In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 28

"What did you see in New Orleans?"

"Slavery--men sold in the market like cattle. Jasper, it made me long to have power--to control men and congresses and armies. If I only had the power, I would strike that inst.i.tution hard. I said that to John Hanks, and he thought that slavery wasn't in any danger from anything that I would be likely to do. It don't look so, does it, elder? I have one vote, and I shall always cast that against wrong as long as I live. That is my right to do.

"Elder, listen. I want to tell you what I saw there one day, in a slave-pen. I saw a handsome young girl, with white blood in her, brought forward by a slave-driver and handled and struck with a whip like a horse. I had heard of such things before, but it did not seem possible that they could be true. Then I saw the same girl sold at auction, and purchased by a man who carried the face of a brute. When she saw who had purchased her, she wrung her hands and cried, but she was helpless and hopeless; and I turned my face toward the sky and vowed to give my soul against a system like that. I'm a Free-Soiler in my heart, and I have faith that right is might, and that the right in this matter will one day prevail."

Jasper remained with Mrs. Duncan for some days, and then formed a small school in the neighborhood, on the road to the town of Springfield, Illinois.

While teaching here he could not but notice the growth of Orfutt's clerk in the confidence of all the people. In all the games, he was chosen umpire or referee; in most cases of dispute he was consulted, and his judgment was followed. Long before he became a lawyer, people were accustomed to say, in a matter of casuistry:

"Take the case to Lincoln. He will give an opinion that will be fair."

Amid this growing reputation for character, a test happened which showed how far this moral education and discipline had gone.

A certain Henry McHenry, a popular man, had planned a horse-race, and applied to young Lincoln to go upon the racing stand as judge.

"The people have confidence in you," he said to Lincoln.

"I must not, and I will not do it," said Lincoln. "This custom of racing is wrong."

The man showed him that he was under a certain obligation to act as judge on this occasion.

"I will do it," he said; "but be it known to all that I will never appear at a horse-race again; and were I to become a lawyer, I would never accept a case into which I could not take an honest conscience, no matter what the inducements might be."

There was a school-master in New Salem who knew more than the honest clerk had been able to learn. This man, whose name was Graham, could teach grammar.

Abraham went to him one day, and said:

"I have a notion to study grammar."

"If you ever expect to enter public life, you should do so," said Mr.

Graham. "Why not begin now and recite to me?"

"Where shall I secure a book?" asked the student of this hard college of the wood.

"There is a man named Vaner, who lives six miles from here, who has a grammar that I think he will be willing to sell."

"If it be possible, I will secure it," said Lincoln.

He made a long walk and purchased the book, and so made a grammar-school, a cla.s.s of one, of his leisure moments in Orfutt's store.

While he thus was studying grammar, the men whom he thirty or more years afterward made Cabinet ministers, generals, and diplomats were enjoying the easy experiences of schools, military academies, and colleges. Not one of them ever dreamed of such an experience of soul-building and mind-building as this; and some of them, had they met him then, would have felt that they could not have invited him to their homes. Orfutt's store and that one grammar were not the elms of Yale, or the campus of Harvard, or the great libraries or bowery streets of English Oxford or Cambridge. Yet here grew and developed a soul which was to tower above the age, and hold hands with the master spirits not only of the time but the ages.

Years pa.s.sed, and one day that sad-faced boy, who was always seeking to make others cheerful amid the clouds of his own gloom, stood before a grim council of war. He had determined to call into the field of arms five hundred thousand men.

"If you do that thing," said a leader of the council, "you can not expect to be elected again President of the United States."

The dark form rose to the height of a giant and poured forth his soul, and he said:

"It is not necessary for me to be re-elected President of the United States, but it is necessary for the soldiers at the front to be re-enforced by five hundred thousand men, and I shall call for them; and if I go down under the act, I will go down like the c.u.mberland, with my colors flying."

It required a high school of experience to train a soul to an utterance like that; and that fateful declaration began in those moral syllables that defended the rights of the animals of the woods, that said "No" to a horse-race, that refused from the first to accept an unjust case at law, and that from the first declared that right is might.

CHAPTER XVII.

THOMAS LINCOLN MOVES.

Jasper taught school for a time in Boonesville, Indiana, and preached in the new settlements along the Wabash. While at Boonesville, he chanced to meet young Lincoln at the court house, under circ.u.mstances that filled his heart with pity.

It was at a trial for murder that greatly excited the people. The lawyer for the defense was John Breckinridge, a man of great reputation and ability.

Jasper saw young Lincoln among the people who had come to hear the great lawyer's plea, and said to him:

"You have traveled a long distance to be here to-day."

"Yes," said the tall young man. "There is nothing that leads one to seek information of the most intelligent people like a debating society. We, who used to meet to discuss questions at Jones's store, have formed a debating society, and I want to learn all I can of law for the sake of justice, and I owed it to myself and the society not to let this great occasion pa.s.s. I have walked fifteen miles to be here to-day. Did you know that father was thinking of moving to Illinois?"

"No. Will you go with him?"

"Yes, I shall go with him and see him well settled, and then I shall strike out for myself in the world. Father hasn't the faculty that mother has, you know. I can do some things better than he, and it is the duty of one member of the family to make up when he can for what another member lacks. We all have our own gifts, and should share them with others. I can split rails faster than father can, and do better work at house-building than he, and I am going with him and do for him the best I can at the start. I shall seek first for a roof for him, and then a place for myself."

The great lawyer arrived. The doors of the court-house were open, and the people filled the court-room.

The plea was a masterly one, eloquent and dramatic, and it thrilled the young soul of Lincoln. Full of the subject, the young debater sought Mr.

Breckinridge after the court adjourned, and extended his long arm and hand to him.

The orator was a proud man of an aristocratic family, and thought it the proper thing to maintain his dignity on all occasions. He looked at the boy haughtily, and refused to take his hand.

"I thank you," said Lincoln. "I wish to express my grat.i.tude."

"Sir!"

With a contemptuous look Breckinridge pa.s.sed by, and the slight filled the heart of the young man with disappointment and mortification. The two met again in Was.h.i.+ngton in 1862. The backwoods boy whose hand the orator had refused to take had become President of the United States. He extended his hand, and it was accepted.

"Sir," said the President, "that plea of yours in Boonesville, Indiana, was one of the best that I ever heard."

"In Boonesville, Indiana?"

How like a dream to the haughty lawyer the recollection must have been!

Such things as this hurt Lincoln to the quick. He was so low-spirited at times in his early manhood that he did not dare to carry with him a pocket-knife, lest he should be overcome in some dark and evil moment to end his own life. There were times when his tendencies were so alarming that he had to be watched by his friends. But these dark periods were followed by a great flow of spirits and the buoyancy of hope.

In the spring of 1830, Jasper and Waubeno came to Gentryville, and there met James Gentry, the leading man of the place.

"Are the Linkens still living in Spencer County?" he asked.