Page images
PDF
EPUB

county; and on May 7, 1833, he was appointed by William T. Barry, Jackson's Postmaster-General, to be postmaster of New Salem. In 1834 he ran for the legislature again and was elected, taking his seat in that body on December 1st of that year. In 1836 he was elected for the second time; and he was reëlected twice in succession thereafter. The only fadeless laurels he earned during these four sessions of service were in his hanging out his anti-slavery flag in the face of pro-slavery gloom, and in removing the capital to Springfield, which was his distinctive work. For this great service he was afterwards—as is usual in such cases-repaid with the basest ingratitude.

In 1842, 1844, and 1846 successively he aspired to a nomination for Congress, but on the first and second occasions he was defeated by John J. Hardin and Edward D. Baker respectively. On the third attempt he was at last nominated; the election resulted in his favor, and he took his seat in December, 1847.

In only an extremely few instances have members made a deep impression at their first term in Congress. Henry Clay and Douglas were exceptions, but Lincoln was not. Not only was he handicapped by his native modesty, but he was in a despised minority, whom the triumphant majority treated with utter disdain. Lincoln attempted, however, to gain a reputation. But, though enterprising, he was unfortunate with legislative schemes. In his speeches he attempted grave political philosophy and the witchery of broad humor, each alike in vain; and he returned home with neither profit nor laurels, and saw his district pass over to the opposition. He applied to a Whig administration for the office of Commissioner of the General Land Office. "He asked for bread and got a stone"; he was tendered the insignificant post of Secretary for Oregon; afterwards that of Governor. Oregon was then a terra incognita-the Van Diemen's Land of our political system.

In 1854, and again in 1858, the United States Senate was almost within his grasp, but, as with Sisyphus, the stone eluded him, and, as with Tantalus, the sparkling draught and ambrosial fruit fled from his famished lips. True, indeed, his

race of ambition had been "a flat failure." In point of fact, when I first knew Lincoln in 1854, he being then in his fortysixth year, he had wrought no achievement of conspicuous fame except the removal of the capital, and that was not apt work for a great man. Indeed, at that time, his reputation as a story-teller eclipsed all other traits.

His career of real greatness opened on October 3, 1854; and while it might have come to pass in course of time in any event, it was by mere accident that it happened then. The plan prearranged was that Douglas should on that day speak to the people who were expected to attend at the State Fair, in justification of the Nebraska bill; and that Breese or Trumbull or both (being leaders of the Democracy, in opposition) should reply. Neither one appeared, however, and Lincoln was informally but opportunely designated by the opposition to reply. His speech, which was repeated at Peoria and also at Urbana, exceeded any argument on that side, either in or out of Congress. So Douglas himself admitted. Trumbull, however, reaped the reward then, and Lincoln had to wait. In 1856, however, at Bloomington, Lincoln eclipsed all previous efforts in the line of speechmaking. This gave him a distinctive and unassailable leadership in the State, and in 1858 he enlarged this leadership to national proportions. The opportune "house-divided-against-itself" speech made "his fame fold in this orb o' the earth."

[ocr errors]

Lincoln was a native politician, with all that the term implies, consistent with honor and integrity. When, in 1858, Buchanan was decapitating the office-holders in Illinois who adhered to Douglas, Lincoln told me that Buchanan was right, and that he should have done the same—that a President had a right to demand that his appointees should be in harmony with the policy of his administration. Lincoln was likewise a utilitarian, according to the conception of Hume and Bentham alike. He classed the value of men according to their strength and efficiency, which in his view somewhat condoned moral obliquity. He once spoke to me in highly eulogistic terms of Bacon, at which I expressed surprise, and ventured to object that he had been accused of receiving bribes. Lincoln admitted this to be true, but in extenuation said that it

had never made any difference in his decisions; in short, he admired him for his strength in spite of his flagitiousness.

Lincoln's adhesion to Judd was in consequence of Judd's eminent success as a politician, although Lincoln well knew that Judd was, as he expressed it to me, a political "trimmer." Judd's rallying cry in a political campaign was, "Turn on the beer and keep it running." Lincoln's appointment of Cameron was made in spite of that politician's malodorous reputation, which the whole world knew. Lincoln even resisted it, saying: "How can I justify my title of 'Honest Old Abe' with the appointment of a man like Cameron?" All of which tends to show that politics and its practice are not divine arts.

Perhaps the most conspicuous element of Lincoln's character certainly the one most generally noted and discussedwas what is somewhat vaguely styled his honesty. It is not, according to my view, and was not in his, an affirmative virtue to be merely honest; for while it is, of course, a badge of dishonor to be dishonest, it is in no wise notably meritorious to be honest. It is like the faculty or accomplishment of accurate spelling, the maintenance of personal chastity, or the normal habit of being dressed, not meritorious so as to excite comment in the observance, but disgraceful in the breach. A man who is merely honest, without more, is a moral imbecile; the fibre of character requires some element more radical. But while Lincoln was indeed honest, as a matter of course, which is the negative pole of uprightness and moral intrepidity, he was also just, which is the positive pole. He was also logical and consistent in this attribute, not merely by the test of conventionalism, but equally by the test of a vital and enlightened conscience. He would as lief break into a man's house and despoil the owner of his goods, as secure the same result through the medium of an inequitable suit at law or a tricky contract. To acquire values by malpractice or by unjust or unfair action in court or elsewhere, by overcharging for services, by flat or disguised perjury, or by technical larceny, was alike in essence to him. The form and style of the malappropriation did not engross his attention, nor was he deluded by ornate phrases or euphemistic titles. To him dishonesty was dishonesty, whether it was

concealed in the burglar's kit, the "dicer's oath," deceit in a trade, the lawyer's sophistical speech, the politician's venal vote, or the hypocrite's vain profession.

Nor was his style of honesty one of limitations or of negative ethical obligation, such as, "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not bear false witness," etc.; it was an active, vital law of his being which prompted affirmative performance of duty. Lincoln also possessed not alone moral honesty, which is easy and common, but also mental honesty, which is difficult and rare indeed. All men profess moral honesty; they assume that virtue whether they have it or not. But men in general are not ashamed of obliquity of opinion; to them conformity is preferable to consistency, conventionalism to independence. To be looked at askance because of singularity of opinion conveys terror; men shun the criticism of their fellows with greater solicitude than that of their own consciences. As Lincoln himself put it: "Men who are brave enough to defy a loaded cannon cannot endure the awful name of Abolitionist, even when made by one whom they depise." But Lincoln always had the courage of his convictions; and he not only sounded the clarion note of defiance to his enemies, but with greater courage he challenged his friends to mortal combat in the maintenance of what were at the time novel and heretical political doctrines.

Shall I be told that this eulogium is undeserved, that it was not just to sustain the Fugitive Slave law, or to thwart Hunter, Phelps, Frémont, and Schenck in extirpating slavery, or to urge compensated emancipation,—all of which things Lincoln did? I reply that slaves were, in a legal aspect, property, and that, in Lincoln's view, to despoil their legal owners of this property was an overthrow of justice as enthroned in constitutional law; and that he deemed it more consonant with justice to protect slaves as property, by and plus law, than to attempt their freedom through the bloody processes of anarchy. Even in seeking to execute justice and enforce equity, he had utility and practicability of achievement in view. He did not design to "let justice be done though the heavens fall," because he knew that justice could no more be perfectly done than the heavens could fall. His goal was not ideal jus

tice, but the practicable and the attainable. He did not attempt impossible achievements. Let it be remembered that Lincoln was primarily a statesman and politician, and in no sense a closet reformer or barren idealist. He conformed to the political monition of Cicero: "Whoever enters upon public life ought to take care that the question, how far the measure is virtuous, be not the sole consideration, but also how far he may have the means of carrying it into execution."

In the days of his adolescence Lincoln gave no favorable promise for the future; sarcasm and brute force were dominant. But this fashion was in accord with the times and manners with which he was environed; it was, in short, the custom of the country. He was impatient of restraint; he learned magnanimity later. He was impermeable to insult and quick to repel any disparagement, by muscular force if needful, in which he knew no superior. This harsh and unlovely but then necessary gift of physical prowess-this element of herculean strength-and the laudable characteristic of resolute courage constituted his chief paternal inheritance and bequest; and so far as can be traced he did not abuse the gift, being always wary of entering into a quarrel; but, being in, he bore it so that the opposer would beware of him ever thereafter.

Exterior and visible agencies, however, defined only the initial point in Lincoln's unique career. The film of sorrow and bereavement which glazed his eyes at the deathbed of Nancy Hanks Lincoln was never effaced, and the mystic chords of memory and sympathy which stretched from the neglected grave in the deep tangled wild wood to the stricken heart of the bereaved boy were constant in their tension, impelling him to all efforts that were noble and heroic, toward all ends that were good and true. It is said that Schiller, before commencing a work, heard within himself a harmony of indistinct sounds which were like a prelude to inspiration. Also, that Rembrandt, when in the act of conceiving a picture, had a vision of rays and shadows, which communed with his soul, before he had animated the canvas with his personages. By analogy, if not indeed by the same occult influence, soon after the death of Lincoln's stepmother, an obvious and

« PreviousContinue »