Abraham Lincoln: a History Volume Ii Part 16

With the sympathy and confidence of his audience thus enlisted, Lincoln next took up the more prominent topics in popular thought, and by words of kindly admonition and protest addressed to the people of the South, showed how impatiently, unreasonably, and unjustly they were charging the Republican party with sectionalism, with radicalism, with revolutionary purpose, with the John Brown raid, and kindred political offenses, not only in the absence of any acts to justify such charges, but even in the face of its emphatic and constant denials and disavowals. The ill.u.s.tration with which he concluded this branch of his theme could not well be surpa.s.sed in argumentative force.

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.

But the most impressive, as well as the most valuable, feature of Lincoln's address was its concluding portion, where, in advice directed especially to Republicans, he pointed out in dispa.s.sionate but earnest language that the real, underlying conflict was in the difference of moral conviction between the sections as to the inherent right or wrong of slavery, and in view of which he defined the proper duty of the free-States.

A few words now [said he] to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through pa.s.sion and ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much, as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can. Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us the Territories are scarcely mentioned.

Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.

The question recurs. What will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning; of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them.

Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly--done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated; we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our free-State const.i.tutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let them alone--have never disturbed them; so that, after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing until we cease saying.

I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our free-State const.i.tutions. Yet those const.i.tutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against it, and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these const.i.tutions will be demanded and nothing be left to resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that they do not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right, and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it, as a legal right and a social blessing.

Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground, save our conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and const.i.tutions against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality--its universality! if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view and against our own! In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that 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 should 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 beseeching 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 Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington 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.

[Sidenote] "New York Tribune," February 28, 1860.

The smiles, the laughter, the outburst of applause which greeted and emphasized the speaker's telling points, showed Mr. Lincoln that his arguments met ready acceptance. The next morning the four leading New York dailies printed the speech in full, and bore warm testimony to its merit and effect. "Mr. Lincoln is one of nature's orators," said the "Tribune," "using his rare powers solely to elucidate and convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this speech; yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast a.s.semblage frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CALEB CUSHING.]

[Sidenote] Pamphlet edition with notes and preface by Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, September, 1860.

A pamphlet reprint was at once announced by the same paper; and later, in the Presidential campaign, a more careful edition was prepared and circulated, to which were added copious notes by two members of the committee under whose auspices the address was delivered. Their comment, printed in the preface, is worth quoting as showing its literary value under critical a.n.a.lysis. "No one who has not actually attempted to verify its details can understand the patient research and historical labor 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."

From New York Lincoln went to fill other engagements to speak at several places in New England, where he met the same enthusiastic popular reception and left the same marked impression, especially upon his more critical and learned hearers. They found no little surprise in the fact that a Western politician, springing from the cla.s.s of unlettered frontiersmen, could not only mold plain strong words into fresh and attractive phraseology, but maintain a clear, sustained, convincing argument, equal in force and style to the best examples in their college text-books.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION

The great political struggle between the North and the South, between Freedom and Slavery, was approaching its culmination. The "irrepressible conflict" had shifted uneasily from caucus to Congress; from Congress to Kansas; incidentally to the Supreme Court and to the Congressional elections in the various States; from Kansas it had come back with renewed intensity to Congress. The next stage of development through which it was destined to pa.s.s was the Presidential election of 1860, where, necessarily, the final result would depend largely upon the att.i.tude and relation of parties, platforms, and candidates as selected and proclaimed by their National conventions.

The first of these National conventions was that of the Democratic party, long appointed to meet at Charleston, South Carolina, on April 23, 1860. The fortunes of the party had greatly fluctuated. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise had brought it shipwreck in 1854; it had regained victory in the election of Buchanan, and a majority of the House of Representatives in 1856; then the Lecompton imbroglio once more caused its defeat in the Congressional elections of 1858. But worse than the victory of its opponents was the irreconcilable schism in its own ranks--the open war between President Buchanan and Senator Douglas. In a general way the Southern Democracy followed Buchanan, while the Northern Democracy followed Douglas. Yet there was just enough local exception to baffle accurate calculation. Could the Charleston Convention heal the feud of leaders, and bridge the chasm in policy and principle? As the time approached, and delegation after delegation was chosen by the States, all hope of accommodation gradually disappeared. Each faction put forth its utmost efforts, rallied its strongest men. Each caucus and convention only accentuated and deepened existing differences. When the convention met, its members brought not the ordinary tricks and expedients of politicians with _carte blanche_ authority, but the precise formulated terms to which their const.i.tuencies would consent. They were only messengers, not arbitrators. The Charleston Convention was the very opposite of its immediate predecessor, the Cincinnati Convention. At Cincinnati, concealment and ambiguity had been the central thought and purpose.

Everybody was anxious to be hoodwinked. Delegates, const.i.tuencies, and leaders had willingly joined in the game of "cheat and be cheated."

Availability, harmony, party success, were the paramount objects.

[Sidenote] Douglas, Reply to Black, Pamphlet, Oct., 1859.

No similar ambiguity, concealment, or bargain was possible at Charleston. There was indeed a whole brood of collateral issues to be left in convenient obscurity, but the central questions must not be shirked. The Lecompton quarrel, the Freeport doctrine, the property theory, the "slave-State" dogma, the Congressional slave code proposal, must be boldly met and squarely adjusted. Even if the delegates had been disposed to trifle with their const.i.tuents, the leaders themselves would tolerate no evasion on certain cardinal points. Douglas, in his Dorr letter, had announced that he would suffer no interpolation of new issues into the Democratic creed. In his pamphlet reply to Judge Black he repeated his determination with emphasis. "Suppose it were true that I am a Presidential aspirant; does that fact justify a combination by a host of other Presidential aspirants, each of whom may imagine that his success depends upon my destruction, and the preaching a crusade against me for boldly avowing now the same principles to which they and I were pledged at the last Presidential election! Is this a sufficient excuse for devising a new test of political orthodoxy?... I prefer the position of Senator or even that of a private citizen, where I would be at liberty to defend and maintain the well-defined principles of the Democratic party, to accepting a Presidential nomination upon a platform incompatible with the principle of self-government in the Territories, or the reserved rights of the States, or the perpetuity of the Union under the Const.i.tution."

[Sidenote] "Globe," p. 658.

[Sidenote] Jefferson Davis, Senate Speech, "Globe," May 17, 1860, p. 2155.

[Sidenote] "Globe", March 1, 1860, p. 935.

This declaration very clearly defined the issue on one side. On the other side it was also formulated with equal distinctness. Jefferson Davis, already recognized as the ablest leader of the Buchanan wing of the Democratic Senators, wrote and submitted to the United States Senate, on February 2, 1860, a series of resolutions designed to const.i.tute the Administration or Southern party doctrines, which were afterwards revised and adopted by a caucus of Democratic Senators.

These resolutions expressed the usual party tenets; and on two of the controverted points a.s.serted dogmatically exactly that which Douglas had stigmatized as an intolerable heresy. The fourth resolution declared "That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly character, possesses power to annul or impair the const.i.tutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while the Territorial condition remains." While the fifth resolution declared "That if experience should at any time prove that the judiciary and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to const.i.tutional rights in a Territory, and if the Territorial government shall fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency."

Party discipline was so strong among the Democrats that public expectation looked confidently to at least a temporary agreement or combination which would enable the factions, by a joint effort, to make a hopeful Presidential campaign. But no progress whatever was made in that direction. As the clans gathered at Charleston, the notable difference developed itself, that while one wing was filled with unbounded enthusiasm for a candidate, the other was animated by an earnest and stubborn devotion to an idea.

[Sidenote] Murat Halstead, "Conventions of 1860."

"Douglas was the pivot individual of the Charleston Convention," wrote an observant journalist; "every delegate was for or against him; every motion meant to nominate or not nominate him; every parliamentary war was _pro_ or _con_ Douglas." This was the surface indication, and, indeed, it may be said with truth, it was the actual feeling of the Northern faction of the Democratic party. Douglas was a genuinely popular leader. He had the power to inspire a pure personal enthusiasm. He had aroused such hero-worship as may be possible in modern times and in American polities. Beyond this, however, the Lecompton controversy, and his open persecution by the Buchanan Administration, made his leadership and his candidacy a necessity to the Northern Democrats.

With Southern Democrats the feeling went somewhat deeper. Forgetting how much they owed him in the past, and how much they might still gain through him in the future, they saw only that he was now their stumbling-block, the present obstacle to their full and final success.

It was the Douglas doctrine, squatter sovereignty, and "unfriendly legislation," rather than the _man_, which they had come to oppose, and were determined to put down. Any other individual holding these heresies would have been equally obnoxious. They had no candidate of their own; they worshiped no single leader; but they followed a principle with unfaltering devotion. They clung unswervingly not only to the property theory, but advanced boldly to its logical sequence--Congressional protection to slavery in the Territories.

Of the convention's preliminary work little is worth recording--there were the clamor and protest of contesting delegations and small fire of parliamentary skirmishes, by which factions feel and measure each other's strength. Caleb Cushing was made permanent chairman, for the triple reason that he was from Ma.s.sachusetts, that he was the ablest presiding officer in the body, and was for the moment filled with blind devotion to Southern views. The actual temper of the convention was made manifest by the ready agreement of both extremes to join battle in making the platform before proceeding to the nomination of candidates. The usual committee of one member from each State was appointed, and to it was referred the deluge of resolutions which had been showered upon the convention.

Had an amicable solution of the slavery issue been possible, this platform committee would have found it, for it labored faithfully to accomplish the miracle. But after three days and nights of fruitless suggestion and persuasion, the committee reappeared in convention.

Upon four points they had come to either entire or substantial agreement. In addition to re-affirming formally the Cincinnati platform of 1856, they advised the convention to favor, 1. The faithful execution of the fugitive-slave law. 2. The protection of naturalized citizens. 3. The construction of a Pacific railroad. 4.

The acquisition of the Island of Cuba. But upon the princ.i.p.al topic, the question of slavery in the Territories, they felt compelled to report that even an approximate unanimity was impossible. In undisguised sorrow they proceeded to present two radically different reports. The convention, not yet in the least realizing that the great Democratic party had suffered fatal shipwreck in the secret committee-room, listened eagerly to the reports and explanatory speeches of the majority and minority of the committee.

The majority report[1] planted itself squarely upon the property theory and Congressional protection. Mr. Avery, of North Carolina, said it was presented in the name of 17 States with 127 electoral votes, every one of which would be cast for the nominee. He argued that in occupying new Territories Southern men could not compete with emigrant-aid societies at the North. These could send a voter to the Territories for the sum of $200, while it would cost a Southern man $1500. Secure political power by emigration, and permit the Territorial Legislatures to decide the slavery question, and the South would be excluded as effectually as by the Wilmot proviso. Cuba must be acquired, and the flag of this great country must float over Mexico and the Central American States. But if you apply this doctrine of popular sovereignty, and establish a cordon of free-States from the Pacific to the Atlantic, where in the future are the South to emigrate? They asked the equal right to emigrate with their property, and protection from Congress during the Territorial condition. They would leave it to the people in convention a.s.sembled, when framing a State const.i.tution, to determine the question of slavery for themselves. They had no purpose but to have a vexed question settled, and to put the Democratic party on a clear unclouded platform, not a doubled-faced one--one face to the North and one face to the South.

Henry B. Payne, of Ohio, presented and defended the report of the minority.[2] It a.s.serted that all questions in regard to property in States or Territories were judicial in their character, and that the Democratic party would abide by past and future decisions of the Supreme Court concerning them. Mr. Payne explained that while the majority report was supported by 15 slave and two free-States,[3]

representing 127 electoral votes, the minority report was indorsed by 15 free-States,[4] representing 176 electoral votes. He argued that, by the universal consent of the Democratic party, the Cincinnati platform referred this question of slavery to the people of the Territories, declaring that Congress should in no event intervene one way or the other, and that all controversies should be settled by the courts. Now the proposition of the majority report was to make a complete retraction of those two cardinal doctrines of the Cincinnati platform. The Northern mind had become thoroughly imbued with this great doctrine of popular sovereignty. You could not tear it out of their hearts unless you tore out their heart-strings themselves. "I repeat, that upon this question of Congressional non-intervention we are committed by the acts of Congress, we are committed by the acts of National Democratic Conventions; we cannot recede without personal dishonor, and, so help us G.o.d, we never will recede!"

Between these extremes of recommendation another member of the platform committee--Benjamin F. Butler, of Ma.s.sachusetts--proposed a middle course. He advocated the simple reaffirmance of the Cincinnati platform. If it had suffered a double interpretation, so had the Bible and the Const.i.tution of the United States. But beyond serving to consume time and amuse the convention, Mr. Butler's speech made no impression. The real tournament of debate followed, between William L.

Yancey, of Alabama, and Senator George E. Pugh, of Ohio.

[Sidenote] Halstead, "Conventions of 1860," pp. 5, 48.

It turned out in the end that Mr. Yancey was the master-spirit of the Charleston Convention, though that body was far from entertaining any such suspicion at the beginning. In exterior appearance he did not fill the portrait of the traditional fire-eater. He is described as "a compact middle-sized man, straight-limbed, with a square-built head and face, and an eye full of expression"; "a very mild and gentlemanly man, always wearing a genuinely good-humored smile, and looking as if nothing in the world could disturb the equanimity of his spirits." He had, besides, a marvelous gift of persuasive oratory. He was the Wendell Phillips of the South, for, like his Northern rival, he was a born agitator. Above all his colleagues, he was the brain and soul and irrepressible champion of the pro-slavery reaction throughout the Cotton States. He was tireless and ubiquitous; traveling, talking, writing, lecturing, animating every intrigue, directing every caucus, making speeches and drafting platforms at every convention. To defend, propagate, and perpetuate African slavery was his mission. He was the ultra of the ultras, accepting the inst.i.tution as morally right and divinely sanctioned, desiring its extension and inclined to favor, though not then himself advocating, the re-opening of the African slave-trade. He held that all Federal laws prohibiting such trade ought to be repealed so that each State might decide the question for itself. Still more, Mr. Yancey was not only an agitator and fire-eater, but for years an insidious, persevering conspirator to promote secession. Occupying such a position, he was naturally the champion of the Cotton States at Charleston. The defense of the ultra demands of the South was by common consent devolved upon him,[5] and it was understood long beforehand that he was prepared with the princ.i.p.al speech from that side.

In full consciousness of the fact that he and his colleagues were then at Charleston with a predetermination to force a programme of disruption expressly designed as a prelude to intended disunion, Mr.

Yancey stood up and with smiling face and silvery tones a.s.sured his hearers that he and his colleagues from Alabama were not disunionists _per se_. Then he proceeded with his speech. Only its key-note was new, but the novelty was of startling import to Northern delegates.

The Northern Democrats, he stated, were losing ground and falling before their victorious adversaries. Why? Because they had tampered with, and pandered to, the anti-slavery sentiment. They had admitted that slavery was wrong. This was surrendering the very citadel of their argument. They must re-form their lines and change their tactics. They must come up to the high requirements of the occasion and take a new departure. The remainder of his speech was an insinuating plea for the property doctrine and Congressional intervention, for which the galleries and convention rewarded him with long and earnest applause. Even if the great Southern agitator's speech had been wanting in point and eloquence, success was supplied by the unmistakable atmosphere and temper of this great Charleston audience.

The more astute of the Douglas delegates were struck with the dismay of a new revelation. Their cause was lost--their party was gone.

Senator Pugh, of Ohio, resented the dictation of the advocates of slavery in a warmth of just indignation. He thanked G.o.d that at last a bold and honest man had told the whole truth of the demands of the South. It was now before the country that the South did demand an advanced step from the Democratic party. He accurately traced the downfall of the Northern Democracy to her changing and growing exactions. Taunted with their weakness, they were now told they must put their hands on their mouths and their mouths in the dust.