Part 19

To this speech the Republican candidate replied promptly, and did not forget his championship. Quoting the great words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” he proceeds:--

“That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.… I should like to know, if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal, upon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that Declaration is not the truth, let us get the statute-book in which we find it and tear it out. Who is so bold as to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out. [_Cries of “No, no!”_] _Let us stick to it, then; let us stand firmly by it, then._”

Noble utterance, worthy of perpetual memory! And he finished his speech with a farewell truly apostolic:--

“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of Liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.”[193]

He has left us now, and for the last time. I catch the closing benediction of that speech, already sounding through the ages like a choral harmony.

The debate continued from place to place. At Bloomington, July 16th, Mr. Douglas denied again that colored persons could be citizens, and then broke forth upon the champion:--

“I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that subject. I have no doubt he is conscientious in them. I have not the slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes that a negro ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and privileges given to white men; but I do not agree with him.… _I believe that this government of ours was founded on the white basis._ I believe that it was established by white men.… I do not believe that it was the design or intention of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the framers of the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other inferior races, with white men, as citizens.… _He wants them to vote. I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they would all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I do._”[194]

Then again at Springfield, the next day, Mr. Douglas repeated his denial that the colored man was embraced by the Declaration, and thus argued for the exclusion:--

“Remember that at the time the Declaration was put forth, every one of the Thirteen Colonies were slaveholding colonies,--every man who signed that Declaration represented slaveholding constituents. Did those signers mean by that act to charge themselves and all their constituents with having violated the law of God in holding the negro in an inferior condition to the white man? And yet, if they included negroes in that term, they were bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour, not only to have abolished Slavery throughout the land, _but to have conferred political rights and privileges on the negro, and elevated him to an equality with the white man_.… The Declaration of Independence only included the white people of the United States.”[195]

On the same evening, at Springfield, the Republican candidate, while admitting that negroes are not “our equal in color,” thus again spoke for the comprehensive humanity of the Declaration:--

“_I adhere to the Declaration of Independence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it read, that all men are created equal except negroes._ Let us have it decided, whether the Declaration of Independence, in this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus amended. In his construction of the Declaration last year, he said it only meant that Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. Then, when I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the Germans, the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who have come amongst us since the Revolution, he reconstructs his construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant Europeans. I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include the Russians in Asia. Or does he mean to exclude that vast population from the principles of our Declaration of Independence? I expect erelong he will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is not at all particular.… _It may draw white men down, but it must not lift negroes up._”[196]

Words like these are gratefully remembered. They make the Declaration, what the Fathers intended, no mean proclamation of oligarchic egotism, but a charter and freehold for all mankind.

At Ottawa, August 21st, Mr. Douglas, still excluding the colored men from the Declaration, exclaimed:--

“I believe this Government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever.”[197]

Again the Republican champion took up the strain.

“Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all tendencies to Liberty and ultimate Emancipation, that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our Independence, and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous return,--they must blow out the moral lights around us,--they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate there the love of Liberty; and then, and not till then, could they perpetuate Slavery in this country. To my thinking, Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence, doing that very thing in this community, when he says that the negro has nothing in the Declaration of Independence.”[198]

At Jonesboro’, September 15th, Mr. Douglas once more assailed the rights of the colored race.

“I am aware that all the Abolition lecturers that you find travelling about through the country are in the habit of reading the Declaration of Independence to prove that all men were created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Mr. Lincoln is very much in the habit of following in the track of Lovejoy in this particular, by reading that part of the Declaration of Independence to prove that the negro was endowed by the Almighty with the inalienable right of equality with white men. Now I say to you, my fellow-citizens, that, in my opinion, the signers of the Declaration had no reference to the negro whatever, when they declared all men to be created equal.”[199]

At Galesburg, October 7th, his faithful opponent answered:--

“The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration, and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument to suppose that negroes were meant therein; and he asks you, Is it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge’s speech, that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience, that, while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject, he used the strong language, that ‘he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just.’”[200]

And at Alton, October 15th, he renewed this same testimony.

