Life of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States
by Frank Crosby · English · Gutenberg #44166 · 957,464 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Life of Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States
Author: Frank Crosby
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ***
“If this country cannot be saved without giving up the principle of
Liberty, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this
spot than surrender it.”
_From Mr. Lincoln’s Speech at Independence Hall, Philadelphia,
February 21, 1861._
“I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and
half free.”
_Springfield, Illinois, June, 1858._
“I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and
the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with
the original idea for which the Revolution was made.”
_Trenton, New Jersey, February 21, 1861._
“Having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure
purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear
and with manly hearts.”
_Message, July 5, 1861._
“In giving freedom to the slaves, we assure freedom to the free;
honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.”
_Message, December 1, 1862._
“I hope peace will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to
be worth the keeping in all future time.”
_Springfield Letter, August 26, 1863._
“The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here;
but it can never forget what the brave men, living and dead, did
here.”
_Speech at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863._
“I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation
Proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is
free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the Acts of
Congress.”
_Amnesty Proclamation, December 8, 1863._
“I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that
events have controlled me.”
_Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864._
“With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in
the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to
finish the work we are in.”
_Last Inaugural, March 4, 1865._
[Illustration]
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
CONTAINING
HIS EARLY HISTORY AND POLITICAL CAREER; TOGETHER
WITH THE SPEECHES, MESSAGES, PROCLAMATIONS AND
OTHER OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF
HIS EVENTFUL ADMINISTRATION.
BY FRANK CROSBY,
MEMBER OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR.
“LET ALL THE ENDS THOU AIM’ST AT BE THY COUNTRY’S,
THY GOD’S AND TRUTH’S; THEN IF THOU FALL’ST
THOU FALL’ST A BLESSED MARTYR.”
NEW YORK
INTERNATIONAL BOOK COMPANY
310-318 SIXTH AVENUE
DEDICATED
TO THE GOOD AND TRUE
OF THE NATION
REDEEMED--REGENERATED--DISENTHRALLED.
PREFACE.
An attempt has been made in the following pages to portray Abraham
Lincoln, mainly in his relations to the country at large during his
eventful administration.
With this view, it has not been deemed necessary to cumber the work
with the minute details of his life prior to that time. This period
has, therefore, been but glanced at, with a care to present enough to
make a connected whole. His Congressional career and his campaign with
Senator Douglas are presented in outline, yet so, it is believed, that
a clear idea of these incidents in his life can be obtained.
After the time of his election as President, however, a different
course of treatment has been pursued. Thenceforward, to the close of
his life, especial pains have been taken to present everything which
should show him as he was--the Statesman persistent, resolute, free
from boasting or ostentation, destitute of hate, never exultant,
guarded in his prophecies, threatening none at home or abroad,
indulging in no utopian dreams of a blissful future, moving quietly,
calmly, conscientiously, irresistibly on to the end he saw with
clearest vision.
Yet, even in what is presented as a complete record of his
administration, too much must not be expected. It is impossible, for
example, to thoroughly dissect the events of the great Rebellion in
a work like the present. Nothing of the kind has been attempted. The
prominent features only have been sketched; and that solely for the
purpose of bringing into the distinct foreground him whose life is
under consideration.
Various Speeches, Proclamations, and Letters, not vitally essential
to the unity of the main body of the work, yet valuable as affording
illustrations of the man--have been collected in the Appendix.
Imperfect as this portraiture must necessarily be, there is one
conciliatory thought. The subject needs no embellishment. It furnishes
its own setting. The acts of the man speak for themselves. Only such an
arrangement is needed as shall show the bearing of each upon the other,
the development of each, the processes of growth.
Those words of the lamented dead which nestle in our hearts so
tenderly--they call for no explanation. Potent, searching, taking hold
of our consciences, they will remain with us while reason lasts.
Nor will the people’s interest be but for the moment. The baptism of
blood to which the Nation has been called, cannot be forgotten for
generations. And while memories of him abide, there will inevitably be
associated with them the placid, quiet face, not devoid of mirth--its
patient, anxious, yet withal hopeful expression--the sure, elastic
step--the clearly cut, sharply defined speech of him, who, under
Providence, was to lead us through the trial and anguish of those
bitter days to the rest and refreshing of a peace, whose dawn only,
alas! he was to see.
Though this work may not rise to the height required, it is hoped that
it is not utterly unworthy of the subject. Such as it is--a labor of
love--it is offered to those who loved and labored with the patriot
and hero, with the earnest desire that it may not be regarded an
unwarrantable intrusion upon ground on which any might hesitate to
venture.
F. C.
_Philadelphia, June, 1865._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD.
Preliminary--Birth of Abraham Lincoln--Removal from Kentucky--At
Work--Self Education--Personal Characteristics--Another Removal
--Trip to New Orleans--Becomes Clerk--Black Hawk War--Engages in
Politics--Successive Elections to the Legislature--Anti-Slavery
Protest--Commences Practice as a Lawyer--Traits of Character--
Marriage--Return to Politics--Election to Congress 13
CHAPTER II.
IN CONGRESS AND ON THE STUMP.
The Mexican War--Internal Improvements--Slavery in the
District of Columbia--Public Lands--Retires to Private Life--
Kansas-Nebraska Bill--Withdraws in Favor of Senator Trumbull--
Formation of Republican Party--Nominated for U. S. Senator--
Opening Speech of Mr. Lincoln--Douglas Campaign--The Canvass--
Tribute to the Declaration of Independence--Result of the Contest 19
CHAPTER III.
BEFORE THE NATION.
Speeches in Ohio--Extract from the Cincinnati Speech--Visits
the East--Celebrated Speech at the Cooper Institute, New
York--Interesting Incident 34
CHAPTER IV.
NOMINATED AND ELECTED PRESIDENT.
The Republican National Convention--Democratic Convention--
Constitutional Union Convention--Ballotings at Chicago--
The Result--Enthusiastic Reception--Visit to Springfield--
Address and Letter of Acceptance--The Campaign--Result
of the Election--South Carolina’s Movements--Buchanan’s
Pusillanimity--Secession of States--Confederate Constitution--
Peace Convention--Constitutional Amendments--Terms of the Rebels 60
CHAPTER V.
TO WASHINGTON.
The Departure--Farewell Remarks--Speech at Toledo--At
Indianapolis--At Cincinnati--At Columbus--At Steubenville--
At Pittsburgh--At Cleveland--At Buffalo--At Albany--At
Poughkeepsie--At New York--At Trenton--At Philadelphia--At
“Independence Hall”--Flag Raising--Speech at Harrisburg--
Secret Departure for Washington--Comments 67
CHAPTER VI.
THE NEW ADMINISTRATION.
Speeches at Washington--The Inaugural Address--Its Effect--
The Cabinet--Commissioners from Montgomery--Extracts from A.
H. Stephens’ Speech--Virginia Commissioners--Fall of Fort
Sumter 90
CHAPTER VII.
PREPARING FOR WAR.
Effects of Sumter’s Fall--President’s Call for Troops--
Response in the Loyal States--In the Border States--Baltimore
Riots--Maryland’s Position--President’s Letter to Maryland
Authorities--Blockade Proclamation--Additional Proclamation--
Comments Abroad--Second Call for Troops--Special Order for
Florida--Military Movements 108
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST SESSION OF CONGRESS.
Opening of Congress--President’s First Message--Its Nature--
Action of Congress--Resolution Declaring the Object of the
War--Bull Run--Its Effect 117
CHAPTER IX.
CLOSE OF 1861.
Election of the Rebels--Davis’ Boast--McClellan appointed
Commander of Potomac Army--Proclamation of a National Fast--
Intercourse with Rebels Forbidden--Fugitive Slaves--Gen.
Butler’s Views--Gen. McClellan’s Letter from Secretary
Cameron--Act of August 6th, 1861--Gen. Fremont’s Order--
Letter of the President Modifying the Same--Instructions to
Gen. Sherman--Ball’s Bluff--Gen. Scott’s Retirement--Army of
the Potomac 137
CHAPTER X.
THE CONGRESS OF 1861-62.
The Military Situation--Seizure of Mason and Slidell--
Opposition to the Administration--President’s Message--
Financial Legislation--Committee on the Conduct of the War--
Confiscation Bill 148
CHAPTER XI.
THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
Situation of the President--His Policy--Gradual Emancipation--
Message--Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia--
Repudiation of Gen. Hunter’s Emancipation Order--Conference with
Congressmen from the Border Slave States--Address to the Same--
Military Order--Proclamation under the Conscription Act 171
CHAPTER XII.
THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.
President’s War Order--Reason for the Same--Results in West
and South-west--Army of the Potomac--Presidential Orders--
Letter to McClellan--Order for Army Corps--The Issue of the
Campaign--Unfortunate Circumstances--President’s Speech
at Union Meeting--Comments--Operations in Virginia and
Maryland--In the West and South-west 181
CHAPTER XIII.
FREEDOM TO MILLIONS.
Tribune Editorial--Letter to Mr. Greeley--Announcement of the
Emancipation Proclamation--Suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_
in certain Cases--Order for Observance of the Sabbath--The
Emancipation Proclamation 190
CHAPTER XIV.
LAST SESSION OF THE THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.
Situation of the Country--Opposition to the Administration--
President’s Message 199
CHAPTER XV.
THE TIDE TURNED.
Military Successes--Favorable Elections--Emancipation Policy--
Letter to Manchester (Eng.) Workingmen--Proclamation for a
National Fast--Letter to Erastus Corning--Letter to a Committee
on Recalling Vallandigham 226
CHAPTER XVI.
LETTERS AND SPEECHES.
Speech at Washington--Letter to Gen. Grant--Thanksgiving
Proclamation--Letter Concerning the Emancipation Proclamation--
Proclamation for Annual Thanksgiving--Dedicatory Speech at
Gettysburg 242
CHAPTER XVII.
THE THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS.
Organization of the House--Different Opinions as to
Reconstruction--Provisions for Pardon of Rebels--President’s
Proclamation of Pardon--Annual Message--Explanatory
Proclamation 263
CHAPTER XVIII.
PROGRESS.
President’s Speech at Washington--Speech to a New York
Committee--Speech in Baltimore--Letter to a Kentuckian--
Employment of Colored Troops--Davis’ Threat--General Order--
President’s Order on the Subject 275
CHAPTER XIX.
RENOMINATED.
Lieut. Gen. Grant--His Military Record--Continued Movements--
Correspondence with the President--Across the Rapidan--
Richmond Invested--President’s Letter to a Grant Meeting--
Meeting of Republican National Convention--The Platform--
The Nomination--Mr. Lincoln’s Reply to the Committee of
Notification--Remarks to Union League Committee--Speech at a
Serenade--Speech to Ohio Troops 285
CHAPTER XX.
RECONSTRUCTION.
President’s Speech at Philadelphia--Philadelphia Fair--
Correspondence with Committee of National Convention--
Proclamation of Martial Law in Kentucky--Question of
Reconstruction--President’s Proclamation on the Subject--
Congressional Plan 298
CHAPTER XXI.
PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1864.
Proclamation for a Fast--Speech to Soldiers--Another Speech--
“To Whom it may Concern”--Chicago Convention--Opposition
Embarrassed--Resolution No. 2--McClellan’s Acceptance--
Capture of the Mobile Forts and Atlanta--Proclamation for
Thanksgiving--Remarks on Employment of Negro Soldiers--
Address to Loyal Marylanders 314
CHAPTER XXII.
RE-ELECTED
Presidential Campaign of 1864--Fremont’s Withdrawal--Wade
and Davis--Peace and War Democrats--Rebel Sympathizers--
October Election--Result of Presidential Election--Speech to
Pennsylvanians--Speech at a Serenade--Letter to a Soldier’s
Mother--Opening of Congress--Last Annual Message 325
CHAPTER XXIII.
TIGHTENING THE LINES.
Speech at a Serenade--Reply to a Presentation Address--Peace
Rumors--Rebel Commissioners--Instructions to Secretary
Seward--The Conference in Hampton Roads--Result--Extra
Session of the Senate--Military Situation--Sherman--
Charleston--Columbia--Wilmington--Fort Fisher--Sheridan--
Grant--Rebel Congress--Second Inauguration--Inaugural--
English Comment--Proclamation to Deserters 350
CHAPTER XXIV.
IN RICHMOND.
President Visits City Point--Lee’s Failure--Grant’s Movement--
Abraham Lincoln in Richmond--Lee’s Surrender--President’s
Impromptu Speech--Speech on Reconstruction--Proclamation Closing
Certain Ports--Proclamation Relative to Maritime Rights--
Supplementary Proclamation--Orders from the War Department--
The Traitor President 362
CHAPTER XXV.
THE LAST ACT.
Interview with Mr. Colfax--Cabinet Meeting--Incident--
Evening Conversation--Possibility of Assassination--Leaves
for the Theatre--In the Theatre--Precautions for the
Murder--The Pistol Shot--Escape of the Assassin--Death of
the President--Pledges Redeemed--Situation of the Country--
Effect of the Murder--Obsequies at Washington--Borne Home--
Grief of the People--At Rest 374
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MAN.
Reasons for His Re-election--What was Accomplished--Leaning on
the People--State Papers--His Tenacity of Purpose--Washington
and Lincoln--As a Man--Favorite Poem--Autobiography--His Modesty
--A Christian--Conclusion 382
APPENDIX.
Mr. Lincoln’s Speeches in Congress and Elsewhere, Proclamations,
Letters, etc., not included in the Body of the Work.
Speech on the Mexican War, (In Congress, Jan. 12, 1848) 391
Speech on Internal Improvements, (In Congress, June 20, 1848)
403
Speech on the Presidency and General Politics, (In Congress,
July 27, 1848) 417
Speech in Reply to Mr. Douglas, on Kansas, the Dred Scott
Decision, and the Utah Question, (At Springfield, June 26,
1857) 431
Speech in Reply to Senator Douglas, (At Chicago, July 10, 1858) 442
Opening Passages of his Speech at Freeport 459
Letter to Gen. McClellan 464
Letter to Gen. Schofield Relative to the Removal of Gen. Curtis 466
Three Hundred Thousand Men Called For 466
Rev. Dr. McPheeters--President’s Reply to an Appeal for
Interference 468
An Election Ordered in the State of Arkansas 470
Letter to William Fishback on the Election in Arkansas 471
Call for Five Hundred Thousand Men 471
Letter to Mrs. Gurney 473
The Tennessee Test Oath 474
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
CHAPTER I.
BOYHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD.
Preliminary--Birth of Abraham Lincoln--Removal from Kentucky--
At Work--Self Education--Personal Characteristics--Another
Removal--Trip to New Orleans--Becomes Clerk--Black Hawk War--
Engages in Politics--Successive Elections to the Legislature--
Anti-Slavery Protest--Commences Practice as a Lawyer--Traits of
Character--Marriage--Return to Politics--Election to Congress.
