Lincoln, the Politician Part 17

CHAPTER XII

THE PILOT OF THE NEW FAITH IN ILLINOIS

Abolitionism as a gospel showed rather paltry results for thirty years of unceasing labor. Still its essential dogma, hatred to human bondage, slowly but steadily held a larger place in the public thought. Mistakes of the South and its Northern friends hurried on a crisis. The Kansas controversy made the issue of a remorseless conflict clearer by a concrete example of the incompatibility of freedom and slavery. The nation was thus educated for aggressive action on the long mooted question. The time was becoming ripe for the translation of public sentiment into party platform, statute and decision. The Abolitionist with relentless gospel even of war on the Const.i.tution was altogether too radical for the general mind. The slowly dying Whig party had not kept pace with the advanced public thought, it was too conservative. The democratic party kept on its path either of indifference to the slavery issue or ardent support of the southern view and was the refuge of those who were dead to the sweep of events. Hence the necessity of a new party, with a platform that should st.u.r.dily proclaim resistance to the spread of slavery in the territories; that should register a rising spirit in the North, growing restless and sensitive as it contemplated the increasing demands of the Southern inst.i.tutions, as it grasped the significance of the issue involving the continued existence in their primal integrity of cherished principles of the Republic, a grappling for political supremacy of the free labor of the North and the slave power of the South. Mingled with the essential spirit of justice pervading Abolitionism was the growth of the opinion that slavery was a social and political evil. The public wrath at the repeal of a venerated Compromise, the increasing discontent at the violent manifestations of the friends of slavery in Kansas, prepared the public for the formation of a radical party.

Lincoln being a man of power, was beset by three parties. He was urged to remain a Whig by the conservatives, to become a Know-nothing by those drifting on the political waters. Others sought to baptise him in the spirit of Abolitionism. Lincoln had long since made his resolution to array himself on the side of freedom. He was awaiting the right moment.

He saw the time for leadership was coming, that events were rapidly sweeping forward to a climax. In the perturbed political condition he was anxious not to go ahead of events and still not play the laggard.

Among all politicians in American history he was the wisest student of the public mind.

With true vision, Lincoln foreshadowed the solemn consequences of the Kansas struggle. He asked if there could be a more apt invention to bring about collision and violence on the slavery question than the "Nebraska project," and whether "the first drop of blood so shed would not be the real knell of the Union."[305] Behind the fair form of the Douglas doctrine of popular sovereignty, he saw the lurking serpent. He was not deceived by fine, smooth words. In the beginning, he beheld the gaping wounds of Kansas, the hypocrisy of the policy professing the name of peace and bringing in its train the devildom of discord, the curse of a broken, plighted compact. A letter to his friend Speed in 1855 illumines the whole subject, and is a contribution to the political history of the time--unsurpa.s.sed in statement, in clearness of understanding, in subdued calmness of judgment:

[305] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 200.

"You know I dislike slavery, and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave, especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations under the Const.i.tution in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down and caught and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil; but I bite my lips and keep quiet.... It is not fair for you to a.s.sume that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Const.i.tution and the Union."[306]

[306] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 217.

He then bared with remorseless logic the common southern att.i.tude: "You say, if you were President, you would send an army and hang the leaders of the Missouri outrages among the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas fairly votes herself a slave State she must be admitted or the Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes herself a slave State unfairly, that is, by the very means for which you say you would hang men? Must she still be admitted, or the Union dissolved? That will be the phase of the question when it first becomes a practicable one."[307]

[307] _Ibid._

The same letter shows he was aware of the potency of the partisan lash, was an observer of the methods of securing results, of the cowardice and timidity of leaders where political policy appeared on the horizon. He confessed that in their opposition to the admission of Kansas, they would probably be beaten; that the Democrats standing as a unit among themselves, could, directly or indirectly, bribe enough men to carry the day as they could on the open proposition to establish a monarchy; that by getting hold of some man in the North whose position and ability was such that he could make the support of the measure, whatever it might be, a party necessity, the thing would be done.[308]

[308] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 217-218.

Then came a biting comment on the pretenses and practices of those who were spreading the national disease, of those who had one doctrine in public and another in private, who worshipped the G.o.d of Liberty with speech and Mammon with their deeds. In the same letter Lincoln said that although in a private letter or conversation the slaveholders would express their preference that Kansas should be free, they would not vote for a man for Congress who would say the same thing publicly and no such man could be elected from any district in a slave State; that slave-breeders and slave-traders were a small, detested cla.s.s among them; and yet in politics they dictated the course of the Southerners, and were as completely their masters as they were the master of their own negroes.[309]

[309] _Ibid._, 218.

A vivid picture of party uncertainty is seen in his answer to the inquiry of Speed as to where he then stood. "I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, and say that I am an Abolitionist. When I was at Washington, I voted for the Wilmot proviso as good as forty times; and I never heard of any one attempting to unwhig me for that. I now do no more than oppose the extension of slavery. I am not a Know-nothing; that is certain. How could I be? How could any one who abhors the oppression of negroes be in favor of degrading cla.s.ses of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring 'that all men are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created equal except negroes.' When the Know-nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty,--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."[310]

[310] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 218.

To him "Know-nothingism" transcended all questions of policy, denied the very mission of Democracy, turned back the hour hand of political progress and was traitor and recreant to its teachings. He was not sure of his standing in the transitional period of party dissolution and showed something in his mental att.i.tude of the spirit of unrest abroad in the nation and hardly knew whither the trend of events would carry the American people. Cautious in moving forward on matters involving method, he was unwedgeable when the principles of the Republic were at stake. His note of scorn rings clear and loud to these who, in selfishness and bigotry, sought exceptions to and a narrow interpretation of the Declaration of Independence.

By nature Lincoln was a friend of peace. He would have rejoiced at any plan that produced a peaceful solution of the vexed problem. No matter how slow the march of freedom, he would have bridled his wrath. But the aggressiveness of the South in the Kansas struggle opened his vision to the fatuity of gradual emanc.i.p.ation. He grew bitter as Garrison in statement as he contemplated the hypocritic limits on freedom, the spread of an inst.i.tution hostile to democracy with an ever widening promise of future abatement: "On the question of liberty as a principle," he wrote a friend, "we are not what we have been. When we were the political slaves of King George, and wanted to be free, we called the maxim that 'all men are created equal,' a self evident truth, but now when we have grown fat, and have lost all dread of being slaves ourselves, we have become so greedy to be masters that we call the same maxim 'a self evident lie.' The Fourth of July has not quite dwindled away; it is still a great day--for burning fire-crackers!!!"[311]

[311] Lincoln's Speeches, 1, 215

The groping of a giant mind concerning itself with a mammoth problem, the germ of the great speech of Springfield that was soon to startle the nation with its boldness likewise shows itself in this same letter. "Our political problem now is, 'Can we as a nation continue together permanently--forever--half slave and half free?' The problem is too mighty for me--may G.o.d, in his mercy, superintend the solution."[312]

[312] _Ibid._, 216.

Finally the nation changed. The people, once dead to the cry of the slave, were alive to the evil of slavery. Doctrines once deemed the outburst of the fanatic were now on the lips of conservative men, and Lovejoy had become the consort of the political leader. All these years, Lincoln had waited in patience for the day when white men should be ready to fight for the freedom of others. Civilization comes from a sure, steady and progressive enlightenment of public sentiment. Genius alone is helpless in the presence of a palsied national opinion.

Consider Lincoln in South Carolina in 1856, and the hopelessness of the ideal without the company of circ.u.mstances is manifest. Living history comes from the union of the great man and the happy moment for the crystallization of advancing public sentiment. In this sense alone the individual makes history, and it becomes the record of the few. The great man is the symbol of the marching life of the mult.i.tude and through him humanity moves resistlessly to its higher att.i.tude.

A gathering of editors opposed to the Nebraska bill on February 22, 1856, marked the first visible step in the formation of the Republican party in Illinois. Lincoln was, of course, not ent.i.tled to partic.i.p.ate in the public deliberations of that convention. That he promptly heard the tramp of coming events is seen in his readiness to play a commanding part in the early manifestation of the protesting movement.

