Methodist Episcopal Church " in June of that year,
when only sixteen years old, and immediately
developed such zeal and power in exhortation that
less than a year later he was licensed to " exercise
his gifts as an exhorter so long as his practice
is agreeable to the gospel." He became a deacon
at twenty-one, an elder at twenty-three, a pre-
siding elder at twenty-seven, and from that time
his life is the history of his church in the West for
sixty years. He died in 1872, eighty-seven years
of age, having baptized twelve thousand persons
and preached fifteen thousand sermons. He was,
and will always remain, the type of the backwoods
preacher. Even in his lifetime the simple story of
his life became so overgrown with a net-work of
fable that there is little resemblance between the
simple, courageous, prejudiced itinerant of his
" Autobiography " and the fighting, brawling, half -
CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS 247
civilized, Protestant Friar Tuck of bar-room and chap.xiv.
newspaper legend.
It is true that he did not always discard the
weapons of the flesh in his combats with the
ungodly, and he felt more than once compelled to
leave the pulpit to do carnal execution upon the
disturbers of the peace of the sanctuary ; but two
or three incidents of this sort in three-quarters of a
century do not turn a parson into a pugilist. He
was a fluent, self-confident speaker, who, after the
habit of his time, addressed his discourses more to
the emotions than to the reason of his hearers.
His system of future rewards and punishments
was of the most simple and concrete character, and
formed the staple of his sermons. He had no
patience with the refinements and reticences of
modern theology, and in his later years observed
with scorn and sorrow the progress of education
and scholarly training in his own communion.
After listening one day to a prayer from a young
minister which shone more by its correctness than
its unction, he could not refrain from saying,
" Brother , three prayers like that would freeze
hell over ! " — a consummation which did not com
mend itself to him as desirable. He often visited
the cities of the Atlantic coast, but saw little in
them to admire. His chief pleasure on his return
was to sit in a circle of his friends and pour out
the phials of his sarcasm upon all the refinements
of life that he had witnessed in New York or
Philadelphia, which he believed, or affected to
believe, were tenanted by a species of beings al-
together inferior to the manhood that filled the
cabins of Kentucky and Illinois. An apocryphal
248 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiv. story of one of these visits was often told of him,
which pleased him so that he never contradicted it :
that becoming bewildered in the vastness of a
New York hotel, he procured a hatchet, and in
pioneer fashion " blazed " his way along the ma-
hogany staircases and painted corridors from the
office to his room. With all his eccentricities, he
was a devout man, conscientious and brave. He
lived in domestic peace and honor all his days, and
dying, he and his wife, whom he had married al-
most in childhood, left a posterity of 129 direct
descendants to mourn them.1
With all his devotion to the cause of his church,
Peter Cartwright was an ardent Jackson politician,
with probably a larger acquaintance throughout
the district than any other man in it, and with a
personal following which, beginning with his own
children and grandchildren and extending through
every precinct, made it no holiday task to defeat
him in a popular contest. But Lincoln and his
friends went energetically into the canvass, and
before it closed he was able to foresee a certain
victory.
An incident is related to show how accurately Lin-
coln could calculate political results in advance —
a faculty which remained with him all his life. A
friend, who was a Democrat, had come to him
i The impressive manner of with the words, " the past three
Mrs. Cartwright's death, who sur- weeks have been the happiest of
vived her husband a few years, all my life ; I am waiting for the
is remembered in the churches chariot."
of Sangamon County. She was When the meeting broke up,
attending a religious meeting at she did not rise with the rest.
Bethel Chapel, a mile from her The minister solemnly said, " The
house. She was called upon " to chariot has arrived."— "Early
give her testimony," which she Settlers of Sangamon County,"
did with much f eeling, concluding by John Carroll Power.
CAMPAIGN FOR CONGEESS 249
early in the canvass and had told him he wanted chap.xiv.
to see him elected, but did not like to vote against
his party ; still he would vote for him, if the con-
test was to be so close that every vote was needed.
A short time before the election Lincoln said to
him: "I have got the preacher, and I don't want
your vote."
The election was held in August, and the Whig
candidate's majority was very large — 1511 in the
district, where Clay's majority had been only 914,
and where Taylor's, two years later, with all the
glamour of victory about him, was ten less. Lin-
coln's majority in Sangamon County was 690,
which, in view of the standing of his competitor,
was the most remarkable proof which could be
given of his personal popularity;1 it was the
highest majority ever given to any candidate in
the county during the entire period of Whig as-
cendancy until Yates's triumphant campaign of
1852.
This large vote was all the more noteworthy
because the Whigs were this year upon the un-
popular side. The annexation of Texas was gen-
erally approved throughout the West, and those
who opposed it were regarded as rather lacking
in patriotism, even before actual hostilities began.
But when General Taylor and General Ampudia
confronted each other with hostile guns across the
l Stuart's maj. over May in 1836 in Sangamon Co. was 543
" <
' " Douglas '
1 1838 " " «
' " 295
U (
' " Ralston '
' 1840 " " «
' " 575
Hardin's '
' ' ' McDougall 4
t 1843 U U I
' " 504
Baker's '
1 " Calhoun '
' 1844 " " «
' " 373
Lincoln's '
' " Cartwright '
1846 " " '
1 " 690
Logan's '
' " Harris '
' 1848 " " '
1 " 263
Yates's '
' " Harris *
' 1850 " " «
' " 336
250 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiv. Eio Grande, and still more after the brilliant feat
of arms by which the Americans opened the war
on the plain of Palo Alto, it required a good deal
of moral courage on the part of the candidates and
voters alike to continue their attitude of disap-
proval of the policy of the Government, at the
same time that they were shouting paeans over the
exploits of our soldiers. They were assisted, it is
true, by the fact that the leading Whigs of the
State volunteered with the utmost alacrity and
promptitude in the military service. On the 11th
of May, Congress authorized the raising of fifty
thousand volunteers, and as soon as the intel-
ligence reached Illinois the daring and restless
spirit of Hardin leaped forward to the fate which
was awaiting him, and he instantly issued a call
to his brigade of militia, in which he said : " The
general has already enrolled himself as the first
volunteer from Illinois under the requisition. He
is going whenever ordered. Who will go with
him! He confidently expects to be accompanied
by many of his brigade." The quota assigned to
Illinois was three regiments; these were quickly
raised,1 and an additional regiment offered by
Baker was then accepted. The sons of the promi-
nent Whigs enlisted as private soldiers; David
Logan was a sergeant in Baker's regiment. A
public meeting was held in Springfield on the 29th
of May, at which Mr. Lincoln delivered what was
considered a thrilling and effective speech on the
condition of affairs, and the duty of citizens to
stand by the flag of the nation until an honorable
peace was secured.
i The colonels were Hardin, Bissell, and Forman.
CAMPAIGN FOE CONGKESS 251
It was thought probable, and would have been chap.xiv.
altogether fitting, that either Colonel Hardin,
Colonel Baker, or Colonel Bissell, all of them men
of intelligence and distinction, should be appointed
general of the Illinois Brigade, but the Polk
Administration was not inclined to waste so im-
portant a place upon men who might thereafter
have views of their own in public affairs. The
coveted appointment was given to a man already
loaded to a grotesque degree with political employ-
ment— Mr. Lincoln's old adversary, James Shields.
He had left the position of Auditor of State to
assume a seat on the Bench ; retiring from this,
he had just been appointed Commissioner of the
General Land Office. He had no military experi-
ence, and so far as then known no capacity for the
service; but his fervid partisanship commended
him to Mr. Polk as a safe servant, and he received
the commission, to the surprise and derision of the
State. His bravery in action and his honorable
wounds at Cerro Grordo and Chapultepec saved
him from contempt and made his political fortune.
He had received the recommendation of the Illi-
nois Democrats in Congress, and it is altogether
probable that he owed his appointment in great
measure to the influence of Douglas, who desired
to have as few Democratic statesmen as possible
in Springfield that winter. A Senator was to be
elected, and Shields had acquired such a habit of
taking all the offices that fell vacant that it was
only prudent to remove him as far as convenient
from such a temptation. The election was held in
December, and Douglas was promoted from the
House of Representatives to that seat in the Senate
252
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
December
28, 1844.
which he held with such ability and distinction the
rest of his life.
The session of 1846-7 opened with the San-
gamon district of Illinois unrepresented in Con-
gress. Baker had gone with his regiment to Mexico.
It did not have the good fortune to participate in
any of the earlier actions of the campaign, and
his fiery spirit chafed in the enforced idleness of
camp and garrison. He seized an occasion which
was offered him to go to Washington as bearer of
dispatches, and while there he made one of those
sudden and dramatic appearances in the Capitol
which were so much in harmony with his tastes
and his character. He went to his place on the
floor, and there delivered a bright, interesting
speech in his most attractive vein, calling atten-
tion to the needs of the army, disavowing on the
part of the Whigs any responsibility for the war
or its conduct, and adroitly claiming for them a
full share of the credit for its prosecution.
He began by thanking the House for its kind-
ness in allowing him the floor, protesting at the
same time that he had done nothing to deserve
such courtesy. " I could wish," he said, " that it
had been the fortune of the gallant Davis x to now
stand where I do and to receive from gentlemen on
all sides the congratulations so justly due to him,
and to listen to the praises of his brave compeers.
For myself, I have, unfortunately, been left far in
the rear of the war, and if now I venture to say a
word in behalf of those who have endured the
severest hardships of the struggle, whether in the
blood-stained streets of Monterey, or in a yet
l Jefferson Davis, who was with the army in Mexico.
CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS 253
sterner form on the banks of the Bio Grande, I chap.xiv.
beg you to believe that while I feel this a most
pleasant duty, it is in other respects a duty full of
pain ; for I stand here, after six months' service as
a volunteer, having seen no actual warfare in the
field."
Yet even this disadvantage he turned with great
dexterity to his service. He reproached Congress
for its apathy and inaction in not providing for
the wants of the army by reenforcements and sup-
plies ; he flattered the troops in the field, and paid
a touching tribute to those who had died of disease
and exposure, without ever enjoying the sight of
a battle-field, and, rising to lyric enthusiasm, he
repeated a poem of his own, which he had written
in camp to the memory of the dead of the Fourth
Illinois.1 He could not refrain from giving his own
party all the credit which could be claimed for it,
and it is not difficult to imagine how exasperating
it must have been to the majority to hear so calm
1 We give a copy of these lines, not on account of their intrinsic
merit, but as illustrating the versatility of the lawyer, orator, and
soldier who wrote them.
Where rolls the rushing Rio Grande,
How peacefully they sleep !
Far from their native Northern land,
Far from the friends who weep.
No rolling drums disturb their rest
Beneath the sandy sod ;
The mold lies heavy on each breast,
The spirit is with God.
They heard their country's call, and came
To battle for the right ;
Each bosom filled with martial flame,
And kindling for the fight.
Light was their measured footsteps when
They moved to seek the foe ;
Alas that hearts so fiery then
Should soon be cold and low !
254 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xiv. an assumption of superior patriotism on the part
of the opposition as the following: "As a Whig I
still occupy a place on this floor; nor do I think it
worth while to reply to such a charge as that the
Whigs are not friends of their country because
many of them doubt the justice or expediency of
the present war. Surely there was all the more
evidence of the patriotism of the man who, doubt-
ing the expediency and even the entire justice of
the war, nevertheless supported it, because it was
the war of his country. In the one it might be
mere enthusiasm and an impetuous temperament ;
in the other it was true patriotism, a sense of duty.
Homer represents Hector as strongly doubting the
expediency of the war against Greece. He gave his
advice against it ; he had no sympathy with Paris,
whom he bitterly reproached, much less with
Helen ; yet, when the war came, and the Grecian
forces were marshaled on the plain, and their
crooked keels were seen cutting the sands of the
Trojan coast, Hector was a flaming fire, his beam-
ing helmet was seen in the thickest of the fight.
They did not die in eager strife
Upon a well-fought field ;
Nor from the red wound poured their life
Where cowering foemen yield.
Death's ghastly shade was slowly cast
Upon each manly brow,
But calm and fearless to the last,
They sleep securely now.
Yet shall a grateful country give
Her honors to their name ;
In kindred hearts their memory live,
And history guard their fame.
Not unremembered do they sleep
Upon a foreign strand,
Though near their graves thy wild waves sweep,
O rushing Eio Grande !
CAMPAIGN FOE CONGRESS 255
There are in the American army many who have chap.xw.
the spirit of Hector ; who strongly doubt the pro-
priety of the war, and especially the manner of its
commencement; who yet are ready to pour out
their hearts' best blood like water, and their lives
with it, on a foreign shore, in defense of the
American flag and American glory."
Immediately after making this speech, Baker
increased the favorable impression created by it by
resigning his seat in Congress and hurrying as fast
as steam could carry him to New Orleans, to embark
there for Mexico. He had heard of the advance of
Santa Anna upon Saltillo, and did not wish to lose
any opportunity of fighting which might fall in the
way of his regiment. He arrived to find his troops
transferred to the department of General Scott;
and although he missed Buena Vista, he took
part in the capture of Vera Cruz, and greatly dis-
tinguished himself at Cerro Gordo. When Shields
was wounded, Baker took command of his brigade,
and by a gallant charge on the Mexican guns
gained possession of the Jalapa road, an act by
which a great portion of the fruits of that victory
were harvested.
His resignation left a vacancy in Congress, and
a contest, characteristic of the politics of the time,
at once sprang up over it. The rational course
would have been to elect Lincoln, but, with his
usual overstrained delicacy, he declined to run,
thinking it fair to give other aspirants a chance for
the term of two months. The Whigs nominated a
respectable man named Brown, but a short while
before the election John Henry, a member of the
State Senate, announced himself as a candidate,
THE BOUNDARIES OF TEXAS.
This map gives the boundary be-
tween Mexico and the United States
as defined by the treaty of 1828 ; the
westerly bank of the Sabine River
from its mouth to the 32d degree of
latitude; thence due north to the
Red River, following the course of
that stream to the 100th degree of
longitude west from Greenwich;
thence due north to the Arkansas
River, and running along its south
bank to its source iu the Rocky Moun-
tains, near the place where Leadville
now stands ; thence due north to the
42d parallel of latitude, which it fol-
lows to the Pacific Ocean.
On the west will be seen the bound-
aries claimed by Mexico and the
United States after the annexation
of Texas. The Mexican authorities
considered the western boundary of
Texas to be the Nueces River, from
mouth to source; thence by an in-
definite line to the Rio Pecos, and
through the elevated and barren
Llano Estacado to the source of the
main branch of the Red River, and
along that river to the 100th meridian.
The United States adopted the Texan
claim of the Rio Grande del Norte
as their western limit. By the treaty
of peace of 1848, the Mexicans relin-
quished to the United States the
territory between the Nueces and
the Rio Grande del Norte; also
the territory lying between the
last-named river and the Pacific
Ocean, and north of the Gila
River and the southern boundary
of New Mexico, which was a short
distance above the town of El
Paso.
ZACHART TAYLOR.
CAMPAIGN FOR CONGRESS 257
and appealed for votes on the sole ground that he chap.xiv.
was a poor man and wanted the place for the mile-
age. Brown, either recognizing the force of this
plea, or smitten with a sudden disgust for a service
in which such pleas were possible, withdrew from
the canvass, and Henry got his election and his
mileage.
Vol. I.— 17
CHAPTER XV
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS
chap. xv. F I ^HE Thirtieth Congress organized on the 6th of
J- December, 1847. Its roll contained the names
of many eminent men, few of whom were less
known than his which was destined to a fame more
wide and enduring than all the rest together. It
was Mr. Lincoln's sole distinction that he was the
only Whig member from Illinois. He entered upon
the larger field of work which now lay before him
without any special diffidence, but equally without
elation. Writing to his friend Speed soon after
his election he said : " Being elected to Congress,
though I am very grateful to our friends for having
done it, has not pleased me as much as I ex-
pected,"— an experience not unknown to most
public men, but probably intensified in Lincoln's
case by his constitutional melancholy. He went
about his work with little gladness, but with a
dogged sincerity and an inflexible conscience.
It soon became apparent that the Whigs were to
derive at least a temporary advantage from the
war which the Democrats had brought upon the
country, although it was destined in its later con-
sequences to sweep the former party out of exist-
ence and exile the other from power for many
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 259
years. Tho House was so closely divided that chap.xv.
Lincoln, writing on the 5th, expressed some doubt
whether the Whigs could elect all their caucus
nominees, and Mr. Robert C. Winthrop was chosen
Speaker the next day by a majority of one vote.
The President showed in his message that he was
doubtful of the verdict of Congress and the
country upon the year's operations, and he argued
with more solicitude than force in defense of the
proceedings of the Administration in regard to the
war with Mexico. His anxiety was at once shown
to be well founded. The first attempt made by
his friends to indorse the conduct of the Govern-
ment was met by a stern rebuke from the House
of Representatives, which passed an amendment
proposed by George Ashmun that "the war had
been unnecessarily and unconstitutionally com-
menced by the President." This severe declara-
tion was provoked and justified by the persistent
and disingenuous assertions of the President that
the preceding Congress had "with virtual una-
nimity " declared that " war existed by the act of
Mexico " — the truth being that a strong minority
had voted to strike out those words from the pre-
amble of the supply bill, but being outvoted in
this, they were compelled either to vote for pre-
amble and bill together, or else refuse supplies to
the army.
It was not surprising that the Whigs and other
opponents of the war should take the first oppor-
tunity to give the President their opinion of such
a misrepresentation. The standing of the opposi-
tion had been greatly strengthened by the very
victories upon which Mr. Polk had confidently
260 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. relied for his vindication. Both our armies in
Mexico were under the command of Whig generals,
and among the subordinate officers who had dis-
tinguished themselves in the field, a full share
were Whigs, who, to an extent unusual in wars of
political significance, retained their attitude of hos-
tility to the Administration under whose orders
they were serving. Some of them had returned to
their places on the floor of Congress brandishing
their laurels with great effect in the faces of their
opponents who had talked while they fought.1
When we number the names which leaped into
sudden fame in that short but sanguinary war, it
is surprising to find how few of them sympathized
with the party who brought it on, or with the
purposes for which it was waged. The earnest
opposition of Taylor to the scheme of the annexa-
tionists did not hamper his movements or paralyze
1 The following extract from a in the vote that you seem dis-
letter of Lincoln to his partner, satisfied with. The latter, the
Mr. Herndon, who had criticized history of whose capture with
his anti-war votes, gives the Cassius Clay you well know, had
names of some of the Whig sol- not arrived here when that vote
diers who persisted in their faith was given ; but, as I understand,
throughout the war: "As to the he stands ready to give just such
Whig men who have participated a vote whenever an occasion
in the war, so far as they have shall present. Baker, too, who
spoken to my hearing, they do is now here, says the truth is
not hesitate to denounce as un- undoubtedly that way ; and when-
just the President's conduct in ever he shall speak out, he will
the beginning of the war. They say so. Colonel Doniphan, too,
do not suppose that such denun- the favorite Whig of Missouri,
ciation is directed by undying and who overran all northern
hatred to them, as 'the Regis- Mexico, on his return home, in a
ter' would have it believed, public speech at St. Louis, con-
There are two such Whigs demned the Administration in
on this floor (Colonel Haskell relation to the war, if I remem-
and Major James). The former ber. G. T. M. Davis, who has
fought as a colonel by the side of been through almost the whole
Colonel Baker, at Cerro Gordo, war, declares in favor of Mr.
and stands side by side with me Clay ; " etc.
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 261
his arm, when with his little band of regulars he chap. xv.
beat the army of Arista on the plain of Palo Alto,
and again in the precipitous Resaca de la Palma ;
took by storm the fortified city of Monterey,
defended by a greatly superior force ; and finally,
with a few regiments of raw levies, posted among
the rocky spurs and gorges about the farm of
Buena Vista, met and defeated the best-led and
the best-fought army the Mexicans ever brought
into the field, outnumbering him more than four
to one. It was only natural that the Whigs should
profit by the glory gained by Whig valor, no
matter in what cause. The attitude of the opposi-
tion— sure of their advantage and exulting in it —
was never perhaps more clearly and strongly set
forth than in a speech made by Mr. Lincoln near
the close of this session. He said :
As General Taylor is par excellence the hero of the
Mexican war, and as you Democrats say we Whigs have
always opposed the war, you think it must be very awk-
ward and embarrassing for us to go for General Taylor.
The declaration that we have always opposed the war is
true or false accordingly as one may understand the
term " opposing the war." If to say " the war was un-
necessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the
President" be opposing the war, then the Whigs have
very generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken
at all they have said this ; and they have said it on what
has appeared good reason to them ; the marching of an
army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement,
frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing
crops and other property to destruction, to you may
appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking pro-
cedure ; but it does not appear so to us. So to call such
an act, to us appears no other than a naked, impudent
absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if when
the war had begun, and had become the cause of the
262 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. country, the giving of our money and our blood, in com-
mon with yours, was support of the war, then it is not
true that we have always opposed the war. With few
individual exceptions, you have constantly had our votes
here for all the necessary supplies. And, more than this,
you have had the services, the blood, and the lives of our
political brethren in every trial, and on every field. The
beardless boy and the mature man, the humble and the
distinguished, — you have had them. Through suffering
and death, by disease and in battle, they have endured
and fought and fallen with you. Clay and Webster each
gave a son, never to be returned. From the State of my
own residence, besides other worthy but less-known
Whig names, we sent Marshall, Morrison, Baker, and
Hardin ; they all fought, and one fell, and in the fall of
that one we lost our best Whig man. Nor were the
Whigs few in number or laggard in the day of danger.
In that fearful, bloody, breathless struggle at Buena
Vista, where each man's hard task was to beat back five
foes or die himself, of the five high officers who perished,
four were Whigs.
There was no refuge for the Democrats after the
Whigs had adopted Taylor as their especial hero,
since Scott was also a Whig and an original op-
ponent of the war. His victories, on account of
the apparent ease with which they were gained,
have never received the credit justly due them.
The student of military history will rarely meet
with narratives of battles in any age where the
actual operations coincide so exactly with the orders
issued upon the eve of conflict, as in the official
reports of the wonderfully energetic and successful
campaign in which General Scott with a handful of
men renewed the memory of the conquest of Cortes,
in his triumphant march from Vera Cruz to the
capital. The plan of the battle of Cerro Gordo was
so fully carried out in action that the official report
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 263
is hardly more than the general orders translated chap. xv.
from the future tense to the past. The story of
Chapultepec has the same element of the marvelous
in it. On one day the general commanded appar-
ent impossibilities in the closest detail, and the
next day reported that they had been accom-
plished. These successes were not cheaply attained.
The Mexicans, though deficient in science and in
military intelligence, fought with bravery and
sometimes with desperation. The enormous per-
centage of loss in his army proves that Scott was
engaged in no light work. He marched from
Pueblo with about 10,000 men, and his losses in
the basin of Mexico were 2703, of whom 383 were
officers. But neither he nor Taylor was a favorite
of the Administration, and their brilliant success
brought no gain of popularity to Mr. Polk and his
Cabinet.
During the early part of the session little was
talked about except the Mexican war, its causes,
its prosecution, and its probable results. In these
wordy engagements the Whigs, partly for the
reasons we have mentioned, partly through their
unquestionable superiority in debate, and partly
by virtue of their stronger cause, usually had
the advantage. There was no distinct line of
demarcation, however, between the two parties.
There was hardly a vote, after the election of
Mr. Winthrop as Speaker, where the two sides
divided according to their partisan nomencla-
ture. The question of slavery, even where its
presence was not avowed, had its secret influence
upon every trial of strength in Congress, and
Southern Whigs were continually found sustaining
264 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. the President, and New England Democrats voting
against his most cherished plans. Not even all the
Democrats of the South could be relied on by the
Administration. The most powerful leader of them
all denounced with bitter earnestness the conduct
of the war, for which he was greatly responsible.
Mr. Calhoun, in an attack upon the President's
policy, January 4, 1848, said : " I opposed the war,
not only because it might have been easily avoided;
not only because the President had no authority to
order a part of the disputed territory in possession
of the Mexicans to be occupied by our troops ; not
only because I believed the allegations upon which
Congress sanctioned the war untrue, but from high
considerations of policy; because I believed it
would lead to many and serious evils to the
country and greatly endanger its free institutions."
It was probably not so much the free institutions
of the country that the South Carolina Senator was
disturbed about as some others. He perhaps felt
that the friends of slavery had set in motion a
train of events whose result was beyond their ken.
Mr. Palfrey, of Massachusetts, a few days later said
with as much sagacity as wit that " Mr. Calhoun
thought that he could set fire to a barrel of gun-
powder and extinguish it when half consumed."
In his anxiety that the war should be brought to an
end, Calhoun proposed that the United States
army should evacuate the Mexican capital, establish
a defensive line, and hold it as the only indemnity
possible to us. He had no confidence in treaties,
and believed that no Mexican government was
capable of carrying one into effect. A few days
'"mST 13' later, in a running debate, Mr. Calhoun made an
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 265
important statement, which still further strength- chap.xv.
ened the contention of the Whigs. He said that
in making the treaty of annexation he did not
assume that the Rio del Norte was the western
boundary of Texas ; on the contrary, he assumed
that the boundary was an unsettled one between
Mexico and Texas; and that he had intimated
to our charge d'affaires that we were prepared to
settle the boundary on the most liberal terms!
This was perfectly in accordance with the position
held by most Democrats before the Rio Grande
boundary was made an article of faith by the Pres-
ident. C. J. Ingersoll, one of the leading men
upon that side in Congress, in a speech three years
before had said : " The stupendous deserts between
the Nueces and the Bravo rivers are the natural
boundaries between the Anglo-Saxon and the
Mauritanian races"; a statement which, however
faulty from the point of view of ethnology and
physical geography, shows clearly enough the view
then held of the boundary question.
The discipline of both parties was more or less
relaxed under the influence of the slavery question.
It was singular to see Mr. McLane, of Baltimore,
rebuking Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, for
mentioning that forbidden subject on the floor of
the House ; Reverdy Johnson, a "Whig from Mary-
land, administering correction to John P. Hale, an
insubordinate Democrat from New Hampshire, for
the same offense, and at the time screaming that
the "blood of our glorious battle-fields in Mexico
rested on the hands of the President " ; Mr. Cling-
man challenging the House with the broad state-
ment that "it is a misnomer to speak of our
266 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. institution at the South as peculiar ; ours is the
general system of the world, and the free system is
the peculiar one," and Mr. Palfrey dryly responding
that slavery was natural just as barbarism was,
just as fig-leaves and bare skins were a natural
dress. When the time arrived, however, for leav-
ing off grimacing and posturing, and the House
went to voting, the advocates of slavery usually
carried the day, as the South, Whigs and Demo-
crats together, voted solidly, and the North was
divided. Especially was this the case after the
arrival of the treaty of peace between the United
States and Mexico, which was signed at Guadalupe
Hidalgo on the 2d of February and was in the
hands of the Senate only twenty days later. It
was ratified by that body on the 10th of March,
with a series of amendments which were at once
accepted by Mexico, and the treaty of peace was
officially promulgated on the national festival of
the Fourth of July.
From the hour when the treaty was received in
Washington, however, the discussion as to the
conduct of the war naturally languished ; the ablest
speeches of the day before became obsolete in the
presence of accomplished facts ; and the interest of
Congress promptly turned to the more important
subject of the disposition to be made of the vast
domain which our arms had conquered and the
treaty confirmed to us. No one in America then
realized the magnitude of this acquisition ; its
stupendous physical features were as little appre-
ciated as the vast moral and political results which
were to flow from its absorption into our common-
wealth. It was only known, in general terms, that
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 267
our new possessions covered ten degrees of latitude chap. xv.
and fifteen of longitude ; that we had acquired, in
short, six hundred and thirty thousand square
miles of desert, mountain, and wilderness. There
was no dream, then, of that portentous discovery
which, even while the Senate was wrangling
over the treaty, had converted Captain Sutter's
mill at Coloma into a mining camp, for his ruin
and the sudden up-building of many colossal
fortunes. The name of California, which conveys
to-day such opulent suggestions, then meant noth-
ing but barrenness, and Nevada was a name as
yet unknown : some future Congressman, inno-
cent of taste and of Spanish, was to hit upon the
absurdity of calling that land of silver and cactus,
of the orange and the sage-hen, the land of snow.
But imperfect as was the appreciation, at that day,
of the possibilities which lay hidden in those sunset
regions, there was still enough of instinctive greed
in the minds of politicians to make the new realm
a subject of lively interest and intrigue.1 At the
first showing of hands, the South was successful.
In the Twenty-ninth Congress this contest had
begun over the spoils of a victory not yet achieved.
President Polk, foreseeing the probability of an
i To show how crude and vague thousand square miles of this
were the ideas of even the most territory, in New California, has
intelligent men in relation to this been trod by the foot of no civil-
great empire, we give a few lines ized being. No spy or pioneer or
from the closing page of Ed- vagrant trapper has ever returned
ward D. Mansfield's " History to report the character and
of the Mexican War," published scenery of that waste and lonely
in 1849: "But will the greater wilderness. Two hundred thou-
part of this vast space ever be sand square miles more are oc-
inhabited by any but the rest- cupied with broken mountains
less hunter and the wander- and dreary wilds. But little
ing trapper ? Two hundred remains then for civilization."
268 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. acquisition of territory by treaty, had asked Con-
gress to make an appropriation for that purpose.
A bill was at once reported in that sense, appro-
priating $30,000 for the expenses of the negotiation
and $2,000,000 to be used in the President's discre-
tion. But before it passed, a number of Northern
Democrats l had become alarmed as to the disposi-
tion that might be made of the territory thus
acquired, which was now free soil by Mexican law.
After a hasty consultation they agreed upon a
proviso to the bill, which was presented by David
Wilmot, of Pennsylvania. He was a man of
respectable abilities, who then, and long after-
wards, held a somewhat prominent position among
the public men of his State; but his chief claim to
a place in history rests upon these few lines which
he moved to add to the first section of the bill
under discussion :
Provided, That as an express and fundamental condi-
tion to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic
of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty
that may be negotiated between them, and to the use by
the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in any part
of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party
shall first be duly convicted.
This condition seemed so fair, when first pre-
sented to the Northern conscience, that only three
members from the free States voted " no " in com-
mittee. The amendment was adopted — eighty to
sixty-four — and the bill reported to the House. A
desperate effort was then made by the pro-slavery
i Some of the more conspicuous York ; Wilmot, of Pennsylvania ;
among them were Hamlin, of Brinckerhoff , of Ohio, and McClel-
Maine ; Preston King, of New land, of Michigan.
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 269
members to kill the bill for the purpose of destroy- gbap. xv.
ing the amendment with it. This failed,1 and the
bill, as amended, passed the House ; but going to
the Senate a few hours before the close of the ses-
sion, it lapsed without a vote.
As soon as the war was ended and the treaty of
peace was sent to the Senate, this subject assumed
a new interest and importance, and a resolution
embodying the principle of the Wilmot proviso
was brought before the House by Mr. Harvey Put-
nam, of New York, but no longer with the same
success. The South was now solid against it, and
such a disintegration of conscience among North-
ern Democrats had set in, that whereas only three
of them in the last Congress had seen fit to
approve the introduction of slavery into free terri-
tory, twenty-five now voted with the South against
maintaining the existing conditions there. The
fight was kept up during the session in various
places; if now and then a temporary advantage
seemed gained in the House, it was lost in the
Senate, and no permanent progress was made.
What we have said in regard to the general dis-
cussion provoked by the Mexican war, appeared
necessary to explain the part taken by Mr. Lincoln
on the floor. He came to his place unheralded and
without any special personal pretensions. His first
1 In this important and signifi- members from slave-holding
cant vote all the Whigs but one States, except Thomasson and
and almost all the Democrats, Grider, and the following from
from the free States, together free States, Douglas and John A.
with Wm. P. Thomasson and McClernand from Illinois, Petit
Henry Grider, Whigs from Ken- from Indiana, and Schenck, a
tucky, voted against killing the Whig, from Ohio, in all seventy-
amended bill, in all ninety-three, nine. — Greeley's "American Con-
On the other side were all the flict," I. p. 189.
270
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Chap. XV.
Letter to
Win. H.
Herndon,
January 8,
participation in debate can best be described in his
own quaint and simple words: "As to speech-mak-
ing, by way of getting the hang of the House, I
made a little speech two or three days ago on a
post-office question of no general interest. I find
speaking here and elsewhere about the same thing.
I was about as badly scared, and no worse, as I
am when I speak in court. I expect to make
one within a week or two in which I hope to
succeed well enough to wish you to see it." He
evidently had the orator's temperament — the
mixture of dread and eagerness which all good
speakers feel before facing an audience, which
made Cicero tremble and turn pale when rising in
the Forum. The speech he was pondering was
made only four days later, on the 12th of January,
and few better maiden speeches — for it was his
first formal discourse in Congress — have ever been
made in that House. He preceded it, and prepared
for it, by the introduction, on the 22d of December,
of a series of resolutions referring to the President's
persistent assertions that the war had been begun
by Mexico, " by invading our territory and shed-
ding the blood of our citizens on our own soil,"
and calling upon him to give the House more
specific information upon these points. As these
resolutions became somewhat famous afterwards,
and were relied upon to sustain the charge of a
lack of patriotism made by Mr. Douglas against
their author, it may be as well to give them here,
especially as they are the first production of Mr.
Lincoln's pen after his entry upon the field of national
politics. We omit the preamble, which consists of
quotations from the President's message.
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 271
Resolved by the Rouse of Representatives, That the Presi- chap xv.
dent of the United States be respectfully requested to
inform this House :
First. Whether the spot on which the blood of our
citizens was shed, as in his messages declared, was or was
not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty
of 1819, until the Mexican revolution.
Second. Whether that spot is or is not within the terri-
tory which was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary
government of Mexico.
Third. Whether that spot is or is not within a settle-
ment of people, which settlement has existed ever since
long before the Texas revolution and until its inhabitants
fled before the approach of the United States army.
Fourth. Whether that settlement is or is not isolated
from any and all other settlements by the Gulf and the
Rio Grande on the south and west, and by wide unin-
habited regions in the north and east.
Fifth. Whether the people of that settlement, or a
majority of them, or any of them, have ever submitted
themselves to the government or laws of Texas or of the
United States, by consent or by compulsion, either by ac-
cepting office, or voting at elections, or paying tax, or
serving on juries, or having process served upon them, or
in any other way.
Sixth. Whether the people of that settlement did or did
not flee from the approach of the United States army,
leaving unprotected their homes and their growing crops,
before the blood was shed, as in the messages stated ;
and whether the first blood so shed was or was not shed
within the inclosure of one of the people who had thus
fled from it.
Seventh. Whether our citizens whose blood was shed, as
in his messages declared, were or were not at that time armed
officers and soldiers, sent into that settlement by the mil-
itary order of the President, through the Secretary of War.
Eighth. Whether the military force of the United States
was or was not so sent into that settlement after General
Taylor had more than once intimated to the War Depart-
272 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. ment that in his opinion no such movement "was neces-
sary to the defense or protection of Texas.