“I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search the whole records of the country, and it will be a matter of great astonishment to me, if they shall be able to find that one human being three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term ‘all men’ in the Declaration did not include the negro. Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that more than three years ago there were men, who, finding this assertion constantly in the way of their schemes to bring about the ascendency and perpetuation of Slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that Mr. Calhoun, and all the politicians of his school, denied the truth of the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the mouth of some Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that shameful, though rather forcible, declaration of Pettit, of Indiana, upon the floor of the United States Senate, that the Declaration of Independence was, in that respect, ‘a self-evident lie,’ rather than a self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this hawking at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three years ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to assail it in _the sneaking way of pretending to believe it, and then asserting it did not include the negro_.”[201]

In another speech, during the same political contest, the champion spoke immortal words. After setting forth the sublime opening of the Declaration by our fathers, he said:--

“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.”

Then, lifted by his cause, he appealed to his fellow-countrymen in tones of pathetic eloquence:--

“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_. 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_.”[202]

Thus, at that early day, before war had overshadowed the land, was he ready for the sacrifice. “Take me and put me to death,” said he, “but do not destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the Declaration of American Independence.” He has been put to death by the enemies of the Declaration; but, though dead, he will continue to guard that great title-deed of the human race.

The debate ended. An immense vote was cast. There were 126,084 votes for the Republican candidates, 121,940 for the Douglas candidates, and 5,091 for the Lecompton candidates, another class of Democrats; but the supporters of Mr. Douglas had a majority of eight on joint ballot in the Legislature, and he was reëlected to the Senate.

Again returned to his profession, our champion cherished the Declaration. To the Republicans of Boston, who had invited him to unite with them in celebrating the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, he sent an answer, under date of April 6, 1859, which is a gem in political literature, and here also he asserts the supremacy of those truths for which he had battled so well. In him the West spoke to the East, pleading for Human Rights, as declared by our fathers.

“But, soberly, it is now no child’s play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.

“One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail utterly with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society, and yet they are denied and evaded with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them ‘glittering generalities’; another bluntly calls them ‘self-evident lies’; and others insidiously argue that they apply only to ‘superior races.’

“These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect,--the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against the people. They are the vanguard, the miners and sappers, of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.

“This is a world of compensations; and he who would _be_ no slave must consent to _have_ no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

“All honor to Jefferson,--the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document _an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times_, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression!”[203]

Next winter the Western champion appeared at New York, and in a remarkable address at the Cooper Institute, February 27, 1860, vindicated the policy of the Fathers and the principles of the Republican party. Showing with curious skill and minuteness the original understanding on the power of Congress over Slavery in the Territories, he demonstrated that the Republican party was not in any just sense sectional; and then exposed the perils from the pretensions of slave-masters, who, not content with requiring that “we must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure,” insisted that the Constitution must be so interpreted as to uphold the idea of property in man. The whole address was subdued and argumentative, while each sentence was like a driven nail, with a concluding rally that was a bugle-call to the lovers of right. “Let us have faith,” said he, “that _right makes might_, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.”

* * * * *

A few months later, this champion of the Right, who would not see the colored man shut out from the promises of the Declaration, and insisted upon the exclusion of Slavery from the Territories, after summoning his countrymen to their duty, was nominated by a great political party as candidate for President. Local considerations, securing to him the support of certain States beyond any other candidate, exercised a final influence in determining this selection; but it is easy to see how, from position, character, and origin, he was at that moment especially the representative of his country. The Unity of the Republic was menaced: he was from that vast controlling Northwest which would never renounce its communications with the sea, whether by the Mississippi or by eastern avenues. The birthday Declaration of the Republic was dishonored in the denial of its primal truths: he was already known as a volunteer in its defence. Republican institutions were in jeopardy: he was the child of humble life, through whom republican institutions would stand confessed. These things, so obvious now in the light of history, were less apparent then in the turmoil of party. But that Providence in whose hands are the destinies of nations, which had found out Washington to conduct his country through the War of Independence, now found out Lincoln to wage the new battle for the Unity of the Republic on the foundation of Human Rights.

