Part 7

In a few years the family moved to Illinois. Lincoln then almost grown, clad in skins, with no woven stitch upon his body--walking and driving the cattle. Another farm was opened--a few acres subdued and enough raised to keep the wolf from the door. Lincoln quit the farm--went down the Ohio and Mississippi as a hand on a flat-boat--afterward clerked in a country store--then in partnership with another bought the store--failed. Nothing left but a few debts--learned the art of surveying--made about half a living and paid something on the debts--read law--admitted to the bar--tried a few small cases--nominated for the Legislature and made a speech.

This speech was in favor of a tariff, not only for revenue, but to encourage American manufacturers and to protect American workingmen. Lincoln knew then as well as we do now, that everything, to the limits of the possible, that Americans use should be produced by the energy, skill and ingenuity of Americans. He knew that the more industries we had, the greater variety of things we made, the greater would be the development of the American brain. And he knew that great men and great women are the best things that a nation can produce,--the finest crop a country can possibly raise.

He knew that a nation that sells raw material will grow ignorant and poor, while the people who manufacture will grow intelligent and rich. To dig, to chop, to plow, requires more muscle than mind, more strength than thought.

To invent, to manufacture, to take advantage of the forces of nature--this requires thought, talent, genius. This develops the brain and gives wings to the imagination.

It is better for Americans to purchase from Americans, even if the things purchased cost more.

If we purchase a ton of steel rails from England for twenty dollars, then we have the rails and England the money; But if we buy a ton of steel rails from an American for twenty-five dollars, then America has both the rails and the money.

Judging from the present universal depression and the recent elections, Lincoln, in his first speech, stood on solid rock and was absolutely right. Lincoln was educated in the University of Nature--educated by cloud and star--by field and winding stream--by billowed plains and solemn forests--by morning's birth and death of day--by storm and night--by the ever eager Spring--by Summer's wealth of leaf and vine and flower--the sad and transient glories of the Autumn woods--and Winter, builder of home and fireside, and whose storms without, create the social warmth within.

He was perfectly acquainted with the political questions of the day--heard them discussed at taverns and country stores, at voting places and courts and on the stump. He knew all the arguments for and against, and no man of his time was better equipped for intellectual conflict. He knew the average mind--the thoughts of the people, the hopes and prejudices of his fellow-men. He had the power of accurate statement. He was logical, candid and sincere. In addition, he had the "touch of nature that makes the whole world kin."

In 1858 he was a candidate for the Senate against Stephen A. Douglas.

The extreme Democrats would not vote for Douglas, but the extreme Republicans did vote for Lincoln. Lincoln occupied the middle ground, and was the compromise candidate of his own party. He had lived for many years in the intellectual territory of compromise--in a part of our country settled by Northern and Southern men--where Northern and Southern ideas met, and the ideas of the two sections were brought together and compared.

The sympathies of Lincoln, his ties of kindred, were with the South. His convictions, his sense of justice, and his ideals, were with the North. He knew the horrors of slavery, and he felt the unspeakable ecstasies and glories of freedom. He had the kindness, the gentleness, of true greatness, and he could not have been a master; he had the manhood and independence of true greatness, and he could not have been a slave. He was just, and was incapable of putting a burden upon others that he himself would not willingly bear.

He was merciful and profound, and it was not necessary for him to read the history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in the same nation, or in the same brain. Lincoln was a statesman.. And there is this difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician schemes and works in every way to make the people do something for him. A statesman wishes to do something for the people. With him place and power are means to an end, and the end is the good of his country.

In this campaign Lincoln demonstrated three things--first, that he was the intellectual superior of his opponent; second, that he was right; and third, that a majority of the voters of Illinois were on his side.

II.

IN 1860 the Republic reached a crisis. The conflict between liberty and slavery could no longer be delayed. For three-quarters of a century the forces had been gathering for the battle.

After the Revolution, principle was sacrificed for the sake of gain. The Constitution contradicted the Declaration. Liberty as a principle was held in contempt. Slavery took possession of the Government. Slavery made the laws, corrupted courts, dominated Presidents and demoralized the people.

I do not hold the South responsible for slavery any more than I do the North. The fact is, that individuals and nations act as they must. There is no chance. Back of every event--of every hope, prejudice, fancy and dream--of every opinion and belief--of every vice and virtue--of every smile and curse, is the efficient cause. The present moment is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past.

