Abraham Lincoln: a History Volume Ii Part 15

[Sidenote] Mason Report, p. 18.

Upon politics the main effect of the Harper's Ferry incident was to aggravate the temper and increase the bitterness of all parties.

Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi; Mason, of Virginia; and Fitch, of Indiana, Democratic members of the Senate investigating committee, sought diligently but unsuccessfully to find grounds to hold the Republican party at large responsible for Brown's raid. They felt obliged to report that they could not recommend any legislation to meet similar cases in the future, since the "invasion" of Virginia was not of the kind mentioned in the Const.i.tution, but was "simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the sanction of no public or political authority." Collamer, of Vermont, and Doolittle, of Wisconsin, Republican members of the committee, in their minority report, considered the affair an outgrowth of the pro-slavery lawlessness in Kansas. Senator Douglas, of Illinois, however, apparently with the object of still further setting himself right with the South, and atoning for his Freeport heresy, made a long speech in advocacy of a law to punish conspiracies in one State or Territory against the government, people, or property of another; once more quoting Lincoln's Springfield speech, and Seward's Rochester speech as containing revolutionary doctrines.

[Sidenote] Dec, 2, 1859.

[Sidenote] James Redpath, "Echoes of Harper's Ferry," p. 41.

[Sidenote] George Willis Cooke, "Life of Emerson," p. 140.

In the country at large, as in Congress, the John Brown raid excited bitter discussion and radically diverse comment--some execrating him as a deservedly punished felon, while others exalted him as a saint.

His Boston friends particularly, who had encouraged him with voice or money, were extravagant in their demonstrations of approval and admiration. On the day of his execution religious services were held, and funeral bells were tolled. "The road to heaven," said Theodore Parker, "is as short from the gallows as from a throne; perhaps, also, as easy." "Some eighteen hundred years ago," said Th.o.r.eau, "Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links." Emerson, using a yet stronger figure, had already called him "a new saint, waiting yet his martyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make the gallows glorious like the cross."

[Sidenote] Lecture at Brooklyn, November 1, 1859.

[Sidenote] "Echoes of Harper's Ferry," p. 48.

[Sidenote] Letter to Committee of Merchants, December 20, 1859.

Ibid., p. 299.

Amid this conflict of argument, public opinion in the free-States gravitated to neither extreme. It accepted neither the declaration of the great orator Wendell Phillips, that "the lesson of the hour is insurrection," nor the a.s.sertion of the great lawyer Charles O'Conor, that slavery "is in its own nature, as an inst.i.tution, beneficial to both races."

This chapter would be incomplete if we neglected to quote Mr.

Lincoln's opinion of the Harper's Ferry attempt. His quiet and common-sense criticism of the affair, p.r.o.nounced a few months after its occurrence, was substantially the conclusion to which the average public judgment has come after the lapse of a quarter of a century:

[Sidenote] Lincoln, Cooper Inst.i.tute Speech, Feb. 27, 1860.

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which at least three times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present state of things in the United States, I do not think a general or even a very extensive slave insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there neither are nor can be supplied the indispensable connecting trains.

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true.

A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case occurring under peculiar circ.u.mstances. The gunpowder plot of British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In that ease, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy a.s.sa.s.sinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears or much hopes for such an event will be alike disappointed....

John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.

It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to partic.i.p.ate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts related in history, at the a.s.sa.s.sination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one ease, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.

[Sidenote] "Tribune Almanac," 1860.

The aggravation of partisan temper over the Harper's Ferry incident found a manifestation in a contest over the Speakership in the House of Representatives as prolonged and bitter as that which attended the election of Banks. In the Congressional elections of 1858, following the Lecompton controversy, the Democrats had once more lost control of the House of Representatives; there having been chosen 113 Republicans, 93 Administration Democrats, 8 anti-Lecompton Democrats, and 23 South Americans, as they were called; that is, members, mainly from the slave-States, opposed to the Administration.

[Sidenote] "Globe," December 5, 1859, p. 3.

This Thirty-sixth Congress began its session three days after the execution of John Brown, and the election of a Speaker was the first work of the new House of Representatives. The Republicans, not having a majority, made no caucus nomination; but John Sherman, of Ohio, had the largest following on the first ballot, and thereafter received their united efforts to elect him. At this point a Missouri member introduced a resolution declaring: "That the doctrines and sentiments of a certain book called 'The Impending Crisis of the South--How to Meet It,' purporting to have been written by one Hinton R. Helper [of North Carolina], are insurrectionary and hostile to the domestic peace and tranquillity of the country, and that no member of this House who has indorsed and recommended it, or the compend from it, is fit to be Speaker of this House."

This resolution was aimed at Sherman, who with some seventy Republicans of the previous Congress had signed a circular indorsing and recommending the book upon the general statement that it was an anti-slavery work, written by a Southerner. The book addressed itself to non-slaveholding Southern whites, and was mainly made up of statistics, but contained occasional pa.s.sages of intolerant and vindictive sentiment against slaveholders. Whether it could be considered "insurrectionary" depended altogether on the pro-slavery or anti-slavery bias of the critic. Besides, the author had agreed that the obnoxious pa.s.sages should not be printed in the compendium which the Republicans recommended in their circular. When interrogated, Mr.

Sherman replied that he had never seen the book, and that "I am opposed to any interference whatever by the people of the free-States with, the relations of master and slave in the slave-States." But the disavowal did not relieve him from Southern enmity. The fire-eaters seized the pretext to charge him with all manner of "abolition"

intentions, and by violent debate and the utterance of threats of disunion made the House a parliamentary and almost a revolutionary babel for nearly two months. Certain appropriations were exhausted, and the treasury was in great need of funds. Efforts were made to adopt the plurality rule, and to choose a Speaker for a limited period; but every such movement was resisted for the purpose of defeating Sherman, or rather, through his defeat to force the North into unconditional submission to extreme pro-slavery sentiment. The struggle, nominally over an incident, was in reality over a policy.

On January 30, 1860, Mr. Sherman withdrew his name, and the solid Republican vote was given to William Pennington, of New Jersey, another Republican, who, on February 1, was elected Speaker by 117 votes, 4 opposing members having come to his support. The South gained nothing by the obstructionist policy of its members. During the long contest, extending through forty-four ballots, their votes were scattered among many candidates of different factions, while the Republicans maintained an almost unbroken steadiness of party discipline. On the whole, the princ.i.p.al results of the struggle were, to sectionalize parties more completely, ripen Southern sentiment towards secession, and combine wavering voters in the free-States in support of Republican doctrines.

[1] On the night of May 24-25, 1856, five pro-slavery men living on Pottawatomie Creek, in Kansas, were mysteriously and brutally a.s.sa.s.sinated. The relatives and friends of the deceased charged John Brown and his band with these murders, which the relatives and friends of Brown persistently denied. His latest biographer, however, unreservedly admits his guilt: "For some reason he [John Brown] chose not to strike a blow himself; and this is what Salmon Brown meant when he declared that his father 'was not a partic.i.p.ator in the deed.' It was a very narrow interpretation of the word 'partic.i.p.ator' which would permit such a denial; but it was no doubt honestly made, although for the purpose of disguising what John Brown's real agency in the matter was. He was, in fact, the originator and performer of these executions, although the hands that dealt the wounds were those of others."--Frank B. Sanborn, "Life and Letters of John Brown," pp.

263-4.

[2] "He was exhibiting to a number of gentlemen, who happened to be collected together in a druggist's store, some weapons which he claimed to have taken from Captain Pate in Kansas. Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight inches long, and he remarked that if he had a lot of those things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a capital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas.... When he came to make the contract, he wrote it to have malleable ferrules, cast solid, and a guard to be of malleable iron.

That was all the difference.... After seeing the sample he made a slight alteration. One was, to have a screw to put in, as the one here has, so that they could be unshipped in case of necessity."--Blair, Testimony before Investigating Committee, Senate Report No. 278, 1st Sess. 36th Cong., pp. 121-2.

[3] "Meantime I had communicated his plans at his request to Theodore Parker, Wentworth Higginson, and Dr. Howe, and had given Mr. Stearns some general conception of them ... No other person in New England except these four was informed by me of the affair, though there were many who knew or suspected Brown's general purpose ... Brown's first request, in 1858, was for a fund of $1000 only; with this in hand he promised to take the field either in April or May. Mr. Stearns acted as treasurer of this fund, and before the 1st of May nearly the whole amount had been paid in or subscribed."--Frank B. Sanborn, "Atlantic,"

April, 1875, pp. 456-7.

CHAPTER XII

LINCOLN'S COOPER INSt.i.tUTE SPEECH

[Sidenote] Lincoln to McNeill, April 6, 1860. Lamon, "Life of Lincoln," p. 441.

[Sidenote] Jas. A. Briggs to Lincoln, November 1, 1859. MS. Jas. A.

Briggs in New York "Evening Post," August 16, 1867.

