In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 26

When he woke, Jasper said to him:

"Abraham, I wish you to know this Indian boy. I think there is a native n.o.bility in him. Do you remember Johnnie Kongapod's story, at which the people all used to laugh?"

"Yes, elder."

"Abraham Lincoln, I can believe that story was true. I have faith in men. You do. Your faith will make you great."

CHAPTER XV.

THE DEBATING SCHOOL.

There were some queer people in every town and community of the new West, and these were usually active at the winter debating school. These schools of the people for the discussion of life, politics, literature, were, on the whole, excellent influences; they developed what was original in the thought and character of a place, and stimulated reading and study. If a man was a theorist, he could here find a voice for his opinions; and if he were a genius, he could here uncage his gifts and find recognition. Nearly all of the early clergymen, lawyers, congressmen, and leaders of the people of early Indiana and Illinois were somehow developed and educated in these so-called debating schools.

Among the odd people sure to be found in such rural a.s.semblies were the man with visionary schemes for railroads, ca.n.a.ls, and internal improvements, the sanguine inventor, the noisy free-thinker, the benevolent Tunker, the man who could preach without notes by "direct inspiration," the man who thought that the world was about to come to an end, and the patriot who pictured the American eagle as a bird of fate and divinity. The early pioneer preacher learned to talk in public in the debating school. The young lawyer here made his first pleas.

The frequent debates in Jones's store led to the formation of a debating school in Gentryville and Pigeon Creek. In this society young Abraham Lincoln was the leader, and his cousin Dennis Hanks and his uncle John were prominent disputants. The story-telling blacksmith furnished much of the humor, and Josiah Crawford, or "Blue-Nose Crawford," as he was called, was regarded as the man of hard sense on such occasions as require a Solomon, or a Daniel, or a Portia, and he was very proud to be so regarded.

There was a revival of interest in the cause of temperance in the country at this time, and the n.o.ble conduct of Abraham Lincoln, in carrying to his cousin Dennis's the poor drunkard whom he had found in the highway on the chilly night after the debate at Jones's store, may have led to a plan for a great debate on the subject of the pledge, which was appointed to take place in the log school-house at Pigeon Creek. The plan was no more than spoken of at the store than it began to excite general attention.

"We must debate this subject of the temperance pledge," said Thomas Lincoln, "and get the public sense. New times are at hand. On general principles, I'm a temperance man; and if n.o.body drank once, then n.o.body would drink twice, and the world would all go dry. But there's the corn-huskin's, and the hoe-down, and the mowin' times, and the hog-killin's, and the barn-raisin's. It is only natural that men should wet their whistles at such times as these. In the old Scriptur' times people who wanted to get great spiritual power abstained from strong drink; but you can't expect no such people as those down here at Pigeon Creek."

"But Abe is a temperancer, and I want the debate to come off in good shape, so that all you uns can hear what he has to say."

It was decided by the leading debaters that the subject for the debate should be, "Ought temperance people to sign the temperance pledge?" and that Abraham Lincoln should sustain the affirmative view of the question.

The success of young Lincoln as a debater had greatly troubled Aunt Indiana.

"It's all like the rattlin' of a pea-pod in the blasts o' ortum," she said. "It don't signify anything. He just rains words upon ye, and makes ye laugh, and the first thing ye know he's got ye. Beware--beware! his words are just like stool-pigeons, what brings you down to get shot.

It's amazin' what a curi'us gift of talk that boy has!"

When she heard of the plan of the debate, and the part a.s.signed to young Lincoln, she said:

"'Twill be a great night for Abe, unless I hinder it. I'm agin the temperance pledge. Stands to reason that a man's no right to sign away his liberty. And I'm agin Abe Linkern, because he's too smart for anythin', and lives up in the air like a kite; and outthinks other people, because he sits round readin' and turkey-dreamin' when he ought to be at work. I shall work agin him."

And she did. She first consulted upon the subject with Josiah Crawford--"the Esquire," as she called him--and he promised to give the negative of the question all the weight of his ability.

There was a young man in Gentryville named John Short, who thought that he had had a call to preach, and who often came to Aunt Indiana for theological instruction.

"Don't run round the fields readin' books, like Abraham Linkern," she warned him. "He'll never amount to a hill o' beans. The true way to become a preacher is to go into the desk, and open the Bible, and put yer fingers on the first pa.s.sage that you come to, and then open yer mouth, and the Lord will fill it. I do not believe in edicated ministers. They trust in chariots and horses. Go right from the plow to the pulpit, and the heavens will help ye."

John Short thought Aunt Indiana's advice sound, and he resolved to follow it. He once made an appointment to preach after this unprepared manner in the school-house. He could not read very well. He had once read at school, "And he smote the Hitt.i.te that he died" "And he smote the Hi-ti-ti-ty, that he did," and he opened the Bible at random for a Scripture lesson on this trying occasion. His eye fell upon the hard chapters in Chronicles beginning "Adam, Sheth, Enoch." He succeeded very well in the reading until he came to the generations of j.a.pheth and the sons of Gomer, which were mountains too difficult to pa.s.s. He lifted his eyes and said, "And so it goes on to the end of the chapter, without regard to particulars."

