The Life of Abraham Lincoln Part 11

"What's your height?"

"Six feet three. What is yours, Mr. Lincoln?"

"Six feet four."

"Then," said the judge, "Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for many years my heart has been aching for a President I could _look up to_, and I've found him at last in the land where we thought there were none but _little_ giants."

The general feeling of the committee was that the convention had made no mistake. This feeling quickly spread throughout the entire party.

Some of Seward's friends wanted him to run on an independent ticket. It is to his credit that he scouted the idea. The democrats, at least the opponents of Lincoln, were divided into three camps, The first was the regular party, headed by Douglas. The second was the bolting party of fire-eaters, who nominated Breckinridge. The third was the party that nominated Bell and Everett. This was wittily called the Kangaroo ticket, because the tail was the most important part. Lincoln's popular vote at the November election was about forty per cent, of the total.

It was plain that if his supporters held together and his opponents were divided, he could readily get a plurality. There were attempts on the part of the opponents of Lincoln to run fusion tickets in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, so as to divert the electoral votes from him; but these came to nothing more than that New Jersey diverted three of her seven electoral votes.

A curious feature of the campaign was that all four candidates declared emphatically for the Union. Breckinridge, who was the candidate of the Southern disunionists, wrote; "The Const.i.tution and the equality of the states, these are symbols of everlasting union." Lincoln himself could hardly have used stronger language. Some people were doubtless deceived by these protestations, but not Douglas. He declared: "I do not believe that every Breckinridge man is a disunionist, but I do believe that every disunionist in America is a Breckinridge man." During the period of nearly six months between nomination and election, Lincoln continued simple, patient, wise. He was gratified by the nomination. He was not elated, for he was not an ambitious man. On the contrary, he felt the burden of responsibility. He was a far-seeing statesman, and no man more distinctly realized the coming tragedy. He felt the call of duty, not to triumph but to sacrifice. This was the cause of his seriousness and gravity of demeanor.

There was no unnecessary change in his simple manners and unpretentious method of living. Friends and neighbors came, and he was glad to see them. He answered the door-bell himself and accompanied visitors to the door. Some of his friends, desiring to save his strength in these little matters, procured a negro valet, Thomas by name. But Abraham continued to do most of the duties that by right belonged to Thomas.

Some one sent him a silk hat, that he might go to Washington with head- gear equal to the occasion. A farmer's wife knit him a pair of yarn stockings. Hundreds of such attentions, kind in intent, grotesque in appearance, he received with that kindness which is the soul of courtesy. There was a woman at whose modest farmhouse he had once dined on a bowl of bread and milk, because he had arrived after everything else had been eaten up. She came into Springfield to renew her apologies and to remind him that he had said that that repast was "good enough for the President." While he commanded the respect of Bryant, Schurz, Boutwell, and such, he was at the same time the idol of the plain people, whom he always loved. He once said he thought the Lord particularly loved plain people, for he had made so many of them.

Shortly after his nomination he was present at a party in Chicago. A little girl approached timidly. He asked, encouragingly, if he could do anything for her. She replied that she wanted his name. He looked about and said, "But here are other little girls--they will feel badly if I give my name only to you." She said there were eight of them in all.

"Then," said he, "get me eight sheets of paper, and a pen and ink, and I will see what I can do for you." The materials were brought, and in the crowded drawing-room he sat down, wrote a sentence and his name on each sheet of paper. Thus he made eight little girls happy.

The campaign was one of great excitement. His letter of acceptance was of the briefest description and simply announced his adherence to the platform. For the rest, his previous utterances in the debates with Douglas, the Cooper Inst.i.tute speech, and other addresses, were in print, and he was content to stand by the record. He showed his wisdom in his refusing to be diverted, or to allow his party to be diverted, from the one important question of preventing the further extension of slavery. The public were not permitted to lose sight of the fact that this was the real issue. The Chicago wigwam was copied in many cities: temporary wooden structures were erected for republican meetings. These did good service as rallying centers.

Then the campaign biographers began to appear. It was said that by June he had had no less than fifty-two applications to write his biography.

One such book was written by W. D. Howells, not so famous in literature then as now. Lincoln furnished a sketch of his life, an "autobiography"

so called. This contains only about five hundred words. Its brevity is an indication of its modesty.

Nor was there any lack of eulogistic music. Among the writers of campaign songs were J. G. Whittier and E. C. Stedman.

The parading contingent of the party was represented by the "Wide- Awakes." The uniform was as effective as simple. It consisted of a cadet cap and a cape, both made of oil-cloth, and a torch. The first company was organized in Hartford. It had escorted Lincoln from the hotel to the hall and back again when he spoke in that city in February after his Cooper Inst.i.tute speech. The idea of this uniformed company of cadets captivated the public fancy. Bands of Wide-Awakes were organized in every community in the North. At the frequent political rallies they poured in by thousands and tens of thousands, a very picturesque sight. The original band in Hartford obtained the identical maul with which Lincoln had split those rails in 1830. It is now in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society, in Hartford.

Though Lincoln had much to cheer him, he had also his share of annoyances. One of his discouragements was so serious, and at this day it appears so amazing, that it is given nearly in full. A careful canvas had been made of the voters of Springfield, and the intention of each voter had been recorded. Lincoln had the book containing this record. He asked his friend Mr. Bateman, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to look through the book with him. They noted particularly those who might be considered leaders of public morals: clergymen, officers, or prominent members of the churches.

When the memorandum was tabulated, after some minutes of silence, he turned a sad face to Mr. Bateman, and said: "Here are twenty-three ministers, of different denominations, and all of them are against me but three; and here are a great many prominent members of the churches, a very large majority of whom are against me. Mr. Bateman, I am not a Christian--G.o.d knows I would be one--but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do not so understand this book." He drew from his pocket a New Testament. "These men well know that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere as far as the Const.i.tution and laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I do not understand it at all."

After a long pause, he added with tears: "I know there is a G.o.d, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me--and I think He has--I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is G.o.d. I have told them that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and Christ and reason say the same; and they will find it so. Douglas doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or voted down, but G.o.d cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with G.o.d's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come and I shall be vindicated; and these men will find that they have not read their Bibles aright."

After another pause: "Doesn't it appear strange that men can ignore the moral aspects of this contest? A revelation could not make it plainer to me that slavery or the government must be destroyed. The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for this rock [the Testament which he was holding] on which I stand,--especially with the knowledge of how these ministers are going to vote. It seems as if G.o.d had borne with this thing [slavery] until the very teachers of religion had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out."

Lincoln did not wear his heart upon his sleeve. On the subject of religion, he was reticent to a degree. Peter Cartwright had called him an atheist. There was a wide, if not general, impression, that he was not a religious man. This did him great injustice. It is for this reason that his remarks to Mr. Bateman are here quoted at length. From his early boyhood, from before the time when he was at great pains to have a memorial sermon for his mother, he was profoundly, intensely religious. He did no injustice to any other man, he did not do justice to himself.

The election occurred on the sixth day of November. The vote was as follows: Lincoln received 1,866,452 popular votes, and one hundred and eighty electoral votes. Douglas received 1,375,157 popular votes, and twelve electoral votes. Breckinridge received 847,953 popular votes, and seventy-two electoral votes. Bell received 590,631 popular votes, and thirty-nine electoral votes.

Lincoln carried all the free states, excepting that in New Jersey the electoral vote was divided, he receiving four out of seven. In the fifteen slave states he received no electoral vote. In ten states not one person had voted for him.

Of the 303 electoral votes he had received 180, while the aggregate of all against him numbered 123, giving him an absolute majority of 57.

The electoral vote was duly counted in the joint session of the two houses of congress February 13, 1861, and it was officially announced that Abraham Lincoln, having received a majority of the votes of the presidential electors, was duly elected President of the United States for four years, beginning March 4, 1861.

One circ.u.mstance is added which may be of interest to the reader. This was published, after his death, by his personal friend, Noah Brooks. It is given in Lincoln's own words: "It was just after my election, in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day, and there had been a great 'Hurrah boys!' so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself upon a lounge in my chamber.

Opposite to where I lay was a bureau with a swinging gla.s.s upon it; and looking in that gla.s.s, I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of the one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the gla.s.s, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler--say five shades--than the other. I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off, and, in the excitement of the hour, forgot all about it,--nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as though something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home, I told my wife about it, and a few days after I tried the experiment again, when, sure enough, the thing came back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was 'a sign' that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term."

The incident is of no interest excepting in so far as everything about Lincoln is of interest. The phenomenon is an optical illusion not uncommon. One image--the "paler," or more indistinct, one--is reflected from the surface of the gla.s.s, while the other is reflected from the silvered back of the gla.s.s. Though Lincoln understood that it was an optical illusion, yet the thought of it evidently weighed on him.

Otherwise he would not have repeated the experiment several times, nor would he have told of it to different persons.

CHAPTER XX.

FOUR LONG MONTHS.

Four months would not ordinarily be considered a long period of time.

But when one is compelled to see the working of a vast amount of mischief, powerless to prevent it, and knowing one's self to be the chief victim of it all, the time is long. Such was the fate of Lincoln.

The election was not the end of a life of toil and struggle, it was the beginning of a new career of sorrow. The period of four months between the election and inauguration could not be devoted to rest or to the pleasant plans for a prosperous term of service. There developed a plan for the disruption of the government. The excuse was Lincoln's election. But he was for four months only a private citizen. He had no power. He could only watch the growing mischief and realize that he was the ultimate victim. Buchanan, who was then President, had a genius for doing the most unwise thing. He was a northern man with southern principles, and this may have unfitted him to see things in their true relations. He certainly was putty in the hands of those who wished to destroy the Union, and his vacillation precisely accomplished what they wished. Had he possessed the firmness and spirit of John A. Dix, who ordered,--"If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot;" had he had a modic.u.m of the patriotism of Andrew Jackson; had he had a t.i.the of the wisdom and manliness of Lincoln; secession would have been nipped in the bud and vast treasures of money and irreparable waste of human blood would have been spared. Whatever the reason may have been,--incapacity, obliquity of moral and political vision, or absolute championship of the cause of disruption,--certain it is that the southern fire-eaters could not have found a tool more perfectly suited to their purpose than James Buchanan. He was the center of one of the most astonishing political cabals of all history.

Lincoln did not pa.s.s indiscriminate condemnation upon all men of southern sympathies. At the time of which we are now writing, and consistently up to the end of his life, he made a marked distinction between the rank and file of the Confederates on the one hand, and those leaders who, on the other hand, had, while in the service of the United States government, sought to accomplish its destruction. The first were revolutionists; they were so regarded generally in Europe, and he believed they were sincere; he regarded them as having the spirit of revolutionists. For the second, who held office under, drew pay from, and were under solemn oath to support, the government, while they were using the vantage of their official position to violate the Const.i.tution and disrupt that government, there is but one word, and that a strong one,--traitors. This was Lincoln's judgment of the men.

Let us now briefly describe the situation. Jefferson Davis, though not a member of Buchanan's cabinet, was probably the most influential of the Southerners in Washington. He had been Secretary of War under Pierce, and it was he who inaugurated the policy of stripping the North for the purpose of strengthening the military defenses of the South.

This policy was vigorously pursued under his successor.

The only person to call a halt to the treasonable proceedings was General Winfield Scott. He was residing in New York City, and on October 29th addressed a letter to President Buchanan containing his views upon the situation. A day or two later he added supplementary considerations addressed to the Secretary of War. He set forth, with much clearness and force, the necessity of garrisoning the southern forts before they should be lost; His letter had its faults, but it accomplished one thing: it showed that there was one high official who was in earnest in the discharge of his duties, and with whom it was not safe to trifle.

President Buchanan sent in his annual message to Congress December 3, 1860. In his discussion of the subject of slavery, he recommended that it be extended to the territories,--the very thing that the people had just voted should not be done. Concerning secession, he said for substance that the government had the power to suppress revolt, but that it could not use that power in reference to South Carolina, the state then under consideration. The secessionists had apparently tied the hands of the executive effectually.

Now observe what was going on in the cabinet. Lewis Ca.s.s had been Secretary of State, but resigned in indignation over the inaction of the President when he failed to succor the forts in Charleston Harbor.

He was succeeded by Jeremiah S. Black, who, as attorney-general, had given to Buchanan an opinion that the Federal government had no power to coerce a seceding state.

Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury, having wasted the funds and destroyed the credit of the government, resigned and left an empty treasury.

John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, was not the least active. He carried out fully the plan which Jefferson Davis had begun to operate several years before. The northern a.r.s.enals were stripped of the arms and ammunition which were sent South for storage or use. The number of regular troops was small, but the few soldiers there were, he scattered in distant places, so that they should be out of reach. They were not to be available for the use of the government until the conspirators should have time to complete their work. It was Floyd whom an emotional Virginian later eulogized. With quite as much truth as poetry he declared that the Secretary of War "thwarted, objected, resisted, and forbade" the efforts of General Scott. This same admirer of Floyd further declared that, if Scott's plans had been adopted and his measures executed, the conspiracy would have been defeated and it would have been impossible to form the Southern Confederacy.

