His Rise From Poverty – The Problem of Industrialism
In his first public speech, seeking election to the State Legislature of Illinois in 1832, Lincoln said: "I was born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life." He adds: "If the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined." In the same speech he said: "I have no other (ambition) so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem."
Here are three phrases that epitomize Lincoln's ideals and Lincoln's career: – "the most humble walks of life;" "too familiar with disappointments;" and "rendering myself worthy of their esteem." There at the age of twenty-three we are apprised of Lincoln's poverty, of his ambition, and of his adversity. In the same address he says: "I have no wealthy or popular relatives or friends to recommend me." At that time he had been but two years in the State.
In pondering this brief and frank appeal one wonders at the blending of the youthful and the mature, the daring and the wary, the ardent and the chastened, the eager and the sedate, the wistful and the resigned. What had been the inner and the outer history and fortune of him, who at the age of twenty-three could talk of being "familiar with disappointments" – so familiar with experiences of reverse that he could bear the public refusal of his one greatest ambition, that public's "true esteem," without being "much chagrined." Plainly in Lincoln's early life there was a great heart, cherishing a high hope, but environed with poverty, familiar with reversals, unchampioned, unknown. Already he was being refined by manifold discipline. Already in that refining fire he had fixed his eye and set his face to win his neighbor's true esteem. Therein one comprehends his whole career. Out of oblivion and solitude and direst poverty he passed by sheer self-mastery to the highest national authority and renown. Of all the distance and of all the way between those "humblest walks" and that commanding eminence, and of all the pregnant meaning to him and to all Americans, and indeed to every son of Adam, of that achievement, Lincoln had a marvelous discerning sense. He knew full well its vast significance and he never let its vivid recollection lapse. It was always in his living consciousness.
One impressive proof and token that the meaning of his advancement had permanent place in his remembrance, and that he deemed his fortune an ideal and a type of our American government and life has been preserved in the tone and substance of his address in Independence Hall, when on his way to his first great inauguration. Standing there at the age of forty-one, the Nation's president-elect, and "filled with deep emotion," he said: "I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence." And to give that statement explanation he said, "I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together." And for answer to that inquiry he points to "that sentiment in the Declaration which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance." "Liberty," "hope," "promise," "weights lifted," "an equal chance," "to all," "for all," "of all," "all," "in due time" – these are the terms that answered the question over which he "often pondered" and "often inquired." This was the "great principle," the "idea" which held the Confederacy together. This was the "basis" on which, if he could save the country, he would be "one of the happiest men in the world, if he could help to save it." This was the principle concerning which he exclaimed: "If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say that I would rather be assassinated upon this spot than surrender it" – words whose purport is seen to be nothing less than tragic, when we recall the peril of death, which he was consciously facing in that very hour from a deep laid conspiracy against his life.
Thus spoke Lincoln within ten days of his inauguration, in a speech which he says was "wholly unprepared." But the day before, in a speech at Trenton, he characterized that same "idea" as that "something more than common" which away back in childhood, the earliest days of his being able to read, he recollected thinking, "boy though I was," was the "treasure" for which "those men struggled." That "something" he then defines as "even more than national independence;" and as holding out "a great promise to all the people of the world to all time to come."
This lifting of weights from the shoulders of men, this equal chance for all; this was the liberty for which the fathers fought, this was the hope which their Declaration enshrined, this it was whose preservation Lincoln longed to secure above any other happiness, this it was for which he was all but ready to die.
There Lincoln spoke his heart. There he voiced his highest hopes. There he traced his patriotism to its roots. And there too he touched the quick nerve of his own disappointments, of his own often futile endeavors and desires. And there as well his living sympathy with other men, encumbered with disadvantage and defeat, found mighty utterance. Lifting weights from the shoulders of all men – that in "due time" this should be achieved he judged and felt to be the single sovereign meaning of our national destiny.
Of just this national destiny Lincoln's personal life was a strangely full epitome. His shoulders knew full well the pressure of those "weights." His soul knew all the awful volume of sorrow as of joy, that poured about the denial or the enjoyment of an "equal chance." From the humblest walks to the foremost seat he had been permitted to thread his way. That liberty he chiefly sought in struggling youth. That liberty he chiefly prized as president. And this, not alone for himself, not alone for all Americans, but for "all the world." Thus spoke Lincoln, "all unprepared" in February of 1861.