Declaring that the black cloud of the American party was threatening to drive the Germans from the ranks of the party about to be formed, Hon.

George Schieder said that he entered the Decatur convention with a resolution in opposition to that movement, and helped to form a platform containing a paragraph against the prescriptive doctrine of the so-called American party. That portion of the platform condemning Know-nothingism raised a storm of opposition, and, in despair, he proposed submitting it to Mr. Lincoln and abiding by his decision. After carefully reading the paragraph, Lincoln made the remark that the resolution introduced by Mr. Schieder was nothing new, that it was already contained in the Declaration of Independence, and that they could not form a new party on prescriptive principles. Mr. Schieder states that this declaration of Lincoln saved the resolution and helped to establish the new party on the most liberal basis, and that it was adopted at the Bloomington Convention, and next at the First National-Republican Convention at Philadelphia. He further states that Lincoln crystallized public sentiment, gave it a focal point, so that the great majority of the Germans entered the new party that later made Lincoln President.

Lincoln was in the van of the leaders who rallied to the support of the infant party that has written such luminous pages in American history.

He showed his wonted sagacity, when an editor suggested his name as a candidate for Governor, in immediately advising the nomination of an anti-Nebraskan Democratic candidate, on the ground that such a nomination would be more available.[313]

[313] Transactions McLean Co., 3, 39.

To Herndon the caution of Lincoln seemed to partake of brotherhood with inaction. He hardly realized the sureness of the unremitting character of his progress. As Lincoln's partner felt the thrilling approach of a political crisis, he resolved to unloose Lincoln from his conservative connections without realizing that the latter was ready to dare the future on the bark of the coming party. Delegates were to be elected for the State Convention at Bloomington that was to breathe life into the Republican party in Illinois. Herndon signed Mr. Lincoln's name to the call for the Sangamon County Convention without authority and published it in a local paper. A dramatic incident ensued:

"John T. Stuart was keeping his eye on Lincoln, with a view of keeping him on his side--the totally dead conservative side. Mr. Stuart saw the published call and grew mad; rushed into my office, seemed mad, horrified, and said to me, 'Sir, did Mr. Lincoln sign that Abolition call which is published this morning?' I answered, 'Mr. Lincoln did not sign that call.'--'Did Lincoln authorize you to sign it?' said Mr.

Stuart. 'No, he never authorized me to sign it.'--'Then do you know that you have ruined Mr. Lincoln?'--'I did not know that I had ruined Mr.

Lincoln; did not intend to do so; thought he was a made man by it; that the time had come when conservatism was a crime and a blunder.'--'You, then, take the responsibility of your acts; do you?'--'I do, most emphatically.'"

Herndon then wrote Lincoln. He instantly replied that he adopted what Herndon had done, and promised to meet Lovejoy and other radicals.[314]

[314] Lamon, 374-375.

Lincoln did not serve freedom in word only. A free young negro was in danger of being sold into slavery. The Governor of Illinois was seen. He responded that he had no right to interfere. Lincoln rose from his chair, hat in hand, and exclaimed: "By G.o.d, Governor, I'll make the ground in this country too hot for the foot of a slave, whether you have the legal power to secure a release of this boy or not."[315]

[315] Herndon, 2, 47-48.

During all the trying time when the liberty of Kansas was in the balance, when violence was being met with violence, when even conservative men drifted into the movement to aid the free state men in opposing the Government, he remained master of himself, looked beyond the pa.s.sion of the moment to the abiding realities. Herndon, who was a partic.i.p.ant in this movement, unfolds a view of the calm, far sighted man, who knew that violence was the father of great evils and not a safe foundation for a free state. He says that Lincoln was informed of their intents, and took the first opportunity that he could to dissuade them from their partially formed purpose. They spoke of liberty, justice, and G.o.d's higher law. He answered that he believed "in the providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon"; that if they were in the minority, they could not succeed, and that if they were in the majority they could succeed with the ballot, throwing away the bullet.

He advised them that, "In a democracy where the majority rule by the ballot through the forms of law, physical rebellions and b.l.o.o.d.y resistances" were radically wrong, unconst.i.tutional, and were treason.

He besought them to revolutionize through the ballot-box, and "restore the Government once more to the affections and hearts of men, by making it express, as it was intended to do, the highest spirit of justice and liberty." Their attempt, he continued, to resist the laws of Kansas by force, was criminal and all their feeble attempts would end in bringing sorrow on their heads, and ruin the cause they would freely die to preserve.[316] Well might Herndon say that this speech saved them from the greatest follies.[317] Instead of desperate measures, money was forwarded under legitimate conditions, Lincoln joining in the subscription.

[316] Lamon, 372-373.

[317] Herndon, 2, 49.

The second step in the formation of the Republican party was the Convention at Bloomington. Tragic events had taken place in the State and Nation; signs of the sombre character of the approaching conflict.

Sumner was struck down in the Senate by the dastard attacks of Brooks, an act which sent a shudder of anger and indignation through the North and a wave of approbation through the South. This incident alone showed the strain that the moorings of the Nation were undergoing. In Illinois, too, violence a.s.serted its hideousness, and a delegate, Paul Selby, was treacherously a.s.saulted by political opponents. The spread of the Civil War in Kansas heightened the magnitude of the occasion. The seriousness of the National and State situation had taken hold of the delegates. The gravity of public affairs aroused mad instincts. Many were ready for radical conduct, were ready to meet force with force, and violence with violence.

From the four corners of the State, dauntless anti-Nebraska Democrats, conservative Whig, distraught Know-nothing, bitter Abolitionist, and those drifting on the tide of events, gathered under a common impulse in opposition to the vaunting slave party. Beneath the surface there was memory of former antagonism. The problem of the hour was the uniting of these discordant elements into the h.o.m.ogeneity of common conviction; submerging old and cherished affiliations with a flood of fealty to a new gospel; the trans.m.u.ting raw recruits; quickening the martial spirit commonly the product only of long service.

It was a time for a momentous speech. Several leaders of distinction had addressed the convention, when the audience, with instinctive wisdom, called for Lincoln to make the closing address. It was one of those rare moments in human affairs when words may turn the tide of events. He caught the wandering thoughts of troubled men and gave them continuity.[318] Those long without a political faith were rejoiced to find a home. Like an inspired giant, he was aglow with the greatness of his theme. He spoke as the spirit of the age might have spoken, if it had broken into eloquence sublime and resistless. Men were brought face to face with immortal justice, with eternal righteousness. The humblest hearer lived in the thrill of such communion. Reporters dropped their pencils and forgot their work; even Herndon, who was wont to take notes when Lincoln spoke, threw pen and paper aside, subdued and overcome by the majesty of his partner's speech.

[318] Transactions McLean Co., 3, 91.

It was not alone a triumph in immediate results, but also a triumph in moulding the abiding convictions of men. Above all the enthusiasm of the moment, there still remained his solid logic, a logic that made Republicans of life-long Democrats. John M. Palmer declared that he remembered only one expression of speech, "We will not dissolve the Union, and you shall not do it." Others dwelt on his declaration to meet the occasion with ballots and not bullets, and so the minds of men as well as the impulses were wisely educated. The address became famous as "the lost speech." Its renown grew with age. It became sacred to the memory of those who heard it and time hallowed its history.[319]

[319] Tarbell, 1, 296.

In the light of later events, the platform adopted at the Bloomington Convention seems conservative. It simply rebuked the administration for its att.i.tude on the Kansas issue, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the extension of slavery into Territories.[320]

[320] Lamon, 376.

When the first flood of enthusiasm, after the Bloomington Convention, subsided, a mysterious apathy, a stifling indifference, met the new movement, a not unusual phenomenon in politics or human affairs. Such a time had now come. It was at this period dark and trying that Lincoln towered in lonely grandeur. It was easy enough to be brave and vaunting at a convention when thousands hung on every word. But now it took a higher heroism to be true to the cause. Then Lincoln did not flinch.