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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11728 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 11728-h.htm or 11728-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/7/2/11728/11728-h/11728-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/7/2/11728/11728-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+The People's Leader in the Struggle for National Existence
+
+By
+
+GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM, LITT. D.
+
+Author of
+"Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages,"
+"The Censorship of the Church," etc.
+
+With the above is included the speech delivered by Lincoln in New York,
+February 27, 1860; with an introduction by Charles C. Nott, late Chief
+Justice of the Court of Claims, and annotations by Judge Nott and by
+Cephas Brainerd of New York Bar.
+
+1909
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+
+The twelfth of February, 1909, was the hundredth anniversary of the
+birth of Abraham Lincoln. In New York, as in other cities and towns
+throughout the Union, the day was devoted to commemoration exercises,
+and even in the South, in centres like Atlanta (the capture of which in
+1864 had indicated the collapse of the cause of the Confederacy),
+representative Southerners gave their testimony to the life and
+character of the great American.
+
+The Committee in charge of the commemoration in New York arranged for a
+series of addresses to be given to the people of the city and it was my
+privilege to be selected as one of the speakers. It was an indication of
+the rapid passing away of the generation which had had to do with the
+events of the War, that the list of orators, forty-six in all, included
+only four men who had ever seen the hero whose life and character they
+were describing.
+
+In writing out later, primarily for the information of children and
+grandchildren, my own address (which had been delivered without notes),
+I found myself so far absorbed in the interest of the subject and in the
+recollections of the War period, that I was impelled to expand the paper
+so that it should present a more comprehensive study of the career and
+character of Lincoln than it had been possible to attempt within the
+compass of an hour's talk, and should include also references, in
+outline, to the constitutional struggle that had preceded the contest
+and to the chief events of the War itself with which the great War
+President had been most directly concerned. The monograph, therefore,
+while in the form of an essay or historical sketch, retains in certain
+portions the character of the spoken address with which it originated.
+
+It is now brought into print in the hope that it may be found of
+interest for certain readers of the younger generation and may serve as
+an incentive to the reading of the fuller histories of the War period,
+and particularly of the best of the biographies of the great American
+whom we honour as the People's leader.
+
+I have been fortunate enough to secure (only, however, after this
+monograph had been put into type) a copy of the pamphlet printed in
+September, 1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, in
+which is presented the text, as revised by the speaker, of the address
+given by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,--the address which
+made him President.
+
+This edition of the speech, prepared for use in the Presidential
+campaign, contains a series of historical annotations by Cephas Brainerd
+of the New York Bar and Charles C. Nott, who later rendered further
+distinguished service to his country as Colonel of the 176th Regiment,
+N.Y.S. Volunteers, and (after the close of the War) as chief justice of
+the Court of Claims.
+
+These young lawyers (not yet leaders of the Bar) appear to have realised
+at once that the speech was to constitute the platform upon which the
+issues of the Presidential election were to be contested. Not being
+prophets, they were, of course, not in a position to know that the same
+statements were to represent the contentions of the North upon which the
+Civil War was fought out.
+
+I am able to include, with the scholarly notes of the two lawyers, a
+valuable introduction to the speech, written (as late as February, 1908)
+by Judge Nott; together with certain letters which in February, 1860,
+passed between him (as the representative of the Committee) and Mr.
+Lincoln.
+
+The introduction and the letters have never before been published, and
+(as is the case also with the material of the notes) are now in print
+only in the present volume.
+
+I judge, therefore, that I may be doing a service to the survivors of
+the generation of 1860 and also to the generations that have grown up
+since the War, by utilising the occasion of the publication of my own
+little monograph for the reprinting of these notes in a form for
+permanent preservation and for reference on the part of students of the
+history of the Republic.
+
+G.H.P.
+
+NEW YORK, April 2, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN
+
+  II. WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS
+
+ III. THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY
+
+  IV. LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+      NATIONAL EXISTENCE
+
+   V. THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+  VI. THE DARK. DAYS OF 1862
+
+ VII. THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR
+
+VIII. THE FINAL CAMPAIGN
+
+  IX. LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED
+
+      APPENDIX--LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS:
+
+      INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+      CORRESPONDENCE WITH ROBERT LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD
+
+      INTRODUCTION
+
+      CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN
+
+      TITLE PAGE OF ORIGINAL ISSUE
+
+      OFFICERS OF THE REPUBLICAN UNION
+
+      PREFACE TO THE LINCOLN ADDRESS
+
+      THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS
+
+      INDEX
+
+      FOOTNOTES
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN
+
+
+On the twelfth of February, 1909, the hundredth anniversary of the birth
+of Abraham Lincoln, Americans gathered together, throughout the entire
+country, to honour the memory of a great American, one who may come to
+be accepted as the greatest of Americans. It was in every way fitting
+that this honour should be rendered to Abraham Lincoln and that, on such
+commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in
+honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln
+gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion
+Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain.
+
+The chief purpose, however, as I understand, of a memorial service is
+not so much to glorify the dead as to enlighten and inspire the living.
+We borrow the thought of his own Gettysburg address (so eloquent in its
+exquisite simplicity) when we say that no words of ours can add any
+glory to the name of Abraham Lincoln. His work is accomplished. His fame
+is secure. It is for us, his fellow-citizens, for the older men who had
+personal touch with the great struggle in which Lincoln was the nation's
+leader, for the younger men who have grown up in the generation since
+the War, and for the children by whom are to be handed down through the
+new century the great traditions of the Republic, to secure from the
+life and character of our great leader incentive, illumination, and
+inspiration to good citizenship, in order that Lincoln and his
+fellow-martyrs shall not have died in vain.
+
+It is possible within the limits of this paper simply to touch upon the
+chief events and experiences in Lincoln's life. It has been my endeavour
+to select those that were the most important in the forming or in the
+expression of his character. The term "forming" is, however, not
+adequate to indicate the development of a personality like Lincoln's. We
+rather think of his sturdy character as having been _forged_ into its
+final form through the fiery furnace of fierce struggle, as hammered
+out under the blows of difficulties and disasters, and as pressed
+beneath the weight of the nation's burdens, until was at last produced
+the finely tempered nature of the man we know, the Lincoln of history,
+that exquisite combination of sweetness of nature and strength of
+character. The type is described in Schiller's Song of the Founding of
+the Bell:
+
+    Denn, wo das strenge mit dem zarten,
+    Wo mildes sich und starkes paarten,
+    Da giebt es einen guten Klang.
+
+There is a tendency to apply the term "miraculous" to the career of
+every hero, and in a sense such description is, of course, true. The
+life of every man, however restricted its range, is something of a
+miracle; but the course of a single life, like that of humanity, is
+assuredly based on a development that proceeds from a series of
+causations. Holmes says that the education of a man begins two centuries
+before his birth. We may recall in this connection that Lincoln came of
+good stock. It is true that his parents belonged to the class of poor
+whites; but the Lincoln family can be traced from an eastern county of
+England (we might hope for the purpose of genealogical harmony that the
+county was Lincolnshire) to Hingham in Massachusetts, and by way of
+Pennsylvania and Virginia to Kentucky. The grandfather of our Abraham
+was killed, while working in his field on the Kentucky farm, by
+predatory Indians shooting from the cover of the dense forest. Abraham's
+father, Thomas, at that time a boy, was working in the field where his
+father was murdered. Such an incident in Kentucky simply repeated what
+had been going on just a century before in Massachusetts, at Deerfield
+and at dozens of other settlements on the edge of the great forest which
+was the home of the Indians. During the hundred years, the frontier of
+the white man's domain had been moved a thousand miles to the south-west
+and, as ever, there was still friction at the point of contact.
+
+The record of the boyhood of our Lincoln has been told in dozens of
+forms and in hundreds of monographs. We know of the simplicity, of the
+penury, of the family life in the little one-roomed log hut that formed
+the home for the first ten years of Abraham's life. We know of his
+little group of books collected with toil and self-sacrifice. The
+series, after some years of strenuous labour, comprised the Bible,
+_Aesop's Fables_, a tattered copy of Euclid's _Geometry_, and Weems's
+_Life of Washington_. The _Euclid_ he had secured as a great prize from
+the son of a neighbouring farmer. Abraham had asked the boy the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." His friend said that he did not himself know,
+but that he knew the word was in a book which he had at school, and he
+hunted up the _Euclid_. After some bargaining, the _Euclid_ came into
+Abraham's possession. In accordance with his practice, the whole
+contents were learned by heart. Abraham's later opponents at the Bar or
+in political discussion came to realise that he understood the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." In fact, references to specific problems of
+Euclid occurred in some of his earlier speeches at the Bar.
+
+A year or more later, when the Lincoln family had crossed the river to
+Indiana, there was added to the "library" a copy of the revised Statutes
+of the State. The Weems's _Washington_ had been borrowed by Lincoln from
+a neighbouring farmer. The boy kept it at night under his pillow, and on
+the occasion of a storm, the water blew in through the chinks of the
+logs that formed the wall of the cabin, drenching the pillow and the
+head of the boy (a small matter in itself) and wetting and almost
+spoiling the book. This was a grave misfortune. Lincoln took his
+damaged volume to the owner and asked how he could make payment for the
+loss. It was arranged that the boy should put in three days' work
+shucking corn on the farm. "Will that work pay for the book or only for
+the damage?" asked the boy. It was agreed that the labour of three days
+should be considered sufficient for the purchase of the book.
+
+The text of this biography and the words of each valued volume in the
+little "library" were absorbed into the memory of the reader. It was his
+practice when going into the field for work, to take with him
+written-out paragraphs from the book that he had at the moment in mind
+and to repeat these paragraphs between the various chores or between the
+wood-chopping until every page was committed by heart. Paper was scarce
+and dear and for the boy unattainable. He used for his copying bits of
+board shaved smooth with his jack-knife. This material had the advantage
+that when the task of one day had been mastered, a little labour with
+the jack-knife prepared the surface of the board for the work of the
+next day. As I read this incident in Lincoln's boyhood, I was reminded
+of an experience of my own in Louisiana. It happened frequently during
+the campaign of 1863 that our supplies were cut off through the capture
+of our waggon trains by that active Confederate commander, General
+Taylor. More than once, we were short of provisions, and, in one
+instance, a supply of stationery for which the adjutants of the brigade
+had been waiting, was carried off to serve the needs of our opponents.
+We tore down a convenient and unnecessary shed and utilised from the
+roof the shingles, the clean portions of which made an admirable
+substitute for paper. For some days, the morning reports of the brigade
+were filed on shingles.
+
+Lincoln's work as a farm-hand was varied by two trips down the river to
+New Orleans. The opportunity had been offered to the young man by the
+neighbouring store-keeper, Gentry, to take part in the trip of a
+flat-boat which carried the produce of the county to New Orleans, to be
+there sold in exchange for sugar or rum. Lincoln was, at the time of
+these trips, already familiar with certain of the aspects and conditions
+of slavery, but the inspection of the slave-market in New Orleans
+stamped upon his sensitive imagination a fresh and more sombre picture,
+and made a lasting impression of the iniquity and horror of the
+institution. From the time of his early manhood, Lincoln hated slavery.
+What was exceptional, however, in his state of mind was that, while
+abominating the institution, he was able to give a sympathetic
+understanding to the opinions and to the prejudices of the slave-owners.
+In all his long fight against slavery as the curse both of the white and
+of the black, and as the great obstacle to the natural and wholesome
+development of the nation, we do not at any time find a trace of
+bitterness against the men of the South who were endeavouring to
+maintain and to extend the system.
