NO American can study the character and career of Abraham Lincoln without
being carried away by sentimental emotions. We are always inclined to idealize
that which we love,—a state of mind very unfavorable to the exercise of
sober critical judgment. It is therefore not surprising that most of those
who have written or spoken on that extraordinary man, even while conscientiously
endeavoring to draw a lifelike portraiture of his being, and to form a just
estimate of his public conduct, should have drifted into more or less
indiscriminating eulogy, painting his great features in the most glowing
colors, and covering with tender shadings whatever might look like a blemish.
But his standing before posterity will not be exalted by mere praise of his
virtues and abilities, nor by any concealment of his limitations and faults.
The stature of the great man, one of whose peculiar charms consisted in his
being so unlike all other great men, will rather lose than gain by the
idealization which so easily runs into the commonplace. For it was distinctly
the weird mixture of qualities and forces in him, of the lofty with the common,
the ideal with the uncouth, of that which he had become with that which he
had not ceased to be, that made him so fascinating a character among his
fellow-men, gave him his singular power over their minds and hearts, and
fitted him to be the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national
life.
His was indeed a marvellous growth. The statesman or the military hero born
and reared in a log cabin is a familiar figure in American history; but we
may search in vain among our celebrities for
one whose origin and early life
equalled Abraham Lincoln's in wretchedness. He first saw the light in a miserable
hovel in Kentucky, on a farm consisting of a few barren acres in a dreary
neighborhood; his father a typical "poor Southern white," shiftless and
improvident, without ambition for himself or his children, constantly looking
for a new piece of land on which he might make a living without much work;
his mother, in her youth handsome and bright, grown prematurely coarse in
feature and soured in mind by daily toil and care; the whole household squalid,
cheerless, and utterly void of elevating inspirations. Only when the family
had "moved" into the malarious backwoods of Indiana, the mother had died,
and a stepmother, a woman of thrift and energy, had taken charge of the children,
the shaggy-headed, ragged, barefooted, forlorn boy, then seven years old,
"began to feel like a human being." Hard work was his early lot. When a mere
boy he had to help in
supporting the family, either on his father's clearing,
or hired out to other farmers to plough, or dig ditches, or chop wood, or
drive ox teams; occasionally also to "tend the baby," when the farmer's wife
was otherwise engaged. He could regard it as an advancement to a higher sphere
of activity when he obtained work in a "crossroads store," where he amused
the customers by his talk over the counter; for he soon distinguished himself
among the backwoods folk as one who had something to say worth listening
to. To win that distinction, he had to draw mainly upon his wits; for, while
his thirst for knowledge was great, his opportunities for satisfying that
thirst were wofully slender.
In the log schoolhouse, which he could visit but little, he was taught only
reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic. Among the people of the settlement,
bush farmers and small tradesmen, he found none of uncommon intelligence
or education; but some of them had a few books,
which he borrowed eagerly.
Thus he read and reread
AEsop's Fables, learning to tell stories with
a point and to argue by parables; he read
Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's
Progress, a short history of the United States, and Weems's
Life of
Washington. To the town constable's he went to read the Revised Statutes
of Indiana. Every printed page that fell into his hands he would greedily
devour, and his family and friends watched him with wonder, as the uncouth
boy, after his daily work, crouched in a corner of the log cabin or outside
under a tree, absorbed in a book while munching his supper of corn bread.
In this manner he began to gather some knowledge, and sometimes he would
astonish the girls with such startling remarks as that the earth was moving
around the sun, and not the sun around the earth, and they marvelled where
"Abe" could have got such queer notions. Soon he also felt the impulse to
write; not only making extracts from books he wished to remember, but
also
composing little essays of his own. First he sketched these with charcoal
on a wooden shovel scraped white with a drawing-knife, or on basswood shingles.
Then he transferred them to paper, which was a scarce commodity in the Lincoln
household; taking care to cut his expressions close, so that they might not
cover too much space,—a style-forming method greatly to be commended. Seeing
boys put a burning coal on the back of a wood turtle, he was moved to write
on cruelty to animals. Seeing men intoxicated with whiskey, he wrote on
temperance. In verse-making, too, he tried himself, and in satire on persons
offensive to him or others,—satire the rustic wit of which was not always
fit for ears polite. Also political thoughts he put upon paper, and some
of his pieces were even deemed good enough for publication in the county
weekly.
Thus he won a neighborhood reputation as a clever young man, which he increased
by his performances as a speaker, not seldom drawing upon himself the
dissatisfaction of his employers by mounting a stump in the field, and keeping
the farm hands from their work by little speeches in a jocose and sometimes
also a serious vein. At the rude social frolics of the settlement he became
an important person, telling funny stories, mimicking the itinerant preachers
who had happened to pass by, and making his mark at wrestling matches, too;
for at the age of seventeen he had attained his full height, six feet four
inches in his stockings, if he had any, and a terribly muscular clodhopper
he was. But he was known never to use his extraordinary strength to the injury
or humiliation of others; rather to do them a kindly turn, or to enforce
justice and fair dealing between them. All this made him a favorite in backwoods
society, although in some things he appeared a little odd to his friends.
Far more than any of them, he was given not only to reading, but to fits
of abstraction, to quiet musing with himself, and also to strange spells
of melancholy, from which he often would pass in a moment to rollicking outbursts
of droll humor. But on the whole he was one of the people among whom he lived;
in appearance perhaps even a little more uncouth than most of them,—a very
tall, raw-boned youth, with large features, dark, shrivelled skin, and rebellious
hair; his arms and legs long, out of proportion; clad in deerskin trousers,
which from frequent exposure to the rain had shrunk so as to sit tightly
on his limbs, leaving several inches of bluish shin exposed between their
lower end and the heavy tan-colored shoes; the nether garment held usually
by only one suspender, that was strung over a coarse home-made shirt; the
head covered in winter with a coonskin cap, in summer with a rough straw
hat of uncertain shape, without a band.
It is doubtful whether he felt himself much superior to his surroundings,
although he confessed to a yearning for some knowledge of the world outside
of the circle in which he lived. This wish was gratified; but how? At the
age of nineteen he went down the Mississippi to New Orleans as a flatboat
hand, temporarily joining a trade many members of which at that time still
took pride in being called "half horse and half alligator." After his return
he worked and lived in the old way until the spring of 1830, when his father
"moved again," this time to Illinois; and on the journey of fifteen days
"Abe" had to drive the ox wagon which carried the household goods. Another
log cabin was built, and then, fencing a field, Abraham Lincoln split those
historic rails which were destined to play so picturesque a part in the
Presidential campaign twenty-eight years later.
Having come of age, Lincoln left the family, and "struck out for himself."
He had to "take jobs whenever he could get them." The first of these carried
him
again as a flatboat hand to New Orleans. There something happened that
made a lasting impression upon his soul: he witnessed a slave auction. "His
heart bled," wrote one of his companions; "said nothing much; was silent;
looked bad. I can say, knowing it, that it was on this trip that he formed
his opinion on slavery. It run its iron in him then and there, May, 1831.
I have heard him say so often." Then he lived several years at New Salem,
in Illinois, a small mushroom village, with a mill, some "stores" and whiskey
shops; that rose quickly, and soon disappeared again. It was a desolate,
disjointed, half-working and half-loitering life, without any other aim than
to gain food and shelter from day to day. He served as pilot on a steamboat
trip, then as clerk in a store and a mill; business failing, he was adrift
for some time. Being compelled to measure his strength with the chief bully
of the neighborhood, and overcoming him, he became a noted person in that
muscular community,
and won the esteem and friendship of the ruling gang
of ruffians to such a degree that, when the Black Hawk war broke out, they
elected him, a young man of twenty-three, captain of a volunteer company,
composed mainly of roughs of their kind. He took the field, and his most
noteworthy deed of valor consisted, not in killing an Indian, but in protecting
against his own men, at the peril of his own life, the life of an old savage
who had strayed into his camp.
The Black Hawk war over, he turned to politics. The step from the captaincy
of a volunteer company to a candidacy for a seat in the Legislature seemed
a natural one. But his popularity, although great in New Salem, had not spread
far enough over the district, and he was defeated. Then the wretched
hand-to-mouth struggle began again. He "set up in store-business" with a
dissolute partner, who drank whiskey while Lincoln was reading books. The
result was a disastrous failure and a load
of debt. Thereupon he became a
deputy surveyor, and was appointed postmaster of New Salem, the business
of the post-office being so small that he could carry the incoming and outgoing
mail in his hat. All this could not lift him from poverty, and his surveying
instruments and horse and saddle were sold by the sheriff for debt.
But while all this misery was upon him his ambition rose to higher aims.
He walked many miles to borrow from a schoolmaster a grammar with which to
improve his language. A lawyer lent him a copy of Blackstone, and he began
to study law. People would look wonderingly at the grotesque figure lying
in the grass, "with his feet up a tree," or sitting on a fence, as, absorbed
in a book, he learned to construct correct sentences and made himself a jurist.
At once he gained a little practice, pettifogging before a justice of the
peace for friends, without expecting a fee. Judicial functions, too, were
thrust upon him, but only at horse-races or
wrestling matches, where his
acknowledged honesty and fairness gave his verdicts undisputed authority.
His popularity grew apace, and soon he could be a candidate for the Legislature
again. Although he called himself a Whig, an ardent admirer of Henry Clay,
his clever stump speeches won him the election in the strongly Democratic
district. Then for the first time, perhaps, he thought seriously of his outward
appearance. So far he had been content with a garb of "Kentucky jeans," not
seldom ragged, usually patched, and always shabby. Now, he borrowed some
money from a friend to buy a new suit of clothes—"store clothes"—fit for
a Sangamon County statesman; and thus adorned he set out for the state capital,
Vandalia, to take his seat among the lawmakers.
His legislative career, which stretched over several sessions—for he was
thrice re-elected, in 1836, 1838, and 1840—was not remarkably brilliant.
He did, indeed, not lack ambition. He dreamed even of making
himself "the
De Witt Clinton of Illinois," and he actually distinguished himself by zealous
and effective work in those "log-rolling" operations by which the young State
received "a general system of internal improvements" in the shape of railroads,
canals, and banks,—a reckless policy, burdening the State with debt, and
producing the usual crop of political demoralization, but a policy characteristic
of the time and the impatiently enterprising spirit of the Western people.