"That chapter was given me to try me," he said, as a kind of commentary, "and, my friends, I have been equal to it. And now you shall hear me preach, and after that we'll take up a contribution for the new meetin'-house."

The sermon was a short one, and began amid much mental confusion. "A certain man," he began, "went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves; and the thieves sprang up and choked him; and he said, 'Who is my neighbor?' You all know who your neighbors are, O my friends." Here followed a long pause. He added:

"Always be good to your neighbors. And now we will pa.s.s around the contribution-box, and after that we'll _all_ talk."

This beginning of his work as a speaker did not look promising, but he had conducted "a meetin'," and that fact made John Short a shining light in Aunt Indiana's eyes. To this young man the good woman went for a champion of her ideas in the great debate.

But, notwithstanding her theory, she proceeded to instruct him as to what he should say on the occasion.

"Say to 'em, John, that he who comes to ye with a temperance pledge insults yer character. It is like askin' ye to promise not to become a jacka.s.s; and what would ye think of a man who would ask ye to sign a paper like that? or to sign the Ten Commandments? or to promise that ye'd never lie any _more_? It's one's duty to maintain one's dignity of character, and, John, I want ye to open yer mouth in defense of the rights of liberty on the occasion; and do yer duty, and bring down the Philistine with a pebble-stun, and 'twill be a glorious night for Pigeon Creek."

The views of Aunt Olive Eastman on preaching without preparation and on temperance were common at this time in Indiana and Illinois. By not understanding a special direction of our Lord to his disciples as to what they should do in times of persecution, many of the pioneer exhorters used to speak from the text on which their eyes first rested on opening the Bible. They seemed to think that this mental field needed no planting or culture--no training like Paul's in the desert of Arabia, and that the pulpit stood outside of the universal law. The moral education of the pledge of Father Matthew was just beginning to excite attention. Strange as it may seem, the thoughts and plans of the Irish apostle of temperance and founder of the Order of St. Vincent de Paul seemed to have come to Abraham Lincoln in his early days much as original inspiration. His first public speech was on this subject. It was made in Springfield, Illinois, in 1842, and advocated the plan which Father Matthew was then originating in Ireland, the education of the public conscience by the moral force of the temperance pledge.

It was a lengthening autumn evening when the debate took place in the school-house in the timber. The full moon rose like a disk of gold as the sun sank in clouds of crimson fire, and the light of the day became a mellowed splendor during half of the night. The corn-fields in the clearings rose like armies, bearing food on every hand. Flocks of birds darkened the sunset air, and little animals of the woods ran to and fro amid the crisp and fallen leaves. The air was vital with the coolness that brings the frost and causes the trees to unclasp their countless sh.e.l.ls, barks, and burrs, and let the ripe nuts fall.

The school-room filled with earnest faces early in the evening. The people came over from Gentryville, among them Mr. Gentry himself and Mr.

Jones the store-keeper. Women brought tallow dips for lights, and curious candlesticks and snuffers.

Aunt Indiana and Josiah Crawford came together, an imposing-looking couple, who brought with them the air of special sense and wisdom. Aunt Indiana wore a bonnet of enormous proportions, which distinguished her from the other women, who wore hoods. She brought in her hand a bra.s.s candlestick, which the children somehow a.s.sociated with the ancient Scripture figures, and which looked as though it might have belonged to the temples of old. She was tall and stately, and the low room was too short for her soaring bonnet, but she bent her head, and sat down near Josiah Crawford, and set the candle in the shining candlestick, and cast a glance of conscious superiority over the motley company.

The moderator rapped for order and stated the question for debate, and made some inspiring remarks about "parliamentary" rules. John Short opened the debate with a plea for independence of character, and self-respect and personal liberty.

"What would you think," he asked, "of a man who would come to you _in the night_ and ask you to sign a paper not to lie any more? What? You would think that he thought you had been lying. Would you sign that paper? No! You would call out the dogs of retribution, and take down your father's sword, and you would uplift your foot into the indignant air, and protect your family name and honor. Who would be called a liar, in a cowardly way like that? And who would be called a drunkard, by being asked to sign the paper of a tee-totaler? Who?"

Here John Short paused. He presently said:

"Hoo?"--which sounded in the breathless silence like the inquiries of an owl. But his ideas had all taken wings again and left him, as on the occasion when he attempted to preach without notes or preparation.

Aunt Indiana looked distressed. She leaned over toward Josiah Crawford, and said:

"Say somethin'."

But Josiah hesitated. Then, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of all, Aunt Indiana rose to the ceiling, bent her generously bonneted head, stretched forth her arm, and said:

"He is quite right--quite right, Josiah. Is he not, Josiah?"

"Quite right," said Josiah.

"People do not talk about what is continuous--what goes right along. Am I not right, Josiah?"

"Quite right! quite right!"

"If a man tells me he is honest, he is not honest. If he tells me that he is pure, he isn't pure. If he were honest or pure he says nothing about it. Am I not right, Josiah?"

"Quite right! quite right!"

"n.o.body tells about his stomach unless it is out of order; and no one puts cotton into keyholes unless he himself is peeking through keyholes.

Am I not right, Josiah?"

"Quite right! quite right!"

"And no one asks ye to sign a temperance pledge unless he's been a drunkard himself, or thinks ye are one, or likely to be. Ain't I right, Josiah?"