+
+It was of essential importance for the development of Lincoln as a
+political leader, first for his State, and later in the contest that
+became national, that he should have possessed an understanding, which
+was denied to many of the anti-slavery leaders, of the actual nature,
+character, and purpose of the men against whom he was contending. It
+became of larger importance when Lincoln was directing from Washington
+the policy of the national administration that he should have a
+sympathetic knowledge of the problems of the men of the Border States
+who with the outbreak of the War had been placed in a position of
+exceptional difficulty, and that he should have secured and retained the
+confidence of these men. It seems probable that if the War President
+had been a man of Northern birth and Northern prejudices, if he had been
+one to whom the wider, the more patient and sympathetic view of these
+problems had been impossible or difficult, the Border States could not
+have been saved to the Union. It is probable that the support given to
+the cause of the North by the sixty thousand or seventy thousand loyal
+recruits from Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia, may
+even have proved the deciding factor in turning the tide of events. The
+nation's leader for the struggle seems to have been secured through a
+process of natural selection as had been the case a century earlier with
+Washington. We may recall that Washington died but ten years before
+Lincoln was born; and from the fact that each leader was at hand when
+the demand came for his service, and when without such service the
+nation might have been pressed to destruction, we may grasp the hope
+that in time of need the nation will always be provided with the leader
+who can meet the requirement.
+
+After Lincoln returned from New Orleans, he secured employment for a
+time in the grocery or general store of Gentry, and when he was
+twenty-two years of age, he went into business with a partner, some
+twenty years older than himself, in carrying on such a store. He had so
+impressed himself upon the confidence of his neighbours that, while he
+was absolutely without resources, there was no difficulty in his
+borrowing the money required for his share of the capital. The
+undertaking did not prove a success. Lincoln had no business experience
+and no particular business capacity, while his partner proved to be
+untrustworthy. The partner decamped, leaving Lincoln to close up the
+business and to take the responsibility for the joint indebtedness. It
+was seventeen years before Lincoln was able, from his modest earnings as
+a lawyer, to clear off this indebtedness. The debt became outlawed in
+six years' time but this could not affect Lincoln's sense of the
+obligation. After the failure of the business, Lincoln secured work as
+county surveyor. In this, he was following the example of his
+predecessor Washington, with whose career as a surveyor the youngster
+who knew Weems's biography by heart, was of course familiar. His new
+occupation took him through the county and brought him into personal
+relations with a much wider circle than he had known in the village of
+New Salem, and in his case, the personal relation counted for much; the
+history shows that no one who knew Lincoln failed to be attracted by
+him or to be impressed with the fullest confidence in the man's
+integrity of purpose and of action.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS
+
+
+In 1834, when he was twenty-five years old, Lincoln made his first
+entrance into politics, presenting himself as candidate for the
+Assembly. His defeat was not without compensations; he secured in his
+own village or township, New Salem, no less than 208 out of the 211
+votes cast. This prophet had honour with those who knew him. Two years
+later, he tried again and this time with success. His journeys as a
+surveyor had brought him into touch with, and into the confidence of,
+enough voters throughout the county to secure the needed majority.
+
+Lincoln's active work as a lawyer lasted from 1834 to 1860, or for about
+twenty-six years. He secured in the cases undertaken by him a very large
+proportion of successful decisions. Such a result is not entirely to be
+credited to his effectiveness as an advocate. The first reason was that
+in his individual work, that is to say, in the matters that were taken
+up by himself rather than by his partner, he accepted no case in the
+justice of which he did not himself have full confidence. As his fame as
+an advocate increased, he was approached by an increasing number of
+clients who wanted the advantage of the effective service of the young
+lawyer and also of his assured reputation for honesty of statement and
+of management. Unless, however, he believed in the case, he put such
+suggestions to one side even at the time when the income was meagre and
+when every dollar was of importance.
+
+Lincoln's record at the Bar has been somewhat obscured by the value of
+his public service, but as it comes to be studied, it is shown to have
+been both distinctive and important. His law-books were, like those of
+his original library, few, but whatever volumes he had of his own and
+whatever he was able to place his hands upon from the shelves of his
+friends, he mastered thoroughly. His work at the Bar gave evidence of
+his exceptional powers of reasoning while it was itself also a large
+influence in the development of such powers. The counsel who practised
+with and against him, the judges before whom his arguments were
+presented, and the members of the juries, the hard-headed working
+citizens of the State, seem to have all been equally impressed with the
+exceptional fairness with which the young lawyer presented not only his
+own case but that of his opponent. He had great tact in holding his
+friends, in convincing those who did not agree with him, and in winning
+over opponents; but he gave no futile effort to tasks which his judgment
+convinced him would prove impossible. He never, says Horace Porter,
+citing Lincoln's words, "wasted any time in trying to massage the back
+of a political porcupine." "A man might as well," says Lincoln,
+"undertake to throw fleas across the barnyard with a shovel."
+
+He had as a youngster won repute as a teller of dramatic stories, and
+those who listened to his arguments in court were expecting to have his
+words to the jury brightened and rendered for the moment more effective
+by such stories. The hearers were often disappointed in such
+expectation. Neither at the Bar, nor, it may be said here, in his later
+work as a political leader, did Lincoln indulge himself in the telling a
+story for the sake of the story, nor for the sake of the laugh to be
+raised by the story, nor for the momentary pleasure or possible
+temporary advantage of the discomfiture of the opponent. The story was
+used, whether in law or in politics, only when it happened to be the
+shortest and most effective method of making clear an issue or of
+illustrating a statement. In later years, when he had upon him the
+terrible burdens of the great struggle, Lincoln used stories from time
+to time as a vent to his feelings. The impression given was that by an
+effort of will and in order to keep his mind from dwelling too
+continuously upon the tremendous problems upon which he was engaged, he
+would, by the use of some humorous reminiscence, set his thoughts in a
+direction as different as possible from that of his cares. A third and
+very valuable use of the story which grew up in his Washington days was
+to turn aside some persistent but impossible application; and to give to
+the applicant, with the least risk of unnecessary annoyance to his
+feelings, the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless also the case
+that, as has happened to other men gifted with humour, Lincoln's
+reputation as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a great series
+of anecdotes and incidents of one kind or another, some of which would
+have been entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his own standard
+and his own method. There is the further and final word to be said about
+Lincoln's stories, that they were entitled to the geometrical
+commendation of "being neither too long nor too broad."
+
+In 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress as a Whig. The circle of
+acquaintances whom he had made in the county as surveyor had widened out
+with his work as a lawyer; he secured a unanimous nomination and was
+elected without difficulty in a constituency comprising six counties. I
+find in the record of the campaign the detail that Lincoln returned to
+certain of his friends who had undertaken to find the funds for election
+expenses, $199.90 out of the $200 subscribed.
+
+In 1847, Lincoln was one of the group of Whigs in Congress who opposed
+the Mexican War. These men took the ground that the war was one of
+aggression and spoliation. Their views, which were quite prevalent
+throughout New England, are effectively presented in Lowell's _Biglow
+Papers._ When the army was once in the field, Lincoln was, however,
+ready to give his Congressional vote for the fullest and most energetic
+support. A year or more later, he worked actively for the election of
+General Taylor. He took the ground that the responsibility for the war
+rested not with the soldiers who had fought it to a successful
+conclusion, but with the politicians who had devised the original
+land-grabbing scheme.
+
+In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected with an invention for lifting
+vessels over shoals. His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his memory of
+the attempt, successful for the moment but ending in failure, to make
+the river available for steamboats, had attracted his attention to the
+problem of steering river vessels over shoals.
+
+In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red River in Louisiana, I noticed
+with interest a device that had been put into shape for the purpose of
+lifting river steamers over shoals. This device took the form of stilts
+which for the smaller vessels (and only the smaller steamers could as a
+rule be managed in this way) were fastened on pivots from the upper deck
+on the outside of the hull and were worked from the deck with a force of
+two or three men at each stilt. The difficulty on the Red River was that
+the Rebel sharp-shooters from the banks made the management of the
+stilts irregular.
+
+In 1854, Douglas carried through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. This
+bill repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and cancelled also the
+provisions of the series of compromises of 1850. Its purpose was to
+throw open for settlement and for later organisation as Slave States the
+whole territory of the North-west from which, under the Missouri
+Compromise, slavery had been excluded. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill not only
+threw open a great territory to slavery but re-opened the whole slavery
+discussion. The issues that were brought to the front in the discussions
+about this bill, and in the still more bitter contests after the passage
+of the bill in regard to the admission of Kansas as a Slave State, were
+the immediate precursors of the Civil War. The larger causes lay further
+back, but the War would have been postponed for an indefinite period if
+it had not been for the pressing on the part of the South for the right
+to make Slave States throughout the entire territory of the country, and
+for the readiness on the part of certain Democratic leaders of the
+North, of whom Douglas was the chief, to accept this contention, and
+through such expedients to gain, or to retain, political control for the
+Democratic party.
+
+In one of the long series of debates in Congress on the question of the
+right to take slaves into free territory, a planter from South Carolina
+drew an affecting picture of his relations with his old coloured
+foster-mother, the "mammy" of the plantation. "Do you tell me," he said,
+addressing himself to a Free-soil opponent, "that I, a free American
+citizen, am not to be permitted, if I want to go across the Missouri
+River, to take with me my whole home circle? Do you say that I must
+leave my old 'Mammy' behind in South Carolina?" "Oh!" replied the
+Westerner, "the trouble with you is not that you cannot take your
+'Mammy' into this free territory, but that you are not to be at liberty
+to sell her when you get her there."
+
+Lincoln threw himself with full earnestness of conviction and ardour
+into the fight to preserve for freedom the territory belonging to the
+nation. In common with the majority of the Whig party, he held the
+opinion that if slavery could be restricted to the States in which it
+was already in existence, if no further States should be admitted into
+the Union with the burden of slavery, the institution must, in the
+course of a generation or two, die out. He was clear in his mind that
+slavery was an enormous evil for the whites as well as for the blacks,
+for the individual as for the nation. He had himself, as a young man,
+been brought up to do toilsome manual labour. He would not admit that
+there was anything in manual labour that ought to impair the respect of
+the community for the labourer or the worker's respect for himself. Not
+the least of the evils of slavery was, in his judgment, its inevitable
+influence in bringing degradation upon labour and the labourer.
+
+The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act made clear to the North that the
+South would accept no limitations for slavery. The position of the
+Southern leaders, in which they had the substantial backing of their
+constituents, was that slaves were property and that the Constitution,
+having guaranteed the protection of property to all the citizens of the
+commonwealth, a slaveholder was deprived of his constitutional rights as
+a citizen if his control of this portion of his property was in any way
+interfered with or restricted. The argument in behalf of this extreme
+Southern claim had been shaped most eloquently and most forcibly by John
+C. Calhoun during the years between 1830 and 1850. The Calhoun opinion
+was represented a few years later in the Presidential candidacy of John
+C. Breckinridge. The contention of the more extreme of the Northern
+opponents of slavery voters, whose spokesmen were William Lloyd
+Garrison, Wendell Phillips, James G. Birney, Owen Lovejoy, and others,
+was that the Constitution in so far as it recognised slavery (which it
+did only by implication) was a compact with evil. They held that the
+Fathers had been led into this compact unwittingly and without full
+realisation of the responsibilities that they were assuming for the
+perpetuation of a great wrong. They refused to accept the view that
+later generations of American citizens were to be bound for an
+indefinite period by this error of judgment on the part of the Fathers.