But these spontaneous words were no passing breath of transient sentiments. In July of that same year he sent to Congress his first Message. That paper was Lincoln's studied and formal argument, a president's deliberate State Paper, addressing to Congress his responsible demonstration that the war was a necessity. In that argument and demonstration his fundamental postulate was a definition of our government. In that definition he affirms its "leading object" to be "to elevate the condition of men – to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life." And so he calls the war a "people's contest." And he speaks of its deeper purport as something that "the plain people understand." And he speaks of the loyalty of all the common soldiers – not one of whom was known to have deserted his flag – as "the patriotic instinct of the plain people."
Those words of Lincoln in Trenton and Philadelphia, defining the "leading object" in the minds of the founders of our government in the hours of its birth-travail, define his own idea and ideal as he approached the hour of his presidential oath. That a national government, thus beneficently designed for the equal weal of all, should be preserved inviolate and preserved from dissolution was his supreme desire and his supreme resolve. Its majesty and its integrity must be held most sacred and most jealously preserved. This was the apple of his eye. By the light of this ideal and in the pursuit of this alluring, wistful hope he studied and judged all the movements of his time. And in this, his initial message, he registers his official verdict upon those surrounding evolutions and events. A vast and ever-expanding Confederacy of intelligent and resolute men, leagued together in a Union of Confederate States, and pledged to secure to all men within its bounds a clear path, an unfettered start, and a fair chance in every laudable pursuit, was judged by him a civic undertaking too preciously freighted with promise and hope for the welfare of the world to be ever disrupted and destroyed by the disloyalty and the withdrawal of any one or any cluster of its constituent parts. It was a Union as sacred and holy as all the worth and all the hopes of men. To separate from such a league was a capital disloyalty. To disintegrate such a unison was the ultimate inhumanity. To stand fast forever by such a federation was a crowning fidelity. To preserve, protect and defend such a Union, at whatever cost of life or wealth, and therein to adventure however sacred honor was a primary and a final obligation. By its perpetual preservation unimpaired was secured to all mankind the vision and the priceless promise of liberty and hope. By secession, defiance, and violent assault, that precious human treasure was being endangered and defiled. Hence his anxious all-consuming eagerness as he approached his ominous task. Hence his firm acceptance of awful, inevitable war.
Such were the marshalings of Lincoln's thoughts and sentiments as he approached and undertook his mighty work – fit prelude in Independence Hall, and befitting explanation and defense in the Halls of Congress of the mighty rallying of those regiments of men for the awful combats of a people's war.
This was Lincoln's argument. That the rights of life and liberty and happiness were designed and decreed by the Maker of all to be equal for all was for him, as an American, and for him as a fellow and a friend of all, under God, an axiom. And to that firm truth the war was but a corollary. Because the Union was a league of freemen, kindred to God, and peers among themselves, bound together in mutual goodwill and for mutual weal, it must at all hazards and through all perils and sorrows be made perpetual. Not that slavery should be immediately removed, though its existence in such a league was an elemental unworthiness and affront; but that the Union should be forever secured was his immediate aspiration and resolve. This once achieved and forever assured, and slavery with every other kindred inequality would in "due time" be done away.
This is the key and the core of his ringing and irresistible retort to Greeley. This was the inspiration of that immortal appeal at Gettysburg, the very pledge and secret of its excellence and immortality – the plea that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth.
And it was definitively this axiomatic verity that provided to his deeply thoughtful mind that deeply philosophic interpretation of the divine intention in the war, which he so carefully enshrined within his last inaugural. The sin of slavery had transgressed a primary law of God. Human shoulders had been heavily laden with artificial weights. Brother men had been denied by fellow-men an equal start. The paths of laudable pursuit were not kept equally clear to all. Multitudes of men, by the inhuman tyranny of the strong upon the weak, and that from birth to death, had been accorded no fair chance. Men had toiled for centuries, and that beneath the lash, without requital. Hence the awful doom and woe of war – God's visitation upon ourselves of our own offense, the wasting of our unholy wealth and the leveling of our inhuman pride. And all of this was being guided through to its predestined and most holy end with the divine design that through the awful baptism of blood our national life should begin anew in humble reverence for him whose just and fiery jealousy demands that all his little ones shall share with all the mightiest in equal rights. Thus Lincoln viewed the war as God's avenging vindication of the just and gracious principles that all men everywhere are entitled to share together equally in liberty and hope.
