Part 18

“This letter, although short, is explicit and unmistakable in its meaning. Its purpose is evident to the most casual observer. Knowing, as he must, at the time, that the President held that the question of conferring the privilege of suffrage upon the colored people of the South rested exclusively with the States, he endeavors to stir up a feud and create a dissatisfaction among this class. Like the speech of Chief Justice Chase, its whole tendency is to incite the negroes to insurrection, by giving them the impression that the Government is against them. There is not a word in the communication counselling obedience or respect to the laws of the Government. They ask him for direction, and he, in response, counsels them to take part in the organization of the Government,--that it is their right and duty. In the face of the fact that there is no law in their State or in the Constitution of the United States recognizing that right, he tells them that those who oppose them are usurpers and impostors.”

HOPE AND ENCOURAGEMENT FOR COLORED FELLOW-CITIZENS.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF “THE LEADER,” IN CHARLESTON, S. C., MAY, 1865.

The following brief note appeared in the first number of _The Leader_, a weekly paper which began at Charleston, 1865.

I trust that you will do everything possible to arouse hope and encouragement in the colored people. Let them know that their friends will stand by them. All white persons who have any regard for the Declaration of Independence ought to unite in favor of its principles, and insist that they shall be made the foundation of the new order of things. Courage! the cause cannot fail.

Believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

PROMISES OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EULOGY ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEFORE THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES OF THE CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865.

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 anything 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_.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN: _Crosby’s Life of Lincoln_, p. 33.

* * * * *

They [colored people having the ballot] would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of Liberty in the family of Freedom.--IBID., _Letter to Michael Hahn, of Louisiana, March 13, 1864_: _McPherson’s Political History of the United States during Reconstruction_, p. 20, note.

Omnia incrementa sua sibi debuit, vir novitatis nobilissimæ.--VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, _Historia_, Lib. II. cap. 34, § 3.

* * * * *

Offensarum inimicitiarumque minime memor executorve.--SUETONIUS, _Vespasianus_, Cap. XIV.

EULOGY

In the universe of God there are no accidents. From the fall of a sparrow to the fall of an empire or the sweep of a planet, all is according to Divine Providence, whose laws are everlasting. No accident gave to his country the patriot we now honor. No accident snatched this patriot, so suddenly and so cruelly, from his sublime duties. Death is as little an accident as life. Never, perhaps, in history has this Providence been more conspicuous than in that recent procession of events, where the final triumph is wrapped in the gloom of tragedy. It is our present duty to find the moral of the stupendous drama.

* * * * *

For the second time in our annals, the country is summoned by the President to unite, on an appointed day, in commemorating the life and character of the dead. The first was on the death of GEORGE WASHINGTON, when, as now, a day was set apart for simultaneous eulogy throughout the land, and cities, towns, and villages all vied in tribute. Since this early observance for the Father of his Country more than half a century has passed, and now it is repeated in tribute to ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Thus are WASHINGTON and LINCOLN associated in the grandeur of their obsequies. But this association is not accidental. It is from the nature of things, and because the part Lincoln was called to perform resembled in character the part performed by Washington. The work left undone by Washington was continued by Lincoln. Kindred in service, kindred in patriotism, each is surrounded in death by kindred homage. One sleeps in the East, the other sleeps in the West; and thus, in death, as in life, one is the complement of the other.

The two might be compared after the manner of Plutarch; but it must suffice for the present to glance only at points of resemblance and of contrast, so as to recall the parts they respectively performed.

Each was head of the Republic during a period of surpassing trial; and each thought only of the public good, simply, purely, constantly, so that single-hearted devotion to country will always find a synonym in their names. Each was national chief during a time of successful war. Each was representative of his country at a great epoch of history. Here, perhaps, resemblance ends and contrast begins. Unlike in origin, conversation, and character, they were unlike also in the _ideas_ they served, except as each was servant of his country. The war conducted by Washington was unlike the war conducted by Lincoln, as the peace which crowned the arms of the one was unlike the peace which began to smile upon the other. The two wars did not differ in scale of operations and in tramp of mustered hosts more than in the ideas involved. The first was for National Independence; the second was to make the Republic one and indivisible, on the indestructible foundation of Liberty and Equality. The first cut the connection with the mother country, and opened the way to the duties and advantages of Popular Government; _the second will have failed, unless it consummates all the original promises of the Declaration our fathers took upon their lips when they became a Nation_. In the relation of cause and effect the first was natural precursor and herald of the second. National Independence became the first epoch in our history, whose mighty import was exhibited when Lafayette boasted to the First Consul of France, that, though its battles were but skirmishes, they decided the fate of the world.[186]

