The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume III Part 16

There was doubt about the legality of the trial, and thousands in the North denounced the whole proceeding as tyrannical and infamous. At the same time millions demanded that Vallandigham should be punished.

Lincoln's humor came to the rescue. He disapproved of the findings of the court, changed the punishment, and ordered that Mr. Vallandigham should be sent to his friends in the South.

Those who regarded the act as unconst.i.tutional almost forgave it for the sake of its humor.

Horace Greeley always had the idea that he was greatly superior to Lincoln, because he lived in a larger town, and for a long time insisted that the people of the North and the people of the South desired peace.

He took it upon himself to lecture Lincoln. Lincoln, with that wonderful sense of humor, united with shrewdness and profound wisdom, told Greeley that, if the South really wanted peace, he (Lincoln) desired the same thing, and was doing all he could to bring it about. Greeley insisted that a commissioner should be appointed, with authority to negotiate with the representatives of the Confederacy. This was Lincoln's opportunity. He authorized Greeley to act as such commissioner. The great editor felt that he was caught. For a time he hesitated, but finally went, and found that the Southern commissioners were willing to take into consideration any offers of peace that Lincoln might make, consistent with the independence of the Confederacy.

The failure of Greeley was humiliating, and the position in which he was left, absurd.

Again the humor of Lincoln had triumphed.

Lincoln, to satisfy a few fault-finders in the North, went to Grant's headquarters and met some Confederate commissioners. He urged that it was hardly proper for him to negotiate with the representatives of rebels in arms--that if the South wanted peace, all they had to do was to stop fighting. One of the commissioners cited as a precedent the fact that Charles the First negotiated with rebels in arms. To which Lincoln replied that Charles the First lost his head.

The conference came to nothing, as Mr. Lincoln expected.

The commissioners, one of them being Alexander H. Stephens, who, when in good health, weighed about ninety pounds, dined with the President and Gen. Grant. After dinner, as they were leaving, Stephens put on an English ulster, the tails of which reached the ground, while the collar was somewhat above the wearer's head.

As Stephens went out, Lincoln touched Grant and said: "Grant, look at Stephens. Did you ever see as little a nubbin with as much shuck?"

Lincoln always tried to do things in the easiest way. He did not waste his strength. He was not particular about moving along straight lines.

He did not tunnel the mountains. He was willing to go around, and reach the end desired as a river reaches the sea.

XI.

One of the most wonderful things ever done by Lincoln was the promotion of General Hooker. After the battle of Fredericksburg, General Burnside found great fault with Hooker, and wished to have him removed from the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln disapproved of Burnside's order, and gave Hooker the command. He then wrote Hooker this memorable letter:

"I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier--which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession--in which you are right. You have confidence--which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition to thwart him as much as you could--in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military successes, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you.

I shall a.s.sist you, so far as I can, to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive, can get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."

This letter has, in my judgment, no parallel. The mistaken magnanimity is almost equal to the prophecy:

"I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their command and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you."

Chancellorsville was the fulfillment.

XII.

MR. LINCOLN was a statesman. The great stumbling-block--the great obstruction--in Lincoln's way, and in the way of thousands, was the old doctrine of States Rights.

This doctrine was first established to protect slavery. It was clung to to protect the inter-State slave trade. It became sacred in connection with the Fugitive Slave Law, and it was finally used as the corner-stone of Secession.

This doctrine was never appealed to in defence of the right--always in support of the wrong. For many years politicians upon both sides of this question endeavored to express the exact relations existing between the Federal Government and the States, and I know of no one who succeeded, except Lincoln. In his message of 1861, delivered on July the 4th, the definition is given, and it is perfect:

"Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole--to the General Government. Whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State."

When that definition is realized in practice, this country becomes a Nation. Then we shall know that the first allegiance of the citizen is not to his State, but to the Republic, and that the first duty of the Republic is to protect the citizen, not only when in other lands, but at home, and that this duty cannot be discharged by delegating it to the States.

Lincoln believed in the sovereignty of the people--in the supremacy of the Nation--in the territorial integrity of the Republic.

XIII.

A GREAT actor can be known only when he has a.s.sumed the princ.i.p.al character in a great drama. Possibly the greatest actors have never appeared, and it may be that the greatest soldiers have lived the lives of perfect peace. Lincoln a.s.sumed the leading part in the greatest drama ever enacted upon the stage of this continent.

His criticisms of military movements, his correspondence with his generals and others on the conduct of the war, show that he was at all times master of the situation--that he was a natural strategist, that he appreciated the difficulties and advantages of every kind, and that in "the still and mental" field of war he stood the peer of any man beneath the flag.

Had McClellan followed his advice, he would have taken Richmond.

Had Hooker acted in accordance with his suggestions, Chancellorsville would have been a victory for the Nation.

Lincoln's political prophecies were all fulfilled.

We know now that he not only stood at the top, but that he occupied the centre, from first to last, and that he did this by reason of his intelligence, his humor, his philosophy, his courage and his patriotism.

In pa.s.sion's storm he stood, unmoved, patient, just and candid. In his brain there was no cloud, and in his heart no hate. He longed to save the South as well as North, to see the Nation one and free.

He lived until the end was known.

He lived until the Confederacy was dead--until Lee surrendered, until Davis fled, until the doors of Libby Prison were opened, until the Republic was supreme.

He lived until Lincoln and Liberty were united forever.

He lived to cross the desert--to reach the palms of victory--to hear the murmured music of the welcome waves.

He lived until all loyal hearts were his--until the history of his deeds made music in the souls of men--until he knew that on Columbia's Calendar of worth and fame his name stood first.

He lived until there remained nothing for him to do as great as he had done.

What he did was worth living for, worth dying for.

He lived until he stood in the midst of universal

Joy, beneath the outstretched wings of Peace--the foremost man in all the world.

And then the horror came. Night fell on noon. The Savior of the Republic, the breaker of chains, the liberator of millions, he who had "a.s.sured freedom to the free," was dead.

Upon his brow Fame placed the immortal wreath, and for the first time in the history of the world a Nation bowed and wept.

The memory of Lincoln is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds all hearts together now, and holds all States beneath a Nation's flag.

XIV.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN--strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Democritus, of aesop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of man; while through all, and over all, were an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all, the shadow of the tragic end.

Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity.

Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed, we know but little. The gla.s.s through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct.