CHAPTER XVII
THE TWO GIANTS
If I were writing a complete and exhaustive biography of Mr. Lincoln, I should be tempted to quote freely from the speeches made by both contestants in the memorable campaign which made Douglas a Senator, and his opponent the next President of the United States. But neither my space, nor the scope of my book, allows this. I will, however, quote, as likely to be of general interest, the personal description of Lincoln given by his distinguished rival:
“In the remarks I have made on this platform,” said Judge Douglas, “and the position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world’s goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything which they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else; but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both had in life.
“He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys in wrestling, or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits, or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town together, and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or a fist-fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present and participated. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficulties and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature in 1836, when we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and he was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced the celebrated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend and companion. While in Congress, he distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, taking the side of our common enemy against his own country; and when he returned home he found that the indignation of the people followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged, or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his former friends.”
This sketch of Mr. Lincoln, though apparently friendly, was artfully calculated to stir up prejudice against him, and the backwoods statesman was not willing to leave it unanswered. Generally he was quite well able to take care of himself, and did not fail in the present instance.
This is his reply:
“The Judge is wofully at fault about his early friend Lincoln being a grocery-keeper. I don’t know as it would be a great sin if I had been; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house up at the head of a hollow. And so I think my friend, the Judge, is equally at fault when he charges me at the time when I was in Congress with having opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war. The Judge did not make his charge very distinctly, but I can tell you what he can prove by referring to the record. You remember I was an old Whig, and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had been righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. But whenever they asked for any money, or land-warrants, or anything to pay the soldiers there, during all that time I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth; and the Judge has a right to make all he can out of it. But when he, by a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld supplies from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, or did anything else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the records will prove to him.”
Not content with defending himself, Mr. Lincoln essayed on his side to contrast his opponent and himself, and, like him, he indulged in personal reminiscences.
“Twenty-two years ago Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted; we were both young then – he a trifle younger than I. Even then we were both ambitious, – I perhaps quite as much so as he. With me the race of ambition has been a failure, – a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not unknown even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached, – so reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation. I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch’s brow.”
In another connection Mr. Lincoln says: “Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who had been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargéships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they can not, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but, with greedier anxiety, they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what, even in the days of his highest prosperity, they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. There are disadvantages, all taken together, that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon principle alone.”
It may be said, in summing up, that Mr. Lincoln proved himself to be fully a match for Judge Douglas in this memorable campaign. I may go further and say that he overmatched him, for he adroitly propounded questions which his opponent was compelled to answer, and did answer in a way that killed him as a Presidential candidate. Though he ran in 1860, it was as an independent candidate. He had failed to retain the full confidence of his party, and could not secure the regular nomination. Indeed, he contributed indirectly to Lincoln’s election, by dividing his own party, so that Mr. Lincoln became President, though receiving considerably less than one-half of the popular vote. It is obvious that Mr. Lincoln, who admits, as we have seen, that he was quite as ambitious as Douglas, was looking farther than the Senatorship. Yet he was personally disappointed when the majority in the Legislature proved to be for Douglas, and secured the election of the latter. He expressed this in his usual quaint way when some one asked him how he felt. He said, “that he felt like the boy that stubbed his toe, – it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.”
It is probable that Abraham Lincoln, though he says no one had ever expected him to be President, was not without Presidential aspirations. He thought no doubt that an election as Senator would help his chances, and that the Senatorial position would prove a stepping-stone. Even the shrewdest, however, are liable to make mistakes, and we are led to believe that Mr. Lincoln was mistaken in this instance. If he had triumphed over Douglas in 1858, it is more than likely that by some word or act as Senator he would have aroused prejudices that would have made him unavailable in 1860, and the nation would never have discovered the leader who, under Providence, led it out of the wilderness, and conducted it to peace and freedom. I do not want to moralize overmuch, but can not help saying to my readers that in the lives of all there are present disappointments that lead to ultimate success and prosperity. It would not be hard to adduce convincing proofs. Washington and Garfield both desired to go to sea when they were boys. Had their wishes been gratified their after-careers might have been very different. Cromwell had made all arrangements to sail for America when still obscure. He was prevented, and remained in his own country to control its destiny, and take a position at the head of affairs. Remember this when your cherished plans are defeated. There is a higher wisdom than ours that shapes and directs our lives.