The leading incidents in the early life of the men who have most
decidedly influenced the destinies of our republic, present a striking
similarity. The details, indeed, differ; but the story, in outline, is
the same--“the short and simple annals of the poor.”
Of obscure parentage--accustomed to toil from their tender years--with
few facilities for the education of the school--the most struggled
on, independent, self-reliant, till by their own right hands they had
hewed their way to the positions for which their individual talents
and peculiarities stamped them as best fitted. Children of nature,
rather than of art, they have ever in their later years--amid scenes
and associations entirely dissimilar to those with which in youth and
early manhood, they were familiar--retained somewhat indicative of
their origin and training. In speech or in action--often in both--they
have smacked of their native soil. If they have lacked the grace of
the courtier, ample compensation has been afforded in the honesty of
the man. If their address was at times abrupt, it was at least frank
and unmistakable. Both friend and foe knew exactly where to find them.
Unskilled in the doublings of the mere politician or the trimmer, they
have borne themselves straight forward to the points whither their
judgment and conscience directed. Such men may have been deemed fit
subjects for the jests and sneers of more cultivated Europeans, but
they are none the less dear to us as Americans--will none the less take
their place among those whose names the good, throughout the world,
will not willingly let die.
Of this class, pre-eminently, was the statesman whose life and public
services the following pages are to exhibit.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Sixteenth President of the United States, son
of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln--the former a Kentuckian, the latter
a Virginian--was born February 12th, 1809, near Hodgenville, the
county-seat of what is now known as La Rue county, Kentucky. He had one
sister, two years his senior, who died, married, in early womanhood;
and his only brother, his junior by two years, died in childhood.
When nine years of age, he lost his mother, the family having, two
years previously, removed to what was then the territory of Indiana,
and settled in the southern part, near the Ohio river, about midway
between Louisville and Evansville. The thirteen years which the lad
spent here inured him to all the exposures and hardships of frontier
life. An active assistant in farm duties, he neglected no opportunity
of strengthening his mind, reading with avidity such instructive works
as he could procure--on winter evenings, oftentimes, by the light of
the blazing fire-place. As satisfaction for damage accidentally done to
a borrowed copy of Weems’ Life of Washington--the only one known to be
in the neighborhood--he pulled fodder for two days for the owner.
At twenty years of age, he had reached the height of nearly six feet
and four inches, with a comparatively slender yet uncommonly strong
muscular frame--a youthful giant among a race of giants. Morally, he
was proverbially honest, conscientious, and upright.
In 1830, his father again emigrated, halting for a year on the north
fork of the Sangamon river, Illinois, but afterwards pushing on to
Coles county, some seventy miles to the eastward, on the upper waters
of the Kaskaskia and Embarrass, where his adventurous life ended in
1851, he being in his seventy-third year. The first year in Illinois
the son spent with the father; the next he aided in constructing
a flat-boat, on which, with other hands, a successful trip to New
Orleans and back was made. This city--then the El Dorado of the Western
frontiersman--had been visited by the young man, in the same capacity,
when he was nineteen years of age.
Returning from this expedition, he acted for a year as clerk for
his former employer, who was engaged in a store and flouring mill
at New Salem, twenty miles below Springfield. While thus occupied,
tidings reached him of an Indian invasion on the western border of
the State--since known as the Black Hawk war, from an old Sac chief
of that name, who was the prominent mover in the matter. In New Salem
and vicinity, a company of volunteers was promptly raised, of which
young Lincoln was elected captain--his first promotion. The company,
however, having disbanded, he again enlisted as a private, and during
the three months’ service of this, his first short military campaign,
he faithfully discharged his duty to his country, persevering amid
peculiar hardships and against the influences of older men around him.
With characteristic humor and sarcasm, while commenting, in a
Congressional speech during the canvass of 1848, upon the efforts of
General Cass’s biographers to exalt their idol into a military hero, he
thus alluded to this episode in his life:
“By the way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero? Yes, sir,
in the days of the Black Hawk war, I fought, bled, and came away.
Speaking of General Cass’s career, reminds me of my own. I was not
at Stillman’s defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull’s
surrender; and like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is
quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break; but I
bent a musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword,
the idea is, he broke it in desperation; I bent the musket by accident.
If General Cass went in advance of me in picking whortleberries, I
guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any
live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many
bloody struggles with the mosquitoes; and although I never fainted from
loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry.
“Mr. Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our Democratic
friends may suppose there is of black-cockade Federalism about me,
and, thereupon, they should take me up as their candidate for the
Presidency, I protest they shall not make fun of me as they have of
General Cass, by attempting to write me into a military hero.”
This bit of adventure over, Mr. Lincoln--who had determined to become a
lawyer, in common with most energetic, enterprising young men of that
period and section--embarked in politics, warmly espousing the cause
of Henry Clay, in a State at that time decidedly opposed to his great
leader, and received a gratifying evidence of his personal popularity
where he was best known, in securing an almost unanimous vote in his
own precinct in Sangamon county as a candidate for representative in
the State Legislature, although a little later in the same canvass
General Jackson, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, led his
competitor, Clay, one hundred and fifty-five votes.
While pursuing his law studies, he engaged in land surveying as a
means of support. In 1834, not yet having been admitted to the bar--a
backwoodsman in manner, dress, and expression--tall, lank, and by no
means prepossessing--he was first elected to the Legislature of his
adopted State, being the youngest member, with a single exception.
During this session he rarely took the floor to speak, content to
play the part of an observer rather than of an actor. It was at this
period that he became acquainted with Stephen A. Douglas, then a recent
immigrant from Vermont, in connection with whom he was destined to
figure so prominently before the country.
In 1836, he was elected for a second term. During this session, he put
upon record, together with one of his colleagues, his views relative to
slavery, in the following protest, bearing date March 3d, 1837:--
“Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed
both branches of the General Assembly, at its present session, the
undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
“They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both
injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition
doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.
“They believe that the Congress of the United States has no power,
under the Constitution, to interfere with the institution of slavery in
the different States.
“They believe that the Congress of the United States has the power,
under the Constitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia;
but that the power ought not to be exercised, unless at the request of
the people of said district.”
In 1838 and 1840, he was again elected and received the vote of his
party for the speakership. First elected at twenty-five, he had
been continued so long as his inclination allowed, and until by his
kind manners, his ability, and unquestioned integrity, he had won a
position, when but a little past thirty, as the virtual leader of his
party in Illinois. His reputation as a close and logical debater had
been established; his native talent as an orator had been developed;
his earnest zeal for his party had brought around him troops of
friends; while his acknowledged goodness of heart had knit many to
him, who, upon purely political grounds, would have held themselves
aloof.
While a member of the Legislature, he had devoted himself, as best he
could--considering the necessity he was under of eking out a support
for himself, and the demands made upon his time by his political
associates--to mastering his chosen profession, and in 1836 was
admitted to practice. Securing at once a good amount of business, he
began to rise as a most effective jury advocate, who could readily
perceive, and promptly avail himself of, the turning points of a
case. A certain quaint humor, withal, which he was wont to employ
in illustration--combined with his sterling, practical sense, going
straight to the core of things--stamped him as an original. Disdaining
the tricks of the mere rhetorician, he spoke from the heart to the
heart, and was universally regarded by those with whom he came in
contact as every inch a man, in the best and broadest sense of that
term. His thoughts, his manner, his address were eminently his own.
Affecting none of the cant of the demagogue, the people trusted him,
revered him as one of the best, if not the best, among them. Their
sympathies were his--their weal his desire, their interests a common
stock with his own.
Having permanently located himself at Springfield, the seat of Sangamon
county--which ever after he called his home--he devoted himself to the
practice of his profession, and on the 4th of November, 1842, married
Mary Todd, daughter of the Hon. Robert S. Todd of Lexington, Kentucky,
a lady of accomplished manners and refined social tastes.
Although he had determined to retire from the political arena and taste
the sweets which a life with one’s own family can alone secure, his
earnest wishes were at length overruled by the as earnest demands of
that party with the success of which he firmly believed his country’s
best interests identified, and in 1844 he thoroughly canvassed his
State in behalf of Clay--afterward passing into Indiana, and daily
addressing immense gatherings until the day of election. Over the
defeat of the great Kentuckian he sorrowed as one almost without hope;
feeling it, indeed, far more keenly than his generous nature would have
done, had it been a merely personal discomfiture.
Two years later, in 1846, Mr. Lincoln was persuaded to accept the Whig
nomination for Congress in the Sangamon district, and was elected by
an unprecedently large majority. Texas had meanwhile been annexed; the
Mexican war was in progress; the Tariff of 1842 had been repealed.
With the opening of the Thirtieth Congress--December 6th, 1847--Mr.
Lincoln took his seat in the lower house of Congress, Stephen A.
Douglas also appearing for the first time as a member of the Senate.
CHAPTER II.
IN CONGRESS AND ON THE STUMP.
The Mexican War--Internal Improvements--Slavery in the
District of Columbia--Public Lands--Retires to Private Life--
Kansas-Nebraska Bill--Withdraws in favor of Senator Trumbull--
Formation of Republican Party--Nominated for U. S. Senator--
Opening Speech of Mr. Lincoln--Douglas Campaign--The Canvass--
Tribute to the Declaration of Independence--Result of the Contest.
Mr. Lincoln was early recognized as one of the foremost of the Western
men upon the floor of the House. His Congressional record is that
of a Whig of those days. Believing that Mr. Polk’s administration
had mismanaged affairs with Mexico at the outset, he, in common with
others of his party, was unwilling, while voting supplies and favoring
suitable rewards for our gallant soldiers, to be forced into an
unqualified indorsement of the war with that country from its beginning
to its close.
Accordingly, December 22d, 1847, he introduced a series of resolutions
of inquiry concerning the origin of the war, calling for definite
official information, which were laid over under the rule, and never
acted upon. Upon a test question on abandoning the war, without any
material result accomplished, he voted with the minority in favor of
laying that resolution upon the table.
In all questions bearing upon the matter of internal improvements,
he took an active interest. He took manly ground in favor of the
unrestricted right of petition, and favored a liberal policy toward the
people in disposing of the public lands. He exerted himself during the
canvass of 1848, to secure the election of General Taylor, delivering
several effective campaign speeches in New England and the West.
At the second session of the Thirtieth Congress, he voted in favor of
laying upon the table a resolution instructing the Committee on the
District of Columbia to report a bill prohibiting the slave-trade in
the District, and subsequently read a substitute which he favored. This
substitute contained the form of a bill enacting that no person not
already within the District, should be held in slavery therein, and
providing for the gradual emancipation of the slaves already within the
District, with compensation to the owners, if a majority of the legal
voters of the District should assent to the act, at an election to be
holden for the purpose. It made an exception of the right of citizens
of the slave-holding States coming to the District on public business,
to “be attended into and out of said District, and while there, by the
necessary servants of themselves and their families.”
In regard to the grant of public lands to the new States, to aid in the
construction of railways and canals, he favored the interests of his
own constituents, under such restrictions as the proper scope of these
grants required.
Having declined to be a candidate for re-election, he retired once
more to private life, resuming the professional practice which had been
temporarily interrupted by his public duties, and taking no active part
in politics through the period of General Taylor’s administration, or
in any of the exciting scenes of 1850.
The introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska bill by Stephen A. Douglas, in
1854, aroused him from his repose, and summoned him once more to battle
for the right. In the canvass of that year, he was one of the most
active leaders of the anti-Nebraska movement, addressing the people
repeatedly from the stump, with all his characteristic earnestness and
energy, and powerfully aided in effecting the remarkable political
changes of that year in Illinois.
The Legislature that year having to choose a United States Senator, and
for the first time in the history of the State, the election of one
opposed to the Democratic party being within the reach of possibility,
Mr. Lincoln, although the first choice of the great body of the
opposition, with characteristic self-sacrificing disposition, appealed
to his old Whig friends to go over in a solid body to Mr. Trumbull,
a man of Democratic antecedents, who could command the full vote of
the anti-Nebraska Democrats; and the latter was consequently elected.
Mr. Lincoln was subsequently offered the nomination for Governor of
Illinois, but declined the honor in favor of Col. William H. Bissell,
who was elected by a decisive majority.
In the formation of the Republican party as such, Mr. Lincoln bore
an active and influential part, his name being presented, but
ineffectually, at the first National Convention of that party, for
Vice-President; laboring earnestly during the canvass of 1856, for the
election of General Fremont, whose electoral ticket he headed.
After Mr. Douglas had taken ground against Mr. Buchanan’s
administration relative to the so-called Lecompton Constitution of
Kansas, and had received the indorsement of the Democratic party of
Illinois--his re-election as Senator depending upon the result of the
State election in 1858--the Republican Convention of that year with
shouts of applause, unanimously resolved that Abraham Lincoln was “the
first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United
States Senate, as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas.” At the close of
the proceedings, he delivered the following speech, which struck the
key-note of his contest with Senator Douglas, one of the most exciting
and remarkable ever witnessed in this country:
“GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION:--If we could first know where we
are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what
to do, and how to do it. We are now far on into the fifth year,
since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident
promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation
of that policy, that agitation had not only not ceased, but has
constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until
a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. ‘A house divided
against itself can not stand.’ I believe this Government can not
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 do
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 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.
“Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who
doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal
combination--piece of machinery, so to speak--compounded of the
Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider
not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well
adapted, but also let him study the history of its construction,
and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the
evidences of design, and concert of action, among its chief
master-workers from the beginning.
“But, so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by
the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the
point already gained, and give chance for more. The new year of
1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by
State Constitutions, and from most of the national territory by
Congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle,
which ended in repealing that Congressional prohibition. This
opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first
point gained.
“This necessity had not been overlooked, but had been
provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of
‘_squatter sovereignty_,’ otherwise called ‘_sacred right of
self-government_,’ which latter phrase, though expressive of the
only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this
attempted use of it as to amount to just this: that if any one man
choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object.
That argument was incorporated into the Nebraska Bill itself, in
the language which follows: ‘It being the true intent and meaning
of this act not to legislate slavery into any Territory or State,
nor exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own
way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States.’
“Then opened the roar of loose declamation in favor of ‘squatter
sovereignty,’ and ‘sacred right of self-government.’
“‘But,’ said opposition members, ‘let us be more specific--let us
_amend_ the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the
territory _may_ exclude slavery.’ ‘Not we,’ said the friends of the
measure; and down they voted the amendment.
“While the Nebraska Bill was passing through Congress, a law case,
involving the question of a negro’s freedom, by reason of his
owner having voluntarily taken him first into a free State and then
a territory covered by the Congressional prohibition, and held him
as a slave--for a long time in each--was passing through the U. S.