Lincoln, no doubt with the best intentions, but with little knowledge of
the subject, simply followed the popular current. The achievement in which,
perhaps, he gloried most was the removal of the State government from Vandalia
to Springfield; one of those triumphs of political management which are apt
to be the pride of the small politician's statesmanship. One thing, however,
he did in which his true nature asserted itself, and which gave distinct
promise of the future pursuit of high aims. Against
an overwhelming preponderance
of sentiment in the Legislature, followed by only one other member, he recorded
his protest against a proslavery resolution,—that protest declaring "the
institution of slavery to be founded on both injustice and bad policy." This
was not only the irrepressible voice of his conscience; it was true moral
valor, too; for at that time, in many parts of the West, an abolitionist
was regarded as little better than a horse-thief, and even "Abe Lincoln"
would hardly have been forgiven his antislavery principles, had he not been
known as such an "uncommon good fellow." But here, in obedience to the great
conviction of his life, he manifested his courage to stand alone,—that courage
which is the first requisite of leadership in a great cause.
Together with his reputation and influence as a politician grew his law practice,
especially after he had removed from New Salem to Springfield, and associated
himself with a practitioner of good standing.
He had now at last won a fixed
position in society. He became a successful lawyer, less, indeed, by his
learning as a jurist than by his effectiveness as an advocate and by the
striking uprightness of his character; and it may truly be said that his
vivid sense of truth and justice had much to do with his effectiveness as
an advocate. He would refuse to act as the attorney even of personal friends
when he saw the right on the other side. He would abandon cases, even during
trial, when the testimony convinced him that his client was in the wrong.
He would dissuade those who sought his service from pursuing an obtainable
advantage when their claims seemed to him unfair. Presenting his very first
case in the United States Circuit Court, the only question being one of
authority, he declared that, upon careful examination, he found all the
authorities on the other side, and none on his. Persons accused of crime,
when he thought them guilty, he would not defend at all, or, attempting their
defence, he
was unable to put forth his powers. One notable exception is
on record, when his personal sympathies had been strongly aroused. But when
he felt himself to be the protector of innocence, the defender of justice,
or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed such unexpected resources
of reasoning, such depth of feeling, and rose to such fervor of appeal as
to astonish and overwhelm his hearers, and make him fairly irresistible.
Even an ordinary law argument, coming from him, seldom failed to produce
the impression that he was profoundly convinced of the soundness of his position.
It is not surprising that the mere appearance of so conscientious an attorney
in any case should have carried, not only to juries, but even to judges,
almost a presumption of right on his side, and that the people began to call
him, sincerely meaning it, "honest Abe Lincoln."
In the meantime he had private sorrows and trials of a painfully afflicting
nature.
He had loved and been loved by a fair and estimable girl, Ann Rutledge,
who died in the flower of her youth and beauty, and he mourned her loss with
such intensity of grief that his friends feared for his reason. Recovering
from his morbid depression, he bestowed what he thought a new affection upon
another lady, who refused him. And finally, moderately prosperous in his
worldly affairs, and having prospects of political distinction before him,
he paid his addresses to Mary Todd, of Kentucky, and was accepted. But then
tormenting doubts of the genuineness of his own affection for her, of the
compatibility of their characters, and of their future happiness came upon
him. His distress was so great that he felt himself in danger of suicide,
and feared to carry a pocket-knife with him; and he gave mortal offence to
his bride by not appearing on the appointed wedding day. Now the torturing
consciousness of the wrong he had done her grew unendurable. He won back
her affection, ended
the agony by marrying her, and became a faithful and
patient husband and a good father. But it was no secret to those who knew
the family well that his domestic life was full of trials. The erratic temper
of his wife not seldom put the gentleness of his nature to the severest tests;
and these troubles and struggles, which accompanied him through all the
vicissitudes of his life from the modest home in Springfield to the White
House at Washington, adding untold private heart-burnings to his public cares,
and sometimes precipitating upon him incredible embarrassments in the discharge
of his public duties, form one of the most pathetic features of his career.
He continued to "ride the circuit," read books while travelling in his buggy,
told funny stories to his fellow-lawyers in the tavern, chatted familiarly
with his neighbors around the stove in the store and at the post-office,
had his hours of melancholy brooding as of old, and became more and more
widely known and trusted and beloved
among the people of his State for his
ability as a lawyer and politician, for the uprightness of his character
and the ever-flowing spring of sympathetic kindness in his heart. His main
ambition was confessedly that of political distinction; but hardly any one
would at that time have seen in him the man destined to lead the nation through
the greatest crisis of the century.
His time had not yet come when, in 1846, he was elected to Congress. In a
clever speech in the House of Representatives he denounced President Polk
for having unjustly forced war upon Mexico, and he amused the Committee of
the Whole by a witty attack upon General Cass. More important was the expression
he gave to his antislavery impulses by offering a bill looking to the
emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia, and by his repeated
votes for the famous Wilmot Proviso, intended to exclude slavery from the
Territories acquired from Mexico. But
when, at the expiration of his term,
in March, 1849, he left his seat, he gloomily despaired of ever seeing the
day when the cause nearest to his heart would be rightly grasped by the people,
and when he would be able to render any service to his country in solving
the great problem. Nor had his career as a member of Congress in any sense
been such as to gratify his ambition. Indeed, if he ever had any belief in
a great destiny for himself, it must have been weak at that period; for he
actually sought to obtain from the new Whig President, General Taylor, the
place of Commissioner of the General Land Office, willing to bury himself
in one of the administrative bureaus of the government. Fortunately for the
country, he failed; and no less fortunately, when, later, the territorial
governorship of Oregon was offered to him, Mrs. Lincoln's protest induced
him to decline it. Returning to Springfield, he gave himself with renewed
zest to his law practice, acquiesced in the Compromise of 1850
with reluctance
and a mental reservation, supported in the Presidential campaign of 1852
the Whig candidate in some spiritless speeches, and took but a languid interest
in the politics of the day. But just then his time was drawing near.
The peace promised, and apparently inaugurated, by the Compromise of 1850
was rudely broken by the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854.
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the Territories of the United
States, the heritage of coming generations, to the invasion of slavery, suddenly
revealed the whole significance of the slavery question to the people of
the free States, and thrust itself into the politics of the country as the
paramount issue. Something like an electric shock flashed through the North.
Men who but a short time before had been absorbed by their business pursuits,
and deprecated all political agitation, were startled out of their security
by a sudden alarm, and excitedly took sides. That restless
trouble of conscience
about slavery, which even in times of apparent repose had secretly disturbed
the souls of Northern people, broke forth in an utterance louder than ever.
The bonds of accustomed party allegiance gave way. Antislavery Democrats
and antislavery Whigs felt themselves drawn together by a common overpowering
sentiment, and soon they began to rally in a new organization. The Republican
party sprang into being to meet the overruling call of the hour. Then Abraham
Lincoln's time was come. He rapidly advanced to a position of conspicuous
championship in the struggle. This, however, was not owing to his virtues
and abilities alone. Indeed, the slavery question stirred his soul in its
profoundest depths; it was, as one of his intimate friends said, "the only
one on which he would become excited"; it called forth all his faculties
and energies. Yet there were many others who, having long and arduously fought
the antislavery battle in the
popular assembly, or in the press, or in the
halls of Congress, far surpassed him in prestige, and compared with whom
he was still an obscure and untried man. His reputation, although highly
honorable and well earned, had so far been essentially local. As a stump-speaker
in Whig canvasses outside of his State he had attracted comparatively little
attention; but in Illinois he had been recognized as one of the foremost
men of the Whig party. Among the opponents of the Nebraska Bill he occupied
in his state so important a position, that in 1854 he was the choice of a
large majority of the "Anti-Nebraska men" in the Legislature for a seat in
the Senate of the United States which then became vacant; and when he, an
old Whig, could not obtain the votes of the Anti-Nebraska Democrats necessary
to make a majority, he generously urged his friends to transfer their votes
to Lyman Trumbull, who was then elected. Two years later, in the first national
convention of the Republican
party, the delegation from Illinois brought
him forward as a candidate for the vice-presidency, and he received respectable
support. Still, the name of Abraham Lincoln was not widely known beyond the
boundaries of his own State. But now it was this local prominence in Illinois
that put him in a position of peculiar advantage on the battlefield of national
politics. In the assault on the Missouri Compromise which broke down all
legal barriers to the spread of slavery Stephen Arnold Douglas was the ostensible
leader and central figure; and Douglas was a Senator from Illinois, Lincoln's
State. Douglas's national theatre of action was the Senate, but in his
constituency in Illinois were the roots of his official position and power.
What he did in the Senate he had to justify before the people of Illinois,
in order to maintain himself in place; and in Illinois all eyes turned to
Lincoln as Douglas's natural antagonist.
As very young men they had come to
Illinois, Lincoln from Indiana, Douglas
from Vermont, and had grown up together in public life, Douglas as a Democrat,
Lincoln as a Whig. They had met first in Vandalia, in 1834, when Lincoln
was in the Legislature and Douglas in the lobby; and again in 1836, both
as members of the Legislature. Douglas, a very able politician, of the agile,
combative, audacious, "pushing" sort, rose in political distinction with
remarkable rapidity. In quick succession he became a member of the Legislature,
a State's attorney, secretary of state, a judge on the supreme bench of Illinois,
three times a Representative in Congress, and a Senator of the United States
when only thirty-nine years old. In the National Democratic convention of
1852 he appeared even as an aspirant to the nomination for the Presidency,
as the favorite of "young America," and received a respectable vote. He had
far outstripped Lincoln in what is commonly called political success and
in reputation. But it had frequently
happened that in political campaigns
Lincoln felt himself impelled, or was selected by his Whig friends, to answer
Douglas's speeches; and thus the two were looked upon, in a large part of
the State at least, as the representative combatants of their respective
parties in the debates before popular meetings. As soon, therefore, as, after
the passage of his Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Douglas returned to Illinois to
defend his cause before his constituents, Lincoln, obeying not only his own
impulse, but also general expectation, stepped forward as his principal opponent.
Thus the struggle about the principles involved in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
or, in a broader sense, the struggle between freedom and slavery, assumed
in Illinois the outward form of a personal contest between Lincoln and Douglas;
and, as it continued and became more animated, that personal contest in Illinois
was watched with constantly increasing interest by the whole country. When,
in 1858, Douglas's
senatorial term being about to expire, Lincoln was formally
designated by the Republican convention of Illinois as their candidate for
the Senate, to take Douglas's place, and the two contestants agreed to debate
the questions at issue face to face in a series of public meetings, the eyes
of the whole American people were turned eagerly to that one point: and the
spectacle reminded one of those lays of ancient times telling of two armies,
in battle array, standing still to see their two principal champions fight
out the contested cause between the lines in single combat.
Lincoln had then reached the full maturity of his powers. His equipment as
a statesman did not embrace a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs.
What he had studied he had indeed made his own, with the eager craving and
that zealous tenacity characteristic of superior minds learning under
difficulties. But his narrow opportunities and the unsteady life he had led
during his younger years had not permitted
the accumulation of large stores
in his mind. It is true, in political campaigns he had occasionally spoken
on the ostensible issues between the Whigs and the Democrats, the tariff,
internal improvements, banks, and so on, but only in a perfunctory manner.