Not worse, perhaps, but more flagrant, was the action of the Secretary of the Interior, Thompson of Mississippi. With the advice and consent of Buchanan, he left his post at Washington to visit North Carolina and help on the work of secession, and then returned and resumed his official prerogatives under the government he had sworn to sustain.

This is so grave a matter that a pa.s.sage from the diary of Mr. Clingman is here inserted, quoted by Nicolay and Hay: "About the middle of December (1860) I had occasion to see the Secretary of the Interior on some official business. On my entering the room, Mr. Thompson said to me, 'Clingman, I am glad you have called, for I intended presently to go up to the senate to see you. I have been appointed a commissioner by the state of Mississippi to go down to North Carolina to get your state to secede.' ... I said to him, 'I did not know you had resigned.' He answered, 'Oh, no! I have not resigned.' 'Then,' I replied, 'I suppose you resign in the morning.' 'No,' he answered, 'I do not intend to resign, for Mr. Buchanan wished us all to hold on, and go out with him on the 4th of March.' 'But,' said I, 'does Mr. Buchanan know for what purpose you are going to North Carolina?' 'Certainly,' he said, 'he knows my object.'" In the meanwhile, Isaac Toucey, the Secretary of the Navy, had been prevailed on to put the navy out of reach. The armed vessels were sent to the ends of the earth. At the critical period, only two were available to the government. What was going on in congress? That body was very busy doing nothing. Both senate and house raised committees for the purpose of devising means of compromise. But every measure of concession was promptly voted down by the body that had appointed the committees. In the senate the slave power was in full control. In the house the slave power was not in majority, but they enjoyed this advantage that they were able to work together, while the const.i.tuency of the free states were usually divided among themselves.

And in joint session the extreme pro-slavery men were always able to prevent anything from being accomplished. This was all they wished.

They had sufficient pledges from the President that nothing would be done before the 4th of March, and it was their belief that by that time the new power would have so good a start that it could treat with the United States on equal terms. On January 7, 1861, Senator Yulee, of Florida, wrote: "By remaining in our places until the 4th of March, it is thought we can keep the hands of Mr. Buchanan tied, and disable the republicans from effecting any legislation which will strengthen the hands of the incoming administration."

On December 14, thirty of the southern senators and representatives had issued a circular to their const.i.tuents. They said that the argument was exhausted, that all hope of relief was extinguished, that the republicans would grant nothing satisfactory, and that the honor, safety, and independence of the Southern people required the organization of a Southern Confederacy.

South Carolina was the first to act. Six days later that state pa.s.sed the ordinance of secession.

Upon this, one of the extreme traitors was forced out of the cabinet.

Floyd, the mischievous Secretary of War, was displaced by Holt, a loyal man. Floyd, however, had done nearly, if not quite, all the mischief he could have done. Stanton had already replaced Black as Attorney-General.

The conspirators then held a caucus. It is supposed that this caucus was held in one of the rooms of the Capitol. At all events it was held in the city of Washington. It was composed of the extreme southern congressmen. It decided to recommend immediate secession, the formation of the Southern Confederacy, and, not least, that the congressmen should remain in their seats to keep the President's hands tied. The committee to carry out these plans consisted of Jefferson Davis, Slidell, and Mallory. By the first day of February, seven states had pa.s.sed ordinances of secession.

This is about what was going on during the four months Lincoln was waiting for the appointed time when he should enter upon his duties. It was not unlike looking upon a house he was shortly to occupy, and seeing vandals applying the torch and ax of destruction, while he was not permitted to go to the rescue, all the while knowing that he would be held accountable for the preservation of the structure. So Lincoln saw this work of destruction going on at Washington. It was plain that the mischief ought to be, and could be, stopped. But Buchanan would not stop it, and Lincoln was, until March 4th, a private citizen and could do nothing. The bitterest part of it was that all the burden would fall on him. As soon as he should become President it would be his duty to save the government which these men were now openly destroying.

Miss Tarbell has recorded a conversation between Lincoln and his friend Judge Gillespie, which took place in Springfield early in January, in which the former expressed his feelings upon the situation.

"Gillespie," said he, "I would willingly take out of my life a period in years equal to the two months which intervene between now and the inauguration, to take the oath of office now."