The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln Part 18

Then there was William H. Herndon, known to the world only because he happened to be "Lincoln's law partner." His advantages were superior to Lincoln's. And far more than that, he had his great partner's help to push him forward and upward. But "poor Billy" had an unfortunate appet.i.te. He could not deny himself, though it always made him ashamed and miserable. It dragged him down, down from "the President's partner"

to the gutter. That was not all. When he asked his old partner to give him a government appointment which he had, for years, been making himself wholly unworthy to fill, President Lincoln, much as he had loved Billy all along, could not give it to him. It grieved Mr. Lincoln's great heart to refuse Billy anything. But Herndon did not blame himself for all that. He spent the rest of his wretched life in bitterness and spite--avenging himself on his n.o.ble benefactor by putting untruths into the "Life of Lincoln" he was able to write because Abraham Lincoln, against the advice of his wife and friends, had insisted on keeping him close to his heart. It is a terrible thing--that spirit of spite! Among many good and true things he _had_ to say about his fatherly law partner, he poisoned the good name of Abraham Lincoln in the minds of millions, by writing stealthy slander about Lincoln's mother and wife, and made many people believe that the most religious of men at heart was an infidel (because he himself was one!), that Mr. Lincoln sometimes acted from unworthy and unpatriotic motives, and that he failed to come to his own wedding. If these things had been true it would have been wrong to publish them to the prejudice of a great man's good name--then how much more wicked to invent and spread broadcast falsehoods which hurt the heart and injure the mind of the whole world--just to spite the memory of the best friend a man ever had!

The fate of the firm of Lincoln & Herndon shows in a striking way how the world looks upon the heart that hates and the heart that loves, for the hateful junior partner died miserably in an almshouse, but the senior was crowned with immortal martyrdom in the White House.

THE RIVAL FOR LOVE AND HONORS

Stephen A. Douglas, "the Little Giant," who had been a rival for the hand of the fascinating Mary Todd, was also Lincoln's chief opponent in politics. Douglas was small and brilliant; used to society ways, he seemed always to keep ahead of his tall, uncouth, plodding compet.i.tor.

After going to Congress, Mr. Lincoln was encouraged to aspire even higher, so, ten years later, he became a candidate for the Senate.

Slavery was then the burning question, and Douglas seemed naturally to fall upon the opposite side, favoring and justifying it in every way he could.

Douglas was then a member of the Senate, but the opposing party nominated Lincoln to succeed him, while "the Little Giant" had been renominated to succeed himself. Douglas sneered at his tall opponent, trying to "d.a.m.n him with faint praise" by referring to him as "a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman." Mr. Lincoln challenged the Senator to discuss the issues of the hour in a series of debates.

Douglas was forced, very much against his will, to accept, and the debates took place in seven towns scattered over the State of Illinois, from August 21st to October 15th, 1858. Lincoln had announced his belief that "a house divided against itself cannot stand;" therefore the United States could not long exist "half slave and half free."

"The Little Giant" drove from place to place in great style, traveling with an escort of influential friends. These discussions, known in history as the "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," rose to national importance while they were in progress, by attracting the attention, in the newspapers, of voters all over the country. They were attended, on an average, by ten thousand persons each, both men being accompanied by bands and people carrying banners and what Mr. Lincoln called "fizzlegigs and fireworks."

Some of the banners were humorous.

------------------------ | | | Abe the Giant-Killer | | | ------------------------

was one. Another read:

----------------------------------------------------------- | | | Westward the Star of Empire takes its way; | |The girls link on to Lincoln, their mothers were for Clay. | | | -----------------------------------------------------------

At the first debate Lincoln took off his linen duster and, handing it to a bystander, said:

"Hold my coat while I stone Stephen!"

In the course of these debates Lincoln propounded questions for Mr.

Douglas to answer. Brilliant as "the Little Giant" was, he was not shrewd enough to defend himself from the shafts of his opponent's wit and logic. So he fell into Lincoln's trap.

"If he does that," said Lincoln, "he may be Senator, but he can never be President. I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

This prophecy proved true.