It would have been impossible for the President
to answer these questions, one by one, according
to the evidence in his possession, without sur-
rendering every position he had taken in his
messages for the last two years. An answer was
probably not expected ; the resolutions were never
acted upon by the House, the vote on the Ashmun
proposition having sufficiently indicated the view
which the majority held of the President's
precipitate and unconstitutional proceeding. But
they served as a text for the speech which Lincoln
made in Committee of the Whole, which deserves
the attentive reading of any one who imagines
that there was anything accidental in the ascend-
ency which he held for twenty years among the
public men of Illinois. The winter was mostly de-
voted to speeches upon the same subject from
men of eminence and experience, but it is within
bounds to say there was not a speech made in the
House, that year, superior to this in clearness of
statement, severity of criticism combined with
soberness of style, or, what is most surprising,
finish and correctness. In its close, clear argu-
ment, its felicity of illustration, its restrained yet
burning earnestness, it belongs to precisely the
same class of addresses as those which he made a
dozen years later. The ordinary Congressman can
never conclude inside the limits assigned him ; he
must beg for unanimous consent for an extension
of time to complete his sprawling peroration. But
this masterly speech covered the whole ground of
the controversy, and so intent was Lincoln on not
THE THIRTIETH CONGKESS 273
exceeding his hour that he finished his task, to his chab xv.
own surprise, in forty-five minutes. It is an ad-
mirable discourse, and the oblivion which overtook
it, along with the volumes of other speeches made
at the same time, can be accounted for only by re-
membering that the G-uadalupe Treaty came sud-
denly in upon the debate, with its immense
consequences sweeping forever out of view all
consideration of the causes and the processes which
led to the momentous result.
Lincoln's speech and his resolutions were alike
inspired with one purpose: to correct what he
considered an error and a wrong; to rectify a
misrepresentation which he could not, in his very
nature, permit to go uncontradicted. It gratified
his offended moral sense to protest against the
false pretenses which he saw so clearly, and it
pleased his fancy as a lawyer to bring a truth to
light which somebody, as he thought, was trying
to conceal. He certainly got no other reward for
his trouble. His speech was not particularly well
received in Illinois. His own partner, Mr. Herndon,
a young and ardent man, with more heart than
learning, more feeling for the flag than for inter-
national justice, could not, or would not, understand
Mr. Lincoln's position, and gave him great pain by
his letters. Again and again Lincoln explained to
him the difference between approving the war and
voting supplies to the soldiers, but Herndon was ob-
stinately obtuse, and there were many of his mind.
Lincoln's convictions were so positive in regard
to the matter that any laxity of opinion among his
friends caused him real suffering. In a letter to
the Rev. J. M. Peck, who had written a defense
Vol. L— 18
274 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. of the Administration in reference to the origin
of the war, he writes : this " disappoints me,
because it is the first effort of the kind I have
known, made by one appearing to me to be intelli-
gent, right-minded, and impartial." He then reviews
some of the statements of Mr. Peck, proving their
incorrectness, and goes on to show that our army-
had marched under orders across the desert of the
Nueces into a peaceful Mexican settlement, fright-
ening away the inhabitants ; that Fort Brown was
built in a Mexican cotton-field, where a young crop
was growing ; that Captain Thornton and his men
were captured in another cultivated field. He then
asks, how under any law, human or divine, this can
be considered " no aggression," and closes by ask-
ing his clerical correspondent if the precept,
"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do you even so to them," is obsolete, of no
force, of no application ? This is not the anxiety
of a politician troubled about his record. He is not
a candidate for reelection, and the discussion has
passed by; but he must stop and vindicate the
truth whenever assailed. He perhaps does not see,
certainly does not care, that this stubborn devotion
to mere justice will do him no good at an hour
when the air is full of the fumes of gunpowder ;
when the returned volunteers are running for con-
stable in every county ; when so good a Whig as
Mr. Winthrop gives, as a sentiment, at a public
meeting in Boston, " Our country, however
bounded," and the majority of his party are pre-
paring— unmindful of Mr. Polk and all his works
— to reap the fruits of the Mexican war by making
its popular hero President.
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS 275
It was fortunate for Mr. Lincoln and for Whigs chap.xv.
like him, with consciences, that General Taylor had
occupied so unequivocal an attitude in regard to
the war. He had not been in favor of the march to
the Rio Grande, and had resisted every suggestion
to that effect until his peremptory orders came. In
regard to other political questions, his position was
so undefined, and his silence generally so discreet,
that few of the Whigs, however exacting, could
find any difficulty in supporting him. Mr. Lincoln
did more than tolerate his candidacy. He sup-
ported it with energy and cordiality. He was at
last convinced that the election of Mr. Clay was
impossible, and he thought he could see that the
one opportunity of the Whigs was in the nomina-
tion of Taylor. So early as April he wrote to a
friend : " Mr. Clay's chance for an election is just
no chance at all. He might get New York, and
that would have elected in 1844, but it will not
now because he must now, at the least, lose Ten-
nessee, which he had then, and in addition the
fifteen new votes of Florida, Texas, Iowa, and
Wisconsin." Later he wrote to the same friend
that the nomination took the Democrats " on the
blind side. It turns the war thunder against them.
The war is now to them the gallows of Haman,
which they built for us, and on which they are
doomed to be hanged themselves."
At the same time he bated no jot of his opposi-
tion to the war, and urged the same course upon
his friends. To Linder, of Illinois, he wrote : " In j G>
law, it is good policy to never plead what you need ?£8eolr
not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can- p.ci°i8
not." He then counseled him to go for Taylor, but
June
276 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. to avoid approving Polk and the war, as in the
former case he would gain Democratic votes and in
the latter he would lose with the Whigs. Linder
answered him, wanting to know if it would not be
as easy to elect Taylor without opposing the war,
which drew from Lincoln the angry response that
silence was impossible ; the Whigs must speak,
" and their only option is whether they will, when
they speak, tell the truth or tell a foul and villain-
ous falsehood."
When the Whig Convention came together in
lSS." Philadelphia, the differences of opinion on points
of principle and policy were almost as numerous
as the delegates. The unconditional Clay men
rallied once more and gave their aged leader
97 votes to 111 which Taylor received on the
first ballot. Scott and Webster had each a
few votes; but on the fourth ballot the soldier
of Buena Vista was nominated, and Millard Fill-
more placed in the line of succession to him.
It was impossible for a body so heterogeneous to
put forward a distinctive platform of principles.
An attempt was made to force an expression in
regard to the Wilmot proviso, but it was never
permitted to come to a vote. The convention was
determined that " Old Rough and Ready," as he
was now universally nicknamed, should run upon
his battle-flags and his name of Whig — although
he cautiously called himself " not an ultra Whig."
The nomination was received with great and noisy
demonstrations of adhesion from every quarter.
Lincoln, writing a day or two after his return from
the convention, said : " Many had said they would
not abide the nomination of Taylor ; but since the
THE THIRTIETH CONGKESS 277
deed has been done they are fast falling in, and in chip. xv.
my opinion we shall have a most overwhelming,
glorious triumph. One unmistakable sign is that
all the odds and ends are with us, — Barnburners,
native Americans, Tyler men, disappointed office-
seeking Loco-focos, and the Lord knows what.
This is important, if in nothing else, in showing
which way the wind blows."
General Taylor's chances for election had been
greatly increased by what had taken place at the
Democratic Convention, a fortnight before. Gen-
eral Cass had been nominated for the Presidency,
but his militia title had no glamour of carnage
about it, and the secession of the New York Anti-
slavery " Barnburners " from the convention was a
presage of disaster which was fulfilled in the fol-
lowing August by the assembling of the recusant
delegates at Buffalo, where they were joined by
a large number of discontented Democrats and
"Liberty" men, and the Free-soil party was organ-
ized for its short but effective mission. Martin
Van Buren was nominated for President, and
Charles Francis Adams was associated with him
on the ticket. The great superiority of caliber
shown in the nominations of the mutineers over
the regular Democrats was also apparent in the
roll of those who made and sustained the revolt.
When Salmon P. Chase, Preston King, the Van
Burens, John P. Hale, William Cullen Bryant,
David Wilmot, and their like went out of their
party, they left a vacancy which was never to be
filled.
It was perhaps an instinct rather than any clear
spirit of prophecy which drove the antislavery
278 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. Democrats away from their affiliations and kept the
Whigs, for the moment, substantially together. So
far as the authorized utterances of their conventions
were concerned, there was little to choose between
them. They had both evaded any profession of faith
in regard to slavery. The Democrats had rejected
the resolution offered by Yancey committing them
to the doctrine of "non-interference with the
rights of property in the territories," and the
Whigs had never allowed the Wilmot proviso to
be voted upon. But nevertheless those Democrats
who felt that the time had come to put a stop to
the aggression of slavery, generally threw off their
partisan allegiance, and the most ardent of the
antislavery Whigs, — with some exceptions it is
true, especially in Ohio and in Massachusetts,
where the strength of the "Conscience Whigs,"
led by Sumner, the Adamses, and Henry Wilson,
was important, — thought best to remain with their
party. General Taylor was a Southerner and a
slaveholder. In regard to all questions bearing
upon slavery, he observed a discretion in the
canvass which was almost ludicrous.1 Yet there
was a well-nigh universal impression among the
antislavery Whigs that his administration would
be under influences favorable to the restriction of
1 It is a tradition that a planter done credit to a diplomatist, and
once wrote to him: "I have would have proved exceedingly
worked hard and been frugal all useful to Mr. Clay, responded,
my life, and the results of my "Sir: I have the honor to in-
industry have mainly taken the form you that I too have been all
form of slaves, of whom I own my life industrious and frugal,
about a hundred. Before I vote and that the fruits thereof
for President I want to be sure are maiDly invested in slaves, of
that the candidate I support will whom I own three hundred,
not so act as to divest me of my Yours, etc." — Horace Greeley,
property." To which the general, " American Conflict," Volume I.,
with a dexterity that would have p. 193.
THE THIKTIETH CONGKESS 279
slavery. Clay, Webster, and Seward, all of whom chap.xv.
were agreed at that time against any extension of
the area of that institution, supported him with
more or less cordiality. Webster insisted upon it
that the Whigs were themselves the best "Free-
soilers," and for them to join the party called by
that distinctive name would be merely putting Mr.
Van Buren at the head of the Whig party. Mr.
Seward, speaking for Taylor at Cleveland, took vm.
still stronger ground, declaring that slavery "must
be abolished"; that "freedom and slavery are two
antagonistic elements of society in America " ; that
"the party of freedom seeks complete and uni-
versal emancipation." No one then seems to have
foreseen that the Whig party — then on the eve of
a great victory — was so near its dissolution, and
that the bolting Democrats and the faithful Whigs
were alike engaged in laying the foundations of a
party which was to glorify the latter half of the
century with achievements of such colossal and
enduring importance.
There was certainly no doubt or misgiving in
the mind of Lincoln as to that future, which, if he
could have foreseen it, would have presented so
much of terrible fascination. He went into the
campaign with exultant alacrity. He could not
even wait for the adjournment of Congress to
begin his stump-speaking. Following the bad
example of the rest of his colleagues, he obtained
the floor on the 27th of July, and made a long,
brilliant, and humorous speech upon the merits of
the two candidates before the people. As it is the
only one of Lincoln's popular speeches of that
period which has been preserved entire, it should
280 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. be read by those who desire to understand the
manner and spirit of the politics of 1848. What-
ever faults of taste or of method may \>e found
in it, considering it as a speech delivered in the
House of Representatives, with no more propriety
or pertinence than hundreds of others which have
been made under like circumstances, it is an
extremely able speech, and it is by itself enough
to show how remarkably effective he must have
been as a canvasser in the remoter districts of his
State where means of intellectual excitement were
rare and a political meeting was the best-known
form of public entertainment.
He begins by making a clear, brief, and dignified
defense of the position of Taylor upon the question
of the proper use of the veto ; he then avows with
characteristic candor that he does not know what
General Taylor will do as to slavery ; he is himself
" a Northern man, or rather a Western free-State
man, with a constituency I believe to be, and with
personal feelings I know to be, against the ex-
tension of slavery" (a definition in which his
caution and his honesty are equally displayed), and
he hopes General Taylor would not, if elected,
do anything against its restriction ; but he would
vote for him in any case, as offering better
guarantees than Mr. Cass. He then enters upon an
analysis of the position of Cass and his party
which is full of keen observation and political in-
telligence, and his speech goes on to its rollicking
close with a constant succession of bright, witty,
and striking passages in which the orator's own
conviction and enjoyment of an assured success is
not the least remarkable feature. A few weeks
THE THIRTIETH CONGRESS
281
later Congress adjourned, and Lincoln, without chap.xv.
returning home, entered upon the canvass in New
England,1 and then going to Illinois, spoke night
and day until the election. When the votes were
counted, the extent of the defection among the
Northern Whigs and Democrats who voted for
Van Buren and among the Southern Democrats
who had been beguiled by the epaulets of Taylor,
was plainly seen. The bolting " Barnburners " had
given New York to Taylor ; the Free- Soil vote in
Ohio, on the other hand, had thrown that State to
Cass. Van Buren carried no electors, but his
popular vote was larger in New York and Mas-
sachusetts than that of Cass. The entire popular
1 Thurlow Weed says in his
Autobiography, Vol. I., p. 603 :
"I had supposed, until we now
met, that I had never seen Mr.
Lincoln, having forgotten that in
the fall of 1848, when he took
the stump in New England, he
called upon me at Albany, and
that we went to see Mr. Fillmore,
who was then the Whig candidate
for Vice-President." The New
York " Tribune," September 14,
1848, mentions Mr. Lincoln as
addressing a great Whig meet-
ing in Boston, September 12.
The Boston "Atlas" refers to
speeches made by him at Dor-
chester, September 1 6 ; at Chel-
sea, September 17 ; by Lincoln
and Seward at Boston, September
22, on which occasion the report
says: "Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois,
next came forward, and was re-
ceived with great applause. He
spoke about an hour and made a
powerful and convincing speech
which was cheered to the echo."
Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, Jr., in
his recent memoir of the Hon.
David Sears, says, the most
brilliant of Mr. Lincoln's speeches
in this campaign " was delivered
at Worcester, September 13,
1848, when, after taking for his
text Mr. Webster's remark that
the nomination of Martin Van
Buren for the Presidency by a
professed antislavery party could
fitly be regarded only as a trick
or a joke, Mr. Lincoln proceeded
to declare that of the three
parties then asking the confidence
of the country, the new one had
less of principle than any other,
adding, amid shouts of laughter,
that the recently constructed
elastic Free-Soil platform re-
minded him of nothing so much
as the pair of trousers offered for
sale by a Yankee peddler which
were "large enough for any
man and small enough for any
boy."'
It is evident that he considered
Van Buren, in Massachusetts at
least, a candidate more to be
feared than Cass, the regular
Democratic nominee.
282 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xv. vote (exclusive of South Carolina, which chose its
electors by the Legislature) was for Taylor
1,360,752; for Cass 1,219,962; for Van Buren
291,342. Of the electors, Taylor had 163 and
Cass 137.
CHAPTEE XVI
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE
WHEN Congress came together again in chap.xvl
December, there was such a change in the ims.
temper of its members that no one would have
imagined, on seeing the House divided, that it was
the same body which had assembled there a year
before. The election was over ; the Whigs were to
control the Executive Department of the Govern-
ment for four years to come ; the members them-
selves were either reelected or defeated ; and there
was nothing to prevent the gratification of such
private feelings as they might have been suppress-
ing during the canvass in the interest of their
party. It was not long before some of the North-
ern Democrats began to avail themselves of this
new liberty. They had returned burdened with a
sense of wrong. They had seen their party put in
deadly peril by reason of its fidelity to the South,
and they had seen how little their Southern
brethren cared for their labors and sacrifices, in
the enormous gains which Taylor had made in the
South, carrying eight out of fifteen slave States.
They were in the humor to avenge themselves by a
display of independence on their own account, at
the first opportunity. The occasion was not long
284 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xvi. in presenting itself. A few days after Congress
opened, Mr. Root, of Ohio, introduced a resolution
instructing the Committee on Territories to bring
in a bill " with as little delay as practicable " to
provide territorial governments for California and
New Mexico, which should " exclude slavery there-
from." This resolution would have thrown the
same House into a panic twelve months before, but
now it passed by a vote of 108 to 80 — in the
former number were all the Whigs from the North
and all the Democrats but eight, and in the latter
the entire South and the eight referred to.
The Senate, however, was not so susceptible to
popular impressions, and the bill, prepared in
obedience to the mandate of the House, never got
farther than the desk of the Senate Chamber.
The pro-slavery majority in that body held firmly
together till near the close of the session, when
they attempted to bring in the new territories with-
out any restriction as to slavery, by attaching
what is called "a rider" to that effect to the Civil
Appropriation Bill. The House resisted, and
returned the bill to the Senate with the rider un-
horsed. A committee of conference failed to agree.
Mr. McClernand, a Democrat from Illinois, then
moved that the House recede from its disagreement,
which was carried by a few Whig votes, to the
dismay of those who were not in the secret, when
Richard W. Thompson (who was thirty years after-
wards Secretary of the Navy) instantly moved
that the House do concur with the Senate, with
this amendment, that the existing laws of those
territories be for the present and until Congress
should amend them, retained. This would secure
A FOETUNATE ESCAPE 285
them to freedom, as slavery had long ago been chap.xvi.
abolished by Mexico. This amendment passed,
and the Senate had to face the many-pronged
dilemma, either to defeat the Appropriation Bill, or
to consent that the territories should be organized
as free communities, or to swallow their protesta-
tions that the territories were in sore need of
government and adjourn, leaving them in the
anarchy they had so feelingly depicted. They
chose the last as the least dangerous course, and
passed the Appropriation Bill in its original form.
Mr. Lincoln took little part in the discussions
incident to these proceedings; he was constantly
in his seat, however, and voted generally with his
party, and always with those opposed to the exten-
sion of slavery. He used to say that he had voted
for the Wilmot proviso, in its various phases,
forty- two times. He left to others, however, the
active work on the floor. His chief preoccupation
during this second session was a scheme which
links itself characteristically with his first protest
against the proscriptive spirit of slavery ten years
before in the Illinois Legislature and his immortal
act fifteen years afterwards in consequence of
which American slavery ceased to exist. He had
long felt in common with many others that the
traffic in human beings under the very shadow of
the Capitol was a national scandal and reproach.
He thought that Congress had the power under the
Constitution to regulate or prohibit slavery in all
regions under its exclusive jurisdiction, and he
thought it proper to exercise that power with due
regard to vested rights and the general welfare.
He therefore resolved to test the question whether
286
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Chap. XVI.
Giddings's
diary, Jan-
uary 8, 9,
and 11, 1849:
published
in the
" Cleve-
land Post,"
March 31,
1878.
it were possible to remove from the seat of govern-
ment this stain and offense.
He proceeded carefully and cautiously about it,
after his habit. When he had drawn up his plan,
he took counsel with some of the leading citizens
of Washington and some of the more prominent
members of Congress before bringing it forward.
His bill obtained the cordial approval of Colonel
Seaton, the Mayor of Washington, whom Mr. Lin-
coln had consulted as the representative of the
intelligent slave-holding citizens of the District,
and of Joshua R. Giddings, whom he regarded as
the leading abolitionist in Congress, a fact which
sufficiently proves the practical wisdom with which
he had reconciled the demands of right and ex-
pediency. In the meantime, however, Mr. Gott, a
member from New York, had introduced a resolu-
tion with a rhetorical preamble directing the proper
committee to bring in a bill prohibiting the slave-
trade in the District. This occasioned great excite-
ment, much caucusing and threatening on the part
of the Southern members, but nothing else. In the
opinion of the leading antislavery men, Mr. Lin-
coln's bill, being at the same time more radical and
more reasonable, was far better calculated to effect
its purpose. Giddings says in his diary : " This
evening (January 11), our whole mess remained in
the dining-room after tea, and conversed upon the
subject of Mr. Lincoln's bill to abolish slavery. It
was approved by all ; I believe it as good a bill as
we could get at this time, and am willing to pay
for slaves in order to save them from the Southern
market, as I suppose every man in the District
would sell his slaves if he saw that slavery was
A FOETUNATE ESCAPE 287
to be abolished." Mr. Lincoln therefore moved, on chap.xvl
the 16th of January, as an amendment to Gott's
proposition, that the committee report a bill for
the total abolition of slavery in the District of Co-
lumbia, the terms of which he gave in full. They
were in substance the following :
The first two sections prohibit the bringing of
slaves into the district or selling them out of it,
provided, however, that officers of the Government,
being citizens of slave-holding States, may bring
their household servants with them for a reason-
able time and take them away again. The third
provides a temporary system of apprenticeship and
eventual emancipation for children born of slave-
mothers after January 1, 1850. The fourth pro-
vides for the manumission of slaves by the
Government on application of the owners, the
latter to receive their full cash value. The fifth
provides for the return of fugitive slaves from
Washington and Georgetown. The sixth submits
this bill itself to a popular vote in the District as a
condition of its promulgation as law.
These are the essential points of the measure and
the success of Mr. Lincoln in gaining the adhesion
of the abolitionists in the House is more remark-
able than that he should have induced the Wash-
ington Conservatives to approve it. But the usual
result followed as soon as it was formally intro-
duced to the notice of Congress. It was met by
that violent and excited opposition which greeted
any measure, however intrinsically moderate and
reasonable, which was founded on the assumption
that slavery was not in itself a good and desirable
thing. The social influences of Washington were
288 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xvi. brought to bear against a proposition which the
Southerners contended would vulgarize society,
and the genial and liberal mayor was forced to
withdraw his approval as gracefully or as awk-
wardly as he might. The prospects of the bill
were seen to be hopeless, as the session was to end
on the 4th of March, and no further effort was
made to carry it through. Fifteen years after-
wards, in the stress and tempest of a terrible war,
it was Mr. Lincoln's strange fortune to sign a bill
sent him by Congress for the abolition of slavery
in Washington ; and perhaps the most remarkable
thing about the whole transaction was that while
we were looking politically upon a new heaven and
a new earth, — for the vast change in our moral
and economic condition might justify so audacious
a phrase, — when there was scarcely a man on the
continent who had not greatly shifted his point of
view in a dozen years, there was so little change
in Mr. Lincoln. The same hatred of slavery, the
same sympathy with the slave, the same considera-
tion for the slaveholder as the victim of a system
he had inherited, the same sense of divided respon-
sibility between the South and the North, the same
desire to effect great reforms with as little in-
dividual damage and injury, as little disturbance
of social conditions as possible, were equally
evident when the raw pioneer signed the protest
with Dan Stone at Vandalia, when the mature man
moved the resolution of 1849 in the Capitol, and
when the President gave the sanction of his bold
signature to the act which swept away the slave-
shambles from the city of Washington.
His term in Congress ended on the 4th of March,
JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE 289
1849, and he was not a candidate for reelection. A chap. xvi.
year before he had contemplated the possibility of
entering the field again. He then wrote to his
friend and partner Herndon : " It is very pleasant
for me to learn from you that there are some who
desire that I should be reelected. I most heartily
thank them for their kind partiality ; and I can say,
as Mr. Clay said of the annexation of Texas, that
'personally I would not object' to a reelection,
although I thought at the time [of his nomina-
tion], and still think, it would be quite as well for
me to return to the law at the end of a single term.
I made the declaration that I would not be a can-
didate again, more from a wish to deal fairly with
others, to keep peace among our friends, and keep
the district from going to the enemy, than for any
cause personal to myself, so that, if it should so
happen that nobody else wishes to be elected, I
could not refuse the people the right of sending
me again. But to enter myself as a competitor of
others, or to authorize any one so to enter me, is
what my word and honor forbid."
But before his first session ended he gave up all
idea of going back, and heartily concurred in the
nomination of Judge Logan to succeed him. The
Sangamon district was the one which the Whigs of
Illinois had apparently the best prospect of carry-
ing, and it was full of able and ambitious men,
who were nominated successively for the only
place which gave them the opportunity of play-
ing a part in the national theater at Washington.
They all served with more or less distinction, but
for eight years no one was ever twice a candidate.
A sort of tradition had grown up, through which
Vol. I.— 19
290 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xvi. a perverted notion of honor and propriety held it
discreditable in a member to ask for reelection.
This state of things was not peculiar to that dis-
trict, and it survives with more or less vigor
throughout the country to this day, to the serious
detriment of Congress. This consideration, coupled
with what is called the claim of locality, must in
time still further deteriorate the representatives of
the States at Washington. To ask in a nominating
convention who is best qualified for service in
Congress is always regarded as an impertinence;
but the question "what county in the district
has had the Congressman oftenest " is always con-
sidered in order. For such reasons as these Mr.
Lincoln refused to allow his name to go before the
voters again, and the next year he again refused,
writing an emphatic letter for publication, in
which he said that there were many Whigs who
could do as much as he "to bring the district right
side up."
Colonel Baker had come back from the wars
with all the glitter of Cerro Grordo about him, but
did not find the prospect of political preferment
flattering in Sangamon County, and therefore, with
that versatility and sagacity which was more than
once to render him signal service, he removed to
the Galena district, in the extreme north-western
corner of the State, and almost immediately on his
arrival there received a nomination to Congress.
He was doubly fortunate in this move, as the
nomination he was unable to take away from
Logan proved useless to the latter, who was
defeated after a hot contest. Baker therefore
took the place of Lincoln as the only Whig mem-
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE 291
ber from Illinois, and their names occur frequently chap. xvi.
together in the arrangements for the distribution
of "Federal patronage" at the close of the Ad-
ministration of Polk and the beginning of that
of Taylor.
During the period while the President-elect was
considering the appointment of his Cabinet, Lin-
coln used all the influence he could bring to bear,
which was probably not very much, in favor of
Baker for a place in the Government. The Whig
members of the Legislatures of Illinois, Iowa, and Mg letter
Wisconsin joined in this effort, which came to f™ m ton~
nothing. The recommendations to office which FeSafilSb.
Lincoln made after the inauguration of General
Taylor are probably unique of their kind. Here is
a specimen which is short enough to give entire.
It is addressed to the Secretary of the Interior:
" I recommend that William Butler be appointed
Pension Agent for the Illinois agency when the
place shall be vacant. Mr. Hurst, the present
incumbent, I believe has performed the duties
very well. • He is a decided partisan, and I believe
expects to be removed. Whether he shall be, I
submit to the Department. This office is not con-
fined to my district, but pertains to the whole
State ; so that Colonel Baker has an equal right
with myself to be heard concerning it. However,
the office is located here (at Springfield); and I
think it is not probable any one would desire to
remove from a distance to take it."
We have examined a large number of his rec-
ommendations— for with a complete change of
administration there would naturally be great
activity among the office-seekers — and they are all
292 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xvi. in precisely the same vein. He nowhere asks for the
removal of an incumbent ; he never claims a place
as subject to his disposition ; in fact, he makes no
personal claim whatever; he simply advises the
Government, in case a vacancy occurs, who, in his
opinion, is the best man to fill it. When there are
two applicants, he indicates which is on the whole
the better man, and sometimes adds that the weight
of recommendations is in favor of the other ! In
one instance he sends forward the recommendations
of the man whom he does not prefer, with an
indorsement emphasizing the importance of them,
and adding: "From personal knowledge I consider
Mr. Bond every way worthy of the office and
qualified to fill it. Holding the individual opinion
that the appointment of a different gentleman
would be better, I ask especial attention and con-
sideration for his claims, and for the opinions ex-
pressed in his favor by those over whom I can
claim no superiority." The candor, the fairness
and moderation, together with the respect for the
public service which these recommendations dis-
play, are all the more remarkable when we reflect
that there was as yet no sign of a public conscience
upon the subject. The patronage of the Govern-
ment was scrambled for, as a matter of course, in
the mire into which Jackson had flung it.
For a few weeks in the spring of 1849 Mr. Lin-
coln appears in a character which is entirely out of
keeping with all his former and subsequent career.
He became, for the first and only time in his life,
an applicant for an appointment at the hands of
the President. His bearing in this attitude was
marked by his usual individuality. In the opinion
A FOKTUNATE ESCAPE 293
of many Illinoisans it was important that the place chap. xvi.
of Commissioner of the General Land Office should
be given to a citizen of their State, one thoroughly-
acquainted with the land law in the West and the
special needs of that region. A letter to Lincoln
was drawn up and signed by some half-dozen of
the leading Whigs of the State asking him to be-
come an applicant for that position.
He promptly answered, saying that if the posi-
tion could be secured for a citizen of Illinois only
by his accepting it, he would consent ; but he went
on to say that he had promised his best efforts
to Cyrus Edwards for that place, and had after-
wards stipulated with Colonel Baker that if J. L.
D. Morrison, another Mexican hero, and Edwards
could come to an understanding with each other as
to which should withdraw, he would join in recom-
mending the other; that he could not take the
place, therefore, unless it became clearly impossi-
ble for either of the others to get it. Some weeks
later, the impossibility referred to having become
apparent, Mr. Lincoln applied for the place; but
a suitor for office so laggard and so scrupulous as
he, stood very little chance of success in contests
like those which periodically raged at Washington
during the first weeks of every new administration.
The place came, indeed, to Illinois, but to neither
of the three we have mentioned. The fortunate
applicant was Justin Butterfield, of Chicago, a
man well and favorably known among the early
members of the Illinois bar,1 who, however, devoted
1 Butterfield had a great repu- old lawyers in Illinois, and show
tation for ready wit and was sus- at least a well-marked humorous
pected of deep learning. Some intention. On one occasion he
of his jests are still repeated by appeared before Judge Pope to
294 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xvi. less assiduous attention to the law than to the
business of office-seeking, which he practiced with
fair success all his days.
It was in this way that Abraham Lincoln met
and escaped one of the greatest dangers of his life.
In after days he recognized the error he had
committed, and congratulated himself upon the
happy deliverance he had obtained through no
merit of his own. The loss of at least four years
of the active pursuit of his profession would have
been irreparable, leaving out of view the strong
probability that the singular charm of Washington
life to men who have a passion for politics might
have kept him there forever. It has been said that
a residence in Washington leaves no man precisely
as it found him. This is an axiom which may be
applied to most cities in a certain sense, but it
is true in a peculiar degree of our capital.
To the men who go there from small rural com-
munities in the South and the West, the bustle
and stir, the intellectual movement, such as it is,
the ordinary subjects of conversation, of such
ask the discharge of the famous that he had lost an office in New
Mormon Prophet, Joe Smith, York by opposing the war of
who was in custody surrounded 1812. "Henceforth," he said
by his church dignitaries. Bow- with cynical vehemence, "I am
ing profoundly to the court and for war, pestilence, and famine."
the ladies who thronged the hall, He was once defending the
he said: "I appear before you Shawneetown Bank and advocat-
under solemn and peculiar cir- ing the extension of its charter;
cumstances. I am to address the an opposing lawyer contended
Pope, surrounded by angels, in that this would be creating a new
the presence of the holy apostles, bank. Butterfield brought a
in behalf of the Prophet of the smile from the court and a laugh
Lord." We once heard Lincoln from the bar by asking "whether
say of Butterfield that he was when the Lord lengthened the
one of the few Whigs in Illinois life of Hezekiah he made a new
who approved the Mexican war. man, or whether it was the same
His reason, frankly given, was old Hezekiah ? "
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE 295
vastly greater importance than anything they have chap.xvi.
previously known, the daily, even hourly combats
on the floor of both houses, the intrigue and
the struggle of office-hunting, which engage vast
numbers besides the office-seekers, the superior
piquancy and interest of the scandal which is
talked at a Congressional boarding-house over
that which seasons the dull days at village-tav-
erns— all this gives a savor to life in Washington
the memory of which doubles the tedium of the
sequestered vale to which the beaten legislator re-
turns when his brief hour of glory is over. It is
this which brings to the State Department, after
every general election, that crowd of specters,
with their bales of recommendations from pitying
colleagues who have been reelected, whose dimin-
ishing prayers run down the whole gamut of sup-
plication from St. James to St. Paul of Loando,
and of whom at the last it must be said, as Mr.
Evarts once said after an unusually heavy day,
" Many called, but few chosen." Of those who do
not achieve the ruinous success of going abroad to
consulates that will not pay their board, or mis-
sions where they avoid daily shame only by hid-
ing their penury and their ignorance away from
observation, a great portion yield to their fate and
join that fleet of wrecks which floats forever on
the pavements of Washington.
It is needless to say that Mr. Lincoln received
no damage from his term of service in Washing-
ton, but we know of nothing which shows so
strongly the perilous fascination of the place as
the fact that a man of his extraordinary moral and
mental qualities could ever have thought for a
296 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xvi. moment of accepting a position so insignificant
and incongruous as that which he was more than
willing to assume when he left Congress. He
would have filled the place with honor and credit —
but at a monstrous expense. We do not so much
refer to his exceptional career and his great figure
in history; these momentous contingencies could
not have suggested themselves to him. But the
place he was reasonably sure of filling in the
battle of life should have made a subordinate office
in Washington a thing out of the question. He
was already a lawyer of skill and reputation ; an
orator upon whom his party relied to speak for
them to the people. An innate love of combat
was in his heart ; he loved discussion like a medi-
eval schoolman. The air was already tremulous
with faint bugle-notes that heralded a conflict of
giants on a field of moral significance to which he
was fully alive and awake, where he was certain to
lead at least his hundreds and his thousands. Yet
if Justin Butterfield had not been a more supple,
more adroit, and less scrupulous suitor for office
than himself, Abraham Lincoln would have sat for
four inestimable years at a bureau-desk in the
Interior Department, and when the hour of action
sounded in Illinois, who would have filled the place
which he took as if he had been born for it ? Who
could have done the duty which he bore as lightly
as if he had been fashioned for it from the begin-
ning of time ?
His temptation did not end even with Butter-
field's success. The Administration of General
Taylor, apparently feeling that some compensa-
tion was due to one so earnestly recommended by
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE 297
the leading Whigs of the State, offered Mr. Lincoln chap. xvi.
the governorship of O'regon. This was a place
more suited to him than the other, and his accept-
ance of it was urged by some of his most judicious
friends1 on the ground that the new Territory
would soon be a State, and that he could come
back as a senator. This view of the matter com-
mended itself favorably to Lincoln himself, who,
however, gave it up on account of the natural
unwillingness of his wife to remove to a country
so wild and so remote.
This was all as it should be. The best place for
him was Illinois, and he went about his work there
until his time should come.
1 Among others John T. Stuart, who is our authority for this
statement.
CHAPTER XVII
THE CIRCUIT LAWYER
IN that briefest of all autobiographies, which
Mr. Lincoln wrote for Jesse Fell upon three
pages of note-paper, he sketched in these words
the period at which we have arrived : " From 1849
to 1854, both inclusive, I practiced law more assid-
uously than ever before. . . I was losing interest
in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Com-
promise aroused me again." His service in Con-
gress had made him more generally known than
formerly, and had increased his practical value as
a member of any law firm. He was offered a
partnership on favorable terms by a lawyer in
good practice in Chicago ; but he declined it on
the ground that his health would not endure the
close confinement necessary in a city office. He
went back to Springfield, and resumed at once his
practice there and in the Eighth Judicial Circuit,
where his occupations and his associates were the
most congenial that he could anywhere find. For
five years he devoted himself to his work with
more energy and more success than ever before.
It was at this time that he gave a notable proof
of his unusual powers of mental discipline. His
wider knowledge of men and things, acquired by
contact with the great world, had shown him a cer-
THE CrECUIT LAWYEK 299
tain lack in himself of the power of close and CH.xvn.
sustained reasoning. To remedy this defect, he
applied himself, after his return from Congress,
to such works upon logic and mathematics as he
fancied would be serviceable. Devoting himself
with dogged energy to the task in hand, he soon
learned by heart six books of the propositions of
Euclid, and he retained through life a thorough
knowledge of the principles they contain.
The outward form and fashion of every institu-
tion change rapidly in growing communities like
our Western States, and the practice of the law
had already assumed a very different degree of
dignity and f ormality from that which it presented
only twenty years before. The lawyers in hunting-
shirts and mocassins had long since passed away ;
so had the judges who apologized to the criminals
that they sentenced, and charged them " to let
their friends on Bear Creek understand it was the
law and the jury who were responsible." Even the
easy familiarity of a later date would no longer be
tolerated. No successor of Judge Douglas had
been known to follow his example by coming
down from the bench, taking a seat in the lap of a
friend, throwing an arm around his neck, and in Ln. Arnold
that intimate attitude discussing, coram publico, "History of
whatever interested him. David Davis — after- county!"1
wards of the Supreme Court and of the Senate —
was for many years the presiding judge of this
circuit, and neither under him nor his predecessor,
S. H. Treat, was any lapse of dignity or of pro-
priety possible. Still there was much less of form
and ceremony insisted upon than is considered
proper and necessary in older communities.
300 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xvii. The bar in great measure was composed of the
same men who used to follow the circuit on horse-
back, over roads impassable to wheels, with their
scanty wardrobes, their law-books, and their docu-
ments crowding each other in their saddle-bags.
The improvement of roads which made carriages
a possibility had effected a great change, and the
coming of the railway had completed the sudden
development of the manners and customs of the
modernized community. But they could not all at
once take from the bar of the Eighth Circuit its
raciness and its individuality. The men who had
lived in log-cabins, who had hunted their way
through untrodden woods and prairies, who had
thought as much about the chances of swimming
over swollen fords as of their cases, who had
passed their nights — a half-dozen together — on
the floors of wayside hostelries, could never be
precisely the same sort of practitioners as the smug
barristers of a more conventional age and place.
But they were not deficient in ability, in learning,
or in that most valuable faculty which enables
really intelligent men to get their bearings and
sustain themselves in every sphere of life to which
they may be called. Some of these very colleagues
of Lincoln at the Springfield bar have sat in
Cabinets, have held their own on the floor of the
Senate, have led armies in the field, have governed
States, and all with a quiet self-reliance which was
as far as possible removed from either undue
arrogance or undue modesty.1
1 A few of the lawyers who Logan, Stuart, Baker, Samuel H.
practiced with Lincoln, and have Treat, Bledsoe, O. H. Browning,
held the highest official positions, Hardin, Lyman Trumbull, and
are Douglas, Shields, Stephen T. McClernand.
THE CIRCUIT LAWYER 301
Among these able and energetic men Lincoln as- ch. xvil
sumed and held the first rank. This is a statement
which ought not to be made without authority,
and rather than give the common repute of the
circuit, we prefer to cite the opinion of those
lawyers of Illinois who are entitled to speak as to
this matter, both by the weight of their personal
and professional character and by their eminent
official standing among the jurists of our time.
We shall quote rather fully from addresses delivered
by Justice David Davis, of the Supreme Court of
the United States, and by Judge Drummond, the
United States District Judge for Illinois. Judge
Davis says :
I enjoyed for over twenty years the personal friendship
of Mr. Lincoln. We were admitted to the bar about the
same time and traveled for many years what is known in
Illinois as the Eighth Judicial Court. In 1848, when I first
went on the bench, the circuit embraced fourteen counties,
and Mr. Lincoln went with the Court to every county.
Railroads were not then in use, and our mode of travel
was either on horseback or in buggies.
This simple life he loved, preferring it to the practice
of the law in a city, where, although the remuneration
would be greater, the opportunity would be less for
mixing with the great body of the people, who loved
him, and whom he loved. Mr. Lincoln was transferred
from the bar of that circuit to the office of the President
of the United States, having been without official position
since he left Congress in 1849. In all the elements that
constitute the great lawyer he had few equals. He was
great both at nisi prius and before an appellate tribunal.
He seized the strong points of a cause, and presented
them with clearness and great compactness. His mind
was logical and direct, and he did not indulge in extra-
neous discussion. Generalities and platitudes had no
charms for him. An unfailing vein of humor never
deserted him ; and he was able to claim the attention of
302 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xvii. court and jury, when the cause was the most uninterest-
ing, by the appropriateness of his anecdotes.1
His power of comparison was large, and he rarely
failed in a legal discussion to use that mode of reasoning.
The framework of his mental and moral being was
honesty, and a wrong cause was poorly defended by him.
The ability which some eminent lawyers possess, of
explaining away the bad points of a cause by ingenious
sophistry, was denied him. In order to bring into full
activity his great powers, it was necessary that he should
be convinced of the right and justice of the matter
which he advocated. When so convinced, whether the
cause was great or small, he was usually successful. He
read law-books but little, except when the cause in hand
made it necessary; yet he was usually self-reliant,
depending on his own resources, and rarely consulting
his brother lawyers, either on the management of his
case or on the legal questions involved.
Mr. Lincoln was the fairest and most accommodating of
practitioners, granting all favors which were consistent
with his duty to his client, and rarely availing himself of
an unwary oversight of his adversary.
He hated wrong and oppression everywhere, and many
a man whose fraudulent conduct was undergoing review
in a court of justice has writhed under his terrific indig-
nation and rebukes. He was the most simple and un-
ostentatious of men in his habits, having few wants, and
those easily supplied. To his honor be it said that he
never took from a client, even when his cause was
gained, more than he thought the services were worth
and the client could reasonably afford to pay. The people
where he practiced law were not rich, and his charges
were always small. When he was elected President, I
question whether there was a lawyer in the circuit, who
had been at the bar so long a time, whose means were not
larger. It did not seem to be one of the purposes of his
life to accumulate a fortune. In fact, outside of his pro-
l U. F. Linder once said to an that nattering unction to your
Eastern lawyer who expressed soul. Lincoln is like Tansey's
the opinion that Lincoln was horse, he 'breaks to win.'" — T.
wasting his time in telling W. S. Kidd, in the Lincoln Me-
stories to the jury, "Don't lay morial Album.
THE CIKCUIT LAWYER 303
f ession, he had no knowledge of the way to make money, ch. xvn.
and he never even attempted it.
Mr. Lincoln was loved by his brethren of the bar, and
no body of men will grieve more at his death, or pay
more sincere tributes to his memory. His presence on
the circuit was watched for with interest and never failed
to produce joy or hilarity. When casually absent, the
spirits of both bar and people were depressed. He was
not fond of litigation, and would compromise a lawsuit
whenever practicable.
No clearer or more authoritative statement of
Lincoln's rank as a lawyer can ever be made than
is found in these brief sentences, in which the
warmth of personal affection is not permitted to
disturb the measured appreciation, the habitual
reserve of the eminent jurist. But, as it may be
objected that the friendship which united Davis
and Lincoln rendered the one incapable of a just
judgment upon the merits of the other, we will
also give an extract from the address delivered in
Chicago by one of the ablest and most impartial
lawyers who have ever honored the bar and the
bench in the West. Judge Drummond says :
With a probity of character known to all, with an
intuitive insight into the human heart, with a clearness
of statement which was in itself an argument, with un-
common power and felicity of illustration, — often, it is
true, of a plain and homely kind, — and with that
sincerity and earnestness of manner which carried con-
viction, he was perhaps one of the most successful jury
lawyers we ever had in the State. He always tried a
case fairly and honestly. He never intentionally mis-
represented the evidence of a witness nor the argument
of an opponent. He met both squarely, and if he could
not explain the one or answer the other, substantially
admitted it. He never misstated the law, according to
his own intelligent view of it. Such was the transparent
candor and integrity of his nature, that he could not well
304 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xvii. or strongly argue a side or a cause that he thought
wrong. Of course he felt it his duty to say what could be
said, and to leave the decision to others ; but there could
be seen in such cases the inward struggle of his own
mind. In trying a case he might occasionally dwell too
long upon, or give too much importance to, an incon-
siderable point ; but this was the exception, and generally
he went straight to the citadel of the cause or question,
and struck home there, knowing if that were won the
outworks would necessarily fall. He could hardly be
called very learned in his profession, and yet he rarely
tried a cause without fully understanding the law appli-
cable to it; and I have no hesitation in saying he was
one of the ablest lawyers I have ever known. If he was
forcible before a jury, he was equally so with the Court.
He detected with unerring sagacity the weak points of
an opponent's argument, and pressed his own views with
overwhelming strength. His efforts were quite unequal,
and it might happen that he would not, on some occa-
sions, strike one as at all remarkable. But let him be
thoroughly roused, let him feel that he was right, and
some principle was involved in his cause, and he would
come out with an earnestness of conviction, a power of
argument, a wealth of illustration, that I have never seen
surpassed.
This is nothing less than the portrait of a great
lawyer, drawn by competent hands, with the life-
long habit of conscientious accuracy. If we chose
to continue we could fill this volume with the
tributes of his professional associates, ranging all
the way from the commonplaces of condolence to
the most extravagant eulogy. But enough has
been quoted to justify the tradition which Lincoln
left behind him at the bar of Illinois. His weak as
well as his strong qualities have been indicated.
He never learned the technicalities, what some
would call the tricks, of the profession. The
sleight of plea and demurrer, the legerdemain by
DAVID DAVIS-
THE CIRCUIT LAWYEK
305
which justice is balked and a weak case is made to
gain an unfair advantage, was too subtle and shifty
for his strong and straightforward intelligence.
He met these manoeuvres sufficiently well, when
practiced by others, but he never could get in the
way of handling them for himself. On the wrong
side he was always weak. He knew this himself,
and avoided such cases when he could consistently
with the rules of his profession. He would often
persuade a fair-minded litigant of the injustice of
his case and induce him to give it up. His partner,
Mr. Herndon, relates a speech in point which Lin-
coln once made to a man who offered him an
objectionable case: "Yes, there is no reasonable
doubt but that I can gain your case for you. I can
set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads ; I can dis-
tress a widowed mother and her six fatherless chil-
dren, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars,
which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much
to them as it does to you. I shall not take your
case, but I will give a little advice for nothing.
You seem a sprightly, energetic man. I would
advise you to try your hand at making six hun-
dred dollars in some other way." Sometimes, after
he had entered upon a criminal case, the conviction
that his client was guilty would affect him with a
sort of panic. On one occasion he turned suddenly
to his associate and said : " Swett, the man is
guilty ; you defend him, I can't," and so gave up
his share of a large fee. The same thing happened
at another time when he was engaged with Judge
S. 0. Parks in defending a man accused of
larceny. He said : "If you can say anything for
the man, do it, I can't ; if I attempt it, the jury will
Vol. I.— 20
Lamon,
p. 317.
306 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
CH.XV11. see I think he is guilty, and convict him." Once
he was prosecuting a civil suit, in the course of
which evidence was introduced showing that his
client was attempting a fraud. Lincoln rose and
went to his hotel in deep disgust. The judge sent
for him ; he refused to come. " Tell the judge," he
said, " my hands are dirty ; I came over to wash
them." We are aware that these stories detract
something from the character of the lawyer ; but
this inflexible, inconvenient, and fastidious moral-
ity was to be of vast service afterwards to his
country and the world.
The Nemesis which waits upon men of extraor-
dinary wit or humor has not neglected Mr. Lin-
coln, and the young lawyers of Illinois, who never
knew him, have an endless store of jokes and
pleasantries in his name ; some of them as old as
Howleglass or Rabelais.1 But the fact is that with
all his stories and jests, his frank companionable
humor, his gift of easy accessibility and welcome,
he was, even while he traveled the Eighth Circuit,
a man of grave and serious temper and of an
unusual innate dignity and reserve. He had few
or no special intimates, and there was a line beyond
which no one ever thought of passing. Besides,
he was too strong a man in the court-room to be
regarded with anything but respect in a community
lAs a specimen of these sto- "Gone to h ," was the gloomy
ries we give the following, well response. "Well, don't give it
vouched for, as apocrypha gen- up," Lincoln rejoined cheer-
erally are: Lincoln met one day fully; "you can try it again
on the court-house steps a young there " — a quip which has been
lawyer who had lost a case — his attributed to many wits in many
only one — and looked very dis- ages, and will doubtless make
consolate. " What has become the reputation of jesters yet to
of your casef" Lincoln asked, be.
THE CIRCUIT LAWYER 307
in which legal ability was the only especial mark ch. xvil
of distinction.
Few of his forensic speeches have been preserved,
bnt his contemporaries all agree as to their singular
ability and power. He seemed absolutely at home
in a court-room ; his great stature did not encum-
ber him there ; it seemed like a natural symbol of
superiority. His bearing and gesticulation had
no awkwardness about them; they were simply
striking and original. He assumed at the start
a frank and friendly relation with the jury which
was extremely effective. He usually began, as the
phrase ran, by " giving away his case " ; by allow-
ing to the opposite side every possible advantage
that they could honestly and justly claim. Then
he would present his own side of the case, with a
clearness, a candor, an adroitness of statement
which at once nattered and convinced the jury,
and made even the bystanders his partisans.
Sometimes he disturbed the court with laughter by
his humorous or apt illustrations ; sometimes he
excited the audience by that florid and exuberant
rhetoric which he knew well enough how and when
to indulge in ; but his more usual and more success-
ful manner was to rely upon a clear, strong, lucid
statement, keeping details in proper subordination
and bringing forward, in a way which fastened the
attention of court and jury alike, the essential
point on which he claimed a decision. " Indeed,"
says one of his colleagues, "his statement often
rendered argument unnecessary, and often the
court would stop him and say, ' If that is the case, ^ffiof'
we will hear the other side.' " p?32.'
Whatever doubts might be entertained as to
308
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
Ch. XVII.
I.N.
Arnold,
Speech
before the
State Bar
Associa-
tion,
Jan. 7, 1881.
whether he was the ablest lawyer on the circuit,
there was never any dissent from the opinion that
he was the one most cordially and universally
liked. If he did not himself enjoy his full share
of the happiness of life, he certainly diffused more
of it among his fellows than is in the power of
most men. His arrival was a little festival in the
county-seats where his pursuits led him to pass
so much of his time. Several eye-witnesses have
described these scenes in terms which would seem
exaggerated if they were not so fully confirmed.
The bench and bar would gather at the tavern
where he was expected, to give him a cordial wel-
come ; says one writer, " He brought light with
him." This is not hard to understand. Whatever
his cares, he never inflicted them upon others. He
talked singularly well, but never about himself.
He was full of wit which never wounded, of humor
which mellowed the harshness of that new and
raw life of the prairies. He never asked for help,
but was always ready to give it. He received
everybody's confidence, and rarely gave his own
in return. He took no mean advantages in court
or in conversation, and, satisfied with the respect
and kindliness which he everywhere met, he
sought no quarrels and seldom had to decline
them. He did not accumulate wealth; as Judge
Davis said, " He seemed never to care for it." He
had a good income from his profession, though
the fees he received would bring a smile to the
well-paid lips of the great attorneys of to-day.
The largest fee he ever got was one of five thou-
sand dollars from the Illinois Central Railway, and
he had to bring suit to compel them to pay it. He
THE CIRCUIT LAWYER 309
spent what he received in the education of his ch.xvii.
children, in the care of his family, and in a plain T N
and generous way of living. One who often visited speech'
him writes, referring to " the old-fashioned hospi- stateBar
tality of Springfield," "Among others I recall with tion,
a sad pleasure, the dinners and evening parties
given by Mrs. Lincoln. In her modest and sim-
ple home, where everything was so orderly and
refined, there was always on the part of both host
and hostess a cordial and hearty Western welcome
which put every guest perfectly at ease. Their
table was famed for the excellence of many rare
Kentucky dishes, and for the venison, wild tur-
keys, and other game, then so abundant. Yet it
was her genial manner and ever-kind welcome,
and Mr. Lincoln's wit and humor, anecdote and
unrivaled conversation, which formed the chief
attraction."
Here we leave him for a while, in this peaceful
and laborious period of his life ; engaged in useful
and congenial toil; surrounded by the love and
respect of the entire community; in the fullness of
his years and strength ; the struggles of his youth,
which were so easy to his active brain and his
mighty muscles, all behind him, and the titanic
labors of his manhood yet to come. We shall
now try to sketch the beginnings of that tremen-
dous controversy which he was in a few years to
take up, to guide and direct to its wonderful and
tragical close.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE BALANCE OF POWER
WE shall see in the course of the present work
how the life of Abraham Lincoln divides
itself into three principal periods, with correspond-
ing stages of intellectual development: the first,
of about forty years, ending with his term in
Congress; the second, of about ten years, con-
cluding with his final campaign of political speech-
making in New York and in New England, shortly
before the Presidential nominations of 1860; and
the last, of about five years, terminating at his
death. We have thus far traced his career through
the first period of forty years. In the several
stages of frontier experience through which he had
passed, and which in the main but repeated the
trials and vicissitudes of thousands of other boys
and youths in the West, only so much individuality
had been developed in him as brought him into the
leading class of his contemporaries. He had risen
from laborer to student, from clerk to lawyer, from
politician to legislator. That he had lifted himself
by healthy ambition and unaided industry out of
the station of a farm-hand, whose routine life
begins and ends in a backwoods log-cabin, to that
representative character and authority which seated
THE BALANCE OF POWEB 311
him in the national Capitol to aid in framing laws ch. xvni.
for his country, was already an achievement that
may well be held to crown honorably a career of
forty years.
Such achievement and such distinction, how-
ever, were not so uncommon as to appear phe-
nomenal. Hundreds of other boys born in log-cabins
had won similar elevation in the manly, practical
school of Western public life. Even in ordinary
times there still remained within the reach of
average intellects several higher grades of public
service. It is quite probable that the talents of
Lincoln would have made him Governor of Illinois
or given him a place in the United States Senate.
But the story of his life would not have com-
manded, as it now does, the unflagging attention
of the world, had there not fallen upon his gen-
eration the unusual conditions and opportunities
brought about by a series of remarkable convulsions
in national politics. If we would correctly under-
stand how Lincoln became, first a conspicuous
actor, and then a chosen leader, in a great strife of
national parties for supremacy and power, we must
briefly study the origin and development of the
great slavery controversy in American legislation
which found its highest activity and decisive cul-
mination in the single decade from 1850 to 1860.
But we should greatly err if we attributed the new
events in Lincoln's career to the caprice of fortune.
The conditions and opportunities of which we
speak were broadly national, and open to all with-
out restriction of rank or locality. Many of his
contemporaries had seemingly overshadowing
advantages, by prominence and training, to seize
312 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xviii. and appropriate them to their own advancement.
It is precisely this careful study of the times which
shows us by what inevitable process of selection
honors and labors of which he did not dream fell
upon him ; how, indeed, it was not the individual
who gained the prize, but the paramount duty
which claimed the man.
It is now universally understood, if not con-
ceded, that the Eebellion of 1861 was begun for the
sole purpose of defending and preserving to the
seceding States the institution of African slavery
and making them the nucleus of a great slave em-
pire, which in their ambitious dreams they hoped
would include Mexico, Central America, and the
West India Islands, and perhaps even the tropical
States of South America. Both a real and a pre-
tended fear that slavery was in danger lay at the
bottom of this design. The real fear arose from
the palpable fact, impossible to conceal, that the
slave system was a reactionary obstacle in the
pathway of modern civilization, and its political,
material, philosophical, and religious development.
The pretended danger was the permanent loss of
political power by the slave States of the Union, as
shown in the election of Lincoln to the presidency,
which they averred would necessarily throw all the
forces of the national life against the "peculiar
institution," and crush it under forms of law. It
was by magnifying this danger from remote into
immediate consequence that they excited the
population of the cotton States to resistance and
rebellion. Seizing this opportunity, it was their
present purpose to establish a slave Confederacy,
consisting of the cotton States, which should in
THE BALANCE OF POWER 313
due time draw to itself, by an irresistible gravi- ch. xviii.
tation of sympathy and interest, first, the border
slave States, and, in the further progress of events,
the tropical countries towards the equator.
The popular agitation, or war of words between
the North and the South on the subject of slavery,
which led to the armed insurrection was three-
fold : First, the economic efforts to prevent the de-
struction of the monetary value of four millions of
human beings held in bondage, who were bought
and sold as chattels, and whose aggregate valuation,
under circumstances existing at the outbreak of the
civil war, was variously computed at $400,000,000
to $1,600,000,000 j1 second, a moral debate as to the
abstract righteousness or iniquity of the system;
and, third, a political struggle for the balance of
power in government and public policy, by which
the security and perpetuity of the institution might
be guaranteed.
This sectional controversy over the institution of
slavery in its threefold aspect had begun with the
very birth of the nation, had continued with its
growth, and become intensified with its strength.
The year before the Mayflower brought the Pilgrims
to Plymouth Rock, a Dutch ship landed a cargo
of African slaves at Jamestown, in Virginia. Dur-
ing the long colonial period the English Government
fostered and forced the importation of slaves to
America equally with English goods. In the orig-
inal draft of the Declaration of Independence,
1 The Convention of Missis- the rate of a thousand dollars for
sippi, which passed the secession each slave, an average absurdly
ordinance, in its Declaration of excessive, and showing their ex-
Causes placed the total value of aggerated estimate of the mone-
their property in slaves at " four tary value of the institution of
billions of money." This was at slavery. „
314 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xviii. Thomas Jefferson invoked the reprobation of man-
kind upon the British King for his share in this
inhuman traffic. On reflection, however, this was
discovered to be but another case of Satan rebuking
sin. The blood money which reddened the hands
of English royalty stained equally those of many
an American rebel. The public opinion of the
colonies was already too much debauched to sit in
unanimous moral judgment on this crime against
humanity. The objections of South Carolina and
Georgia sufficed to cause the erasure and suppres-
sion of the obnoxious paragraph. Nor were the
Northern States guiltless : Newport was yet a great
slave-mart, and the commerce of New England
drew more advantage from the traffic than did the
agriculture of the South.
J,»Law ©?' ^^ ^he elements of the later controversy already
andeBdo°"d- existed. Slave codes and fugitive- slave laws, abo-
pgp.'22&SnL lition societies and emancipation bills, are older
than our Constitution ; and negro troops fought in
the Revolutionary war for American independence.
Liberal men could be found in South Carolina who
hated slavery, and narrow men in Massachusetts
who defended it. But these individual instances
of prejudice or liberality were submerged and lost
in the current of popular opinion springing from
prevailing interests in the respective localities,
and institutions molded principles, until in turn
principles should become strong enough to re-
form institutions. In short, slavery was one of
the many "relics of barbarism" — like the divine
right of kings, religious persecution, torture of
the accused, imprisonment and enslavement for
debt, witch-burning, and kindred " institutions " —
THE BALANCE OF POWEK 315
which were transmitted to that generation from ch. xviii.
former ages as so many burdens of humanity, for
help in the removal of which the new nation was
in the providence of Grod perhaps called into
existence. The whole matter in its broader
aspects is part of that persistent struggle of the
centuries between despotism and individual free-
dom; between arbitrary wrong, consecrated by
tradition and law, and the unfolding recognition
of private rights ; between the thraldom of public
opinion and liberty of conscience; between the
greed of gain and the Golden Eule of Christ.
"Whoever, therefore, chooses to trace the remote
origin of the American Rebellion will find the germ
of the Union armies of 1861-5 in the cabin of the
Mayflower, and the inception of the Secession forces
between the decks of that Dutch slaver which
planted the fruits of her avarice and piracy in the
James River colonies in 1619.
So elaborate and searching a study, however, is
not necessary to the purposes of this work. A very
brief mention of the principal landmarks of the
long contest will serve to show the historical rela-
tion, and explain the phraseology, of its final issues.
The first of these great landmarks was the Ordi-
nance of 1787. All the States tolerated slavery and
permitted the slave-trade during the Revolution.
But in most of them the morality of the system
was strongly drawn in question, especially by the
abolition societies, which embraced many of the
most prominent patriots. A public opinion, not
indeed unanimous, but largely in the majority,
demanded that the " necessary evil " should cease.
When the Continental Congress came to the practi-
316 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xviii. cal work of providing a government for the " West-
ern lands," which the financial pressure and the
absolute need of union compelled New York and
Virginia to cede to the general Government,
Thomas Jefferson proposed, among other features
in his plan and draft of 1784, to add a clause pro-
hibiting slavery in all the North-west territory after
the year 1800. A North Carolina member moved
to strike out this clause. The form of the question
put by the chairman was, " Shall the clause stand ! "
Sixteen members voted aye and seven members
voted no; but under the clumsy legislative ma-
chinery of the Confederation these seven noes car-
ried the question, since a majority of States had
failed to vote in the affirmative.
Three years later, July 13, 1787, this first ordi-
nance was repealed by a second, establishing our
more modern form of territorial government. It
is justly famed for many of its provisions; but its
chief value is conceded to have been its sixth
article, ordaining the immediate and perpetual
prohibition of slavery. Upon this all the States
present in Congress — three Northern and five
Southern — voted in the affirmative; five States
were absent, four Northern and one Southern.
This piece of legislation is remarkable in that it
was an entirely new bill, substituted for a former
and altogether different scheme containing no
prohibition whatever, and that it was passed
through all the forms and stages of enactment
in the short space of four days. History sheds
little light on the official transaction, but con-
temporary evidence points to the influence of a
powerful lobby.
THE BALANCE OF POWER 317
Several plausible reasons are assigned why the ch. xviii.
three slave States of Maryland, Virginia, and
North Carolina voted for this prohibition. First,
the West was competing with the Territory of
Maine for settlers ; second, the whole scheme was
in the interest of the "Ohio Company," a newly
formed Massachusetts emigrant aid society which
immediately made a large purchase of lands; third,
the unsettled regions south of the Ohio River had
not yet been ceded to the general Government,
and were therefore open to slavery from the con-
tiguous Southern States ; fourth, little was known
of the extent or character of the great "West ; and,
therefore, fifth, the Ohio River was doubtless
thought to be a fair and equitable dividing line.
The ordinance itself provided for the formation
of not less than three nor more than five States,
and under its shielding provisions Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin were added to
the Union with free constitutions.
It does not appear that sectional motives oper-
ated for or against the foregoing enactment ; they
were probably held in abeyance by other consid-
erations. But it must not be inferred therefrom
that the slavery question was absent or dormant
in the country. There was already a North and
a South. At that very time the constitutional
convention was in session in Philadelphia. George
Washington and his fellow-delegates were grap-
pling with the novel problems of government
which the happy issue of the Revolution and
the lamentable failure of the Confederation forced
upon the country. One of these problems was the
presence of over half a million of slaves, nearly all
318 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CH.xvni. in five Southern States. Should they be taxed!
Should they be represented? Should the power to
regulate commerce be allowed to control or termi-
nate their importation? Vital questions these,
which went not merely to the incidents but
the fundamental powers of government. The
slavery question seemed for months an element
of irreconcilable discord in the convention. The
slave-trade not only, but the domestic institution
itself, was characterized in language which South-
ern politicians of later times would have denounced
DaiSes," as "fanatical" and "incendiary." Pinckney wished
Vol305." p' the slaves to be represented equally with the
whites, since they were the Southern peasantry.
ibid., p. 392. Gouverneur Morris declared that as they were
only property they ought not to be represented
at all. Both the present and the future balance
of power in national legislation, as resulting from
slaves already in, and hereafter to be imported
into, old and new States, were debated under vari-
ous possibilities and probabilities.
Out of these divergent views grew the compro-
mises of the Constitution. 1. The slaves were to
be included in the enumeration for representation,
five blacks to be counted as three whites. 2. Con-
gress should have the right to prohibit the slave-
trade, but not till the lapse of twenty years.
3. Fugitive slaves should be delivered to their
owners. Each State, large or small, was allowed
two senators; and the apportionment of repre-
sentatives gave to the North thirty-five members
and fourteen senators, to the South thirty mem-
bers and twelve senators. But since the North
was not yet free from slavery, but only in process
THE BALANCE OF POWER 319
of becoming so, and as Virginia was the leading ch. xviii.
State of the Union, the real balance of power
remained in the hands of the South.
The newly formed Constitution went into suc-
cessful operation. Under legal provisions already-
made and the strong current of abolition senti-
ment then existing, all the Eastern and Middle
States down to Delaware became free. This gain,
however, was perhaps more than numerically
counterbalanced by the active importation of cap-
tured Africans, especially into South Carolina and
Georgia, up to the time the traffic ceased by law
in 1808. Jefferson had meanwhile purchased of
France the immense country west of the Missis-
sippi known as the Louisiana Territory. The free
navigation of that great river was assured, and the
importance of the West immeasurably increased.
The old French colonies at New Orleans and Kas-
kaskia were already strong outposts of civilization
and the nuclei of spreading settlements. Attracted
by the superior fertility of the soil, by the limitless
opportunities for speculation, by the enticing spirit
of adventure, and pushed by the restless energy
inherent in the Anglo-Saxon character, the older
States now began to pour a rising stream of emi-
gration into the West and the South-west.
In this race the free States, by reason of their
greater population, wealth, and commercial enter-
prise, would have outstripped the South but for
the introduction of a new and powerful influence
which operated exclusively in favor of the latter.
This was the discovery of the peculiar adaptation
of the soil and climate of portions of the Southern
States, combined with cheap slave-labor, to the
320 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xviii. cultivation of cotton. Half a century of experiment
and invention in England had brought about the
concurrent improvement of machinery for spinning
and weaving, and of the high-pressure engine to
furnish motive power. The Revolutionary war was
scarcely ended when there came from the mother-
country a demand for the raw fiber, which
promised to be almost without limit. A few trials
sufficed to show Southern planters that with their
soil and their slaves they could supply this de-
mand with a quality of cotton which would defy
competition, and at a profit to themselves far ex-
ceeding that of any other product of agriculture.
But an insurmountable obstacle yet seemed to in-
terpose itself between them and their golden har-
vest. The tedious work of cleaning the fiber from
the seed apparently made impossible its cheap
preparation for export in large quantities. A
negro woman working the whole day could clean
only a single pound.
It so happened that at this juncture, November,
1792, an ingenious Yankee student from Massa-
chusetts was boarding in the house of friends in
Savannah, Georgia, occupying his leisure in read-
ing law. A party of Georgia gentlemen from the
interior, making a visit to this family, fell into
conversation on the prospects and difficulties of
cotton-culture and the imperative need of a rapidly
working cleaning-machine. Their hostess, an intel-
Memoir ,..,.,..,', . j
wtne - ngent and quick-witted woman, at once suggested
j^aiCo'fn an expedient. "Gentlemen," said Mrs. Greene,
sconce,- « apply to my young friend, Mr. Eli Whitney ; he
can make anything." The Yankee student was
sought, introduced, and had the mechanical problem
JAMES K. POLK.
THE BALANCE OF POWER
321
laid before him. He modestly disclaimed his host-
ess's extravagant praises, and told his visitors that
he had never seen either cotton or cotton-seed
in his life. Nevertheless, he went to work with
such earnestness and success, that in a few months
Mrs. Greene had the satisfaction of being able to
invite a gathering of gentlemen from different
parts of the State to behold with their own eyes
the working of the newly invented cotton-gin, with
which a negro man turning a crank could clean
fifty pounds of cotton per day.
This solution of the last problem in cheap cotton-
culture made it at once the leading crop of the
South. That favored region quickly drove all com-
petitors out of the market ; and the rise of English
imports of raw cotton, from thirty million pounds
in 1790 to over one thousand million pounds in 1860,
shows the development and increase of this special
industry, with all its related interests.1 It was
not till fifteen years after the invention of the
cotton-gin that the African slave-trade ceased by
limitation of law. Within that period many thou-
sands of negro captives had been added to the
population of the South by direct importation, and
nearly thirty thousand slave inhabitants added by
the acquisition of Louisiana, hastening the forma-
tion of new slave States south of the Ohio River in ^S*?0™"
due proportion.2
Compen-
dium,
i The Virginia price of a male
" field hand " in 1790 was $250 ;
in 1860 his value in the domestic
market had risen to $1600. —
Sherrard Clemens, speech in
H. R. Appendix "Congressional
Globe," 1860-1, pp. 104-5.
2 No word of the authors could
Vol. I.— 21
add to the force and eloquence
of the following from a recent
letter of the son of the inventor
of the cotton-gin (to the Art
Superintendent of " The Cen-
tury"), stating the claims of
his father's memory to the grati-
tude of the South, hitherto ap-
322 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xviii. It is a curious historical fact, that under the very-
remarkable material growth of the United States
which now took place, the political influence re-
mained so evenly balanced between the North
and the South for more than a generation. Other
grave issues indeed absorbed the public attention,
but the abeyance of the slavery question is due
rather to the fact that no considerable advantage as
yet fell to either side. Eight new States were organ-
ized, four north and four south of the Ohio Eiver,
and admitted in nearly alternate order : Vermont
in 1791, free; Kentucky in 1792, slave; Tennessee in
1796, slave; Ohio in 1802, free; Louisiana in 1812,
slave ; Indiana in 1816, free ; Mississippi in 1817,
slave ; Illinois in 1818, free. Alabama was already
authorized to be admitted with slavery, and this
would make the number of free and slave States
equal, giving eleven States to the North and eleven
to the South.
The Territory of Missouri, containing the old
parently unfelt, and certainly un- of the world. Lord Macaulay
recognized : said of Eli Whitney : ' What
" New Haven, Conn., Peter the Great did to make
"Dec. 4, 1886. Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's
"... I send you a photograph invention of the cotton-gin has
taken from a portrait of my more than equaled in its relation
father, painted about the year to the power and progress of the
1821, by King, of Washington, United States.' He has been the
when my father, the inventor of greatest benefactor of the South,
the cotton-gin, was fifty-five years but it never has, to my knowl-
old. He died January 25, 1825. edge, acknowledged his bene-
The cotton-gin was invented in faction in a public manner to the
1793 ; and though it has been in extent it deserves — no monument
use for nearly one hundred years, has been erected to his memory,
it is virtually unimproved. . . no town or city named after him,
Hence the great merit of the though the force of his genius has
original invention. It has made caused many towns and cities to
the South, financially and com- rise and flourish in the South. . .
mercially. It has made England " Yours very truly,
rich, and changed the commerce " E. W. Whitney."
THE BALANCE OF POWER 323
French colonies at and near St. Louis, had attained ch. xvin.
a population of 60,000, and was eager to be ad-
mitted as a State. She had made application in
1817, and now in 1819 it was proposed to authorize
her to form a constitution. Arkansas was also
being nursed as an applicant, and the prospective
loss by the North and gain by the South of the
balance of power caused the slavery question sud-
denly to flare up as a national issue. There were
hot debates in Congress, emphatic resolutions by
State legislatures, deep agitation among the whole
people, and open threats by the South to dissolve
the Union. Extreme Northern men insisted upon
a restriction of slavery to be applied to both Mis-
souri and Arkansas; radical Southern members
contended that Congress had no power to impose
any conditions on new States. The North had
control of the House, the South of the Senate. A
middle party thereupon sprang up, proposing to
divide the Louisiana purchase between freedom
and slavery by the line of 36° 30', and authorizing
the admission of Missouri with slavery out of the
northern half. Fastening this proposition upon the
bill to admit Maine as a free State, the measure
was, after a struggle, carried through Congress (in
a separate act approved March 6, 1820), and became
the famous Missouri Compromise. Maine and Mis-
souri were both admitted. Each section thereby
not only gained two votes in the Senate, but also
asserted its right to spread its peculiar polity with-
out question or hindrance within the prescribed
limits ; and the motto, " No extension of slavery,"
was postponed forty years, to the Eepublican cam-
paign of 1860.
324 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xvin. From this time forward, the maintenance of
this balance of power, — the numerical equality
of the slave States with the free, — though not
announced in platforms as a party doctrine, was
nevertheless steadily followed as a policy by the
representatives of the South. In pursuance of this
system, Michigan and Arkansas, the former a free
and the latter a slave State, were, on the same day,
June 15, 1836, authorized to be admitted. These
tactics were again repeated in the year 1845, when,
on the 3d of March, Iowa, a free State, and Florida,
a slave State, were authorized to be admitted by
one act of Congress, its approval being the last
official act of President Tyler. This tacit compro-
mise, however, was accompanied by another very
important victory of the same policy. The South-
ern politicians saw clearly enough that with the
admission of Florida the slave territory was ex-
hausted, while an immense untouched portion of
the Louisiana purchase still stretched away to the
north-west towards the Pacific above the Missouri
Compromise line, which consecrated it to freedom.
The North, therefore, still had an imperial area
from which to organize future free States, while
the South had not a foot more territory from which
to create slave States.
Sagaciously anticipating this contingency, the
Southern States had been largely instrumental in
setting up the independent State of Texas, and
were now urgent in their demand for her annexa-
tion to the Union. Two days before the signing
of the Iowa and Florida bill, Congress passed, and
President Tyler signed, a joint resolution, author-
izing the acquisition, annexation, and admission of
THE BALANCE OF POWER 325
Texas. But even this was not all. The joint reso- ch. xviii
lution contained a guarantee that " new States, of
convenient size, not exceeding four in number, in
addition to the said State of Texas," and to be
formed out of her territory, should hereafter be
entitled to admission — the Missouri Compromise
line to govern the slavery question in them. The
State of Texas was, by a later resolution, formally
admitted to the Union, December 29, 1845. At
this date, therefore, the slave States gained an
actual majority of one, there being fourteen free
States and fifteen slave States, with at least equal
territorial prospects through future annexation.
If the North was alarmed at being thus placed
in a minority, there was ample reason for still
further disquietude. The annexation of Texas had
provoked the Mexican war, and President Polk, in
anticipation of further important acquisition of
territory to the South and West, asked of Congress
an appropriation of two millions to be used in
negotiations to that end. An attempt to impose a
condition to these negotiations that slavery should
never exist in any territory to be thus acquired
was the famous Wilmot Proviso. This particular
measure failed, but the war ended, and New Mexico
and California were added to the Union as un-
organized Territories. Meanwhile the admission of
Wisconsin in 1848 had once more restored the
equilibrium between the free and the slave States,
there being now fifteen of each.
It must not be supposed that the important
political measures and results thus far summa-
rized were accomplished by quiet and harmonious
legislation. Rising steadily after 1820, the contro-
326 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xviii. versy over slavery became deep and bitter, both in
Congress and the country. Involving not merely
a policy of government, but a question of abstract
morals, statesmen, philanthropists, divines, the
press, societies, churches, and legislative bodies
joined in the discussion. Slavery was assailed
and defended in behalf of the welfare of the state,
and in the name of religion. In Congress espe-
cially it had now been a subject of angry conten-
tion for a whole generation. It obtruded itself
into all manner of questions, and clung obstinately
to numberless resolutions and bills. Time and
again it had brought members into excited discus-
sion, and to the very verge of personal conflict in
the legislative halls. It had occasioned numerous
threats to dissolve the Union, and in one or more
instances caused members actually to retire from
the House of Representatives. It had given rise
to resolutions of censure, to resignations, and had
been the occasion of some of the greatest legisla-
tive debates of the nation. It had virtually created
and annexed the largest State in the Union. In
several States it had instigated abuse, intolerance,
persecutions, trials, mobs, murders, destruction of
property, imprisonment of freemen, retaliatory
legislation, and one well-defined and formidable
attempt at revolution. It originated party fac-
tions, political schools, and constitutional doc-
trines, and made and marred the fame of great
statesmen.
New Mexico, when acquired, contained one of
the oldest towns on the continent, and a consid-
erable population of Spanish origin. California,
almost simultaneously with her acquisition, was
THE BALANCE OF POWEK 327
peopled in the course of a few months by the ch. xvni.
world-renowned gold discoveries. Very unexpect-
edly, therefore, to politicians of all grades and
opinions, the slavery question was once more
before the nation in the year 1850, over the propo-
sition to admit both to the Union as States. As
the result of the long conflict of opinion hitherto
maintained, the beliefs and desires of the contend-
ing sections had by this time become formulated
in distinct political doctrines. The North con-
tended that Congress might and should prohibit
slavery in all the territories of the Union, as had
been done in the Northern half by the Ordinance
of 1787 and by the Missouri Compromise. The
South declared that any such exclusion would not
only be unjust and impolitic, but absolutely uncon-
stitutional, because property in slaves might enter
and must be protected in the territories in com-
mon with all other property. To the theoretical
dispute was added a practical contest. By the
existing Mexican laws slavery was already pro-
hibited in New Mexico, and California promptly
formed a free State constitution. Under these
circumstances the North sought to organize the
former as a Territory, and admit the latter as a
State, while the South resisted and endeavored to
extend the Missouri Compromise line, which would
place New Mexico and the southern half of Cali-
fornia under the tutelage and influence of slavery.
These were the principal points of difference
which caused the great slavery agitation of 1850.
The whole country was convulsed in discussion;
and again more open threats and more ominous
movements towards disunion came from the South.
328 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xviii. The most popular statesman of that day, Henry-
Clay, of Kentucky, a slaveholder opposed to the
extension of slavery, now, however, assumed the
leadership of a party of compromise, and the
quarrel was adjusted and quieted by a combined
series of Congressional acts. 1. California was
admitted as a free State. 2. The Territories of
New Mexico and Utah were organized, leaving the
Mexican prohibition of slavery in force. 3. The
domestic slave-trade in the District of Columbia
was abolished. 4. A more stringent fugitive-slave
law was passed. 5. For the adjustment of her
State boundaries Texas received ten millions of
dollars.
These were the famous compromise measures of
1850. It has been gravely asserted that this
indemnity of ten millions, suddenly trebling the
value of the Texas debt, and thereby affording an
Greeiey, unprecedented opportunity for speculation in the
conflict," bonds of that State, was "the propelling force
°208!' p' whereby these acts were pushed through Congress
in defiance of the original convictions of a major-
ity of its members." But it must also be admitted
that the popular desire for tranquillity, concord,
and union in all sections never exerted so much
influence upon Congress as then. This compro-
mise was not at first heartily accepted by the
people ; Southern opinion being offended by the
abandonment of the "property" doctrine, and
Northern sentiment irritated by certain harsh
features of the fugitive-slave law. But the rising
Union feeling quickly swept away all ebullitions
of discontent, and during two or three years peo-
ple and politicians fondly dreamed they had, in
THE BALANCE OF POWER 329
current phraseology, reached a " finality " * on this ch. xviii.
vexed quarrel. The nation settled itself for a
period of quiet to repair the waste and utilize the
conquests of the Mexican war. It became ab-
sorbed in the expansion of its commerce, the
development of its manufactures, and the growth
of its emigration, all quickened by the riches of
its marvelous gold-fields; until unexpectedly and
suddenly it found itself plunged once again into
political controversies more distracting and more
ominous than the worst it had yet experienced.
i Grave doubts, however, found occasional expression, and none
perhaps more forcibly than in the following newspaper epigram
describing " Finality " :
To kill twice dead a rattlesnake,
And off his scaly skin to take,
And through his head to drive a stake,
And every bone within him break,
And of his flesh mincemeat to make,
To burn, to sear, to boil, and bake,
Then in a heap the whole to rake,
And over it the besom shake,
And sink it fathoms in the lake —
Whence after all, quite wide awake,
Comes back that very same old snake !
CHAPTEE XIX
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE
THE long contest in Congress over the com-
promise measures of 1850, and the reluctance
of a minority, alike in the North and the South, to
accept them, had in reality seriously demoralized
both the great political parties of the country.
The Democrats especially, defeated by the fresh
military laurels of General Taylor in 1848, were
much exercised to discover their most available
candidate as the presidential election of 1852 ap-
proached. The leading names, Cass, Buchanan,
and Marcy, having been long before the public,
were becoming a little stale. In this contingency,
a considerable following grouped itself about an
entirely new man, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois.
Emigrating from Vermont to the West, Douglas
had run a career remarkable for political success.
Only in his thirty-ninth year, he had served as
member of the legislature, as State's- Attorney, as
Secretary of State, and as judge of the Supreme
Court in Illinois, and had since been three times
elected to Congress and once to the Senate of the
United States. Nor did he owe his political for-
tunes entirely to accident. Among his many
qualities of leadership were strong physical endur-
THE KEPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 331
ance, untiring industry, a persistent boldness, a chap.xix.
ready facility in public speaking, unfailing political
shrewdness, an unusual power in running debate,
with liberal instincts and progressive purposes. It
was therefore not surprising that he should attract
the admiration and support of the young, the ardent,
and especially the restless and ambitious members
of his party. His career in Congress was suffi-
ciently conspicuous. As Chairman of the Commit-
tee on Territories in the Senate, he had borne a
prominent part in the enactment of the compro-
mise measures of 1850, and had just met and over-
come a threatened party schism in his own State,
which that legislation had there produced.
In their eagerness to push his claims to the
presidency, the partisans of Douglas committed
a great error. Rightly appreciating the growing
power of the press, they obtained control of the
"Democratic Review," a monthly magazine then
prominent as a party organ, and published in it a
series of articles attacking the rival Democratic
candidates in very flashy rhetoric. These were
stigmatized as " old fogies," who must give ground
to a nominee of "Young America." They were
reminded that the party expects a "new man."
" Age is to be honored, but senility is pitiable " ;
" statesmen of a previous generation must get out
of the way " ; the Democratic party was owned by
a set of " old clothes-horses " ; " they couldn't pay
their political promises in four Democratic ad-
ministrations " ; and the names of Cass and Marcy,
Buchanan and Butler, were freely mixed in with
such epithets as "pretenders," "hucksters," "in-
truders," and " vile charlatans."
332 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. Such characterization of such men soon created
a flagrant scandal in the Democratic party, which
was duly aired both in the newspapers and in Con-
gress. It definitely fixed the phrases " old fogy "
and "Young America" in our slang literature.
The personal friends of Douglas hastened to ex-
plain and assert his innocence of any complicity
with this political raid, but they were not more
than half believed ; and the war of factions, begun
in January, raged with increasing bitterness till the
Democratic National Convention met at Baltimore
in June, and undoubtedly exerted a decisive influ-
ence over the deliberations of that body.
The only serious competitors for the nomination
were the " old fogies " Cass, Marcy, and Buchanan
on the one hand, and Douglas, the pet of " Young
America," on the other. It soon became evident
that opinion was so divided among these four that
a nomination could only be reached through long
and tedious ballotings. Beginning with some 20
votes, Douglas steadily gained adherents till on
the 30th ballot he received 92. From this point,
however, his strength fell away. Unable himself
to succeed, he was nevertheless sufliciently power-
ful to defeat his adversaries. The exasperation
had been too great to permit a concentration
or compromise on any of the "seniors." Cass
reached only 131 votes; Marcy, 98; Buchanan,
104 ; and finally, on the 49th ballot, occurred the
memorable nearly unanimous selection of Franklin
Pierce — not because of any merit of his own, but
to break the insurmountable dead-lock of factional
hatred. Young America gained a nominal tri-
umph, old f ogydom a real revenge, and the South
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 333
a serviceable Northern ally. Douglas and his chap.xix.
friends were discomfited but not dismayed. Their
management had been exceedingly maladroit, as
a more modest championship would without doubt
have secured him the coveted nomination. Yet
sagacious politicians foresaw that on the whole he
was strengthened by his defeat. From that time
forward he was a recognized presidential aspirant
and competitor, young enough patiently to bide
his time, and of sufficient prestige to make his flag
the rallying point of all the free-lances in the
Democratic party.
It is to this presidential aspiration of Mr. Douglas
that we must look as the explanation of his agency
in bringing about the repeal of the Missouri Com-
promise. As already said, after some factious op-
position the measures of 1850 had been accepted
by the people as a finality of the slavery question.
Around this alleged settlement, distasteful as it
was to many, public opinion gradually crystallized.
Both the National Conventions of 1852 solemnly
resolved that they would discountenance and resist,
in Congress or out of it, whenever, wherever, or
however, or under whatever color or shape, any
further renewal of the slavery agitation. This
determination was echoed and reechoed, affirmed
and reaffirmed, by the recognized organs of the
public voice — from the village newspaper to the
presidential message, from the country debating
school to the measured utterances of senatorial
discussion.
In support of this alleged " finality " no one had
taken a more decided stand than Senator Douglas
himself. Said he: "In taking leave of this subject
334
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Appendix,
" Congres-
sional
Globe,"
1851-2, p. 68.
Douglas,
Senate
speech,
March 13,
1850. Ap-
pendix,
" Congres-
sional
Globe,"
1849-50, pp.
369 to 372.
I wish to state that I have determined never to
make another speech upon the slavery question ;
and I will now add the hope that the necessity for
it will never exist. . . So long as our opponents
do not agitate for repeal or modification, why
should we agitate for any purpose? We claim
that the compromise [of 1850] is a final settlement.
Is a final settlement open to discussion and agita-
tion and controversy by its friends ? What manner
of settlement is that which does not settle the
difficulty and quiet the dispute? Are not the
friends of the compromise becoming the agitators,
and will not the country hold us responsible for
that which we condemn and denounce in the aboli-
tionists and Free-soilers ? These are matters wor-
thy of our consideration. Those who preach peace
should not be the first to commence and reopen an
old quarrel." In his Senate speeches, during the
compromise debates of 1850, while generally advo-
cating his theory of "non-intervention," he had
sounded the whole gamut of the slavery discussion,
defending the various measures of adjustment
against the attacks of the Southern extremists, and
specifically defending the Missouri Compromise.
More than this ; he had declared in distinct words
that the principle of territorial prohibition was no
violation of Southern rights ; and denounced the
proposition of Calhoun to put a " balance of
power" clause into the Constitution as "a retro-
grade movement in an age of progress that would
astonish the world." These repeated affirmations,
taken in connection with his famous description
of the Missouri Compromise in 1849, in which he
declared it to have had " an origin akin to the
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 335
Constitution," and to have become "canonized in chap.xix.
the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing
which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless Sp8peSld
enough to disturb," all seemed, in the public 0cIt11in'0\8s49,
mind, to fix his position definitely; no one im- "Re^8ter-"
agined that Douglas would so soon become the
subject of his own anathemas.
The full personal details of this event are lost
to history. We have only a faint and shadowy
outline of isolated movements of a few chief actors,
a few vague suggestions and fragmentary steps in
the formation and unfolding of the ill-omened plot.
As the avowed representative of the restless and
ambitious elements of the country, as the champion
of " Young America," Douglas had so far as pos-
sible in his Congressional career made himself the
apostle of modern " progress." He was a believer
in " manifest destiny " and a zealous advocate of
the Monroe doctrine. He desired — so the news-
papers averred — that the Caribbean Sea should be
declared an American lake, and nothing so de-
lighted him as to pull the beard of the British lion.
These topics, while they furnished themes for cam-
paign speeches, for the present led to no practical
legislation. In his position as chairman of the
Senate Committee on Territories, however, he had
control of kindred measures of present and vital
interest to the people of the West; namely, the
opening of new routes of travel and emigration,
and of new territories for settlement. An era of
wonder had just dawned, connecting itself directly
with these subjects. The acquisition of California
and the discovery of gold had turned the eyes of the
whole civilized world to the Pacific coast. Plains
336 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. and mountains were swarming with adventurers
and emigrants. Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, and
Minnesota had just been organized, and were in
a feeble way contesting the sudden fame of the
Golden State. The Western border was astir, and
wild visions of lands and cities and mines and
wealth and power were disturbing the dreams of
the pioneer in his frontier cabin, and hurrying him
off on the long, romantic quest across the continent.
Hitherto, stringent Federal laws had kept set-
tlers and unlicensed traders out of the Indian
territory, which lay beyond the western boundaries
of Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa, and which the
policy of our early Presidents fixed upon as the
final asylum of the red men retreating before the
advance of white settlements. But now the un-
controllable stream of emigration had broken into
and through this reservation, creating in a few
years well-defined routes of travel to New Mexico,
Utah, California, and Oregon. Though from the
long march there came constant cries of danger and
distress, of starvation and Indian massacre, there
was neither halting nor delay. The courageous
pioneers pressed forward all the more earnestly, and
to such purpose that in less than twenty-five years
the Pacific Eailroad followed Fremont's first ex-
ploration through the South Pass.
Douglas, himself a migratory child of fortune, was
in thorough sympathy with this somewhat prema-
ture Western longing of the people ; and as chair-
man of the Committee on Territories was the
recipient of all the letters, petitions, and personal
solicitations from the various interests which were
seeking their advantage in this exodus toward the
FRAXKLIX PIERCE.
THE KEPEAL OF THE MISSOUKI COMPROMISE 337
setting sun. He was the natural center for all the chap.xix.
embryo mail contractors, office-holders, Indian
traders, land-sharks, and railroad visionaries whose
coveted opportunities lay in the Western territories.
It is but just to his fame, however, to say that he
comprehended equally well the true philosophical
and political necessities which now demanded the
opening of Kansas and Nebraska as a secure high-
way and protecting bridge to the Eocky Moun-
tains and our new-found El Dorado, no less than
as a bond of union between the older States and
the improvised "Young America" on the Pacific
coast. The subject was not yet ripe for action
during the stormy politics of 1850-1, and had
again to be postponed for the presidential cam-
paign of 1852. But after Pierce was triumphantly
elected, with a Democratic Congress to sustain him,
the legislative calm which both parties had adjured
in their platforms seemed favorable for pushing
measures of local interest. The control of legisla-
tion for the territories was for the moment com-
pletely in the hands of Douglas. He was himself
chairman of the Committee of the Senate ; and his
special personal friend and political lieutenant in
his own State, William A. Richardson, of Illinois,
was chairman of the Territorial Committee of the
House. He could therefore choose his own time
and mode of introducing measures of this character
in either house of Congress, under the majority
control of his party — a fact to be constantly borne
in mind when we consider the origin and progress
of " the three Nebraska bills."
The journal discloses that Richardson, of Illinois,
chairman of the Committee on Territories of the
Vol. I.— 22
338 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. House of Representatives, on February 2, 1853,
Feb^S, introduced into the House "A bill to organize the
P. 474. Territory of Nebraska." After due reference, and
™p."&Si.8' some desultory debate on the 8th, it was taken up
™df» 3?" anc* Passe(i by the House on the 10th. From the
discussion we learn that the boundaries were the
Missouri River on the east, the Rocky Mountains
on the west, the line of 36° 30' or southern line of
Missouri on the south, and the line of 43°, or near
the northern line of Iowa, on the north. Several
members opposed it, because the Indian title to the
lands was not yet extinguished, and because it em-
braced reservations pledged to Indian occupancy
in perpetuity ; also on the general ground that it
contained but few white inhabitants, and its or-
ganization was therefore a useless expense. Howard,
of Texas, made the most strenuous opposition, urg-
ing that since it contained but about six hundred
souls, its southern boundary should be fixed at 39°
30', not to trench upon the Indian reservations.
Hall, of Missouri, replied in support of the bill:
"We want the organization of the Territory of
Nebraska not merely for the protection of the few
people who reside there, but also for the protection
of Oregon and California in time of war, and the
lo. p'. 55V protection of our commerce and the fifty or sixty
thousand emigrants who annually cross the plains."
He added that its limits were purposely made large
to embrace the great lines of travel to Oregon, New
Mexico, and California ; since the South Pass was
in 42° 30', the Territory had to extend to 43° north.
The incident, however, of special historical sig-
nificance had occurred in the debate of the 8th,
when a member rose and said : "I wish to inquire
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 339
of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Griddings], who, chap.xix.
I believe, is a member of the Committee on Terri-
tories, why the Ordinance of 1787 is not incorpo-
rated in this bill ? I should like to know whether
he or the committee were intimidated on account "Globe/'
of the platforms of 1852 ? " To which Mr. Giddings FeS. a^858*
replied that the south line of the territory was
36° 30', and was already covered by the Missouri
Compromise prohibition. " This law stands per-
petually, and I do not think that this act would
receive any increased validity by a reenactment.
There I leave the matter. It is very clear that the
territory included in this treaty [ceding Louisiana]
must be forever free unless the law be repealed."
With this explicit understanding from a member of
the committee, apparently accepted as conclusive
by the whole House, and certainly not objected to
by the chairman, Mr. Richardson, who was carefully
watching the current of debate, the bill passed ibid, Feb.
, , . . „ , 10,1853,
on the 10th, ninety-eight yeas to forty-three nays. p- 565-
Led by a few members from that region, in the
main the West voted for it and the South against
it; while the greater number, absorbed in other
schemes, were wholly indifferent, and probably
cast their votes upon personal solicitation.
On the following day the bill was hurried over to
the Senate, referred to Mr. Douglas's committee,
and by him reported back without amendment, on
February 17th ; but the session was almost ended
before he was able to gain the attention of the
Senate for its discussion. Finally, on the night
before the inauguration of President Pierce, in the
midst of a fierce and protracted struggle over the
appropriation bills, while the Senate was without
340 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. a quorum and impatiently awaiting the reports of
a number of conference committees, Douglas seized
the opportunity of the lull to call up his Nebraska
bill. Here again, as in the House, Texas stub-
bornly opposed it. Houston undertook to talk it
to death in a long speech ; Bell protested against
robbing the Indians of their guaranteed rights.
The bill seemed to have no friend but its author
when, perhaps to his surprise, Senator D. E.
Atchison, of Missouri, threw himself into the
breach.
Prefacing his remarks with the statement that
he had formerly been opposed to the measure, he
continued : " I had two objections to it. One was
"Globe,- that the Indian title in that territory had not been
1853^ m3. extinguished, or at least a very small portion of it
had been. Another was the Missouri Compromise,
or, as it is commonly called, the Slavery Eestric-
tion. It was my opinion at that time — and I am
not now very clear on that subject — that the law
of Congress, when the State of Missouri was ad-
mitted into the Union, excluding slavery from the
territory of Louisiana north of 36° 30', would be
enforced in that territory unless it was specially
rescinded ; and whether that law was in accordance
with the Constitution of the United States or not,
it would do its work, and that work would be to
preclude slaveholders from going into that terri-
tory. But when I came to look into that question,
I found that there was no prospect, no hope, of
a repeal of the Missouri Compromise excluding
slavery from that territory. . . I have always
been of opinion that the first great error committed
in the political history of this country was the
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 341
Ordinance of 1787, rendering the North-west Terri- chap. xix.
tory free territory. The next great error was the
Missouri Compromise. But they are both irre-
mediable. . . We must submit to them. I am pre-
pared to do it. It is evident that the Missouri
Compromise cannot be repealed. So far as that
question is concerned, we might as well agree to
the admission of this territory now as next year,
or five or ten years hence."
Mr. Douglas closed the debate, advocating the
passage of the bill for general reasons, and by his
silence accepting Atchison's conclusions ; but as «Giobe,"
the morning of the 4th of March was breaking, an i853?pC im.
unwilling Senate laid the bill on the table by a vote
of twenty-three to seventeen, here, as in the House,
the West being for and the South against the
measure. It is not probable, however, that in this
course the South acted with any mental reservation
or sinister motive. The great breach of faith was
not yet even meditated. Only a few hours after-
wards, in a dignified and stately national ceremonial,
in the midst of foreign ministers, judges, sena-
tors, and representatives, the new President of the
United States delivered to the people his inaugural
address. High and low were alike intent to discern
the opening political currents of the new Adminis-
tration, but none touched or approached this partic-
ular subject. The aspirations of "Young America"
were not towards a conquest of the North, but the
enlargement of the South. A freshening breeze
filled the sails of " annexation " and " manifest
destiny." In bold words the President said : " The
policy of my Administration will not be controlled
by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion.
342 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude
as a nation and our position on the globe render
the acquisition of certain possessions not within
our jurisdiction eminently important for our
protection, if not in the future essential for the
preservation of the rights of commerce and the
peace of the world." Eeaching the slavery ques-
tion, he expressed unbounded devotion to the
Union, and declared slavery recognized by the
Constitution, and his purpose to enforce the com-
promise measures of 1850, adding, "I fervently trust
that the question is at rest, and that no sectional
or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again
threaten the durability of our institutions, or ob-
scure the light of our prosperity."
When Congress met again in the following
December (1853), the annual message of President
Pierce was, upon this subject, but an echo of his
inaugural, as his inaugural had been but an echo
of the two party platforms of 1852. Affirming
that the compromise measures of 1850 had given
repose to the country, he declared, " That this
repose is to suffer no shock during my official
term, if I have the power to avert it, those who
placed me here may be assured." In this spirit,
undoubtedly, the Democratic party and the South
began the session of 1853-4; but unfortunately
it was very soon abandoned. The people of the
Missouri and Iowa border were becoming every
day more impatient to enter upon an authorized
occupancy of the new lands which lay a day's
journey to the west. Handfuls of squatters here
and there had elected two territorial delegates,
who hastened to Washington with embryo creden-
THE KEPEAL OF THE MISSOUKI COMPROMISE 343
tials. The subject of organizing the West was chap.xix.
again broached ; an Iowa Senator introduced a
territorial bill. Under the ordinary routine it was
referred to the Committee on Territories, and on
the 4th day of January Douglas reported back his
second Nebraska bill, still without any repeal of
the Missouri Compromise. His elaborate report, senateR*
accompanying this second bill, shows that the sub- *%£%*£*
ject had been most carefully examined in com- gre88-
mittee. The discussion was evidently exhaustive,
going over the whole history, policy, and constitu-
tionality of prohibitory legislation. Two or three
sentences are quite sufficient to present the sub-
stance of the long and wordy report. First, that
there were differences and doubts; second, that
these had been finally settled by the compromise
measures of 1850 ; and, therefore, third, the com-
mittee had adhered not only to the spirit but to
the very phraseology of that adjustment, and
refused either to affirm or repeal the Missouri
Compromise.
This was the public and legislative agreement
announced to the country. Subsequent revela-
tions show the secret and factional bargain which
that agreement covered. Not only was this terri-
torial bill searchingly considered in committee, but
repeated caucuses were held by the Democratic
leaders to discuss the party results likely to grow
out of it. The Southern Democrats maintained
that the Constitution of the United States recog-
nized their right and guaranteed them protection
to their slave property, if they chose to carry it
into Federal Territories. Douglas and other North-
ern Democrats contended that slavery was subject
344
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Senator
Benjamin,
Senate De-
bate, May
8, i860.
" Globe,"
p. 1966.
Douglas,
pamphlet
in reply to
Judge
Black, Oc-
tober, 1859,
p. 6.
" Globe,"
Jan. 16, 1854,
p. 175.
to local law, and that the people of a Territory, like
those of a State, could establish or prohibit it.
This radical difference, if carried into party action,
would lose them the political ascendency they had
so long maintained, and were then enjoying. To
avert a public rupture of the party, it was agreed
" that the Territories should be organized with a
delegation by Congress of all the power of Con-
gress in the Territories, and that the extent of the
power of Congress should be determined by the
courts." If the courts should decide against the
South, the Southern Democrats would accept the
Northern theory; if the courts should decide in
favor of the South, the Northern Democrats would
defend the Southern view. Thus harmony would
be preserved, and party power prolonged. Here
we have the shadow of the coming Dred Scott
decision already projected into political history,
though the speaker protests that "none of us knew
of the existence of a controversy then pending in
the Federal courts that would lead almost immedi-
ately to the decision of that question." This was
probably true ; for a " peculiar provision " was
expressly inserted in the committee's bill, allowing
appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States
in all questions involving title to slaves, without
reference to the usual limitations in respect to the
value of the property, thereby paving the way to
an early adjudication by the Supreme Court.
Thus the matter rested till the 16th of January,
when Senator Dixon, of Kentucky, apparently
acting for himself alone, offered an amendment in
effect repealing the Missouri Compromise. Upon
this provocation, Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts,
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 345
the next day offered another amendment affirm- chap.xix
ing that it was not repealed by the bill. Comment-
ing on these propositions two days later, the
Administration organ, the " Washington Union,"
declared they were both "false lights," to be avoided
by all good Democrats. By this time, however,
the subject of " repeal" had become bruited about
the Capitol corridors, the hotels, and the caucus
rooms of Washington, and newspaper correspond-
ents were on the qui vive to obtain the latest devel-
opments concerning the intrigue. The secrets of
the Territorial Committee leaked out, and consul-
tations multiplied. Could a repeal be carried I
Who would offer it and lead it? What divisions
or schisms would it carry into the ranks of the
Democratic party, especially in the pending contest
between the " Hards " and " Softs " in New York ?
What effect would it have upon the presidential
election of 1856 ? Already the " Union " suggested
that it was whispered that Cass was willing to
propose and favor such a " repeal." It was given
out in the " Baltimore Sun " that Cass intended to
" separate the sheep from the goats." Both state-
ments were untrue ; but they perhaps had their in-
tended effect, to arouse the jealousy and eagerness
of Douglas. The political air of Washington was
heavy with clouds and mutterings, and clans were
gathering for and against the ominous proposition.
So far as history has been allowed a glimpse into
these secret communings, three principal person-
ages were at this time planning a movement of
vast portent. These were Stephen A. Douglas,
chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories ;
Archibald Dixon, Whig Senator from Kentucky,*
346 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. and David R. Atchison, of Missouri, then president
pro tempore of the Senate, and acting Vice-President
of the United States. " ' For myself,' said the latter
in explaining the transaction, 'I am entirely de-
voted to the interest of the South, and I would
sacrifice everything but my hope of heaven to
advance her welfare.' He thought the Missouri
Compromise ought to be repealed ; he had pledged
himself in his public addresses to vote for no terri-
torial organization that would not virtually annul
it ; and with this feeling in his heart he desired to
be the chairman of the Senate Committee on Ter-
ritories when a bill was introduced. With this
object in view, he had a private interview with Mr.
Douglas, and informed him of what he desired —
the introduction of a bill for Nebraska like what
[sic] he had promised to vote for, and that he
would like to be the chairman of the Committee on
Territories in order to introduce such a measure ;
and, if he could get that position, he would imme-
diately resign as president of the Senate. Judge
Douglas requested twenty-four hours to consider
the matter, and if at the expiration of that time he
could not introduce such a bill as he (Mr. Atchison)
proposed, he would resign as chairman of the Terri-
torial Committee in Democratic caucus, and exert
his influence to get him (Atchison) appointed.
At the expiration of the given time, Senator Doug-
las signified his intention to introduce such a bill
as had been spoken of." 1
Senator Dixon is no less explicit in his descrip-
tion of these political negotiations. " My amend-
l Speech at Atchison City, September, 1854, reported in the
" Parkville Luminary."
THE KEPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 347
ment seemed to take the Senate by surprise, and chap.xix.
no one appeared more startled than Judge Douglas
himself. He immediately came to my seat and
courteously remonstrated against my amendment,
suggesting that the bill which he had introduced
was almost in the words of the territorial acts for
the organization of Utah and New Mexico; that they
being a part of the compromise measures of 1850
he had hoped that I, a known and zealous friend of
the wise and patriotic adjustment which had then
taken place, would not be inclined to do any-
thing to call that adjustment in question or weaken
it before the country.
"I replied that it was precisely because I had
been and was a firm and zealous friend of the Com-
promise of 1850 that I felt bound to persist in the
movement which I had originated ; that I was well
satisfied that the Missouri Restriction, if not
expressly repealed, would continue to operate in
the territory to which it had been applied, thus
negativing the great and salutary principle of non-
intervention which constituted the most prominent
and essential feature of the plan of settlement of
1850. We talked for some time amicably, and
separated. Some days afterwards Judge Douglas
came to my lodgings, whilst I was confined by
physical indisposition, and urged me to get up and
take a ride with him in his carriage. I accepted
his invitation, and rode out with him. During our
short excursion we talked on the subject of my
proposed amendment, and Judge Douglas, to my
high gratification, proposed to me that I should
allow him to take charge of the amendment and
ingraft it on his territorial bill. I acceded to the
348 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. proposition at once, whereupon a most interesting
interchange occurred between us.
" On this occasion Judge Douglas spoke to me
in substance thus : ' I have become perfectly
satisfied that it is my duty, as a fair-minded
national statesman, to cooperate with you as pro-
posed, in securing the repeal of the Missouri Com-
promise restriction. It is due to the South ; it is
due to the Constitution, heretofore palpably in-
fracted ; it is due to that character for consistency
which I have heretofore labored to maintain. The
repeal, if we can effect it, will produce much stir
and commotion in the free States of the Union for
a season. I shall be assailed by demagogues and
fanatics there without stint or moderation. Every
opprobrious epithet will be applied to me. I shall
be probably hung in effigy in many places. It is
more than probable that I may become perma-
nently odious among those whose friendship and
esteem I have heretofore possessed. This proceed-
ing may end my political career. But, acting
under the sense of the duty which animates me, I
am prepared to make the sacrifice. I will do it.'
" He spoke in the most earnest and touching
manner, and I confess that I was deeply affected.
I said to him in reply : ' Sir, I once recognized you
as a demagogue, a mere party manager, selfish and
intriguing. I now find you a warm-hearted and
sterling patriot. Go forward in the pathway of
duty as you propose, and though all the world
desert you, I never will.' " 1
Such is the circumstantial record of this remark-
1 Archibald Dixon to H. S. Foote, October 1, 1858. "Louisville
Democrat" of October 3, 1858.
THE KEPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 349
able political transaction left by two prominent chap.xix.
and principal instigators, and never denied nor
repudiated by the third. Gradually, as the plot
was developed, the agreement embraced the lead-
ing elements of the Democratic party in Congress,
reenforced by a majority of the Whig leaders from
the slave States. A day or two before the final
introduction of the repeal, Douglas and others held
an interview with President Pierce,1 and obtained
from him in writing an agreement to adopt the
movement as an Administration measure. Fortified
with this important adhesion, Douglas took the fatal
plunge, and on January 23 introduced his third
Nebraska bill, organizing two territories instead
of one, and declaring the Missouri Compromise
" inoperative." But the amendment — monstrous
Caliban of legislation as it was — needed to be still
1 Jefferson Davis, who was a with them to the Executive Man-
member of President Pierce's sion, and, leaving them in the
Cabinet (Secretary of War), thus reception-room, sought the Presi-
relates the incident: "On Sun- dent in his private apartments,
day morning, the 2 2d of January, and explained to him the occa-
1854, gentlemen of each com- sion of the visit. He thereupon
mittee [House and Senate Com- met the gentlemen, patiently
mittees on Territories] called at listened to the reading of the bill
my house, and Mr. Douglas, and their explanations of it, de-
chairman of the Senate Commit- cided that it rested upon sound
tee, fully explained the proposed constitutional principles, and rec-
bill, and stated their purpose to ognized in it only a return to
be, through my aid, to obtain an that rule which had been in-
interview on that day with the fringed by the Compromise of
President, to ascertain whether 1820, and the restoration of
the bill would meet his approba- which had been foreshadowed by
tion. The President was known the legislation of 1850. This
to be rigidly opposed to the re- bill was not, therefore, as has
ception of visits on Sunday for been improperly asserted, a
the discussion of any political measure inspired by Mr. Pierce
subject; but in this ease it was or any of his Cabinet." — Davis,
urged as necessary, in order to "Rise and Fall of the Confed-
enable the committee to make erate Government," Vol. L, p.
their report the next day. I went 28.
350 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xix. further licked into shape to satisfy the designs of
the South and appease the alarmed conscience of
the North. Two weeks later, after the first out-
burst of debate, the following phraseology was
"Globe.- substituted: "Which being inconsistent with the
1864, p. 42i. principle of non-intervention by Congress with
slavery in the States and Territories, as recog-
nized by the legislation of 1850 (commonly called
the Compromise measures), is hereby declared in-
operative and void; it being the true intent and
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any
Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but
to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form
and regulate their domestic institutions in their
own way, subject only to the Constitution" — a
change which Benton truthfully characterized as
" a stump speech injected into the belly of the
Nebraska bill." x
The storm of agitation which this measure
aroused dwarfed all former ones in depth and in-
tensity. The South was nearly united in its behalf,
the North sadly divided in opposition. Against
protest and appeal, under legislative whip and
spur, with the tempting smiles and patronage of
the Administration, after nearly a four months'
parliamentary struggle, the plighted faith of a
i We have the authority of ex- withdraw or withhold from him
Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin a full and undivided Administra-
tor stating that Mr. Douglas (who tion support, and told Mr. Ham-
was on specially intimate terms lin that he intended to get from
with him) told him that the Ian- him something in black and white
guage of the final amendment to which would hold him. A day or
the Kansas-Nebraska bill repeal- two afterwards Douglas, in a con-
ing the Missouri Compromise was fidential conversation, showed
written by President Franklin Mr. Hamlin the draft of the
Pierce. Douglas was apprehen- amendment in Mr. Pierce's own
sive that the President would handwriting.
THE REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE 351
generation was violated, and the repealing act chai-.xix.
passed — mainly by the great influence and ex-
ample of Douglas, who had only five years before
so fittingly described the Missouri Compromise as
being " akin to the Constitution," and " canonized
in the hearts of the American people as a sacred
thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reck-
less enough to disturb."
CHAPTEK XX
THE DRIFT OF POLITICS
chap. xx. f I ^HE repeal of the Missouri Compromise made
-L the slavery question paramount in every State
of the Union. The boasted finality was a broken
reed; the life-boat of compromise a hopeless
wreck. If the agreement of a generation could be
thus annulled in a breath, was there any safety
even in the Constitution itself ? This feeling com-
municated itself to the Northern States at the very
first note of warning, and every man's party fealty
was at once decided by his toleration of or opposi-
tion to slavery. While the fate of the Nebraska
bill hung in a doubtful balance in the House, the
feeling found expression in letters, speeches, meet-
ings, petitions, and remonstrances. Men were for
or against the bill — every other political subject
was left in abeyance. The measure once passed,
and the Compromise repealed, the first natural im-
pulse was to combine, organize, and agitate for its
restoration. This was the ready-made, common
ground of cooperation.
It is probable that this merely defensive energy
would have been overcome and dissipated, had it
not at this juncture been inspirited and led by the
faction known as the Free-soil party of the country,
THE DKIFT OF POLITICS 353
composed mainly of men of independent anti- chap.xx.
slavery views, who had during four presidential
campaigns been organized as a distinct political
body, with no near hope of success, but animated
mainly by the desire to give expression to their
deep personal convictions. If there were dema-
gogues here and there among them, seeking merely
to create a balance of power for bargain and sale,
they were unimportant in number, and only of local
influence, and soon became deserters. There was
no mistaking the earnestness of the body of this
faction. A few fanatical men, who had made it the
vehicle of violent expressions, had kept it under
the ban of popular prejudice. It had long been
held up to public odium as a revolutionary band
of " abolitionists." Most of the abolitionists were
doubtless in this party, but the party was not all
composed of abolitionists. Despite objurgation and
contempt, it had become since 1840 a constant and
growing factor in politics. It had operated as a
negative balance of power in the last three presi-
dential elections, causing by its diversion of votes,
and more especially by its relaxing influence upon
parties, the success of the Democratic candidate,
James K. Polk, in 1844, the Whig candidate, Gen-
eral Taylor, in 1848, and the Democratic nominee,
Franklin Pierce, in 1852.
This small party of antislavery veterans, over
158,000 voters in the aggregate, and distributed in
detachments of from 3000 to 30,000 in twelve of
the free States, now came to the front, and with its
newspapers and speakers trained in the discussion
of the subject, and its committees and affiliations
already in action and correspondence, bore the
Vol. I.— 23
IISTORICALJ
OFTHE
UNITED STATES
in 1854
SHOWING THE VARIOUSACCESSIONS0FTERR1T0HT ETC
LC or M,LCS
The Boundary belmtn the UmledStaUs andMexica
ime ofa. State previous to 1815 $ 1818 is indicated thus <■■■■■
S 2fl Longitude
356 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xx. brunt of the fight against the repeal. Hitherto its
aims had appeared Utopian, and its resolves had
been denunciatory and exasperating. Now, com-
bining wisdom with opportunity, it became con-
ciliatory, and, abating something of its abstractions,
made itself the exponent of a demand for a present
and practical reform — a simple return to the an-
cient faith and landmarks. It labored specially to
bring about the dissolution of the old party organi-
zations and the formation of a new one, based upon
the general policy of resisting the extension of
slavery. Since, however, the repeal had shaken
but not obliterated old party lines, this effort suc-
ceeded only in favorable localities.
For the present, party disintegration was slow ;
men were reluctant to abandon their old-time
principles and associations. The united efforts of
Douglas and the Administration held the body of
the Northern Democrats to his fatal policy, though
protests and defections became alarmingly frequent.
On the other hand, the great mass of Northern
Whigs promptly opposed the repeal, and formed
the bulk of the opposition, nevertheless losing per-
haps as many pro-slavery Whigs as they gained
antislavery Democrats. The real and effective
gain, therefore, was the more or less thorough alli-
ance of the Whig party and the Free-soil party of
the Northern States : wherever that was successful
it gave immediate and available majorities to the
opposition, which made their influence felt even in
the very opening of the popular contest following
the Congressional repeal.
It happened that this was a year for electing
Congressmen. The Nebraska bill did not pass till
THE DKIFT OF POLITICS 357
the end of May, and the political excitement was chap. xx.
at once transferred from Washington to every dis-
trict of the whole country. It may be said with
truth that the year 1854 formed one continuous
and solid political campaign from January to
November, rising in interest and earnestness from
first to last, and engaging in the discussion more
fully than had ever occurred in previous Ameri-
can history all the constituent elements of our
population.
In the Southern States the great majority of
people welcomed, supported, and defended the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, it being con-
sonant with their pro-slavery feelings, and appar-
ently favorable to their pro-slavery interests. The
Democratic party in the South, controlling a
majority of slave States, was of course a unit in
its favor. The Whig party, however, having car-
ried two slave States for Scott in 1852, and holding
a strong minority in the remainder, was not so
unanimous. Seven Southern Representatives and
two Southern Senators had voted against the
Nebraska bill, and many individual voters con-
demned it as an act of bad faith — as the aban-
donment of the accepted "finality," and as the
provocation of a dangerous antislavery reaction.
But public opinion in that part of the Union was
fearfully tyrannical and intolerant ; and opposition
dared only to manifest itself to Democratic party
organization — not to these Democratic party
measures. The Whigs of the South were there-
fore driven precipitately to division. Those of
extreme pro-slavery views, like Dixon, of Ken-
tucky,— who, when he introduced his amendment,
358 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xx. declared, "Upon the question of slavery I know no
Whiggery and no Democracy," — went boldly and
at once over into the Democratic camp, while
those who retained their traditional party name
and flag were sundered from their ancient allies in
the Northern States by the impossibility of taking
up the latter's antislavery war-cry.
At this juncture the political situation was
further complicated by the sudden rise of an
additional factor in politics, the American party,
popularly called the " Know-Nothings." Essen-
tially, it was a revival of the extinct "Native-
American" faction, based upon a jealousy of and
discrimination against foreign-born voters, desir-
ing an extension of their period of naturalization,
and their exclusion from office ; also based upon a
certain hostility to the Eoman Catholic religion. It
had been reorganized as a secret order in the year
1853; and seizing upon the political disappoint-
ments following General Scott's overwhelming de-
feat for the presidency in 1852, and profiting by
the disintegration caused by the Nebraska bill,
it rapidly gained recruits both North and South.
Operating in entire secrecy, the country was star-
tled by the sudden appearance in one locality after
another, on election day, of a potent and unsus-
pected political power, which in many instances
pushed both the old organizations not only to dis-
astrous but even to ridiculous defeat. Both North
and South its forces were recruited mainly from the
Whig party, though malcontents from all quarters
rushed to group themselves upon its narrow plat-
form, and to participate in the exciting but delusive
triumphs of its temporary and local ascendency.
THE DRIFT OF POLITICS 359
When, in the opening of the anti-Nebraska con- chap. xx.
test, the Free-soil leaders undertook the formation
of a new party to supersede the old, they had,
because of their generally democratic antecedents,
with great unanimity proposed that it be called the
" Republican " party, thus reviving the distinctive
appellation by which the followers of Jefferson
were known in the early days of the republic.
Considering the fact that Jefferson had originated
the policy of slavery restriction in his draft of the
ordinance of 1784, the name became singularly
appropriate, and wherever the Free-soilers suc-
ceeded in forming a coalition it was adopted with-
out question. But the refusal of the Whigs in
many States to surrender their name and organiza-
tion, and more especially the abrupt appearance of
the Know-Nothings on the field of parties, retarded
the general coalition between the Whigs and the
Free-soilers which so many influences favored.
As it turned out, a great variety of party names
were retained or adopted in the Congressional and
State campaigns of 1854, the designation of " anti-
Nebraska" being perhaps the most common, and
certainly for the moment the most serviceable,
since denunciation of the Nebraska bill was the
one all-pervading bond of sympathy and agreement
among men who differed very widely on almost all
other political topics. This affiliation, however,
was confined exclusively to the free States. In the
slave States, the opposition to the Administration
dared not raise the anti-Nebraska banner, nor
could it have found followers ; and it was not only
inclined but forced to make its battle either under
the old name of Whigs, or, as became more pop-
360 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xx. ular, under the new appellation of " Americans,"
which grew into a more dignified synonym for
Know-Nothings.
Thus confronted, the Nebraska and anti-Ne-
braska factions, or, more philosophically speaking,
the pro-slavery and antislavery sentiment of the
several American States, battled for political su-
premacy with a zeal and determination only mani-
fested on occasions of deep and vital concern to the
welfare of the republic. However languidly certain
elements of American society may perform what
they deem the drudgery of politics, they do not
shrink from it when they hear warning of real
danger. The alarm of the nation on the repeal of
the Missouri Compromise was serious and startling.
All ranks and occupations therefore joined with a
new energy in the contest it provoked. Particu-
larly was the religious sentiment of the North
profoundly moved by the moral question involved.
Perhaps for the first time in our modern politics,
the pulpit vied with the press, and the Church with
the campaign club, in the work of debate and prop-
agandism.
The very inception of the struggle had provoked
bitter words. Before the third Nebraska bill had
yet been introduced into the Senate, the then lit-
tle band of " Free-Soilers " in Congress — Chase,
Sumner, Giddings, and three others — had issued a
newspaper address calling the repeal " a gross vio-
lation of a sacred pledge " ; "a criminal betrayal of
precious rights " ; " an atrocious plot," " designed
to cover up from public reprehension meditated
bad faith," etc. Douglas, seizing only too gladly
the pretext to use denunciation instead of argu-
THE DKIFT OF POLITICS 361
ment, replied in his opening speech, in turn stig- chap. xx.
matizing them as "abolition confederates" "as-
sembled in secret conclave " " on the holy Sabbath
while other Senators were engaged in divine wor-
ship"— "plotting," "in the name of the holy-
religion " ; " perverting," and " calumniating the
committee " ; " appealing with a smiling face to his
courtesy to get time to circulate their document
before its infamy could be exposed," etc.
The key-notes of the discussion thus given were
well sustained on both sides, and crimination and
recrimination increased with the heat and intensity
of the campaign. The gradual disruption of par-
ties, and the new and radical attitudes assumed by
men of independent thought, gave ample occasion
to indulge in such epithets as " apostates," " rene-
gades," and "traitors." Unusual acrimony grew
out of the zeal of the Church and its ministers.
The clergymen of the Northern States not only
spoke against the repeal from their pulpits, but
forwarded energetic petitions against it to Con-
gress, 3050 clergymen of New England of differ-
ent denominations joining their signatures in «Giobe,»
one protest. " We protest against it," they said, uu, p. m.
"as a great moral wrong, as a breach of faith
eminently unjust to the moral principles of the
community, and subversive of all confidence in
national engagements ; as a measure full of danger
to the peace and even the existence of our beloved
Union, and exposing us to the righteous judgment
of the Almighty." In return, Douglas made a
most virulent onslaught on their political action.
" Here we find," he retorted, " that a large body of ibid.,p.6i8.
preachers, perhaps three thousand, following the
362 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xx. lead of a circular which was issued by the abolition
confederates in this body, calculated to deceive and
mislead the public, have here come forward with
an atrocious falsehood, and an atrocious calumny
against this Senate, desecrated the pulpit, and
prostituted the sacred desk to the miserable and
corrupting influence of party politics." All his
newspapers and partisans throughout the country
caught the style and spirit of his warfare, and
boldly denied the moral right of the clergy to take
part in politics otherwise than by a silent vote.
But they, on the other hand, persisted all the more
earnestly in justifying their interference in moral
questions wherever they appeared, and were clearly
sustained by the public opinion of the North.
Though the repeal was forced through Congress
under party pressure, and by the sheer weight
of a large Democratic majority in both branches,
it met from the first a decided and unmistakable
popular condemnation in the free States. While
the measure was yet under discussion in the House
in March, New Hampshire led off by an election
completely obliterating the eighty-nine Democratic
majority in her Legislature. Connecticut followed
in her footsteps early in April. Long before No-
vember it was evident that the political revolution
among the people of the North was thorough, and
that election day was anxiously awaited merely to
record the popular verdict already decided.
The influence of this result upon parties, old and
new, is perhaps best illustrated in the organization
of the Thirty-fourth Congress, chosen at these
elections during the year 1854, which witnessed the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Each Con-
THE DKIFT OF POLITICS 363
gress, in ordinary course, meets for the first time chap. xx.
about one year after its members are elected by the
people, and the influence of politics during the
interim needs always to be taken into account.
In this particular instance this effect had, if any-
thing, been slightly reactionary, and the great con-
test for the Speakership during the winter of
1855-6 may therefore be taken as a fair manifesta-
tion of the spirit of politics in 1854.
The strength of the preceding House of Eepre-
sentatives, which met in December, 1853, had been :
Whigs, 71; Free-soilers, 4; Democrats, 159 — a
clear Democratic majority of 84. In the new Con-
gress there were in the House, as nearly as the
classification could be made, about 108 anti-Ne-
braska members, nearly 40 Know-Nothings, and
about 75 Democrats ; the remaining members were
undecided. The proud Democratic majority of
the Pierce election was annihilated.
But as yet the new party was merely inchoate,
its elements distrustful, jealous, and discordant;
the feuds and battles of a quarter of a century
were not easily forgotten or buried. The Demo-
cratic members, boldly nominating Mr. Richard-
son, the House leader on the Nebraska bill, as their
candidate for Speaker, made a long and deter-
mined push for success. But his highest range of
votes was about 74 to 76 ; while through 121 ballot-
ings, continuing from December 3 to January 23,
the opposition remained divided, Mr. Banks, the
anti-Nebraska favorite, running at one time up to
106 — within seven votes of an election. At this
point, Eichardson, finding it a hopeless struggle,
withdrew his name as a candidate, and the Demo-
364 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xx. cratic strength was transferred to another, but
with no better prospects. Finally, seeing no chance
of otherwise terminating the contest, the Honse
yielded to the inevitable domination of the slavery
question, and resolved, on February 2, by a vote
of 113 to 104, to elect under the plurality rule after
the next three ballotings. Under this rule, not-
withstanding the most strenuous efforts to rescind
it, Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, was
chosen Speaker by 103 votes, against 100 votes for
William Aiken, of South Carolina, with thirty
scattering. The " ruthless " repeal of the Missouri
Compromise had effectually broken the legislative
power of the Democratic party.
CHAPTER XXI
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL
TO follow closely the chain of events, growing chap.xxi
out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise um.
at Douglas's instigation, we must now examine
its effect upon the political fortunes of that power-
ful leader in his own State.
The extreme length of Illinois from north to
south is 385 miles; in geographical situation it
extends from the latitude of Massachusetts and
New York to that of Virginia and Kentucky. The
great westward stream of emigration in the United
States had generally followed the parallels of lati-
tude. The pioneers planted their new homes as
nearly as might be in a climate like the one they
had left. In process of time, therefore, northern
Illinois became peopled with settlers from Northern
or free States, bringing their antislavery traditions
and feelings; southern Illinois, with those from
Southern or slave States, who were as naturally
pro-slavery. The Virginians and Kentuckians
readily became converts to the thrift and order of
free society ; but as a class they never gave up or
conquered their intense hatred of antislavery con-
victions based on merely moral grounds, which
they indiscriminately stigmatized as "abolition-
366 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. ism." Impelled by this hatred the lawless element
of the community was often guilty of persecution
and violence in minor forms, and in 1837, as al-
ready related, it prompted the murder of Lovejoy
in the city of Alton by a mob, for persisting in his
right to publish his antislavery opinions. This was
its gravest crime. But a narrow spirit of intoler-
ance extending even down to the rebellion kept on
the statute books a series of acts prohibiting the
settlement of free blacks in the State.
It was upon this field of radically diverse sen-
timent that in the year 1854 Douglas's sudden
project of repeal fell like a thunderbolt out of a
clear sky. A Democratic Governor had been chosen
two years before ; a Democratic Legislature, called
together to consider merely local and economic
questions, was sitting in extra session at Spring-
field. There was doubt and consternation over
the new issue. The Governor and other prudent
partisans avoided a public committal. But the
silence could not be long maintained. Douglas
was a despotic party leader, and President Pierce
had made the Nebraska bill an Administration
question. Above all, in Illinois, as elsewhere, the
people at once took up the discussion, and reluctant
politicians were compelled to avow themselves.
The Nebraska bill with its repealing clause had
been before the country some three weeks and was
yet pending in Congress when a member of the
Illinois Legislature introduced resolutions indors-
ing it. Three Democratic State Senators, two from
northern and one from central Illinois, had the
courage to rise and oppose the resolutions in vigor-
ous and startling speeches. They were N. B. Judd,
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL 367
of Chicago, B. C. Cook, of La Salle, and John M. chap.xxi
Palmer, of Macoupin. This was an unusual party
phenomenon and had its share in hastening the
general agitation throughout the State. Only two
or three other members took part in the discussion ;
the Democrats avoided the issue ; the Whigs hoped
to profit by the dissension. There was the usual
rush of amendments and of parliamentary strat-
egy, and the indorsing resolutions which finally
passed in both Houses in ambiguous language and
by a diminished vote were shorn of much of their
political significance.
Party organization was strong in Illinois, and for
the greater part, as the popular discussion pro-
ceeded, the Democrats sustained and the Whigs
opposed the new measure. In the northern coun-
ties, where the antislavery sentiment was general,
there were a few successful efforts to disband the
old parties and create a combined opposition under
the new name of Eepublicans. This, it was soon
apparent, would make serious inroads on the exist-
ing Democratic majority. But an alarming counter-
movement in the central counties, which formed
the Whig stronghold, soon began to show itself.
Douglas's violent denunciation of " abolitionists "
and " abolitionism " appealed with singular power
to Whigs from slave States. The party was with-
out a national leader; Clay had died two years
before, and Douglas made skillful quotations from
the great statesman's speeches to bolster up his
new propagandism. In Congress only a little
handful of Southern Whigs opposed the repeal,
and even these did not dare place their opposi-
tion on antislavery grounds. And especially the
368 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. familiar voice and example of the neighboring
Missouri Whigs were given unhesitatingly to the
support of the Douglas scheme. Under these com-
bined influences one or two erratic but rather
prominent Whigs in central Illinois declared their
adherence to Nebraskaism, and raised the hope
that the Democrats would regain in the center and
south all they might lose in the northern half of
the State.
One additional circumstance had its effect on
public opinion. As has been stated, in the opposi-
tion to Douglas's repeal the few avowed abolitionists
and the many pronounced Free-soilers, displaying
unwonted activity, came suddenly into the fore-
ground to rouse and organize public opinion, mak-
ing it seem for the moment that they had really
assumed leadership and control in politics. This
class of men had long been held up to public odium.
Some of them had, indeed, on previous occasions
used intemperate and offensive language ; but more
generally they were denounced upon a gross mis-
representation of their utterance and purpose. It
so happened that they were mostly of Democratic
antecedents, which gave them great influence among
antislavery Democrats, but made their advice and
arguments exceedingly distasteful in strong Whig
counties and communities. The fact that they now
became more prudent, conciliatory, and practical in
their speeches and platforms did not immediately
remove existing prejudices against them. A few
of these appeared in Illinois. Cassius M. Clay pub-
lished a letter in which he advocated the fusion of
anti-Nebraska voters upon "Benton, Seward, Hale,
or any other good citizen," and afterwards made a
LYMAN TRUMBULL.
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL 369
series of speeches in Illinois. When he came to chap.xxl
Springfield, the Democratic officers in charge re-
fused him the use of the rotunda of the State
House, a circumstance, however, which only served
to draw him a larger audience in a neighboring
grove. Later in the summer Joshua R. Giddings
and Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, made a political
tour through the State, and at Springfield the
future Secretary and Chief-Justice addressed an
unsympathetic audience of a few hundreds in the
dingy little court-house, almost unheralded, save
by the epithets of the Democratic newspapers. A
few local speakers of this class, of superior address
and force, now also began to signalize themselves
by a new-born zeal and an attractive eloquence.
Conspicuous among these was Owen Lovejoy, of
northern Illinois, brother of the man who, for
opinion's sake, had been murdered at Alton.
While thus in the northern half of Illinois the
public condemnation of Douglas's repeal was im-
mediate and sweeping, the formation of opposition
to it was tentative and slow in the central and
southern counties, where, among Whigs of South-
ern birth, it proceeded rather upon party feeling
than upon moral conviction. The new question
struck through party lines in such a manner as to
confuse and perplex the masses. But the issue
would not be postponed. The Congressional elec-
tions were to be held in the autumn, and the suc-
cession of events rather than the leadership of
politicians gradually shaped the campaign.
After a most exciting parliamentary struggle
the repeal was carried through Congress in May.
Encouraged by this successful domination over
Vol. I.— 24
370 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. Representatives and Senators, Douglas prepared
to force its acceptance by the people. "I hear
men now say," said he, " that they are willing to
acquiesce in it. . . It is not sufficient that they
shall not seek to disturb Nebraska and Kansas,
but they must acquiesce also in the principle."1
In the slave States this was an easy task. The
most prominent Democrat who had voted against
the Nebraska bill was Thomas H. Benton. The
election in Missouri was held in August, and Ben-
ton was easily beaten by a Whig who was as fierce
for repeal as Douglas himself. In the free States
the case was altogether different. In Illinois the
Democrats gradually, but at last with a degree of
boldness, shouldered the dangerous dogma. The
main body of the party rallied under Douglas, ex-
cepting a serious defection in the north; on the
other hand, the Whigs in a body declared against
him, but were weakened by a scattering desertion
in the center and south. Meanwhile both retained
their distinctive party names and organizations.
Congress adjourned early in August, but Doug-
las delayed his return to Illinois. The 1st of Sep-
tember had come, when it was announced he would
return to his home in Chicago. This was an anti-
slavery city, and the current of popular condemna-
tion and exasperation was running strongly against
him. Public meetings of his own former party
friends had denounced him. Street rowdies had
burned him in effigy. The opposition papers
charged him with skulking and being afraid to
meet his constituents. On the afternoon of his
l Douglas's speech before the Union Democratic Club of New
York, June 3, 1854. New York "Herald," June 5, 1854.
LINCOLN AND TKUMBULL 371
coming many flags in the city and on the shipping chap.xxi.
in the river and harbor were hung at half-mast.
At sunset sundry city bells were tolled for an hour
to signify the public mourning at his downfall.
When he mounted the platform at night to address
a crowd of some five thousand listeners he was
surrounded by a little knot of personal friends,
but the audience before him was evidently cold if
not actively hostile.
He began his speech, defending his course as
well as he could. He claimed that the slavery
question was forever settled by his great principle
of " popular sovereignty," which took it out of Con-
gress and gave it to the people of the territories to
decide as they pleased. The crowd heard him in
sullen silence for three-quarters of an hour, when
their patience gave out, and they began to ply him
with questions. He endured their fire of interrog-
atory for a little while till he lost his own temper.
Excited outcry followed angry repartee. Thrust
and rejoinder were mingled with cheers and hisses.
The mayor, who presided, tried to calm the assem-
blage, but the passions of the crowd would brook
no control. Douglas, of short, sturdy build and
imperious and controversial nature, stood his
ground courageously, with flushed and lowering
countenance hurling defiance at his interrupters,
calling them a mob, and shaking his fist in their
faces ; in reply the crowd groaned, hooted, yelled,
and made the din of Pandemonium. The tumultu-
ous proceeding continued until half -past ten o'clock
at night, when the baffled orator was finally but
very reluctantly persuaded by his friends to give
up the contest and leave the stand. It was trum-
372 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. peted abroad by the Democratic newspapers that
" in the order-loving, law-abiding, abolition-ridden
city of Chicago, Illinois's great statesman and rep-
resentative in the United States Senate was cried
down and refused the privilege of speaking " ; and as
usual the intolerance produced its natural reaction.
Since Abraham Lincoln's return to Springfield
from his single term of service in Congress, 1847
to 1849, though by no means entirely withdrawn
from politics, his campaigning had been greatly
diminished. The period following had for him
been years of work, study, and reflection. His pro-
fession of law had become a deeper science and a
higher responsibility. His practice, receiving his
undivided attention, brought him more important
and more remunerative cases. Losing nothing of
his genial humor, his character took on the dignity
of a graver manhood. He was still the center of in-
terest of every social group he encountered, whether
on the street or in the parlor. Serene and buoy-
ant of temper, cordial and winning of language,
charitable and tolerant of opinion, his very pres-
ence diffused a glow of confidence and kindness.
Wherever he went he left an ever-widening ripple
of smiles, jests, and laughter. His radiant good-
fellowship was beloved and sought alike by politi-
cal opponents and partisan friends. His sturdy
and delicate integrity, recognized far and wide,
had long since won him the blunt but hearty
sobriquet of "Honest Old Abe." But it became
noticeable that he was less among the crowd and
more in the solitude of his office or his study, and
that he seemed ever in haste to leave the eager
circle he was entertaining.
LINCOLN AND TEUMBULL 373
It is in the midsummer of 1854 that we find him chap.xxi.
reappearing upon the stump in central Illinois. The
rural population always welcomed his oratory, and
he never lacked invitations to address the public.
His first speeches on the new and all-absorbing
topic were made in the neighboring towns, and in
the counties adjoining his own. Towards the end
of August the candidates for Congress in that dis-
trict were, in Western phrase, "on the track."
Richard Yates, afterwards one of the famous " war
governors," sought a reelection as a Whig. Thomas
L. Harris as a Douglas-Democrat strove to sup-
plant him. Local politics became active, and Lin-
coln was sent for from all directions to address the
people. When he went, however, he distinctly
announced that he did not purpose to take up his
time with this personal and congressional contro-
versy. His intention was to discuss the principles
of the Nebraska bill.
Once launched upon this theme, men were
surprised to find him imbued with an unwonted
seriousness. They heard from his lips fewer anec-
dotes and more history. Careless listeners who
came to laugh at his jokes were held by the strong
current of his reasoning and the flashes of his
earnest eloquence, and were lifted up by the range
and tenor of his argument into a fresher and purer
political atmosphere. The new discussion was
fraught with deeper questions than the improve-
ment of the Sangamon, protective tariffs, or the ori-
gin of the Mexican war. Down through incidents of
legislation, through history of government, even
underlying cardinal maxims of political philosophy,
it touched the very bed-rock of primary human
374 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. rights. Such a subject furnished material for the
inborn gifts of the speaker, his intuitive logic, his
impulsive patriotism, his pure and poetical con-
ception of legal and moral justice.
Douglas, since his public rebuff at Chicago on
September 1, had begun, after a few days of delay
and rest, a tour of speech-making southward through
the State. At these meetings he had at least a re-
spectful hearing, and as he neared central Illinois
the reception accorded him became more enthu-
siastic. The chief interest of the campaign finally
centered in a sort of political tournament which
took place at the capital, Springfield, during the
first week of October ; the State Agricultural Fair
having called together great crowds, and among
them the principal politicians of Illinois. This was
Lincoln's home, in a strong Whig county, and in a
section of the State where that party had hitherto
found its most compact and trustworthy forces.
As yet Lincoln had made but a single speech there
on the Nebraska question. Of the Federal appoint-
ments under the Nebraska bill, Douglas secured
two for Illinois, one of which, the office of surveyor-
general of Kansas, was given to John Calhoun,
the same man who, in the pioneer days twenty
years before, was county surveyor in Sangamon
and had employed Abraham Lincoln as his deputy.
He was also the same who three years later re-
ceived the sobriquet of "John Candlebox Calhoun,"
having acquired unenviable notoriety from his
reputed connection with the "Cincinnati Direct-
ory " and " Candlebox " election frauds in Kansas,
and with the famous Lecompton Constitution.
Calhoun was still in Illinois doing campaign work
LINCOLN AND TKUMBULL 375
in propagating the Nebraska faith. He was rec- chap.xxi
ognized as a man of considerable professional and
political talent, and had made a speech in Spring-
field to which Lincoln had replied. It was, how-
ever, merely a casual and local affair and was not
described or reported by the newspapers.
The meetings at the State Fair were of a differ-
ent character. The audiences were composed of
leading men from nearly all the counties of the
State. Though the discussion of party questions
had been going on all summer with more or less
briskness, yet such was the general confusion in
politics that many honest and intelligent voters
and even leaders were still undecided in their opin-
ions. The fair continued nearly a week. Douglas
made a speech on the first day, Tuesday, October
3. Lincoln replied to him on the following day,
October 4. Douglas made a rejoinder, and on that
night and the succeeding day and night a running
fire of debate ensued, in which John Calhoun,
Judge Trumbull, Judge Sidney Breese, Colonel E.
D. Taylor, and perhaps others, took part.
Douglas's speech was doubtless intended by him
and expected by his friends to be the principal and
the conclusive argument of the occasion. But by
this time the Whig party of the central counties,
though shaken by the disturbing features of the
Nebraska question, had nevertheless re-formed its
lines, and assumed the offensive to which its pre-
ponderant numbers entitled it, and resolved not to
surrender either its name or organization. In
Sangamon County, its strongest men, Abraham
Lincoln and Stephen T. Logan, were made candi-
dates for the Legislature. The term of Douglas's
376 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. colleague in the United States Senate, General
James Shields, was about to expire, and the new
Legislature would choose his successor. To the
war of party principles was therefore added the
incentive of a brilliant official prize. The Whigs
were keenly alive to this chance and its influence
upon their possible ascendency in the State.
Lincoln's Whig friends had therefore seen his
reappearance in active discussion with unfeigned
pleasure. Of old they knew his peculiar hold and
influence upon the people and his party. His few
speeches in the adjoining counties had shown them
his maturing intellect, his expanding power in de-
bate. Acting upon himself, this renewed practice
on the stump crystallized his thought and brought
method to his argument. The opposition news-
papers had accused him of " mousing about the
libraries in the State House." The charge was
true. Where others were content to take state-
ments at second hand, he preferred to verify cita-
tions as well as to find new ones. His treatment
of his theme was therefore not only bold but
original.
By a sort of common consent his party looked to
him to answer Douglas's speech. This was no light
task, and no one knew it better than Lincoln.
Douglas's real ability was, and remains, unques-
tioned. In many qualities of intellect he was truly
the " Little Giant " which popular fancy nicknamed
him. It was no mere chance that raised the Ver-
mont cabinet-maker's apprentice from a penniless
stranger in Illinois in 1833 to a formidable com-
petitor for supreme leadership in the great Demo-
cratic party of the nation in 1852. When after the
LINCOLN AND TKUMBULL 377
lapse of a quarter of a century we measure him chap.xxl
with the veteran chiefs whom he aspired to sup-
plant, we see the substantial basis of his confidence
and ambition. His great error of statesmanship
aside, he stands forth more than the peer of as-
sociates who underrated his power and looked
askance at his pretensions. In the six years of per-
ilous party conflict which followed, every conspicu-
ous party rival disappeared in obscurity, disgrace,
or rebellion. Battling while others feasted, sowing
where others reaped, abandoned by his allies and
persecuted by his friends, Douglas alone emerged
from the fight with loyal faith and unshaken cour-
age, bringing with him through treacheiy, defeat,
and disaster the unflinching allegiance and enthu-
siastic admiration of nearly three-fifths of the rank
and file of the once victorious army of Democratic
voters at the north. He had not only proved him-
self their most gallant chief, but as a final crown
of merit he led his still powerful contingent of fol-
lowers to a patriotic defense of the Constitution
and government which some of his compeers put
into such mortal jeopardy.
We find him here at the beginning of this severe
conflict in the full flush of hope and ambition. He
was winning in personal manner, brilliant in debate,
aggressive in party strategy. To this he added an
adroitness in evasion and false logic perhaps never
equaled, and in his defense of the Nebraska meas-
ure this questionable but convenient gift was ever
his main reliance. Besides, his long official career
gave to his utterances the stamp and glitter of orac-
ular statesmanship. But while Lincoln knew all
Douglas's strong points he was no less familiar with
378 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap xxi. his weak ones. They had come to central Illinois
about the same time, and had in a measure grown
up together. Socially they were on friendly terms;
politically they had been opponents for twenty
years. At the bar, in the Legislature, and on the
stump they had often met and measured strength.
Each therefore knew the temper of the other's steel
no less than every joint in his armor.
It was a peculiarity of the early West — perhaps
it pertains to all primitive communities — that the
people retained a certain fragment of the chivalric
sentiment, a remnant of the instinct of hero-wor-
ship. As the ruder athletic sports faded out, as
shooting-matches, wrestling-matches, horse-races,
and kindred games fell into disuse, political debate
became, in a certain degree, their substitute. But
the principle of championship, while it yielded high
honor and consideration to the victor, imposed upon
him the corresponding obligation to recognize every
opponent and accept every challenge. To refuse
any contest, to plead any privilege, would be in-
stant loss of prestige. This supreme moment in
Lincoln's career, this fateful turning of the polit-
ical tide, found him fully prepared for the new
battle, equipped by reflection and research to per-
mit himself to be pitted against the champion of
Democracy — against the very author of the raging
storm of parties; and it displays his rare self-
confidence and consciousness of high ability, to
venture to attack such an antagonist.
Douglas made his speech, according to notice, on
the first day of the fair, Tuesday, October 3. "I
will mention," said he, in his opening remarks,
" that it is understood by some gentlemen that Mr.
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL 379
Lincoln, of this city, is expected to answer me. If chap.xxi.
this is the understanding, I wish that Mr. Lincoln
would step forward and let us arrange some plan
upon which to carry out this discussion." Mr.
Lincoln was not there at the moment, and the
arrangement could not then be made. Unpropi-
tious weather had brought the meeting to the Rep-
resentatives' Hall in the State House, which was
densely packed. The next day found the same
hall filled as before to hear Mr. Lincoln. Douglas
occupied a seat just in front of him, and in his re-
joinder he explained that " my friend Mr. Lincoln
expressly invited me to stay and hear him speak
to-day, as he heard me yesterday, and to answer
and defend myself as best I could. I here thank
him for his courteous offer." The occasion greatly
equalized the relative standing of the champions.
The familiar surroundings, the presence and hearty
encouragement of his friends, put Lincoln in his
best vein. His bubbling humor, his perfect tem-
per, and above all the overwhelming current of
his historical arraignment extorted the admiration
of even his political enemies. "His speech was
four hours in length," wrote one of these, " and cS§£oe
was conceived and expressed in a most happy and u ^J*^
pleasant style, and was received with abundant c^.?uoito-
applause. At times he made statements which
brought Senator Douglas to his feet, and then
good-humored passages of wit created much inter-
est and enthusiasm." All reports plainly indicate
that Douglas was astonished and disconcerted at
this unexpected strength of argument, and that he
struggled vainly through a two hours' rejoinder to
break the force of Lincoln's victory in the debate.
ber 6, 1854.
380 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap.xxi. Lincoln had hitherto been the foremost man in his
district. That single effort made him the leader
on the new question in his State.
