The Life of Abraham Lincoln Part 8

In this the newspapers took the initiative. A number of papers editorially called for a convention, which was really a ma.s.s meeting, for there were no accredited delegates, and could be none. This met in Decatur on Was.h.i.+ngton's birthday, 1856. It was a motley a.s.sembly, from a political standpoint. It included whigs, democrats, free-soilers, abolitionists, and know-nothings. Said Lincoln: "Of strange, discordant, even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds."

Politicians were conspicuously absent, for it would imperil their political orthodoxy to be seen there. Lincoln was the princ.i.p.al one who had anything to lose. He was consulted on all measures, and gave freely of his counsel. The proceedings ended with a dinner, at which he made a speech.

He was the most prominent man in the new movement, was popular throughout the state, and was the logical candidate for governor. He would have been highly gratified with the candidacy. But again he put personal desires one side that the general good might not be endangered. He therefore proposed, in his after-dinner speech, for nomination a democrat who had a record of earnest opposition to the slave power. Refusing the use of his own name, he added: "But I can suggest a name that will secure not only the old whig vote, but enough anti-Nebraska democrats to give us the victory. That man is Colonel William H. Bissell." Bissell was afterwards regularly nominated and triumphantly elected. The meeting at Decatur called for a convention to be held at Bloomington on the 29th of May.

About the same thing had been going on in some other free states. On the very day of the Decatur meeting there was a notable meeting for the same purpose in Pittsburg. This was attended by E. D. Morgan, governor of New York, Horace Greeley, O. P. Morton, Zach. Chandler, Joshua R.

Giddings, and other prominent men. They issued the call for the first national convention of the republican party to be held in Philadelphia in June.

In May the Illinois convention a.s.sembled in Bloomington, and the most conspicuous person there was Lincoln. It was there that he made the amazing speech already described. It was the speech which held even the reporters in such a spell that they could not report it. It is known in history as the "lost speech," but the fame of it endures to this day.

The democratic convention met in Cincinnati early in June and nominated James Buchanan to succeed Franklin Pierce. Thus Douglas was for a second time defeated for the nomination.

The republican convention met a few days later in Philadelphia. At that time John C. Fremont was at the height of his fame. His character was romantic, and the record of his adventures was as fascinating as a novel by Dumas. He had earned the name of "pathfinder" by crossing the continent. Although unauthorized, he had in California raised a military company which was of material a.s.sistance to the naval forces of the United States against a Mexican insurrection. He was an ardent hater of slavery. He was precisely the man, as standard-bearer, to infuse enthusiasm into the new party and to give it a good start in its career. He did this and did it well. The large vote which he polled augured well for the future.

All this we may claim without denying the fact that it was fortunate for the party and for the country that he was not elected. There was no doubt of his sincerity or his patriotism. But he lacked self-control, wariness, patience. He was hot-headed, extreme, egotistical. He never could have carried the burdens of the first administration of the republican party.

When the election was over, it was found that Buchanan had carried every slave state except Maryland, which went to Fillmore. Fremont had carried every New England state and five other northern states.

Buchanan received 174 electoral votes; Fremont, 114; Fillmore, 8. The popular vote was, for Buchanan, 1,838,169; for Fremont, 1,341,264; for Fillmore, 874,534. That was an excellent showing for the new party. It showed that it had come to stay, and gave a reasonable hope of victory at the next presidential election.

Lincoln was at the head of the electoral ticket of the state of Illinois. He usually was on the ticket. He playfully called himself one of the electors that seldom elected anybody. In Illinois the honors of the election were evenly divided between the two parties. Buchanan carried the state by a handsome majority, but Bissell was elected governor by a good majority. Lincoln had faithfully canva.s.sed the state and made nearly fifty speeches. One paragraph from a speech made in Galena should be quoted. The slave party had raised the cry of sectionalism, and had charged that the republicans purposed to destroy the Union. Lincoln said:

"But the Union, in any event, will not be dissolved. We don't want to dissolve it, and if you attempt it we won't let you. With the purse and sword, the army, the navy, and the treasury in our hands and at our command, you could not do it. This government would be very weak indeed if a majority with a disciplined army and navy and a well-filled treasury could not preserve itself, when attacked by an unarmed, undisciplined minority. All this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug, nothing but folly. We do not want to dissolve the Union; you shall not."

These words were prophetic of the condition of the country and of his own policy four or five years later. But he apparently did not apprehend that an unscrupulous administration might steal the army and the munitions of war, scatter the navy, and empty the treasury.

