Fifty Years of Public Service Part 6

New York--that great port where two-thirds of all our revenue is collected, and whence two-thirds of our products are exported, will not long be able to resist the temptation of taxing fifteen millions of people in the great West, when she can monopolize the resources and release her own people thereby from any taxation whatsoever.

Hence I say to you, my countrymen, from the best consideration I have been able to give to this subject, after the most mature reflection and thorough investigation, I have arrived at the conclusion that, come what may,--war if it must be, although I deplore it as a great calamity,--yet, come what may, the people of the Mississippi Valley can never consent to be excluded from free access to the ports of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico.

"Hence, I repeat, that while I am not prepared to take up arms or to sanction war upon the rights of the Southern States, upon their domestic inst.i.tutions, upon their rights of person or property, but, on the contrary, would rush to their defence and protect them from a.s.sault, I will never cease to urge my countrymen to take up arms and to fight to the death in defence of our indefeasible rights.

"Hence, if a war does come, it will be a war of self-defence on our part. It will be a war in defence of our own just rights; in defence of the Government which we have inherited as a priceless legacy from our patriotic fathers; in defence of those great rights of the freedom of trade, commerce, transit, and intercourse from the centre to the circ.u.mference of our great continent. These are rights we can never surrender.

"I have struggled almost against hope to avert the calamities of war and to effect a reunion and reconciliation with our brethren of the South. I yet hope it may be done, but I am not able to point out to you how it may be effected. Nothing short of Providence can reveal to us the issue of this great struggle. b.l.o.o.d.y--calamitous --I fear it will be. May we so conduct it if a collision must come, that we will stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts and who will judge our every act. We must not yield to resentments, nor to the spirit of vengeance, much less to the desire for conquest or ambition.

"I see no path of ambition open in a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle for triumph over my own countrymen. There is no path for ambition open for me in a divided country, after having so long served a united and glorious country. Hence, whatever we may do must be the result of conviction, of patriotic duty--the duty that we owe to ourselves, to our posterity, and to the friends of const.i.tutional liberty and self-government throughout the world.

"My friends, I can say no more. To discuss these topics is the most painful duty of my life. It is with a sad heart--with a grief that I have never before experienced, that I have to contemplate this fearful struggle; but I believe in my conscience that it is a duty we owe ourselves and our children and our G.o.d, to protect this Government and that flag from every a.s.sailant, be he who he may."

Of all the members of that joint a.s.sembly who listened to the eloquence of Senator Douglas that evening, forty-nine years ago, aside from Dr. William Jayne of Springfield, and myself, I do not know of a single one now living.

After he concluded his address, the joint session of the Legislature dissolved. He and I remained together in conversation, and I accompanied him to his hotel. During that talk he expressed to me the great anxiety which he felt for the safety of the country and the preservation of the Union. I am satisfied that it was his ambition to enter the army and possibly lead it in suppressing the Rebellion. What would have been the result in that case, no one can tell; but I am inclined to think that he would have made a very great general.

Senator Douglas's Springfield speech had a tremendous effect on public opinion. It brought his followers, and they were legion in all parts of the country, to the support of the Government and the North.

Senator Douglas went from Springfield to Chicago, where he delivered another eloquent address, along the same lines as the one delivered at Springfield, to tens of thousands of people. Very soon thereafter he was taken ill with pneumonia and pa.s.sed away.

He was a man of extraordinary intellect. He did his full part, at one of the most critical periods of our history, in saving the Nation. His speeches in and out of Congress are among the most able and eloquent delivered by any American statesman.

CHAPTER VI SPEAKER OF THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE AND A MEMBER OF CONGRESS 1860 to 1865

The election of Mr. Lincoln was made the pretext for secession.

It has always seemed to me that the South was determined to secede no matter at what cost; and it has also seemed to me that this determination was not due to the great body of the people of the South, than whom there were no better, but to the jealous politicians of that section, who saw the gradual growth in wealth and power of the Northern States threaten their domination of the National Government, which they had firmly held since the days of Washington.

They saw that domination slipping away, and they determined to form a nation of their own--in which slavery, indeed, would be paramount; but it was not so much slavery as it was their own desire for control that influenced them.

As soon, therefore, as Mr. Lincoln was elected President they began the organization of a Government of their own. President Buchanan declared in his message that the Southern States had no right to secede--"unless they wanted to," as some one aptly expressed it; in other words, that he had no right under the Const.i.tution to keep them forcibly in the Union, and thus the const.i.tutional opinions of the President harmonized effectively with the purposes of the secessionists. Fortunate it was that Mr. Buchanan had so short a term remaining after the election of Mr. Lincoln. Had a year or two elapsed, the Confederacy would have been firmly and irrevocably established.

It has never been quite clear to my mind whether Mr. Buchanan cared to preserve the Union or not. In the heat and pa.s.sion of that day, we all thought he was a traitor. As I look back now and think of it, remembering his long and distinguished service to the country in almost every capacity--as a legislator, as a diplomat, as Secretary of State, as President, I think now he was only weak.

His term was about expiring, and he saw and feared the awful consequences of a civil war.

One State after another seceded; the United States' arms and a.r.s.enals were seized; on January 9, the _Star of the West_, carrying supplies to Fort Sumter, was fired upon and driven off. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas went out. The Confederate States of America were organized in the capital of Alabama on the fourth of February, and Jefferson Davis was elected President.

We watched with great interest the famous Peace Conference which met in Washington and over which John Tyler, ex-President of the United States, presided. It sat during the month of February, preceding Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, and recommended the adoption of seven additional articles to the Const.i.tution, which were afterwards rejected by the Senate of the United States.

But the fourth of March finally came, and new life was infused into the national councils.

Mr. Lincoln's speeches on his way East were a disappointment, in that they failed in the least to abate the rising Southern storm; the calmly firm tone of his inaugural address impressed the North, but his appeals to the South were in vain. Said he:

"I declare that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the inst.i.tution of slavery in the States where it exists. . . . The Union of these States is perpetual. It is safe to a.s.sert that no Government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts."

It was a notable appeal that he made, in closing, to the Southerners:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not a.s.sail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.'

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pa.s.sion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

At the same time that Mr. Lincoln was first elected President of the United States, I was for the second time elected to the Legislature of Illinois. I received the vote of what they called the Republicans, or Free-soil men, and of those who were previously known as Fillmore men. I was always in thorough accord with Mr.

Lincoln in political sentiment, though I had supported Fillmore rather than Fremont in 1856. I most heartily supported Lincoln's candidacy, and as candidate for the Legislature received more votes than Mr. Lincoln received in Sangamon County. Douglas carried the county as against Lincoln, and I carried it as against my opponent.

There was great enthusiasm for Mr. Lincoln in the county, but he was so positive and outspoken in his convictions on the slavery question that he failed to get a considerable number of votes; many went to other Republicans who did not express their views so vigorously as he did. Of course, what he lost at home because of zeal and earnestness in his cause, was more than made up to him on the wider field covered by his candidacy.

Stephen A. Hurlbut was a member of that Legislature, and afterward became a prominent general in the army. I might say that General Hurlbut and Lawrence Church were two very strong men, both from the northern part of the State, and both became prominent in the public service. I might say also that but for these two men, who put me forward as a candidate for the Speakership, I probably would not have become a candidate. On the Sat.u.r.day night before the Monday on which the Legislature was to convene, they pressed me so strongly that I consented, and became the nominee of my party a.s.sociates. J. W. Singleton was the Democratic nominee. Before the Legislature convened, and during the intervening Sunday, a feeling got abroad among the older members of the Legislature that I was too young to be trusted in such a responsible position as that of Speaker. When I came down-town on Sunday I found that feeling prevailing.

I at once took notice of it, and stated that if there was any feeling that I had done wrong in becoming a candidate, I would submit the question to another test of the sense of the Republicans in the Legislature, and if they thought I ought not to have the position I would cheerfully yield to their judgment. The caucus was called together Monday morning, and I stated that I had heard that there was some dissatisfaction, and I desired to have another vote. A vote was accordingly taken, and I was again nominated, and by a larger vote then in the first instance; whereupon the older men gave in, and I was duly elected, receiving thirty-nine votes to twenty-nine cast for the Democratic candidate.