Had he ever given much serious thought and study to these subjects, it is
safe to assume that a mind so prolific of original conceits as his would
certainly have produced some utterance upon them worth remembering. His soul
had evidently never been deeply stirred by such topics. But when his moral
nature was aroused, his brain developed an untiring activity until it had
mastered all the knowledge within reach. As soon as the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise had thrust the slavery question into politics as the paramount
issue, Lincoln plunged into an arduous study of all its legal, historical,
and moral aspects, and then his mind became a complete arsenal of argument.
His rich natural gifts, trained by long and
varied practice, had made him
an orator of rare persuasiveness. In his immature days, he had pleased himself
for a short period with that inflated, high-flown style which, among the
uncultivated, passes for "beautiful speaking." His inborn truthfulness and
his artistic instinct soon overcame that aberration and revealed to him the
noble beauty and strength of simplicity. He possessed an uncommon power of
clear and compact statement, which might have reminded those who knew the
story of his early youth of the efforts of the poor boy, when he copied his
compositions from the scraped wooden shovel, carefully to trim his expressions
in order to save paper. His language had the energy of honest directness
and he was a master of logical lucidity. He loved to point and enliven his
reasoning by humorous illustrations, usually anecdotes of Western life, of
which he had an inexhaustible store at his command. These anecdotes had not
seldom a flavor of rustic robustness about them, but
he used them with great
effect, while amusing the audience, to give life to an abstraction, to explode
an absurdity, to clinch an argument, to drive home an admonition. The natural
kindliness of his tone, softening prejudice and disarming partisan rancor,
would often open to his reasoning a way into minds most unwilling to receive
it.
Yet his greatest power consisted in the charm of his individuality. That
charm did not, in the ordinary way, appeal to the ear or to the eye. His
voice was not melodious; rather shrill and piercing, especially when it rose
to its high treble in moments of great animation. His figure was unhandsome,
and the action of his unwieldy limbs awkward. He commanded none of the outward
graces of oratory as they are commonly understood. His charm was of a different
kind. It flowed from the rare depth and genuineness of his convictions and
his sympathetic feelings. Sympathy was the strongest element in his nature.
One of his biographers, who knew him before he became President, says: "Lincoln's
compassion might be stirred deeply by an object present, but never by an
object absent and unseen. In the former case he would most likely extend
relief, with little inquiry into the merits of the case, because, as he expressed
it himself, it 'took a pain out of his own heart.'" Only half of this is
correct. It is certainly true that he could not witness any individual distress
or oppression, or any kind of suffering, without feeling a pang of pain himself,
and that by relieving as much as he could the suffering of others he put
an end to his own. This compassionate impulse to help he felt not only for
human beings, but for every living creature. As in his boyhood he angrily
reproved the boys who tormented a wood turtle by putting a burning coal on
its back, so, we are told, he would, when a mature man, on a journey, dismount
from his buggy and wade waist-deep in mire to rescue a pig
struggling in
a swamp. Indeed, appeals to his compassion were so irresistible to him, and
he felt it so difficult to refuse anything when his refusal could give pain,
that he himself sometimes spoke of his inability to say "no" as a positive
weakness. But that certainly does not prove that his compassionate feeling
was confined to individual cases of suffering witnessed with his own eyes.
As the boy was moved by the aspect of the tortured wood turtle to compose
an essay against cruelty to animals in general, so the aspect of other cases
of suffering and wrong wrought up his moral nature, and set his mind to work
against cruelty, injustice, and oppression in general.
As his sympathy went forth to others, it attracted others to him. Especially
those whom he called the "plain people" felt themselves drawn to him by the
instinctive feeling that he understood, esteemed, and appreciated them. He
had grown up among the poor, the lowly, the ignorant.
He never ceased to
remember the good souls he had met among them, and the many kindnesses they
had done him. Although in his mental development he had risen far above them,
he never looked down upon them. How they felt and how they reasoned he knew,
for so he had once felt and reasoned himself. How they could be moved he
knew, for so he had once been moved himself and practised moving others.
His mind was much larger than theirs, but it thoroughly comprehended theirs;
and while he thought much farther than they, their thoughts were ever present
to him. Nor had the visible distance between them grown as wide as his rise
in the world would seem to have warranted. Much of his backwoods speech and
manners still clung to him. Although he had become "Mr. Lincoln" to his later
acquaintances, he was still "Abe" to the "Nats" and "Billys" and "Daves"
of his youth; and their familiarity neither appeared unnatural to them, nor
was it in
the least awkward to him. He still told and enjoyed stories similar
to those he had told and enjoyed in the Indiana settlement and at New Salem.
His wants remained as modest as they had ever been; his domestic habits had
by no means completely accommodated themselves to those of his more highborn
wife; and though the "Kentucky jeans" apparel had long been dropped, his
clothes of better material and better make would sit ill sorted on his gigantic
limbs. His cotton umbrella, without a handle, and tied together with a coarse
string to keep it from flapping, which he carried on his circuit rides, is
said to be remembered still by some of his surviving neighbors. This rusticity
of habit was utterly free from that affected contempt of refinement and comfort
which self-made men sometimes carry into their more affluent circumstances.
To Abraham Lincoln it was entirely natural, and all those who came into contact
with him knew it to be so. In his ways of thinking and feeling he
had become
a gentleman in the highest sense, but the refining process had polished but
little the outward form. The plain people, therefore, still considered "honest
Abe Lincoln" one of themselves; and when they felt, which they no doubt
frequently did, that his thoughts and aspirations moved in a sphere above
their own, they were all the more proud of him, without any diminution of
fellow-feeling. It was this relation of mutual sympathy and understanding
between Lincoln and the plain people that gave him his peculiar power as
a public man, and singularly fitted him, as we shall see, for that leadership
which was preeminently required in the great crisis then coming on,—the
leadership which indeed thinks and moves ahead of the masses, but always
remains within sight and sympathetic touch of them.
He entered upon the campaign of 1858 better equipped than he had ever been
before. He not only instinctively felt, but he had convinced himself by arduous
study,
that in this struggle against the spread of slavery he had right,
justice, philosophy, the enlightened opinion of mankind, history, the
Constitution, and good policy on his side. It was observed that after he
began to discuss the slavery question his speeches were pitched in a much
loftier key than his former oratorical efforts. While he remained fond of
telling funny stories in private conversation, they disappeared more and
more from his public discourse. He would still now and then point his argument
with expressions of inimitable quaintness, and flash out rays of kindly humor
and witty irony; but his general tone was serious, and rose sometimes to
genuine solemnity. His masterly skill in dialectical thrust and parry, his
wealth of knowledge, his power of reasoning and elevation of sentiment, disclosed
in language of rare precision, strength, and beauty, not seldom astonished
his old friends.
Neither of the two champions could have found a more formidable antagonist
than each now met in the other. Douglas was by far the most conspicuous member
of his party. His admirers had dubbed him "the Little Giant," contrasting
in that nick-name the greatness of his mind with the smallness of his body.
But though of low stature, his broad-shouldered figure appeared uncommonly
sturdy, and there was something lion-like in the squareness of his brow and
jaw, and in the defiant shake of his long hair. His loud and persistent advocacy
of territorial expansion, in the name of patriotism and "manifest destiny,"
had given him an enthusiastic following among the young and ardent. Great
natural parts, a highly combative temperament, and long training had made
him a debater unsurpassed in a Senate filled with able men. He could be as
forceful in his appeals to patriotic feelings as he was fierce in denunciation
and thoroughly skilled in all the baser tricks of parliamentary pugilism.
While genial and rollicking in his social intercourse—the idol of the "boys"—he
felt himself one of the most renowned statesmen of his time, and would frequently
meet his opponents with an overbearing haughtiness, as persons more to be
pitied than to be feared. In his speech opening the campaign of 1858, he
spoke of Lincoln, whom the Republicans had dared to advance as their candidate
for "his" place in the Senate, with an air of patronizing if not contemptuous
condescension, as "a kind, amiable, and intelligent gentleman and a good
citizen." The Little Giant would have been pleased to pass off his antagonist
as a tall dwarf. He knew Lincoln too well, however, to indulge himself seriously
in such a delusion. But the political situation was at that moment in a curious
tangle, and Douglas could expect to derive from the confusion great advantage
over his opponent.
By the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the Territories to the
ingress of slavery, Douglas had pleased the South, but greatly alarmed the
North. He had
sought to conciliate Northern sentiment by appending to his
Kansas-Nebraska Bill the declaration that its intent was "not to legislate
slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to
leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their institutions
in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States."
This he called "the great principle of popular sovereignty." When asked whether,
under this act, the people of a Territory, before its admission as a State,
would have the right to exclude slavery, he answered, "That is a question
for the courts to decide." Then came the famous "Dred Scott decision," in
which the Supreme Court held substantially that the right to hold slaves
as property existed in the Territories by virtue of the Federal Constitution,
and that this right could not be denied by any act of a territorial government.
This, of course, denied the right of the people of any Territory to exclude
slavery while they were
in a territorial condition, and it alarmed the Northern
people still more. Douglas recognized the binding force of the decision of
the Supreme Court, at the same time maintaining, most illogically, that his
great principle of popular sovereignty remained in force nevertheless. Meanwhile,
the proslavery people of western Missouri, the so-called "border ruffians,"
had invaded Kansas, set up a constitutional convention, made a constitution
of an extreme proslavery type, the "Lecompton Constitution," refused to submit
it fairly to a vote of the people of Kansas, and then referred it to Congress
for acceptance,—seeking thus to accomplish the admission of Kansas as a
slave State. Had Douglas supported such a scheme, he would have lost all
foothold in the North. In the name of popular sovereignty he loudly declared
his opposition to the acceptance of any constitution not sanctioned by a
formal popular vote. He "did not care," he said, "whether slavery be voted
up or down," but there
must be a fair vote of the people. Thus he drew upon
himself the hostility of the Buchanan administration, which was controlled
by the proslavery interest, but he saved his Northern following. More than
this, not only did his Democratic admirers now call him "the true champion
of freedom," but even some Republicans of large influence, prominent among
them Horace Greeley, sympathizing with Douglas in his fight against the Lecompton
Constitution, and hoping to detach him permanently from the proslavery interest
and to force a lasting breach in the Democratic party, seriously advised
the Republicans of Illinois to give up their opposition to Douglas, and to
help re-elect him to the Senate. Lincoln was not of that opinion. He believed
that great popular movements can succeed only when guided by their faithful
friends, and that the antislavery cause could not safely be entrusted to
the keeping of one who "did not care whether slavery be voted up or down."
This opinion
prevailed in Illinois; but the influences within the Republican
party over which it prevailed yielded only a reluctant acquiescence, if they
acquiesced at all, after having materially strengthened Douglas's position.
Such was the situation of things when the campaign of 1858 between Lincoln
and Douglas began.
Lincoln opened the campaign on his side at the convention which nominated
him as the Republican candidate for the senatorship, with a memorable saying
which sounded like a shout from the watch-tower of history: "A house divided
against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do
not expect the house to fall, but I expect it will cease to be divided. It
will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery
will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate
extinction,
or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful
in all the States,—old as well as new, North as well as South." Then he
proceeded to point out that the Nebraska doctrine combined with the Dred
Scott decision worked in the direction of making the nation "all slave."
Here was the "irrepressible conflict" spoken of by Seward a short time later,
in a speech made famous mainly by that phrase. If there was any new discovery
in it, the right of priority was Lincoln's. This utterance proved not only
his statesmanlike conception of the issue, but also, in his situation as
a candidate, the firmness of his moral courage. The friends to whom he had
read the draught of this speech before he delivered it warned him anxiously
that its delivery might be fatal to his success in the election. This was
shrewd advice, in the ordinary sense. While a slaveholder could threaten
disunion with impunity, the mere suggestion that the existence of slavery
was
incompatible with freedom in the Union would hazard the political chances
of any public man in the North. But Lincoln was inflexible. "It is true,"
said he, "and I
will deliver it as written. . . . I would rather be
defeated with these expressions in my speech held up and discussed before
the people than be victorious without them." The statesman was right in his
far-seeing judgment and his conscientious statement of the truth, but the
practical politicians were also right in their prediction of the immediate
effect. Douglas instantly seized upon the declaration that a house divided
against itself cannot stand as the main objective point of his attack,
interpreting it as an incitement to a "relentless sectional war," and there
is no doubt that the persistent reiteration of this charge served to frighten
not a few timid souls.
Lincoln constantly endeavored to bring the moral and philosophical side of
the subject to the foreground. "Slavery is
wrong" was the keynote of all
his speeches. To Douglas's glittering sophism that the right of the people
of a Territory to have slavery or not, as they might desire, was in accordance
with the principle of true popular sovereignty, he made the pointed answer:
"Then true popular sovereignty, according to Senator Douglas, means that,
when one man makes another man his slave, no third man shall be allowed to
object." To Douglas's argument that the principle which demanded that the
people of a Territory should be permitted to choose whether they would have
slavery or not "originated when God made man, and placed good and evil before
him, allowing him to choose upon his own responsibility," Lincoln solemnly
replied: "No; God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to
make his choice. -On the contrary, God did tell him there was one tree of
the fruit of which he should not eat, upon pain of death." He did not, however,
place himself on the most advanced ground taken
by the radical antislavery
men. He admitted that, under the Constitution, "the Southern people were
entitled to a Congressional fugitive slave law," although he did not approve
the fugitive slave law then existing. He declared also that, if slavery were
kept out of the Territories during their territorial existence, as it should
be, and if then the people of any Territory, having a fair chance and a clear
field, should do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution,
uninfluenced by the actual presence of the institution among them, he saw
no alternative but to admit such a Territory into the Union. He declared
further that, while he should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abolished
in the District of Columbia, he would, as a member of Congress, with his
present views, not endeavor to bring on that abolition except on condition
that emancipation be gradual, that it be approved by the decision of a majority
of voters in the District, and that compensation be made to
unwilling owners.
On every available occasion, he pronounced himself in favor of the deportation
and colonization of the blacks, of course with their consent. He repeatedly
disavowed any wish on his part to have social and political equality established
between whites and blacks. On this point he summed up his views in a reply
to Douglas's assertion that the Declaration of Independence, in speaking
of all men as being created equal, did not include the negroes, saying: "I
do not understand the Declaration of Independence to mean that all men were
created equal in all respects. They are not equal in color. But I believe
that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in some respects; they
are equal in their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
With regard to some of these subjects Lincoln modified his position at a
later period, and it has been suggested that he would have professed more
advanced principles in his debates with Douglas, had he
not feared thereby
to lose votes. This view can hardly be sustained. Lincoln had the courage
of his opinions, but he was not a radical. The man who risked his election
by delivering, against the urgent protest of his friends, the speech about
"the house divided against itself" would not have shrunk from the expression
of more extreme views, had he really entertained them. It is only fair to
assume that he said what at the time he really thought, and that if,
subsequently, his opinions changed, it was owing to new conceptions of good
policy and of duty brought forth by an entirely new set of circumstances
and exigencies. It is characteristic that he continued to adhere to the
impracticable colonization plan even after the Emancipation Proclamation
had already been issued.
But in this contest Lincoln proved himself not only a debater, but also a
political strategist of the first order. The "kind, amiable, and intelligent
gentleman," as
Douglas had been pleased to call him, was by no means as harmless
as a dove. He possessed an uncommon share of that worldly shrewdness which
not seldom goes with genuine simplicity of character; and the political
experience gathered in the Legislature and in Congress, and in many election
campaigns, added to his keen intuitions, had made him as far-sighted a judge
of the probable effects of a public man's sayings or doings upon the popular
mind, and as accurate a calculator in estimating political chances and
forecasting results, as could be found among the party managers in Illinois.
And now he perceived keenly the ugly dilemma in which Douglas found himself,
between the Dred Scott decision, which declared the right to hold slaves
to exist in the Territories by virtue of the Federal Constitution, and his
"great principle of popular sovereignty," according to which the people of
a Territory, if they saw fit, were to have the right to exclude slavery
therefrom. Douglas was
twisting and squirming to the best of his ability
to avoid the admission that the two were incompatible. The question then
presented itself if it would be good policy for Lincoln to force Douglas
to a clear expression of his opinion as to whether, the Dred Scott decision
notwithstanding, "the people of a Territory could in any lawful way exclude
slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State constitution."
Lincoln foresaw and predicted what Douglas would answer: that slavery could
not exist in a Territory unless the people desired it and gave it protection
by territorial legislation. In an improvised caucus the policy of pressing
the interrogatory on Douglas was discussed. Lincoln's friends unanimously
advised against it, because the answer foreseen would sufficiently commend
Douglas to the people of Illinois to insure his re-election to the Senate.
But Lincoln persisted. "I am after larger game," said he. "If Douglas so
answers, he can never be President, and the battle
of 1860 is worth a hundred
of this." The interrogatory was pressed upon Douglas, and Douglas did answer
that, no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court might be on the abstract
question, the people of a Territory had the lawful means to introduce or
exclude slavery by territorial legislation friendly or unfriendly to the
institution. Lincoln found it easy to show the absurdity of the proposition
that, if slavery were admitted to exist of right in the Territories by virtue
of the supreme law, the Federal Constitution, it could be kept out or expelled
by an inferior law, one made by a territorial Legislature. Again the judgment
of the politicians, having only the nearest object in view, proved correct:
Douglas was reelected to the Senate. But Lincoln's judgment proved correct
also: Douglas, by resorting to the expedient of his "unfriendly legislation
doctrine," forfeited his last chance of becoming President of the United
States. He might have hoped to win, by sufficient
atonement, his pardon from
the South for his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution; but that he taught
the people of the Territories a trick by which they could defeat what the
proslavery men considered a constitutional right, and that he called that
trick lawful,—this the slave power would never forgive. The breach between
the Southern and the Northern Democracy was thenceforth irremediable and
fatal.
The Presidential election of 1860 approached. The struggle in Kansas, and
the debates in Congress which accompanied it, and which not unfrequently
provoked violent outbursts, continually stirred the popular excitement. Within
the Democratic party raged the war of factions. The national Democratic
convention met at Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860. After a struggle
of ten days between the adherents and the opponents of Douglas, during which
the delegates from the cotton States had withdrawn, the convention adjourned
without having nominated any
candidates, to meet again in Baltimore on the
18th of June. There was no prospect, however, of reconciling the hostile
elements. It appeared very probable that the Baltimore convention would nominate
Douglas, while the seceding Southern Democrats would set up a candidate of
their own, representing extreme proslavery principles.
Meanwhile, the national Republican convention assembled at Chicago on the
16th of May, full of enthusiasm and hope. The situation was easily understood.
The Democrats would have the South. In order to succeed in the election,
the Republicans had to win, in addition to the States carried by Fremont
in 1856, those that were classed as "doubtful,"—New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and Indiana, or Illinois in the place of either New Jersey or Indiana. The
most eminent Republican statesmen and leaders of the time thought of for
the Presidency were Seward and Chase, both regarded as belonging to the more
advanced
order of antislavery men. Of the two, Seward had the largest following,
mainly from New York, New England, and the Northwest. Cautious politicians
doubted seriously whether Seward, to whom some phrases in his speeches had
undeservedly given the reputation of a reckless radical, would be able to
command the whole Republican vote in the doubtful States. Besides, during
his long public career he had made enemies. It was evident that those who
thought Seward's nomination too hazardous an experiment would consider Chase
unavailable for the same reason, They would then look round for an "available"
man; and among the "available" men Abraham Lincoln was easily discovered
to stand foremost. His great debate with Douglas had given him a national
reputation. The people of the East being eager to see the hero of so dramatic
a contest, he had been induced to visit several Eastern cities, and had
astonished and delighted large and distinguished audiences
with speeches
of singular power and originality. An address delivered by him in the Cooper
Institute in New York, before an audience containing a large number of important
persons, was then, and has ever since been, especially praised as one of
the most logical and convincing political speeches ever made in this country.
The people of the West had grown proud of him as a distinctively Western
great man, and his popularity at home had some peculiar features which could
be expected to exercise a potent charm. Nor was Lincoln's name as that of
an available candidate left to the chance of accidental discovery. It is
indeed not probable that he thought of himself as a Presidential possibility,
during his contest with Douglas for the senatorship. As late as April, 1859,
he had written to a friend who had approached him on the subject that he
did not think himself fit for the Presidency. The Vice-Presidency was then
the limit of his ambition. But some of his friends in
Illinois took the matter
seriously in hand, and Lincoln, after some hesitation, then formally authorized
"the use of his name." The matter was managed with such energy and excellent
judgment that, in the convention, he had not only the whole vote of Illinois
to start with, but won votes on all sides without offending any rival. A
large majority of the opponents of Seward went over to Abraham Lincoln, and
gave him the nomination on the third ballot. As had been foreseen, Douglas
was nominated by one wing of the Democratic party at Baltimore, while the
extreme proslavery wing put Breckinridge into the field as its candidate.
After a campaign conducted with the energy of genuine enthusiasm on the
antislavery side the united Republicans defeated the divided Democrats, and
Lincoln was elected President by a majority of fifty-seven votes in the electoral
colleges.