Northern politicians wanted office, and so they defended slavery; Northern merchants wanted to sell their goods to the South, and so they were the enemies of freedom. The preacher wished to please the people who paid his salary, and so he denounced the slave for not being satisfied with the position in which the good God had placed him.

The respectable, the rich, the prosperous, the holders of and the seekers for office, held liberty in contempt. They regarded the Constitution as far more sacred than the rights of men. Candidates for the presidency were applauded because they had tried to make slave States of free territory, and the highest court solemnly and ignorantly decided that colored men and women had no rights. Men who insisted that freedom was better than slavery, and that mothers should not be robbed of their babes, were hated, despised and mobbed. Mr. Douglas voiced the feelings of millions when he declared that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. Upon this question the people, a majority of them, were almost savages. Honor, manhood, conscience, principle--all sacrificed for the sake of gain or office.

From the heights of philosophy--standing above the contending hosts, above the prejudices, the sentimentalities of the day--Lincoln was great enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic words:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot permanently endure 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 the one thing or 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 the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it further until it becomes alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

This declaration was the standard around which gathered the grandest political party the world has ever seen, and this declaration made Lincoln the leader of that vast host.

In this, the first great crisis, Lincoln uttered the victorious truth that made him the foremost man in the Republic.

The Republican party nominated him for the presidency and the people decided at the polls that a house divided against itself could not stand, and that slavery had cursed soul and soil enough.

It is not a common thing to elect a really great man to fill the highest official position. I do not say that the great Presidents have been chosen by accident. Probably it would be better to say that they were the favorites of a happy chance.

The average man is afraid of genius. He feels as an awkward man feels in the presence of a sleight-of-hand performer. He admires and suspects. Genius appears to carry too much sail--to lack prudence, has too much courage. The ballast of dullness inspires confidence.

By a happy chance Lincoln was nominated and elected in spite of his fitness--and the patient, gentle, just and loving man was called upon to bear as great a burden as man has ever borne.

III.

THEN came another crisis--the crisis of Secession and Civil war.

Again Lincoln spoke the deepest feeling and the highest thought of the Nation. In his first message he said:

"The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy."

He also showed conclusively that the North and South, in spite of secession, must remain face to face--that physically they could not separate--that they must have more or less commerce, and that this commerce must be carried on either between the two sections as friends, or as aliens.

This situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection in these words:

"Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws among friends?"

After having stated fully and fairly the philosophy of the conflict, after having said enough to satisfy any calm and thoughtful mind, he addressed himself to the hearts of America. Probably there are few finer passages in literature than the close of Lincoln's inaugural address:

"I am loth 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 chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriotic grave to every loving heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

These noble, these touching, these pathetic words, were delivered in the presence of rebellion, in the midst of spies and conspirators--surrounded by but few friends, most of whom were unknown, and some of whom were wavering in their fidelity--at a time when secession was arrogant and organized, when patriotism was silent, and when, to quote the expressive words of Lincoln himself, "Sinners were calling the righteous to repentance."

When Lincoln became President, he was held in contempt by the South--underrated by the North and East--not appreciated even by his cabinet--and yet he was not only one of the wisest, but one of the shrewdest of mankind. Knowing that he had the right to enforce the laws of the Union in all parts of the United States, and Territories--knowing, as he did, that the secessionists were in the wrong, he also knew that they had sympathizers not only in the North, but in other lands.

Consequently, he felt that it was of the utmost importance that the South should fire the first shot, should do some act that would solidify the North, and gain for us the justification of the civilized world.

He proposed to give food to the soldiers at Sumter. He asked the advice of all his cabinet on this question, and all, with the exception of Montgomery Blair, answered in the negative, giving their reasons in writing. In spite of this, Lincoln took his own course--endeavored to send the supplies, and while thus engaged, doing his simple duty, the South commenced actual hostilities and fired on the fort. The course pursued by Lincoln was absolutely right, and the act of the South to a great extent solidified the North, and gained for the Republic the justification of a great number of people in other lands.

At that time Lincoln appreciated the scope and consequences of the impending conflict. Above all other thoughts in his mind was this:

"This conflict will settle the question, at least for centuries to come, whether man is capable of governing himself, and consequently is of greater importance to the free than to the enslaved."

He knew what depended on the issue and he said: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth."

HEN came a crisis in the North. It became clearer and clearer to Lincoln's mind, day by day, that the Rebellion was slavery, and that it was necessary to keep the border States on the side of the Union. For this purpose he proposed a scheme of emancipation and colonization--a scheme by which the owners of slaves should be paid the full value of what they called their "property."

He knew that if the border States agreed to gradual emancipation, and received compensation for their slaves, they would be forever lost to the Confederacy, whether secession succeeded or not. It was objected at the time, by some, that the scheme was far too expensive; but Lincoln, wiser than his advisers--far wiser than his enemies--demonstrated that from an economical point of view, his course was best.

IV.

He proposed that $400 be paid for slaves, including men, women and children. This was a large price, and yet he showed how much cheaper it was to purchase than to carry on the war.

At that time, at the price mentioned, there were about $750,000 worth of slaves in Delaware. The cost of carrying on the war was at least two millions of dollars a day, and for one-third of one day's expenses, all the slaves in Delaware could be purchased. He also showed that all the slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri could be bought, at the same price, for less than the expense of carrying on the war for eighty-seven days.

This was the wisest thing that could have been proposed, and yet such was the madness of the South, such the indignation of the North, that the advice was unheeded.

Again, in July, 1862, he urged on the Representatives of the border States a scheme of gradual compensated emancipation; but the Representatives were too deaf to hear, too blind to see.

Lincoln always hated slavery, and yet he felt the obligations and duties of his position. In his first message he assured the South that the laws, including the most odious of all--the law for the return of fugitive slaves--would be enforced. The South would not hear. Afterward he proposed to purchase the slaves of the border States, but the proposition was hardly discussed--hardly heard. Events came thick and fast; theories gave way to facts, and everything was left to force.

The extreme Democrat of the North was fearful that slavery might be destroyed, that the Constitution might be broken, and that Lincoln, after all, could not be trusted; and at the same time the radical Republican feared that Lincoln loved the Union more than he did liberty.

The fact is, that he tried to discharge the obligations of his great office, knowing from the first that slavery must perish. The course pursued by Lincoln was so gentle, so kind and persistent, so wise and logical, that millions of Northern Democrats sprang to the defence, not only of the Union, but of his administration. Lincoln refused to be led or hurried by Fremont or Hunter, by Greeley or Sumner. From first to last he was the real leader, and he kept step with events.

V.

ON the 22d of July, 1862, Lincoln sent word to the members of his cabinet that he wished to see them. It so happened that Secretary Chase was the first to arrive. He found Lincoln reading a book. Looking up from the page, the President said: "Chase, did you ever read this book?" "What book is it?" asked Chase. "Artemus Ward," replied Lincoln. "Let me read you this chapter, entitled '_Wax Wurx in Albany_.'" And so he began reading while the other members of the cabinet one by one came in. At last Stanton told Mr. Lincoln that he was in a great hurry, and if any business was to be done he would like to do it at once. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln laid down the open book, opened a drawer, took out a paper and said: "Gentlemen, I have called you together to notify you what I have determined to do. I want no advice. Nothing can change my mind."

He then read the Proclamation of Emancipation. Chase thought there ought to be something about God at the close, to which Lincoln replied: "Put it in, it won't hurt it." It was also agreed that the President would wait for a victory in the field before giving the Proclamation to the world.

The meeting was over, the members went their way. Mr. Chase was the last to go, and as he went through the door looked back and saw that Mr. Lincoln had taken up the book and was again engrossed in the _Wax Wurx at Albany._

This was on the 22d of July, 1862. On the 22d of August of the same year--after Lincoln wrote his celebrated letter to Horace Greeley, in which he stated that his object was to save the Union; _that he would save it with slavery if he could_; that if it was necessary to destroy slavery in order to save the Union, he would; in other words, he would do what was necessary to save the Union.

This letter disheartened, to a great degree, thousands and millions of the friends of freedom. They felt that Mr. Lincoln had not attained the moral height upon which they supposed he stood. And yet, when this letter was written, the Emancipation Proclamation was in his hands, and had been for thirty days, waiting only an opportunity to give it to the world.