The election took place. Of the popular votes, Abraham Lincoln received 1,866,452, carrying 180 electoral ballots; Stephen A. Douglas received 1,375,157, carrying 12 electoral ballots; John C. Breckinridge received 847,953, carrying 72 electoral ballots; and John Bell received 590,631, carrying 39 electoral ballots. By this vote Abraham Lincoln became President. The triumph at the ballot-box was flashed by telegraph over the whole country, from north to south, from east to west. It was answered by defiance from the Slave-Masters, speaking in the name of State Rights and for the sake of Slavery. The declared will of the American people, registered at the ballot-box, was set at nought. The conspiracy of years blazed into day. The National Government, which Alexander H. Stephens characterized as “the best and freest government, the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most aspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon,”[204] and which Jefferson Davis himself pronounced “the best government which has ever been instituted by man,”[205]--that National Government, thus painted even by its enemies, was spurned. South Carolina jumped forward first in crime; and before the elected President turned his face from the beautiful Western prairies to enter upon his dangerous duties, State after State had undertaken to abandon its place in the Union, Senator after Senator had dropped from his seat, fort after fort had been seized, and the mutterings of war had begun to fill the air, while the actual President, besotted by Slavery, tranquilly witnessed the gigantic treason, as he sat at ease in the Executive Mansion, and did nothing.

* * * * *

It was time for another to come upon the scene. You cannot forget how he left his village home, never to return, except under the escort of Death. In words of farewell to neighbors thronging about him, he dedicated himself to his country and solemnly invoked the aid of Divine Providence. “I know not,” he said, “how soon I shall see you again”; and then, with prophetic voice, announced that a duty devolved upon him “greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington,” and asked his friends to pray that he might receive that Divine assistance, without which he could not succeed, but with which success was certain. To power and fame others have gone forth with gladness and with song: he went forth prayerfully, as to sacrifice.

Nor can you forget how at each resting-place on the road he renewed his vows, and when at Independence Hall his soul broke forth in homage to the vital truths there declared. Of all that he said on the journey to the National Capital, after farewell to his neighbors, there is nothing so prophetic as these unpremeditated words:--

“All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in, 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.… Now, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I shall 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_.”[206]

Then, after adding that he had not expected to say a word, he repeated the consecration of his life, exclaiming, “I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, _and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by_.”[207]

He was about to raise the national banner over the old Hall. But before this service, he took up the strain he loved so well, saying: “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_.”[208]

Thus constantly did he bear testimony. Surely this grand fidelity will be ever counted among his chief glories. I know nothing in history more touching, especially when we consider that this devotion caused his sacrifice. “Were there as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the roofs, I would enter,”[209] said Luther. Our reformer was less defiant, but hardly less determined. Three times had he announced that for the great truths of the Declaration he was willing to die; three times had he offered himself on that altar; three times had he vowed himself to this martyrdom.

Slavery was already pursuing his life. An attempt was made to throw his train from the track, while a secreted hand-grenade further betrayed the diabolical purpose. Baltimore, directly on his way, was the seat of a murderous plot. Avoiding the conspirators, he came from Philadelphia to Washington unexpectedly in the night,--and thus, for the moment cheating Assassination of its victim, entered the National Capital.

* * * * *

From this time forward his career broadens into the history of his country and of the age. You all know it. Therefore a few glimpses will be enough, that I may exhibit its moral rather than its story.

The Inaugural Address, the formation of his Cabinet, his earliest acts, his daily conversation, all attested the spirit of moderation with which he approached his perilous position. At the same time he declared openly, that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual,--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,--that acts of violence within any State are insurrectionary or revolutionary,--and that, to the extent of his ability, he should take care, according to express injunction of the Constitution, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. While thus positive in upholding the National Unity, he was resolved that on his part there should be no act of offence,--that there should be no bloodshed or violence, unless forced upon the country,--that it was his duty to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government,--but, beyond what was necessary for this object, there should be no exercise of force, and the people everywhere should be left in that perfect security most favorable to calm thought and reflection.

But the madness of Slavery knew no bound. It was determined from the beginning that the Union should be broken, and no moderation could change this wicked purpose. A pretended power was organized, in the form of a Confederacy, with Slavery as the declared corner-stone. You know what ensued. Fort Sumter was attacked, and, after a fiery storm of shot and shell for thirty-four hours, the national flag fell. This was 13th April, 1861. War had begun.