The result of the election had hardly been declared when the disunion movement
in the South, long threatened and
carefully planned and prepared, broke out
in the shape of open revolt, and nearly a month before Lincoln could be
inaugurated as President of the United States seven Southern States had adopted
ordinances of secession, formed an independent confederacy, framed a constitution
for it, and elected Jefferson Davis its president, expecting the other
slaveholding States soon to join them. On the 11th of February, 1861, Lincoln
left Springfield for Washington; having, with characteristic simplicity,
asked his law partner not to change the sign of the firm "Lincoln and Herndon"
during the four years' unavoidable absence of the senior partner, and having
taken an affectionate and touching leave of his neighbors.
The situation which confronted the new President was appalling: the larger
part of the South in open rebellion, the rest of the slaveholding States
wavering preparing to follow; the revolt guided by determined, daring, and
skilful leaders; the
Southern people, apparently full of enthusiasm and military
spirit, rushing to arms, some of the forts and arsenals already in their
possession; the government of the Union, before the accession of the new
President, in the hands of men some of whom actively sympathized with the
revolt, while others were hampered by their traditional doctrines in dealing
with it, and really gave it aid and comfort by their irresolute attitude;
all the departments full of "Southern sympathizers" and honey-combed with
disloyalty; the treasury empty, and the public credit at the lowest ebb;
the arsenals ill supplied with arms, if not emptied by treacherous practices;
the regular army of insignificant strength, dispersed over an immense surface,
and deprived of some of its best officers by defection; the navy small and
antiquated. But that was not all. The threat of disunion had so often been
resorted to by the slave power in years gone by that most Northern people
had ceased to believe in its
seriousness. But, when disunion actually appeared
as a stern reality, something like a chill swept through the whole Northern
country. A cry for union and peace at any price rose on all sides. Democratic
partisanship reiterated this cry with vociferous vehemence, and even many
Republicans grew afraid of the victory they had just achieved at the ballot-box,
and spoke of compromise. The country fairly resounded with the noise of
"anti-coercion meetings." Expressions of firm resolution from determined
antislavery men were indeed not wanting, but they were for a while almost
drowned by a bewildering confusion of discordant voices. Even this was not
all. Potent influences in Europe, with an ill-concealed desire for the permanent
disruption of the American Union, eagerly espoused the cause of the Southern
seceders, and the two principal maritime powers of the Old World seemed only
to be waiting for a favorable opportunity to lend them a helping hand.
This was the state of things to be mastered by "honest Abe Lincoln" when
he took his seat in the Presidential chair,—"honest Abe Lincoln," who was
so good-natured that he could not say "no"; the greatest achievement in whose
life had been a debate on the slavery question; who had never been in any
position of power; who was without the slightest experience of high executive
duties, and who had only a speaking acquaintance with the men upon whose
counsel and co-operation he was to depend. Nor was his accession to power
under such circumstances greeted with general confidence even by the members
of his party. While he had indeed won much popularity, many Republicans,
especially among those who had advocated Seward's nomination for the Presidency,
saw the simple "Illinois lawyer" take the reins of government with a feeling
little short of dismay. The orators and journals of the opposition were
ridiculing and lampooning him without measure. Many
people actually wondered
how such a man could dare to undertake a task which, as he himself had said
to his neighbors in his parting speech, was "more difficult than that of
Washington himself had been."
But Lincoln brought to that task, aside from other uncommon qualities, the
first requisite,—an intuitive comprehension of its nature. While he did
not indulge in the delusion that the Union could be maintained or restored
without a conflict of arms, he could indeed not foresee all the problems
he would have to solve. He instinctively understood, however, by what means
that conflict would have to be conducted by the government of a democracy.
He knew that the impending war, whether great or small, would not be like
a foreign war, exciting a united national enthusiasm, but a civil war, likely
to fan to uncommon heat the animosities of party even in the localities
controlled by the government; that this war would have to be carried on not
by means of a ready-made machinery,
ruled by an undisputed, absolute will,
but by means to be furnished by the voluntary action of the people:—armies
to be formed by voluntary enlistments; large sums of money to be raised by
the people, through representatives, voluntarily taxing themselves; trust
of extraordinary power to be voluntarily granted; and war measures, not seldom
restricting the rights and liberties to which the citizen was accustomed,
to be voluntarily accepted and submitted to by the people, or at least a
large majority of them;—and that this would have to be kept up not merely
during a short period of enthusiastic excitement, but possibly through weary
years of alternating success and disaster, hope and despondency. He knew
that in order to steer this government by public opinion successfully through
all the confusion created by the prejudices and doubts and differences of
sentiment distracting the popular mind, and so to propitiate, inspire, mould,
organize, unite, and guide the popular
will that it might give forth all
the means required for the performance of his great task, he would have to
take into account all the influences strongly affecting the current of popular
thought and feeling, and to direct while appearing to obey.
This was the kind of leadership he intuitively conceived to be needed when
a free people were to be led forward en masse to overcome a great
common danger under circumstances of appalling difficulty,—the leadership
which does not dash ahead with brilliant daring, no matter who follows, but
which is intent upon rallying all the available forces, gathering in the
stragglers, closing up the column, so that the front may advance well supported.
For this leadership Abraham Lincoln was admirably fitted,—better than any
other American statesman of his day; for he understood the plain people,
with all their loves and hates, their prejudices and their noble impulses,
their weaknesses and their strength, as he understood himself, and his
sympathetic
nature was apt to draw their sympathy to him.
His inaugural address foreshadowed his official course in characteristic
manner. Although yielding nothing in point of principle, it was by no means
a flaming antislavery manifesto, such as would have pleased the more ardent
Republicans. It was rather the entreaty of a sorrowing father speaking to
his wayward children. In the kindliest language he pointed out to the
secessionists how ill advised their attempt at disunion was, and why, for
their own sakes, they should desist. Almost plaintively, he told them that,
while it was not their duty to destroy the Union, it was his
sworn duty to preserve it; that the least he could do, under the obligations
of his oath, was to possess and hold the property of the United States; that
he hoped to do this peaceably; that he abhorred war for any purpose, and
that they would have none unless they themselves were the aggressors. It
was a masterpiece of persuasiveness,
and while Lincoln had accepted many
valuable amendments suggested by Seward, it was essentially his own. Probably
Lincoln himself did not expect his inaugural address to have any effect upon
the secessionists, for he must have known them to be resolved upon disunion
at any cost. But it was an appeal to the wavering minds in the North, and
upon them it made a profound impression. Every candid man, however timid
and halting, had to admit that the President was bound by his oath to do
his duty; that under that oath he could do no less than he said he would
do; that if the secessionists resisted such an appeal as the President had
made, they were bent upon mischief, and that the government must be supported
against them. The partisan sympathy with the Southern insurrection which
still existed in the North did indeed not disappear, but it diminished
perceptibly under the influence of such reasoning. Those who still resisted
it did so at the risk of appearing unpatriotic.
It must not be supposed, however, that Lincoln at once succeeded in pleasing
everybody, even among his friends,—even among those nearest to him. In selecting
his cabinet, which he did substantially before he left Springfield for
Washington, he thought it wise to call to his assistance the strong men of
his party, especially those who had given evidence of the support they commanded
as his competitors in the Chicago convention. In them he found at the same
time representatives of the different shades of opinion within the party,
and of the different elements—former Whigs and former Democrats—from which
the party had recruited itself. This was sound policy under the circumstances.
It might indeed have been foreseen that among the members of a cabinet so
composed, troublesome disagreements and rivalries would break out. But it
was better for the President to have these strong and ambitious men near
him as his co-operators than to have them as his critics in Congress,
where
their differences might have been composed in a common opposition to him.
As members of his cabinet he could hope to control them, and to keep them
busily employed in the service of a common purpose, if he had the strength
to do so. Whether he did possess this strength was soon tested by a singularly
rude trial.
There can be no doubt that the foremost members of his cabinet, Seward and
Chase, the most eminent Republican statesmen, had felt themselves wronged
by their party when in its national convention it preferred to them for the
Presidency a man whom, not unnaturally, they thought greatly their inferior
in ability and experience as well as in service. The soreness of that
disappointment was intensified when they saw this Western man in the White
House, with so much of rustic manner and speech as still clung to him, meeting
his fellow-citizens, high and low, on a footing of equality, with the simplicity
of his good nature unburdened by any conventional
dignity of deportment,
and dealing with the great business of state in an easy-going, unmethodical,
and apparently somewhat irreverent way. They did not understand such a man.
Especially Seward, who, as Secretary of State, considered himself next to
the Chief Executive, and who quickly accustomed himself to giving orders
and making arrangements upon his own motion, thought it necessary that he
should rescue the direction of public affairs from hands so unskilled, and
take full charge of them himself. At the end of the first month of the
administration he submitted a "memorandum" to President Lincoln, which has
been first brought to light by Nicolay and Hay, and is one of their most
valuable contributions to the history of those days. In that paper Seward
actually told the President that at the end of a month's administration the
government was still without a policy, either domestic or foreign; that the
slavery question should be eliminated from the struggle
about the Union;
that the matter of the maintenance of the forts and other possessions in
the South should be decided with that view; that explanations should be demanded
categorically from the governments of Spain and France, which were then
preparing, one for the annexation of San Domingo, and both for the invasion
of Mexico; that if no satisfactory explanations were received war should
be declared against Spain and France by the United States; that explanations
should also be sought from Russia and Great Britain, and a vigorous continental
spirit of independence against European intervention be aroused all over
the American continent; that this policy should be incessantly pursued and
directed by somebody; that either the President should devote himself entirely
to it, or devolve the direction on some member of his cabinet, whereupon
all debate on this policy must end.
This could be understood only as a formal demand that the President should
acknowledge his own incompetency to perform his duties, content himself with
the amusement of distributing post-offices, and resign his power as to all
important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day
incomprehensible how a statesman of Seward's calibre could at that period
conceive a plan of policy in which the slavery question had no place; a policy
which rested upon the utterly delusive assumption that the secessionists,
who had already formed their Southern Confederacy and were with stern resolution
preparing to fight for its independence, could be hoodwinked back into the
Union by some sentimental demonstration against European interference; a
policy which, at that critical moment, would have involved the Union in a
foreign war, thus inviting foreign intervention in favor of the Southern
Confederacy, and increasing tenfold its chances in the struggle for independence.
But it is equally incomprehensible how Seward could fail to see that this
demand
of an unconditional surrender was a mortal insult to the head of the
government, and that by putting his proposition on paper he delivered himself
into the hands of the very man he had insulted; for, had Lincoln, as most
Presidents would have done, instantly dismissed Seward, and published the
true reason for that dismissal, it would inevitably have been the end of
Seward's career. But Lincoln did what not many of the noblest and greatest
men in history would have been noble and great enough to do. He considered
that Seward was still capable of rendering great service to his country in
the place in which he was, if rightly controlled. He ignored the insult,
but firmly established his superiority. In his reply, which he forthwith
despatched, he told Seward that the administration had a domestic policy
as laid down in the inaugural address with Seward's approval; that it had
a foreign policy as traced in Seward's despatches with the President's approval;
that if any policy was to be maintained
or changed, he, the President, was
to direct that on his responsibility; and that in performing that duty the
President had a right to the advice of his secretaries. Seward's fantastic
schemes of foreign war and continental policies Lincoln brushed aside by
passing them over in silence. Nothing more was said. Seward must have felt
that he was at the mercy of a superior man; that his offensive proposition
had been generously pardoned as a temporary aberration of a great mind, and
that he could atone for it only by devoted personal loyalty. This he did.
He was thoroughly subdued, and thenceforth submitted to Lincoln his despatches
for revision and amendment without a murmur. The war with European nations
was no longer thought of; the slavery question found in due time its proper
place in the struggle for the Union; and when, at a later period, the dismissal
of Seward was demanded by dissatisfied senators, who attributed to him the
shortcomings of the administration,
Lincoln stood stoutly by his faithful
Secretary of State.
Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, a man of superb presence, of eminent
ability and ardent patriotism, of great natural dignity and a certain outward
coldness of manner, which made him appear more difficult of approach than
he really was, did not permit his disappointment to burst out in such extravagant
demonstrations. But Lincoln's ways were so essentially different from his
that they never became quite intelligible, and certainly not congenial to
him. It might, perhaps, have been better had there been, at the beginning
of the administration, some decided clash between Lincoln and Chase, as there
was between Lincoln and Seward, to bring on a full mutual explanation, and
to make Chase appreciate the real seriousness of Lincoln's nature. But, as
it was, their relations always remained somewhat formal, and Chase never
felt quite at ease under a chief whom he could not understand, and whose
character and powers he never learned to esteem at their true value. At the
same time, he devoted himself zealously to the duties of his department,
and did the country arduous service under circumstances of extreme difficulty.
Nobody recognized this more heartily than Lincoln himself, and they managed
to work together until near the end of Lincoln's first Presidential term,
when Chase, after some disagreements concerning appointments to office, resigned
from the treasury; and, after Taney's death, the President made him Chief
Justice.
The rest of the cabinet consisted of men of less eminence, who subordinated
themselves more easily. In January, 1862, Lincoln found it necessary to bow
Cameron out of the war office, and to put in his place Edwin M. Stanton,
a man of intensely practical mind, vehement impulses, fierce positiveness,
ruthless energy, immense working power, lofty patriotism, and severest devotion
to duty. He accepted the war
office not as a partisan, for he had never been
a Republican, but only to do all he could in "helping to save the country."
The manner in which Lincoln succeeded in taming this lion to his will, by
frankly recognizing his great qualities, by giving him the most generous
confidence, by aiding him in his work to the full of his power, by kindly
concession or affectionate persuasiveness in cases of differing opinions,
or, when it was necessary, by firm assertions of superior authority, bears
the highest testimony to his skill in the management of men. Stanton, who
had entered the service with rather a mean opinion of Lincoln's character
and capacity, became one of his warmest, most devoted, and most admiring
friends, and with none of his secretaries was Lincoln's intercourse more
intimate. To take advice with candid readiness, and to weigh it without any
pride of his own opinion, was one of Lincoln's preeminent virtues; but he
had not long presided over his cabinet council when
his was felt by all its
members to be the ruling mind.
The cautious policy foreshadowed in his inaugural address, and pursued during
the first period of the civil war, was far from satisfying all his party
friends. The ardent spirits among the Union men thought that the whole North
should at once be called to arms, to crush the rebellion by one powerful
blow. The ardent spirits among the anti-slavery men insisted that, slavery
having brought forth the rebellion, this powerful blow should at once be
aimed at slavery. Both complained that the administration was spiritless,
undecided, and lamentably slow in its proceedings. Lincoln reasoned otherwise.
The ways of thinking and feeling of the masses, of the plain people, were
constantly present to his mind. The masses, the plain people, had to furnish
the men for the fighting, if fighting was to be done. He believed that the
plain people would be ready to fight when it clearly appeared necessary,
and that they
would feel that necessity when they felt themselves attacked.
He therefore waited until the enemies of the Union struck the first blow.
As soon as, on the 12th of April, 1861, the first gun was fired in Charleston
harbor on the Union flag upon Fort Sumter, the call was sounded, and the
Northern people rushed to arms.
Lincoln knew that the plain people were now indeed ready to fight in defence
of the Union, but not yet ready to fight for the destruction of slavery.
He declared openly that he had a right to summon the people to fight for
the Union, but not to summon them to fight for the abolition of slavery as
a primary object; and this declaration gave him numberless soldiers for the
Union who at that period would have hesitated to do battle against the
institution of slavery. For a time he succeeded in rendering harmless the
cry of the partisan opposition that the Republican administration were perverting
the war for the Union into an "abolition war." But when he went so
far as
to countermand the acts of some generals in the field, looking to the
emancipation of the slaves in the districts covered by their commands, loud
complaints arose from earnest anti-slavery men, who accused the President
of turning his back upon the antislavery cause. Many of these antislavery
men will now, after a calm retrospect, be willing to admit that it would
have been a hazardous policy to endanger, by precipitating a demonstrative
fight against slavery, the success of the struggle for the Union.
Lincoln's views and feelings concerning slavery had not changed. Those who
conversed with him intimately upon the subject at that period know that he
did not expect slavery long to survive the triumph of the Union, even if
it were not immediately destroyed by the war. In this he was right. Had the
Union armies achieved a decisive victory in an early period of the conflict,
and had the seceded States been received back with slavery, the "slave
power"
would then have been a defeated power,—defeated in an attempt to carry out
its most effective threat. It would have lost its prestige. Its menaces would
have been hollow sound, and ceased to make any one afraid. It could no longer
have hoped to expand, to maintain an equilibrium in any branch of Congress,
and to control the government. The victorious free States would have largely
over-balanced it. It would no longer have been able to withstand the onset
of a hostile age. It could no longer have ruled,—and slavery had to rule
in order to live. It would have lingered for a while, but it would surely
have been "in the course of ultimate extinction." A prolonged war precipitated
the destruction of slavery; a short war might only have prolonged its death
struggle. Lincoln saw this clearly; but he saw also that, in a protracted
death struggle, it might still have kept disloyal sentiments alive, bred
distracting commotions, and caused great mischief to the
country. He therefore
hoped that slavery would not survive the war.
But the question how he could rightfully employ his power to bring on its
speedy destruction was to him not a question of mere sentiment. He himself
set forth his reasoning upon it, at a later period, in one of his inimitable
letters. "I am naturally anti-slavery," said he. "If slavery is not wrong,
nothing is wrong. I cannot remember the time when I did not so think and
feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon
me an unrestricted right to act upon that judgment and feeling. It was in
the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office
without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to
get power, and break the oath in using that power. I understood, too, that,
in ordinary civil administration, this oath even forbade me practically to
indulge
my private abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I
did understand, however, also, that my oath imposed upon me the duty of
preserving, to the best of my ability, by every indispensable means, that
government, that nation, of which the Constitution was the organic law. I
could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even
tried to
preserve the Constitution if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should
permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution all together."
In other words, if the salvation of the government, the Constitution, and
the Union demanded the destruction of slavery, he felt it to be not only
his right, but his sworn duty to destroy it. Its destruction became a necessity
of the war for the Union.
As the war dragged on and disaster followed disaster, the sense of that necessity
steadily grew upon him. Early in 1862, as some of his friends well remember,
he saw, what Seward seemed not to see, that to
give the war for the Union
an anti-slavery character was the surest means to prevent the recognition
of the Southern Confederacy as an independent nation by European powers;
that, slavery being abhorred by the moral sense of civilized mankind, no
European government would dare to offer so gross an insult to the public
opinion of its people as openly to favor the creation of a state founded
upon slavery to the prejudice of an existing nation fighting against slavery.
He saw also that slavery untouched was to the rebellion an element of power,
and that in order to overcome that power it was necessary to turn it into
an element of weakness. Still, he felt no assurance that the plain people
were prepared for so radical a measure as the emancipation of the slaves
by act of the government, and he anxiously considered that, if they were
not, this great step might, by exciting dissension at the North, injure the
cause of the Union in one quarter more than it would help it in another.
He heartily welcomed an effort made in New York to mould and stimulate public
sentiment on the slavery question by public meetings boldly pronouncing for
emancipation. At the same time he himself cautiously advanced with a
recommendation, expressed in a special message to Congress, that the United
States should co-operate with any State which might adopt the gradual abolishment
of slavery, giving such State pecuniary aid to compensate the former owners
of emanicipated slaves. The discussion was started, and spread rapidly. Congress
adopted the resolution recommended, and soon went a step farther in passing
a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. The plain people began
to look at emancipation on a larger scale as a thing to be considered seriously
by patriotic citizens; and soon Lincoln thought that the time was ripe, and
that the edict of freedom could be ventured upon without danger of serious
confusion in the Union ranks.
The failure of McClellan's movement upon Richmond increased immensely the
prestige of the enemy. The need of some great act to stimulate the vitality
of the Union cause seemed to grow daily more pressing. On July 21, 1862,
Lincoln surprised his cabinet with the draught of a proclamation declaring
free the slaves in all the States that should be still in rebellion against
the United States on the 1st of January, 1863. As to the matter itself he
announced that he had fully made up his mind; he invited advice only concerning
the form and the time of publication. Seward suggested that the proclamation,
if then brought out, amidst disaster and distress, would sound like the last
shriek of a perishing cause. Lincoln accepted the suggestion, and the
proclamation was postponed. Another defeat followed, the second at Bull Run.
But when, after that battle, the Confederate army, under Lee, crossed the
Potomac and invaded Maryland, Lincoln vowed in his heart that, if
the Union
army were now blessed with success, the decree of freedom should surely be
issued. The victory of Antietam was won on September 17, and the preliminary
Emancipation Proclamation came forth on the 22d. It was Lincoln's own resolution
and act; but practically it bound the nation, and permitted no step backward.
In spite of its limitations, it was the actual abolition of slavery. Thus
he wrote his name upon the books of history with the title dearest to his
heart,—the liberator of the slave.
It is true, the great proclamation, which stamped the war as one for "union
and freedom," did not at once mark the turning of the tide on the field of
military operations. There were more disasters,—Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville. But with Gettysburg and Vicksburg the whole aspect of the
war changed. Step by step, now more slowly, then more rapidly, but with
increasing steadiness, the flag of the Union advanced from field to field
toward
the final consummation. The decree of emancipation was naturally followed
by the enlistment of emancipated negroes in the Union armies. This measure
had a farther reaching effect than merely giving the Union armies an increased
supply of men. The laboring force of the rebellion was hopelessly disorganized.