I think I made more friends, in the conduct of the office of Speaker during that term, than I ever did afterwards; and in subsequent campaigns I was frequently gratified to find men, some of them Democrats, who had been in the Legislature with me at that time, working for me with a stronger zeal and earnestness because of the a.s.sociations and intimate relations there formed and cemented.

All cla.s.ses, Republicans and Democrats alike, took occasion to manifest their satisfaction, and some who became my friends then continued so as long as they lived. I think, of all that Legislature, I am the only one left.

A little incident occurred at a reception given by Mr. Lincoln after he was elected President, but before he left his home to come to Washington, that vitally affected my life. In speaking to the President, I expressed a desire to visit Washington while he was President of the United States. He replied heartily: "Mr. Speaker, come on." And that was about the origin of my thinking seriously that I would like to come to Washington as a member of Congress.

The more I thought of the idea, the more interested I became, and I so shaped matters during that session of the Legislature as to secure a district in which some Republican could hope to be elected.

In the apportionment under the census of 1860, I had our Congressional district elongated to the north and south rather than to the east and west, and let it be known that I would be a candidate.

But when the time came for a nomination the Hon. Leonard Swett, who was then a prominent lawyer and politician, also took the field to secure the Republican nomination. He visited Springfield, and persuaded some of his friends there that he ought to be the nominee, and they determined to try their hands toward securing my withdrawal, if possible by persuasion. They sent for me to come to the library, where they were proposing to hold a meeting. I went over, and found that their project was to get me to withdraw in favor of Swett, and I declined. But I said I would "draw straws," or a.s.sent to any other fair means that could be found by which it was to be settled who was to be the nominee of the party. Then, after some further parleying, I finally left the conference.

That evening after dusk I met Swett on the street. We sat down upon the curbstone, as it was growing a little dark, and talked the matter over. Swett said to me that he was an older man than I was; that he had been knocked about a good deal, and, though he had done much work for the party, he had never got anything; and if the present opportunity for reward for services were allowed to pa.s.s him by another opportunity was not likely, at his age, to come to him. Finally, I said: "Mr. Swett, if you had come to me and made this suggestion at first, I would have been very glad indeed to make the concession to you, and I am ready to do so now. Here is my hand on it, and I will help you at the convention." He became the party candidate by general consent, as I remember it. At all events he was the candidate, and unfortunately he was beaten at the polls. That was in 1862. So that while the Congressional district was made by me, and for myself, I gave way to Mr. Swett, and the opposition carried it. Two years afterwards I was the candidate and was elected.

The majority in the counties composing the district was ordinarily Republican. As a result of Mr. Swett's defeat, he left the district, though a very prominent lawyer, and went to Chicago, never to return to the Congressional district in which he had lived so many years, really quitting politics entirely.

I suppose I ought to state the fact that, having made the district for myself and then given it up to Mr. Swett, I determined to be a candidate at the next election; whereupon I found that Mr. James C. Conkling, a friend of mine, and a special friend of Mr. Lincoln also, some of whose family are still living, was disposed to try for the same office. I made up my mind that in order to keep myself in trim for the future it was well to keep in touch with the voters; and I determined to run for the State Senate, though the four counties composing the Senatorial district were all Democratic and all in the Congressional district in which Swett was the defeated candidate, yet I desired to run for the Senate, in order to keep Conkling from getting such a hold on the district as to strengthen him for the contest two years afterwards.

So I made the run, and was beaten, of course, every county in the district being Democratic; and the rest of my plans also worked out as I had calculated they would.

Soon after I was elected to Congress, and soon after Mr. Lincoln was elected the second time, I came on to Washington. Having been intimate with Mr. Nicolay and Mr. Hay who were his secretaries, I was in the habit of frequenting their rooms without ceremony. One evening, just after dusk, I went to the White House and quietly, as usual, entered Mr. Nicolay's room. It so happened that Mr.

Lincoln and Mr. Seward, with some other cabinet officers, were in the room, holding a consultation. I had opened the door before I observed who were there. President Lincoln saw me quite as soon as I saw him, and I was very much embarra.s.sed. He sang out cheerily, "Come in!" and turning to his Secretary of State, he added, "Seward, you remember my old friend Stuart? Here is the boy that beat him."

I stayed for only a moment, and then went out. That is the nearest I ever came to partic.i.p.ating in a cabinet meeting.

That incident in my life, as I now look back, punctuates, in my individual way of thinking at this moment, the substantial close of what was mortal in that great man's earthly career. The close of the four years of civil war was clearly in sight. It was in many respects a record-making and a record-breaking war. The navies of the world, rendered helpless by the incidental effects of its thundering guns, had to be rebuilt. For the first time in the world's history the railroad and the electric telegraph played a very considerable part. The grip of insatiate despotism on Democratic inst.i.tutions was effectually loosened far and wide. For the first time in war the lessons taught in the art of warfare by Alexander and Caesar were utterly ignored, and the "Maxims of Napoleon" were relegated to the shelf, there to gather dust. In short, in inaugurated a new era in the history not only of our own country but of the entire world.

CHAPTER VII LINCOLN 1860 to 1864

As days and years pa.s.s by and an enlightened humanity studies and comprehends the real greatness and simplicity of Abraham Lincoln, he comes nearer and becomes dearer to all. No weak compliment of words can add to his renown, nor will any petty criticism detract from the glory which has crowned his memory. The pa.s.sing of time has only added brightness to his character; the antagonisms of bitter war have left no shade upon his name; and the hatred which, for a brief time, spent itself in harmless words has turned to reverence and love.

Had he lived until February 12, 1911, he would have been one hundred and two years old. Less than forty-five years ago, in the very prime of life, he was the Chief Magistrate of the Nation, guiding and controlling it in its great struggle for national existence.

Such a vast acc.u.mulation of history has been compressed into those years, and such a wonderful panorama of events has pa.s.sed before us in that comparatively brief time, that we are apt to think of Lincoln as of the long ago, as almost a contemporary of Washington and of the Revolutionary fathers. The immensity of the history which has been crowded into those forty-five years has distorted our mental vision, as ordinary objects are sometimes distorted by refraction. Yet when we reflect, the distortion disappears. But the wonder still remains. The years during which the deeds of Lincoln have been a memory to us do not carry us back to the early days of our own country. They do not carry us back even to the time of Jackson, Webster, Clay, or Calhoun; yet the sacred halo of patriotic veneration invests as completely the name of Lincoln as of Washington.

The many personal memories of the martyred patriot that I can recall seem almost a dream to me. It seems almost a vision of the unsubstantial imagination, when I think that I have known the one immortal man of the century, and enjoyed his friendship. He was the very impersonation of humanity; his stature was above and beyond all others. One hand reached back to the very portals of Mount Vernon, while the other, giving kindly protection to the oppressed, still reaches forward to guide, encourage, and sustain the people of this Nation.

It was my great good-fortune to know something of Abraham Lincoln from the time I was about twelve years old, and even earlier than that I have a distinct recollection of hearing my father advising men to employ Lincoln in important litigation. Lincoln at that time was about thirty years old, and even then was regarded as a really great lawyer.

The first time I ever saw him in court he, a.s.sisted by Colonel E.

D. Baker (afterwards a senator from Oregon, and killed at Ball's Bluff), was engaged in the defence of a man on trial for murder.

The conduct of the defence made by those great lawyers produced an impression on my mind that will never be forgotten. Lincoln became then my ideal of a great man, and has so remained ever since.

In 1846, Mr. Lincoln was the Whig candidate for Congress, and it was then that I first heard him deliver a political speech. The county in which my father resided was a part of his Congressional district. When Lincoln came to the county my father met him with his carriage and took him to all his appointments. I went to the meeting nearest my home--an open-air meeting held in a grove. On being introduced, he began his speech as follows: "Fellow citizens, ever since I have been in Tazewell County my old friend, Major Cullom, has taken me around; he has heard all my speeches, and the only way I can hope to fool the old Major and make him believe I am making a new speech is by turning it end for end once in a while."