On the 10th of December Lincoln spoke at a republican banquet in Chicago. It was after the election, after Buchanan's supercilious message to congress. The purpose of the speech was to forecast the future of the young party. The following quotations may be read with interest:

"He [Buchanan, in his message to congress] says the people did it. He forgets that the 'people,' as he complacently calls only those who voted for Buchanan, are in a minority of the whole people by about four hundred thousand votes.... All of us who did not vote for Mr. Buchanan, taken together, are a majority of four hundred thousand. But in the late contest we were divided between Fremont and Fillmore. Can we not come together for the future? Let every one who really believes, and is resolved, that free society is not and shall not be a failure, and who can conscientiously declare that in the past contest he has done only what he thought best, let every such one have charity to believe that every other one can say as much. Let bygones be bygones; let past differences as nothing be; and with steady eye on the real issue, let us re-inaugurate the good old 'central ideas' of the republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us; G.o.d is with us. We shall again be able to declare, not that 'all states as states are equal,' nor yet that 'all citizens as citizens are equal,' but to renew the broader, better declaration, including these and much more, that 'all men are created equal.'"

It was upon the wisdom of this plan that, four years later, he held the foes of slavery united, while the foes of freedom were divided among themselves. It was this that carried the party to its first victory and made him president.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.

The admiring friends of Douglas had given him the nickname of "the little giant." To this he was fairly ent.i.tled. Physically he was very little. Intellectually he was a giant. He was in 1858 perhaps the most prominent man in the United States. He was the unquestioned leader of the dominant party. He had been so long in public life that he was familiar with every public question, while upon the burning question of slavery he was the leader.

Lincoln was a giant physically, and it soon became evident that he was no less intellectually. These two men soon were to come together in a series of joint debates. It was manifest that this would be a battle of intellectual giants. No other such debates have ever occurred in the history of the country.

Events led up to this rapidly and with the certainty of fate. In 1854 Lincoln had been candidate for the senate to succeed s.h.i.+elds, but his party had been outwitted and he was compelled to subst.i.tute Trumbull.

In 1856 he was the logical candidate for governor, but he was of opinion that the cause would be better served permanently by placing an anti-slavery democrat in nomination. This was done and Bissell was elected. Now in 1858 the senatorial term of Douglas was about to expire and a successor would be chosen. Douglas was the candidate of his own party. The republicans turned naturally and spontaneously to Lincoln, for it would be no light task to defeat so strong an opponent.

The republican convention met in Springfield on the 16th of June.

Lincoln was by acclamation nominated "as the first and only choice" of the republican party for United States senator. The above time-honored phrase was used sincerely on that occasion. There was great enthusiasm, absolute unanimity.

On the evening of the following day he addressed the convention in a speech which has become historic. His opening words were:

"If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to the slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and pa.s.sed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently 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 one thing or all 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 forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South."

This speech came quickly to be known as "the house-divided-against- itself speech." By that name it is still known. Concluding he said: "Our cause, then, must be entrusted to and conducted by its own undoubted friends, those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result.... The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail. If we stand firm we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the victory is sure to come." This was a strong speech, delivered before an audience of men of unusual ability, delegates who represented all parts of the state. It was in no wise a harangue. It was entirely thoughtful and strictly logical. The effect of it was to intensify the enthusiasm, and to spread it all through the state. It was a speech that Douglas could not ignore, though he might misrepresent it. This he did by raising the charge of sectionalism against his adversary.

About three weeks later, on the 9th of July, Douglas made an elaborate speech in Chicago. Lincoln was in the audience. It was unofficially arranged that he should reply. He did so the following evening. A week later a similar thing occurred in Springfield. Douglas made a speech in the afternoon to which Lincoln replied in the evening. Shortly after this Lincoln wrote Douglas a letter proposing a series of joint discussions, or challenging him to a series of joint debates. Douglas replied in a patronizing and irritating tone, asked for a slight advantage in his own favor, but he accepted the proposal. He did not do it in a very gracious manner, but he did it. They arranged for seven discussions in towns, the locations being scattered fairly over the entire territory of the state.

If Illinois had before been "the cynosure of neighboring eyes," much more was it so now. Lincoln was by no means the most prominent anti- slavery man, but he was the only man in a position to beard his rival.

The proposed debates excited not only the interest of the state and the neighboring states, but from the East and the South all minds were turned to this tournament. It was not a local discussion; it was a national and critical question that was at issue. The interest was no less eager in New York, Was.h.i.+ngton, and Charleston than in Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.

The two men had been neighbors for many years. They were together members of the legislature, first in Vandalia and then in Springfield.

They had frequently met socially in Springfield. Both paid marked attentions to the same young lady. Both had served in Was.h.i.+ngton City.

Douglas was for most of his life an officeholder, so that in one way or another Lincoln would be brought into a.s.sociation with him. But though they met so frequently it is not probable that, before this time, either recognized in the other his supreme antagonist. After the repeal of the Missouri Compromise Lincoln had, as already related, discussed Douglas with great plainness of speech. This had been twice repeated in this year. But these were, comparatively speaking, mere incidents. The great contest was to be in the debates.

In the outset, Douglas had the advantage of prestige. Nothing succeeds like success. Douglas had all his life had nothing but success. He twice had missed the nomination for presidency, but he was still the most formidable man in the senate. He was very popular in his own state. He was everywhere greeted by large crowds, with bands of music and other demonstrations. He always traveled in a special car and often in a special train, which was freely placed at his disposal by the Illinois Central Railway. Lincoln traveled by accommodation train, freight train, or wagon, as best he could. As both the men were everyday speaking independently between the debates, this question of transportation was serious. The inconveniences of travel made a great drain upon the nervous force and the health. One day when the freight train bearing Lincoln was side-tracked to let his rival's special train roll by, he good-humoredly remarked that Douglas "did not smell any royalty in this car."

