The Life of Abraham Lincoln Part 9

"Yours of the 15th is just received. I wrote you the same day. As to the pecuniary matter, I am willing to pay according to my ability, but I am the poorest hand living to get others to pay. I have been on expense so long without earning anything that I am absolutely without money now for even household purposes. Still, if you can put up $250 for me towards discharging the debt of the committee, I will allow it when you and I settle the private matter between us. This, with what I have already paid, and with an outstanding note of mine, will exceed my subscription of $500. This, too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the campaign, all which, being added to my loss of time and business, bears pretty heavily on one no better off in world's goods than I; but as I had the post of honor, it is not for me to be over- nice. You are feeling badly--'And this, too, shall pa.s.s away.' Never fear."

CHAPTER XVI.

GROWING AUDACITY OF THE SLAVE POWER.

So closely is the life of Lincoln intertwined with the growth of the slave power that it will be necessary at this point to give a brief s.p.a.ce to the latter. It was the persistent, the ever-increasing, the imperious demands of this power that called Lincoln to his post of duty. The feeling upon the subject had reached a high degree of tension at the period we are now considering. To understand this fully, we must go back and come once again down through the period already treated.

There are three salient points of development.

The first of these is the fugitive slave law. At the adoption of the Const.i.tution it was arranged that there should be no specific approval of slavery. For this reason the word "slave" does not appear in that doc.u.ment. But the idea is there, and the phrase, "person held to service or labor," fully covers the subject. Slaves were a valuable property. The public opinion approved of the inst.i.tution. To set up one part of the territory as a refuge for escaped slaves would be an infringement of this right of property, and would cause unceasing friction between the various parts of the country.

In 1793, which happens to be the year of the invention of the cotton gin, the fugitive slave law was pa.s.sed. This was for the purpose of enacting measures by which escaped slaves might be recaptured. This law continued in force to 1850. As the years pa.s.sed, the operation of this law produced results not dreamed of in the outset. There came to be free states, communities in which the very toleration of slavery was an abomination. The conscience of these communities abhorred the inst.i.tution. Though these people were content to leave slavery unmolested in the slave states, they were angered at having the horrors of slave-hunting thrust upon them. In other words, they were unable to reside in any locality, no matter how stringent the laws were in behalf of freedom, where they were not liable to be invaded, their very homes entered, by the inst.i.tution of slavery in its most cruel forms.

This aroused a bitter antagonism in the North. Societies were formed to a.s.sist fugitive slaves to escape to Canada. Men living at convenient distances along the route were in communication with one another. The fugitives were pa.s.sed secretly and with great skill along this line.

These societies were known as the Underground Railway. The appropriateness of this name is obvious. The men themselves who secreted the fugitive slaves were said to keep stations on that railway.

This organized endeavor to a.s.sist the fugitives was met by an increased imperiousness on the part of the slave power. Slavery is imperious in its nature. It almost inevitably cultivates that disposition in those who wield the power. So that the case was rendered more exasperating by the pa.s.sage, in 1850, of another fugitive slave law. Nothing could have been devised more surely adapted to inflame the moral sense of those communities that were, in feeling or conscience, opposed to slavery, than this law of 1850. This was a reenactment of the law of 1793, but with more stringent and cruel regulations. The concealment or a.s.sisting of a fugitive was highly penal. Any home might be invaded and searched.

No hearth was safe from intrusion. The negro could not testify in his own behalf. It was practically impossible to counteract the oath or affidavit of the pretended master, and a premium was practically put upon perjury. The pursuit of slaves became a regular business, and its operation was often indescribably horrible. These cruelties were emphasized chiefly in the presence of those who were known to be averse to slavery in any form, and they could not escape from the revolting scenes.

The culmination of this was in what is known as the Dred Scott decision. Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. He was by his master taken to Fort Snelling, now in the state of Minnesota, then in the territory of Wisconsin. This was free soil, and the slave was, at least while there, free. With the consent of his former master he married a free woman who had formerly been a slave. Two children were born to them. The master returned to Missouri, bringing the negroes. He here claimed that they, being on slave soil, were restored to the condition of slavery.

Scott sued for his freedom and won his case. It was, however, appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The first opinion of the court was written by Judge Nelson. This treated of this specific case only. Had this opinion issued as the finding of the court, it would not have aroused general attention.

But the court was then dominated by the slave sentiment, and the opportunity of laying down general principles on the subject of slavery could not be resisted. The decision was written by Chief Justice Taney, and reaches its climax in the declaration that the negro "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Professor T. W. Dwight says that much injustice was done to Chief Justice Taney by the erroneous statement that he had himself affirmed that the negro "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." But while this may be satisfactory to the legal mind, to the lay mind, to the average citizen, it is a distinction without a difference, or, at best, with a very slight difference. The Judge was giving what, in his opinion, was the law of the land. It was his opinion, nay, it was his decision. Nor was it the unanimous ruling of the court. Two justices dissented. The words quoted are picturesque, and are well suited to a battle-cry. On every side, with ominous emphasis in the North, one heard that the negro had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. This was, until 1860, the last and greatest exhibition of audacity on the part of the slave power.