CHAPTER XVIII
ILLINOIS DECLARES FOR THE RAIL-SPLITTER
Henceforth Abraham Lincoln was a marked man. He had sprung into national prominence. Limited as had been his tenure of office – including only two years in the lower house of Congress – it is remarkable how suddenly he came to be recognized as a leader. But at the East he was known only by reputation. This was soon remedied. He received an invitation to lecture in New York, or rather in Mr. Beecher’s church in Brooklyn. He was well pleased to accept, but stipulated that he should be permitted to speak on a political subject. When he reached New York, he found that a change had been made in the place where he was to speak, and the Cooper Institute, where at intervals nearly every eminent man in the country has been heard, had been engaged for his début.
It was not without a feeling of modest shyness that he surveyed the immense audience gathered to hear him, and he was surprised to see the most cultivated citizens of the great metropolis upon the platform. Among them was William Cullen Bryant, who was president of the meeting, and in that capacity introduced him as “an eminent citizen of the West, hitherto known to you only by reputation.”
Mr. Lincoln commenced his address in low tones, but his voice became louder and his manner more confident as he proceeded. His speech was an elaborate argument to prove that the original framers of the American Government intended that the Federal Government should exercise absolute control of the Federal territories, so far as the subject of slavery was concerned, and had never surrendered this high privilege to local legislation. This he established by incontrovertible proof, and in so doing quite upset Senator Douglas’ theory of Squatter Sovereignty. Incidentally he vindicated the right of the Republican party to exist.
I have not room to quote from this remarkable speech. I am afraid I have already introduced more extracts from speeches than my young readers will enjoy. They are necessary, however, if we would understand what were the views of Mr. Lincoln, and what made him President.
The next day Mr. Lincoln’s speech was printed in full in two prominent papers – the Tribune and the Evening Post, accompanied by comments of the most favorable character. The first was edited by Horace Greeley, the latter by the poet Bryant, who was nearly as conspicuous a politician as a poet. “No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience,” said the Tribune.
Robert Lincoln, Mr. Lincoln’s oldest son, was a student at Harvard, and his father travelled into New England to visit him. He was besieged by applications to speak at Republican meetings, and accepted a few invitations, being everywhere cordially received. This visit no doubt bore fruit, and drew many voters to his standard, when he had been formally presented to the country as a candidate for the Presidency. That my readers may learn how he spoke, and how he appeared, I quote from the Manchester (N. H.) Mirror, an independent paper:
“He spoke an hour and a half with great fairness, great apparent candor, and with wonderful interest. He did not abuse the South, the administration, or the Democrats, or indulge in any personalities, with the exception of a few hits at Douglas’ notions. He is far from prepossessing in personal appearance, and his voice is disagreeable; and yet he wins your attention and good-will from the start. He indulges in no flowers of rhetoric, no eloquent passages. He is not a wit, a humorist, or a clown; yet so great a vein of pleasantry and good-nature pervades what he says, gilding over a deep current of practical argument he keeps his hearers in a smiling mood, with their mouths open ready to swallow all he says. His sense of the ludicrous is very keen; and an exhibition of that is the clincher of all his arguments, – not the ludicrous acts of persons, but ludicrous ideas. Hence he is never offensive, and steals away willingly into his train of belief persons who were opposed to him. For the first half hour his opponents would agree with everything he uttered; and from that point he began to lead them off little by little, until it seemed as if he had got them all into his fold. He displays more shrewdness, more knowledge of the masses of mankind, than any public speaker we have heard since Long Jim Wilson left for California.”
