Chapter 1

[Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added by the transcriber.]

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

MARCH, 1896.

VOL. VI. NO. 4.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Ida M. Tarbell. Lincoln Is Admitted to the Bar. Lincoln in the Tenth Assembly of Illinois. The Removal of the Capital to Springfield. Lincoln's First Reported Speech. Abraham Lincoln's First Protest Against Slavery. Social Life in Vandalia in 1836 and 1837. Lincoln Moves to Springfield. Lincoln's Position in Springfield. THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF. By Rudyard Kipling. A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low. CY AND I. By Eugene Field. A YOUNG HERO. By John Hay. CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. LOST YOUTH. By R.L. Stevenson. THE DIVIDED HOUSE. By Julia D. Whiting. SCIENTIFIC KITE-FLYING. By Cleveland Moffett. How to Make a Scientific Kite. How to Send Up a Kite. Runaway Tandems. The Lifting Power of Kites. The Meteorological Use of Kites. The Highest Flight Ever Made by a Kite. Drawing Down Electricity by a Kite-string. The Use of Kites in Photography. Possible Use of Kites in War. A DRAMATIC POINT. By Robert Barr. EDITORIAL NOTES. "Justice, Where Art Thou?" "A Disgrace to Civilization." The Real Lincoln. Lincoln in 1860--J. Henry Brown's Journal.

ILLUSTRATIONS

LINCOLN IN 1860. LINCOLN IN 1860. EBENEZER PECK. MEMBERS OF THE SANGAMON SOCIETY DELEGATION IN THE TENTH ILLINOIS ASSEMBLY. ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY. LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864. FRONTISPIECE OF "ALTON TRIALS," A SMALL VOLUME PUBLISHED IN 1838. STUART AND LINCOLN'S PROFESSIONAL CARD. OFFICE CHAIR FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE. STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE. A STAGE-COACH ADVERTISEMENT, 1834. MARY L. OWENS. LINCOLN AND HIS SON THOMAS, FAMILIARLY KNOWN AS "TAD." PAGE FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S FEE BOOK. OLD SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. WILLIAM BUTLER. INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY. MAP OF ILLINOIS. THE WAVE "WENT OUT IN THREE SURGES, MAKING A CLEAN SWEEP OF A BOAT." THE "DIMBULA" TAKING CARGO FOR HER FIRST VOYAGE. "AN UNUSUALLY SEVERE PITCH ... HAD LIFTED THE BIG THROBBING SCREW NEARLY TO THE SURFACE." THE GARROTED MAN. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA. DEATH ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA. GOYA. FROM A PORTRAIT ETCHED BY HIMSELF. ST. JUSTINA AND ST. RUFINA. FROM A PAINTING BY GOYA. THE BLIND FIDDLER. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR DAVID WILKIE. CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN. FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAM MULREADY. CONTRARY WINDS. FROM A PAINTING BY THOMAS WEBSTER. SANCHO PANZA IN THE APARTMENT OF THE DUCHESS. THE RAFT OF THE "MEDUSA." FROM A PAINTING BY GÉRICAULT. INGRES. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF. DELACROIX. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF IN 1837. A PORTRAIT OF INGRES, DRAWN IN ROME IN 1816. APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER. FROM A PAINTING BY INGRES. THE SEIZURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS. DANTE AND VIRGIL CROSSING THE LAKE WHICH SURROUNDS THE INFERNAL CITY OF DITÉ. HENRY H. MILLER, A MEMBER OF THE ORGINAL COMPANY OF ELLSWORTH ZOUAVES. ELLSWORTH IN THE SPRING OF 1861. ELLSWORTH IN 1860. FRANK E. BROWNELL, WHO KILLED THE ASSASSIN OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH. THE DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH. THE MARSHALL HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA. COLONEL ELLSWORTH AND A GROUP OF MILITIA OFFICERS. "THE OLD BRICK ACADEMY," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACUSETTS. ABBOT ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS. "THE STONE BUILDING," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS. THE HOUSE IN ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, CONTAINING THE SCHOOL CALLED "THE NUNNERY." HENRY MILLS ALDEN, EDITOR OF "HARPER'S MAGAZINE." ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. "THE DOCTOR DON'T SEEM TO THINK I SHALL TUCKER IT OUT MUCH LONGER." THE DIVIDED HOUSE. "AS ARMIDA SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE OLD RUSSET APPLE-TREE, ..." EVENING IN THE DIVIDED KITCHEN. "LOOKING BEFORE THEM THEY COULD SEE BOTH HUSBAND AND WIFE MOTIONLESS IN THE ROAD." HARGRAVE LIFTED SIXTEEN FEET FROM THE GROUND BY A TANDEM OF HIS BOX-KITES. FRANKFORT STREET. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE. FRANKFORT STREET. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE. (ANOTHER VIEW.) THE EDDY TAILLESS KITE. THE HARGRAVE BOX-KITE. NEW YORK, EAST RIVER, BROOKLYN, AND NEW YORK BAY, FROM A KITE. PHOTOGRAPHING FROM A KITE-LINE. CITY HALL PARK AND BROADWAY FROM A KITE. MURRAY AND WARREN STREETS, NEW YORK CITY, FROM A KITE. KITE-DRAWN BUOY. DIRIGIBLE KITE-DRAWN BUOY. THE KITE-BUOY IN SERVICE. "MY GOD!--YOU WERE RIGHT--AFTER ALL."