Among the many invitations to deliver addresses which Lincoln received in the fall of 1859, was one from a committee asking him to lecture in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, in a course then in progress there, designed for popular entertainment. "I wrote," said Lincoln, "that I could do it in February, provided they would take a political speech, if I could find time to get up no other." "Your letter was duly received and handed over to the committee," was the response, "and they accept your compromise. You may lecture at the time you mention, and they will pay you $200. I think they will arrange for a lecture in New York also, and pay you $200 for that."

[Sidenote] C.C. Nott to Lincoln, February 9, 1860. MS.

Financial obstacles, or other reasons, brought about the transfer of the engagement to a new committee, and the invitation was repeated in a new form: "The Young Men's Central Republican Union of this city [New York] very earnestly desire that you should deliver what I may term a political lecture during the ensuing month. The peculiarities of the case are these: A series of lectures has been determined upon.

The first was delivered by Mr. Blair, of St. Louis, a short time ago; the second will be in a few days, by Mr. Ca.s.sius M. Clay, and the third we would prefer to have from you rather than any other person.

Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an ordinary political meeting. These lectures have been contrived to call out our better, but busier citizens, who never attend political meetings. A large part of the audience will consist of ladies."

[Sidenote] Lincoln to McNeill, April 6, 1860. Lamon, "Life of Lincoln." p. 441.

Lincoln, however, remained under the impression that the lecture was to be given in Brooklyn, and only learned after he reached New York to fulfill his engagement that he was to speak in the Cooper Inst.i.tute.

When, on the evening of February 27, 1860, he stood before his audience, he saw not only a well-filled house, but an a.s.semblage of listeners in which were many whom, by reason of his own modest estimate of himself, he would have been rather inclined to ask advice from than to offer instruction to. William Cullen Bryant presided over the meeting; David Dudley Field escorted the speaker to the platform; ex-Governor John A. King, Horace Greeley, James W. Nye, James A.

Briggs, Cephas Brainerd, Charles C. Nott, Hiram Barney, and others sat among the invited guests. "Since the days of Clay and Webster," said the "Tribune" next morning, "no man has spoken to a larger a.s.semblage of the intellect and mental culture of our city." Of course the presence of such a gathering was no mere accident. Not only had Lincoln's name for nearly two years found constant mention in the newspapers, but both friendly and hostile comment had coupled it with the two ranking political leaders in the free-States--Seward and Douglas. The representative men of New York were naturally eager to see and hear one who, by whatever force of eloquence or argument, had attracted so large a share of the public attention. We may also fairly infer that, on his part, Lincoln was no less curious to test the effect of his words on an audience more learned and critical than those collected in the open-air meetings of his Western campaigns.

This mutual interest was an evident advantage to both; it secured a close attention from the house, and insured deliberation and emphasis by the speaker, enabling him to develop his argument with perfect precision and unity, reaching perhaps the happiest general effect ever attained in any one of his long addresses.

He took as his text a phrase uttered by Senator Douglas in the late Ohio campaign--"Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better than we do now." Lincoln defined "this question," with a lawyer's exactness, thus:

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."

From this "precise and agreed starting-point" Lincoln next traced with minute historical a.n.a.lysis the action of "our fathers" in framing "the government under which we live," by their votes and declarations in the Congresses which preceded the Const.i.tution and in the Congresses following which proposed its twelve amendments and enacted various Territorial prohibitions. His conclusions were irresistibly convincing.

The sum of the whole is [said he] that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed the original Const.i.tution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from Federal authority, nor any part of the Const.i.tution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the Federal Territories; while all the rest probably had the same understanding. Such unquestionably was the understanding of our fathers who framed the original Const.i.tution; and the text affirms that they understood the question "better than we".... It is surely safe to a.s.sume that the thirty-nine framers of the original Const.i.tution and the seventy-six members of the Congress which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." And so a.s.suming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared 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. I go a step further. 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.

Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood.

I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience--to reject all progress, all improvement. What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case, whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.

If any part of the audience came with the expectation of hearing the rhetorical fire-works of a Western stump-speaker of the "half-horse, half-alligator" variety, they met novelty of an unlooked for kind. In Lincoln's entire address he neither introduced an anecdote nor essayed a witticism; and the first half of it does not contain even an ill.u.s.trative figure or a poetical fancy. It was the quiet, searching exposition of the historian, and the terse, compact reasoning of the statesman, about an abstract principle of legislation, in language well-nigh as restrained and colorless as he would have employed in arguing a case before a court. Yet such was the apt choice of words, the easy precision of sentences, the simple strength of propositions, the fairness of every point he a.s.sumed, and the force of every conclusion he drew, that his listeners followed him with the interest and delight a child feels in its easy mastery of a plain sum in arithmetic.