But Lincoln felt all of this to be, not alone the law of God, but quite as truly the common and compelling affirmation of the human heart. This way and style of phrasing it found eloquent annunciation in that earliest and unanswerable address respecting slavery at Peoria in October of 1854, where were deeply laid and may still be seen the foundations of all his power and fame. In that address he said, "My faith in the proposition, that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own, lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me." And upon that foundation he laid this cornerstone of social and civic order: "No man is good enough to govern another man without that other man's consent." To so invade the liberty of another man is "despotism." Such invasion is "founded in the selfishness of man's nature." "Opposition to it is founded in his sense of justice." "These principles are in eternal antagonism." When they collide, "shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow." These sentiments of liberty are above repeal. Though you repeal all past history, "you cannot repeal human nature." Out of the "abundance of man's heart" "his mouth will continue to speak." And to demonstrate that this sentiment of liberty, this consciousness that human worth is sovereign, is a verity of human nature which even holders of slaves corroborate, he points to the over 400,000 free negroes then in the land. Their presence is proof that deep in all human hearts is a "sense of human justice and sympathy" continually attesting "that the poor negro has some natural right to himself, and that those who deny it and make merchandise of him deserve kickings, contempt and death." This irrepealable law of the human heart was a mighty rock of confidence in Lincoln's social and political faith. All men were made to be free, and entitled equally to a happy life; and of this divine endowment all men everywhere were well aware. Human nature is by its nature the birthplace and the home of liberty and hope.
Especially serviceable for the purposes of this study upon Industrialism is the section in Lincoln's Message to Congress of December, 1861, dealing with what he calls our "popular institutions." With his eagle eye he discerns in the Southern insurrection an "approach of returning despotism." The assault upon the Union was proving itself, under his gaze, an attack upon "the first principles of popular government – the rights of the people." And against that assault he raised "a warning voice."
In this warning he treats specifically the relation of labor and capital. In this discussion his motive is single and clear. He detects a danger that so-called labor may be assumed to be so inseparably bound up and indentured with capital as to be subject to capital in a sort of bondage; and that, once labor, whether slave or hired, is brought under that assumed subjection, that condition is "fixed for life."
Both of these assumptions he assails. Labor is not a "subject state;" nor is capital in any sense its master. There is "no such thing as a free man's being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer." So he affirms. And then he argues that "labor is prior to and independent of capital." "Capital is only the fruit of labor." "Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." Hired labor, and capital that hires and labors not – these do both exist; and both have rights. But "a large majority belong to neither class – neither work for others, nor have others working for them." This is measurably true even in the Southern States. While in the Northern States a large majority are "neither hirers nor hired." And even where free labor is employed for hire, that condition is not "fixed for life." "Many independent men everywhere in these Northern States, a few years back in their lives, were hired laborers." The "penniless," if "prudent," "labors for wages awhile;" "saves a surplus;" "then labors on his own account;" and "at length hires another new beginner to help him." "This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all." Here is a form of "political power;" here is a "popular principle" that underlies present national prosperity and strength, and infolds a pledge of its certain future abounding expansion. Thus Lincoln argued in his Annual Message of 1861.
In his Annual Message of 1862, he pursued in a similar strain, a vital and kindred aspect of the same industrial theme. He was arguing with Congress in favor of compensated emancipation. In the course of that argument, speaking of the relation of freed negroes to white labor and white laborers, he said: "If there ever could be a proper time for mere catch arguments, that time surely is not now. In time like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and in eternity." And then, after appealing with utmost patience and consideration and with ideal persuasiveness to every better sentiment and to every proper interest, he drew towards the close of his plea with these arresting, prophetic, almost forboding words, words richly worth citation for a second time: – "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion." "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." "We cannot escape history." "The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation." "We know how to save the Union." "We – even we here – hold the power and bear the responsibility." "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve." "We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth." "The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
Thus Lincoln voiced, and in terms that human-kind will not lightly suffer to be forgotten, his seasoned and convinced belief about the principles that should hold dominion in the industrial realm. They reveal that in his chastened and chastening faith Civics and Economics are merged forever in Ethics, and that therein they are forever at one. Individuals, however lowly or however strong; parties or combinations of men or wealth, however massive or however firm; governments or nations, however puissant, ambitious or proud, are alike endowed and alike enjoined with sovereign duties and with sovereign rights. The negro, however poor, may not be robbed or exploited or bound by any master, however grand. The soil of a neighboring government, however alluring its promise of expansion or wealth, may never be invaded or annexed by force of any Nation's arms, however exalted and humane that Nation's professions and aims. If any man, or any Nation of men be but meagerly endowed, that humble heritage is inviolably theirs forever to enjoy. The person of Dred Scott and the soil of Mexico are holy ground – heaven-appointed sanctuaries that no oppressor or invader may ever venture to profane. If to any nation, or to any man "God gave but little, that little let him enjoy." Slavery and tyranny are iniquitous economy. "Take from him that is needy" is the rule of the slaveholder and the tyrant. "Give to him that is needy" is the rule of Christian charity. As between the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the timid and the bold, "this good earth is plenty broad enough for both."
Here is indeed an eternal struggle. But underneath is "an eternal principle." And among the many Nations of the earth this American people are bringing to this principle in the face of all the world a world-commanding demonstration of its benign validity. By the sweat of his face shall man eat bread. And the fruit of his toil shall man enjoy.
So would Lincoln guard, in the industrial world, against all exaggeration and all infringement of human liberties and rights, and this quite as much for the sake of the strong as in defense of the weak. Tyranny, in despoiling the weak, despoils the tyrant too. Liberty does harm to none, but brings rich boon to all. Thus Lincoln cherished freedom.
But deep within this treasured liberty Lincoln saw the shining jewel of human hope. And hope with him was ever neighborly. And this generous sentiment, expanding forever in his heart, he cherished, not merely as common civilian, but as president. It was while at Cincinnati, on his way to his inauguration, that he said, "I hold that while man exists it is his duty not only to improve his own condition, but also to assist in ameliorating mankind." "It is not my nature, when I see people borne down by the weight of their shackles … to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke."
But true as was Lincoln's view of our national mission, and clear and just and generous as was his own desire, he saw in the Nation's path before his face a mighty obstacle. He knew the fascination of "property." And he knew that this fascination held its malevolent sway, even though that "property" was vested in human life. Here was the brunt of all his battle. The slaves of his day had a "cash value" at a "moderate estimate" of $2,000,000,000. He saw that this property value had "a vast influence on the minds of its owners." And he knew that this was so "very naturally" that the same amount of property "would have an equal influence … if owned in the North;" that "human nature is the same;" that "public opinion is founded to great extent on a property basis;" that "what lessens the value of property is opposed;" that "what enhances its value is favored."
With this prevailing tendency, native and universal in all men alike, he had to deal. Indeed he had no other problem. All his presidential difficulties reduced to this: – the universal greed of men for gain; and deep within this inborn greed, man's inborn selfishness. And all his all-absorbing toil and thought as statesman and as president were to exalt in human estimation the values in men above all other gain. This desire lay deep in his heart at the beginning of his struggle in 1854. At the end of his conflict in those closing days of his life in 1865 this longing came forth as pure and shining gold thrice refined.
From the time of his second election his thoughts moved with an almost unwonted constancy upon these upper heights. With immeasurable satisfaction he brooded and pondered over the emerging issues of the stupendous strife. With an almost mother's love he considered and counted over and reckoned up those outcomes of the sacrifice that should worthily endure. With a vision purged of every form of vanity and every form of selfishness, not as a miser, but in very deed with a mother's pride and inner joy, he recited over the precious inventory of the chastened Nation's wealth.
Touching evidence of this is in his habitual tone of speech when addressing soldiers returning from the field to their homes. Over and over again he would remind the men of the vital principle at stake, alike in war and in peace. "That you may all have equal privileges in the race of life;" that there may be "an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise, and intelligence – this is 'our birthright,' our 'inestimable pearl.' Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality." "To the humblest and the poorest among us are held out the highest privileges and positions." It is hard to say, when he was voicing his satisfaction and his gratitude to these returning regiments, to which his words were most directly addressed, to the soldier in the uniform, or to the citizen. All those veteran soldiers were to his discerning eyes the precious sterling units of the Nation's lasting wealth. In their service as defenders of the Union they had saved the most precious human heritage that human history ever knew or human hope conceived. And of that heritage and hope they were themselves the exponent. Their service under arms and their civilian life in coming days of peace were one. And with a deep and fond solicitude he would charge them to shield and guard, to champion and defend with ballot as with sword their dear-bought liberty and right. These peaceable precious fruits of the deadly terrible war he well foresaw and greeted eagerly. The verdict of the ballots in his re-election in 1864 proclaimed afar a word the world had never heard before. It "demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election in the midst of a great civil war." That verdict declared authoritatively that government by the people was "sound and strong." And it also showed by actual count that after four terrible years of war the government had more supporting men than when the war began. This abounding victory filled and satisfied his heart. And in the presence of that unexampled proof that equal liberty for all was safe within the guardianship of common men, he exclaimed with a prophet's vision of the living unison of civic and economic weal: – "Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, patriotic men are better than gold."
Such were Lincoln's principles as he defined a Nation's true prosperity and wealth. A Nation's strength, a Nation's honor, a Nation's truest treasure is in her men. Men of freedom and men of hope, men intolerant of tyranny, men resolved to be worthy of themselves and conscious of kinship with their Maker, men jealous equally of their own and their brother's liberty, men who welcome all the bonds involved in a friendly league of equal duties and equal rights, men in whom the amelioration of all is a ruling desire, these are the chief and best achievement in the proudest Nation's wealth. To undervalue men, preferring any other good, is to cherish in a Nation's heart the source of its undoing. More to be prized than finest gold is every citizen. However weak and humble any man may be, his honor is sacredly above offense. To leave the burden of the feeble unrelieved, or to clog the progress of the slow is in any Nation's history a primal sin, and is sure to be abundantly revenged. For such a sin no store of wealth has power to atone. A sin like that a sinner himself must bear. This is the central thought of the last inaugural. These were the human sentiments lying underneath all Lincoln's economic faith. To these firm verities he held devotedly, whether counseling the Nation as its president, projecting negro colonies as the negro's friend, or offering to an idling, impecunious brother a dollar gratis for every dollar earned.
Men are equal; men are free. Men are royal; men are kin. Men are hopeful; men aspire. Men are feeble; men have need. Men may prosper; men may rise. Melioration is for all. Men have duties; men have rights. Rights are mutual; duties bind. Every man resents offense. Only despots can offend. Human tyranny is doomed. Vengeance waits on every wrong. God is sovereign, kind and just. These are Lincoln's sentiments. These he nobly illustrates. These are laws which he defends. These are truths he vindicates.
These few fundamental principles, applied anywhere in the industrial field, would soon and certainly put in force wholesome, everlasting, all-embracing laws. If, like Lincoln himself, men start in penury with never a favor and never a friend, then, like him, they must hire themselves to other men for the going wage. But every such a contract must be forever subject to a fair and orderly recall. The humblest earner of a daily wage must be forever free, free to continue or to withdraw. To his freedom and improvement, to his enheartenment and hope all industrial regulations must conduce. This is basic. This alone is generous and fair. And only here can any government win permanence and peace.
Here are Lincoln's primal postulates in social economics. Moral imperatives are over every man. Moral freedom is in every breast. Within the nethermost foundations of any mortal's share in any social fellowship must rest his own self-wrought integrity and self-respect. To make that social fellowship in any form perpetually secure each man must seek with all his heart and with continual willing sacrifice the lasting welfare of every party and of every part. That this be safely guaranteed each man must learn to estimate his brother-man, not by epaulets and coins, but by immortal standards, such as only living persons can achieve. To make this social league invincible within, each member in the fellowship must show a true humility, abjuring all temptation or desire to be a despot or a grandee. And through it all this social compact must be cherished and revered as ordained by a God of pure and sovereign truth and love. Thus by friendly ministry, in unpretending honesty, in brother-kindliness, as sharing in a common immortality, under the favor and in the fear of God, may fellowmen in multitudes be fellow citizens in a civic order that may hope for perpetual prosperity. This is the resounding message that Lincoln's life transmuted into speech through his pathetic and inspiring rise from poverty.