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.

VOL. VI. MARCH, 1896. No. 4.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN'S ELECTION TO THE TENTH ASSEMBLY.--ADMISSION TO THE BAR.--REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD.

The first twenty-six years of Abraham Lincoln's life have been traced in the preceding chapters. We have seen him struggling to escape from the lot of a common farm laborer, to which he seemed to be born; becoming a flatboatman, a grocery clerk, a store-keeper, a postmaster, and finally a surveyor. We have traced his efforts to rise above the intellectual apathy and the indifference to culture which characterized the people among whom he was reared, by studying with eagerness every subject on which he could find books,--biography, state history, mathematics, grammar, surveying, and finally law. We have followed his growth in ambition and in popularity from the day when, on a keg in an Indiana grocery, he debated the contents of the Louisville "Journal" with a company of admiring elders, to the time when, purely because he was liked, he was elected to the State Assembly of Illinois by the people of Sangamon County. His joys and sorrows have been reviewed from his childhood in Kentucky to the day of the death of the woman he loved and had hoped to make his wife. These twenty-six years form the first period of Lincoln's life. It was a period of makeshifts and experiments, ending in a tragic sorrow; but at its close he had definite aims, and preparation and experience enough to convince him that he dared follow them. Law and politics were the fields he had chosen, and in the first year of the second period of his life, 1836, he entered them definitely.

The Ninth General Assembly of Illinois, in which Lincoln had done his preparatory work as a legislator, was dissolved, and in June, 1836, he announced himself as a candidate for the Tenth Assembly. A few days later the "Sangamon Journal" published his simple platform:

NEW SALEM, _June 13, 1836_. TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'JOURNAL':

"In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the signature of 'Many Voters,' in which the candidates who are announced in the 'Journal' are called upon to 'show their hands.' Agreed. Here's mine:

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me.

While acting as their representative, I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others, I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several States, to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying the interest on it.

"If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for President.

"Very respectfully, "A. LINCOLN."

The campaign which Lincoln began with this letter was in every way more exciting for him than those of 1832 and 1834. Since the last election a census had been taken in Illinois which showed so large an increase in the population that the legislative districts had been reapportioned and the General Assembly increased by fifty members. In this reapportionment Sangamon County's delegation had been enlarged to seven representatives and two senators. This gave large new opportunity to political ambition, and doubled the enthusiasm of political meetings.

But the increase of the representation was not all that made the campaign exciting. Party lines had never before been so clearly drawn, nor personal abuse quite so intense. One of Lincoln's first acts was to answer a personal attack. He did it in a letter marked by candor, good-humor, and shrewdness.

"NEW SALEM, _June 21, 1836_. "DEAR COLONEL:

"I am told that during my absence last week you passed through the place and stated publicly that you were in possession of a fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy the prospects of N.W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election; but that through favor to us you would forbear to divulge them. No one has needed favors more than I, and generally few have been less unwilling to accept them; but in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon County is sufficiently evident; and if I have done anything, either by design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows of that thing and conceals it is a traitor to his country's interest.

"I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke; but my opinion of your veracity will not permit me for a moment to doubt that you at least believed what you said. I am flattered with the personal regard you manifested for me; but I do hope that on mature reflection you will view the public interest as a paramount consideration and therefore let the worst come.

"I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part, however low it may sink me, shall never break the ties of personal friendship between us.

"I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to publish both if you choose.

"Very respectfully, "A. LINCOLN."

"COLONEL ROBERT ALLEN."