On the day succeeding his speech in Norwich, he met in the cars a clergyman named Gulliver, who sought his acquaintance.
“Mr. Lincoln,” he said, “I thought your speech last evening the most remarkable I ever heard.”
“You do not mean this?” said Mr. Lincoln, incredulously.
“Indeed, sir,” said Gulliver, “I learned more of the art of public speaking last evening than I could from a whole course of lectures on rhetoric.”
Mr. Lincoln was puzzled, for he was not a man to accept extravagant compliments.
“I should like very much to know what it was in my speech which you thought so remarkable,” he said.
“The clearness of your statements,” answered Gulliver, “the unanswerable style of your reasoning, and especially your illustrations, which were romance and pathos, and fun and logic, all welded together.”
“I am much obliged to you for this,” said Mr. Lincoln. “I have been wishing for a long time to find some one who would make this analysis for me. It throws light on a subject which has been dark to me. I can understand very readily how such a power as you have ascribed to me will account for the effect which seems to be produced by my speeches. I hope you have not been too flattering in your estimate. Certainly I have had a most wonderful success for a man of my limited education.”
“Mr. Lincoln, may I say one thing to you before we separate?” asked Mr. Gulliver later.
“Certainly; anything you please.”
“You have spoken of the tendency of political life in Washington to debase the moral convictions of our representatives there, by the admixture of considerations of mere political expediency. You have become, by the controversy with Mr. Douglas, one of our leaders in this great struggle with slavery, which is undoubtedly the struggle of the nation and the age. What I would like to say is this, and I say it with a full heart: Be true to your principles, and we will be true to you, and God will be true to us all!”
“I say amen to that! amen to that!” answered Mr. Lincoln, taking his hand in both his own, while his face lighted up sympathetically.
I may as well mention here the first public occasion on which Mr. Lincoln’s name was mentioned for the Presidency.
On the 9th and 10th of May the Republican State Convention met at Decatur. Mr. Lincoln was present as a spectator, but he attracted the attention of Gov. Oglesby, who rose, and said: “I am informed that a distinguished citizen of Illinois, and one whom Illinois will ever delight to honor, is present; and I wish to move that this body invite him to a seat on the stand.”
Public interest and curiosity were aroused. Who was this distinguished citizen?
The Governor paused a moment, and then uttered the name of Abraham Lincoln.
Instantly there was a roar of applause, there was a rush to where the astonished Lincoln sat, he was seized, and the crowd being too dense to press through, he was literally passed over the heads and shoulders of the great throng until breathless he found himself on the platform. Willing or unwilling he was literally for the time being “in the hands of his friends.”
Later on Gov. Oglesby rose once more and said: “There is an old Democrat outside who has something which he wishes to present to the Convention.”
“What is it?” “What is it?” “Receive it!” shouts the crowd.
The door of the wigwam opens, and an old man, bluff and hearty, comes forward, bearing on his shoulder two small rails, surmounted by a banner, with this inscription: —
TWO RAILS
From a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks, in the Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830
This old man was John Hanks himself! His entrance was greeted with tumultuous applause.
“Lincoln! Lincoln! A speech!” shouts the crowd.
Mr. Lincoln seemed amused. He rose at length and said:
“Gentlemen, I suppose you want to know something about those things,” (the rails). “Well, the truth is, John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon Bottom. I don’t know whether we made those rails or not; fact is, I don’t think they are a credit to the makers,” (laughing as he spoke). “But I do know this: I made rails then, and I think I could make better ones than these now.”
Before the Convention dissolved, a resolution was passed, declaring that “Abraham Lincoln is the first choice of the Republican party of Illinois for the Presidency, and instructing the delegates to the Chicago Convention to use all honorable means to secure his nomination, and to cast the vote of the State as a unit for him.”
So Abraham Lincoln, “the rail-splitter,” as he was familiarly called, was fairly in the field as a candidate for the highest office in the gift of the nation.