The fame of this success brought Lincoln urgent
calls from all the places where Douglas was ex-
pected to speak. Accordingly, twelve days after-
wards, October 16, they once more met in debate,
at Peoria. Lincoln, as before, gave Douglas the
opening and closing speeches, explaining that he
was willing to yield this advantage in order to
secure a hearing from the Democratic portion of
his listeners. The audience was a large one, but
not so representative in its character as that at
Springfield. The occasion was made memorable,
however, by the fact that when Lincoln returned
home he wrote out and published his speech. We
have therefore the revised text of his argument,
and are able to estimate its character and value.
Marking as it does with unmistakable precision a
step in the second period of his intellectual devel-
opment, it deserves the careful attention of the
student of his life.
After the lapse of more than a quarter of a
century the critical reader still finds it a model of
brevity, directness, terse diction, exact and lucid
historical statement, and full of logical propositions
so short and so strong as to resemble mathematical
axioms. Above all it is pervaded by an elevation
of thought and aim that lifts it out of the common-
place of mere party controversy. Comparing it
with his later speeches, we find it to contain not
only the argument of the hour, but the premonition
of the broader issues into which the new struggle
was destined soon to expand.
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL 381
The main, broad current of his reasoning was to chap.xxl
vindicate and restore the policy of the fathers of
the country in the restriction of slavery ; but run-
ning through this like a thread of gold was the
demonstration of the essential injustice and im-
morality of the system. He said :
This declared indifference but, as I must think, covert
zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate
it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself.
I hate it because it deprives our republican example of
its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free
institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites ;
causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity;
and especially because it forces so many really good men
among ourselves into an open war with the very funda-
mental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declara-
tion of Independence and insisting that there is no right
principle of action but self-interest.
The doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely
and eternally right, — but it has no just application as
here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that
whether it has such just application, depends upon
whether a negro is not, or is, a man. If he is not a man,
in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-
government do just what he pleases with him. But if
the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruc-
tion of self-government to say that he too shall not
govern himself ? When the white man governs himself,
that is self-government ; but when he governs himself
and also governs another man, that is more than self-
government — that is despotism.
What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern
another man without that other's consent.
The master not only governs the slave without his
consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether
different from those which he prescribes for himself.
382 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government ;
that, and that only, is self-government.
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature
— opposition to it, in his love of justice. These principles
are an eternal antagonism ; and when brought into colli-
sion so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks
and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Re-
peal the Missouri Compromise — repeal all compromise —
repeal the Declaration of Independence — repeal all past
history — still you cannot repeal human nature.
I particularly object to the new position which the
avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery
in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes
that there can be moral right in the enslaving of one man
by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a
free people, — a sad evidence that feeling prosperity, we
forget right, — that liberty as a principle we have ceased
to revere.
Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the
grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith.
Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all
men are created equal ; but now from that beginning we
have run down to the other declaration that for some
men to enslave others is a " sacred right of self-govern-
ment." These principles cannot stand together. They
are as opposite as God and mammon.
Our Republican robe is soiled and trailed in the dust.
Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the
spirit if not the blood of the Revolution. Let us turn
slavery from its claims of " moral right " back upon its
existing legal rights, and its arguments of " necessity."
Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it, and
there let it rest in peace. Let us readopt the Declaration
of Independence, and the practices and policy which har-
monize with it. Let North and South — let all Americans
— let all lovers of liberty everywhere — join in the great
and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have
LINCOLN AND TKUMBULL 383
saved the Union, but we shall have so saved it, as to chap.xxi.
make and to keep it forever worthy of the saving. We
shall have so saved it that the succeeding millions of free,
happy people, the world over, shall rise up and call us
blessed to the latest generations.
The election which occurred on November 7 iss*.
resulted disastrously for Douglas. It was soon
found that the Legislature on joint ballot would
probably give a majority for Senator against
Shields, the incumbent, or any other Democrat
who had supported the Nebraska bill. Who might
become his successor was more problematical.
The opposition majority was made up of anti-
Nebraska Democrats, of what were then called
" abolitionists " (Love joy had been elected among
these), and finally of Whigs, who numbered by far
the largest portion. But these elements, except on
one single issue, were somewhat irreconcilable. In
this condition of uncertainty a host of candidates
sprung up. There was scarcely a member of Con-
gress from Illinois — indeed, scarcely a prominent
man in the State of any party — who did not con-
ceive the flattering dream that he himself might
become the lucky medium of compromise and
harmony.
Among the Whigs, though there were other
aspirants, Lincoln, whose speeches had contrib-
uted so much to win the election, was the natural
and most prominent candidate. According to
Western custom, he addressed a short note to
most of the Whig members elect and to other
influential members of the party asking their sup-
port. Generally the replies were not only affirma-
tive but cordial and even enthusiastic. But a
384 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. dilemma now arose. Lincoln had been chosen one
of the members from Sangamon County by some
650 majority. The Constitution of Illinois con-
tained a clause disqualifying members of the
Legislature and certain other designated officials
from being elected to the Senate. Good lawyers
generally believed this provision repugnant to the
Constitution of the United States, and that the
qualifications of Senators and Representatives
therein prescribed could be neither increased nor
diminished by a State. But the opposition had
only a majority of one or two. If Lincoln resigned
his membership in the Legislature this might
destroy the majority. If he refused to resign,
such refusal might carry some member to the
Democrats.
At last, upon full deliberation, Lincoln resigned
his seat, relying upon the six or seven hundred
majority in Sangamon County to elect another
Whig. It was a delusive trust. A reaction in the
Whig ranks against " abolitionism " suddenly set
in. A listless apathy succeeded the intense excite-
ment and strain of the summer's canvass. Local
rivalries forced the selection of an unpopular candi-
date. Shrewdly noting all these signs the Demo-
crats of Sangamon organized what is known in
Western politics as a "still-hunt." They made a
feint of allowing the special election to go by
default. They made no nomination. They per-
mitted an independent Democrat, known under
the sobriquet of " Steamboat Smith," to parade his
own name. Up to the very day of election they
gave no public sign, although they had in the
utmost secrecy instructed and drilled their pre-
OWES LOVK.TO V.
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL 385
cinct squads. On the morning of election the chap.xxi.
working Democrats appeared at every poll, dis-
tributing tickets bearing the name of a single can-
didate not before mentioned by any one. They
were busy all day long spurring up the lagging
and indifferent, and bringing the aged, the infirm,
and the distant voters in vehicles. Their ruse suc-
ceeded. The Whigs were taken completely by
surprise, and in a remarkably small total vote,
McDaniels, Democrat, was chosen by about sixty
majority. The Whigs in other parts of the State
were furious at the unlooked-for result, and the
incident served greatly to complicate the senatorial
canvass.
Nevertheless it turned out that even after this
loss the opposition to Douglas would have a
majority on joint ballot. But how unite this
opposition made up of Whigs, of Democrats, and
of so-called abolitionists ? It was just at that
moment in the impending revolution of parties
when everything was doubt, distrust, uncertainty.
Only the abolitionists, ever aggressive on all
slavery issues, were ready to lead off in new com-
binations, but nobody was willing to encounter the
odium of acting with them. They, too, were pres-
ent at the State Fair, and heard Lincoln reply to
Douglas. At the close of that reply, and just
before Douglas's rejoinder, Love joy had announced
to the audience that a Republican State Conven-
tion would be immediately held in the Senate
Chamber, extending an invitation to delegates to
join in it. But the appeal fell upon unwilling ears.
Scarcely a corporal's guard left the discussion.
The Senate Chamber presented a discouraging
Vol. I.— 25
386 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. array of empty benches. Only some twenty-six
delegates were there to represent the whole State
of Illinois. Nothing daunted, they made their
speeches and read their platform to each other.1
Particularly in their addresses they praised Lin-
coln's great speech which they had just heard, not-
withstanding his declarations differed so essentially
from their new-made creed. " Ichabod raved," said
the Democratic organ in derision, "and Lovejoy
swelled, and all indorsed the sentiments of that
speech." Not content with this, without consent or
consultation, they placed Lincoln's name in the list
of their State Central Committee.
Matters remained in this attitude until their
chairman called a meeting and notified Lincoln to
"odffig,0 attend. In reply he sent the following letter of
i864.VMs. inquiry: "While I have pen in hand allow me
to say that I have been perplexed to understand
why my name was placed on that committee.
I was not consulted on the subject, nor was I
apprised of the appointment until I discovered it
by accident two or three weeks afterwards. I sup-
pose my opposition to the principle of slavery is as
strong as that of any member of the Republican
party ; but I had also supposed that the extent to
l Their resolutions were radical the fugitive slave law ; to restrict
for that day, but not so extreme slavery to those States in which
as was generally feared. On the it exists ; to prohibit the admis-
slavery question they declared sion of any more slave States;
their purpose : to abolish slavery in the District
To restore Kansas and Ne- of Columbia ; to exclude slavery
braska to the position of free ter- from all territories over which
ritories ; that as the Constitution the general Government has ex-
of the United States vests in the elusive jurisdiction, and finally
States and not in Congress the to resist the acquirement of any
power to legislate for the ren- more territories unless slavery
dition of fugitives from labor, shall have been therein forever
to repeal and entirely abrogate prohibited.
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL 387
which I feel authorized to carry that opposition chap, xxl
practically was not at all satisfactory to that party.
The leading men who organized that party were
present on the 4th of October at the discussion be-
tween Douglas and myself at Springfield and had
full opportunity to not misunderstand my position.
Do I misunderstand them I "
Whether this letter was ever replied to is uncer-
tain, though improbable. No doubt it led to con-
ferences during the meeting of the Legislature,
early in the year 1855, when the senatorial ques-
tion came on for decision. It has been suggested
that Lincoln made dishonorable concessions of
principle to get the votes of Love joy and his
friends. The statement is too absurd to merit
serious contradiction. The real fact is that Mr.
Giddings, then in Congress, wrote to Lovejoy and
others to support Lincoln. Various causes delayed
the event, but finally, on February 8, 1855, the
Legislature went into joint ballot. A number of
candidates were put in nomination, but the contest
narrowed itself down to three. Abraham Lincoln
was supported by the Whigs and Free-soilers ;
James Shields by the Douglas-Democrats. As be-
tween these two, Lincoln would easily have suc-
ceeded, had not five anti-Nebraska Democrats
refused under any circumstances to vote for him
or any other Whig,1 and steadily voted during six
l "All that remained of the one of the two Representatives
anti-Nebraska force, excepting above named ' could never vote
Judd, Cook, Palmer, Baker, and for a Whig,' and this incensed
Allen, of Madison, and two or some twenty Whigs to 'think'
three of the secret Matteson men, they would never vote for the man
would go into caucus, and I could of the five." — Lincoln to the Hon.
get the nomination of that cau- E. B. Washburne, February 9,
cus. But the three Senators and 1855. MS.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ballots for Lyman Trumbull. The first vote stood :
Lincoln, 45 ; Shields, 41 ; Trumbull, 5 ; scattering,
8. Two or three Whigs had thrown away then-
votes on this first ballot, and though they now
returned and adhered to him, the demoralizing
example was imitated by various members of the
coalition. On the sixth ballot the vote stood : Lin-
coln, 36 ; Shields, 41 ; Trumbull, 8 ; scattering, 13.
At this stage of the proceedings the Douglas-
Democrats executed a change of front, and, drop-
ping Shields, threw nearly their full strength, 44
votes, for Governor Joel A. Matteson. The
maneuver was not unexpected, for though the
Governor and the party newspapers had hitherto
vehemently asserted he was not a candidate, the
political signs plainly contradicted such statement.
Matteson had assumed a quasi-independent posi-
tion ; kept himself non-commital on Nebraska, and
opposed Douglas's scheme of tonnage duties to
improve Western rivers and harbors. Like the
majority of Western men he had risen from
humble beginnings, and from being an emigrant,
farmer, merchant, and manufacturer, had become
Governor. In ofiice he had devoted himself spe-
cially to the economical and material questions
affecting Illinois, and in this role had a wide pop-
ularity with all classes and parties.
The substitution of his name was a promising
device. The ninth ballot gave him 47 votes. The
opposition under the excitement of non-partisan
appeals began to break up. Of the remaining
votes Lincoln received 15, Trumbull 35, scatter-
ing, 1. In this critical moment Lincoln exhibited a
generosity and a sagacity above the range of the
LINCOLN AND TRUMBULL 389
mere politician's vision. He nrged upon his Whig chap.xxl
friends and supporters to drop his own name and
join without hesitation or conditions in the elec-
tion of Trumbull.1 This was putting their fidelity
to a bitter trial. Upon every issue but the Nebraska
bill Trumbull still avowed himself an uncompro-
mising Democrat. The faction of five had been
stubborn to defiance and disaster. They would
compel the mountain to go to Mahomet. It seemed
an unconditional surrender of the Whig party.
But such was Lincoln's influence upon his adher-
ents that at his request they made the sweeping
sacrifice, though with lingering sorrow. The pro-
ceedings had wasted away a long afternoon of
most tedious suspense. Evening had come; the
gas was lighted in the hall, the galleries were filled
with eager women, the lobbies were packed with
restless and anxious men. All had forgotten the
lapse of hours, their fatigue and their hunger, in
the absorption of the fluctuating contest. The roll-
call of the tenth ballot still showed 15 votes for
Lincoln, 36 for Trumbull, 47 for Matteson. Amid
an excitement which was becoming painful, and
i " In the mean time our friends, ingly advised my remaining
with a view of detaining our friends to go for him, which they
expected bolters, had been turn- did, and elected him on that, the
ing from me to Trumbull till he tenth ballot. Such is the way
had risen to 35 and I had been the thing was done. I think you
reduced to 15. These would would have done the same under
never desert me except by my the circumstances, though Judge
direction ; but I became satisfied Davis, who came down this morn-
that if we could prevent Matte- ing, declares he never would
son's election one or two ballots have consented to the 47 [oppo-
more, we could not possibly do sition] men being controlled by
so a single ballot after my friends the five. I regret my defeat
should begin to return to me moderately, but am not nervous
from Trumbull. So I determined about it." — Lincoln to Wash-
to strike at once; and accord- burne, February 9, 1855. MS.
390 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. in a silence where spectators scarcely breathed,
Judge Stephen T. Logan, Lincoln's nearest and
warmest friend, arose and announced the purpose of
the remaining Whigs to decide the contest, where-
upon the entire fifteen changed their votes to
Trumbull. This gave him the necessary number
of fifty-one, and elected him a Senator of the
United States.
At that early day an election to the United
States Senate must have seemed to Lincoln a most
brilliant political prize, the highest, perhaps, to
which he then had any hopes of ever attaining.
To school himself to its loss with becoming resig-
nation, to wait hopefully during four years for an-
other opportunity, to engage in the dangerous and
difficult task of persuading his friends to leave
their old and join a new political party only yet
dimly foreshadowed, to watch the chances of main-
taining his party leadership, furnished sufficient
occupation for the leisure afforded by the neces-
sities of his law practice. It is interesting to know
that he did more ; that amid the consideration of
mere personal interests he was vigilantly pursuing
the study of the higher phases of the great moral
and political struggle on which the nation was just
entering, little dreaming, however, of the part he
was destined to act in it. A letter of his written
to a friend in Kentucky in the following year
shows us that he had nearly reached a maturity of
conviction on the nature of the slavery conflict —
his belief that the nation could not permanently
endure half slave and half free — which he did not
publicly express until the beginning of his famous
senatorial campaign of 1858 :
LINCOLN AND TEUMBULL 391
Springfield, Ills., August 15, 1855. chap.xxi.
Hon. Geo. Robertson, Lexington, Ky.
My Dear Sir : The volume you left for me has been
received. I am really grateful for the honor of your kind
remembrance, as well as for the book. The partial read-
ing I have already given it has afforded me much of
both pleasure and instruction. It was new to me that ms.
the exact question which led to the Missouri Compromise
had arisen before it arose in regard to Missouri, and that
you had taken so prominent a part in it. Your short but
able and patriotic speech on that occasion has not been
improved upon since by those holding the same views ;
and, with all the lights you then had, the views you took
appear to me as very reasonable.
You are not a friend of slavery in the abstract. In
that speech you spoke of "the peaceful extinction of
slavery " and used other expressions indicating your be-
lief that the thing was, at some time, to have an end.
Since then we have had thirty-six years of experience ;
and this experience has demonstrated, I think, that there
is no peaceful extinction of slavery in prospect for us.
The signal failure of Henry Clay and other good and
great men, in 1849, to effect anything in favor of gradual
emancipation in Kentucky, together with a thousand
other signs, extinguishes that hope utterly. On the
question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we
have been. When we were the political slaves of King
George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that
"all men are created equal" a self-evident truth; but
now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of
being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be
masters that we call the same maxim " a self-evident lie."
The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away ; it is
still a great day for burning fire-crackers !
That spirit which desired the peaceful extinction of
slavery has itself become extinct with the occasion and
the men of the Revolution. Under the impulse of that
occasion, nearly half the States adopted systems of
emancipation at once ; and it is a significant fact that not
a single State has done the like since. So far as peace-
ful, voluntary emancipation is concerned, the condition
392 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
chap. xxi. of the negro slave in America, scarcely less terrible to the
contemplation of a free mind, is now as fixed and hope-
less of change for the better as that of the lost souls of
the finally impenitent. The Autocrat of all the Russias
will resign his crown and proclaim his subjects free
republicans, sooner than will our American masters
voluntarily give up their slaves.
Our political problem now is, " Can we as a nation con-
tinue together permanently — forever — half slave, and
half free?" The problem is too mighty for me. May
God in his mercy superintend the solution. Your much
obliged friend, and humble servant,
A. Lincoln.
The reader has doubtless already noted in his
mind the curious historical coincidence which so
soon followed the foregoing speculative affirmation.
On the day before Lincoln's first inauguration as
President of the United States, the " Autocrat of
all the Russias," Alexander IL, by imperial decree
emancipated his serfs; while six weeks after the
inauguration, the " American masters," headed
by Jefferson Davis, began the greatest war of
modern times, to perpetuate and spread the insti-
tution of slavery.
CHAPTEE XXII
THE BORDER RUFFIANS
THE passage of the Nebraska bill and the ch. xxii.
hurried extinction of the Indian title opened May 30,
r 1854.
nearly fifteen million acres of public lands to
settlement and purchase. The whole of this
vast area was yet practically tenantless. In all of
Kansas there were only three military posts, eight
or ten missions or schools attached to Indian res-
ervations, and some scores of roving hunters and
traders or squatters in the vicinity of a few well-
known camping stations on the two principal
emigrant and trading routes, one leading south-
ward to New Mexico, the other northward towards
Oregon. But such had been the interest created
by the political excitement, and so favorable were
the newspaper reports of the location, soil, and
climate of the new country, that a few months
sufficed to change Kansas from a closed and
prohibited Indian reserve to the emigrant's land
of promise.
Douglas's oracular " stump speech " in the Ne-
braska bill transferred the struggle for slavery
extension from Congress to the newly organized
territories. " Come on, then, gentlemen of the
slave States," said Seward in a Senate discussion ;
394 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxii. " since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept
it in behalf of Freedom. We will engage in com-
petition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and Grod give
the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers
as it is in right." With fifteen millions in the North
against ten millions in the South, the result could
not be in doubt.
Feeling secure in this evident advantage, the
North, in general, trusted to the ordinary and
natural movement of emigration. To the rule,
however, there were a few exceptions. Some
members of Congress, incensed at the tactics of
the Nebraska leaders, formed a Kansas Aid Society
in Washington City and contributed money to assist
emigrants.1 Beyond this initiatory step they do not
seem to have had any personal participation in it,
and its office and working operations were soon
transf erred to New York. Sundry similar organiza-
tions were also formed by private individuals. The
most notable of these was a Boston company char-
1854. tered in April, named " The Massachusetts Emigrant
Aid Company." The charter was soon abandoned,
and the company reorganized June 13th, under pri-
vate articles of association ; 2 and in this condition it
became virtually the working agency of philan-
thropic citizens of New England, headed by Eli
Thayer. There were several auxiliary societies
and a few independent associations. But from
what then and afterwards came to light, it appears
that Mr. Thayer's society was the only one whose
1 Testimony of the Hon. Daniel braska," p. 229. It was once more
Mace, page 829, House Report incorporated February 21, 1855,
No. 200, 1st Session, 34th Con- under the name of " The New
gress. " Howard Report." England Emigrant Aid Com-
2 E. E. Hale, "Kansas and Ne- pany."
THE BOKDEE RUFFIANS 395
operations reached any degree of success deserving ch. xxii.
historical notice.
This company gave publicity, through newspaper
advertisements and pamphlets, of its willingness to
organize emigrants into companies, to send them
to Kansas in charge of trustworthy agents, and to
obtain transportation for them at reduced rates. It
also sent machinery for a few saw-mills, the types
and presses for two or three newspapers, and erected
a hotel or boarding-house to accommodate new-
comers. It purchased and held only the land
necessary to locate these business enterprises. It
engaged in no speculation, paid no fare of any
emigrants, and expressly disavowed the require-
ment of any oath or pledge of political sentiment
or conduct. All these transactions were open,
honest, and lawful, carefully avoiding even the
implication of moral or political wrong.
Under the auspices of this society a pioneer com-
pany of about thirty persons arrived in Kansas in
July, 1854, and founded the town of Lawrence.
Other parties followed from time to time, sending
out off-shoots, but mainly increasing the parent
settlement, until next to Fort Leavenworth, the
principal military post, Lawrence became the lead-
ing town of the Territory. The erection of the
society hotel, the society saw-mills, and the estab-
lishment of a newspaper also gave it leadership in
business and politics as well as population. This
humane and praiseworthy enterprise has been
gravely charged with the origin and responsibility
of the political disorders which followed in Kansas.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Before
it had assisted five hundred persons to their new
396 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxti. homes, the Territory had by regular and individual
immigration, mainly from the Western States, ac-
quired a population of 8601 souls, as disclosed by
the official census taken after the first summer's
arrivals, and before those of the second had begun.
It needs only this statement to refute the political
slander so industriously repeated in high places
against the Lawrence immigrants.
Deeper causes than the philanthropy or zeal of
a few Boston enthusiasts were actively at work.
The balance of power between the free and slave
States had been destroyed by the admission of Cali-
fornia. To restore that balance the South had con-
summated the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
as a first and indispensable step. The second
equally indispensable step was to seize the political
control of the new Territory.
Kansas lay directly west of the State of Missouri.
For a frontier State, the pro-slavery sentiment of
Missouri was very pronounced, especially along the
Kansas border. The establishment of slavery in
this new region had formed the subject of public
and local discussion before the Nebraska bill, and
Senator Atchison had promised his western Mis-
souri constituents to labor for snch a result. From
the time the unlooked-for course of Senator Doug-
las made it a practical possibility, Atchison was
all zeal and devotion to this object, which he de-
clared was almost as dear to him as his hope of
heaven. When it finally became a question to be
decided perhaps by a single frontier election, his
zeal and work in that behalf were many times
multiplied.
Current reports and subsequent developments
THE BOEDER EUFFIANS 397
leave no doubt that this Senator, being then acting ch. xxii.
Vice-President of the United States,1 immediately
after the August adjournment of Congress hurried
away to his home in Platte County, Missouri, and
from that favorable situation personally organized
a vast conspiracy, running through nearly all the
counties of his State adjoining the Kansas border, to
decide the slavery question for Kansas by Missouri
votes. Secret societies under various names, such as
" Blue Lodges," "Friends' Society," " Social Band,"
" Sons of the South," were organized and affiliated,
with all the necessary machinery of oaths, grips,
signs, pass-words, and badges. The plan and ob-
ject of the movement were in general kept well
concealed. Such publicity as could not be avoided
served rather to fan the excitement, strengthen
the hesitating, and frown down all dissent and
opposition. Long before the time for action ar-
rived, the idea that Kansas must be a slave State
had grown into a fixed and determined public
sentiment.
The fact is not singular if we remember the pe-
culiar situation of that locality. It was before the
great expansion of railroads, and western Missouri
could only be conveniently approached by the sin-
gle commercial link of steamboat travel on the
turbid and dangerous Missouri River. Covering
the rich alluvial lands along the majestic but
erratic stream lay the heavy slave counties of the
State, wealthy from the valuable slave products of
hemp and tobacco. Slave tenure and slavery tra-
ditions in Missouri dated back a full century, to the
i By virtue of his office as Pres- dency was vacant ; William R.
ident pro tempore of the United King, chosen with President
States Senate. The Vice-Presi- Pierce, had died.
398 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxii. remote days when the American Bottom opposite
St. Louis was one of the chief bread and meat pro-
ducing settlements of New France, sending supplies
northward to Mackinaw, southward to New Orleans,
and eastward to Fort Duquesne. When in 1763
" the Illinois " country passed by treaty under the
British flag, the old French colonists, with their
slaves, almost in a body crossed the Mississippi
into then Spanish territory, and with fresh addi-
tions from New Orleans founded St. Louis and its
outlying settlements ; and these, growing with a
steady thrift, extended themselves up the Missouri
Eiver.
Slavery was thus identified with the whole his-
tory and also with the apparent prosperity of the
State; and it had in recent times made many of
these Western counties rich. The free State of
Iowa lay a hundred miles to the north, and the
free State of Illinois two hundred to the east; a
wall of Indian tribes guarded the west. Should all
this security be swept away, and their runaways
find a free route to Canada by simply crossing the
county line? Should the price of their personal
" chattels " fall one-half for want of a new market ?
With nearly fifteen million acres of fresh land to
choose from for the present outlay of a trifling
preemption fee, should not the poor white compel
his single " black boy " to follow him a few miles
west, and hoe his tobacco for him on the new fat
bottom-lands of the Kaw River ?
Even such off-hand reasoning was probably con-
fined to the more intelligent. For the greater part
these ignorant but stubborn and strong-willed
frontiersmen were moved by a bitter hatred of
THE BORDER RUFFIANS 399
" abolitionism," because the word had now been ch. xxn.
used for half a century by partisans high and
low — Governors, Senators, Presidents — as a term
of opprobrium and a synonym of crime. With
these as fathers of the faith and the Vice-Pres-
ident of the United States as an apostle to preach
a new crusade, is it astonishing that there was
no lack of listeners, converts, and volunteers!
Senator Atchison spoke in no ambiguous words.
"When you reside in one day's journey of the
Territory," said he, " and when your peace, your
quiet, and your property depend upon your action,
you can without an exertion send five hundred
of your young men who will vote in favor of
your institutions. Should each county in the
State of Missouri only do its duty, the question
will be decided quietly and peaceably at the ballot-
box. If we are defeated, then Missouri and the speech m
Platte
other Southern States will have shown themselves cou?&;
\v m. Pnu-
recreant to their interests and will deserve their "gki'S?"
fate." Kansas," p.
Western water transportation found its natural
terminus where the Kaw or Kansas River empties
into the Missouri. From this circumstance that
locality had for years been the starting-point
for the overland caravans or wagon-trains. Fort
Leavenworth was the point of rendezvous for those
going to California and Oregon; Independence
the place of outfit for those destined to Santa Fe.
Grouped about these two points were half a dozen
heavy slaveholding counties of Missouri, — Platte,
Clay, Ray, Jackson, Lafayette, Saline, and others.
Platte County, the home of Senator Atchison, was
their Western outpost, and lay like an outspread
400 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxii. fan in the great bend of the Missouri, commanding
from thirty to fifty miles of river front. Nearly all
of Kansas attainable by the usual water trans-
portation and travel lay immediately opposite. A
glance at the map will show how easily local
sentiment could influence or dominate commerce
and travel on the Missouri River. In this connec-
tion the character of the population must be taken
into account.
The spirit of intolerance which once pervaded
all slaveholding communities, in whatever State of
the Union, was here rampant to an unusual degree.
The rural inhabitants were marked by the strong
characteristics of the frontier, — fondness of adven-
ture, recklessness of exposure or danger to life, a
boastful assertion of personal right, privilege, or
prowess, a daily and hourly familiarity with the
use of fire-arms. These again were heightened by
two special influences — the presence of Indian
tribes whose reservations lay just across the
border, and the advent and preparation of each
summer's emigration across the great plains.
The " Argonauts of '49 " were not all gamblers
and cut-throats of border song and story. Gener-
ally, however, they were men of decision and will,
all mere drift-wood in the great current of gold-
seekers being soon washed ashore and left behind.
Until they finished their last dinner at the Planter's
House in St. Louis, the fledgelings of cities, the
lawyers, doctors, merchants, and speculators, were
in or of civilization. Perhaps they even resisted
the contamination of cards and drink, profanity
and revolver salutations, while the gilded and
tinseled Missouri River steamboat bore them for
DAVLD R. ATCHISON.
THE BOEDER RUFFIANS 401
three days against its muddy current and boiling ch. xxii.
eddies to meet their company and their outfit.
But once landed at Independence or Leaven-
worth, they were of the frontier, of the wilderness,
of the desert. Here they donned their garments of
red flannel and coarse cloth or buckskin, thrust the
legs of their trousers inside the tops of their heavy
boots, and wore their bowie-knife or revolver in
their outside belt. From this departure all were
subject to the inexorable equality of the camp.
Eating, sleeping, standing guard, tugging at the
wheel or defending life and property, — there was
no rank between captain and cook, employer and
employed, savant and ignoramus, but the distribu-
tion of duty and the assignment of responsibility.
Toil and exposure, hunger and thirst, wind and
storm, danger in camp quarrel or Indian ambush,
were the familiar and ordinary vicissitudes of a
three months' journey in a caravan of the plains.
All this movement created business for these
Missouri Eiver towns. Their few inhabitants
drove a brisk trade in shirts and blankets, guns
and powder, hard bread and bacon, wagons and
live stock. Petty commerce busies itself with the
art of gain rather than with the labor of reform.
Indian and emigrant traders did not too closely
scan their sources of profit. The precepts of the
divine and the penalties of the human law sat
lightly upon them. As yet many of these frontier
towns were small hamlets, without even a pretext
of police regulations. Passion, therefore, ran com-
paratively a free course, and the personal redress
of private wrongs was only held in check by the
broad and acknowledged right of self-defense.
Vol. L— 26
402 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxii. Since 1849 and 1850, when the gold fever was
at its height, emigration across the plains had
slackened, and the eagerness for a revival of this
local traffic undoubtedly exerted its influence in
procuring the opening of the territories in 1854.
The noise and excitement created by the passage
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act awakened the hope of
frontier traders and speculators, who now greedily
watched all the budding chances of gain. Under
such circumstances these opportunities to the
shrewd, to the bold, and especially to the unscru-
pulous, are many. Cheap lauds, unlimited town
lots, eligible trading sites, the multitude of fran-
chises and privileges within the control of a ter-
ritorial legislature, the offices to be distributed
under party favoritism, offer an abundant lure to
enterprise and far more to craft.
It was to such a population and under such a
condition of things that Senator Atchison went to
his home in Platte County in the summer of 1854
to preach his pro-slavery crusade against Kansas.
His personal convictions, his party faith, his sena-
torial reelection, and his financial fortunes, were
all involved in the scheme. With the help of
the Stringfellows and other zealous co-workers,
the town of Atchison was founded and named in
his honor, and the "Squatter Sovereign" news-
paper established, which displayed his name as a
candidate for the presidency. The good-will of the
Administration was manifested by making one of
the editors postmaster at the new town.
President Pierce appointed as Governor of Kan-
sas Territory Andrew H. Eeeder, a member of his
own party, from the free State of Pennsylvania.
THE BOKDEE EUFFIANS 403
He had neither prominent reputation nor conspicu- ch. xxn.
ous ability, though under trying circumstances he
afterwards showed diligence, judgment, integrity,
and more than ordinary firmness and independ-
ence. It is to be presumed that his fitness in a
partisan light had been thoroughly scrutinized by
both President and Senate. Upon the vital point
the investigation was deemed conclusive. "He
was appointed," the " Washington Union " naively
stated when the matter was first called in question,
"under the strongest assurance that he was strictly
and honestly a national man. We are able to state
further, on very reliable authority, that whilst
Governor Eeeder was in Washington, at the time
of his appointment, he conversed with Southern
gentlemen on the subject of slavery, and assured
them that he had no more scruples in buying a
slave than a horse, and regretted that he had not
money to purchase a number to carry with him to
Kansas." With him were appointed three Federal
judges, a secretary, a marshal, and an attorney
for the Territory, all doubtless considered equally
trustworthy on the slavery question. The organic
act invested the governor with very comprehen-
sive powers to initiate the organization of the new
Territory. Until the first legislature should be
duly constituted, he had authority to fix election
days, define election districts, direct the mode of
returns, take a census, locate the temporary seat of
government, declare vacancies, order new elections
to fill them, besides the usual and permanent
powers of an executive.
Arriving at Leavenworth in October, 1854, Gov-
ernor Reeder was not long in discovering the
404
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Ch. XXII.
Ex-Gov-
ernor
Reeder'8
Testimony,
" Howard
Report,"
pp. 933-935.
designs of the Missourians. He was urged to
order the immediate election of a territorial legis-
lature. The conspirators had already spent some
months in organizing their "Blue Lodges," and
now desired at once to control the political power
of the Territory. But the Governor had too much
manliness to become the mere pliant tool they
wished to make him. He resented their dictation ;
he made a tour of inspection through the new
settlements; and, acting on his own judgment,
on his return issued a proclamation for a simple
election of a delegate to Congress. At the appear-
ance of this proclamation Platte County took
alarm, and held a meeting on the Kansas side of
the river, to intimidate him with violent speeches
and a significant memorial. The Governor retorted
in a letter that the meeting was composed of Mis-
sourians, and that he should resist outside inter-
ference from friend, foe, or faction.1 Pocketing
this rebuff as best they might, Senator Atchison
and his " Blue Lodges " nevertheless held fast to
their purpose. Paper proclamations and lectures
on abstract rights counted little against the prac-
tical measures they had matured. November 29th,
the day of election for delegate, finally arrived, and
with it a formidable invasion of Missouri voters
at more than half the polling places appointed in
the Governor's proclamation.
In frontier life it was an every-day experience to
make excursions for business or pleasure, singly or
in parties, requiring two or three consecutive days,
perhaps a night or two of camping out, for which
l Governor Reeder to Gwiner and others, Nov. 21, 1854; copied
into "National Era," Jan. 4, 1855.
THE BOEDEB EUFFIANS 405
saddle-horses and farm-wagons furnished ready ch. xxn.
transportation; and nothing was more common
than concerted neighborhood efforts for improve-
ment, protection, or amusement. On such occa-
sions neighborly sentiment and comity required
every man to drop his axe, or unhitch from the
plow in the furrow, to further the real or imagi-
nary weal of the community. In urgent instances
non-compliance was fatal to the peace and com-
fort and sometimes to the personal safety of the
settler. The movement described above had been
in active preparation for weeks, controlled by strong
and secret combinations, and many unwilling par-
ticipants were doubtless swept into it by an excited
public opinion they dared not resist.
A day or two before the election the whole Mis-
souri border was astir. Horses were saddled, teams
harnessed, wagons loaded with tents, forage, and
provisions, bowie-knives buckled on, revolvers and
rifles loaded, and flags and inscriptions flung to the
breeze by the more demonstrative and daring.
Crossing the river-ferries from the upper counties,
and passing unobstructed over the State line by
the prairie-roads and trails from the lower, many
of them camped that night at the nearest polls,
while others pushed on fifty or a hundred miles to
the sparsely settled election districts of the inte-
rior. As they passed along, the more scrupulous
went through the empty form of an imaginary
settlement, by nailing a card to a tree, driving a
stake into the ground, or inscribing their names in
a claim register, prepared in haste by the invading
party. The indifferent satisfied themselves with
mere mental resolves to become settlers. The
1854.
406 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxii. utterly reckless silenced all scruples in profanity
and drunkenness.
Nov. 29, On election morning the few real squatters of
Kansas, endowed with Douglas's delusive boon of
"popular sovereignty," witnessed with mixed indig-
nation and terror acts of summary usurpation.