+They proposed to get rid of slavery, as an institution incompatible with
+the principles on which the Republic was founded. They pointed out that
+under the Declaration of Independence all men had an equal right to
+"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and that there was no
+limitation of this claim to men of white race. If it was not going to be
+possible to argue slavery out of existence, these men preferred to have
+the Union dissolved rather than to bring upon States like Massachusetts
+a share of the responsibility for the wrong done to mankind and to
+justice under the laws of South Carolina.
+
+The Whig party, whose great leader, Henry Clay, had closed his life in
+1852, just at the time when Lincoln was becoming prominent in politics,
+held that all citizens were bound by the compact entered into by their
+ancestors, first under the Articles of Confederation of 1783, and later
+under the Constitution of 1789. Our ancestors had, for the purpose of
+bringing about the organisation of the Union, agreed to respect the
+institution of slavery in the States in which it existed. The Whigs of
+1850, held, therefore, that in such of the Slave States as had been part
+of the original thirteen, slavery was an institution to be recognised
+and protected under the law of the land. They admitted, further, that
+what their grandfathers had done in 1789, had been in a measure
+confirmed by the action of their fathers in 1820. The Missouri
+Compromise of 1820, in making clear that all States thereafter organised
+north of the line thirty-six thirty were to be Free States, made clear
+also that States south of that line had the privilege of coming into the
+Union with the institution of slavery and that the citizens in these
+newer Slave States should be assured of the same recognition and rights
+as had been accorded to those of the original thirteen.
+
+The Missouri Compromise permitted also the introduction of Missouri
+itself into the Union as a Slave State (as a counterpoise to the State
+of Maine admitted the same year), although almost the entire territory
+of the State of Missouri was north of the latitude 36° 30'.
+
+We may recall that, under the Constitution, the States of the South,
+while denying the suffrage to the negro, had secured the right to
+include the negro population as a basis for their representation in the
+lower House. In apportioning the representatives to the population, five
+negroes were to be counted as the equivalent of three white men. The
+passage, in 1854, of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the purpose of which was
+to confirm the existence of slavery and to extend the institution
+throughout the country, was carried in the House by thirteen votes. The
+House contained at that time no less than twenty members representing
+the negro population. The negroes were, therefore, in this instance
+involuntarily made the instruments for strengthening the chains of their
+own serfdom.
+
+It was in 1854 that Lincoln first propounded the famous question, "Can
+the nation endure half slave and half free?" This question, slightly
+modified, became the keynote four years later of Lincoln's contention
+against the Douglas theory of "squatter sovereignty." The organisation
+of the Republican party dates from 1856. Various claims have been made
+concerning the precise date and place at which were first presented the
+statement of principles that constituted the final platform of the
+party, and in regard to the men who were responsible for such statement.
+At a meeting held as far back as July, 1854, at Jackson, Michigan, a
+platform was adopted by a convention which had been brought together to
+formulate opposition to any extension of slavery, and this Jackson
+platform did contain the substance of the conclusions and certain of the
+phrases which later were included in the Republican platform. In
+January, 1856, Parke Godwin published in _Putnam's Monthly_, of which he
+was political editor, an article outlining the necessary constitution of
+the new party. This article gave a fuller expression than had thus far
+been made of the views of the men who were later accepted as the leaders
+of the Republican party. In May, 1856, Lincoln made a speech at
+Bloomington, Illinois, setting forth the principles for the anti-slavery
+campaign as they were understood by his group of Whigs. In this speech,
+Lincoln speaks of "that perfect liberty for which our Southern
+fellow-citizens are sighing, the liberty of making slaves of other
+people"; and again, "It is the contention of Mr. Douglas, in his claim
+for the rights of American citizens, that if _A_ sees fit to enslave
+_B_, no other man shall have the right to object." Of this Bloomington
+speech, Herndon says: "It was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm;
+it was justice, integrity, truth, and right. The words seemed to be set
+ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by a great wrong. The
+utterance was hard, knotty, gnarly, backed with wrath."
+
+From this time on, Lincoln was becoming known throughout the country as
+one of the leaders in the new issues, able and ready to give time and
+service to the anti-slavery fight and to the campaign work of the
+Republican organisation. This political service interfered to some
+extent with his work at the Bar, but he did not permit political
+interests to stand in the way of any obligations that had been assumed
+to his clients. He simply accepted fewer cases, and to this extent
+reduced his very moderate earnings. In his work as a lawyer, he never
+showed any particular capacity for increasing income or for looking
+after his own business interests. It was his principle and his practice
+to discourage litigation. He appears, during the twenty-five years in
+which he was in active practice, to have made absolutely no enemies
+among his professional opponents. He enjoyed an exceptional reputation
+for the frankness with which he would accept the legitimate contentions
+of his opponents or would even himself state their case. Judge David
+Davis, before whom Lincoln had occasion during these years to practise,
+says that the Court was always prepared to accept as absolutely fair and
+substantially complete Lincoln's statement of the matters at issue.
+Davis says it occasionally happened that Lincoln would supply some
+consideration of importance on his opponent's side of the case that the
+other counsel had overlooked. It was Lincoln's principle to impress upon
+himself at the outset the full strength of the other man's position. It
+was also his principle to accept no case in the justice of which he had
+not been able himself to believe. He possessed also by nature an
+exceptional capacity for the detection of faulty reasoning; and his
+exercise of the power of analysis in his work at the Bar proved of great
+service later in widening his influence as a political leader. The power
+that he possessed, when he was assured of the justice of his cause, of
+convincing court and jury became the power of impressing his convictions
+upon great bodies of voters. Later, when he had upon his shoulders the
+leadership of the nation, he took the people into his confidence; he
+reasoned with them as if they were sitting as a great jury for the
+determination of the national policy, and he was able to impress upon
+them his perfect integrity of purpose and the soundness of his
+conclusions,--conclusions which thus became the policy of the nation.
+
+He calls himself a "mast-fed lawyer" and it is true that his
+opportunities for reading continued to be most restricted. Davis said in
+regard to Lincoln's work as a lawyer: "He had a magnificent equipoise of
+head, conscience, and heart. In non-essentials he was pliable; but on
+the underlying principles of truth and justice, his will was as firm as
+steel." We find from the record of Lincoln's work in the Assembly and
+later in Congress that he would never do as a Representative what he was
+unwilling to do as an individual. His capacity for seeing the humorous
+side of things was of course but a phase of a general clearness of
+perception. The man who sees things clearly, who is able to recognise
+both sides of a matter, the man who can see all round a position, the
+opposite of the man in blinders, that man necessarily has a sense of
+humour. He is able, if occasion presents, to laugh at himself. Lincoln's
+capacity for absorbing and for retaining information and for having this
+in readiness for use at the proper time was, as we have seen, something
+that went back to his boyhood. He says of himself: "My mind is something
+like a piece of steel; it is very hard to scratch anything on it and
+almost impossible after you have got it there to rub it out."
+
+Lincoln's correspondence has been preserved with what is probably
+substantial completeness. The letters written by him to friends,
+acquaintances, political correspondents, individual men of one kind or
+another, have been gathered together and have been brought into print
+not, as is most frequently the case, under the discretion or judgment of
+a friendly biographer, but by a great variety of more or less
+sympathetic people. It would seem as if but very few of Lincoln's
+letters could have been mislaid or destroyed. One can but be impressed,
+in reading these letters, with the absolute honesty of purpose and of
+statement that characterises them. There are very few men, particularly
+those whose active lives have been passed in a period of political
+struggle and civil war, whose correspondence could stand such a test.
+There never came to Lincoln requirement to say to his correspondent,
+"Burn this letter."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY
+
+
+In 1856, the Supreme Court, under the headship of Judge Taney, gave out
+the decision of the Dred Scott case. The purport of this decision was
+that a negro was not to be considered as a person but as a chattel; and
+that the taking of such negro chattel into free territory did not cancel
+or impair the property rights of the master. It appeared to the men of
+the North as if under this decision the entire country, including in
+addition to the national territories the independent States which had
+excluded slavery, was to be thrown open to the invasion of the
+institution. The Dred Scott decision, taken in connection with the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise (and the two acts were doubtless a
+part of one thoroughly considered policy), foreshadowed as their logical
+and almost inevitable consequence the bringing of the entire nation
+under the control of slavery. The men of the future State of Kansas made
+during 1856-57 a plucky fight to keep slavery out of their borders. The
+so-called Lecompton Constitution undertook to force slavery upon Kansas.
+This constitution was declared by the administration (that of President
+Buchanan) to have been adopted, but the fraudulent character of the
+voting was so evident that Walker, the Democratic Governor, although a
+sympathiser with slavery, felt compelled to repudiate it. This
+constitution was repudiated also by Douglas, although Douglas had
+declared that the State ought to be thrown open to slavery. Jefferson
+Davis, at that time Secretary of War, declared that "Kansas was in a
+state of rebellion and that the rebellion must be crushed." Armed bands
+from Missouri crossed the river to Kansas for the purpose of casting
+fraudulent votes and for the further purpose of keeping the Free-soil
+settlers away from the polls.
+
+This fight for freedom in Kansas gave a further basis for Lincoln's
+statement "that a house divided against itself cannot stand; this
+government cannot endure half slave and half free." It was with this
+statement as his starting-point that Lincoln entered into his famous
+Senatorial campaign with Douglas. Douglas had already represented
+Illinois in the Senate for two terms and had, therefore, the advantage
+of possession and of a substantial control of the machinery of the
+State. He had the repute at the time of being the leading political
+debater in the country. He was shrewd, forcible, courageous, and, in the
+matter of convictions, unprincipled. He knew admirably how to cater to
+the prejudices of the masses. His career thus far had been one of
+unbroken success. His Senatorial fight was, in his hope and expectation,
+to be but a step towards the Presidency. The Democratic party, with an
+absolute control south of Mason and Dixon's Line and with a very
+substantial support in the Northern States, was in a position, if
+unbroken, to control with practical certainty the Presidential election
+of 1860. Douglas seemed to be the natural leader of the party. It was
+necessary for him, however, while retaining the support of the Democrats
+of the North, to make clear to those of the South that his influence
+would work for the maintenance and for the extension of slavery.
+
+The South was well pleased with the purpose and with the result of the
+Dred Scott decision and with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It
+is probable, however, that if the Dred Scott decision had not given to
+the South so full a measure of satisfaction, the South would have been
+more ready to accept the leadership of a Northern Democrat like Douglas.
+Up to a certain point in the conflict, they had felt the need of Douglas
+and had realised the importance of the support that he was in a position
+to bring from the North. When, however, the Missouri Compromise had been
+repealed and the Supreme Court had declared that slaves must be
+recognised as property throughout the entire country, the Southern
+claims were increased to a point to which certain of the followers of
+Douglas were not willing to go. It was a large compliment to the young
+lawyer of Illinois to have placed upon him the responsibility of
+leading, against such a competitor as Douglas, the contest of the Whigs,
+and of the Free-soilers back of the Whigs, against any further extension
+of slavery, a contest which was really a fight for the continued
+existence of the nation.
+
+Lincoln seems to have gone into the fight with full courage, the courage
+of his convictions. He felt that Douglas was a trimmer, and he believed
+that the issue had now been brought to a point at which the trimmer
+could not hold support on both sides of Mason and Dixon's Line. He
+formulated at the outset of the debate a question which was pressed
+persistently upon Douglas during the succeeding three weeks. This
+question was worded as follows: "Can the people of a United States
+territory, prior to the formation of a State constitution or against the
+protest of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery?" Lincoln's
+campaign advisers were of opinion that this question was inadvisable.