CHAPTER XIX
NOMINATED FOR PRESIDENT
On the 16th of May the Republican Convention assembled in Chicago. Considered with reference to its outcome, no more important convention had assembled since the organization of the Government. Though this could not be realized at the time, its deliberations were followed with great interest all over the country. The opponents of the slave power were, for the first time, to make a formidable effort to prevent its extension and indefinite perpetuation.
Of course, there had been more or less electioneering in advance. Half a dozen candidates were in the field; but there were two who were recognized as leading in strength and popularity. These were William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln. The former, in length and variety of public service, in general culture, and national reputation, was far superior. It was felt that he would make an admirable candidate, and that he deserved the nomination; but there were many who were strongly opposed to him. Three important States – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Indiana – declared that, as against Douglas, they could do nothing if Seward were the nominee. Illinois, of course, was for Lincoln, and this giant of the Western prairies enjoyed a popularity which his more experienced competitor could not boast. Yet for the first two days Seward’s chances seemed the better of the two. The other candidates whose names were presented to the Convention were Mr. Dayton, of New Jersey; Mr. Cameron, of Pennsylvania; Edward Bates, of Missouri; and Ohio offered two distinguished sons – Salmon P. Chase and John McLean.
On the first and second ballots Mr. Seward led; but, on the third, Mr. Lincoln lacked but a vote and a half of the number necessary to make him the nominee. An Ohio delegate rose and changed four votes from Chase to Lincoln. This was sufficient. He was nominated. The vast building shook with the cheers of the dense throng. State after State changed its vote to the man of destiny, and his nomination was made unanimous. In the afternoon, Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-President.
Meanwhile Mr. Lincoln was in Springfield, bearing the suspense as well as he could. My boy readers will be interested to know that he spent a considerable part of his time in playing baseball, his mind being too preoccupied to do his ordinary work. Dispatches were received from time to time, but nothing decisive.
Mr. Lincoln and some of his friends were waiting in the office of the Journal when the local editor rushed in, in a fever of excitement.
“What’s the news?” was the breathless inquiry.
“The Convention has made a nomination,” he said, “and Mr. Seward – ”
A look of intense disappointment was beginning to show itself on the faces of the listeners. They supposed that Seward was nominated.
“And Seward is – the second man on the list,” continued the editor.
He could no longer restrain himself. Jumping on the editorial table, he shouted, “Gentlemen, I propose three cheers for Abraham Lincoln, the next President of the United States.”
The cheers were given with a will.
The dispatch was handed to Mr. Lincoln, who read it quietly.
Then he put it in his pocket, saying, “There is a little woman on Eighth Street who will be interested to hear this,” and he walked home.
In Springfield the news excited the greatest enthusiasm. All knew and loved Abraham Lincoln. He set himself above no one, but greeted all with cordial kindness. The nomination was felt to be a personal compliment to Springfield. The country had come to them for a President, and to the man above all others whom they would personally have selected.
That day Mr. Lincoln had to keep open house. His modest residence proved quite too small to contain the crowds who wanted to enter and shake hands with the man who had become so suddenly of national importance. They received a cordial welcome; and no one could detect in the nominee any unusual elation nor any deviation from his usual plain and modest deportment.
The next day Mr. Lincoln was formally notified of his election by a Committee of the Convention, with Mr. Ashmun at the head. This was his response:
“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: – I tender to you, and through you to the Republican National Convention, and all the people represented in it, my profoundest thanks for the high honor done me, which you now formally announce. Deeply and even painfully sensible of the great responsibility which is inseparable from this high honor – a responsibility which I could almost wish had fallen upon some one of the far more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose distinguished names were before the Convention, I shall, by your leave, consider more fully the resolutions of the Convention, denominated the platform, and, without unnecessary and unreasonable delay, respond to you, Mr. Chairman, in writing, not doubting that the platform will be found satisfactory, and the nomination gratefully accepted. And now I will not longer defer the pleasure of taking you, and each of you, by the hand.”