Usually during the campaign Lincoln was obliged to meet personal attacks, not by letter, but on the platform. Joshua Speed, who later became the most intimate friend that Lincoln probably ever had, tells of one occasion when he was obliged to meet such an attack on the very spur of the moment. A great mass-meeting was in progress at Springfield, and Lincoln had made a speech which had produced a deep impression. "I was then fresh from Kentucky," says Mr. Speed, "and had heard many of her great orators. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that I never heard a more effective speaker. He carried the crowd with him, and swayed them as he pleased. So deep an impression did he make that George Forquer, a man of much celebrity as a sarcastic speaker and with a great reputation throughout the State as an orator, rose and asked the people to hear _him_. He began his speech by saying that this young man would have to be taken down, and he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He made what was called one of his 'slasher-gaff' speeches, dealing much in ridicule and sarcasm. Lincoln stood near him, with his arms folded, never interrupting him. When Forquer was done, Lincoln walked to the stand, and replied so fully and completely that his friends bore him from the court-house on their shoulders.

"So deep an impression did this first speech make upon me that I remember its conclusion now, after a lapse of thirty-eight years. Said he:

"'The gentleman commenced his speech by saying that this young man would have to be taken down, and he was sorry the task devolved upon him. I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and trade of a politician; but live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics and simultaneous with the change receive an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then have to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God.'

"To understand the point of this it must be explained that Forquer had been a Whig, but had changed his politics, and had been appointed Register of the Land Office; and over his house was the only lightning-rod in the town or country. Lincoln had seen the lightning-rod for the first time on the day before."

This speech has never been forgotten in Springfield, and on my visits there I have repeatedly had the site of the house on which this particular lightning-rod was placed pointed out, and one or another of the many versions which the story has been given, related to me.

It was the practice at that date in Illinois for two rival candidates to travel over the district together. The custom led to much good-natured raillery between them; and in such contests Lincoln was rarely, if ever, worsted. He could even turn the generosity of his rival to account by his whimsical treatment, as the following shows: He had driven out from Springfield in company with a political opponent to engage in joint debate. The carriage, it seems, belonged to his opponent. In addressing the gathering of farmers that met them, Lincoln was lavish in praise of the generosity of his friend. "I am too poor to own a carriage," he said, "but my friend has generously invited me to ride with him. I want you to vote for me if you will; but if not, then vote for my opponent, for he is a fine man." His extravagant and persistent praise of his opponent appealed to the sense of humor in his farmer audience, to whom Lincoln's inability to own a carriage was by no means a disqualification.[1]

The election came off in August, and resulted in the choice of a delegation from Sangamon County famous in the annals of Illinois. The nine successful candidates were Abraham Lincoln, John Dawson, Daniel Stone, Ninian W. Edwards, William F. Elkins, R.L. Wilson, Andrew McCormick, Job Fletcher, and Arthur Herndon. Each one of these men was over six feet in height, their combined stature being, it is said, fifty-five feet. The "Long Nine" was the name Sangamon County gave them.

LINCOLN IS ADMITTED TO THE BAR.

As soon as the election was over Lincoln occupied himself in settling another matter, of much greater moment, in his own judgment. He went to Springfield to seek admission to the bar. The "roll of attorneys and counsellors at law," on file in the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court at Springfield, Illinois, shows that his license was dated September 9, 1836, and that the date of the enrollment of his name upon the official list was March 1, 1837. The first case in which he was concerned, as far as we know, was that of Hawthorn against Woolridge. He made his first appearance in court in October, 1836.

Although he had given much time during this year to politics and the law, he had by no means abandoned surveying. Indeed he never had more calls. Surveying was particularly brisk at the moment, and he frequently was obliged to be away for three and four weeks at a time, laying out towns or locating roads. "When he got a job," says the Hon. J.M. Ruggles, a friend and political supporter of Mr. Lincoln, "there was a picnic and jolly time in the neighborhood. Men and boys would gather around, ready to carry chain, drive stakes, and blaze trees, but mainly to hear Lincoln's odd stories and jokes. The fun was interspersed with foot races and wrestling matches. To this day the old settlers around Bath repeat the incidents of Lincoln's sojourns in their neighborhood while surveying that town."

LINCOLN IN THE TENTH ASSEMBLY OF ILLINOIS

In December Lincoln put away his surveying instruments to go to Vandalia for the opening session of the Tenth Assembly. Larger by fifty members than its predecessor, this body was as much superior in intellect as in numbers. It included among its members a future President of the United States, a future candidate for the same high office, six future United States Senators, eight future members of the National House of Representatives, a future Secretary of the Interior, and three future Judges of the State Supreme Court. Here sat side by side Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas; Edward Dickinson Baker, who represented at different times the States of Illinois and Oregon in the national councils; O.H. Browning, a prospective senator and future cabinet officer, and William L.D. Ewing, who had just served in the senate; John Logan, father of the late General John A. Logan; Robert M. Cullom, father of Senator Shelby M. Cullom; John A. McClernand, afterward member of Congress for many years, and a distinguished general in the late Civil War; and many others of national repute.[2]