Circuit Court for the District of Missouri; and both the Nebraska
Bill and law suit were brought to a decision in the same month
of May, 1854. The negro’s name was ‘Dred Scott,’ which name now
designates the decision finally made in the case.
“Before the then next Presidential election case, the law came
to, and was argued in the Supreme Court of the United States;
but the decision of it was deferred until _after_ the election.
Still, _before_ the election, Senator Trumbull, on the floor of the
Senate, requests the leading advocate of the Nebraska Bill to state
_his opinion_ whether a people of a territory can constitutionally
exclude slavery from their limits; and the latter answers, ‘That is
a question for the Supreme Court.’
“The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the
_indorsement_, such as it was, secured. That was the _second_ point
gained. The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular
majority by nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps,
was not overwhelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing
President in his last annual message, as impressively as possible
echoed back upon the people the weight and authority of the
indorsement.
“The Supreme Court met again; did not announce their decision, but
ordered a re-argument. The Presidential inauguration came, and
still no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his
Inaugural Address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the
forthcoming decision, _whatever it might be_. Then, in a few days
came the decision.
“This was the third point gained.
“The reputed author of the Nebraska Bill finds an early occasion
to make a speech at this capitol indorsing the Dred Scott
decision and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new
President, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter
to indorse and strongly construe that decision, and to express his
astonishment that any different view had ever been entertained. At
length a squabble springs up between the President and the author
of the Nebraska Bill on the mere question of fact, whether the
Lecompton Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made by
the people of Kansas; and, in that squabble, the latter declares
that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares
not whether slavery be voted down or voted up. I do not understand
his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or
voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of
the policy he would impress upon the public mind--the principle for
which he declares he has suffered much, and is ready to suffer to
the end.
“And well may he cling to that principle. If he has any parental
feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the only shred
left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred Scott
decision, ‘squatter sovereignty’ squatted out of existence, tumbled
down like temporary scaffolding--like the mould at the foundry,
served through one blast, and fell back into loose sand--helped to
carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His late joint
struggle with the Republicans, against the Lecompton Constitution,
involves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That struggle
was made on a point--the right of a people to make their own
Constitution--upon which he and the Republicans have never differed.
“The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection
with Senator Douglas’s ‘care not’ policy, constitute the piece of
machinery in its present state of advancement. The working points
of that machinery are:
“First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no
descendant of such, can ever be a citizen of any State in the
sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States.
“This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every
possible event, of the benefit of this provision of the United
States Constitution, which declares that--‘The citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several States.’
“Secondly, that ‘subject to the Constitution of the United States,’
neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery
from any United States Territory.
“This point is made in order that individual men may fill up the
Territories with slaves, without danger of losing them as property,
and thus to enhance the chances of permanency to the institution
through all the future.
“Thirdly, that whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in
a free State makes him free, as against the holder, the United
States courts will not decide, but will leave it to be decided by
the courts of any slave State the negro may be forced into by the
master.
“This point is made, not to be pressed immediately; but, if
acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at
an election, then, to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred
Scott’s master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, in the free State
of Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one,
or one thousand slaves, in Illinois, or in any other free State.
“Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, the
Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate and mould
public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care
whether slavery is voted down or voted up.
“This shows exactly where we now are, and partially also, whither
we are tending.
“It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back and
run the mind over the string of historical facts already stated.
Several things will now appear less dark and mysterious than
they did when they were transpiring. The people were to be left
“perfectly free,” “subject only to the Constitution.” What the
Constitution had to do with it, outsiders could not then see.
Plainly enough now, it was an exactly fitted niche for the Dred
Scott decision afterward to come in, and declare that perfect
freedom of the people to be just no freedom at all.
“Why was the amendment expressly declaring the right of the people
to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of
it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision.
“Why was the court decision held up? Why even a Senator’s
individual opinion withheld till after the Presidential election?
Plainly enough now; the speaking out then would have damaged the
“_perfectly free_” argument upon which the election was to be
carried.
“Why the outgoing President’s felicitation on the indorsement? Why
the delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming President’s advance
exhortation in favor of the decision? These things look like the
cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse preparatory to
mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give the rider a
fall. And why the hasty after-indorsements of the decision, by the
President and others?
“We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the
result of pre-concert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers,
different portions of which we know have been gotten out, at
different times and places, and by different workmen--Stephen,
Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance--and when we see these
timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a
house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and
all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly
adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or
too few--not omitting even scaffolding--or, if a single piece be
lacking, we can see the place in the frame exactly fitted and
prepared to yet bring such piece in--in such a case, we find it
impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and
James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked
upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was
struck.
“It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people
of a State as well as Territory, were to be left ‘_perfectly
free_,’ ‘_subject only to the Constitution_.’ Why mention a State?
They were legislating for Territories, and not for or about States.
Certainly the people of a State are and ought to be subject to
the Constitution of the United States; but why is mention of this
lugged into this merely territorial law? Why are the people of
a Territory and the people of a State therein lumped together,
and their relation to the Constitution therein treated as being
precisely the same?
“While the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the
Dred Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring
judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United
States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, to
exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to
declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or
the people of a State, to exclude it. _Possibly_, this was a mere
_omission_; but who can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had
sought to get into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in
the people of a State to exclude slavery from their limits, just
as Chase and Mace sought to get such declaration, in behalf of the
people of a Territory, into the Nebraska bill--I ask, who can be
quite sure that it would not have been voted down, in the one case
as it had been in the other.
“The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a
State over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more
than once, using the precise idea, and almost the language, too,
of the Nebraska Act. On one occasion his exact language is, ‘except
in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the
United States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of
slavery within its jurisdiction.’
“In what cases the power of the State is so restrained by the
United States Constitution, is left an open question, precisely
as the same question, as to the restraint on the power of the
Territories was left open in the Nebraska Act. Put that and that
together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may ere
long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring
that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a State
to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be
expected if the doctrine of ‘care not whether slavery be voted down
or voted up,’ shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give
promise that such a decision can be maintained when made.
“Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike
lawful in all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is
probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the
present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall
lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on
the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the
reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave
State.
“To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the work now
before all those who would prevent that consummation. That is what
we have to do. But how can we best do it?
“There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and
yet whisper softly, that Senator Douglas is the _aptest_ instrument
there is, with which to effect that object. They do not tell us,
nor has he told us, that he wishes any such object to be effected.
They wish us to infer all, from the facts that he now has a little
quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has
regularly voted with us, on a single point, upon which he and we
have never differed.
“They remind us that _he_ is a very _great man_, and that the
largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. But ‘a
_living dog_ is better than a _dead lion_.’ Judge Douglas, if not
a _dead_ lion for this work, is at least a _caged_ and _toothless_
one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don’t care
anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the ‘public
heart’ to care nothing about it.
“A leading Douglas Democrat newspaper thinks Douglas’s superior
talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African
slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade
is approaching? He has not said so. Does he _really_ think so? But
if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove
it a _sacred right_ of white men to take negro slaves into the new
Territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right
to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And, unquestionably
they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia.
“He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of
slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can
he oppose the foreign slave-trade--how can he refuse that trade in
that ‘property’ shall be ‘perfectly free’--unless he does it as a
_protection_ to the home production? And as the home _producers_
will probably not ask the protection, he will be wholly without a
ground of opposition.
“Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser
to-day than he was yesterday--that he may rightfully change when he
finds himself wrong. But can we for that reason run ahead and infer
that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has
given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such
vague inferences?
“Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas’s position,
question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive
to him. Whenever, _if ever_, he and we can come together on
_principle_, so that our great cause may have assistance from his
great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle.
“But clearly, he is not now with us--he does not pretend to be--he
does not promise ever to be. Our cause, then, must be intrusted to,
and conducted by its own undoubted friends--those whose hands are
free, whose hearts are in the work--who do care for the result.
“Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen
hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of
resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance
against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we
gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle
through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud and
pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to falter now?--_now_--when
that same enemy is wavering, dissevered and belligerent?
“The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail--if we stand firm,
we shall not fail. _Wise counsels_ may _accelerate_ or _mistakes
delay_ it, but, sooner or later, the victory is _sure_ to come.”
In this most vigorously prosecuted canvass Illinois was stumped
throughout its length and breadth by both candidates and their
respective advocates, and the struggle was watched with interest by the
country at large. From county to county, from township to township, and
village to village the two champions travelled, frequently in the same
car or carriage, and in the presence of immense crowds of men, women,
and children--for the wives and daughters of the hardy yeomanry were
naturally interested--argued, face to face, the important points of
their political belief and contended nobly for the mastery.
In one of his speeches during this memorable campaign, Mr. Lincoln paid
the following tribute to the Declaration of Independence:--
“These communities, (the thirteen colonies,) by their
representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the world of men,
‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are born
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.’ This was their majestic interpretation of the economy
of the universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble
understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures.
Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family
of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the
Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on,
and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only
the race of men then living, but they reached forward and seized
upon the furthest posterity. They created a beacon to guide their
children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads
who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they
were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and
so they established these great self-evident truths that when, in
the distant future, some man, some faction, some interest, should
set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men,
or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again
to the Declaration of Independence, and take courage to renew the
battle, which their fathers began, so that truth, and justice,
and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be
extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to
limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of
liberty was being built.
“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting
with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if
you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its
grandeur, and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you
have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in
those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let
me entreat you to come back--return to the fountain whose waters
spring close by the blood of the Revolution. Think nothing of me,
take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever, but
come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence.
“You may do any thing with me you choose, if you will but heed
these sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the
Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending
no indifference to earthly honors, I _do claim_ to be actuated
in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office.
I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for
any man’s success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is
nothing. _But do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity--the
Declaration of American Independence._”
In the election which closed this contest, the Republican candidate
received 126,084 votes; the Douglas Democrats, 121,940; and the
Lecompton Democrats, 5,091. Mr. Douglas was, however, re-elected
to the Senate by the Legislature, in which, owing to the peculiar
apportionment of the legislative districts his supporters had a
majority of eight in joint ballot.
CHAPTER III.
BEFORE THE NATION.
Speeches in Ohio--Extract from his Cincinnati Speech--Visits
the East--Celebrated Speech at the Cooper Institute, New York--
Interesting Incident.
The issue of this contest with Douglas, seemingly a defeat, was
destined in due time to prove a decisive triumph. Mr. Lincoln’s
reputation as a skillful debater and master of political fence was
secure, and admitted throughout the land. During the year ensuing
he again devoted himself almost exclusively to professional labors,
delivering, however, in the campaign of 1859, at the earnest
solicitation of the Republicans of Ohio, two most convincing speeches
in that State, one at Columbus, and the other at Cincinnati.
In his speech in the latter city, alluding to the certainty of a speedy
Republican triumph in the nation, Mr. Lincoln thus sketched what he
regarded as the inevitable results of such a victory:
“I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the
opposition, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat you, as
nearly as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison
treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no way interfere
with your institution; to abide by all and every compromise of
the Constitution; and, in a word, coming back to the original
proposition to treat you, so far as degenerated men (if we have
degenerated) may, imitating the example of those noble fathers,
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. We mean to remember that you
are as good as we; that there is no difference between us other
than the difference of circumstances. We mean to recognize and
bear in mind always that you have as good hearts in your bosoms as
other people, or as we claim to have, and treat you accordingly.
We mean to marry your girls when we have a chance--the white ones
I mean--and I have the honor to inform you that I once did get a
chance in that way.
“I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, when that
thing takes place, what you mean to do. I often hear it intimated
that you mean to divide the Union whenever a Republican, or any
thing like it, is elected President of the United States. [A voice,
‘That is so.’] ‘That is so,’ one of them says. I wonder if he is a
Kentuckian? [A voice, ‘He is a Douglas man.’] Well, then, I want to
know what you are going to do with your half of it? Are you going
to split the Ohio down through, and push your half off a piece? Or
are you going to keep it right alongside of us outrageous fellows?
Or are you going to build up a wall some way between your country
and ours, by which that movable property of yours can’t come
over here any more, and you lose it? Do you think you can better
yourselves on that subject, by leaving us here under no obligation
whatever to return those specimens of your movable property that
come hither? You have divided the Union because we would not do
right with you, as you think, upon that subject; when we cease to
be under obligations to do any thing for you, how much better off
do you think you will be? Will you make war upon us and kill us
all? Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant and as brave men
as live; that you can fight as bravely in a good cause, man for
man, as any other people living; that you have shown yourselves
capable of this upon various occasions; but, man for man, you are
not better than we are, and there are not so many of you as there
are of us. You will never make much of a hand at whipping us. If
we were fewer in numbers than you, I think that you could whip us;
if we were equal it would likely be a drawn battle; but being
inferior in numbers, you will make nothing by attempting to master
us.
“I say that we must not interfere with the institution of Slavery
in the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it,
and the general welfare does not require us to do so. We must not
withhold an efficient fugitive slave law because the Constitution
requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law, but we
must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither
the constitution nor the general welfare requires us to extend it.
We must prevent the revival of the African slave-trade and the
enacting by Congress of a Territorial slave code. We must prevent
each of these things being done by either Congresses or Courts.
THE PEOPLE OF THESE UNITED STATES ARE THE RIGHTFUL MASTERS OF BOTH
CONGRESSES AND COURTS, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to
overthrow the men who pervert that Constitution.”
In the spring of 1860, Mr. Lincoln yielded to the urgent calls which
came to him from the East for his aid in the exciting canvasses then in
progress in that section, and spoke at various places in Connecticut,
New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and also in New York city, and was
everywhere warmly welcomed by immense audiences.
Without doubt, one of the greatest speeches of his life was that
delivered by him in the Cooper Institute, in New York, on the 27th of
February, 1860, in the presence of a crowded assembly which received
him with the most enthusiastic demonstrations. We subjoin a full report
of this masterly analysis of men and measures. After being introduced
in highly complimentary terms by the venerable William Cullen Bryant,
who presided on the occasion, he proceeded:
“MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with
which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor
is there any thing new in the general use I shall make of them. If
there shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting
the facts, and the inferences and observations following that
presentation.
“In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in _The
New York Times_, Senator Douglas said:
“‘Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
now.’
“I fully indorse this and I adopt it as a text for this discourse.
I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and agreed starting
point for the discussion between Republicans and that wing of
Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the inquiry:
‘What was the understanding those fathers had of the questions
mentioned?’
“What is the frame of Government under which we live?
“The answer must be: ‘The Constitution of the United States.’ That
Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787 (and under
which the present Government first went into operation), and twelve
subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed
in 1789.
“Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose
the ‘thirty-nine’ who signed the original instrument may be
fairly called our fathers who framed that part of the present
Government. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and
it is altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion
and sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names being
familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now
be repeated.
“I take these ‘thirty-nine,’ for the present, as being ‘our fathers
who framed the Government under which we live.’
“What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
understood just as well, and even better than we do now?
“It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal
authority, or any thing in the Constitution, forbid our Federal
Government control as to slavery in our Federal Territories?
“Upon this, Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans the
negative. This affirmative and denial form an issue; and this
issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our
fathers understood better than we.
“Let us now inquire whether the ‘thirty-nine,’ or any of them, ever
acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon
it--how they expressed that better understanding.
“In 1784--three years before the Constitution--the United States
then owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other--the Congress
of the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting
slavery in that Territory; and four of the ‘thirty-nine’ who
afterward framed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted
on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh
Williamson voted for the prohibition--thus showing that, in their
understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
any thing else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control
as to slavery in federal territory. The other of the four--James
McHenry--voted against the prohibition, showing that, for some
cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.
“In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the Convention
was in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory
still was the only territory owned by the United States--the
same question of prohibiting slavery in the territory again came
before the Congress of the Confederation; and three more of the
‘thirty-nine’ who afterward signed the Constitution, were in that
Congress, and voted on the question. They were William Blount,
William Few, and Abraham Baldwin; and they all voted for the
prohibition--thus showing that, in their understanding, no line
dividing local from federal authority, nor any thing else, properly
forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal
territory. This time the prohibition became a law, being part of
what is now well known as the Ordinance of ’87.
“The question of federal control of slavery in the territories,
seems not to have been directly before the Convention which framed
the original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
‘thirty-nine’ or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
expressed any opinion on that precise question.
“In 1789, by the First congress which sat under the Constitution,
an act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of ’87 including the
prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill
for this act was reported by one of the ‘thirty-nine,’ Thomas
Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of
opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
which is equivalent to an unanimous passage. In this Congress there
were sixteen of the ‘thirty-nine’ fathers who framed the original
Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman, Wm. S.
Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Patterson, George Clymer,
Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carrol, James
Madison.
“This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local
from federal authority, nor any thing in the Constitution, properly
forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory;
else both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to
support the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the
prohibition.
“Again, George Washington, another of the ‘thirty-nine,’ was then
President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed
the bill, thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing
that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from federal
authority, nor any thing in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
Government to control as to slavery in Federal territory.
“No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution,
North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now
constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia
ceded that which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and
Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the
ceding States that the Federal Government should not prohibit
slavery in the ceded country. Besides this, slavery was then
actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress,
on taking charge of these countries did not absolutely prohibit
slavery within them. But they did interfere with it--take control
of it--even there, to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized
the Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization they
prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory, from any
place without the United States, by fine and giving freedom to
slaves so brought. This act passed both branches of Congress
without yeas and nays. In that Congress were three of the
‘thirty-nine’ who framed the original Constitution. They were John
Langdon, George Read, and Abraham Baldwin. They all, probably,
voted for it. Certainly they would have placed their opposition to
it upon record, if, in their understanding, any line dividing local
from Federal authority, or any thing in the Constitution, properly
forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in Federal
territory.
“In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country.
Our former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own
States; but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign
nation. In 1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that
part of it which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New
Orleans, lying within that part, was an old and comparatively
large city. There were other considerable towns and settlements,
and slavery was extensively and thoroughly intermingled with
the people. Congress did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit
slavery; but they did interfere with it--take control of it--in
a more marked and extensive way than they did in the case of
Mississippi. The substance of the provision therein made, in
relation to slaves, was:
“_First._ That no slave should be imported into the territory from
foreign parts.
“_Second._ That no slave should be carried into it who had been
imported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
“_Third._ That no slave should be carried into it, except by the
owner, and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the
cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the
slave.
“This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress
which passed it, there were two of the ‘thirty-nine.’ They were
Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton. As stated in the case of
Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. They would not
have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition to it,
if, in their understanding, it violated either the line proper
dividing local from Federal authority or any provision of the
Constitution.
“In 1819-20, came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes
were taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress,
upon the various phases of the general question. Two of the
‘thirty-nine’--Rufus King and Charles Pinckney--were members of
that Congress. Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition
and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted
against slavery prohibition and against all compromises. By this
Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing local
from Federal authority, nor any thing in the Constitution, was
violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in Federal territory;
while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed that in his understanding
there was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in
that case.
“The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the ‘thirty-nine,’
or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
discover.
“To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784,
three in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and
two in 1819-20--there would be thirty-one of them. But this would
be counting John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King,
and George Read, each twice, and Abraham Baldwin four times. The
true number of those of the ‘thirty-nine’ whom I have shown to have
acted upon the question, which, by the text they understood better
than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted
upon it in any way.
“Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our ‘thirty-nine’ fathers
who framed the government under which we live, who have, upon
their official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon
the very question which the text affirms they ‘understood just as
well, and even better than we do now;’ and twenty-one of them--a
clear majority of the ‘thirty-nine’--so acting upon it as to make
them guilty of gross political impropriety, and wilful perjury,
if, in their understanding, any proper division between local and
Federal authority, or any thing in the Constitution they had made
themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government
to control as to slavery in the Federal territories. Thus the
twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
actions under such responsibility speak still louder.
“Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
slavery in the Federal Territories, in the instances in which they
acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division
of local from Federal authority, or some provision or principle of
the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
question, have voted against the prohibition, on what appeared to
them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn
to support the Constitution, can conscientiously vote for what he
understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient
he may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure
which he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it
inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the
two who voted against the prohibition, as having done so because,
in their understanding, any proper division of local from Federal
authority, or any thing in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
Government to control as to slavery in Federal Territory.
“The remaining sixteen of the ‘thirty-nine,’ so far as I have
discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
direct question of Federal control of slavery in the Federal
Territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
all.
“For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested, by any
person, however distinguished, other than the ‘thirty-nine’ fathers
who framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I
have also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested
by any of the ‘thirty-nine’ even, on any other phase of the
general question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and
declarations on those other phases, as the foreign slave-trade,
and the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would appear
to us that on the direct question of Federal control of slavery
in Federal Territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all,
would probably have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among
that sixteen were several of the most noted anti-slavery men of
those times--as Dr. Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Governeur
Morris--while there was not one now known to have been otherwise,
unless it may be John Rutledge, of South Carolina.
“The sum of the whole is, that of our ‘thirty-nine’ fathers who
framed the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority
of the whole--certainly understood that no proper division of
local from Federal authority nor any part of the Constitution,
forbade the Federal Government to control slavery in the
Federal Territories, while all the rest probably had the same
understanding. Such, unquestionably, was the understanding of our
fathers who framed the original Constitution; and the text affirms
that they understood the question better than we.
“But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In
and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending
it; and, as I have already stated, the present frame of government
under which we live consists of that original, and twelve
amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist
that Federal control of slavery in Federal territories violates
the Constitution, point us to the provisions which they suppose it
thus violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon provisions
in these amendatory articles, and not in the original instrument.
The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the
fifth amendment, which provides that ‘no person shall be deprived
of property without due process of law;’ while Senator Douglas and
his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the tenth commandment,
providing that ‘the powers not granted by the Constitution are
reserved to the States respectively, and to the people.’
“Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
Congress which sat under the Constitution--the identical Congress
which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition
of slavery in the north-western territory. Not only was it the
same Congress, but they were the identical, same individual men
who, at the same time within the session, had under consideration,
and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional amendments,
and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory the nation
then owned. The Constitutional amendments were introduced before,
and passed after the act enforcing the Ordinance of ’87; so that
during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance, the
Constitutional amendments were also pending.
“That Congress, consisting in all of seventy-six members, including
sixteen of the framers of the original Constitution, as before
stated, were pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of
the government under which we live, which is now claimed as
forbidding the Federal Government to control slavery in the Federal
Territories.
“Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day, to
affirm that the two things which that Congress deliberately
framed, and carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely
inconsistent with each other? And does not such affirmation become
impudently absurd when coupled with the other affirmation, from
the same mouth, that those who did the two things alleged to be
inconsistent, understood whether they were really inconsistent,
better than we--better than he who affirms that they are
inconsistent.
“It is surely safe to assume that the ‘thirty-nine’ framers of the
original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
include those who may be fairly called ‘our fathers who framed the
government under which we live.’ And so assuming, I defy any man to
show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that,
in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal
authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
government to control as to slavery in the Federal territories. I
go a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in
the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present
century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last
half of the present century), declare that, in his understanding,
any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of
the Constitution, forbade the Federal government to control as to
slavery in the Federal territories. To those who now so declare, I
give, not only ‘our fathers who framed the government under which
we live,’ but with them all other living men within the century in
which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be
able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
“Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood.
I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever
our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of
current experience--we reject all progress--all improvement. What I
do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our
fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive,
and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly
considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case
whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better
than we.
“If any man, at this day, sincerely believes that a proper division
of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
forbids the Federal government to control as to slavery in the
Federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can.
But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to
history and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
‘our fathers, who framed the government under which we live,’ were
of the same opinion, thus substituting falsehood and deception for
truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man, at this day,
sincerely believes ‘our fathers, who framed the government under
which we live,’ used and applied principles, in other cases, which
ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of
local from Federal authority, or some part of the Constitution,
forbids the Federal government to control as to slavery in the
Federal territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the
same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his
opinion, he understands their principles better than they did
themselves; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility
by asserting that they ‘understood the question just as well, and
even better than we do now.’
“But enough. Let all who believe that ‘our fathers, who framed the
government under which we live,’ understood this question just as
well, and even better than we do now,’ speak as they spoke, and act
as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask, all Republicans
desire, in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so
let it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual
presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly,
but fully and fairly maintained. For this Republicans contend, and
with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.
“And now, if they would listen--as I suppose they will not--I would
address a few words to the Southern people.
“I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and
a just people; and I consider that, in the general qualities of
reason and justice, you are not inferior to any other people.
Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to
denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than
outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but
nothing like it to ‘Black Republicans.’ In all your contentions
with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation
of ‘Black Republicanism’ as the first thing to be attended to.
Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable
prerequisite--license, so to speak--among you to be admitted or
permitted to speak at all.
“Now can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider
whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves?
“Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient
long enough to hear us deny or justify.
“You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and
the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what
is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets
no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but
does it prove the issue? If it does, then, in case we should,
without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section,
we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this
conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are,
you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional,
for we shall get votes in your section this very year. You will
then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof
does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your
section is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there
be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains
so until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or
practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice,
the fault is ours; but this brings us to where you ought to have
started--to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. If
our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the
benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and
we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as
such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put
in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were
possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept the
challenge? No? Then you really believe that the principle which
our fathers, who framed the government under which we live, thought
so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again
upon their official oaths, is, in fact, so clearly wrong as to
demand your condemnation without a moment’s consideration.
“Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address.
Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had,
as President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
Congress enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
Territory, which act embodied the policy of the government upon
that subject, up to and at the very moment he penned that warning;
and about one year after he penned it he wrote Lafayette that he
considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing, in the same
connection, his hope that we should some time have a confederacy of
free States.
“Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since
arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your
hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington
himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon
us, who sustain his policy, or upon you, who repudiate it? We
respect that warning of Washington, and we commend it to you,
together with his example pointing to the right application of it.
“But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while
we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What
is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried against
the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical
old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by our
fathers who framed the government under which we live; while
you, with one accord, reject, and scout, and spit upon that old
policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you
disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be.
You have considerable variety of new propositions and plans, but
you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of
the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave-trade;
some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for
Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit slavery within
their limits; some for maintaining slavery in the Territories
through the Judiciary; some for the ‘gur-reat pur-rinciple’ that,
‘if one man would enslave another, no third man should object,’
fantastically called ‘Popular Sovereignty;’ but never a man
among you in favor of Federal prohibition of slavery in Federal
Territories, according to the practice of our fathers who framed
the government under which we live. Not one of all your various
plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within
which our government originated. Consider, then, whether your claim
of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge of destructiveness
against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.
“Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent
than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more
prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you,
who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still
resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of
the question. Would you have that question reduced to its former
proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be
again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of
the old times, re-adopt the precepts and policy of the old times.
“You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We
deny it. And what is your proof? Harper’s Ferry! John Brown! John
Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our
party is guilty in that matter, you know it, or you do not know
it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable to not designate the
man, and prove the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable
to assert it, and especially to persist in the assertion after you
have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that
persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true is simply
malicious slander.
“Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or
encouraged the Harper’s Ferry affair; but still insist that our
doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We
do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no
declarations which were not held to and made by our fathers who
framed the government under which we live. You never deal fairly by
us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important
State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee
with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get
an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and
your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man
knew that, as to himself, at least, your charge was a slander,
and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your
favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with
a continual protest against any interference whatever with your
slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not
encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common with our fathers,
who framed the government under which we live, declare our belief
that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even
this. For any thing we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know
there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, in fact,
generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us in their
hearing. In your political contest among yourselves, each faction
charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then,
to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply
be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves.
“Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before
the Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three
times as many lives were lost as at Harper’s Ferry? You can
scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that
Southampton was got up by Black Republicanism. In the present state
of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or even a
very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The indispensable
concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means of
rapid communication; nor can incendiary free men, black or white,
supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels;
but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the indispensable
connecting trains.
“Much is said by southern people about the affection of slaves for
their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true.
A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated
to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of
a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule;
and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a
case occurring under peculiar circumstances. The gunpowder plot of
British history, though not connected with the slaves, was more in
point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret;
and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the
plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.
Occasional poisoning from the kitchen, and open or stealthy
assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score
or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery;
but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in
this country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes,
for such an event, will be alike disappointed.
“In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, ‘It is
still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and
deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil
will wear off insensibly; and their places be, _pari passu_, filled
up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force
itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up.’
“Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia;
and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding
States only.
“The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of
restraining the extension of the institution--the power to insure
that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil
which is now free from slavery.
“John Brown’s effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.
It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd
that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds
with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination
of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression
of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to
liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else
than in his own execution. Orsini’s attempt on Louis Napoleon, and
John Brown’s attempt at Harper’s Ferry were, in their philosophy,
precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in
the one case, and on New England in the other, does not disprove
the sameness of the two things.
“And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of
John Brown, Helper’s book, and the like, break up the Republican
organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but
human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling
against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a
half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that
sentiment--by breaking up the political organization which rallies
around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has
been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if
you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which
created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some
other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the
number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?
“But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
your Constitutional rights.
“That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated,
if not fully justified, were we proposing by the mere force of
numbers, to deprive you of some right plainly written down in the
Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.
“When you make these declarations, you have a specific and
well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of
yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and hold them
there as property, but no such right is specifically written in
the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any
such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any
existence in the Constitution, even by implication.
“Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy
the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you
and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.
“This, plainly stated, is your language to us. Perhaps you will say
the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question
in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer’s distinction
between dictum and decision, the Courts have decided the question
for you in a sort of way. The Courts have substantially said,
it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the Federal
Territories, and to hold them there as property.
“When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was
made in a divided Court by a bare majority of the Judges, and they
not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it;
that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one
another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a
mistaken statement of fact--the statement in the opinion that ‘the
right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed
in the Constitution.’
“An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly affirmed in
it. Bear in mind the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion
that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but
they pledge their veracity that it is distinctly and expressly
affirmed there--‘distinctly’ that is, not mingled with anything
else--‘expressly’ that is, in words meaning just that, without the
aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.
“If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right
is affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open
to others to show that neither the word ‘slave’ nor ‘slavery’ is
to be found in the Constitution, nor the word ‘property’ even,
in any connection with language alluding to the things slave, or
slavery, and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded
to, he is called a ‘person;’ and wherever his master’s legal right
in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as ‘service or
labor due,’ as a ‘debt’ payable in service or labor. Also, it would
be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of
alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was
employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that
there could be property in man.
“To show all this is easy and certain.
“When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their
notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?
“And then it is to be remembered that ‘our fathers, who framed
the Government under which we live’--the men who made the
Constitution--decided this same Constitutional question in our
favor, long ago--decided it without a division among themselves,
when making the decision; without division among themselves about
the meaning of it after it was made, and so far as any evidence is
left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.
“Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
justified to break up this Government, unless such a court decision
as yours is shall be at once submitted to, as a conclusive and
final rule of political action.
“But you will not abide the election of a Republican President. In
that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then,
you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us!
“That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters
through his teeth, ‘stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and
then you will be a murderer!’
“To be sure, what the robber demanded of me--my money--was my own;
and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than
my vote is my own; and threat of death to me, to extort my money,
and threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can
scarcely be distinguished in principle.
“A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that
all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in
harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have
it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion
and ill-temper. Even though the southern people will not so much
as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield
to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can.
Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of
their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will
satisfy them?
“Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present
complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy
them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and
insurrections? We know it will not. We so know because we know we
never had any thing to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
denunciation.
“The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We
must not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them
that we do let them alone. This we know by experience, is no
easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very
beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our
platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose
to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them.
Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have never
detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.
“These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what
will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery
_wrong_, and join them in calling it _right_. And this must be done
thoroughly--done in _acts_ as well as in _words_. Silence will not
be tolerated--we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Douglas’s
new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all
declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in
presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return
their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our
Free-State Constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected
from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to
believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
“I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this
way. Most of them would probably say to us, ‘Let us alone, do
nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery.’ But we do
let them alone--have never disturbed them--so that, after all,
it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue to
accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.
“I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the
overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions. Yet those Constitutions
declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do all
other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall
have been silenced, the overthrow of these Constitutions will be
demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing
to the contrary, that they do not demand the whole of this just
now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can
voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as
they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating,
they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a
legal right and a social blessing.
“Nor can we justifiably withhold this, on any ground save our
conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and
should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly
object to its nationality--its universality; if it is wrong, they
cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they
ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their
thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact
upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition,
as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to
them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own?
In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can
we do this?
“Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and
to overrun us here in these Free States?
“If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our
duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of
those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously
plied and belabored--contrivances such as groping for some middle
ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a
man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man--such as a
policy of ‘dont care’ on a question about which all true men do
care--such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield
to Disunionists, reversing the Divine rule, and calling, not the
sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such as invocations to
Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo
what Washington did.
“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
against us, not frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that
right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to
do our duty as we understand it.”
It was during this visit to New York that the following incident
occurred, as related by a teacher in the Five-Points House of Industry,
in that city:
“Our Sunday-school in the Five-Points was assembled, one
Sabbath morning, a few months since, when I noticed a tall and
remarkable-looking man enter the room and take a seat among
us. He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and his
countenance manifested such genuine interest that I approached him
and suggested that he might be willing to say something to the
children. He accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, and,
coming forward, began a simple address, which at once fascinated
every little hearer, and hushed the room into silence. His language
was strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical with intensest
feeling. The little faces around would droop into sad conviction as
he uttered sentences of warning, and would brighten into sunshine
as he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or twice he attempted
to close his remarks, but the imperative shout of ‘Go on!’ ‘Oh,
do go on!’ would compel him to resume. As I looked upon the gaunt
and sinewy frame of the stranger, and marked his powerful head and
determined features, now touched into softness by the impressions
of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity to learn something
more about him, and when he was quietly leaving the room I begged
to know his name. He courteously replied, ‘It is Abra’m Lincoln,
from Illinois!’”
CHAPTER IV.
NOMINATED AND ELECTED PRESIDENT.
The Republican National Convention--Democratic Convention--
Constitutional Union Convention--Ballotings at Chicago--The
Result--Enthusiastic Reception--Visit to Springfield--Address
and Letter of Acceptance--The Campaign--Result of the Election--
South Carolina’s Movements--Buchanan’s pusillanimity--Secession
of states--Confederate Constitution--Peace Convention--
Constitutional Amendments--Terms of the Rebels.
On the 16th of May, 1860, the Republican National Convention met at
Chicago, to present candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency.
The Democratic Convention had previously adjourned, after a stormy
session of some two weeks, at which it was apparent that, if Mr.
Douglas’s friends persisted in placing him in nomination, another
candidate would be presented by the wing opposed to his peculiar views
on the slavery question, and the great party would thus be disrupted.
Another convention, claiming to represent, in a peculiarly individual
manner, the party in favor of the Constitution and the Union, had met
at Baltimore and put in nomination John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward
Everett, of Massachusetts.
The aspect seemed favorable for the election of the Republican
candidates, and that convention, on the morning of the 18th of May--one
day having been spent in organizing and another in the adoption of
a platform of principles--amid the intense excitement of the twelve
thousand people inside of the “Wigwam” (as the building was styled in
which the body was in session), voted to proceed at once to ballot for
a candidate for President of the United States.
Seven names were formally presented in the following order: William H.
Seward, of New York; Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois; William L. Dayton,
of New Jersey; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania; Salmon P. Chase, of
Ohio; Edward Bates, of Missouri; and John McLean, of Ohio.
On the first ballot Mr. Seward received 173 votes, Mr. Lincoln 102,
Mr. Cameron 50, Mr. Chase 49, Mr. Bates 48, Mr. Dayton 14, Mr. McLean
12, and there were 16 votes scattered among candidates not put in
nomination. For a choice, 233 votes were required.
On the second ballot (Mr. Cameron’s name having been withdrawn) the
vote for the several candidates was as follows: Mr. Seward 184, Mr.
Lincoln 181, Mr. Chase 42, Mr. Bates 35, Mr. Dayton 10, Mr. McLean 8,
scattering 4.
The third ballot was immediately taken, and, when the call of the roll
was ended, the footings were as follows: For Mr. Lincoln 231, Mr.
Seward 180, Mr. Chase 24, Mr. Bates. 22, all others 7. Immediately
before the result was announced, four Ohio delegates changed their
votes to Mr. Lincoln, giving him a majority.
The scene which followed--the wild, almost delirious outburst of
applause within and without the building, the congratulations, the
hand-shakings, the various manifestations of joy, continued with
scarcely any interruption for some three-quarters of an hour--was
probably never before witnessed in a popular assembly.
The nomination having been made unanimous, the ticket was completed by
the selection of Senator Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, as Vice-President.
The country then felt that the right man had for once been put in the
right place. As a man of the people, in cordial sympathy with the
masses, Mr. Lincoln enjoyed the unhesitating confidence of the sincere
friends of free labor, regardless of party distinctions. His tried
integrity and incorruptible honesty gave promise of a return to the
better days of the republic. Every man, laboring for the advancement
of his fellow, knew that in him humanity, irrespective of race or
condition, had a tried and trusty friend.
The committee, appointed to apprise him of his nomination, found him
at his home, in Springfield, a frame two-storied house, apparently
about thirty-five or forty feet square, standing at the corner of two
streets. After entering the parlor, which was very plainly furnished,
though in good taste, a brief address was made by the chairman of the
convention, upon the utterance of the first sentence of which a smile
played round Mr. Lincoln’s large, firm-set mouth, his eyes lit up, and
his face conveyed to those who then for the first time met him, an
impression of that sincere, loving nature which those who had known him
long and well had learned in some measure to comprehend and revere.
* * * * *
In response to this address, Mr. Lincoln said:
“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.”
In reply to the formal letter of the President of the Convention,
apprising him of the nomination, Mr. Lincoln addressed the following:
“_Springfield, Illinois_, May 23d, 1860.
“HON. GEORGE ASHMAN, _President of the Republican National
Convention_.
“SIR: I accept the nomination tendered me by the Convention
over which you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in
the letter of yourself and others, acting as a Committee of the
Convention for that purpose.
“The declaration of principles and sentiments, which accompanies
your letter, meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to
violate, or disregard it, in any part.
“Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard
to the views and feelings of all who were represented in the
Convention; to the rights of all the States and Territories, and
people of the nation; to the inviolability of the Constitution, and
the perpetual union, harmony and prosperity of all, I am most happy
to co-operate for the practical success of the principles declared
by the Convention,
“Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,
“ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”
The breach in the Democratic party, threatened at Charleston, was
subsequently effected by the nomination of Stephen A. Douglas
and Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, by one wing, and of John C.
Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon, by the other.
Although the election of Mr. Lincoln was, under the circumstances,
almost a foregone conclusion, yet the canvass which ensued was
acrimonious and vindictive in the extreme, the choicest selections from
the rank Billingsgate vocabularies being lavished on the head of Mr.
Lincoln and his supporters.
On the 6th of November, 1860, Mr. Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes,
securing the electoral votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, California, Oregon, and four votes of New Jersey, 180 in
all; Douglas, 1,375,157 votes, and the electoral votes of Missouri, and
three of New Jersey, 12 in all; Breckinridge, 847,953, and the votes of
Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, 72 in all; and
Bell, 590,631, and the votes of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, 39
in all.
And now was to be tested whether words were to ripen into
deeds--whether threats would be reduced to practice--whether, indeed,
there were madness enough in any State or States to attempt the life of
the republic. Unfortunately, a short space of time elapsed before all
doubts were at an end. Men were to be found--not confined to a single
State, but representatives of nearly, if not quite all--not to be
counted by scores or hundreds even, but by thousands, and soon by tens
of thousands--ready to lay their unhallowed hands upon the Union, the
ark of our nation’s glory and strength.
To South Carolina belongs the bold, bad eminence of taking the
initiation in this conspiracy against the interests of humanity. While
this State--doomed forever after to an ignominy from which centuries
of unquestioned loyalty cannot free her--was taking the requisite
steps toward secession, the then President, James Buchanan, with a
pusillanimity--to use no stronger term--which modern history certainly
has never paralleled, in his annual message, after having urged the
unconstitutionality of the proceeding, gave explicit notification that
he had no constitutional power to prevent the proposed measures being
hastened to successful completion. Neither, though appealed to, at a
still earlier day, by the veteran chief of the army, to occupy and hold
the United States on the Southern coast, could he find any warrant for
protecting and defending the national property.
Surely nothing more could the conspirators have desired. On the 20th of
December, 1860, South Carolina claims to secede--Government forts and
arsenals are seized, and placed under the protection of the flag of the
State. Georgia’s Governor lays hand on the United States forts on the
coast of that State, on the 3d of January, 1861; as did the Executive
of Alabama on the following day.
Events of a startling nature follow in rapid succession. On the 9th
of January, hostile shots are fired upon a vessel bringing tardy
reinforcements to Fort Sumter, and Mississippi assumes to put herself
out of the Union. Alabama, Florida, and Georgia are not laggard;
nor are Texas and Louisiana found wanting. Cabinet officers from
the slave States either resigned, after having aided the fell work
to their utmost, or remained only to hasten its consummation. A new
constitution, “temporary” in its nature, was declared by delegates from
the seven States then in rebellion, and a President and Vice-President
appointed.
Meanwhile a convention, composed of delegates from most of the Free
States, and from all the border Slave States, was striving, at
Washington, to heal existing difficulties by compromise. Of its members
some were acting in good faith, others were using it as a breakwater
for the States already in overt rebellion. A series of resolutions,
however, aiming at peace on the basis of a preserved Union was agreed
to by a majority, and the body adjourned on the 1st of March.
On the 11th of February, moreover, the National House of
Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution--shortly afterward
concurred in by the Senate--providing for an amendment to the
Constitution, forever prohibiting any Congressional legislation
interfering with slavery in any State. Some there were, too, who were
willing to concede almost every thing and surrender the long mooted
question of slavery in the territories by the adoption of the so-called
Crittenden resolutions, which were killed in cold blood by Southern
Senators.
But no concession, short of actual national degradation, would satisfy
the recusants. Jefferson Davis, the head of the “Confederacy,” on
placing himself at the head of the rebellion, at Montgomery, Alabama,
February 18th, modestly defined the position of himself and his
co-conspirators thus:
“If a just perception of neutral interest shall permit us peaceably
to pursue our separate political career, my most earnest desire will
have been fulfilled. But if this be denied us, and the integrity of our
territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us with
firm resolve to appeal to arms, and invoke the blessing of Providence
on a just cause.”
This was at once clinched by a recommendation that “a well-instructed,
disciplined army, more numerous than would usually be required, on a
peace establishment,” should be at once organized and put in training
for the emergency.
CHAPTER V.
TO WASHINGTON.
The Departure--Farewell Remarks--Speech at Toledo--At
Indianapolis--At Cincinnati--At Columbus--At Steubenville--
At Pittsburgh--At Cleveland--At Buffalo--At Albany--At
Poughkeepsie--At New York--At Trenton--At Philadelphia--At
“Independence Hall”--Flag-raising--Speech at Harrisburg--Secret
Departure for Washington--Comments.
Thus matters stood--the air filled with mutterings of an approaching
storm--the most filled with a certain undefinable anxiety--the hearts
of many failing them through fear--when, on the morning of the 11th of
February, 1861, the President elect with his family, bade adieu to that
prairie home which, alas! he was never again to see.
* * * * *
The large throng which had assembled at the railway station on the
occasion of his departure, he addressed in words replete with the
pathos of every true manly nature:
“MY FRIENDS:--No one, not in my position, can appreciate the
sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I
am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century; here my
children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not
how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which
is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other
man since the days of Washington. He never could have succeeded
except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times
relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid
which sustained him; and in the same Almighty being I place my
reliance for support, and I hope you, my friends, will all pray
that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I can not
succeed, but with which success is certain. Again, I bid you all an
affectionate farewell.”