Judges of election were dispossessed and set aside
by intimidation or stratagem, and pro-slavery
judges substituted without the slightest regard to
regularity or law ; judges' and voters' oaths were
declared unnecessary, or explained away upon
newly-invented phrases and absurd subtleties.
" Where there 's a will, there 's a way," in wrong
and crime, as well as in honest purpose and deed ;
and by more dishonest devices than we can stop
fully to record the ballot-boxes were filled, through
invasion, false swearing, riot, and usurpation, with
ballots for Whitfield, the pro-slavery candidate for
delegate to Congress, at nine out of the seventeen
polling places — showing, upon a careful scrutiny
afterwards made by a committee of Congress, an
aggregate of 1729 illegal votes, and only 1114 legal
ones.
This mockery of an election completed, the val-
iant Knights of the Blue Lodge, the fraternal mem-
bers of the Social Band, the philanthropic groups
of the Friends' Society, and the chivalric Sons of
the South returned to their axe and plow, society
lodge and bar-room haunt, to exult in a victory for
Missouri and slavery over the "Abolition hordes
and nigger thieves of the Emigrant Aid Society."
The "Border Eufifians" of Missouri had written
their preliminary chapter in the annals of Kansas.
The published statements of the Emigrant Aid
THE BOEDER KUFFIANS 407
Society show that up to the date of election it had ch.xxii.
sent only a few hundred men, women, and chil-
dren to the Territory. Why such a prodigious
effort was deemed necessary to overcome the votes
and influence of this paltry handful of "paupers
who had sold themselves to Eli Thayer and Co."
was never explained.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BOGUS LAWS
AS the event proved, the invasion of border
Xjl ruffians to decide the first election in Kan-
sas had been entirely unnecessary. Even without
counting the illegal votes, the pro-slavery candi-
date for delegate was chosen by a plurality. He
had held the office of Indian Agent, and his
acquaintance, experience, and the principal fact
that he was the favorite of the conspirators gave
him an easy victory. Governor Reeder issued his
certificate of election without delay, and Whitfield
hurried away to Washington to enjoy his new
honors, taking his seat in the House of Repre-
sentatives within three weeks after his election.
Atchison, however, did not follow his example.
Congress met on the first Monday of December,
and the services of the Acting Vice-President were
needed in the Senate Chamber. But of such im-
portance did he deem the success of the conspiracy
in which he was the leader, that a few weeks
before the session he wrote a short letter to the
Senate, giving notice of his probable absence and
advising the appointment of a new presiding
officer.
As a necessary preliminary to organizing the
THE BOGUS LAWS 409
government of the Territory, Governor Reeder, ch.xxiii.
under the authority of the organic act, proceeded Eeeder
to take a census of its inhabitants. This work, TH?war<P
carried on and completed in the months of Janu- ^m*'
ary and February, 1855, disclosed a total popula-
tion of 8601 souls, of whom 2905 were voters. Howard
' , Report, p. 9.
With this enumeration as a definite guide, the
Governor made an apportionment, established elec-
tion districts, and, appointing the necessary officers
to conduct it, fixed upon the 30th of March, 1855,
as the day for electing the territorial legislature.
Governor Eeeder had come to Kansas an ardent
Democrat, a firm friend of the Pierce Administra-
tion, and an enthusiastic disciple of the new Demo-
cratic dogma of " Popular Sovereignty." But his
short experience with Atchison's Border Ruffians
had already rudely shaken his partisanship. The
events of the November election exposed the de-
signs of the pro-slavery conspiracy, and no course
was left him but to become either its ally or its
enemy.
In behalf of justice, as well as to preserve what
he still fondly cherished as a vital party principle,
he determined by every means in his power to
secure a fair election. In his appointment of elec-
tion officers, census-takers, justices of the peace, and
constables, he was careful to make his selections
from both factions as fairly as possible, excepting
that, as a greater and necessary safeguard against
another invasion, he designated in the several elec-
tion districts along the Missouri border two " free- Eeeder in-
State" men and one pro-slavery man to act as 8HoVard8'
judges at each poll. He prescribed distinct and pp. 107,93s.
rigid rules for the conduct of the election j order-
410
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Howard
Report,
pp. 9 to 44.
ing among other things that the judges should be
sworn, that constables should attend and preserve
order, and that voters must be actual residents to
the exclusion of any other home.
All his precautions came to nought. This elec-
tion of a territorial legislature, which, as then
popularly believed, might determine by the enact-
ment of laws whether Kansas should become a free
or a slave State, was precisely the coveted oppor-
tunity for which the Border Ruffian conspiracy
had been organized. Its interference in the No-
vember election served as a practical experiment
to demonstrate its efficiency and to perfect its
plans. The alleged doings of the Emigrant Aid
Societies furnished a convenient and plausible pre-
text; extravagant rumors were now circulated as
to the plans and numbers of the Eastern emigrants ;
it was industriously reported that they were coming
twenty thousand strong to control the election;
and by these misrepresentations the whole border
was wrought up into the fervor of a pro-slavery
crusade.
When the 30th of March, election day, finally
arrived, the conspiracy had once more mustered its
organized army of invasion, and five thousand
Missouri Border Ruffians, in different camps, bands,
and squads, held practical possession of nearly
every election district in the Territory. Riot, vio-
lence, intimidation, destruction of ballot-boxes,
expulsion and substitution of judges, neglect or
refusal to administer the prescribed oaths, viva voce
voting, repeated voting on one side, and obstruc-
tion and dispersion of voters on the other, were
common incidents; no one dared to resist the
THE BOGUS LAWS
411
Howard
Report,
p. 30.
acts of the invaders, since they were armed and ch.xxiii
commanded in frontier if not in military fashion,
in many cases by men whose names then or after-
wards were prominent or notorious. Of the votes
cast, 1410 were upon a subsequent examination
found to have been legal, while 4908 were illegal.
Of the total number, 5427 votes were given to the
pro-slavery and only 791 to the free-State candi-
dates. Upon a careful collation of evidence the
investigating committee of Congress was of the
opinion that the vote would have returned a free-
State legislature if the election had been confined
to the actual settlers ; as conducted, however, it
showed a nominal majority for every pro-slavery ibid., p.m.
candidate but one.
Governor Reeder had feared a repetition of the
November frauds ; but it is evident that he had no
conception of so extensive an invasion. It is prob-
able, too, that information of its full enormity did
not immediately reach him. Meanwhile the five
days prescribed in his proclamation for receiving
notices of contest elapsed. The Governor had
removed his executive office to Shawnee Mission.
At this place, and at the neighboring town of
Westport, Missouri, only four miles distant, a
majority of the persons claiming to have been
elected now assembled and became clamorous for
their certificates.1 A committee of their number
presented a formal written demand for the same ;
they strenuously denied his right to question the
legality of the election, and threats against the
Governor's life in case of his refusal to issue them
Testimony of Ex-Governor Eeeder, Howard Keport, pp. 935-9;
also Stringfellow's testimony, p. 355.
412 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxiii. became alarmingly frequent. Their regular con-
sultations, their open denunciations, and their
hints at violence, while they did not entirely over-
awe the Governor, so far produced their intended
effect upon him that he assembled a band of his
personal friends for his own protection. On the
6th of April, one week after election, the Governor
announced his decision upon the returns. On one
side of the room were himself and his armed adher-
ents ; on the other side the would-be members in
superior numbers, with their pistols and bowie-
knives. Under this virtual duress the Governor
issued certificates of election to all but about one-
third of the claimants ; and the returns in these
cases he rejected, not because of alleged force or
fraud, but on account of palpable defects in the
papers.1
The issue of certificates was a fatal error in Gov-
ernor Reeder's action. It endowed the notoriously
illegal Legislature with a technical authority, and a
few weeks later, when he went to "Washington city
1 Namely, because of a vivd and the same candidates voted
voce vote certified instead of a for. — Howard Beport, pp. 35-
ballot, and because the prescribed 36. Indeed, the Border Ruffian
oath and the words " lawful resi- habit of voting in Kansas had
dent voters " had been openly become chronic, and did not
erased from the printed forms, cease for some years, and some-
In six districts the Governor times developed the grimmest
ordered a supplementary election, humors. In the autumn of that
which was duly held on the 2 2d same year an election for county-
of May following. When that day seat took place in Leavenworth
arrived, the Border Ruffians, pro- County by the accidental failure
claiming the election to be illegal, of the Legislature to designate
by their default allowed free- one. Leavenworth city aspired
State men to be chosen in all the to this honor and polled six hun-
districts except that of Leaven- dred votes ; but it had an enter-
worth, where the invasion and prising rival in Kickapoo city,
tactics of the March election were ten miles up the river, and an-
repeated now for the third time other, Delaware city, eight miles
THE BOGUS LAWS 413
to invoke the help of the Pierce Administration ch. xxm.
against the usurpation, it enabled Attorney-General
Ciishing (if current report was true) to taunt him
with the reply : " You state that this Legislature is
the creature of force and fraud; which shall we
believe — your official certificate under seal, or your
subsequent declarations to us in private conversa-
tion?"
The question of the certificates disposed of, the
next point of interest was to determine at what
place the Legislature should assemble. Under
the organic act the Governor had authority to
appoint the first meeting, and it soon became
known that his mind was fixed upon the embryo
town of Pawnee, adjoining the military post of
Port Riley, situated on the Kansas River, 110 miles
from the Missouri line. Against this exile, how-
ever, Stringfellow and his Border Ruffian law-
makers protested in an energetic memorial, asking
to be called together at the Shawnee Mission, sup-
plemented by the private threat that even if they
down stream. Both were paper boxes contained nine hundred
towns — " cottonwood towns," ballots (of which probably only
in border slang — of great expec- fifty were legal) did the steam
tations ; and both having more whistle scream victory ! When
unscrupulous enterprise than the ' ' returning board " had suffi-
voters, appealed to Platte County ciently weighed this complicated
to "come over." This was an electoral contest, it gravely
appeal Platte County could never decided that keeping the polls
resist, and accordingly a char- open for three days was "an
tered ferry-boat brought voters unheard of irregularity." (J. N.
all election day from the Missouri Hollo way, " History of Kansas,"
side, until the Kickapoo tally-lists pp. 192-4.) This was exquisite
scored 850. Delaware city, how- irony; but a local court on
ever, was not to be thus easily appeal seriously giving a final
crushed. She, too, not only had verdict for Delaware, the trans-
her chartered ferry-boat, but kept action became a perennial bur-
ner polls open for three days in lesque on " Squatter Sover-
succession, and not until her eignty."
414 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxiii. convened at Pawnee, they would adjourn and come
back the day after. If the Governor harbored any
remaining doubt that this bogus Legislature in-
tended to assume and maintain the mastery, it
speedily vanished. Their hostility grew open and
defiant ; they classed him as a free-State man, an
" abolitionist," and it became only too evident that
he would gradually be shorn of power and degraded
from the position of Territorial Executive to that of
a mere puppet. Having nothing to gain by further
concession, he adhered to his original plan, issued
Ali855.16' his proclamation convening the Legislature at Paw-
nee on the first Monday in July, and immediately
started for Washington to make a direct appeal to
President Pierce.
How Governor Reeder failed in this last hope
of redress and support, how he found the Kansas
conspiracy as strong at Washington as on the Mis-
souri border, will appear further along. On the
2d of July the Governor and the Legislature
met at the town of Pawnee, where he had con-
voked them — a magnificent prairie site, but con-
taining as yet only three buildings, one to hold
sessions in, and two to furnish food and lodging.
The Governor's friends declared the accommoda-
tions ample; the Missourians on the contrary made
affidavit that they were compelled to camp out and
cook their own rations. The actual facts had little
to do with the predetermination of the members.
Stringfellow had written in his paper, the " Squat-
ter Sovereign," three weeks before : " We hope no
one will be silly enough to suppose the Governor
has power to compel us to stay at Pawnee during
the entire session. We will, of course, have to
THE BOGUS LAWS
415
1 trot ' out at the bidding of his Excellency, — but
we will trot him back next day at our bidding."
The prediction was literally fulfilled. Both
branches organized without delay, the House
choosing John H. Stringfellow for Speaker. Before
the Governor's message was delivered on the fol-
lowing day, the House had already passed, under
suspended rules, "An act to remove the seat of
government temporarily to the Shawnee Manual
Labor School," which act the Council as promptly
concurred in. The Governor vetoed the bill, but it
was at once passed over his veto. By the end of
the week the Legislature had departed from the
budding capital to return no more.
The Governor was perforce obliged to follow his
migratory Solons, who adhered to their purpose
despite his public or private protests, and who re-
assembled at Shawnee Mission, or more correctly
the Shawnee Manual Labor School, on the 16th of
July. Shawnee Mission was one of our many
national experiments in civilizing Indian tribes.
This philanthropic institution, nourished by the
Federal treasury, was presided over by the Rev.
Thomas Johnson. The town of Westport, which
could boast of a post-office, lay only four miles to
the eastward, on the Missouri side of the State line,
and was a noted pro-slavery stronghold. There
were several large brick buildings at the Mission
capable of accommodating the Legislature with halls
and lodging-rooms ; its nearness to an established
post-office, and its contiguity to Missouri pro-
slavery sentiment were elements probably not lost
sight of. Mr. Johnson, who had formerly been a
Missouri slaveholder, was at the March election
Ch. xxiil
" 8quatter
Sovereign,"
June 5, 1855.
" House
Journal
Kansas
Territory,"
1855, p. 12.
"Journal of
Council,
Kansas
Territory,"
p. 12.
" House
Journal
Kansas
Territory,"
1855, p. 29.
Ibid, p. 30.
416
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
" Squatter
Sovereign,"
July 17, 1855.
Ibid, June
19, 1855.
" House
Journal
Kansas
Territory,'
1856, p. 12.
chosen a member of the Territorial Council, which
in due time made him its presiding officer; and the
bogus Legislature at Shawnee Mission was there-
fore in a certain sense under its own " vine and
fig-tree."
The two branches of the Legislature, the Council
with the Eev. Thomas Johnson as President, and
the House with Stringfellow of the " Squatter
Sovereign " as Speaker, now turned their attention
seriously to the pro-slavery work before them.
The conspirators were shrewd enough to realize
their victory. " To have intimated one year ago,"
said the Speaker in his address of thanks, " that
such a result would be wrought out, one would have
been thought a visionary ; to have predicted that
to-day a legislature would assemble, almost unani-
mously pro-slavery, and with myself for Speaker,
I would have been thought mad." The programme
had already been announced in the " Squatter
Sovereign " some weeks before. " The South must
and will prevail. If the Southern people but half
do their duty, in less than nine months from this
day Kansas will have formed a constitution and
be knocking at the door for admission. . . In the
session of the United States Senate in 1856, two
Senators from the slave-holding State of Kansas
will take their seats, and abolitionism will be for-
ever driven from our halls of legislation." Against
this triumphant attitude Governor Reeder was
despondent and powerless. The language of his
message plainly betrayed the political dilemma
in which he found himself. He strove as best he
might to couple together the prevailing cant of
office-holders against "the destructive spirit of
•%>
ANDREW H. REEDEI
THE BOGUS LAWS
417
" House
Journal
Kansas
Territory,"
1855. Ap-
pendix,
p. 10.
abolitionism" and a comparatively mild rebuke of ch.xxiii.
the Missouri usurpation.1
Nevertheless, the Governor stood reasonably
firm. He persisted in declaring that the Legisla-
ture could pass no valid laws at any other place
than Pawnee, and returned the first bill sent him
with a veto message to that effect. To this the
Legislature replied by passing the bill over his veto,
and in addition formally raising a joint committee
" to draw up a memorial to the President of the
United States respectfully demanding the removal
of A. H. Reeder from the office of governor " ; and,
as if this indignity were not enough, holding a
joint session for publicly signing it. The memorial
was promptly dispatched to Washington by special
messenger; but on the way this envoy read the
news of the Governor's dismissal by the President.
This event appeared definitely to sweep away the
last obstacle in the path of the conspirators. The
office of acting governor now devolved upon the
secretary of the Territory, Daniel Woodson, a man
who shared their views and was allied to their
schemes. With him to approve their enactments,
the parliamentary machinery of the " bogus " Legis-
lature was complete and effective. They had at
the very beginning summarily ousted the free-
State members chosen at the supplementary
i Its phraseology was adroit
enough to call forth a sneering
compliment from Speaker String-
fellow, who wrote to the " Squat-
ter Sovereign": "On Tuesday
the Governor sent in his message,
which you will find is very well
calculated to have its effect with
the Pennsylvania Democracy. If
Vol. L— 27
he was trustworthy I would be
disposed to compliment the most
of it, but knowing how corrupt
the author is, and that it is only
designed for political effect in
Pennsylvania, he not expecting
to remain long with us, I will
pass it by." — "Squatter Sover-
eign," July 17, 1855.
418
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Report
Judiciary
Com.,
"House
Journal
Kansas
Territory,"
1856. Ap-
pendix,
p. 14.
election on May 22, and seated the pro-slavery
claimants of March 30 ; and the only two remain-
ing free-State members resigned in ntter disgust
to avoid giving countenance to the flagrant usurpa-
tion by their presence. No one was left even to
enter a protest.
This, then, was the perfect flower of Douglas's
vaunted experiment of " popular sovereignty " — a
result they professed fully to appreciate. " Hither-
to," said the Judiciary Committee of the House in
a long and grandiloquent report, " Congress have
retained to themselves the power to mold and
shape all the territorial governments according to
their own peculiar notions, and to restrict within
very limited and contracted bounds both the
natural as well as the political rights of the bold and
daring pioneer and the noble, hard-fisted squatter."
But by this course, the argument of the committee
continued, " the pillars which uphold this glorious
union of States were shaken until the whole world
was threatened with a political earthquake," and,
" the principle that the people are capable of self-
government would have been forever swallowed up
by anarchy and confusion," had not the Kansas-
Nebraska bill "delegated to the people of these
territories the right to frame and establish their
own form of government."
What might not be expected of law-makers who
begin with so ambitious an exordium, and who lay
the corner-stone of their edifice upon the solid rock
of political principle? The anti-climax of perform-
ance which followed would be laughably absurd,
were it not marked by the cunning of a well-
matured political plot. Their first step was to
THE BOGUS LAWS
419
Report
Judiciary
Com.,
" House
Journal
Kansas
Territory,"
1855. Ap-
pendix,
p. 18.
Ibid., p. 18,
recommend the repeal of "all laws whatsoever, ch.xxiii
which may have been considered to have been in
force " in the Territory on the 1st day of July, 1855,
thus forever quieting any doubt " as to what is and
what is not law in this Territory " ; secondly, to
substitute a code about which there should be no
question, by the equally ingenious expedient of
copying and adopting the Revised Statutes of
Missouri.
These enactments were made in due form ; but
the bogus Legislature did not seem content to let
its fame rest on this single monument of self-gov-
ernment. Casting their eyes once more upon the
broad expanse of American politics, the Judiciary
Committee reported : " The question of slavery is
one that convulses the whole country, from the
boisterous Atlantic to the shores of the mild
Pacific. This state of things has been brought
about by the fanaticism of the North and East,
while up to this time the people of the South, and
those of the North who desire the perpetuation of
this Union and are devoted to the laws, have been
entirely conservative. But the time is coming —
yea, it has already arrived — for the latter to take
a bold and decided stand that the Union and law
may not be trampled in the dust," etc., etc. ™a., p. u.
The "Revised Statutes of Missouri," recom-
mended in bulk, and adopted with hasty clerical
modifications,1 already contained the usual slave-
i To guard more effectually
against clerical errors, the Legis-
lature enacted : " Sec. 1.
Wherever the word 'State' oc-
curs in any act of the present
legislative assembly, or any law of
this Territory, in such construc-
tion as to indicate the locality o^
the operation of such act or laws,
the same shall in every instance
be taken and understood to mean
' Territory,' and shall apply to
the Territory of Kansas." — " Stat-
utes of Kansas," 1855, p. 718.
420 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxiii. code peculiar to Southern States. But in the plans
and hopes of the conspirators, this of itself was in-
sufficient. In order to " take a bold stand that the
Union and law might not be trampled in the dust,"
i!3St they with great painstaking devised and passed
°Kt«" " an act to punish offenses against slave property."
It prescribed the penalty of death, not merely
for the grave crime of inciting or aiding an insur-
rection of slaves, free negroes, or mulattoes, or
circulating printed matter for such an object, but
also the same extreme punishment for the com-
paratively mild offense of enticing or decoying
away a slave or assisting him to escape ; for har-
boring or concealing a fugitive slave, ten years'
imprisonment ; for resisting an officer arresting a
fugitive slave, two years' imprisonment.
If such inflictions as the foregoing might per-
haps be tolerated upon the plea that a barbarous
institution required barbarous safeguards, what
ought to be said of the last three sections of the
act which, in contempt of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence and the Constitution of the United States,
annulled the freedom of speech and the freedom of
the press, and invaded even the right of individual
conscience ?
To write, print, or circulate " any statements,
arguments, opinions, sentiment, doctrine, advice,
or innuendo, calculated to produce a disorderly,
dangerous, or rebellious disaffection among the
slaves of the Territory, or to induce such slaves to
escape from the service of their masters, or to
resist their authority," was pronounced a felony
punishable by five years' imprisonment. To deny
the right of holding slaves in the Territory, by
THE BOGUS LAWS 421
speaking, writing, printing, or circulating books, ch. xxm.
or papers, was likewise made a felony, punishable
by two years' imprisonment. Finally it was enacted
that " no person who is conscientiously opposed to
holding slaves, or who does not admit the right
to hold slaves in this Territory, shall sit as a juror
on the trial of any prosecution for any violation of
any of the sections of this act." Also, all officers
were, in addition to their usual oath, required to
swear to support and sustain the Kansas-Nebraska JESS
Act and the Fugitive- Slave Law. ww*Jfia£
The spirit which produced these despotic laws
also governed the methods devised to enforce them.
The Legislature proceeded to elect the principal
officers of each county, who in turn were empow-
ered by the laws to appoint the subordinate officials.
All administration, therefore, emanated from that
body, reflected its will, and followed its behest.
Finally, the usual skeleton organization of a terri-
torial militia was devised, whose general officers
were in due time appointed by the acting G-overnor „ Journal
from prominent and serviceable pro-slavery mem- ^n'siif1
bers of the Legislature. SES?a«."
Having secured their present domination, they
sought to perpetuate their political ascendency in
the Territory. They ingeniously prolonged the
tenure of their various appointees, and to render
their success at future elections easy and certain
they provided that candidates to be eligible, and
judges of election, and voters when challenged, Territory
must swear to support the Fugitive- Slave Law. mm???
This they knew would virtually disfranchise many
conscientious antislavery men ; while, on the other
hand, they enacted that each inhabitant who had
of Kansas,"
422 ABEAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxin. paid his territorial tax should be a qualified voter
for all elective officers. Under so lax a provision
Missouri invaders could in the future, as they had
in the past, easily give an apparent majority at the
ballot-box for all their necessary agents and ulterior
schemes.
In a technical sense the establishment of slavery
in Kansas was complete. There were by the census
of the previous February already some two hun-
dred slaves in the Territory. Under the sanction
of these laws, and before they could by any pos-
sibility be repealed, some thousands might be ex-
pected, especially by such an organized and united
effort as the South could make to maintain the
vantage ground already gained. Once there, the
aggressiveness of the institution might be relied
on to protect itself, since all experience had shown
that under similar conditions it was almost ine-
radicable.
After so much patriotic endeavor on the part of
these Border Ruffian legislators "that the Union
and law may not be trampled in the dust," it can-
not perhaps be wondered at that they began to
look around for their personal rewards. These
they easily found in the rich harvest of local
monopolies and franchises which lay scattered in
profusion on this virgin field of legislation, ready
to be seized and appropriated without dispute by
the first occupants. There were charters for rail-
roads, insurance companies, toll-bridges, ferries,
coal-mines, plank roads, and numberless privileges
and honors of present or prospective value out of
which, together with the county, district, and mili-
tary offices, the ambitious members might give and
THE BOGUS LAWS 423
take with generous liberality. One-sixth of the ch. xxm.
printed laws of the first session attest their modest ff^jg ^
attention to this incidental squatters' dowry. One H-2fi£ne
of the many favorable opportunities in this cate-
gory was the establishment of the permanent ter-
ritorial capital, authorized by the organic act,
where the liberal Federal appropriation for public
buildings should be expended. For this purpose,
competition from the older towns yielding gracefully
after the first ballot, an entirely new site on the
open prairie overlooking the Kansas River some
twelve miles west of Lawrence was agreed upon.
The proceedings do not show any unseemly scram-
ble over the selection, and no tangible record
remains of the whispered distribution of corner
lots and contracts. It is only the name which rises
into historical notice.
One of the actors in the political drama of Kan-
sas was Samuel Dexter Lecompte, Chief-Justice of
the Territory. He had been appointed from the
border State of Maryland, and is represented to
have been a diligent student, a respectable lawyer,
a prominent Democratic politician, and possessed
of the personal instincts and demeanor of a gen-
tleman. Moved by a pro-slavery sympathy that
was sincere, Judge Lecompte lent his high author-
ity to the interests of the conspiracy against Kansas.
He had already rendered the bogus Legislature the
important service of publishing an extra-judicial j^?Sif
opinion, sustaining their adjournment from Pawnee Territory,"
to Shawnee Mission. Probably because they valued Pendix,p.a
his official championship and recognized in him a
powerful ally in politics, they made him a member
of several of their private corporations, and gave
424 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxm. him the honor of naming their newly founded
capital Lecompton. But the intended distinction
was transitory. Before the lapse of a single decade,
the town for which he stood sponsor was no longer
the capital of Kansas.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION
THE bogus Legislature adjourned late on the ch.xxiv.
night of the 30th of August, 1855. They had
elaborately built up their legal despotism, com
missioned trusty adherents to administer it, and
provided their principal and undoubted partisans
with military authority to see that it was duly exe-
cuted. Going still a step further, they proposed so
to mold and control public opinion as to prevent
the organization of any party or faction to oppose
their plans. In view of the coming presidential
campaign, it was the fashion in the States for
Democrats to style themselves "National Demo-
crats " ; and a few newspapers and speakers in
Kansas had adopted the prevailing political name.
To stifle any such movement, both houses of the
Legislature on the last night of their session adopted
a concurrent resolution declaring that the proposi-
tion to organize a National Democratic party, hav-
ing already misled some of their friends, would
divide pro-slavery Whigs from Democrats and
weaken their party one-half ; that it was the duty
of the pro-slavery, Union-loving men of Kansas
"to know but one issue, slavery; and that any
party making or attempting to make any other
426 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xxiv. is and should be held as an ally of abolitionism
••House and disunion."
Journal
Te^S^ » Had the conspiracy been content to prosecute its
^council1 designs through moderate measures, it would in-
SpfJb. evitably have fastened slavery upon Kansas. The
organization of the invasion in western Missouri,
carried on under pre-acknowledged leadership, in
populous counties, among established homes, amid
well-matured confidence growing out of long per-
sonal and political relationship, would have been
easy even without the powerful bond of secret
association. On the other hand, the union of the
actual inhabitants of Kansas, scattered in sparse
settlements, personal strangers to each other, com-
ing from widely separated States, and comprising
radically different manners, sentiments, and tradi-
tions, and burdened with the prime and unyielding
necessity of protecting themselves and their fam-
ilies against cold and hunger, was in the very
nature of the case slow and difficult. But the
course of the Border Ruffians created, in less than
six weeks, a powerful and determined opposition,
which became united in support of what is known
as the Topeka Constitution.
It is noteworthy that this free-State movement
originated in Democratic circles, under Democratic
auspices. The Republican party did not yet exist.
The opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act were
distributed among Whigs, Know-Nothings, and
Free-soilers in the States, and had no national
affiliation, although they had won overwhelming
triumphs in a majority of the Congressional dis-
tricts in the fall elections of 1854. Nearly if not
quite all the free-State leaders originally went to
THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION 427
Kansas as friends of President Pierce, and as ch.xxiv.
believers in the dogma of " Popular Sovereignty."
Now that this usurping Legislature had met,
contemptuously expelled the free- State members,
defied the Governor's veto, set up its ingeniously
contrived legal despotism, and commissioned its
partisan followers to execute and administer it,
the situation became sufficiently grave to demand
defensive action. The real settlers were Demo-
crats, it was true ; they had voted for Pierce,
shouted for the platform of '52, applauded the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, and emigrated to the Terri-
tory to enjoy the new political gospel of popular
sovereignty. But the practical Democratic beati-
tudes of Kansas were not calculated to strengthen
the saints or confirm them in the faith. A Demo-
cratic invasion had elected a Democratic Legisla-
ture, which enacted laws, under whose arbitrary
"non-intervention" a Democratic court might
fasten a ball and chain to their ankles if they
should happen to read the Declaration of Inde-
pendence to a negro, or carry Jefferson's "Notes
on Virginia" in their carpet-bags.
The official resolution which the bogus Legisla-
ture proclaimed as a final political test left no mid-
dle ground between those who were for slavery
and those who were against slavery — those who
were for the bogus laws in all their enormity, and
those who were against them — and all who were
not willing to become active co-workers with the
conspiracy were forced to combine in self-defense.
It was in the town of Lawrence that the free-
State movement naturally found its beginning.
The settlers of the Emigrant Aid Society were
428 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxiv. comparatively few in number ; but, supported
by money, saw-mills, printing-presses, boarding-
houses, they became from the very first a compact,
self-reliant governing force. A few preliminary
meetings, instigated by the disfranchised free-State
members of the Legislature, brought together a
large mass convention. The result of its two days'
deliberations was a regularly chosen delegate con-
vention held at Big Springs, a few miles west of
Lawrence, on the 5th of September, 1855. More
important than all, perhaps, was the presence and
active participation of ex-Governor Reeder him-
self, who wrote the resolutions, addressed the con-
vention in a stirring and defiant speech, and
received by acclamation their nomination for
territorial delegate.
The platform adopted repudiated in strong terms
the bogus Legislature and its tyrannical enactments,
and declared " that we will endure and submit to
these laws no longer than the best interests of the
Territory require, as the least of two evils, and will
resist them to a bloody issue as soon as we
ascertain that peaceable remedies shall fail." It
also recommended the formation of volunteer
companies and the procurement of arms. The
progressive and radical spirit of the conven-
tion is illustrated in its indorsement of the free-
State movement, against the report of its own
committee.
The strongest point, however, made by the con-
vention was a determination, strictly adhered to
for more than two years, to take no part in any
election under the bogus territorial laws. As a
result Whitfield received, without competition, the
THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION 429
combined pro-slavery and Border Ruffian vote for ch. xxiv.
delegate on the first of October, a total of 2721
ballots. Measures had meanwhile been perfected
by the free-State men to elect delegates to a con-
stitutional convention. On the 9th of October, at
a separate election, held by the free-State party
alone, under self-prescribed formalities and regula- Howard
tions, these were duly chosen by an aggregate vote P?fK.
of 2710, ex-Governor Reeder receiving at the same
polls 2849 votes for delegate.
By this series of political movements, carried
out in quiet and orderly proceedings, the free-State
party was not only fully constituted and organized,
but was demonstrated to possess a decided major-
ity in the Territory. Still following out the policy
agreed upon, the delegates chosen met at Topeka
on the 23d of October, and with proper deliberation
and decorum framed a State constitution, which
was in turn submitted to a vote of the people. Al-
though this election was held near midwinter
(Dec. 15, 1855), and in the midst of serious dis-
turbances of the peace arising from other causes,
it received an affirmative vote of 1731, showing a
hearty popular indorsement of it. Of the docu-
ment itself no extended criticism is necessary. It
prohibited slavery, but made reasonable provision
for existing property-rights in slaves actually in
the Territory. In no sense a radical, subversive,
or " abolition " production, the Topeka Constitution
was remarkable only as being the indignant protest
of the people of the Territory against the Missouri
usurpation.1 The new constitution was transmit-
1 Still another election was January 15, 1856, to choose
held by the free-State party on State officers to act under the
430
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Ch. XXIV.
" Globe,"
March 24,
1856, p. 698.
February
22, 1856.
ted to Congress and was formally presented as a
petition to the Senate by General Cass, on March
24, 1856,1 and to the House some days later.
The Republican Senators in Congress (the Re-
publican party had been definitely organized a few
weeks before at Pittsburg) now urged the imme-
diate reception of the Topeka Constitution and the
admission of Kansas as a free State, citing the
cases of Michigan, Arkansas, Florida, and Califor-
nia as justifying precedents.2 For the present,
new organization, at which
Charles Robinson received 1296
votes for governor, out of a total
of 1706, and Mark W. Delahay
for Representative in Congress,
1628. A legislature elected at
the same time, met, according to
the terms of the newly framed
constitution, on the 4th of March,
organized, and elected Andrew
H. Reeder and James H. Lane
United States Senators.
i Later, on April 7, General
Cass presented to the Senate
another petition, purporting to be
the Topeka Constitution, which
had been handed him by J. H.
Lane, president of the convention
which framed it and Senator-
elect under it ("Cong. Globe,"
1856, April 7, p. 826). This
paper proved to be a clerk's
copy, with erasures and inter-
lineations and signatures in one
handwriting, which being ques-
tioned as probably spurious, Lane
afterwards supplied the original
draft prepared by the committee
and adopted by the convention,
though without signatures ; also
adding his explanatory affidavit
("Cong. Globe," App. 1856, pp.
378-9), to the effect that, the
committee had devolved upon
him the preparation of the form-
al copy, but that the original
signatures had been mislaid.
The official action of the Senate
appears to have concerned itself
exclusively with the copy pre-
sented by General Cass on March
24. Lane's copies served only
as text for angry debate. As the
Topeka Constitution had no legal
origin or quality, technical de-
fects were of little consequence,
especially in view of the action
by the free-State voters of Kan-
sas at their voluntary elections
for delegates on October 9, and
to ratify it on December 15,
1856.
2 They based their appeal more
especially upon the opinion of the
Attorney-General in the case of
Arkansas, that citizens of Terri-
tories possess the constitutional
right to assemble and petition
Congress for the redress of
grievances ; that the form of
the petition is immaterial; and
that, "as the power of Con-
gress over the whole subject is
plenary, they may accept any
constitution, however framed,
which in their judgment meets
the sense of the people to be
affected by it."
THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION 431
however, there was no hope of admission to the ch. xxiv.
Union with the Topeka Constitution. The Pierce
Administration, under the domination of the South-
ern States, had deposed Governor Reeder. Both
in his annual message and again in a special
message, the President denounced the Topeka
movement as insurrectionary.
In the Senate, too, the application was already
prejudged; the Committee on Territories through
Douglas himself as chairman, in a long partisan
report, dismissed it with the assertion " that it was
the movement of a political party instead of the
whole body of the people of Kansas, conducted
without the sanction of law, and in defiance of the
constituted authorities, for the avowed purpose senate Re-
of overthrowing the territorial government estab- EKSion!
lished by Congress." In the mouth of a consistent gress, P?n32.
advocate of " Popular Sovereignty," this argument
might have had some force ; but it came with a bad
grace from Douglas, who in the same report
indorsed the bogus Legislature and sustained the
bogus laws upon purely technical assumptions.
Congress was irreconcilably divided in politics.