There was another exhibition of the spirit of slavery which deserves special mention. This is the history of the settlement of Kansas. That remarkable episode, lasting from 1854 to 1861, requires a volume, not a paragraph, for its narration. It is almost impossible for the imagination of those who live in an orderly, law-abiding community, to conceive that such a condition of affairs ever existed in any portion of the United States. The story of "bleeding Kansas" will long remain an example of the proverb that truth is stranger than fiction.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in 1854, opened up to this free territory the possibility of coming into the Union as a slave state. It was to be left to the actual settlers to decide this question. This principle was condensed into the phrase "squatter sovereignty." The only resource left to those who wished Kansas to come in as a free state was to settle it with an anti-slavery population.

With this purpose in view, societies were formed in anti-slavery communities, extending as far east as the Atlantic coast, to a.s.sist emigrants. From Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Ma.s.sachusetts, and elsewhere, emigrants poured into Kansas. But the slave party had the advantage of geographical location. The slave state of Missouri was only just across the river. It was able, at short notice and with little expense, to pour out its population in large numbers. This it did. Many went from Missouri as actual settlers. By far the larger part went only temporarily and for the purpose of creating a disturbance. These were popularly called "border ruffians." Their excesses of ruffianism are not easily described. They went into the territory for the purpose of driving out all the settlers who had come in under the emigrant aid societies. Murder was common. At the elections, they practised intimidation and every form of election fraud then known. Every election was contested, and both parties always claimed the victory.

The parties elected two separate legislatures, adopted two const.i.tutions, established two capitals. For several years, civil war and anarchy prevailed.

There is no doubt, either reasonable or unreasonable,--there is no doubt whatever that the anti-slavery men had a vast majority of actual settlers. The territorial governors were appointed by Presidents Pierce and Buchanan. These were uniformly pro-slavery and extremely partisan.

But every governor quickly came to side with the free-state men, or else resigned to get out of the way.

The pro-slavery men, after the farce of a pretended vote, declared the Lecompton const.i.tution adopted. The governor at that time was Walker, of Mississippi, who had been appointed as a sure friend of the interests of slavery. But even he revolted at so gross an outrage, and made a personal visit to Was.h.i.+ngton to protest against it. It was at this point, too, that Senator Douglas broke with the administration.

In spite of the overwhelming majority of anti-slavery settlers in the state, Kansas was not admitted to the Union until after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln.

So unscrupulous, imperious, grasping was the slave power. Whom the G.o.ds wish to destroy, they first make mad. The slave power had reached the reckless point of madness and was rus.h.i.+ng to its own destruction. These three manifestations,--the fugitive-slave law, the Dred Scott decision, and the anarchy in Kansas,--though they were revolting in the extreme and indescribably painful, hastened the end.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE BACKWOODSMAN AT THE CENTER OF EASTERN CULTURE.

Lincoln's modesty made it impossible for him to be ambitious. He appreciated honors, and he desired them up to a certain point. But they did not, in his way of looking at them, seem to belong to him. He was slow to realize that he was of more than ordinary importance to the community.

At the first republican convention in 1856, when Fremont was nominated for President, 111 votes were cast for Lincoln as the nominee for vice- president. The fact was published in the papers. When he saw the item it did not enter his head that he was the man. He said "there was a celebrated man of that name in Ma.s.sachusetts; doubtless it was he."

In 1858, when he asked Douglas the fatal question at Freeport, he was simply killing off Douglas's aspirations for the presidency. It was with no thought of being himself the successful rival.

Douglas had twice been a candidate for nomination before the democratic convention. Had it not been for this question he would have been elected at the next following presidential election.

As late as the early part of 1860, Lincoln vaguely desired the nomination for the vice-presidency. He would have been glad to be the running-mate of Seward, nothing more. Even this honor he thought to be beyond his reach, so slowly did he come to realize the growth of his fame.

The reports of the Lincoln-Douglas debates had produced a profound sensation in the West. They were printed in large numbers and scattered broadcast as campaign literature. Some Eastern men, also, had been alert to observe these events. William Cullen Bryant, the scholarly editor of the New York _Evening Post_, had shown keen interest in the debates.

Even after the election Lincoln did not cease the vigor of his criticisms. It will be remembered that before the formal debate Lincoln voluntarily went to Chicago to hear Douglas and to answer him. He followed him to Springfield and did the same thing. He now, after the election of 1858, followed him to Ohio and answered his speeches in Columbus and Cincinnati.

The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, who was always watchful of the development of the anti-slavery sentiment, now invited Lincoln to lecture in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. The invitation was accepted with the provision that the lecture might be a political speech.

J. G. Holland, who doubtless knew whereof he wrote, declares that it was a great misfortune that Lincoln was introduced to the country as a rail-splitter. Americans have no prejudice against humble beginnings, they are proud of self-made men, but there is nothing in the ability to split rails which necessarily qualifies one for the demands of statesmans.h.i.+p. Some of his ardent friends, far more zealous than judicious, had expressed so much glory over Abe the rail-splitter, that it left the impression that he was little more than a rail-splitter who could talk volubly and tell funny stories. This naturally alienated the finest culture east of the Alleghanies. "It took years for the country to learn that Mr. Lincoln was not a boor. It took years for them to unlearn what an unwise and boyish introduction of a great man to the public had taught them. It took years for them to comprehend the fact that in Mr. Lincoln the country had the wisest, truest, gentlest, n.o.blest, most sagacious President who had occupied the chair of state since Was.h.i.+ngton retired from it."

When he reached New York he found that there had been a change of plan, and he was to speak in Cooper Inst.i.tute, New York, instead of Beecher's church. He took the utmost care in revising his speech, for he felt that he was on new ground and must not do less than his best.

But though he made the most perfect intellectual preparation, the esthetic element of his personal appearance was sadly neglected. He was angular and loose-jointed,--he could not help that. He had provided himself, or had been provided, with a brand-new suit of clothes, whether of good material or poor we cannot say, whether well-fitting or ill-fitting we do not know, though we may easily guess. But we do know that it had been crowded into a small carpet-bag and came out a ma.s.s of wrinkles. And during the speech the collar or lappel annoyed both speaker and audience by persisting in rising up unbidden.

These details are mentioned to show the difficulty of the task before the orator. In the audience and on the platform were many of the most brilliant and scholarly men of the metropolis. There were also large numbers who had come chiefly to hear the westerner tell a lot of funny stories. The orator was introduced by Bryant.

The speech was strictly intellectual from beginning to end. Though Lincoln was not known in New York, Douglas was. So he fittingly took his start from a quotation of Douglas. The speech cannot be epitomized, but its general drift may be divined from its opening and closing sentences.

The quotation from Douglas was that which had been uttered at Columbus a few months before: "Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question (the question of slavery) just as well, and even better, than we do now." To this proposition the orator a.s.sented. That raised the inquiry, What was their understanding of the question? This was a historical question, and could be answered only by honest and painstaking research.

Continuing, the speaker said: "Does the proper division of local from Federal authority, or anything in the Const.i.tution, forbid our Federal government to control as to slavery in our Federal territories? Upon this Senator Douglas holds the affirmative and the republicans the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue, and this issue-- this question--is precisely what the text declares our fathers understood 'better than we.'

"I defy any one to show that any living man in the whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present century (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last half of the present century), declare that in his understanding any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Const.i.tution, forbade the Federal government to control as to slavery in the Federal territories. To those who now so declare, I give, not only 'our fathers who framed the government under which we live,' but with them all other living men within the century in which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them."

One paragraph is quoted for the aptness of its ill.u.s.tration: "But you will not abide the election of a republican President! In that supposed event, you say you will destroy the Union; and then you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, 'Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!' To be sure, what the robber demanded of me--my money--was my own, and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle."

The speech reached its climax in its closing paragraph: "Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that so much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national territories, and to overrun us here in the free states? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored--contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who would be neither a living man nor a dead man; such as a policy of 'don't care' on a question about which all true men do care; such as Union appeals to beseech all true Union men to yield to Disunionists; reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous, to repentance; such as invocations to Was.h.i.+ngton, imploring men to unsay what Was.h.i.+ngton said, and undo what Was.h.i.+ngton did.

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

This speech placed Lincoln in the line of the presidency. Not only was it received with unbounded enthusiasm by the ma.s.s of the people, but it was a revelation to the more intellectual and cultivated. Lincoln afterwards told of a professor of rhetoric at Yale College who was present. He made an abstract of the speech and the next day presented it to the cla.s.s as a model of cogency and finish. This professor followed Lincoln to Meriden to hear him again. The _Tribune_ gave to the speech unstinted praise, declaring that "no man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."

The greatest compliment, because the most deliberate, was that of the committee who prepared the speech for general distribution. Their preface is sufficiently explicit:

"No one who has not actually attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research and historical labors which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters; and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not traveled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln has turned from the testimony of 'the fathers' on the general question of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the first line to the last, from his premises to his conclusion, he travels with a swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled, an argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words, contains a chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to verify, and which must have cost the author months of investigation to acquire."

Surely Mr. Bryant and Mr. Beecher and the rest had every reason for gratification that they had introduced this man of humble beginnings to so brilliant a New York audience.