Along the route, multitudes gathered at the stations to greet him. At
Toledo, Ohio, in reply to repeated calls, he appeared on the platform
of the car and said:
“I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended, as
you are aware, with considerable difficulties. Let us believe, as
some poet has expressed it, ‘Behind the cloud the sun is shining
still.’ I bid you an affectionate farewell.”
At Indianapolis, on the evening of the same day, in reply to an
official address of welcome, he gave the first direct public intimation
of his views concerning the absorbing topics of the day, in which
homely sense and cheerful pleasantry were blended with a skill beyond
the power of mere art:
“FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE STATE OF INDIANA:--I am here to thank you
for this magnificent welcome, and still more for the very generous
support given by your State to that political cause, which, I
think, is the true and just cause of the whole country, and the
whole world. Solomon says, ‘there is a time to keep silence;’ and
when men wrangle by the mouth, with no certainty that they mean the
same thing while using the same words, it perhaps were as well if
they would keep silence.
“The words ‘coercion’ and ‘invasion’ are much used in these days,
and often with some temper and hot blood. Let us make sure, if we
can, that we do not misunderstand the meaning of those who use
them. Let us get the exact definitions of these words, not from
dictionaries, but from the men themselves, who certainly deprecate
the things they would represent by the use of the words.
“What, then, is coercion? What is invasion? Would the marching of
an army into South Carolina, without the consent of her people, and
with hostile intent toward them, be invasion? I certainly think it
would, and it would be coercion also, if the South Carolinians were
forced to submit. But if the United States should merely hold and
retake its own forts and other property, and collect the duties on
foreign importations, or even withhold the mails from places where
they were habitually violated, would any or all of these things be
invasion or coercion? Do our professed lovers of the Union, who
spitefully resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion,
understand that such things as these, on the part of the United
States, would be coercion or invasion of a State? If so, their idea
of means to preserve the object of their great affection would seem
to be exceedingly thin and airy. If sick, the little pills of the
homeopathist would be much too large for it to swallow. In their
view, the Union, as a family relation, would seem to be no regular
marriage, but rather a sort of ‘free-love’ arrangement, to be
maintained on passional attraction.
“By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a State?
I speak not of the position assigned to a State in the Union
by the Constitution, for that is a bond we all recognize. That
position, however, a State cannot carry out of the Union with
it. I speak of that assumed primary right of a State to rule all
which is less than itself, and to ruin all which is larger than
itself. If a State and a County, in a given case, should be equal
in number of inhabitants, in what, as a matter of principle, is
the State better than the County? Would an exchange of name be
an exchange of rights? Upon what principle, upon what rightful
principle, may a State, being no more than one-fiftieth part of
the nation in soil and population, break up the nation, and then
coerce a proportionally large sub-division of itself in the most
arbitrary way? What mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred
on a district or country with its people, by merely calling it a
State? Fellow citizens, I am not asserting any thing. I am merely
asking questions for you to consider. And now allow me to bid you
farewell.”
Proceeding to Cincinnati, he received a most enthusiastic welcome.
Having been addressed by the mayor of the city, and escorted by a
civic and military procession to the Burnet House, he addressed the
assemblage in these words:
“FELLOW-CITIZENS: I have spoken but once before this in Cincinnati.
That was a year previous to the late Presidential election. On that
occasion in a playful manner, but with sincere words, I addressed
much of what I said to the Kentuckians. I gave my opinion that we,
as Republicans, would ultimately beat them as Democrats, but that
they could postpone the result longer by nominating Senator Douglas
for the Presidency than they could in any other way. They did not,
in any true sense of the word, nominate Mr. Douglas, and the result
has come certainly as soon as ever I expected.
“I also told them how I expected they would be treated after they
should have been beaten, and now wish to call their attention to
what I then said:
“‘When we do, as we say we will, beat you, you perhaps want to
know what we will do with you. I will tell you--as far as I
am authorized to speak for the opposition--what we mean to do
with you. We mean to treat you as near as we possibly can, as
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison treated you. We mean to leave
you alone, and in no way to interfere with your institutions; to
abide by all and every compromise of the Constitution. In a word,
coming back to the original proposition, to treat you, as far as
degenerate men--if we have degenerated--may, according to the
example of those noble fathers, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison.
We mean to remember that you are as good as we; that there is no
difference between us other than the difference of circumstances.
We mean to recognize and bear in mind always that you have as good
hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as we claim to have, and
to treat you accordingly.’
“Fellow-citizens of Kentucky, friends, brethren: May I call you
such? In my new position I see no occasion and feel no inclination
to retract a word of this. If it shall not be made good be assured
that the fault shall not be mine.”
On the next morning he left Cincinnati, and arrived at Columbus, where
he was received with every demonstration of enthusiasm. He visited the
Governor in the Executive Chamber, and was subsequently introduced to
the members of the Legislature in joint session, when he was formally
welcomed by the Lieutenant-Governor, to whom Mr. Lincoln responded in
these words:
“It is true, as has been said by the President of the Senate,
that very great responsibility rests upon me in the position to
which the votes of the American people have called me. I am deeply
sensible of that weighty responsibility. I cannot but know, what
you all know, that without a name--perhaps without a reason why I
should have a name--there has fallen upon me a task such as did not
rest upon the Father of his Country. And so feeling, I cannot but
turn and look for the support without which it will be impossible
for me to perform that great task. I turn, then, and look to the
American people, and to that God who has never forsaken them.
“Allusion has been made to the interest felt in relation to the
policy of the new Administration. In this, I have received from
some a degree of credit for having kept silence, from others
some depreciation. I still think I was right. In the varying and
repeatedly shifting scenes of the present, without a precedent
which could enable me to judge for the past, it has seemed fitting,
that before speaking upon the difficulties of the country I should
have gained a view of the whole field. To be sure, after all, I
would be at liberty to modify and change the course of policy as
future events might make a change necessary.
“I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety. It
is a good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is
nothing going wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that when we
look out there is nothing that really hurts anybody. We entertain
different views upon political questions, but nobody is suffering
any thing. This is a most consoling circumstance, and from it I
judge that all we want is time and patience, and a reliance on that
God who has never forsaken this people.”
On the 14th of February, Mr. Lincoln proceeded to Pittsburgh. At
Steubenville, on the route, in reply to an address, he said:
“I fear the great confidence placed in my ability is unfounded.
Indeed, I am sure it is. Encompassed by vast difficulties, as I am,
nothing shall be wanted on my part, if sustained by the American
people and God. I believe the devotion to the Constitution is
equally great on both sides of the river. It is only the different
understanding of that instrument that causes difficulties. The only
dispute is ‘What are their rights?’ If the majority should not
rule who should be the judge? Where is such a judge to be found?
We should all be bound by the majority of the American people--if
not, then the minority must control. Would that be right? Would it
be just or generous? Assuredly not.” He reiterated, the majority
should rule. If he adopted a wrong policy, then the opportunity to
condemn him would occur in four years’ time. “Then I can be turned
out and a better man with better views put in my place.”
The next morning he left for Cleveland, but before his departure he
made an address to the people of Pittsburgh, in which he said:
“In every short address I have made to the people, and in every
crowd through which I have passed of late, some allusion has
been made to the present distracted condition of the country.
It is naturally expected that I should say something upon this
subject, but to touch upon it at all would involve an elaborate
discussion of a great many questions and circumstances, would
require more time than I can at present command, and would perhaps
unnecessarily commit me upon matters which have not yet fully
developed themselves.
“The condition of the country, fellow-citizens, is an extraordinary
one, and fills the mind of every patriot with anxiety and
solicitude. My intention is to give this subject all the
consideration which I possibly can before I speak fully and
definitely in regard to it, so that, when I do speak, I may be as
nearly right as possible. And when I do speak, fellow-citizens,
I hope to say nothing in opposition to the spirit of the
Constitution, contrary to the integrity of the Union, or which will
in any way prove inimical to the liberties of the people or to the
peace of the whole country. And, furthermore, when the time arrives
for me to speak on this great subject, I hope to say nothing
which will disappoint the reasonable expectations of any man, or
disappoint the people generally throughout the country, especially
if their expectations have been based upon any thing which I may
have heretofore said.
“Notwithstanding the troubles across the river [the speaker,
smiling, pointed southwardly to the Monongahela river], there is
really no crisis springing from any thing in the Government itself.
In plain words, there is really no crisis except an artificial one.
What is there now to warrant the condition of affairs presented
by our friends ‘over the river?’ Take even their own view of the
questions involved, and there is nothing to justify the course
which they are pursuing. I repeat it, then, there is no crisis,
except such a one as may be gotten up at any time by turbulent
men, aided by designing politicians. My advice, then, under such
circumstances, is to keep cool. If the great American people will
only keep their temper on both sides of the line, the trouble will
come to an end, and the question which now distracts the country
will be settled just as surely as all other difficulties of like
character which have originated in this government have been
adjusted. Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession,
and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so
will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as
heretofore.”
He then referred to the subject of the tariff, and said:
“According to my political education, I am inclined to believe that
the people in the various portions of the country should have their
own views carried out through their representatives in Congress.
That consideration of the tariff bill should not be postponed until
the next session of the National Legislature. No subject should
engage your representatives more closely than that of the tariff.
If I have any recommendation to make, it will be that every man who
is called upon to serve the people, in a representative capacity,
should study the whole subject thoroughly, as I intend to do
myself, looking to all the varied interests of the common country,
so that, when the time for action arrives, adequate protection
shall be extended to the coal and iron of Pennsylvania, and the
corn of Illinois. Permit me to express the hope that this important
subject may receive such consideration at the hands of your
representatives that the interests of no part of the country may be
overlooked, but that all sections may share in the common benefits
of a just and equitable tariff.”
Mr. Lincoln, upon his arrival in Cleveland, adverted to the same
subject in the following terms:
“It is with you, the people, to advance the great cause of the
Union and the Constitution, and not with any one man. It rests
with you alone. This fact is strongly impressed on my mind at
present. In a community like this, whose appearance testifies to
their intelligence, I am convinced that the cause of liberty and
the Union can never be in danger. Frequent allusion is made to the
excitement at present existing in national politics. I think there
is no occasion for any excitement. The crisis, as it is called, is
altogether an artificial crisis. In all parts of the nation, there
are differences of opinion in politics. There are differences
of opinion even here. You did not all vote for the person who
now addresses you. And how is it with those who are not here?
Have they not all their rights as they ever had? Do they not have
their fugitive slaves returned now as ever? Have they not the same
Constitution that they have lived under for seventy odd years? Have
they not a position as citizens of this common country, and have
we any power to change that position? What, then, is the matter
with them? Why all this excitement? Why all these complaints? As I
said before, this crisis is all artificial. It has no foundation in
fact. It was ‘argued up,’ as the saying is, and cannot be argued
down. Let it alone, and it will go down itself.”
On Saturday he proceeded to Buffalo, where he arrived at evening, and
was met by an immense concourse of citizens headed by Ex-President
Fillmore.
Arriving at the hotel, Mr. Lincoln was welcomed in a brief speech by
the acting chief magistrate, to which he made a brief reply, as follows:
“MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW CITIZENS:--I am here to thank you briefly
for this grand reception given to me not personally, but as the
representative of our great and beloved country. Your worthy Mayor
has been pleased to mention in his address to me, the fortunate and
agreeable journey which I have had from home--only it is rather
a circuitous route to the Federal Capitol. I am very happy that
he was enabled, in truth, to congratulate myself and company on
that fact. It is true, we have had nothing thus far to mar the
pleasure of the trip. We have not been met alone by those who
assisted in giving the election to me; I say not alone, but by
the whole population of the country through which we have passed.
This is as it should be. Had the election fallen to any other of
the distinguished candidates instead of myself, under the peculiar
circumstances, to say the least, it would have been proper for
all citizens to have greeted him as you now greet me. It is an
evidence of the devotion of the whole people to the Constitution,
the Union, and the perpetuity of the liberties of this country. I
am unwilling, on any occasion, that I should be so meanly thought
of as to have it supposed for a moment that these demonstrations
are tendered to me personally. They are tendered to the country,
to the institutions of the country, and to the perpetuity of the
liberties of the country for which these institutions were made
and created. Your worthy mayor has thought fit to express the hope
that I may be able to relieve the country from the present, or, I
should say, the threatened difficulties. I am sure I bring a heart
true to the work. For the ability to perform it, I trust in that
Supreme Being who has never forsaken this favored land, through the
instrumentality of this great and intelligent people. Without that
assistance I should surely fail; with it I cannot fail. When we
speak of the threatened difficulties to the country, it is natural
that it should be expected that something should be said by myself
with regard to particular measures. Upon more mature reflection,
however, I think,--and others will agree with me--that, when it is
considered that these difficulties are without precedent, and never
have been acted upon by any individual situated as I am, it is most
proper that I should wait and see the developments, and get all the
light possible, so that, when I do speak authoritatively, I may
be as near right as possible. When I shall speak authoritatively,
I hope to say nothing inconsistent with the Constitution, the
Union, the rights of all the States, of each State, and of each
section of the country, and not to disappoint the reasonable
expectations of those who have confided to me their votes. In this
connection, allow me to say that you, as a portion of the great
American people, need only to maintain your composure, stand up
to your sober convictions of right, to your obligations to the
Constitution, and act in accordance with those sober convictions,
and the clouds which now arise in the horizon will be dispelled,
and we shall have a bright and glorious future; and, when this
generation shall have passed away, tens of thousands shall inhabit
this country where only thousands inhabit it now. I do not propose
to address you at length. I have no voice for it. Allow me again to
thank you for this magnificent reception, and bid you farewell.”
Mr. Lincoln then proceeded from Buffalo to Albany. Here he was met by
the Mayor, the City Councils, and the Legislative Committees, and was
conducted to the Capitol, where he was welcomed by Governor Morgan, and
responded briefly, as follows:
“GOVERNOR MORGAN:--I was pleased to receive an invitation to visit
the capital of the great Empire State of this nation, while on my
way to the Federal capital. I now thank you, and you, the people
of the capital of the State of New York, for this most hearty
and magnificent welcome. If I am not at fault, the great Empire
State at this time contains a larger population than did the whole
of the United States of America at the time they achieved their
national independence; and I was proud to be invited to visit its
capital, to meet its citizens as I now have the honor to do. I
am notified by your governor that this reception is tendered by
citizens without distinction of party. Because of this, I accept it
the more gladly. In this country, and in any country where freedom
of thought is tolerated, citizens attach themselves to political
parties. It is but an ordinary degree of charity to attribute this
act to the supposition that, in thus attaching themselves to the
various parties, each man, in his own judgment, supposes he thereby
best advances the interests of the whole country. And when an
election is passed, it is altogether befitting a free people that,
until the next election, they should be one people. The reception
you have extended me to-day is not given to me personally. It
should not be so, but as the representative, for the time being, of
the majority of the nation. If the election had fallen to any of
the more distinguished citizens, who received the support of the
people, this same honor should have greeted him that greets me this
day, in testimony of the unanimous devotion of the whole people
to the Constitution, the Union, and to the perpetual liberties of
succeeding generations in this country. I have neither the voice
nor the strength to address you at any greater length. I beg you
will, therefore, accept my most grateful thanks for this manifest
devotion--not to me but to the institutions of this great and
glorious country.”
He was then conducted to the Legislative halls, where, in reply to an
address of welcome, he again adverted to the troubles of the country in
the following terms:
“MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF
NEW YORK:--It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I may
say, feelings even of awe, perhaps greater than I have recently
experienced, that I meet you here in this place. The history of
this great State, the renown of its great men, who have stood in
this chamber, and have spoken their thoughts, all crowd around my
fancy, and incline me to shrink from an attempt to address you. Yet
I have some confidence given me by the generous manner in which
you have invited me, and the still more generous manner in which
you have received me. You have invited me and received me without
distinction of party. I could not for a moment suppose that this
has been done in any considerable degree with any reference to
my personal self. It is very much more grateful to me that this
reception and the invitation preceding it were given to me as
the representative of a free people, than it could possibly have
been were they but the evidence of devotion to me or to any one
man. It is true that, while I hold myself, without mock-modesty,
the humblest of all the individuals who have ever been elected
President of the United States, I yet have a more difficult task to
perform than any one of them has ever encountered. You have here
generously tendered me the support, the united support, of the
great Empire State. For this, in behalf of the nation--in behalf
of the President and of the future of the nation--in behalf of
the cause of civil liberty in all time to come--I most gratefully
thank you. I do not propose now to enter upon any expressions as
to the particular line of policy to be adopted with reference
to the difficulties that stand before us in the opening of the
incoming administration. I deem that it is just to the country, to
myself, to you, that I should see every thing, hear every thing,
and have every light that can possibly be brought within my reach
to aid me before I shall speak officially, in order that, when I
do speak, I may have the best possible means of taking correct and
true grounds. For this reason, I do not now announce any thing in
the way of policy for the new Administration. When the time comes,
according to the custom of the Government, I shall speak, and speak
as well as I am able for the good of the present and of the future
of this country--for the good of the North and of the South--for
the good of one and of the other, and of all sections of it. In
the meantime, if we have patience, if we maintain our equanimity,
though some may allow themselves to run off in a burst of passion,
I still have confidence that the Almighty Ruler of the Universe,
through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent people,
can and will bring us through this difficulty, as he has heretofore
brought us through all preceding difficulties of the country.
Relying upon this, and again thanking you, as I forever shall, in
my heart, for this generous reception you have given me, I bid you
farewell.”
At Albany, he was met by a delegation from the city authorities of New
York, and on the 19th started for that city. At Poughkeepsie, he was
welcomed by the Mayor of the city. Mr. Lincoln, in reply, said:
“I am grateful for this cordial welcome, and I am gratified
that this immense multitude has come together not to meet the
individual man, but the man who, for the time being, will humbly
but earnestly represent the majesty of the nation. These receptions
have been given me at other places, and, as here, by men of
different parties, and not by one party alone. It shows an earnest
effort on the part of all to save, not the country, for the country
can save itself, but to save the institutions of the country--those
institutions under which, for at least three-quarters of a
century, we have become the greatest, the most intelligent, and
the happiest people in the world. These manifestations show that
we all make common cause for these objects; that if some of us
are successful in an election, and others are beaten, those who
are beaten are not in favor of sinking the ship in consequence
of defeat, but are earnest in their purpose to sail it safely
through the voyage in hand, and, in so far as they may think there
has been any mistake in the election, satisfying themselves to
take their chance of setting the matter right the next time. That
course is entirely right. I am not sure--I do not pretend to be
sure--that in the election of the individual who has been elected
this term, the wisest choice has been made. I fear it has not. In
the purposes and in the principles that have been sustained, I
have been the instrument selected to carry forward the affairs of
this Government. I can rely upon you, and upon the people of the
country; and with their sustaining hand, I think that even I shall
not fail in carrying the Ship of State through the storm.”
The reception of President Lincoln in New York City was a most imposing
demonstration. Places of business were generally closed, and hundreds
of thousands were in the streets. On the next day, he was welcomed to
the city by Mayor Wood, and replied as follows:
“MR. MAYOR: It is with feelings of deep gratitude that I make my
acknowledgments for the reception given me in the great commercial
city of New York. I cannot but remember that this is done by
a people who do not, by a majority, agree with me in political
sentiment. It is the more grateful, because in this I see that,
for the great principles of our Government, the people are almost
unanimous. In regard to the difficulties that confront us at
this time, and of which your Honor has thought fit to speak so
becomingly and so justly, as I suppose, I can only say that I agree
in the sentiments expressed. In my devotion to the Union, I hope I
am behind no man in the nation. In the wisdom with which to conduct
the affairs tending to the preservation of the Union, I fear that
too great confidence may have been reposed in me; but I am sure I
bring a heart devoted to the work. There is nothing that could ever
bring me to willingly consent to the destruction of this Union,
under which not only the great commercial city of New York, but the
whole country, acquired its greatness, except it be the purpose
for which the Union itself was formed. I understand the ship to be
made for the carrying and the preservation of the cargo, and so
long as the ship can be saved with the cargo, it should never be
abandoned, unless it fails the possibility of its preservation,
and shall cease to exist, except at the risk of throwing overboard
both freight and passengers. So long, then, as it is possible that
the prosperity and the liberties of the people be preserved in this
Union, it shall be my purpose at all times to use all my powers to
aid in its perpetuation. Again thanking you for the reception given
me, allow me to come to a close.”
On the next day he left for Philadelphia. At Trenton he remained a few
hours, and visited both Houses of the Legislature. On being received in
the Senate, he thus addressed that body:
“MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW
JERSEY:--I am very grateful to you for the honorable reception of
which I have been the object. I cannot but remember the place that
New Jersey holds in our early history. In the early Revolutionary
struggle, few of the States among the old Thirteen had more of the
battle-fields of the country within its limits than old New Jersey.
May I be pardoned, if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back
in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got
hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have
ever seen, ‘Weems’ Life of Washington.’ I remember all the accounts
there given of the battle-fields and struggles for the liberties
of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so
deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing
of the river--the contest with the Hessians--the great hardships
endured at that time--all fixed themselves on my memory more than
any single revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have all
been boys, how these early impressions last longer than any others.
I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must
have been something more than common that those men struggled for.
I am exceedingly anxious that that thing which they struggled
for--that something even more than National Independence--that
something that held out a great promise to all the people of the
world to all time to come--I am exceedingly anxious that this
Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people, shall be
perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that
struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed, if I shall be
an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, His
almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great
struggle. You give me this reception, as I understand, without
distinction of party. I learn that this body is composed of a
majority of gentlemen who, in the exercise of their best judgment
in the choice of a Chief Magistrate, did not think I was the man. I
understand, nevertheless, that they came forward here to greet me
as the Constitutional President of the United States--as citizens
of the United States, to meet the man who, for the time being,
is the representative man of the nation, united by a purpose to
perpetuate the Union and liberties of the people. As such, I accept
this reception more gratefully than I could do did I believe it was
tendered to me as an individual.”
He then passed into the Chamber of the Assembly, and upon being
introduced by the Speaker, addressed that body as follows:
“MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN:--I have just enjoyed the honor of a
reception by the other branch of this Legislature, and I return to
you and them my thanks for the reception which the people of New
Jersey have given, through their chosen representatives, to me,
as the representative, for the time being, of the majesty of the
people of the United States. I appropriate to myself very little
of the demonstrations of respect with which I have been greeted.
I think little should be given to any man, but that it should be
a manifestation of adherence to the Union and the Constitution. I
understand myself to be received here by the representatives of the
people of New Jersey, a majority of whom differ in opinion from
those with whom I have acted. This manifestation is therefore to
be regarded by me as expressing their devotion to the Union, the
Constitution, and the liberties of the people. You, Mr. Speaker,
have well said, that this is the time when the bravest and wisest
look with doubt and awe upon the aspect presented by our national
affairs. Under these circumstances, you will readily see why I
should not speak in detail of the course I shall deem it best
to pursue. It is proper that I should avail myself of all the
information and all the time at my command, in order that when the
time arrives in which I must speak officially, I shall be able to
take the ground which I deem the best and safest, and from which I
may have no occasion to swerve. I shall endeavor to take the ground
I deem most just to the North, the East, the West, the South, and
the whole country. I take it, I hope, in good temper--certainly
with no malice towards any section. I shall do all that may be in
my power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties.
The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am--none
who would do more to preserve it. But it may be necessary to put
the foot down firmly. And if I do my duty, and do right, you will
sustain me, will you not? Received, as I am, by the members of a
Legislature, the majority of whom do not agree with me in political
sentiments, I trust that I may have their assistance in piloting
the Ship of State through this voyage, surrounded by perils as it
is; for if it should suffer shipwreck now, there will be no pilot
ever needed for another voyage.”
On his arrival in Philadelphia, he was received with great enthusiasm,
and to an address from the Mayor Mr. Lincoln replied:
“MR. MAYOR AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA:--I appear before
you to make no lengthy speech but to thank you for this reception.
The reception you have given me to-night is not to me, the man, the
individual, but to the man who temporarily represents, or should
represent, the majesty of the nation. It is true, as your worthy
Mayor has said, that there is anxiety among the citizens of the
United States at this time. I deem it a happy circumstance that
this dissatisfied portion of our fellow-citizens do not point us
to any thing in which they are being injured, or are about to be
injured; for which reason I have felt all the while justified in
concluding that the crisis, the panic, the anxiety of the country
at this time, is artificial. If there be those who differ with
me upon this subject, they have not pointed out the substantial
difficulty that exists. I do not mean to say that an artificial
panic may not do considerable harm; that it has done such I do not
deny. The hope that has been expressed by your Mayor, that I may be
able to restore peace, harmony, and prosperity to the country, is
most worthy of him; and happy indeed will I be if I shall be able
to verify and fulfil that hope. I promise you, in all sincerity,
that I bring to the work a sincere heart. Whether I will bring a
head equal to that heart, will be for future times to determine.
It were useless for me to speak of details or plans now; I shall
speak officially next Monday week, if ever. If I should not speak
then, it were useless for me to do so now. If I do speak then,
it is useless for me to do so now. When I do speak, I shall take
such grounds as I deem best calculated to restore peace, harmony,
and prosperity to the country, and tend to the perpetuity of the
nation, and the liberty of these States and these people. Your
worthy Mayor has expressed the wish, in which I join with him, that
if it were convenient for me to remain with your city long enough
to consult your merchants and manufacturers; or, as it were, to
listen to those breathings rising within the consecrated walls
wherein the Constitution of the United States, and, I will add, the
Declaration of Independence, were originally framed and adopted.
I assure you and your Mayor, that I had hoped on this occasion,
and upon all occasions during my life, that I shall do nothing
inconsistent with the teachings of these holy and most sacred
walls. I never asked any thing that does not breathe from those
walls. All my political warfare has been in favor of the teachings
that come forth from these sacred walls. May my right hand forget
its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if ever
I prove false to those teachings. Fellow-citizens, now allow me to
bid you good-night.”
On the next morning Mr. Lincoln visited the old “Independence Hall,”
for the purpose of raising the national flag over it. Here he was
received with a warm welcome, and made the following address:
“I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing here,
in this place, where were collected the wisdom, the patriotism,
the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions
under which we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my
hands is the task of restoring peace to the present distracted
condition of the country. I can say in return, sir, that all the
political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have
been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated and
were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling
politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the
Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers
which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and
adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the
toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army
who achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself
what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy
so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation
of the colonies from the mother-land, but that sentiment in the
Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the
people of this country, but, I hope, to the world for all future
time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight
would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment
embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can
this country be saved upon this basis? If it can, I will consider
myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save
it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly
awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that
principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated
on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present
aspect of affairs, there need be no bloodshed or war. There is no
necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may
say, in advance, that there will be no blood shed unless it be
forced upon the government, and then it will be compelled to act in
self-defence.
“My friends, this is wholly an unexpected speech, and I did not
expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed
it was merely to do something towards raising the flag. I may,
therefore, have said something indiscreet. I have said nothing
but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of
Almighty God, to die by.”
The party then proceeded to a platform erected in front of the State
House, when the President-elect was invited to raise the flag. Mr.
Lincoln responded in a brief speech, stating his cheerful compliance
with the request, and alluded to the original flag of thirteen
stars, saying that the number had increased as time rolled on, and
we now became a happy and a powerful people, each star adding to its
prosperity. “The future,” he added, “is in the hands of the people. It
is on such an occasion as this that we can reason together, reaffirm
our devotion to the country and the principles of the Declaration of
Independence. Let us make up our mind, that when we do put a new star
upon our banner, it shall be a fixed one, never to be dimmed by the
horrors of war, but brightened by the contentment and prosperity of
peace. Let us go on to extend the area of our usefulness, add star upon
star, until their light shall shine upon five hundred millions of a
free and happy people.”
The President-elect then raised the flag to the top of the staff.
At half-past 9 o’clock the party left for Harrisburg. Both Houses of
the Legislature were visited by Mr. Lincoln, and to an address of
welcome he thus replied:
“I appear before you only for a very few brief remarks, in response
to what has been said to me. I thank you most sincerely for this
reception, and the generous words in which support has been
promised me upon this occasion. I thank your great commonwealth for
the overwhelming support it recently gave, not to me personally,
but the cause, which I think a just one, in the late election.
Allusion has been made to the fact--the interesting fact, perhaps
we should say--that I, for the first time, appear at the Capital
of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania upon the birthday of the
Father of his Country, in connection with that beloved anniversary
connected with the history of this country. I have already gone
through one exceedingly interesting scene this morning in the
ceremonies at Philadelphia. Under the high conduct of gentlemen
there, I was, for the first time, allowed the privilege of standing
in Old Independence Hall, to have a few words addressed to me
there, and opening up to me an opportunity of expressing, with much
regret, that I had not more time to express something of my own
feelings, excited by the occasion, somewhat to harmonize and give
shape to the feelings that had been really the feelings of my whole
life. Besides this, our friends there had provided a magnificent
flag of the country. They had arranged it so that I was given the
honor of raising it to the head of its staff. And when it went
up I was pleased that it went to its place by the strength of my
own feeble arm; when, according to the arrangement, the cord was
pulled, and it flaunted gloriously to the wind without an accident,
in the bright glowing sunshine of the morning, I could not help
hoping that there was in the entire success of that beautiful
ceremony at least something of an omen of what is to come. Nor
could I help feeling then, as I often have felt, in the whole of
that proceeding, I was a very humble instrument. I had not provided
the flag; I had not made the arrangements for elevating it to its
place. I had applied but a very small portion of my feeble strength
in raising it. In the whole transaction I was in the hands of the
people who had arranged it; and if I can have the same generous
coöperation of the people of the nation, I think the flag of
our country may yet be kept flaunting gloriously. I recur for a
moment but to repeat some words uttered at the hotel in regard to
what has been said about the military support which the General
Government may expect from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in
a proper emergency. To guard against any possible mistake do I
recur to this. It is not with any pleasure that I contemplate the
possibility that a necessity may arise in this country for the use
of the military arm. While I am exceedingly gratified to see the
manifestation upon your streets of your military force here, and
exceedingly gratified at your promise here to use that force upon
a proper emergency--while I make these acknowledgements, I desire
to repeat, in order to preclude any possible misconstruction,
that I do most sincerely hope that we shall have no use for them;
that it will never become their duty to shed blood, and most
especially never to shed fraternal blood. I promise that, so far
as I have wisdom to direct, if so painful a result shall in any
wise be brought about, it shall be through no fault of mine.
Allusion has also been made by one of your honored speakers to some
remark recently made by myself at Pittsburg, in regard to what is
supposed to be the especial interest of this great Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania. I now wish only to say, in regard to that matter,
that the few remarks which I uttered on that occasion were rather
carefully worded. I took pains that they should be so. I have seen
no occasion since to add to them or subtract from them. I leave
them precisely as they stand, adding only now, that I am pleased to
have an expression from you, gentlemen of Pennsylvania, significant
that they are satisfactory to you. And now, gentlemen of the
General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, allow me to
return you again my most sincere thanks.”
Arrangements had been made for his departure from Harrisburg on the
following morning; but the timely discovery of a plot to assassinate
him on his way through Baltimore--a plot in which several of the
leading citizens of that place were believed to be interested, although
the work was to be done by other hands--caused a change in the
schedule, and on the evening of the day on which he had been received
by the Legislature, he left on a special train for Philadelphia, and
thence proceeded in the sleeping-car attached to the regular midnight
train to Washington, where he arrived at an early hour on the morning
of the 23d.
As an evidence how little the extent to which unscrupulous men were
prepared to go, was understood at this time, it may be remarked that
not a few made themselves very merry over this midnight ride--a
leading pictorial even indulging itself in an attempt at a humorous
illustration of it, an act which, viewed in the light of a startling
event but little more than four years later, in which a native of the
same city was directly concerned, would hardly have been repeated.
CHAPTER VI.
THE NEW ADMINISTRATION.
Speeches at Washington--The Inaugural Address--Its Effect--
The Cabinet--Commissioners from Montgomery--Extract from A. H.
Stephens’s speech--Virginia Commissioners--Fall of Fort Sumter.
A few days after his arrival in Washington, the President elect was
waited upon by the Mayor and other municipal authorities, welcoming him
the city, to whom he made the following reply:
“Mr. MAYOR: I thank you, and through you the municipal authorities
of this city who accompany you, for this welcome. And as it is
the first time in my life since the present phase of politics
has presented itself in this country, that I have said anything
publicly within a region of country where the institution of
slavery exists, I will take this occasion to say that I think
very much of the ill feeling which has existed, and still exists,
between the people in the sections from whence I came and the
people here, is dependent upon a misunderstanding of one another.
I therefore avail myself of this opportunity to assure you, Mr.
Mayor, and all the gentlemen present, that I have not now, and
never have had, any other than as kindly feelings towards you as
towards the people of my own section. I have not now, nor never
have had, any disposition to treat you in any respect otherwise
than as my own neighbors. I have not now any purpose to withhold
from you any of the benefits of the Constitution, under any
circumstances, that I would not feel myself constrained to withhold
from my neighbors; and I hope, in a word, that when we shall become
better acquainted, and I say it with great confidence, we shall
like each other the more. I thank you for the kindness of this
reception.”
On the following evening, at the close of a serenade tendered him by
the Republican Association, he thus addressed the crowd:
“MY FRIENDS: I suppose that I may take this as a compliment paid
to me, and as such please accept my thanks for it. I have reached
this city of Washington under circumstances considerably differing
from those under which any other man has ever reached it. I am
here for the purpose of taking an official position amongst the
people, almost all of whom were politically opposed to me, and are
yet opposed to me as I suppose. I propose no lengthy address to
you. I only propose to say, as I did on yesterday, when your worthy
Mayor and Board of Aldermen called upon me, that I thought much
of the ill feeling that has existed between you and the people of
your surroundings and that people from amongst whom I came, has
depended, and now depends, upon a misunderstanding.
“I hope that, if things shall go on as prosperously as I believe we
all desire they may, I may have it in my power to remove something
of this misunderstanding, that I may be enabled to convince you,
and the people of your section of the country, that we regard you
as in all things our equals, and in all things entitled to the same
respect and the same treatment that we claim for ourselves; that
we are in nowise disposed, if it were in our power, to oppress you,
to deprive you of any of your rights under the Constitution of the
United States, or even narrowly to split hairs with you in regard
to those rights, but are determined to give you, as far as lies in
our hands, all your rights under the Constitution--not grudgingly,
but fully and fairly. I hope that, by thus dealing with you, we
will become better acquainted, and be better friends. And now, my
friends, with these few remarks, and again returning my thanks for
this compliment, and expressing my desire to hear a little more of
your good music, I bid you good-night.”
Never, in the history of the country, has the inaugural address of any
President been so anxiously awaited as was that of Mr. Lincoln. The
most of his countrymen, even in States whose loyalty to the Government
was beyond suspicion, were certain to be disappointed, whatever that
inaugural might prove to be. An impression prevailed, for which no good
grounds could be shown, that somehow, in some inexplicable way, this
particular address would operate as a panacea to heal the nation’s
malady. One class, who knew not the man, hoped, almost against hope,
that such concessions would be made to the rebels as would bridge
over existing difficulties, and restore the good old times when men
could vend their goods and principles--or what served them in lieu
thereof--without being annoyed by war or rumor of war. Another would
be satisfied with nothing short of the most positive and unqualified
denunciations of the rebels, coupled with the details in advance of
dealing with them. Still another were simply curious in the premises to
know what could be said. Whisperings, too, that the address would be
prevented by violence, and hints of assassination were heard here and
there.
All necessary precautions, however, having been taken to guard against
the latter contingencies, Mr. Lincoln appeared at the east front
of the capitol, and received, at the hour appointed, the oath of
office from Chief Justice Taney. Then followed, in a clear, steady
tone of voice, in the presence of more than ten thousand of his
fellow-citizens, the address:
“FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES:--In compliance with a custom
as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address
you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by
the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President
before he enters on the execution of his office.
“I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss
those matters of administration about which there is no special
anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist among the people
of the Southern States, that, by the accession of a Republican
Administration, their property and their peace and personal
security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable
cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to
the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their
inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him
who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches,
when I declare that ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it
exists.’ I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no
inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me, did so
with the full knowledge that I had made this, and made many similar
declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than this,
they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to
themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now
read:
“‘_Resolved_, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of
the States, and especially the right of each State to order and
control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment
exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the
perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we
denounce the lawless invasion, by armed force, of the soil of any
State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the
gravest of crimes.’
“I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I only press
upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which
the case is susceptible, that the property, peace and security of
no section are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming
administration.
“I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the
Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given
to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause, as
cheerfully to one section as to another.
“There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives
from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written
in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
“‘No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or
labor may be due.’
“It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by
those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive
slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law.
“All members of Congress swear their support to the whole
Constitution--to this provision as well as any other. To the
proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms
of this clause ‘shall be delivered up,’ their oaths are unanimous.
Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not,
with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which
to keep good that unanimous oath?
“There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should
be enforced by National or by State authority; but surely that
difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be
surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to
others by which authority it is done; and should any one, in
any case, be content that this oath shall go unkept on a merely
unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
“Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards
of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be
introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as
a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by
law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which
guarantees that ‘the citizens of each State shall be entitled
to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States?’
“I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations,
and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any
hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify
particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest
that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private
stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand
unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity
in having them held to be unconstitutional.
“It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a
President under our National Constitution. During that period,
fifteen different and very distinguished citizens have in
succession administered the executive branch of the Government.
They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with
great success. Yet, with all this scope for precedent, I now enter
upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four
years, under great and peculiar difficulties.
“A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is
now formidably attempted. I hold that in the contemplation of
universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States
is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the
fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert
that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic
law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express
provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure
forever, it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action
not provided for in the instrument itself.
“Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an
association of States in the nature of a contract merely, can it,
as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties
who made it? One party to a contract may violate it--break it,
so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition
that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual, confirmed by
the history of the Union itself.
“The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed,
in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured
and continued in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was
further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States
expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by
the Articles of the Confederation, in 1778; and, finally, in
1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing
the Constitution was to form a more perfect Union. But if the
destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be
lawfully possible, the Union is less than before, the Constitution
having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
“It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere
motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and
ordinances to that effect, are legally void; and that acts of
violence within any State or States against the authority of the
United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to
circumstances.
“I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the
laws, the Union is unbroken, and, to the extent of my ability, I
shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon
me, that the laws of the Union shall be faithfully executed in all
the States. Doing this, which I deem to be only a simple duty on
my part, I shall perfectly perform it, so far as is practicable,
unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the
requisition, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary.
“I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the
declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend
and maintain itself.
“In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there
shall be none unless it is forced upon the National authority.
“The power confided to me _will be used to hold, occupy, and
possess the property and plants belonging to the Government_, and
collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary
for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force
against or among the people anywhere.
“Where hostility to the United States shall be so great and so
universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding
Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious
strangers among the people that object. While the strict legal
right may exist of the Government to enforce the exercise of these
offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly
impracticable withal, that I deem it best to forego, for the time,
the uses of such offices.
“The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all
parts of the Union.
“So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense
of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and
reflection.
“The course here indicated will be followed, unless current events
and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper;
and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised
according to the circumstances actually existing, and with a view
and hope of a peaceful solution of the National troubles and the
restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.
“That there are persons, in one section or another, who seek to
destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do
it, I will neither affirm nor deny. But if there be such, I need
address no word to them.
“To those, however, who really love the Union, may I not speak,
before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our
National fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its
hopes? Would it not be well to ascertain why we do it? Will you
hazard so desperate a step, while any portion of the ills you fly
from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills
you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from? Will
you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake? All profess
to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be
maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in
the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human
mind is so constituted, that no party can reach to the audacity of
doing this.
“Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly-written
provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the
mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any
clearly-written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of
view, justify revolution; it certainly would, if such right were a
vital one. But such is not our case.
“All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so
plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties
and prohibitions in the Constitution, that controversies never
arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with
a provision specifically applicable to every question which may
occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor
any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for
all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered
by National or by State authorities? The Constitution does not
expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories?
The Constitution does not expressly say. From questions of this
class, spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide
upon them into majorities and minorities.
“If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the
Government must cease. There is no alternative for continuing the
Government but acquiescence on the one side or the other. If a
minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they
make a precedent which, in turn, will ruin and divide them, for a
minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority
refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For instance, why not
any portion of a new Confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily
secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim
to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now
being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such
perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new
Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.
“A majority held in restraint by constitutional check and
limitation, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of
popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a
free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy
or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a majority,
as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible. So that,
rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism, in some
form, is all that is left.
“I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny
that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties
to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also
entitled to a very high respect and consideration in all parallel
cases by all other departments of the Government; and while it is
obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given
case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that
particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never
become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could
the evils of a different practice.
“At the same time the candid citizen must confess that if the
policy of the Government upon the vital question affecting the
whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the
Supreme Court, the instant they are made, as in ordinary litigation
between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased
to be their own masters, unless having to that extent practically
resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
“Nor is there in this view any assault upon the Court or the
Judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide
cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs
if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. One
section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be
extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to
be extended; and this is the only substantial dispute; and the
fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the
suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced,
perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral
sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great
body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases,
and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly
cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of
the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly
suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in
one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered,
would not be surrendered at all by the other.
“Physically speaking we can not separate; we can not remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of
the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different
parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face
to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue
between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more
advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before?
Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can
treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can
among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and
when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you
cease fighting, the identical questions as to terms of intercourse
are again upon you.
“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people
who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing
government, they can exercise their constitutional right of
amending, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow
it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and
patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution
amended. While I make no recommendation of amendment, I fully
recognize the full authority of the people over the whole subject,
to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument
itself, and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather
than oppose, a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act
upon it.
“I will venture to add, that to me the Convention mode seems
preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the
people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or
reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for
the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would
wish either to accept or refuse. I understand that a proposed
amendment to the Constitution (which amendment, however, I have
not seen) has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal
Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions
of States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid
misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not
to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding
such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no
objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
“The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people,
and they have conferred none upon him to fix the terms for the
separation of the States. The people themselves, also, can do
this if they choose, but the Executive, as such, has nothing to
do with it. His duty is to administer the present government as
it came to his hands, and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his
successor. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the
ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope
in the world? In our present differences is either party without
faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with
his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on
yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail
by the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people. By the
frame of the government under which we live, this same people have
wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief,
and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little
to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain
their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme
wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in
the short space of four years.
“My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.
“If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a
step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be
frustrated by taking time: but no good object can be frustrated by
it.
“Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old
Constitution unimpaired, and on the sensitive point, the laws of
your own framing under it; while the new administration will have
no immediate power, if it would, to change either.
“If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the
right side in the dispute, there is still no single reason for
precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a
firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land,
are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present
difficulties.
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine,
is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail
you.
“You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors.
You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government;
while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and
defend’ it.
“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not
be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our
bonds of affection.
“The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.”
One point was established, at least, by this inaugural, whatever
uncertainties might cluster about it--we had, at last, a Government. No
Buchanan ruled the hour. Loyal men of every shade breathed more freely.
At the same time, the whole drift was toward securing, if possible, an
honorable reconciliation. If, after this lucid, temperate statement
of the plans and purposes of the new Administration, the blow must
fall, which all wished to avoid, it was encouraging to feel--as every
one who heard Mr. Lincoln on that eventful day must have felt--that a
man was at the helm who had firm faith that the organic law, so far
from providing for the dissolution of the Union, had vitality and force
within itself sufficient to defend the nation against dangers from
wit
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