The Democrats had an overwhelming majority in
the Senate ; the opposition, through the election of
Speaker Banks, possessed a working control of the
House. Some months later, after prolonged de-
bate, the House passed a bill for the admission of
Kansas under the Topeka Constitution; but as
the Senate had already rejected it, the movement
remained without practical result.1
i Nevertheless, the efforts of ren. The contest between Whit-
the free-State party under this field and Reeder for a seat in the
combination were not wholly bar- House as territorial delegate not
432 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxiv. The staple argument against the Topeka free-
State movement, that it was a rebellion against
constitutional authority, though perhaps correct as
a mere theory was utterly refuted by the practical
facts of the case. The Big Springs resolutions,
indeed, counseled resistance to a " bloody issue " ;
but this was only to be made after " peaceable
remedies shall fail." The free-State leaders deserve
credit for pursuing their peaceable remedies and
forbearing to exercise their asserted right to resist-
ance with a patience unexampled in American
annals. The bogus territorial laws were defied by
the newspapers and treated as a dead letter by the
mass of the free-State men ; as much as possible
they stood aloof from the civil officers appointed by
and through the bogus Legislature, recorded no title
papers, began no lawsuits, abstained from elections,
and denied themselves privileges which required
any open recognition of the alien Missouri statutes.
Lane and others refused the test oath, and were
excluded from practice as attorneys in the courts ;
free-State newspapers were thrown out of the
mails as incendiary publications ; sundry petty
persecutions were evaded or submitted to as
special circumstances dictated. But throughout
their long and persistent non-conformity, for more
than two years, they constantly and cheerfully
only provoked searching discus- printed pages, and which exposed
sion, but furnished the occasion the Border Ruffian invasions and
for sending an investigating com- the Missouri usurpation in all
mittee to Kansas, attended by the their monstrous iniquity, and
contestants in person. This com- officially revealed to the as-
mittee with a fearless diligence tounded North, for the first time
collected in the Territory, as well and nearly two years after its
as from the border counties of beginning, the full proportions
Missouri, a mass of sworn testi- of the conspiracy which held
mony amounting to some 1200 sway in Kansas.
JAMES H. LANE.
THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION 433
acknowledged the authority of the organic act, and ch. xxrv.
of the laws of Congress, and even counseled and
endured every forced submission to the bogus
laws. Though they had defiant and turbulent
spirits in their own ranks, who often accused them
of imbecility and cowardice, they maintained a
steady policy of non-resistance, and, under every
show of Federal authority in support of the bogus
laws, they submitted to obnoxious searches and
seizures, to capricious arrest and painful imprison-
ment, rather than by resistance to place them-
selves in the attitude of deliberate outlaws.1
They were destined to have no lack of provoca-
tion. Since the removal of Reeder, all the Federal
officials of the Territory were affiliated with the pro-
slavery Missouri cabal. Both to secure the per-
manent establishment of slavery in Kansas, and
to gratify the personal pride of their triumph,
they were determined to make these recusant free-
State voters "bow down to the cap of Gessler."
Despotism is never more arrogant than in resent-
ing all slights to its personal vanity. As a first
and necessary step, the cabal had procured, through
its powerful influence at "Washington, a proclama-
tion from the President commanding " all persons
engaged in unlawful combinations against the con- February
stituted authority of the Territory of Kansas or of "statutes
J J at Large,"
the United States to disperse," etc. The language VoL XL»
of the proclamation was sufficiently comprehensive
to include Border Ruffians and emigrant aid
societies, as well as the Topeka movement, and
thus presented a show of impartiality ; but under
1 See Governor Robinson's message to the free-State Legislature,
March 4, 1856. Mrs. S. T. L. Robinson, " Kansas," pp. 352, 364.
Vol. L— 28
at Larg
rol. X
p. 791.
434 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxiv. dominant political influences the latter was its
evident and certain object.
With this proclamation as a sort of official ful-
crum, Chief -Justice Lecompte delivered at the May-
term of his court a most extraordinary charge to
the grand jury. He instructed them that the bogus
Legislature, being an instrument of Congress, and
having passed laws, "these laws are of United
States authority and making." Persons resisting
these laws must be indicted for high treason. If no
resistance has been made, but combinations formed
for the purpose of resisting them, " then must you
still find bills for constructive treason, as the courts
have decided that the blow need not be struck,
but only the intention be made evident."1 In-
dictments, writs, and the arrest of many prominent
free-State leaders followed as a matter of course.
All these proceedings, too, seemed to have been a
part of the conspiracy. Before the indictments
were found, and in anticipation of the writs, Robin-
son, the free-State Governor-elect, then on his way
to the East, was arrested while traveling on a Mis-
souri River steamboat, at Lexington in that State,
detained, and finally sent back to Kansas under
the Governor's requisition. Upon this frivolous
charge of constructive treason he and others were
held in military custody nearly four months, and
finally, at the end of that period, discharged upon
bail, the farce of longer imprisonment having be-
come useless through other events.
Apprehending fully that the Topeka movement
1 J. H. Gihon, " Governor dictments, printed at full length
Geary's Administration," p. 77; in Phillips, "Conquest of Kan-
also compare two copies of in- sas," pp. 351-4.
THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION 435
was the only really serious obstacle to their success, ch. xxiv.
the pro-slavery cabal, watching its opportunity,
matured a still more formidable demonstration to
suppress and destroy it. The provisional free-
State Legislature had, after organizing on the 4th
of March, adjourned, to reassemble on the 4th of
July, 1856, in order to await in the meantime
the result of their application to Congress. As
the national holiday approached, it was deter-
mined to call together a mass meeting at the same
time and place, to give both moral support and
personal protection to the members. Civil war, of
which further mention will be made in the next
chapter, had now been raging for months, and had
in its general results gone against the free-State
men. Their leaders were imprisoned or scattered,
their presses destroyed, their adherents dispirited
with defeat. Nevertheless, as the day of meeting
approached, the remnant of the provisional Legis-
lature and some six to eight hundred citizens
gathered at Topeka, though without any definite
purpose or pre-arranged plan.
Governor Shannon, the second of the Kansas
executives, had by this time resigned his office, and
Secretary Woodson was again acting Governor.
Here was a chance to put the free-State movement
pointedly under the ban of Federal authority
which the cabal determined not to neglect. Re-
citing the President's proclamation of February,
Secretary Woodson now issued his own proclama-
tion forbidding all persons claiming legislative
power and authority as aforesaid from assembling,
organizing, or acting in any legislative capacity
whatever. At the hour of noon on the 4th of
436 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxiv. July several companies of United States dragoons,
which were brought into camp near town in
anticipation of the event, entered Topeka in
military array, under command of Colonel E. V.
Sumner. A line of battle was formed in the street,
cannon were planted, and the machinery of war
prepared for instant action. Colonel Sumner, a
most careful and conscientious officer and a free-
State man at heart, with due formality, with de-
cision and firmness, but at the same time openly
expressing the painful nature of his duty, com-
manded the provisional Legislature, then about to
assemble, to disperse. The members, not yet
organized, immediately obeyed the order, having
neither the will nor the means to resist it. There
was no tumult, no violence, but little protest even
in words; but the despotic purpose, clothed in
forms of law, made a none the less profound im-
pression upon the assembled citizens, and later,
when the newspapers spread the report of the act,
upon the indignant public of the Northern States.
From this time onward, other events of para-
mount historical importance supervene to crowd
the Topeka Constitution out of view. In a feeble
way the organization still held together for a con-
siderable length of time. About a year later the pro-
visional Legislature again went through the forms
of assembling, and although Governor Walker was
present in Topeka, there were no proclamations,
no dragoons, no cannon, because the cabal was for
the moment defeated and disconcerted and bent
upon other and still more desperate schemes. The
Topeka Constitution was never received nor legal-
ized ; its officers never became clothed with official
THE TOPEKA CONSTITUTION 437
authority; its scrip was never redeemed; yet in ch.xxiv.
the fate of Kansas and in the annals of the Union
at large it was a vital and pivotal transaction,
without which the great conflict between freedom
and slavery, though perhaps neither avoided nor
delayed, might have assumed altogether different
phases of development.
CHAPTEE XXV
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS
ch. xxv. /^VUT of the antagonistic and contending factions
\J mentioned in the last two chapters, the bogus
Legislature and its Border-Ruffian adherents on the
one hand, and the framers and supporters of the
Topeka Constitution on the other, grew the civil
war in Kansas. The bogus Legislature numbered
thirty-six members. These had only received, all
told, 619 legal bond fide Kansas votes ; but, what
answered their purposes just as well, 4408 Missou-
rians had cast their ballots for them, making their
total constituency (if by discarding the idea of a
State line we use the word in a somewhat strained
sense) 5427. This was at the March election, 1855.
Of the remaining 2286 actual Kansas voters dis-
closed by Reeder's census, only 791 cast their
ballots. That summer's emigration, however, be-
ing mainly from the free States, greatly changed
the relative strength of the two parties. At the
election of October 1, 1855, in which the free-State
men took no part, Whitfield, for delegate, received
2721 votes, Border Ruffians included. At the
election for members of the Topeka Constitutional
Convention, a week later, from which the pro-
slavery men abstained, the free-State men cast
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS 43b
2710 votes, while Seeder, their nominee for dele- ch.xxv.
gate, received 2849. For general service, there-
fore, requiring no special effort, the numerical
strength of the factions was about equal ; while on
extraordinary occasions the two thousand Border-
Buffian reserve lying a little farther back from the
State line could at any time easily turn the scale.
The free-State men had only their convictions,
their intelligence, their courage, and the moral
support of the North ; the conspiracy had its secret
combination, the territorial officials, the Legisla-
ture, the bogus laws, the courts, the militia officers,
the President, and the army. This was a formi-
dable array of advantages; slavery was playing
with loaded dice.
With such a radical opposition of sentiment,
both factions were on the alert to seize every avail-
able vantage ground. The bogus laws having
been enacted, and the free-State men having, at
the Big Springs Convention, resolved on the failure
of peaceable remedies to resist them to a " bloody
issue," the conspiracy was not slow to cover itself
and its projects with the sacred mantle of au-
thority. Opportunely for them, about this time
Governor Shannon, appointed to succeed Reeder,
arrived in the Territory. Coming by way of the
Missouri River towns, he fell first among Border-
Ruffian companionship and influences ; and perhaps
having his inclinations already molded by his Wash-
ington instructions, his early impressions were de-
cidedly adverse to the free-State cause. His recep-
tion speech at Westport, in which he maintained the
legality of the Legislature, and his determination
to enforce their laws, delighted his pro-slavery
440 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xxv. auditors. To further enlist his zeal in their behalf,
a few weeks later they formally organized a " law-
and-order party " by a large public meeting held at
Leavenworth. All the territorial dignitaries were
present; Governor Shannon presided; John Cal-
houn, the Surveyor-General, made the principal
speech, a denunciation of the " abolitionists " sup-
portiDg the Topeka movement ; Chief -Justice
Lecompte dignified the occasion with approving
remarks. With public opinion propitiated in
advance, and the Governor of the Territory thus
publicly committed to their party, the conspirators
felt themselves ready to enter upon the active cam-
paign to crush out opposition, for which they had
made such elaborate preparations.
Faithful to their legislative declaration they
knew but one issue, slavery. All dissent, all non-
compliance, all hesitation, all mere silence even,
were in their stronghold towns, like Leavenworth,
branded as " abolitionism," declared to be hostility
to the public welfare, and punished with proscrip-
tion, personal violence, expulsion, and frequently
death. Of the lynchings, the mobs, and the mur-
ders, it would be impossible, except in a very
extended work, to note the frequent and atrocious
details. The present chapters can only touch upon
the more salient movements of the civil war in
Kansas, which happily were not sanguinary; if,
however, the individual and more isolated cases of
bloodshed could be described, they would show a
startling aggregate of barbarity and loss of life for
opinion's sake. Some of these revolting crimes,
though comparatively few in number, were com-
mitted, generally in a spirit of lawless retaliation,
by free-State men.
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS 441
Among other instrumentalities for executing the ch. xxv.
bogus laws, the bogus Legislature had appointed
one Samuel J. Jones sheriff of Douglas County,
Kansas Territory, although that individual was at
the time of his appointment, and long afterwards,
United States postmaster of the town of Westport,
Missouri. Why this Missouri citizen and Federal
official should in addition be clothed with a foreign
territorial shrievalty of a county lying forty or fifty
miles from his home is a mystery which was never
explained outside a Missouri Blue Lodge.
A few days after the " law-and-order " meeting
in Leavenworth, there occurred a murder in a
small settlement thirteen miles west of the town
of Lawrence. The murderer, a pro-slavery man,
first fled to Missouri, but returned to Shawnee
Mission and sought the official protection of Sheriff
Jones; no warrant, no examination, no commit-
ment followed, and the criminal remained at large.
Out of this incident, the officious sheriff managed
most ingeniously to create an embroilment with
the town of Lawrence. Buckley, who was alleged
to have been accessory to the crime, obtained a
peace-warrant against Branson, a neighbor of the
victim. With this peace-warrant in his pocket,
but without showing or reading it to his prisoner,
Sheriff Jones and a posse of twenty-five Border
Euffians proceeded to Branson's house at midnight
and arrested him. Alarm being given, Branson's
free-State neighbors, already exasperated at the
murder, rose under the sudden instinct of self -pro-
tection and rescued Branson from the sheriff and Wm Phil.
his posse that same night, though without other ^ues'A11"
violence than harsh words. v.w,et*eq.
442 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xxv. Burning with the thirst of personal revenge,
Sheriff Jones now accused the town of Lawrence
of the violation of law involved in this rescue,
though the people of Lawrence immediately and
earnestly disavowed the act. But for Sheriff
Jones and his superiors the pretext was all-
sufficient. A Border-Ruffian foray against the
town was hastily organized. The murder occurred
November 21; the rescue November 26. November
27, upon the brief report of Sheriff Jones, demand-
ing a force of three thousand men " to carry
out the laws," Governor Shannon issued his order
to the two major-generals of the skeleton militia,
" to collect together as large a force as you can in
your division, and repair without delay to Lecomp-
ton, and report yourself to S. J. Jones, sheriff of
Douglas County."1 The Kansas militia was a
myth; but the Border Ruffians, with their back-
woods rifles and shot-guns, were a ready resource.
To these an urgent appeal for help was made ; and
the leaders of the conspiracy in prompt obedience
placarded the frontier with inflammatory hand-
bills, and collected and equipped companies, and
hurried them forward to the rendezvous without
a moment's delay. The United States Arsenal at
Liberty, Missouri, was broken into and stripped
of its contents to supply cannon, small arms, and
ammunition. In two days after notice a company
of fifty Missourians made the first camp on Waka-
rusa Creek, near Franklin, four miles from Law-
rence. In three or four days more an irregular
i Governor Shannon, order to date. Senate Executive Docu-
Richardson, November 27, 1855. ments, 3d Sess. 34th Cong., Vol.
Same order to Strickler, same II., p. 53.
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS 443
army of fifteen hundred men, claiming to be the ch.xxv.
sheriff's posse, was within striking distance of the
town. Three or four hundred of these were nom-
inal residents of the Territory ; x all the remainder shannon^
were citizens of Missouri. They were not only JJawri
well armed and supplied, but wrought up to the 18ateE8ln"
highest pitch of partisan excitement. While the SKth
Governor's proclamation spoke of serving writs, n.,p.66.
the notices of the conspirators sounded the note of
the real contest. " Now is the time to show game,
and if we are defeated this time, the Territory is
lost to the South," said the leaders. There was no P. iia'
doubt of the earnestness of their purpose. Ex-
Vice-President Atchison came in person, leading a
battalion of two hundred Platte County riflemen.
News of this proceeding reached the people of
Lawrence little by little, and finally, becoming
alarmed, they began to improvise means of de-
fense. Two abortive imitations of the Missouri
Blue Lodges, set on foot during the summer by
the free-State men, provoked by the election inva-
sion in March, furnished them a starting-point for
military organization. A committee of safety, hur-
riedly instituted, sent a call for help from Law-
rence to other points in the Territory, "for the
purpose of defending it from threatened invasion
by armed men now quartered in its vicinity.'' Sev-
eral hundred free-State men promptly responded to
the summons. The Free-State Hotel served as bar-
racks. Governor Robinson and Colonel Lane were
appointed to command. Four or five small re-
doubts, connected by rifle-pits, were hastily thrown
i Shannon, dispatch, December 11, 1855, to President Pierce.
Senate Ex. Doc, 3d Sess. 34th Cong., Vol. II., p. 63.
444 ABBAHAM LINCOLN
CH.xxv. up; and by a clever artifice they succeeded in
bringing a twelve-pound brass howitzer from its
storage at Kansas City. Meantime the committee
of safety, earnestly denying any wrongful act or
purpose, sent an urgent appeal for protection to
the commander of the United States forces at Fort
Leavenworth, another to Congress, and a third to
President Pierce.
Amid all this warlike preparation to keep the
peace, no very strict military discipline could be
immediately enforced. The people of Lawrence,
without any great difficulty, obtained daily infor-
mation concerning the hostile camps. They, on the
other hand, professing no purpose but that of de-
fense and self-protection, were obliged to permit
free and constant ingress to their beleaguered town.
Sheriff Jones made several visits unmolested on
their part, and without any display of writs or
demand for the surrender of alleged offenders on
his own. One of the rescuers even accosted him,
conversed with him, and invited him to dinner.
These free visits had the good effect to restrain
imprudence and impulsiveness on both sides. They
could see that a conflict meant serious results. With
the advantage of its defensive position, Lawrence
was as strong as the sheriff's mob. On one point
especially the Border Ruffians had a wholesome
dread. Yankee ingenuity had invented a new kind
of breech-loading gun called " Sharps rifle." It was,
in fact, the best weapon of its day. The free-State
volunteers had some months before obtained a
partial supply of them from the East, and their
range, rapidity, and effectiveness had been not
only duly set forth but highly exaggerated by
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS 445
many marvelous stories throughout the Territory ch.xxv.
and along the border. The Missouri backwoods-
men manifested an almost incredible interest in
this wonderful gun. They might be deaf to the
" equalities " proclaimed in the Declaration of In-
dependence or blind to the moral sin of slavery,
but they comprehended a rifle which could be fired
ten times a minute and kill a man at a thousand
yards.
The arrivals from Missouri finally slackened and
ceased. The irregular Border-Euffian squads were
hastily incorporated into the skeleton "Kansas
militia." The " posse " became some two thousand
strong, and the defenders of Lawrence perhaps one
thousand.
Meanwhile a sober second thought had come to
Governor Shannon. To retrieve somewhat the pre-
cipitancy of his militia orders and proclamations,
he wrote to Sheriff Jones, December 2, to make no
arrests or movements unless by his direction. The
firm defensive attitude of the people of Lawrence
had produced its effect. The leaders of the con-
spiracy became distrustful of their power to crush
the town. One of his militia generals suggested
that the Governor should require the " outlaws at ggggEg
Lawrence and elsewhere" to surrender the Sharps D3e,cieSer
rifles; another wrote asking him to call out the p{Xs?'
Government troops at Fort Leavenworth. The
Governor, on his part, becoming doubtful of the
legality of employing Missouri militia to enforce
Kansas laws, was also eager to secure the help of
Federal troops. Sheriff Jones began to grow im-
portunate. In the Missouri camp while the leaders
became alarmed the men grew insubordinate. " I
446 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xxv. have reason to believe," wrote one of their promi-
nent men, "that before to-morrow morning the
black flag will be hoisted, when nine out of ten
will rally round it, and march without orders
upon Lawrence. The forces of the Lecompton
to"mc™a°rd- camp fully understand the plot and will fight under
son; Phil- ., , „
lips, p. 210. the same banner."
After careful deliberation Colonel Sumner, com-
lEnon? nianding the United States troops at Fort Leaven-
Di,cie8™bfr worth, declined to interfere without explicit orders
Pp"i84.8' from the War Department. These failing to arrive
in time, the Governor was obliged to face his own
dilemma. He hastened to Lawrence, which now
invoked his protection. He directed his militia
generals to repress disorder and check any attack
on the town. Interviews were held with the free-
State commanders, and the situation was fully dis-
cussed. A compromise was agreed upon, and a
formal treaty written out and signed. The affair
was pronounced to be a " misunderstanding" ; the
Lawrence party disavowed the Branson rescue,
denied any previous, present, or prospective organ-
ization for resistance, and under sundry provisos
agreed to aid in the execution of " the laws " when
called upon by " proper authority." Like all com-
promises, the agreement was half necessity, half
trick. Neither party was willing to yield honestly nor
ready to fight manfully. The free-State men shrank
from forcible resistance to even bogus laws. The
Missouri cabal, on the other hand, having three of
their best men constantly at the Governor's side,
were compelled to recognize their lack of justifica-
tion. They did not dare to ignore upon what a
ridiculously shadowy pretext the Branson peace-
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS 447
warrant had grown into an army of two thousand ch.xxv.
men, and how, under the manipulation of Sheriff
Jones, a questionable affidavit of a pro-slavery
criminal had been expanded into the casus belli
of a free-State town. They consented to a com-
promise " to cover a retreat."
When Governor Shannon announced that the
difficulties were settled, the people of Lawrence
were suspicious of their leaders, and John Brown
manifested his readiness to head a revolt. But his
attempted speech was hushed down, and the assur-
ance of Robinson and Lane that they had made no
dishonorable concession finally quieted their follow-
ers. There were similar murmurs in the pro-slavery
camps. The Governor was denounced as a traitor,
and Sheriff Jones declared that "he would have
wiped out Lawrence." Atchison, on the contrary,
sustained the bargain, explaining that to attack
Lawrence under the circumstances would ruin the
Democratic cause. "But," he added with a sig-
nificant oath, " boys, we will fight some time ! "
Thirteen of the captains in the Wakarusa camp
were called together, and the situation was duly
explained. The treaty was accepted, though the
Governor confessed "there was a silent dissatis-
faction " at the result. He ordered the forces to gQann0ii to
disband; prisoners were liberated, and with the pierce.De-
opportune aid of a furious rain-storm the Border- istf. senate
Ruffian army gradually melted away. Neverthe- sess. am
less the "Wakarusa war "left one bitter sting to i^pp-
rankle in the hearts of the defenders of Lawrence,
a free-State man having been killed by a pro-
slavery scouting party.
The truce patched up by this Lawrence treaty
448 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xxv. was of comparatively short duration. The excite-
ment which had reigned in Kansas during the
whole summer of 1855, first about the enactments
of the bogus Legislature, and then in regard to the
formation of the Topeka Constitution, was now
extended to the American Congress, where it raged
for two long months over the election of Speaker
Banks. In Kansas during the same period the vote
of the free-State men upon the Topeka Constitution
and the election for free-State officers under it, kept
the Territory in a ferment. During and after the
contest over the speakership at Washington, each
State Legislature became a forum of Kansas debate.
The general public interest in the controversy was
shown by discussions carried on by press, pulpit,
and in the daily conversation and comment of the
people of the Union in every town, hamlet, and
neighborhood. No sooner did the spring weather
of 1856 permit, than men, money, arms, and sup-
plies were poured into the Territory of Kansas from
the North.
In the Southern States also this propagandism
was active, and a number of guerrilla leaders with
followers recruited in the South, and armed and
sustained by Southern contributions and appro-
priations, found their way to Kansas in response
to urgent appeals of the Border chiefs. Buford, of
Alabama ; Titus, of Florida ; Wilkes, of Virginia ;
Hampton, of Kentucky; Treadwell, of South Caro-
lina, and others, brought not only enthusiastic
leadership, but substantial assistance. Both the
factions which had come so near to actual battle
in the "Wakarusa war," though nominally dis-
banded, in reality continued their military organ-
CIVIL WAK IN KANSAS 449
izations, — the free-State men through apprehension ch. xxv.
of danger, the Border Ruffians because of their
purpose to crush out opposition. Strengthened on
both sides with men, money, arms, and supplies,
the contest was gradually resumed with the open-
ing spring.
The vague and double-meaning phrases of the
Lawrence agreement furnished the earliest causes
of a renewal of the quarrel. " Did you not pledge
yourselves to assist me as sheriff in the arrest of
any person against whom I might have a writ ? "
asked Sheriff Jones of Robinson and Lane in a
curt note. "We may have said that we would j.N. Hoiio-
assist any proper officer in the service of any legal toryoi x%n-
process," they replied, standing upon their inter- 3f'
pretation. This was, of course, the original con-
troversy— slavery burning to enforce her usurpa-
tion, freedom determined to defend her birthright.
Sheriff Jones had his pockets always full of writs
issued in the spirit of persecution, but was often
baffled by the sharp wits and ready resources of
the free-State people, and sometimes defied out-
right. Little by little, however, the latter became
hemmed and bound in the meshes of the various
devices and proceedings which the territorial offi-
cials evolved from the bogus laws. President
Pierce, in his special message of January 24, me.
declared what had been done by the Topeka move-
ment to be " of a revolutionary character " which
would " become treasonable insurrection if it reach
the length of organized resistance."
Following this came his proclamation of Febru-
ary 11, leveled against "combinations formed to lsee.
resist the execution of the territorial laws." Early
Vol. L— 29
450
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
in May, Chief -Justice Lecompte held a term of his
court, during which he delivered to the grand jury
his famous instructions on constructive treason.
Indictments were found, writs issued, and the prin-
cipal free-State leaders arrested or forced to flee
from the Territory. Governor Robinson was ar-
rested without warrant on the Missouri River, and
brought back to be held in military custody till
September.1 Lane went East and recruited addi-
tional help for the contest. Meanwhile Sheriff
Jones, sitting in his tent at night, in the town of
Lawrence, had been wounded by a rifle or pistol
in the attempt of some unknown person to assas-
sinate him. The people of Lawrence denounced
the deed ; but the sheriff hoarded up the score for
future revenge. One additional incident served to
i Governor Robinson being on
his way East, the steamboat on
which he was traveling stopped
at Lexington, Missouri. An
unauthorized mob induced the
Governor, with that persuasive-
ness in which the Border Ruf-
fians had become adepts, to leave
the boat, detaining him at Lex-
ington on the accusation that
he was fleeing from an indict-
ment. In a few days an officer
came with a requisition from
Governor Shannon, and took the
prisoner by land to Westport, and
afterwards from there to Kansas
City and Leavenworth. Here he
was placed in the custody of Cap-
tain Martin, of the Kickapoo
Rangers, who proved a kind
jailer, and materially assisted in
protecting him from the danger-
ous intentions of the mob which
at that time held Leavenworth
under a reign of terror.
Mrs. Robinson, who has kindly
sent us a sketch of the incident,
writes : " On the night of the 28th
[of May] for greater security
General Richardson of the mili-
tia slept in the same bed with the
prisoner, while Judge Lecompte
and Marshal Donaldson slept
just outside of the door of the
prisoner's room. Captain Martin
said: 'I shall give you a pistol
to help protect yourself with if
worse comes to worst!' In the
early morning of the next day,
May 29, a company of dragoons
with one empty saddle came down
from the fort, and while the pro-
slavery men still slept, the pris-
oner and his escort were on their
way across the prairies to Le-
compton in the charge of officers
of the United States Army. The
Governor and other prisoners
were kept on the prairie near
Lecompton until the 10th of
September, 1856, when all were
released."
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS 451
precipitate the crisis. The House of Representa- ch.xxv.
tives at Washington, presided over by Speaker
Banks, and under control of the opposition, sent
an investigating committee to Kansas, consisting
of Wm. A. Howard, of Michigan, John Sherman,1
of Ohio, and Mordecai Oliver, of Missouri, which,
by the examination of numerous witnesses, was
probing the Border-Ruffian invasions, the illegality
of the bogus Legislature, and the enormity of the
bogus laws to the bottom.
Ex-Governor Reeder was in attendance on this
committee, supplying data, pointing out from per-
sonal knowledge sources of information, cross-
examining witnesses to elicit the hidden truth. Howard
To embarrass this damaging exposure, Judge *$&'
Lecompte issued a writ against the ex-Governor
on a frivolous charge of contempt. Claiming but
not receiving exemption from the committee,
Reeder on his personal responsibility refused to
permit the deputy marshal to arrest him. The
incident was not violent, nor even dramatic. No
posse was summoned, no further effort made, and
Reeder, fearing personal violence, soon fled in dis-
guise. But the affair was magnified as a crowning
proof that the free-State men were insurrectionists
and outlaws.
It must be noted in passing that by this time
the Territory had by insensible degrees drifted into
the condition of civil war. Both parties were
zealous, vigilant, and denunciatory. In nearly
i Owing to the illness of Mr. Its methodical analysis and pow-
Howard, chairman of the com- erful presentation of evidence
mittee, the long and elaborate made it one of the most popular
majority report of this committee and convincing political docu-
was written by John Sherman, ments ever issued.
452 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch.xxv. every settlement suspicion led to combination for
defense, combination to some form of oppression
or insult, and so on by easy transition to arrest
and concealment, attack and reprisal, expul-
sion, theft, house-burning, capture, and murder.
From these, again, sprang barricaded and fortified
dwellings, camps and scouting parties, finally cul-
minating in roving guerrilla bands, half partisan,
half predatory. Their distinctive characters, how-
ever, display one broad and unfailing difference.
The free-State men clung to their prairie towns
and prairie ravines with all the obstinacy and
courage of true defenders of their homes and fire-
sides. The pro-slavery parties, unmistakable aliens
and invaders, always came from, or retired across,
the Missouri line. Organized and sustained in the
beginning by voluntary contributions from that
and distant States, they ended by levying forced
contributions, by "pressing" horses, food, or arms
from any neighborhood they chanced to visit.
Their assumed character changed with their chang-
ing opportunities or necessities. They were squads
of Kansas militia, companies of "peaceful emi-
grants," or gangs of irresponsible outlaws, to suit
the chance, the whim, or the need of the moment.
Since the unsatisfactory termination of the
" Wakarusa war," certain leaders of the conspir-
acy had never given up their project of punishing
the town of Lawrence. A propitious moment for
carrying it out seemed now to have arrived. The
free-State officers and leaders were, thanks to
Judge Lecompte's doctrine of constructive treason,
under indictment, arrest, or in flight ; the settlers
were busy with their spring crops ; while the pro-
CIVIL WAK IN KANSAS
453
slavery guerrillas, freshly arrived and full of zeal,
were eager for service and distinction. The former
campaign against the town had failed for want of
justification ; they now sought a pretext which
would not shame their assumed character as de-
fenders of law and order. In the shooting of
Sheriff Jones in Lawrence, and in the refusal of
ex-Governor Eeeder to allow the deputy-marshal
to arrest him, they discovered grave offenses
against the territorial and United States laws.
Determined also no longer to trust Governor
Shannon, lest he might again make peace, United
States Marshal Donaldson issued a proclamation on
his own responsibility, on May 11, 1856, command-
ing " law-abiding citizens of the Territory " " to be
and appear at Lecompton, as soon as practicable
and in numbers sufficient for the proper execu-
tion of the law." Moving with the promptness and
celerity of preconcerted plans, ex- Vice-President
Atchison, with his Platte County Bines and two
brass cannon, the Kickapoo Rangers from Leaven-
worth and Weston, Wilkes, Titus, Buford, and all
the rest of the free lances in the Territory, began to
concentrate against Lawrence, giving the marshal
in a very few days a " posse " of from 500 to 800
men, armed for the greater part with United States
muskets, some stolen from the Liberty arsenal on
their former raid, others distributed to them as
Kansas militia by the territorial officers. The
Governor refused to interfere to protect the threat-
ened town, though an urgent appeal to do so was
made to him by its citizens, who after stormy and
divided councils resolved on a policy of non-re-
sistance.
Memorial,
Senate Ex.
Doc, 3d
Sees. 34th
Cong. Vol.
n., p. 74.
Phillips,
pp. 289-90.
Memorial,
Senate
Ex. Doc,
3d Seas.
34th Cong.
Vol. II.,
p. 75.
454 ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ch. xxv. They next made application to the marshal, who
tauntingly replied that he could not rely on their
sSteEx. pledges, and must take the liberty to execute his
8es08C"34th process in his own time and manner. The help of
ii, p. 77.' Colonel Sumner, commanding the United States
troops, was finally invoked, but his instructions
only permitted him to act at the call of the Gov-
ernor or marshal.1 Private persons who had leased
the Free-State Hotel vainly besought the various
authorities to prevent the destruction of their
property. Ten days were consumed in these ne-
gotiations ; but the spirit of vengeance refused to
yield. When the citizens of Lawrence rose on the
21st of May they beheld their town invested by a
formidable military force.
During the forenoon the deputy-marshal rode
leisurely into the town attended by less than a
dozen men, being neither molested nor opposed.
He summoned half a dozen citizens to join his
posse, who followed, obeyed, and assisted him.
He continued his pretended search and, to give
color to his errand, made two arrests. The Free-
State Hotel, a stone building in dimensions fifty
by seventy feet, three stories high and hand-
somely furnished, previously occupied only for
lodging-rooms, on that day for the first time opened
its table accommodations to the public, and pro-
vided a free dinner in honor of the occasion.
The marshal and his posse, including Sheriff
Jones, went among other invited guests and
enjoyed the proffered hospitality. As he had
promised to protect the hotel, the reassured citi-
1 Sumner to Shannon, May 12, 1856. Senate Ex. Doc, No. 10,
3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. V., p. 7.
CIVIL WAR IN KANSAS 455
zens began to laugh at their own fears. To their ch. xxv.
sorrow they were soon undeceived. The military-
force, partly rabble, partly organized, had mean-
while moved into the town.
To save his official skirts from stain, the deputy-
marshal now went through the farce of dismissing
his entire posse of citizens and Border Ruffians, at
which juncture Sheriff Jones made his appearance,
claiming the " posse " as his own. He planted a
company before the hotel, and demanded a sur-
render of the arms belonging to the free-State
military companies. Refusal or resistance being
out of the question, half a dozen small cannon
were solemnly dug up from their concealment
and, together with a few Sharps rifles, form-
ally delivered. Half an hour later, turning a
deaf ear to all remonstrance, he gave the pro-
prietors until 5 o'clock to remove their families
and personal property from the Free-State Hotel.
Atchison, who had been haranguing the mob,
planted his two guns before the building and
trained them upon it. The inmates being removed,
at the appointed hour a few cannon balls were fired
through the stone walls. This mode of destruction
being slow and undramatic, and an attempt to blow
it up with gunpowder having proved equally un-
satisfactory, the torch was applied, and the struc-
ture given to the flames.1 Other squads had during
the same time been sent to the several printing-
offices, where they broke the presses, scattered the
type, and demolished the furniture. The house of
Governor Robinson was also robbed and burned.
i Memorial, Senate Executive Document, 3d Session 34th
Congress. Vol. II., pp. 73-85.
456
ABKAHAM LINCOLN
ports, 2d
Bess. 36th
Cong., Vol.
III., part I.
p. 39.
Holloway,
p. 334.
ch. xxv. Very soon the mob was beyond all control, and
spreading itself over the town engaged in pillage
till the darkness of night arrested it. Meanwhile
the chiefs sat on their horses and viewed the work
of destruction.
If we would believe the chief actors, this was
the " law and order party," executing the mandates
of justice. Part and parcel of the affair was the
pretense that this exploit of prairie buccaneering
House Re- had been authorized by Judge Lecompte's court,
the officials citing in their defense a presentment
of his grand jury, declaring the free-State news-
papers seditious publications, and the Free-State
Hotel a rebellious fortification, and recommend-
ing their abatement as nuisances. The travesty of
American government involved in the transaction
is too serious for ridicule. In this incident, con-
trasting the creative and the destructive spirit of
the factions, the Emigrant Aid Society of Massa-
chusetts finds its most honorable and triumphant
vindication. The whole proceeding was so child-
ish, the miserable plot so transparent, the outrage
so gross, as to bring disgust to the better class of
Border Ruffians who were witnesses and acces-
sories. The free-State men have recorded the
honorable conduct of Colonel Zadock Jackson, of
Georgia, and Colonel Jefferson Buf ord, of Alabama,
as well as of the prosecuting attorney of the county,
each of whom denounced the proceedings on the
spot.
Memorial
to the
President.
END OP VOL. I.
1(. ZOO 9.
03V. 02H6