The Declaration of our fathers, entitled simply “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,” is known familiarly as the Declaration of Independence, because the remarkable words with which it concludes made independence the final idea, to which all else was tributary. Thus did the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled solemnly publish and declare “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; … and for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” To sustain this mutual pledge Washington drew his sword and led the national armies, until at last, by the Treaty of Peace in 1783, Independence was acknowledged.

Had the Declaration been confined to this pledge, it would have been less grand. Much as it might have been to us, it would have been less of a warning and trumpet-note to the world. There were two other pledges it made. One was proclaimed in the designation “United States of America,” which it adopted as the national name; and the other was proclaimed in those great words, fit for the baptismal vows of a Republic,--“We hold these truths to be self-evident: _that all men are created equal_; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, _deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed_.” By the sword of Washington Independence was secured; but the Unity of the Republic and the principles of the Declaration were left exposed to question. From that early day, through various chances, they were assailed and openly dishonored, until at last the Republic was constrained to take up arms in their defence. And yet, since enmity to the Union proceeded entirely from enmity to the great ideas of the Declaration, history must record that the question of the Union itself was absorbed in the grander conflict to uphold the primal truths our fathers had solemnly proclaimed.

Such are the two great wars where these two chiefs bore each his part. Washington fought for National Independence, and triumphed, making his country an example to mankind. Lincoln drew a reluctant sword to save those great ideas, essential to the life and character of the Republic, which unhappily the sword of Washington failed to put beyond the reach of assault.

By no accident did these two great men become representatives of their country at these two different epochs, so alike in peril, and yet so unlike in the principles involved. Washington was the natural representative of National Independence. He might also have represented National Unity, had this principle been challenged to bloody battle during his life; for nothing was nearer his heart than the consolidation of our Union, which, in his letter to Congress transmitting the Constitution, he declares to be “the greatest interest of every true American.”[187] Then again, in a remarkable letter to John Jay, he plainly says that he does “not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the State governments extends over the several States.”[188] But another person was needed, of different birth and simpler life, to represent the ideas now impugned.

Washington was of ancient family, traced in English heraldry. Some of his ancestors sleep in close companionship with the noble name of Spencer. By inheritance and marriage he was rich in lands, and, let it be said in respectful sorrow, rich also in slaves, so far as slaves breed riches rather than curses. At the age of fourteen he refused a commission as midshipman in the British Navy. At the age of nineteen he was Adjutant General, with the rank of major. At the age of twenty-one he was selected by the British Governor of Virginia as Commissioner to the French posts. At the age of twenty-two he was at the head of a regiment, and was thanked by the House of Burgesses. Early in life he became an observer of form and ceremony. Always strictly just, according to prevailing principles, and at his death ordering the emancipation of his slaves, he was more a general and statesman than philanthropist; nor did he seem inspired, beyond the duties of patriotism, to active sympathy with Human Rights. In the ample record of what he wrote or said there is no word of adhesion to the great ideas of the Declaration. Such an origin, such an early life, such opportunities, such a condition, such a character, were all in contrast with the origin, early life, opportunities, condition, and character of him we commemorate to-day.

* * * * *

Abraham Lincoln was born, and, until he became President, always lived in a part of the country which at the period of the Declaration of Independence was a savage wilderness. Strange, but happy, Providence, that a voice from that savage wilderness, now fertile in men, was inspired to uphold the pledges and promises of the Declaration! The Unity of the Republic, on the indestructible foundation of Liberty and Equality, was vindicated by the citizen of a community which had no existence when the Republic was formed.

His family may be traced to Quaker stock in Pennsylvania, but it removed first to Virginia, and then, as early as 1780, to the wilds of Kentucky, which at that time was only an outlying territory of Virginia. His grandfather and father both lived in peril from Indians, and the former perished by their knife. The future President was born in a log-house. His mother could read, and perhaps write. His father could do neither, except so far as to sign his name rudely, like a noble of Charlemagne. Trial, privation, and labor entered into his early life. Only at seven years of age, for a very brief period, could he enjoy school, carrying with him Dilworth’s Spelling-Book, one of the three volumes that formed the family library. Shortly afterwards his father turned his back upon that Slavery which disfigured Kentucky, and with his poor effects and the future chief-magistrate set his face towards Indiana, already guarded against Slavery by the famous Northwestern Ordinance. Reaching the chosen home in a land of Liberty, the son, who was less than eight years old, aided his father in building a shelter of poles, fastened together by notches, and filled in with mud. This preceded the log cabin, where for twelve years afterwards he grew in character and knowledge, as in stature, learning to write as well as read, and especially enjoying Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Æsop’s Fables, Weems’s Life of Washington, and the Life of Henry Clay. At the age of ten he lost his mother. At the age of nineteen he became a hired hand, at eight dollars a month, on a flatboat laden with stores for plantations on the Mississippi, and in this way floated on that lordly river to New Orleans, little dreaming that only a few years later iron-clad navies would at his command float on that same proud stream. Here also was he learner. From the slaves he saw on the banks he took a lesson of Liberty, which gained new charms by comparison with Slavery.

In 1830 the father removed to Illinois, transporting his goods in a wagon drawn by oxen, and the future President, then twenty-one years of age, drove the team. Another cabin was built in primitive rudeness, and the future President split the rails to inclose the lot. In our history these became classical, and the name of rail-splitter more than the degree of a college,--not that the splitting of rails is any way meritorious, but because the people are proud to trace aspiring talent back to humble beginnings, and they found in this tribute new opportunity to vindicate the dignity of free labor, and repel the insolent pretensions of Slavery.

His youth was now spent, and at the age of twenty-one he left his father’s house to begin the world. A small bundle, a laughing face, and an honest heart,--these were his simple possessions, together with that unconscious character and intelligence which his country learned to prize. In the long history of worth depressed there is no instance of such contrast between the depression and the triumph,--unless, perhaps, his successor as President may share with him this distinction. No academy, no university, no Alma Mater of science or learning nourished him. No government took him by the hand and gave him the gift of opportunity. No inheritance of land or money fell to him. No friend stood by his side. He was alone in poverty: and yet not all alone. There was God above, who watches all, and does not desert the lowly. Plain in person, life, and manners, and knowing absolutely nothing of form or ceremony, for six months with a village schoolmaster as his only teacher, he grew up in companionship with the people, with Nature, with trees, with the fruitful corn, and with the stars. While yet a child, his father had borne him away from a soil wasted by Slavery, and he was now citizen of a Free State, where Free Labor had been placed under safeguard of irreversible compact and fundamental law. And thus he took leave of youth, happy at least that he could go forth under the day-star of Liberty.

The early hardships were prolonged into manhood. He labored on a farm as hired hand, and then a second time in a flatboat measured the winding Mississippi to its mouth. At the call of the Governor of Illinois for troops against Black Hawk, the Indian chief, he sprang forward with patriotic ardor, most prompt to enlist at the recruiting station in his neighborhood. The choice of his associates made him captain. After the war he became surveyor, and to his death retained a practical and scientific knowledge of this business. Here again was a parallel with Washington. In 1834 he was elected to the Legislature of Illinois, and three years later was admitted to the practice of the law. He was now twenty-eight years old, and, under the benignant influence of republican institutions, he had already entered upon the double career of lawyer and legislator, with the gates of the mysterious Future slowly opening before him.