Another fact which gave Douglas the advantage was the friends.h.i.+p and sympathy of Horace Greeley and others, who had much influence with the party of Lincoln. Douglas had broken with Buchanan's administration on a question relating to Kansas. The iniquity of the powers at Was.h.i.+ngton went so far that even Douglas rebelled. This led Greeley and others to think that Douglas had in him the making of a good republican if he was only treated with sufficient consideration. Accordingly, all of that influence was bitterly thrown in opposition to Lincoln.

The methods of the two men were as diverse as their bodily appearance.

Douglas was a master of what the ancient Greeks would have called "making the worse appear the better reason." He was able to misstate his antagonist's position so shrewdly as to deceive the very elect. And with equal skill he could escape from the real meaning of his own statements. Lincoln's characterization is apt: "Judge Douglas is playing cuttlefish--a small species of fish that has no mode of defending himself when pursued except by throwing out a black fluid which makes the water so dark the enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes."

Lincoln's method was to hold the discussion down to the point at issue with clear and forcible statement. He arraigned the iniquity of slavery as an offense against G.o.d. He made the phrase "all men" of the Declaration of Independence include the black as well as the white.

Said he: "There is no reason in the world why the negro is not ent.i.tled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence--the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.... In the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man." He quoted Jefferson's remark, "I tremble for my country when I remember that G.o.d is just." Mercilessly he a.n.a.lyzed Douglas's speeches and exposed his sophistry.

The forensic ability of the two men is suggestively indicated by the remark of a lady who heard them speak, and afterward said: "I can recall only one fact of the debates, that I felt so sorry for Lincoln while Douglas was speaking, and then _so_ sorry for Douglas while Lincoln was speaking."

These debates occupied seven different evenings of three hours each.

The speeches were afterwards published in book form and had a wide circulation. These speeches, numbering twenty-one in all, filled a large volume. It is not the purpose of this chapter to give an outline of the debates, it is only to give a general idea of their result. But out of them came one prominent fact, which so influenced the careers of the two men that it must be briefly recorded. This went by the name of "the Freeport doctrine."

In the first debate Douglas had asked Lincoln a series of questions.

The villainy of these questions was in the innuendo. They began, "I desire to know whether Lincoln stands to-day, as he did in 1854, in favor of," etc. Douglas then quoted from the platform of a convention which Lincoln had not attended, and with which he had nothing to do.

Lincoln denied these insinuations, and said that he had never favored those doctrines; but the trick succeeded, and the impression was made that Douglas had cornered him. The questions, to all intents and purposes, were a forgery. This forgery was quickly exposed by a Chicago paper, and the result was not helpful to Douglas. It was made manifest that he was not conducting the debates in a fair and manly way.

Further than this, the fact that these questions had been asked gave Lincoln, in turn, the right to ask questions of Douglas. This right he used. For the next debate, which was to be at Freeport, he prepared, among others, the following question: "Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state const.i.tution?" If this were answered "No," it would alienate the citizens of Illinois. If it were answered "Yes," it would alienate the democrats of the South.

On the way to Freeport he met a number of friends and took counsel of them. When he read question number two, the one above quoted, his friends earnestly and unanimously advised him not to put that question.

"If you do," said they, "you never can be senator." To which Lincoln replied: "Gentlemen, I am killing larger game. If Douglas answers, he can never be President, and the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this."

It is not probable that Lincoln expected to be in 1860 the nominee of the republican party. But he did see the danger of the election of Douglas to the presidency. He was willing to surrender the senatorial election to save the country from a Douglas administration. The sacrifice was made. The prediction proved true. Lincoln lost the senators.h.i.+p, Douglas lost the presidency.

The popular verdict, as shown in the election, was in favor of Lincoln.

The republicans polled 125,430 votes; the Douglas democrats, 121,609, and the Buchanan democrats, 5,071. But the apportionment of the legislative districts was such that Douglas had a majority on the joint ballot of the legislature. He received 54 votes to 46 for Lincoln. This secured his reelection to the senate.

The popular verdict outside the state of Illinois was in favor of Lincoln. The republican party circulated the volume containing the full report of the speeches. It does not appear that the democrats did so.

This forces the conclusion that the intellectual and moral victory was on the side of Lincoln.

There is a pathetic sequel to this. The campaign had been very arduous on Lincoln. Douglas had made 130 speeches in 100 days, not counting Sundays. Lincoln had made probably about the same number. These were not brief addresses from a railway car, but fully elaborated speeches.

The labors commenced early in July and continued through the heat of the summer. With Lincoln the inadequate means of travel added to the draft upon his strength. At the end of all came the triumphant election of his rival. Add to this the fact that the next day he received a letter from the republican committee saying that their funds would not meet the bills, and asking for an additional contribution. The rest is best told in Lincoln's own words: