The Lincoln Story Book Part 8

The office was in Springfield, the capital, and the state-house was over the way. While Lincoln continued to question and console the poor sufferer, his partner went over to learn of the governor what he could do in the matter. But there was no const.i.tutional or even legal right to interfere with the doings of a sovereign State. This omission as regards humanity stung Lincoln, always tender on that score, and he excitedly vowed:

"By virtue of freedom for all, I will have that negro back--or a twenty years' agitation in Illinois, which will afford its governor a legal and const.i.tutional right to interfere in such premises."

The only way to rescue the unfortunate young man was to make up a purse and recompense a correspondent at the city below, to obtain the captive and return him to his mother.

Such cases, of more often fugitive-slave matters, were not uncommon in the State. Lincoln was already linked with the ultras on the question, so that it was said by lawyers applied to, afraid as political aspirants:

"Go to that Lincoln, the liberator; he will defend a fugitive-slave case!"

LINCOLN'S VOW.

On the 17th of September, 1862, the Confederate inroad into Maryland was stopped by the decisive defeat of Antietam, and the raiders were sent to the retreat. Lincoln called the Cabinet to a special meeting, and stated that the time had come at last for the proclamation of freedom to the slaves everywhere in the United States. Public sentiment would now sustain--after great vacillation, and all his friends were bent upon it.

"Besides, I promised my G.o.d I would do it. Yea, I made a solemn vow before G.o.d that, if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slave!"

It was remarked that the signature appeared tremulous and uneven, but the writer affirmed that that was not "because of any uncertainty or hesitation on my part."

It was done after the public reception, and "three hours' handshaking is not calculated to improve a man's chirography."

He said to the painter of the "Signing the Emanc.i.p.ation Act," Mr.

Carpenter:

"I believe that I am about as glad over the success of this work as you are!"

The original was destroyed in the great fire at Chicago, where it was under exhibition. The pen and the table concerned should be in the Lincoln Museum. The ink-stand was a wooden one, in private hands, and bought at public sale when Lincoln relics were not at the current high price.

"DEN I TAKES TO DE WOODS!"

Secretary Seward, as manager of the foreign relations, met much trouble from the disposition of the aristocratic realms of Europe to await eagerly for a breach by which to enter into interference without quarreling. He was also a great trouble-maker, having the innate repugnance of men of letters and voice to play second fiddle--since he was nominated on the trial ballot above Lincoln in the Presidential Convention. The black speck in the political horizon was San Domingo; the Abolitionists wanted to help her to attain liberty, in which case Mother Spain would a.s.suredly come out openly against the United States and consequently ally with the Confederacy.

The statement of the dilemma--side with Spain, or the black republic--reminded the President of a negro story, quite akin.

A colored parson was addressing his hearers and drew a dreadful picture of the sinner in distress. He had two courses before him, however. But the exhorter a.s.serted in a gush of novelty that:

"Dis narrer way leads on to destruction--and dat broad one to d.a.m.nation--"

Feeling he was overshooting the mark by the dismay among his congregation, he paused, when an impulsive brother started up with bristling wool and staring eyes, and, making for the door, hallooed:

"In dat case, dis chile he takes to de woods!"

Mr. President elucidated the black prospect.

"I am not willing to a.s.sume any new responsibilities at this juncture.

I shall, therefore, avoid going to the one place with Spain or with the negro to the other--but shall take _to the woods_!"

A strict and honest neutrality was therefore observed, and--San Domingo is still a bone of contention, though not with Spain, for it is an eye on our ca.n.a.l.

THE UNPARDONABLE CRIME.

The ma.s.s of examples of Lincoln's leniency, mercifulness, and lack of rigor, lead one to believe he could not be inexorable. But there was one crime to which he was unforgiving--the truckling to slavery. The smuggling of slaves into the South was carried on much later than a guileless public imagine. Only fifty years ago, a slave-trader languished in a Ma.s.sachusetts prison, in Newburyport, serving out a five years' sentence, and still confined from inability to procure the thousand dollars to pay a superimposed fine. Mr. Alley, congressman of Lynn, felt compa.s.sion, and busied himself to try to procure the wretch's release. For that he laid the unfortunate's pet.i.tion before President Lincoln. It acknowledged the guilt and the justice of his condemnation; he was penitent and deplored his state--all had fallen away from him after his conviction. The chief arbiter was touched by the piteous and emphatic appeal. Nevertheless, he felt constrained to say to the intermediary:

"My friend, this is a very touching appeal to my feelings. You know that my weakness is to be, if possible, too easily moved by appeals to mercy, and if this man were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of man could perpetrate, I might forgive him on such an appeal. But the man who could go to Africa, and rob her of her children, and sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer, that he can never receive pardon at my hands. No!

he may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act of mine!"

BEYOND THE BOON.

The other slave-trade case is more tragic than the above.

It roused much excitement, as the conviction for slave-trading was the first under the special law in any part of the land. The object of the unique process was William Gordon. Sentenced to be hanged like a pirate, the most prodigious effort was made to have the penalty relaxed with a prospect that the term of imprisonment would be curtailed as soon as decent. It would seem that merchant princes were connected with the lucrative, if nefarious, traffic in which he was a captain. But the offense was so flagrant that the New York district attorney went to Washington to block mistaken clemency. He was all but too late, for the President had literally under his hand the Gordon reprieve. The powerful influence reached even into the executive study. Lawyer Delafield Smith stood firmly upon the need of making an example, and Mr. Lincoln gave way, but in despair at having to lay aside the pen and redoom the miserable tool to the gallows, where he was executed, at New York. "Mr. Smith," sighed the President, "you do not know how hard it is to have a human being die when you know a stroke of your pen may save him."

VAIN AS THE POPE'S BULL AGAINST THE COMET.

The potency of the Emanc.i.p.ation Act was so patent to the least politician that, long before 1863, when its announcement opened the memorable year for freedom, not only had its demonstration been implored by his friends, but some of his subordinates had tried to launch its lightning with not so impersonal a sentiment. To a religious body, pressing him to verify his t.i.tle of Abolitionist, he replied:

"I do not want to issue a doc.u.ment that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the pope's bull against the comet."

A VOLUNTEER CAPTAINCY WORTH TWO DOLLARS.

While he was a lumberer, Lincoln was in the employ of one Kirkpatrick, who "ran" a sawmill. In hiring the new man, the employer had promised to buy him a dog, or cant-hook, of sufficient size to suit a man of uncommon stature. But he failed in his pledge and would not give him the two dollars of its value for his working without the necessary tool. Though far from a grudging disposition, Lincoln cherished this in memory. When the Black Hawk War broke out and the governor called out volunteers, Sangamon County straightway responded and raised a company of rangers. This Kirkpatrick wished and strove to be elected captain, but Lincoln recited his grievance to the men, and said to his friend William Green (or Greene):

"Bill, I believe I can now make even with Kirkpatrick for the two dollars he owes me for the cant-hook."

Setting himself up for candidate, he won the post. It was a triumph of popularity which rejoiced him. As late as 1860, he said he had not met since that success any to give him so much satisfaction.