CHAPTER XVIII

HOW EMANc.i.p.aTION CAME TO Pa.s.s

When Abraham Lincoln was a small boy he began to show the keenest sympathy for the helpless and oppressed. The only time he betrayed anger as a child was, as you already have learned, when he saw the other boys hurting a mud-turtle. In his first school "composition," on "Cruelty to Animals," his stepsister remembers this sentence: "An ant's life is as sweet to it as ours is to us."

As you have read on an earlier page, when Abe grew to be a big, strong boy he saved a drunken man from freezing in the mud, by carrying him to a cabin, building a fire, and spent the rest of the night warming and sobering him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to the fate the other fellows thought he deserved, Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless, rescued a fellow-being not only from mud and cold but also from a drunkard's grave. For that tall lad's love and mercy revealed to the poor creature the terrible slavery of which he was the victim. Thus Abe helped him throw off the shackles of drink and made a man of him.

BLACK SLAVES AND WHITE

As he grew older, Abe Lincoln saw that the drink habit was a sort of human slavery. He delivered an address before the Was.h.i.+ngtonian (Temperance) Society in which he compared white slavery with black, in which he said:

"And when the victory shall be complete--when there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth--how proud the t.i.tle of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions that have ended in that victory."

This address was delivered on Was.h.i.+ngton's Birthday, 1842. The closing words throb with young Lawyer Lincoln's fervent patriotism:

"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of Was.h.i.+ngton; we are met to celebrate this day. Was.h.i.+ngton is the mightiest name of earth, long since the mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add to the brightness of the sun or glory to the name of Was.h.i.+ngton is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe we p.r.o.nounce the name and, in its naked, deathless splendor, leave it s.h.i.+ning on."

It was young Lincoln's patriotic love for George Was.h.i.+ngton which did so much to bring about, in time, a double emanc.i.p.ation from white slavery and black.

Once, as President, he said to a boy who had just signed the temperance pledge:

"Now, Sonny, keep that pledge and it will be the best act of your life."

President Lincoln was true and consistent in his temperance principles.

In March, 1864, he went by steamboat with his wife and "Little Tad," to visit General Grant at his headquarters at City Point, Virginia.

When asked how he was, during the reception which followed his arrival there, the President said, as related by General Horace Porter:

"'I am not feeling very well. I got pretty badly shaken up on the bay coming down, and am not altogether over it yet.'

"'Let me send for a bottle of champagne for you, Mr. President,' said a staff-officer, 'that's the best remedy I know of for sea-sickness.'

"'No, no, my young friend,' replied the President, 'I've seen many a man in my time seasick ash.o.r.e from drinking that very article.'

"That was the last time any one screwed up sufficient courage to offer him wine."

"THE UNDER DOG"

Some people are kinder to dumb animals--is it _because_ they are dumb?--than to their relatives. Many are the stories of Lincoln's tenderness to beasts and birds. But his kindness did not stop there, nor with his brothers and sisters in white. He recognized his close relations.h.i.+p with the black man, and the bitterest name his enemies called him--worse in their minds than "fool," "clown," "imbecile" or "gorilla"--was a "Black Republican." That terrible phobia against the negro only enlisted Abraham Lincoln's sympathies the more. He appeared in court in behalf of colored people, time and again. The more bitter the hatred and oppression of others, the more they needed his sympathetic help, the more certain they were to receive it.

"My sympathies are with the under dog," said Mr. Lincoln, one day, "though it is often that dog that starts the fuss."

The fact that the poor fellow may have brought the trouble upon himself did not make him forfeit Abraham Lincoln's sympathy. That was only a good lesson to him to "Look out and do better next time!"

THE QUESTION OF EMANc.i.p.aTION

After he went to Was.h.i.+ngton, President Lincoln was between two fires.

One side wanted the slaves freed whether the Union was broken up or not.

They could not see that declaring them free would have but little effect, if the government could not "back up" such a declaration.

The other party did not wish the matter tampered with, as cheap labor was necessary for raising cotton, sugar and other products on which the living of millions of people depended.

The extreme Abolitionists, who wished slavery abolished, whether or no, sent men to tell the President that if he did not free the slaves he was a coward and a turncoat, and they would withhold their support from the Government and the Army.

Delegations of Abolitionists from all over the North arrived almost daily from different cities to urge, coax and threaten the President.