Let us consider who were Mr. Lincoln’s rivals in the Presidential race. Usually there are but two tickets in the field. This time there were four. First in order of time had come the National Constitutional Union Convention, made up largely of old Whigs. At this Convention John Bell, of Tennessee, was nominated for President, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President. The Democratic National Convention had met at Charleston, but adjourned without deciding upon a candidate. Mr. Douglas was the most prominent man before it, but extreme Southerners doubted his entire devotion to slavery, and he was unable to obtain the necessary two-thirds vote. The two factions into which the Convention split afterward met: the one at Baltimore, the other at Richmond. At the Baltimore Convention Stephen A. Douglas was nominated for President, and Mr. Johnson, of Georgia, for Vice-President. At the Richmond Convention of Southern seceders, John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon, were selected as standard-bearers.
In this division of the Democracy lay the hope of the new Republican party. With the Democracy united they would have been unable to cope; but they were stronger than either faction. When the eventful 6th of November arrived, the result was what might have been anticipated. Abraham Lincoln, the poor boy whose fortunes we have so long followed, reached the highest step of political preferment. He received 1,857,610 votes; Mr. Douglas came next, with 1,291,574; while Mr. Breckinridge could muster only 850,082; Mr. Bell secured 646,124. Of the electoral votes, however, Mr. Lincoln received a majority, namely, 180 out of 292.
To go back a little. From the day of Mr. Lincoln’s nomination he was beset by callers – some drawn by curiosity, and many by considerations of private interest. They found him the same unaffected, plain man that he had always been. He even answered the door-bell himself, and personally ushered visitors in and out. My readers will be interested in two anecdotes of this time, which I transcribe from the interesting volume of Dr. Holland, already more than once referred to:
“Mr. Lincoln being seated in conversation with a gentleman one day, two raw, plainly-dressed young ‘Suckers’ entered the room and bashfully lingered near the door. As soon as he observed them and apprehended their embarrassment, he rose and walked to them, saying, ‘How do you do, my good fellows? What can I do for you? Will you sit down?’
“The spokesman of the pair, the shorter of the two, declined to sit, and explained the object of the call thus: he had had a talk about the relative height of Mr. Lincoln and his companion, and had asserted his belief that they were of exactly the same height. He had come in to verify his judgment. Mr. Lincoln smiled, went and got his cane, and, placing the end of it upon the wall, said, ‘Here, young man, come under here.’
“The young man came under the cane, as Mr. Lincoln held it, and when it was perfectly adjusted to his height, Mr. Lincoln said, ‘Now come out, and hold up the cane.’ This he did, while Mr. Lincoln stepped under. Rubbing his head back and forth to see that it worked easily under the measurement, he stepped out, and declared to the sagacious fellow who was curiously looking on, that he had guessed with remarkable accuracy – that he and the young man were exactly of the same height. Then he shook hands with them, and sent them on their way. Mr. Lincoln would just as soon have thought of cutting off his right hand as he would have thought of turning those boys away with the impression that they had in any way insulted his dignity.
“They had hardly disappeared when an old and modestly-dressed woman made her appearance. She knew Mr. Lincoln, but Mr Lincoln did not at first recognize her. Then she undertook to recall to his memory certain incidents connected with his ride upon the Circuit – especially upon his dining at her house upon the road at different times. Then he remembered her and her home. Having fixed her own place in her recollection, she tried to recall to him a certain scanty dinner of bread and milk that he once ate at her house. He could not remember it; on the contrary, he only remembered that he had always fared well at her house. ‘Well,’ said she, ‘one day you came along after we had got through dinner, and we had eaten up everything, and I could give you nothing but a bowl of bread and milk; and you ate it; and when you got up you said it was good enough for the President of the United States.’ The good old woman, remembering the remark, had come in from the country, making a journey of eight or ten miles, to relate to Mr. Lincoln this incident, which, in her mind, had doubtless taken the form of prophecy. Mr. Lincoln placed the honest creature at her ease, chatted with her of old times, and dismissed her in the most happy and complacent frame of mind.”