The war became like a problem of arithmetic. As the Union armies pushed forward,
the area from which the Southern Confederacy could draw recruits and supplies
constantly grew smaller, while the area from which the Union recruited its
strength constantly grew larger; and everywhere, even within the Southern
lines, the Union had its allies. The fate of the rebellion was then virtually
decided; but it still required much bloody work to convince the brave warriors
who fought for it that they were really beaten.
Neither did the Emancipation Proclamation forthwith command universal assent
among the people who were loyal to the
Union. There were even signs of a
reaction against the administration in the fall elections of 1862, seemingly
justifying the opinion, entertained by many, that the President had really
anticipated the development of popular feeling. The cry that the war for
the Union had been turned into an "abolition war" was raised again by the
opposition, and more loudly than ever. But the good sense and patriotic instincts
of the plain people gradually marshalled themselves on Lincoln's side, and
he lost no opportunity to help on this process by personal argument and
admonition. There never has been a President in such constant and active
contact with the public opinion of the country, as there never has been a
President who, while at the head of the government, remained so near to the
people. Beyond the circle of those who had long known him the feeling steadily
grew that the man in the White House was "honest Abe Lincoln" still, and
that every citizen might approach him
with complaint, expostulation, or advice,
without danger of meeting a rebuff from power-proud authority, or humiliating
condescension; and this privilege was used by so many and with such unsparing
freedom that only superhuman patience could have endured it all. There are
men now living who would to-day read with amazement, if not regret, what
they ventured to say or write to him. But Lincoln repelled no one whom he
believed to speak to him in good faith and with patriotic purpose. No good
advice would go unheeded. No candid criticism would offend him. No honest
opposition, while it might pain him, would produce a lasting alienation of
feeling between him and the opponent. It may truly be said that few men in
power have ever been exposed to more daring attempts to direct their course,
to severer censure of their acts, and to more cruel misrepresentation of
their motives. And all this he met with that good-natured humor peculiarly
his own, and with untiring effort
to see the right and to impress it upon
those who differed from him. The conversations he had and the correspondence
he carried on upon matters of public interest, not only with men in official
position, but with private citizens, were almost unceasing, and in a large
number of public letters, written ostensibly to meetings, or committees,
or persons of importance, he addressed himself directly to the popular mind.
Most of these letters stand among the finest monuments of our political
literature. Thus he presented the singular spectacle of a President who,
in the midst of a great civil war, with unprecedented duties weighing upon
him, was constantly in person debating the great features of his policy with
the people.
While in this manner he exercised an ever-increasing influence upon the popular
understanding, his sympathetic nature endeared him more and more to the popular
heart. In vain did journals and speakers of the opposition represent him
as a light-
minded trifler, who amused himself with frivolous story-telling
and coarse jokes, while the blood of the people was flowing in streams. The
people knew that the man at the head of affairs, on whose haggard face the
twinkle of humor so frequently changed into an expression of profoundest
sadness, was more than any other deeply distressed by the suffering he witnessed;
that he felt the pain of every wound that was inflicted on the battlefield,
and the anguish of every woman or child who had lost husband or father; that
whenever he could he was eager to alleviate sorrow, and that his mercy was
never implored in vain. They looked to him as one who was with them and of
them in all their hopes and fears, their joys and sorrows,—who laughed with
them and wept with them; and as his heart was theirs, so their hearts turned
to him. His popularity was far different from that of Washington, who was
revered with awe, or that of Jackson, the unconquerable hero, for whom party
enthusiasm never grew weary of shouting. To Abraham Lincoln the people became
bound by a genuine sentimental attachment. It was not a matter of respect,
or confidence, or party pride, for this feeling spread far beyond the boundary
lines of his party; it was an affair of the heart, independent of mere reasoning.
When the soldiers in the field or their folks at home spoke of "Father Abraham,"
there was no cant in it. They felt that their President was really caring
for them as a father would, and that they could go to him, every one of them,
as they would go to a father, and talk to him of what troubled them, sure
to find a willing ear and tender sympathy. Thus, their President, and his
cause, and his endeavors, and his success gradually became to them almost
matters of family concern. And this popularity carried him triumphantly through
the Presidential election of 1864, in spite of an opposition within his own
party which at first seemed very formidable.
Many of the radical anti-slavery men were never quite satisfied with Lincoln's
ways of meeting the problems of the time. They were very earnest and mostly
very able men, who had positive ideas as to "how this rebellion should be
put down." They would not recognize the necessity of measuring the steps
of the government according to the progress of opinion among the plain people.
They criticised Lincoln's cautious management as irresolute, halting, lacking
in definite purpose and in energy; he should not have delayed emancipation
so long; he should not have confided important commands to men of doubtful
views as to slavery; he should have authorized military commanders to set
the slaves free as they went on; he dealt too leniently with unsuccessful
generals; he should have put down all factious opposition with a strong hand
instead of trying to pacify it; he should have given the people accomplished
facts instead of arguing with them, and so on. It is true, these
criticisms
were not always entirely unfounded. Lincoln's policy had, with the virtues
of democratic government, some of its weaknesses, which in the presence of
pressing exigencies were apt to deprive governmental action of the necessary
vigor; and his kindness of heart, his disposition always to respect the feelings
of others, frequently made him recoil from anything like severity, even when
severity was urgently called for. But many of his radical critics have since
then revised their judgment sufficiently to admit that Lincoln's policy was,
on the whole, the wisest and safest; that a policy of heroic methods, while
it has sometimes accomplished great results, could in a democracy like ours
be maintained only by constant success; that it would have quickly broken
down under the weight of disaster; that it might have been successful from
the start, had the Union, at the beginning of the conflict, had its Grants
and Shermans and Sheridans, its Farraguts and Porters, fully matured
at the
head of its forces; but that, as the great commanders had to be evolved slowly
from the developments of the war, constant success could not be counted upon,
and it was best to follow a policy which was in friendly contact with the
popular force, and therefore more fit to stand trial of misfortune on the
battlefield. But at that period they thought differently, and their
dissatisfaction with Lincoln's doings was greatly increased by the steps
he took toward the reconstruction of rebel States then partially in possession
of the Union forces.
In December, 1863, Lincoln issued an amnesty proclamation, offering pardon
to all implicated in the rebellion, with certain specified exceptions, on
condition of their taking and maintaining an oath to support the Constitution
and obey the laws of the United States and the proclamations of the President
with regard to slaves; and also promising that when, in any of the rebel
States, a number of citizens equal to one
tenth of the voters in 1860 should
re-establish a state government in conformity with the oath above mentioned,
such should be recognized by the Executive as the true government of the
State. The proclamation seemed at first to be received with general favor.
But soon another scheme of reconstruction, much more stringent in its provisions,
was put forward in the House of Representatives by Henry Winter Davis. Benjamin
Wade championed it in the Senate. It passed in the closing moments of the
session in July, 1864, and Lincoln, instead of making it a law by his signature,
embodied the text of it in a proclamation as a plan of reconstruction worthy
of being earnestly considered. The differences of opinion concerning this
subject had only intensified the feeling against Lincoln which had long been
nursed among the radicals, and some of them openly declared their purpose
of resisting his re-election to the Presidency. Similar sentiments were
manifested by the advanced anti-slavery
men of Missouri, who, in their hot
faction-fight with the "conservatives" of that State, had not received from
Lincoln the active support they demanded. Still another class of Union men,
mainly in the East, gravely shook their heads when considering the question
whether Lincoln should be re-elected. They were those who cherished in their
minds an ideal of statesmanship and of personal bearing in high office with
which, in their opinion, Lincoln's individuality was much out of accord.
They were shocked when they heard him cap an argument upon grave affairs
of state with a story about "a man out in Sangamon County,"—a story, to
be sure, strikingly clinching his point, but sadly lacking in dignity. They
could not understand the man who was capable, in opening a cabinet meeting,
of reading to his secretaries a funny chapter from a recent book of Artemus
Ward, with which in an unoccupied moment he had relieved his care-burdened
mind, and who then solemnly informed
the executive council that he had vowed
in his heart to issue a proclamation emancipating the slaves as soon as God
blessed the Union arms with another victory. They were alarmed at the weakness
of a President who would indeed resist the urgent remonstrances of statesmen
against his policy, but could not resist the prayer of an old woman for the
pardon of a soldier who was sentenced to be shot for desertion. Such men,
mostly sincere and ardent patriots, not only wished, but earnestly set to
work, to prevent Lincoln's renomination. Not a few of them actually believed,
in 1863, that, if the national convention of the Union party were held then,
Lincoln would not be supported by the delegation of a single State. But when
the convention met at Baltimore, in June, 1864, the voice of the people was
heard. On the first ballot Lincoln received the votes of the delegations
from all the States except Missouri; and even the Missourians turned over
their votes to him before the result of the ballot was declared.
But even after his renomination the opposition to Lincoln within the ranks
of the Union party did not subside. A convention, called by the dissatisfied
radicals in Missouri, and favored by men of a similar way of thinking in
other States, had been held already in May, and had nominated as its candidate
for the Presidency General Fremont. He, indeed, did not attract a strong
following, but opposition movements from different quarters appeared more
formidable, Henry Winter Davis and Benjamin Wade assailed Lincoln in a flaming
manifesto. Other Union men, of undoubted patriotism and high standing, persuaded
themselves, and sought to persuade the people, that Lincoln's re-nomination
was ill advised and dangerous to the Union cause. As the Democrats had put
off their convention until the 29th of August, the Union party had, during
the larger part of the summer, no opposing candidate and platform to attack,
and the political campaign languished. Neither were the tidings
from the
theatre of war of a cheering character. The terrible losses suffered by Grant's
army in the battles of the Wilderness spread general gloom. Sherman seemed
for a while to be in a precarious position before Atlanta. The opposition
to Lincoln within the Union party grew louder in its complaints and discouraging
predictions. Earnest demands were heard that his candidacy should be withdrawn.
Lincoln himself, not knowing how strongly the masses were attached to him,
was haunted by dark forebodings of defeat. Then the scene suddenly changed
as if by magic. The Democrats, in their national convention, declared the
war a failure, demanded, substantially, peace at any price, and nominated
on such a platform General McClellan as their candidate. Their convention
had hardly adjourned when the capture of Atlanta gave a new aspect to the
military situation. It was like a sun-ray bursting through a dark cloud.
The rank and file of the Union
party rose with rapidly growing enthusiasm.
The song "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong,"
resounded all over the land. Long before the decisive day arrived, the result
was beyond doubt, and Lincoln was re-elected President by overwhelming
majorities. The election over even his severest critics found themselves
forced to admit that Lincoln was the only possible candidate for the Union
party in 1864, and that neither political combinations nor campaign speeches,
nor even victories in the field, were needed to insure his success. The plain
people had all the while been satisfied with Abraham Lincoln: they confided
in him; they loved him; they felt themselves near to him; they saw personified
in him the cause of Union and freedom; and they went to the ballot-box for
him in their strength.
The hour of triumph called out the characteristic impulses of his nature.
The opposition within the Union party had stung
him to the quick. Now he
had his opponents before him, baffled and humiliated. Not a moment did he
lose to stretch out the hand of friendship to all. "Now that the election
is over," he said, in response to a serenade, "may not all, having a common
interest, reunite in a common effort to save our common country? For my own
part, I have striven, and will strive, to place no obstacle in the way. So
long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's
bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of a re-election,
it adds nothing to my satisfaction that any other man may be pained or
disappointed by the result. May I ask those who were with me to join with
me in the same spirit toward those who were against me?" This was Abraham
Lincoln's character as tested in the furnace of prosperity.
The war was virtually decided, but not yet ended. Sherman was irresistibly
carrying the Union flag through the South.
Grant had his iron hand upon the
ramparts of Richmond. The days of the Confederacy were evidently numbered.
Only the last blow remained to be struck. Then Lincoln's second inauguration
came, and with it his second inaugural address. Lincoln's famous "Gettysburg
speech" has been much and justly admired. But far greater, as well as far
more characteristic, was that inaugural in which he poured out the whole
devotion and tenderness of his great soul. It had all the solemnity of a
father's last admonition and blessing to his children before he lay down
to die. These were its closing words: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we
pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God
wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondman's two
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every
drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the
sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still
it must be said, 'The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With malice toward
none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up the
nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for
his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
This was like a sacred poem. No American President had ever spoken words
like these to the American people. America never had a President who found
such words in the depth of his heart.
Now followed the closing scenes of the war. The Southern armies fought bravely
to the last, but all in vain. Richmond fell. Lincoln himself entered the
city on foot, accompanied only by a few officers and a squad of sailors who
had rowed him ashore from the flotilla in the James River,
a negro picked
up on the way serving as a guide. Never had the world seen a more modest
conqueror and a more characteristic triumphal procession,—no army with banners
and drums, only a throng of those who had been slaves, hastily run together,
escorting the victorious chief into the capital of the vanquished foe. We
are told that they pressed around him, kissed his hands and his garments,
and shouted and danced for joy, while tears ran down the President's
care-furrowed cheeks.
A few days more brought the surrender of Lee's army, and peace was assured.
The people of the North were wild with joy. Everywhere festive guns were
booming, bells pealing, the churches ringing with thanksgivings, and jubilant
multitudes thronging the thoroughfares, when suddenly the news flashed over
the land that Abraham Lincoln had been murdered. The people were stunned
by the blow. Then a wail of sorrow went up such as America had never heard
before. Thousands
of Northern households grieved as if they had lost their
dearest member. Many a Southern man cried out in his heart that his people
had been robbed of their best friend in their humiliation and distress, when
Abraham Lincoln was struck down. It was as if the tender affection which
his countrymen bore him had inspired all nations with a common sentiment.
All civilized mankind stood mourning around the coffin of the dead President.
Many of those, here and abroad, who not long before had ridiculed and reviled
him were among the first to hasten on with their flowers of eulogy, and in
that universal chorus of lamentation and praise there was not a voice that
did not tremble with genuine emotion. Never since Washington's death had
there been such unanimity of judgment as to a man's virtues and greatness;
and even Washington's death, although his name was held in greater reverence,
did not touch so sympathetic a chord in the people's hearts.
Nor can it be said that this was owing to the tragic character of Lincoln's
end. It is true, the death of this gentlest and most merciful of rulers by
the hand of a mad fanatic was well apt to exalt him beyond his merits in
the estimation of those who loved him, and to make his renown the object
of peculiarly tender solicitude. But it is also true that the verdict pronounced
upon him in those days has been affected little by time, and that historical
inquiry has served rather to increase than to lessen the appreciation of
his virtues, his abilities, his services. Giving the fullest measure of credit
to his great ministers,—to Seward for his conduct of foreign affairs, to
Chase for the management of the finances under terrible difficulties, to
Stanton for the performance of his tremendous task as war secretary,—and
readily acknowledging that without the skill and fortitude of the great
commanders, and the heroism of the soldiers and sailors under them, success
could not have been achieved, the historian
still finds that Lincoln's judgment
and will were by no means governed by those around him; that the most important
steps were owing to his initiative; that his was the deciding and directing
mind; and that it was pre-eminently he whose sagacity and whose character
enlisted for the administration in its struggles the countenance, the sympathy,
and the support of the people. It is found, even, that his judgment on military
matters was astonishingly acute, and that the advice and instructions he
gave to the generals commanding in the field would not seldom have done honor
to the ablest of them. History, therefore, without overlooking, or palliating,
or excusing any of his shortcomings or mistakes, continues to place him foremost
among the saviours of the Union and the liberators of the slave. More than
that, it awards to him the merit of having accomplished what but few political
philosophers would have recognized as possible,—of leading the republic
through
four years of furious civil conflict without any serious detriment
to its free institutions.
He was, indeed, while President, violently denounced by the opposition as
a tyrant and a usurper, for having gone beyond his constitutional powers
in authorizing or permitting the temporary suppression of newspapers, and
in wantonly suspending the writ of habeas corpus and resorting to arbitrary
arrests. Nobody should be blamed who, when such things are done, in good
faith and from patriotic motives protests against them. In a republic, arbitrary
stretches of power, even when demanded by necessity, should never be permitted
to pass without a protest on the one hand, and without an apology on the
other. It is well they did not so pass during our civil war. That arbitrary
measures were resorted to is true. That they were resorted to most sparingly,
and only when the government thought them absolutely required by the safety
of the republic, will
now hardly be denied. But certain it is that the history
of the world does not furnish a single example of a government passing through
so tremendous a crisis as our civil war was with so small a record of arbitrary
acts, and so little interference with the ordinary course of law outside
the field of military operations. No American President ever wielded such
power as that which was thrust into Lincoln's hands. It is to be hoped that
no American President ever will have to be entrusted with such power again.
But no man was ever entrusted with it to whom its seductions were less dangerous
than they proved to be to Abraham Lincoln. With scrupulous care he endeavored,
even under the most trying circumstances, to remain strictly within the
constitutional limitations of his authority; and whenever the boundary became
indistinct, or when the dangers of the situation forced him to cross it,
he was equally careful to mark his acts as exceptional measures, justifiable
only by the imperative necessities of the civil war, so that they might not
pass into history as precedents for similar acts in time of peace. It is
an unquestionable fact that during the reconstruction period which followed
the war, more things were done capable of serving as dangerous precedents
than during the war itself. Thus it may truly be said of him not only that
under his guidance the republic was saved from disruption and the country
was purified of the blot of slavery, but that, during the stormiest and most
perilous crisis in our history, he so conducted the government and so wielded
his almost dictatorial power as to leave essentially intact our free institutions
in all things that concern the rights and liberties of the citizens. He
understood well the nature of the problem. In his first message to Congress
he defined it in admirably pointed language: "Must a government be of necessity
too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its
own existence? Is there in all republics
this inherent weakness?" This question
he answered in the name of the great American republic, as no man could have
answered it better, with a triumphant "No."
It has been said that Abraham Lincoln died at the right moment for his fame.
However that may be, he had, at the time of his death, certainly not exhausted
his usefulness to his country. He was probably the only man who could have
guided the nation through the perplexities of the reconstruction period in
such a manner as to prevent in the work of peace the revival of the passions
of the war. He would indeed not have escaped serious controversy as to details
of policy; but he could have weathered it far better than any other statesman
of his time, for his prestige with the active politicians had been immensely
strengthened by his triumphant re-election; and, what is more important,
he would have been supported by the confidence of the victorious Northern
people that he
would do all to secure the safety of the Union and the rights
of the emancipated negro, and at the same time by the confidence of the defeated
Southern people that nothing would be done by him from motives of vindictiveness,
or of unreasoning fanaticism, or of a selfish party spirit. "With malice
toward none, with charity for all," the foremost of the victors would have
personified in himself the genius of reconciliation.
He might have rendered the country a great service in another direction.
A few days after the fall of Richmond, he pointed out to a friend the crowd
of office-seekers besieging his door. "Look at that," said he. "Now we have
conquered the rebellion, but here you see something that may become more
dangerous to this republic than the rebellion itself." It is true, Lincoln
as President did not profess what we now call civil service reform principles.
He used the patronage of the government in many cases avowedly to reward
party
work, in many others to form combinations and to produce political
effects advantageous to the Union cause, and in still others simply to put
the right man into the right place. But in his endeavors to strengthen the
Union cause, and in his search for able and useful men for public duties,
he frequently went beyond the limits of his party, and gradually accustomed
himself to the thought that, while party service had its value, considerations
of the public interest were, as to appointments to office, of far greater
consequence. Moreover, there had been such a mingling of different political
elements in support of the Union during the civil war that Lincoln, standing
at the head of that temporarily united motley mass, hardly felt himself,
in the narrow sense of the term, a party man. And as he became strongly impressed
with the dangers brought upon the republic by the use of public offices as
party spoils, it is by no means improbable that, had he survived the
all-absorbing crisis and found time to
turn to other objects, one of the
most important reforms of later days would have been pioneered by his powerful
authority. This was not to be. But the measure of his achievements was full
enough for immortality.
To the younger generation Abraham Lincoln has already become a half-mythical
figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows to more and more heroic
proportions, but also loses in distinctness of outline and feature. This
is indeed the common lot of popular heroes; but the Lincoln legend will be
more than ordinarily apt to become fanciful, as his individuality, assembling
seemingly incongruous qualities and forces in a character at the same time
grand and most lovable, was so unique, and his career so abounding in startling
contrasts. As the state of society in which Abraham Lincoln grew up passes
away, the world will read with increasing wonder of the man who, not only
of the humblest origin, but remaining the simplest
and most unpretending
of citizens, was raised to a position of power unprecedented in our history;
who was the gentlest and most peace-loving of mortals, unable to see any
creature suffer without a pang in his own breast, and suddenly found himself
called to conduct the greatest and bloodiest of our wars; who wielded the
power of government when stern resolution and relentless force were the order
of the day and then won and ruled the popular mind and heart by the tender
sympathies of his nature; who was a cautious conservative by temperament
and mental habit, and led the most sudden and sweeping social revolution
of our time; who, preserving his homely speech and rustic manner even in
the most conspicuous position of that period, drew upon himself the scoffs
of polite society, and then thrilled the soul of mankind with utterances
of wonderful beauty and grandeur; who, in his heart the best friend of the
defeated South, was murdered because a crazy fanatic
took him for its most
cruel enemy; who, while in power, was beyond measure lampooned and maligned
by sectional passion and an excited party spirit, and around whose bier friend
and foe gathered to praise him—which they have since never ceased to do—as
one of the greatest of Americans and the best of men.