How well he served in these two characters I pause not to tell. It is enough, if I exhibit the stages of advance, that you may understand how he became representative of his country at so grand a moment. It is needless to say that his opportunities of study as a lawyer were small, but he was industrious in each individual case, and thus daily added to his stores of professional experience. Faithful in all things, most conscientious in conduct at the bar, so that he could not be unfair to the other side, and admirably sensitive to the behests of justice, so that he could not argue on the wrong side, he acquired a name for honesty, which, beginning with the community where he lived, became proverbial throughout his State,--while his genial, mirthful, overflowing nature, apt at anecdote and story, made him, where personally known, a favorite companion. His opinions on public questions were formed early, under the example and teaching of Henry Clay, and he never departed from them, though constantly tempted, or pressed by local majorities, in the name of a false democracy. It is interesting to know that thus early he espoused those two ideas which entered so largely into the terrible responsibilities of his last years,--I mean the Unity of the Republic, and the supreme value of Liberty. He did not believe that a State, in its own mad will, had a right to break up this Union. As reader of Congressional speeches, and student of what was said by the political teachers of that day, he was no stranger to those marvellous efforts of Daniel Webster, when, in reply to the treasonable pretensions of Nullification, the great orator of Massachusetts asserted the indestructibility of the Union, and the folly of those who assail it. On the subject of Slavery, he had the experience of his own family and the warnings of his own conscience. Naturally, one of his earliest acts in the Legislature of Illinois was a protest in the name of Liberty.

At a later day, he was in Congress for a single term, beginning in December, 1847, being the only Whig Representative from Illinois. His speeches during this brief period have the characteristics of his later productions. They are argumentative, logical, and spirited, with quaint humor and sinewy sententiousness. His votes were constant against Slavery. For the Wilmot Proviso he voted, according to his own statement, “in one way and another, about forty times.” His vote is recorded against the pretence that slaves are property under the Constitution. From Congress he passed again to his profession. The day was at hand, when all his powers, enlarged by experience and quickened to highest activity, would be needed to repel that haughty domination already overshadowing the Republic.

The next field of conflict was in his own State, with no less an antagonist than Stephen A. Douglas, at that time in alliance with the Slave Power. The too famous Kansas and Nebraska Bill, introduced by the latter into the Senate, assumed to set aside the venerable safeguard of Freedom in the territory west of Missouri, under pretence of allowing the inhabitants “to vote Slavery up or to vote it down,” and this barbarous privilege was called by the fancy name of Popular Sovereignty. The champion of Liberty did not hesitate to denounce this most baleful measure in a series of popular addresses, where truth, sentiment, humor, and argument all blended. As the conflict continued, he was brought forward for the Senate against its able author. The debate that ensued is one of the most memorable in our political history, whether we consider the principles involved or the way it was conducted.

It commenced with a close, well-woven speech from the Republican candidate, showing insight into the actual condition of things, in which were these memorable words: “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”[189] Here was the true starting-point. Only a few days before his death, in reply to my inquiry, if at the time he had any doubt about this declaration, he said, “Not in the least. It was clearly true, and time has justified me.” With like plainness he exposed the Douglas pretence of Popular Sovereignty as meaning simply, “that, if any _one_ man choose to enslave _another_, no _third_ man shall be allowed to object,”[190] and he announced his belief in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and nationalize Slavery, of which the Kansas and Nebraska Bill and the Dred Scott decision were essential parts. Such was the character of this debate at the beginning, and so it continued on the lips of our champion to the end.

The inevitable topic to which he returned with most frequency, and to which he clung with all the grasp of his soul, was _the practical character of the Declaration of Independence in announcing the Liberty and Equality of all Men_. No idle words were there, but substantial truth, binding on the conscience of mankind. I know not if this grand pertinacity has been noticed before; but I deem it a duty to declare that to my mind it is by far the most important incident of that controversy, and perhaps the most interesting in the biography of the speaker. Nothing previous to his nomination for the Presidency is comparable to it. Plainly his whole subsequent career took impulse and complexion from that championship. And here, too, is our first debt of gratitude. The words he then uttered live after him, and nobody now hears how he then battled without feeling a new motive to fidelity in support of Human Rights.

As early as 1854, in a speech at Peoria against the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, after denouncing Slavery as a “monstrous injustice,” which “enables the enemies of free institutions to taunt us as hypocrites,” and “causes the real friends of Freedom to doubt our sincerity,” he complains especially that “it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves _into open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence_.”[191] Thus, according to him, criticism of the Declaration was the climax of infidelity as citizen.

Mr. Douglas opened the debate, on his side, at Chicago, July 9, 1858, by a speech, where he said, among other things, “I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat, that this nation is a white people.… I am opposed to taking any step that recognizes the negro man or the Indian as the equal of the white man. I am opposed to giving him a voice in the administration of the Government.”[192] Thus was the case stated for Slavery.