Some two weeks after the letter to Greeley, Lincoln was waited on by a committee of clergymen, and was by them informed that it was God's will that he should issue a Proclamation of Emancipation. He replied to them, in substance, that the day of miracles had passed. He also mildly and kindly suggested that if it were God's will this Proclamation should be issued, certainly God would have made known that will to him--to the person whose duty it was to issue it.

On the 22d day of September, 1862, the most glorious date in the history of the Republic, the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued.

Lincoln had reached the generalization of all argument upon the question of slavery and freedom--a generalization that never has been, and probably never will be, excelled:

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free."

This is absolutely true. Liberty can be retained, can be enjoyed, only by giving it to others. The spendthrift saves, the miser is prodigal. In the realm of Freedom, waste is husbandry. He who puts chains upon the body of another shackles his own soul. The moment the Proclamation was issued the cause of the Republic became sacred. From that moment the North fought for the human race.

From that moment the North stood under the blue and stars, the flag of Nature, sublime and free.

In 1831, Lincoln went down the Mississippi on a flat-boat. He received the extravagant salary of ten dollars a month. When he reached New Orleans, he and some of his companions went about the city.

Among other places, they visited a slave market, where men and women were being sold at auction. A young colored girl was on the block. Lincoln heard the brutal words of the auctioneer--the savage remarks of bidders. The scene filled his soul with indignation and horror.

Turning to his companions, he said, "Boys, if I ever get a chance to hit slavery, by God I'll hit it hard!"

The helpless girl, unconsciously, had planted in a great heart the seeds of the Proclamation.

Thirty-one years afterward the chance came, the oath was kept, and to four millions of slaves, of men, women and children, was restored liberty, the jewel of the soul.

In the history, in the fiction of the world, there is nothing more intensely dramatic than this.

Lincoln held within his brain the grandest truths, and he held them as unconsciously, as easily, as naturally, as a waveless pool holds within its stainless breast a thousand stars.

In these two years we had traveled from the Ordinance of Secession to the Proclamation of Emancipation.

VI.

WE were surrounded by enemies. Many of the so-called great in Europe and England were against us. They hated the Republic, despised our institutions, and sought in many ways to aid the South.

Mr. Gladstone announced that Jefferson Davis had made a nation, and that he did not believe the restoration of the American Union by force attainable.

From the Vatican came words of encouragement for the South.

It was declared that the North was fighting for empire and the South for independence.

The Marquis of Salisbury said: "The people of the South are the natural allies of England. The North keeps an opposition shop in the same department of trade as ourselves."

Not a very elevated sentiment--but English.

Some of their statesmen declared that the subjugation of the South by the North would be a calamity to the world.

Louis Napoleon was another enemy, and he endeavored to establish a monarchy in Mexico, to the end that the great North might be destroyed. But the patience, the uncommon common sense, the statesmanship of Lincoln--in spite of foreign hate and Northern division--triumphed over all. And now we forgive all foes. Victory makes forgiveness easy.

Lincoln was by nature a diplomat. He knew the art of sailing against the wind. He had as much shrewdness as is consistent with honesty. He understood, not only the rights of individuals, but of nations. In all his correspondence with other governments he neither wrote nor sanctioned a line which afterward was used to tie his hands. In the use of perfect English he easily rose above all his advisers and all his fellows.

No one claims that Lincoln did all. He could have done nothing without the generals in the field, and the generals could have done nothing without their armies. The praise is due to all--to the private as much as to the officer; to the lowest who did his duty, as much as to the highest.

My heart goes out to the brave private as much as to the leader of the host.

But Lincoln stood at the centre and with infinite patience, with consummate skill, with the genius of goodness, directed, cheered, consoled and conquered.

VII.

SLAVERY was the cause of the war, and slavery was the perpetual stumbling-block. As the war went on, question after question arose--questions that could not be answered by theories. Should we hand back the slave to his master, when the master was using his slave to destroy the Union? If the South was right, slaves were property, and by the laws of war anything that might be used to the advantage of the enemy might be confiscated by us. Events did not wait for discussion. General Butler denominated the negro as "a contraband." Congress provided that the property of the rebels might be confiscated.

The extreme Democrats of the North regarded the slave as more sacred than life. It was no harm to kill the master--to burn his house, to ravage his fields--but you must not free his slave. If in war a nation has the right to take the property of its citizens--of its friends--certainly it has the right to take the property of those it has the right to kill.