+They took the ground that Douglas would answer the question in such way
+as to secure the approval of the voters of Illinois and that in so doing
+he would win the Senatorship. Lincoln's response was in substance: "That
+may be. I hold, however, that if Douglas answers this question in a way
+to satisfy the Democrats of the North, he will inevitably lose the
+support of the more extreme, at least, of the Democrats of the South. We
+may lose the Senatorship as far as my personal candidacy is concerned.
+If, however, Douglas fails to retain the support of the South, he cannot
+become President in 1860. The line will be drawn directly between those
+who are willing to accept the extreme claims of the South and those who
+resist these claims. A right decision is the essential thing for the
+safety of the nation." The question gave no little perplexity to
+Douglas. He finally, however, replied that in his judgment the people of
+a United States territory had the right to exclude slavery. When asked
+again by Lincoln how he brought this decision into accord with the Dred
+Scott decision, he replied in substance: "Well, they have not the right
+to take constitutional measures to exclude slavery but they can by local
+legislation render slavery practically impossible." The Dred Scott
+decision had in fact itself overturned the Douglas theory of popular
+sovereignty or "squatter sovereignty." Douglas was only able to say that
+his sovereignty contention made provision for such control of domestic
+or local regulations as would make slavery impossible.
+
+The South, rendered autocratic by the authority of the Supreme Court,
+was not willing to accept the possibility of slavery being thus
+restricted out of existence in any part of the country. The Southerners
+repudiated Douglas as Lincoln had prophesied they would do. Douglas had
+been trying the impossible task of carrying water on both shoulders. He
+gained the Senatorship by a narrow margin; he secured in the vote in the
+Legislature a majority of eight, but Lincoln had even in this fight won
+the support of the people. His majority on the popular vote was four
+thousand.
+
+The series of debates between these two leaders came to be of national
+importance. It was not merely a question of the representation in the
+Senate from the State of Illinois, but of the presentation of arguments,
+not only to the voters of Illinois but to citizens throughout the entire
+country, in behalf of the restriction of slavery on the one hand or of
+its indefinite expansion and protection on the other. The debate was
+educational not merely for the voters who listened, but for the
+thousands of other voters who read the reports. It would be an enormous
+advantage for the political education of candidates and for the
+education of voters if such debates could become the routine in
+Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Under the present routine, we
+have, in place of an assembly of voters representing the conflicting
+views of the two parties or of the several political groups, a
+homogeneous audience of one way of thinking, and speakers who have no
+opponent present to check the temptation to launch forth into wild
+statements, personal abuse, and irresponsible conclusions. An
+interruption of the speaker is considered to be a disturbance of order,
+and the man who is not fully in sympathy with the views of the audience
+is likely to be put out as an interloper. With a system of joint
+debates, the speakers would be under an educational repression. False
+or exaggerated statements would not be made, or would not be made
+consciously, because they would be promptly corrected by the other
+fellow. There would of necessity come to be a better understanding and a
+larger respect for the positions of the opponent. The men who would be
+selected as leaders or speakers to enforce the contentions of the party,
+would have to possess some reasoning faculty as well as oratorical
+fluency. The voters, instead of being shut in with one group of
+arguments more or less reasonable, would be brought into touch with the
+arguments of other groups of citizens. I can conceive of no better
+method for bringing representative government on to a higher plane and
+for making an election what it ought to be, a reasonable decision by
+reasoning voters, than the institution of joint debates.
+
+I cite certain of the incisive statements that came into Lincoln's seven
+debates. "A slave, says Judge Douglas (on the authority of Judge Taney),
+is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." "I contend
+[says Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's
+nature. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right, and as long as God
+reigns and as school-children read, that black evil can never be
+consecrated into God's truth." "A man does not lose his right to a piece
+of property which has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to himself if
+he himself has been stolen?" The following words present a summary of
+Lincoln's statements:
+
+Judge Douglas contends that if any one man chooses to enslave another,
+no third man has a right to object. Our Fathers, in accepting slavery
+under the Constitution as a legal institution, were of opinion, as is
+clearly indicated by the recorded utterances, that slavery would in the
+course of a few years die out. They were quite clear in their minds that
+the slave-trade must be abolished and for ever forbidden and this
+decision was arrived at under the leadership of men like Jefferson and
+without a protest from the South. Jefferson was himself the author of
+the Ordinance of 1787, which in prohibiting the introduction of slavery,
+consecrated to freedom the great territory of the North-west, and this
+measure was fully approved by Washington and by the other great leaders
+from the South. Where slavery exists, full liberty refuses to enter. It
+was only through this wise action of the Fathers that it was possible to
+bring into existence, through colonisation, the great territories and
+great States of the North-west. It is this settlement, and the later
+adjustment of 1820, that Douglas and his friends in the South are
+undertaking to overthrow. Slavery is not, as Judge Douglas contends, a
+local issue; it is a national responsibility. The repeal of the Missouri
+Compromise throws open not only a great new territory to the curse of
+slavery; it throws open the whole slavery question for the embroiling of
+the present generation of Americans. Taking slaves into free territory
+is the same thing as reviving the slave-trade. It perpetuates and
+develops interstate slave-trade. Government derives its just powers from
+the consent of the governed. The Fathers did not claim that "the right
+of the people to govern negroes was the right of the people to govern
+themselves."
+
+The policy of Judge Douglas was based on the theory that the people did
+not care, but the people did care, as was evinced two years later by the
+popular vote for President throughout the North. One of those who heard
+these debates says: "Lincoln loved truth for its own sake. He had a
+deep, true, living conscience; honesty was his polar star. He never
+acted for stage effect. He was cool, spirited, reflective,
+self-possessed, and self-reliant. His style was clear, terse, compact
+... He became tremendous in the directness of his utterance when, as his
+soul was inspired with the thought of human right and Divine justice,
+he rose to impassioned eloquence, and at such times he was, in my
+judgment, unsurpassed by Clay or by Mirabeau."
+
+As the debates progressed, it was increasingly evident that Douglas
+found himself hard pushed. Lincoln would not allow himself to be swerved
+from the main issue by any tergiversation or personal attacks. He
+insisted from day to day in bringing Douglas back to this issue: "What
+do you, Douglas, propose to do about slavery in the territories? Is it
+your final judgment that there is to be no further reservation of free
+territory in this country? Do you believe that it is for the advantage
+of this country to put no restriction to the extension of slavery?"
+Douglas wriggled and squirmed under this direct questioning and his
+final replies gave satisfaction neither to the Northern Democrats nor to
+those of the South. The issue upon which the Presidential contest of
+1860 was to be fought out had been fairly stated. It was the same issue
+under which, in 1861, the fighting took the form of civil war. It was
+the issue that took four years to fight out and that was finally decided
+in favour of the continued existence of the nation as a free state. In
+this fight, Lincoln was not only, as the contest was finally shaped, the
+original leader; he was the final leader; and at the time of his death
+the great question had been decided for ever.
+
+Horace White, in summing up the issues that were fought out in debate
+between Lincoln and Douglas, says:
+
+"Forty-four years have passed away since the Civil War came to an end
+and we are now able to take a dispassionate view of the question in
+dispute. The people of the South are now generally agreed that the
+institution of slavery was a direful curse to both races. We of the
+North must confess that there was considerable foundation for the
+asserted right of States to secede. Although the Constitution did in
+distinct terms make the Federal Government supreme, it was not so
+understood at first by the people either North or South. Particularism
+prevailed everywhere at the beginning. Nationalism was an aftergrowth
+and a slow growth proceeding mainly from the habit into which people
+fell of finding their common centre of gravity at Washington City and of
+viewing it as the place whence the American name and fame were blazoned
+to the world. During the first half century of the Republic, the North
+and South were changing coats from time to time, on the subject of State
+Rights and the right to secede, but meanwhile the Constitution itself
+was working silently in the North to undermine the particularism of
+Jefferson and to strengthen the nationalism of Hamilton. It had
+accomplished its work in the early thirties, when it found its perfect
+expression in Webster's reply to Hayne. But the Southern people were
+just as firmly convinced that Hayne was the victor in that contest as
+the Northern people were that Webster was. The vast material interests
+bottomed on slavery offset and neutralised the unifying process in the
+South, while it continued its wholesome work in the North, and thus the
+clashing of ideas paved the way for the clash of arms. That the
+behaviour of the slaveholders resulted from the circumstances in which
+they were placed and not from any innate deviltry is a fact now conceded
+by all impartial men. It was conceded by Lincoln both before the War and
+during the War, and this fact accounts for the affection bestowed upon
+him by Southern hearts to-day."
+
+Lincoln carried into politics the same standard of consistency of action
+that had characterised his work at the Bar. He writes, in 1859, to a
+correspondent whom he was directing to further the organisation of the
+new party: "Do not, in order to secure recruits, lower the standard of
+the Republican party. The true problem for 1860, is to fight to prevent
+slavery from becoming national. We must, however, recognise its
+constitutional right to exist in the States in which its existence was
+recognised under the original Constitution." This position was
+unsatisfactory to the Whigs of the Border States who favoured a
+continuing division between Slave States and Free States of the
+territory yet to be organised into States. It was also unsatisfactory to
+the extreme anti-slavery Whigs of the new organisation who insisted upon
+throttling slavery where-ever it existed. It is probable that the raid
+made by John Brown, in 1859, into Virginia for the purpose of rousing
+the slaves to fight for their own liberty, had some immediate influence
+in checking the activity of the more extreme anti-slavery group and in
+strengthening the conservative side of the new organisation. Lincoln
+disapproved entirely of the purpose of Brown and his associates, while
+ready to give due respect to the idealistic courage of the man.
+
+In February, 1860, Lincoln was invited by certain of the Republican
+leaders in New York to deliver one of a series of addresses which had
+been planned to make clear to the voters the purposes and the
+foundations of the new party. His name had become known to the
+Republicans of the East through the debates with Douglas. It was
+recognised that Lincoln had taken the highest ground in regard to the
+principles of the new party, and that his counsels should prove of
+practical service in the shaping of the policy of the Presidential
+campaign. It was believed also that his influence would be of value in
+securing voters in the Middle West. The Committee of Invitation
+included, in addition to a group of the old Whigs (of whom my father was
+one), representative Free-soil Democrats like William C. Bryant and John
+King. Lincoln's methods as a political leader and orator were known to
+one or two men on the committee, but his name was still unfamiliar to an
+Eastern audience. It was understood that the new leader from the West
+was going to talk to New York about the fight against slavery. It is
+probable that at least the larger part of the audience expected
+something "wild and woolly." The West at that time seemed very far off
+from New York and was still but little understood by the Eastern
+communities. New Yorkers found it difficult to believe that a man who
+could influence Western audiences could have anything to say that would
+count with the cultivated citizens of the East. The more optimistic of
+the hearers were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry Clay had
+arisen and were looking for utterances of the ornate and grandiloquent
+kind such as they had heard frequently from Clay and from other
+statesmen of the South.
+
+The first impression of the man from the West did nothing to contradict
+the expectation of something weird, rough, and uncultivated. The long,
+ungainly figure upon which hung clothes that, while new for this trip,
+were evidently the work of an unskilful tailor; the large feet, the
+clumsy hands of which, at the outset, at least, the orator seemed to be
+unduly conscious; the long, gaunt head capped by a shock of hair that
+seemed not to have been thoroughly brushed out, made a picture which did
+not fit in with New York's conception of a finished statesman. The first
+utterance of the voice was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being harsh
+and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker
+seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and
+impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and
+the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the
+deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of devotion
+to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the speaker.
+In place of a "wild and woolly" talk, illumined by more or less
+incongruous anecdotes; in place of a high-strung exhortation of general
+principles or of a fierce protest against Southern arrogance, the New
+Yorkers had presented to them a calm but forcible series of
+well-reasoned considerations upon which their action as citizens was to
+be based. It was evident that the man from the West understood
+thoroughly the constitutional history of the country; he had mastered
+the issues that had grown up about the slavery question; he knew
+thoroughly, and was prepared to respect, the rights of his political
+opponents; he knew with equal thoroughness the rights of the men whose
+views he was helping to shape and he insisted that there should be no
+wavering or weakening in regard to the enforcement of those rights; he
+made it clear that the continued existence of the nation depended upon
+having these issues equitably adjusted and he held that the equitable
+adjustment meant the restriction of slavery within its present
+boundaries. He maintained that such restrictions were just and necessary
+as well for the sake of fairness to the blacks as for the final welfare
+of the whites. He insisted that the voters in the present States in the
+Union had upon them the largest possible measure of responsibility in so
+controlling the great domain of the Republic that the States of the
+future, the States in which their children and their grandchildren were
+to grow up as citizens, must be preserved in full liberty, must be
+protected against any invasion of an institution which represented
+barbarity. He maintained that such a contention could interfere in no
+way with the due recognition of the legitimate property rights of the
+present owners of slaves. He pointed out to the New Englander of the
+anti-slavery group that the restriction of slavery meant its early
+extermination. He insisted that war for the purpose of exterminating
+slavery from existing slave territory could not be justified. He was
+prepared, for the purpose of defending against slavery the national
+territory that was still free, to take the risk of the war which the
+South threatened because he believed that only through such defence
+could the existence of the nation be maintained; and he believed,
+further, that the maintenance of the great Republic was essential, not
+only for the interests of its own citizens, but for the interests of
+free government throughout the world. He spoke with full sympathy of the
+difficulties and problems resting upon the South, and he insisted that
+the matters at issue could be adjusted only with a fair recognition of
+these difficulties. Aggression from either side of Mason and Dixon's
+Line must be withstood.
+
+I was but a boy when I first looked upon the gaunt figure of the man who
+was to become the people's leader, and listened to his calm but forcible
+arguments in behalf of the principles of the Republican party. It is not
+likely that at the time I took in, with any adequate appreciation, the
+weight of the speaker's reasoning. I have read the address more than
+once since and it is, of course, impossible to separate my first
+impressions from my later direct knowledge. I do remember that I was at
+once impressed with the feeling that here was a political leader whose
+methods differed from those of any politician to whom I had listened.
+His contentions were based not upon invective or abuse of "the other
+fellow," but purely on considerations of justice, on that everlasting
+principle that what is just, and only what is just, represents the
+largest and highest interests of the nation as a whole. I doubt whether
+there occurred in the whole speech a single example of the stories which
+had been associated with Lincoln's name. The speaker was evidently
+himself impressed with the greatness of the opportunity and with the
+dignity and importance of his responsibility. The speech in fact gave
+the keynote to the coming campaign.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add that it also decided the selection of the
+national leader not only for the political campaign, but through the
+coming struggle. If it had not been for the impression made upon New
+York and the East generally by Lincoln's speech and by the man himself,
+the vote of New York could not have been secured in the May convention
+for the nomination of the man from Illinois.
+
+Robert Lincoln (writing to me in July, 1908) says:
+
+    "After my father's address in New York in February, 1860, he made a
+    trip to New England in order to visit me at Exeter, N.H., where I
+    was then a student in the Phillips Academy. It had not been his plan
+    to do any speaking in New England, but, as a result of the address
+    in New York, he received several requests from New England friends
+    for speeches, and I find that before returning to the West, he spoke
+    at the following places: Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., Exeter,
+    N.H., Dover, N.H., Concord, N.H., Hartford, Conn., Meriden, Conn.,
+    New Haven, Conn., Woonsocket, R.I., Norwalk, Conn., and Bridgeport,
+    Conn. I am quite sure that coming and going he passed through
+    Boston merely as an unknown traveller."
+
+Mr. Lincoln writes to his wife from Exeter, N.H., March 4, 1860, as
+follows:
+
+    "I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had foreseen it, I
+    think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New York,
+    being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well
+    and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine
+    others, before reading audiences who had already seen all my ideas
+    in print."[1]
+
+An edition of Mr. Lincoln's address was brought into print in September,
+1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, with notes by
+Charles C. Nott (later Colonel, and after the war Judge of the Court of
+Claims in Washington) and Cephas Brainerd. The publication of this
+pamphlet shows that as early as September, 1860, the historic importance
+and permanent value of this speech were fairly realised by the national
+leaders of the day. In the preface to the reprint, the editors say:
+
+    "The address is characterised by wisdom, truthfulness and learning
+    ...From the first line to the last--from his premises to his
+    conclusion, the speaker travels with a swift, unerring directness
+    that no logician has ever excelled. His argument is complete and is
+    presented without the affectation of learning, and without the
+    stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details ...A single
+    simple sentence contains a chapter of history that has taken days of
+    labour to verify, and that must have cost the author months of
+    investigation to acquire. The reader may take up this address as a
+    political pamphlet, but he will leave it as an historical
+    treatise--brief, complete, perfect, sound, impartial truth--which
+    will serve the time and the occasion that called it forth, and which
+    will be esteemed hereafter no less for its unpretending modesty than
+    for its intrinsic worth."[2]
+
+Horace White, who was himself present at the Chicago Convention, writes
+(in 1909) as follows:
+
+    "To anybody looking back at the Republican National Convention of
+    1860, it must be plain that there were only two men who had any
+    chance of being nominated for President.
+
+    "These were Lincoln and Seward. I was present at the Convention as a
+    spectator and I knew this fact at the time, but it seemed to me at
+    the beginning that Seward's chances were the better. One third of
+    the delegates of Illinois preferred Seward and expected to vote for
+    him after a few complimentary ballots for Lincoln. If there had been
+    no Lincoln in the field, Seward would certainly have been nominated
+    and then the course of history would have been very different from
+    what it was, for if Seward had been nominated and elected there
+    would have been no forcible opposition to the withdrawal of such
+    States as then desired to secede. And as a consequence the
+    Republican party would have been rent in twain and disabled from
+    making effectual resistance to other demands of the South.
+
+    "It was Seward's conviction that the policy of non-coercion would
+    have quieted the secession movement in the Border States and that
+    the Gulf States would, after a while, have returned to the Union
+    like repentant prodigal sons. His proposal to Lincoln to seek a
+    quarrel with four European nations, who had done us no harm, in
+    order to arouse a feeling of Americanism in the Confederate States,
+    was an outgrowth of this conviction. It was an indefensible
+    proposition, akin to that which prompted Bismarck to make use of
+    France as an anvil on which to hammer and weld Germany together, but
+    it was not an unpatriotic one, since it was bottomed on a desire to
+    preserve the Union without civil war."
+
+Never was a political leadership more fairly, more nobly, and more
+reasonably won. When the ballot boxes were opened on the first Tuesday
+in November, Lincoln was found to have secured the electoral vote of
+every Northern State except New Jersey, and in New Jersey four electors
+out of seven. Breckinridge, the leader of the extreme Southern
+Democrats, had back of him only the votes of the Southern States outside
+of the Border States, these latter being divided between Bell and
+Douglas. Douglas and his shallow theories of "squatter sovereignty" had
+been buried beneath the good sense of the voters of the North.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+NATIONAL EXISTENCE
+
+
+After the election of November, 1860, events moved swiftly. On the 20th
+of December, comes the first act of the Civil War, the secession of
+South Carolina. The secession of Georgia had for a time been delayed by
+the influence of Alexander H. Stephens who, on the 14th of November, had
+made a great argument for the maintenance of the Union. His chief local
+opponent at the time was Robert Toombs, the Southern leader who proposed
+in the near future to "call the roll-call of his slaves on Bunker Hill."
+Lincoln was still hopeful of saving to the cause of the Union the Border
+States and the more conservative divisions of States, like North
+Carolina, which had supported the Whig party.
+
+In December, we find correspondence between Lincoln and Gilmer of North
+Carolina, whom he had known in Washington. "The essential difference,"
+says Lincoln, "between your group and mine is that you hold slavery to
+be in itself desirable and as something to be extended. I hold it to be
+an essential evil which, with due regard to existing rights, must be
+restricted and in the near future exterminated."
+
+On the 23d of February, 1861, Lincoln reaches Washington where he is to
+spend a weary and anxious two weeks of waiting for the burden of his new
+responsibilities. He is at this time fifty-two years of age. In one of
+his brief addresses on the way to Washington he says:
+
+    "It is but little to a man of my age, but a great deal to thirty
+    millions of the citizens of the United States, and to posterity in
+    all coming time, if the Union of the States and the liberties of the
+    people are to be lost. If the majority is not to rule, who would be
+    the judge of the issue or where is such judge to be found?"
+
+It is difficult to imagine a more exasperating condition of affairs than
+obtained in Washington while Lincoln was awaiting the day of
+inauguration. The government appeared to be crumbling away under the
+nerveless direction, or lack of direction, of President Buchanan and his
+associates. In his last message to Congress, Buchanan had taken the
+ground that the Constitution made no provision for the secession of
+States or for the breaking up of the Union; but that it also failed to
+contain any provision for measures that could prevent such secession and
+the consequent destruction of the nation. The old gentleman appeared to
+be entirely unnerved by the pressure of events. He could not see any
+duty before him. He certainly failed to realise that the more immediate
+cause of the storm was the breaking down, through the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise, of the barriers that had in 1820, and in 1850, been
+placed against the extension of slavery. He evidently failed to
+understand that it was his own action in backing up the infamous
+Lecompton Constitution, and the invasion of Kansas by the slave-owners,
+which had finally aroused the spirit of the North, and further that it
+was the influence of his administration which had given to the South the
+belief that it was now in a position to control for slavery the whole
+territory of the Republic.
+
+It has before now been pointed out that, under certain contingencies,
+the long interval between the national election and the inaugural of the
+new President from the first Tuesday in November until the fourth day of
+March must, in not a few instances, bring inconvenience, disadvantage,
+and difficulty not only to the new administration but to the nation.
+These months in which the members of an administration which had
+practically committed itself to the cause of disintegration, were left
+in charge of the resources of the nation gave a most serious example and
+evidence of such disadvantage. This historic instance ought to have been
+utilised immediately after the War as an influence for bringing about a
+change in the date for bringing into power the administration that has
+been chosen in November.
+
+By the time when Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet had placed in
+their hands the responsibilities of administration, the resources at the
+disposal of the government had, as far as practicable, been scattered or
+rendered unavailable. The Secretary of the Navy, a Southerner, had taken
+pains to send to the farthest waters of the Pacific as many as possible
+of the vessels of the American fleet; the Secretary of War, also a
+Southerner, had for months been busy in transferring to the arsenals of
+the South the guns and ammunition that had been stored in the Federal
+arsenals of the North; the Secretary of the Treasury had had no
+difficulty in disposing of government funds in one direction or another
+so that there was practically no balance to hand over to his successor
+available for the most immediate necessities of the new administration.
+
+One of the sayings quoted from Washington during these weeks was the
+answer given by Count Gurowski to the inquiry, "Is there anything in
+addition this morning?" "No," said Gurowski, "it is all in subtraction."
+
+By the day of the inaugural, the secession of seven States was an
+accomplished fact and the government of the Confederacy had already been
+organised in Montgomery. Alexander H. Stephens had so far modified his
+original position that he had accepted the post of Vice-President and in
+his own inaugural address had used the phrase, "Slavery is the
+corner-stone of our new nation," a phrase that was to make much mischief
+in Europe for the hopes of the new Confederacy.
+
+In the first inaugural, one of the great addresses in a noteworthy
+series, Lincoln presented to the attention of the leaders of the South
+certain very trenchant arguments against the wisdom of their course. He
+says of secession for the purpose of preserving the institution of
+slavery:
+
+    "You complain that under the government of the United States your
+    slaves have from time to time escaped across your borders and have
+    not been returned to you. Their value as property has been lessened
+    by the fact that adjoining your Slave States were certain States
+    inhabited by people who did not believe in your institution. How is
+    this condition going to be changed by war even under the assumption
+    that the war may be successful in securing your independence? Your
+    slave territory will still adjoin territory inhabited by free men
+    who are inimical to your institution; but these men will no longer
+    be bound by any of the restrictions which have obtained under the
+    Constitution. They will not have to give consideration to the rights
+    of slave-owners who are fellow-citizens. Your slaves will escape as
+    before and you will have no measure of redress. Your indignation may
+    produce further wars, but the wars can but have the same result
+    until finally, after indefinite loss of life and of resources, the
+    institution will have been hammered out of existence by the
+    inevitable conditions of existing civilisation."
+
+Lincoln points out further in this same address the difference between
+his responsibilities and those of the Southern leaders who are
+organising for war. "You," he says, "have no oath registered in Heaven
+to destroy this government, while I have the most solemn oath to
+preserve, direct, and defend it."
+
+    "It was not necessary," says Lincoln, "for the Constitution to
+    contain any provision expressly forbidding the disintegration of the
+    state; perpetuity and the right to maintain self-existence will be
+    considered as a fundamental law of all national government. If the
+    theory be accepted that the United States was an association or
+    federation of communities, the creation or continued existence of
+    such federation must rest upon contract; and before such contract
+    can be rescinded, the consent is required of both or of all of the
+    parties assenting to it."
+
+He closes with the famous invocation to the fellow Americans of the
+South against whom throughout the whole message there had not been one
+word of bitterness or rancour: "We are not enemies but friends. We must
+not be enemies. Though passion may have strained our relations, it must
+not break our bonds of affection."
+
+It was, however, too late for argument, and too late for invocations of
+friendship. The issue had been forced by the South and the war for which
+the leaders of the South had for months, if not for years, been making
+preparation was now to be begun by Southern action. It remained to make
+clear to the North, where the people up to the last moment had been
+unwilling to believe in the possibility of civil war, that the nation
+could be preserved only by fighting for its existence. It remained to
+organise the men of the North into armies which should be competent to
+carry out this tremendous task of maintaining the nation's existence.
+
+It was just after the great inaugural and when his head must have been
+full of cares and his hands of work, that Lincoln took time to write a
+touching little note that I find in his correspondence. It was addressed
+to a boy who had evidently spoken with natural pride of having met the
+President and whose word had been questioned:
+
+    "The White House, March 18, 1861.
+
+    "I did see and talk in May last at Springfield, Illinois, with
+    Master George Edward Patten."
+
+With the beginning of the work of the administration, came trouble with
+the members of the Cabinet. The several secretaries were, in form at
+least, the choice of the President, but as must always be the case in
+the shaping of a Cabinet, and as was particularly necessary at a time
+when it was of first importance to bring into harmonious relations all
+of the political groups of the North which were prepared to be loyal to
+the government, the men who took office in the first Cabinet of Lincoln
+represented not any personal preference of the President, but political
+or national requirements. The Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, had, as we
+know, been Lincoln's leading opponent for the Presidential nomination
+and had expressed with some freedom of criticism his disappointment that
+he, the natural leader of the party, should be put to one side for an
+uncultivated, inexperienced Westerner. Mr. Seward possessed both
+experience and culture; more than this, he was a scholar, and came of a
+long line of gentlefolk. He had public spirit, courage, legitimate
+political ambition, and some of the qualities of leadership. His nature
+was, however, not quite large enough to stand the pressure of political
+disappointment nor quite elastic enough to develop rapidly under the
+tremendous urgency of absolutely new requirements. It is in evidence
+that more than once in the management of the complex and serious
+difficulties of the State Department during the years of war, Seward
+lost his head. It is also on record that the wise-minded and fair-minded
+President was able to supply certain serious gaps and deficiencies in
+the direction of the work of the Department, and further that his
+service was so rendered as to save the dignity and the repute of the
+Secretary. Seward's subjectivity, not to say vanity, was great, and it
+took some little time before he was able to realise that his was not the
+first mind or the strongest will-power in the new administration. On the
+first of April, 1861, less than thirty days after the organisation of
+the Cabinet, Seward writes to Lincoln complaining that the "government
+had as yet no policy; that its action seemed to be simply drifting";
+that there was a lack of any clear-minded control in the direction of
+affairs within the Cabinet, in the presentation to the people of the
+purposes of the government, and in the shaping of the all-important
+relations with foreign states. "Who," said Seward, "is to control the
+national policy?" The letter goes on to suggest that Mr. Seward is
+willing to take the responsibility, leaving, if needs be, the credit to
+the nominal chief. The letter was a curious example of the weakness and
+of the bumptiousness of the man, while it gave evidence also, it is fair
+to say, of a real public-spirited desire that things should go right and
+that the nation should be saved. It was evident that he had as yet no
+adequate faith in the capacity of the President.
+
+Lincoln's answer was characteristic of the man. There was no irritation
+with the bumptiousness, no annoyance at the lack of confidence on the
+part of his associate. He states simply: "There must, of course, be
+control and the responsibility for this control must rest with me." He
+points out further that the general policy of the administration had
+been outlined in the inaugural, that no action since taken had been
+inconsistent with this. The necessary preparations for the defence of
+the government were in train and, as the President trusted, were being
+energetically pushed forward by the several department heads. "I have a
+right," said Lincoln, "to expect loyal co-operation from my associates
+in the Cabinet. I need their counsel and the nation needs the best
+service that can be secured from our united wisdom." The letter of
+Seward was put away and appears never to have been referred to between
+the two men. It saw the light only after the President's death. If he
+had lived it might possibly have been suppressed altogether. A month
+later, Seward said to a friend, "There is in the Cabinet but one vote
+and that is cast by the President."
+
+The post next in importance under the existing war conditions was that
+of Secretary of War. The first man to hold this post was Simon Cameron
+of Pennsylvania. Cameron was very far from being a friend of Lincoln's.
+The two men had had no personal relations and what Lincoln knew of him
+he liked not at all. The appointment had been made under the pressure of
+the Republicans of Pennsylvania, a State whose support was, of course,
+all important for the administration. It was not the first nor the last
+time that the Republicans of this great State, whose Republicanism seems
+to be much safer than its judgment, have committed themselves to
+unworthy and undesirable representatives, men who were not fitted to
+stand for Pennsylvania and who were neither willing nor able to be of
+any service to the country. The appointment of Cameron had, as appears
+from the later history, been promised to Pennsylvania by Judge Davis in
+return for the support of the Pennsylvania delegation for the nomination
+of Lincoln. Lincoln knew nothing of the promise and was able to say with
+truth, and to prove, that he had authorised no promises and no
+engagements whatsoever. He had, in fact, absolutely prohibited Davis and
+the one or two other men who were supposed to have some right to speak
+for him in the convention, from the acceptance of any engagements or
+obligations whatsoever. Davis made the promise to Pennsylvania on his
+own responsibility and at his own risk; Lincoln felt under too much
+obligation to Davis for personal service and for friendly loyalty to be
+willing, when the claim was finally pressed, to put it to one side as
+unwarranted. The appointment of Cameron was made and proved to be
+expensive for the efficiency of the War Department and for the repute of
+the administration. It became necessary within a comparatively short
+period to secure his resignation. It was in evidence that he was
+trafficking in appointments and in contracts. He was replaced by Edwin
+M. Stanton, who was known later as "the Carnot of the War." Stanton's
+career as a lawyer had given him no direct experience of army affairs.
+He showed, however, exceptional ability, great will power, and an
+enormous capacity for work. He was ambitious, self-willed, and most
+arbitrary in deed and in speech. The difficulty with Stanton was that he
+was as likely to insult and to browbeat some loyal supporter of the
+government as to bring to book, and, when necessary, to crush, greedy
+speculators and disloyal tricksters. His judgment in regard to men was
+in fact very often at fault. He came into early and unnecessary conflict
+with his chief and he found there a will stronger than his own. The
+respect of the two men for each other grew into a cordial regard. Each
+recognised the loyalty of purpose and the patriotism by which the
+actions of both were influenced. Lincoln was able to some extent to
+soften and to modify the needless truculency of the great War Secretary,
+and notwithstanding a good deal of troublesome friction, armies were
+organised and the troops were sent to the front.
+
+The management of the Treasury, a responsibility hardly less in
+importance under the war conditions than that of the organisation of the
+armies, was placed in the hands of Senator Chase. He received from his
+precursor an empty treasury while from the administration came demands
+for immediate and rapidly increasing weekly supplies of funds. The task
+came upon him first of establishing a national credit and secondly of
+utilising this credit for loans such as the civilised world had not
+before known. The expenditures extended by leaps and bounds until by the
+middle of 1864 they had reached the sum of $2,000,000 a day. Blunders
+were made in large matters and in small, but, under the circumstances,
+blunders were not to be avoided and the chief purpose was carried out. A
+sufficient credit was established, first with the citizens at home and
+later with investors abroad, to make a market for the millions of bonds
+in the two great issues, the so-called seven-thirties and
+five-twenties. The sales of these bonds, together with a wide-reaching
+and, in fact, unduly complex system of taxation, secured the funds
+necessary for the support of the army and the navy. At the close of the
+War, the government, after meeting this expenditure, had a national war
+debt of something over four thousand millions of dollars. The gross
+indebtedness resulting from the War was of course, however, much larger
+because each State had incurred war expenditures and counties as well as
+States had issued bonds for the payment of bounties, etc. The criticism
+was made at the time by the opponents of the financial system which was
+shaped by the Committee of Ways and Means in co-operation with the
+Secretary, a criticism that has often been repeated since, that the War
+expenditure would have been much less if the amounts needed beyond what
+could be secured by present taxation had been supplied entirely by the
+proceeds of bonds. In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the
+government issued currency to a large amount, which was made legal
+tender and which on the face of it was not made subject to redemption.
+
+In addition to the bills ranging in denomination from one dollar to one
+thousand, the government brought into distribution what was called
+"postal currency." I landed in New York in August, 1862, having returned
+from a University in Germany for the purpose of enlisting in the army. I
+was amused to see my father make payment in the restaurant for my first
+lunch in postage stamps. He picked the requisite number, or the number
+that he believed would be requisite, from a ball of stamps which had,
+under the influence of the summer heat, stuck together so closely as to
+be very difficult to handle. Many of the stamps were in fact practically
+destroyed and were unavailable. Some question arose between the
+restaurant keeper and my father as to the availability of one or two of
+the stamps that had been handed over. My father explained to me that
+immediately after the outbreak of the War, specie, including even the
+nickels and copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, and the
+people had been utilising for the small change necessary for current
+operations the postage stamps, a use which, in connection with the large
+percentage of destruction, was profitable to the government, but
+extravagant for the community. A little later, the postal department was
+considerate enough to bring into print a series of postage stamps
+without any gum on the back. These could, of course, be handled more
+easily, but were still seriously perishable. Towards the close of the
+year, the Treasury department printed from artistically engraved plates
+a baby currency in notes of about two and a half inches long by one and
+a half inches wide. The denominations comprised ten cents, fifteen
+cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and seventy-five cents. The
+fifteen cents and the seventy-five cents were not much called for, and
+were probably not printed more than once. They would now be scarce as
+curiosities. The postal currency was well printed on substantial paper,
+but in connection with the large requirement for handling that is always
+placed upon small currency, these little paper notes became very dirty
+and were easily used up. The government must have made a large profit
+from the percentage that was destroyed. The necessary effect of this
+distribution of government "I.O.U.'s," based not upon any redemption
+fund of gold but merely upon the general credit of the government, was
+to appreciate the value of gold. In June, 1863, just before the battle
+of Gettysburg, the depreciation of this paper currency, which
+represented of course the appreciation of gold, was in the ratio of 100
+to 290. It happened that the number 290, which marked the highest price
+reached by gold during the War, was the number that had been given in
+Laird's ship-yard (on the Mersey) to the Confederate cruiser _Alabama_.
+
+Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary of the Treasury but an
+ambitious, active-minded, and intriguing politician. He represented in
+the administration the more extreme anti-slavery group. He was one of
+those who favoured from the beginning immediate action on the part of
+the government in regard to the slaves in the territory that was still
+controlled by the government. It is doubtless the case that he held
+these anti-slavery views as a matter of honest conviction. It is in
+evidence also from his correspondence that he connected with these views
+the hope and the expectation of becoming President. His scheming for the
+nomination for 1864 was carried on with the machinery that he had at his
+disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The issues between Chase and
+Seward and between Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The pressure
+on the part of the conservative Republicans to get Chase out of the
+Cabinet was considerable. Lincoln, believing that his service was
+valuable, refused to be influenced by any feeling of personal antagonism
+or personal rivalry. He held on to the Secretary until the last year of
+the War, when deciding that the Cabinet could then work more smoothly
+without him, he accepted his resignation. Even then, however, although
+he had had placed in his hands a note indicating a measure of what might
+be called personal disloyalty on the part of Chase, Lincoln was
+unwilling to lose his service for the country and appointed him as Chief
+Justice.
+
+Montgomery Blair was put into the Cabinet as Postmaster-General more
+particularly as the representative of the loyalists of the Border
+States. His father was a leader in politics in Missouri, in which the
+family had long been of importance. His brother, Frank P. Blair, served
+with credit in the army, reaching the rank of Major-General. The Blair
+family was quite ready to fight for the Union, but was very unwilling to
+do any fighting for the black man. They wanted the Union restored as it
+had been, Missouri Compromise and all. It was Blair who had occasion
+from time to time to point out, and with perfect truth, that if, through
+the influence of Chase and of the men back of Chase in Massachusetts and
+northern Ohio, immediate action should be taken to abolish slavery in
+the Border States, fifty thousand men who had marched out of those
+States to the support of the Union might be and probably would be
+recalled. "By a stroke of the pen," said Blair, "Missouri, eastern
+Tennessee, western Maryland, loyal Kentucky, now loyally supporting the
+cause of the nation, will be thrown into the arms of the Confederacy."
+During the first two years of the War, and in fact up to September,
+1863, the views of Blair and his associates prevailed, and with the
+fuller history before us, we may conclude that it was best that they
+should have prevailed. This was, at least, the conclusion of Lincoln,
+the one man who knew no sectional prejudices, who had before him all the
+information and all the arguments, and who had upon him the pressure
+from all quarters. It was not easy under the circumstances to keep peace
+between Blair and Chase. Probably no man but Lincoln could have met the
+requirement.
+
+The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, while not a
+man of brilliancy or of great initiative, appears to have done his part
+quietly and effectively in the great work of the building and organising
+of a new fleet. He contributed nothing to the friction of the Cabinet
+and he was from the beginning a loyal supporter of the President. What
+we know now about the issues that arose between the different members
+of the Cabinet family comes to us chiefly through the Diary of Welles,
+who has described with apparent impartiality the idiosyncrasies of each
+of the secretaries and whose references to the tact, patience, and
+gracefully exercised will-power of the President are fully in line with
+the best estimates of Lincoln's character.
+
+One of the first and most difficult tasks confronting the President and
+his secretaries in the organisation of the army and of the navy was in
+the matter of the higher appointments. The army had always been a
+favourite provision for the men from the South. The representatives of
+Southern families were, as a rule, averse to trade and there were, in
+fact, under the more restricted conditions of business in the Southern
+States, comparatively few openings for trading on the larger or
+mercantile scale. As a result of this preference, the cadetships in West
+Point and the commissions in the army had been held in much larger
+proportion (according to the population) by men of Southern birth. This
+was less the case in the navy because the marine interests of New
+England and of the Middle States had educated a larger number of
+Northern men for naval interests. When the war began, a very
+considerable number of the best trained and most valuable officers in
+the army resigned to take part with their States. The army lost the
+service of men like Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, and many others. A few
+good Southerners, such as Thomas of Virginia and Anderson of Kentucky,
+took the ground that their duty to the Union and to the flag was greater
+than their obligation to their State. In the navy, Maury, Semmes,
+Buchanan, and other men of ability resigned their commissions and
+devoted themselves to the (by no means easy) task of building up a navy
+for the South; but Farragut of Tennessee remained with the navy to carry
+the flag of his country to New Orleans and to Mobile.
+
+It was easy and natural during the heat of 1861 to characterise as
+traitors the men who went with their States to fight against the flag of
+their country. Looking at the matter now, forty-seven years later, we
+are better able to estimate the character and the integrity of the
+motives by which they were actuated. We do not need to-day to use the
+term traitors for men like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all unnatural
+that with their understanding of the government of the States in which
+they had been born, and with their belief that these States had a right
+to take action for themselves, they should have decided that their
+obligation lay to the State rather than to what they had persisted in
+thinking of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. We may rather
+believe that Lee was as honest in his way as Thomas and Farragut in
+theirs, but the view that the United States is a nation has been
+maintained through the loyal services of the men who held with Thomas
+and with Farragut.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+On April 12, 1861, came with the bombardment of Fort Sumter the actual
+beginning of the War. The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted
+all suggestions for any such immediate action on the part of the
+government as would place upon the North the responsibility for the
+opening of hostilities. Shortly after the fall of Sumter, a despatch was
+drafted by Seward for the guidance of American ministers abroad. The
+first reports in regard to the probable action of European governments
+gave the impression that the sympathy of these governments was largely
+with the South. In France and England, expressions had been used by
+leading officials which appeared to foreshadow an early recognition of
+the Confederacy. Seward's despatch as first drafted was unwisely angry
+and truculent in tone. If brought into publication, it would probably
+have increased the antagonism of the men who were ruling England. It
+appeared in fact to foreshadow war with England. Seward had assumed that
+England was going to take active part with the South and was at once
+throwing down the gauntlet of defiance. It was Lincoln who insisted that
+this was no time, whatever might be the provocation, for the United
+States to be shaking its fist at Europe. The despatch was reworded and
+the harsh and angry expressions were eliminated. The right claimed by
+the United States, in common with all nations, to maintain its own
+existence was set forth with full force, while it was also made clear
+that the nation was strong enough to maintain its rights against all
+foes whether within or without its boundaries. It is rather strange to
+recall that throughout the relations of the two men, it was the trained
+and scholarly statesman of the East who had to be repressed for unwise
+truculency and that the repression was done under the direction of the
+comparatively inexperienced representative of the West, the man who had
+been dreaded by the conservative Republicans of New York as likely to
+introduce into the national policy "wild and woolly" notions.
+
+In Lincoln's first message to Congress, he asks the following question:
+"Must a government be of necessity too strong for the liberties of its
+own people or too weak to maintain its own existence? Is there in all
+republics this inherent weakness?" The people of the United States were
+able under the wise leadership of Lincoln to answer this question "no."
+Lincoln begins at once with the public utterances of the first year of
+the War to take the people of the United States into his confidence. He
+is their representative, their servant. He reasons out before the
+people, as if it constituted a great jury, the analysis of their
+position, of their responsibilities, and the grounds on which as their
+representative this or that decision is arrived at. Says Schurz:
+"Lincoln wielded the powers of government when stern resolution and
+relentless force were the order of the day, and, won and ruled the
+popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature."
+
+The attack on Sumter placed upon the administration the duty of
+organising at once for the contest now inevitable the forces of the
+country. This work of organisation came at best but late because those
+who were fighting to break up the nation had their preparations well
+advanced. The first call for troops directed the governors of the loyal
+States to supply seventy-five thousand men for the restoration of the
+authority of the government. Massachusetts was the first State to
+respond by despatching to the front, within twenty-four hours of the
+publication of the call, its Sixth Regiment of Militia; the Seventh of
+New York started twenty-four hours later. The history of the passage of
+the Sixth through Baltimore, of the attack upon the columns, and of the
+deaths, in the resulting affray, of soldiers and of citizens has often
+been told. When word came to Washington that Baltimore was obstructing
+the passage of troops bound southward, troops called for the defence of
+the capital, the isolation of the government became sadly apparent. For
+a weary and anxious ten days, Lincoln and his associates were dreading
+from morning to morning the approach over the long bridge of the troops
+from Virginia whose camp-fires could be seen from the southern windows
+of the White House, and were looking anxiously northward for the arrival
+of the men on whose prompt service the safety of the capital was to
+depend. I have myself stood in Lincoln's old study, the windows of which
+overlook the Potomac, and have recalled to mind the fearful pressure of
+anxiety that must have weighed upon the President during those long
+days; as looking across the river, he could trace by the smoke the
+picket lines of the Virginia troops. He must have thought of the
+possibility that he was to be the last President of the United States,
+that the torch handed over to him by the faltering hands of his
+predecessor was to expire while he was responsible for the flame. The
+immediate tension was finally broken by the appearance of the weary and
+battered companies of the Massachusetts troops and the arrival two days
+later, by the way of Annapolis, of the New York Seventh with an
+additional battalion from Boston.
+
+It was, however, not only in April, 1861, that the capital was in peril.
+The anxiety of the President (never for himself but only for his
+responsibilities) was to be repeated in July, 1863, when Lee was in
+Maryland, and in July, 1864, at the time of Early's raid.
+
+We may remember the peculiar burdens that come upon the
+commander-in-chief through his position at the rear of the armies he is
+directing. The rear of a battle is, even in the time of victory, a place
+of demoralising influence. It takes a man of strong nerve not to lose
+heart when the only people with whom he is in immediate contact are
+those who through disability or discouragement are making their way to
+the rear. The sutlers, the teamsters, the wounded men, the panic-struck
+(and with the best of soldiers certain groups do lose heart from time to
+time, men who in another action when started right are ready to take
+their full share of the fighting)--these are the groups that in any
+action are streaming to the rear. It is impossible not to be affected by
+the undermining of their spirits and of their hopefulness. If the battle
+is going wrongly, if in addition to those who are properly making their
+way to the rear, there come also bodies of troops pushed out of their
+position who have lost heart and who have lost faith in their
+commanders, the pressure towards demoralisation is almost irresistible.
+
+We may recall that during the entire four years of War, Lincoln, the
+commander-in-chief, was always in the rear. Difficult as was the task of
+the men who led columns into action, of the generals in the field who
+had the immediate responsibility for the direction of those columns and
+of the fighting line, it was in no way to be compared with the pressure
+and sadness of the burden of the man who stood back of all the lines,
+and to whom came all the discouragements, the complaints, the growls,
+the criticisms, the requisitions or demands for resources that were not
+available, the reports of disasters, sometimes exaggerated and
+sometimes unduly smoothed over, the futile suggestions, the conflicting
+counsels, the indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the self-seeking
+applications, that poured into the White House from all points of the
+field of action and from all parts of the Border States and of the
+North. The man who during four years could stand that kind of battering
+and pressure and who, instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of
+him, instead of losing heart or power of direction or the full control
+of his responsibilities, steadily developed in patience, in strength, in
+width of nature, and in the wisdom of experience, so that he was able
+not only to keep heart firm and mind clear but to give to the soldiers
+in the front and to the nation behind the soldiers the influence of his
+great heart and clear mind and of his firm purpose, that man had within
+him the nature of the hero. Selected in time of need to bear the burdens
+of the nation, he was able so to fulfil his responsibilities that he
+takes place in the world's history as a leader of men.
+
+In July, 1861, one of the special problems to be adjusted was the
+attitude of the Border States. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West
+Virginia had not been willing at the outset to cast in their lot with
+the South, but they were not prepared to give any assured or active
+support to the authority of the national government. The Governor and
+the Legislature of Kentucky issued a proclamation of neutrality; they
+demanded that the soil of the State should be respected and that it
+should not be traversed by armed forces from either side. The Governor
+of Missouri, while not able to commit the State to secession, did have
+behind him what was possibly a majority of the citizens in the policy of
+attempting to prevent the Federal troops from entering the State.
+Maryland, or at least eastern Maryland, was sullen and antagonistic.
+Thousands of the Marylanders had in fact already made their way into
+Virginia for service with the Confederacy. On the other hand, there were
+also thousands of loyal citizens in these States who were prepared,
+under proper guidance and conservative management, to give their own
+direct aid to the cause of nationality. In the course of the succeeding
+two years, the Border States sent into the field in the Union ranks some
+fifty thousand men. At certain points of the conflict, the presence of
+these Union men of Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri was the
+deciding factor. While these men were willing to fight for the Union,
+they were strongly opposed to being used for the destruction of slavery
+and for the freeing of the blacks. The acceptance, therefore, of the
+policy that was pressed by the extreme anti-slavery group, for immediate
+action in regard to the freeing of the slaves, would have meant at once
+the dissatisfaction of this great body of loyalists important in number
+and particularly important on account of their geographical position.
+Lincoln was able, although with no little difficulty, to hold back the
+pressure of Northern sentiment in regard to anti-slavery action until
+the course of the War had finally committed the loyalists of the Border
+States to the support of the Union. For the support of this policy, it
+became necessary to restrain certain of the leaders in the field who
+were mixing up civil and constitutional matters with their military
+responsibilities. Proclamations issued by Fremont in Missouri and later
+by Hunter in South Carolina, giving freedom to the slaves within the
+territory of their departments, were promptly and properly disavowed.
+Said Lincoln: "A general cannot be permitted to make laws for the
+district in which he happens to have an army."
+
+The difficulties in regard to the matter of slavery during the war
+brought Lincoln into active correspondence with men like Beecher and
+Greeley, anti-slavery leaders who enjoyed a large share of popular
+confidence and support. In November, 1861, Lincoln says of Greeley: "His
+backing is as good as that of an army of one hundred thousand men."
+There could be no question of the earnest loyalty of Horace Greeley.
+Under his management, the New York _Tribune_ had become a great force in
+the community. The paper represented perhaps more nearly than any paper
+in the country the purpose and the policy of the new Republican party.
+Unfortunately, Mr. Greeley's judgment and width of view did not develop
+with his years and with the increasing influence of his journal. He
+became unduly self-sufficient; he undertook not only to lay down a
+policy for the guidance of the constitutional responsibilities of the
+government, but to dictate methods for the campaigns. The _Tribune_
+articles headed "On to Richmond!" while causing irritation to commanders
+in the field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens at home, were
+finally classed with the things to be laughed at. In the later years of
+the War, the influence of the _Tribune_ declined very considerably.
+Henry J. Raymond with his newly founded _Times_ succeeded to some of the
+power as a journalist that had been wielded by Greeley.
+
+In November, 1861, occurred an incident which for a time threatened a
+very grave international complication, a complication that would, if
+unwisely handled, have determined the fate of the Republic. Early in the
+year, the Confederate government had sent certain representatives across
+the Atlantic to do what might be practicable to enlist the sympathies of
+European governments, or of individuals in these governments, to make a
+market for the Confederate cotton bonds, to arrange for the purchase of
+supplies for the army and navy, and to secure the circulation of
+documents presenting the case of the South. Mr. Yancey of Mississippi
+was the best-known of this first group of emissaries. With him was
+associated Judge Mann of Virginia and it was Mann who in November, 1861,
+was in charge of the London office of the Confederacy. In this month,
+Mr. Davis appointed as successor to Mann, Mr. Mason of Virginia, to whom
+was given a more formal authorisation of action. At the same time, Judge
+Slidell of Louisiana was appointed as the representative to France.
+Mason and Slidell made their way to Jamaica and sailed from Jamaica to
+Liverpool in the British mail steamer _Trent_. Captain Charles Wilkes,
+in the United States frigate _San Jacinto_, had been watching the West
+Indies waters with reference to blockade runners and to Wilkes came
+knowledge of the voyage of the two emissaries. Wilkes took the
+responsibility of stopping the _Trent_ when she was a hundred miles or
+more out of Kingston and of taking from her as prisoners the two
+commissioners. The commissioners were brought to Boston and were there
+kept under arrest awaiting the decision from Washington as to their
+status. This stopping on the high seas of a British steamer brought out
+a great flood of indignation in Great Britain. It gave to Palmerston and
+Russell, who were at that time in charge of the government, the
+opportunity for which they had been looking to place on the side of the
+Confederacy the weight of the influence of Great Britain. It
+strengthened the hopes of Louis Napoleon for carrying out, in
+conjunction with Great Britain, a scheme that he had formulated under
+which France was to secure a western empire in Mexico, leaving England
+to do what she might find convenient in the adjustment of the affairs of
+the so-called United States.
+
+The first report secured from the law officers of the Crown took the
+ground that the capture was legal under international law and under the
+practice of Great Britain itself. This report was, however, pushed to
+one side, and Palmerston drafted a demand for the immediate surrender of
+the commissioners. This demand was so worded that a self-respecting
+government would have had great difficulty in assenting to it without
+risk of forfeiting support with its own citizens. It was in fact
+intended to bring about a state of war. Under the wise influence of
+Prince Albert, Queen Victoria refused to give her approval to the
+document. It was reworded by Albert in such fashion as to give to the
+government of the United States an opportunity for adjustment without
+loss of dignity. Albert was clear in his mind that Great Britain ought
+not to be committed to war for the destruction of the great Republic of
+the West and for the establishment of a state of which the corner-stone
+was slavery. Fortunately, Victoria was quite prepared to accept in this
+matter Albert's judgment. Palmerston protested and threatened
+resignation, but finally submitted.
+
+When the news of the capture of the commissioners came to Washington,
+Seward for once was in favour of a conservative rather than a truculent
+course of action. He advised that the commissioners should be
+surrendered at once rather than to leave to Great Britain the
+opportunity for making a dictatorial demand. Lincoln admitted the risk
+of such demand and the disadvantage of making the surrender under
+pressure, but he took the ground that if the United States waited for
+the British contention, a certain diplomatic advantage could be gained.
+When the demand came, Lincoln was able, with a rewording (not for the
+first time) of Seward's despatch, to take the ground that the government
+of the United States was "well pleased that Her Majesty's government
+should have finally accepted the old-time American contention that
+vessels of peace should not be searched on the high seas by vessels of
+war." It may be recalled that the exercise of the right of search had
+been one of the most important of the grievances which had brought about
+the War of 1812-1814. In the discussion of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814,
+the English and American commissioners, while agreeing that this right
+of search must be given up, had not been able to arrive at a form of
+words, satisfactory to both parties, for its revocation. Both sets of
+commissioners were very eager to bring their proceedings to a close. The
+Americans could of course not realise that if they had waited a few
+weeks the news of the battle of New Orleans, fought in January, 1815,
+would have greatly strengthened their position. It was finally agreed
+"as between gentlemen" that the right of search should be no longer
+exercised by Great Britain. This right was, however, not formally
+abrogated until December, 1861, nearly half a century later. This little
+diplomatic triumph smoothed over for the public of the North the
+annoyance of having to accept the British demand. It helped to
+strengthen the administration, which in this first year of the War was
+by no means sure of its foundations. It strengthened also the opinion of
+citizens generally in their estimate of the wise management and
+tactfulness of the President.
+
+Some of the most serious of the perplexities that came upon Lincoln
+during the first two years of the War were the result of the peculiar
+combination of abilities and disabilities that characterised General
+McClellan. McClellan's work prior to the War had been that of an
+engineer. He had taken high rank at West Point and later, resigning from
+the army, had rendered distinguished service in civil engineering. At
+the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, McClellan was president of the
+Illinois Central Railroad. He was a close friend and backer of Douglas
+and he had done what was practicable with the all-important machinery
+of the railroad company to render comfortable the travelling of his
+candidate and to insure his success. Returning to the army with the
+opening of the War, he had won success in a brief campaign in Virginia
+in which he was opposed by a comparatively inexperienced officer and by
+a smaller force than his own. Placed in command of the army of the
+Potomac shortly after the Bull Run campaign, he had shown exceptional
+ability in bringing the troops into a state of organisation. He was
+probably the best man in the United States to fit an army for action.
+There were few engineer officers in the army who could have rendered
+better service in the shaping of fortifications or in the construction
+of an entrenched position. He showed later that he was not a bad leader
+for a defeated army in the supervision of the retreat. He had, however,
+no real capacity for leadership in an aggressive campaign. His
+disposition led him to be full of apprehension of what the other fellow
+was doing. He suffered literally from nightmares in which he exaggerated
+enormously the perils in his paths, making obstacles where none existed,
+multiplying by two or by three the troops against him, insisting upon
+the necessity of providing not only for probable contingencies but for
+very impossible contingencies. He was never ready for an advance and he
+always felt proudly triumphant, after having come into touch with the
+enemy, that he had accomplished the task of saving his army.
+
+The only thing about which he was neither apprehensive nor doubtful was
+his ability as a leader, whether military or political. While he found
+it difficult to impress his will upon an opponent in the field,
+he was very sturdy with his pen in laying down the law to the
+Commander-in-chief (the President) and in emphasising the importance of
+his own views not only in things military but in regard to the whole
+policy of the government. The peculiarity about the nightmares and
+miscalculations of McClellan was that they persisted long after the data
+for their correction were available. In a book brought into print years
+after the War, when the Confederate rosters were easily accessible in
+Washington, McClellan did not hesitate to make the same statements in
+regard to the numbers of the Confederate forces opposed to him that he
+had brought into the long series of complaining letters to Lincoln in
+which he demanded reinforcements that did not exist.
+
+The records now show that at the time of the slow advance of
+McClellan's army by the Williamsburg Peninsula, General Magruder had
+been able, with a few thousand men and with dummy guns made of logs, to
+give the impression that a substantial army was blocking the way to
+Richmond. McClellan's advance was, therefore, made with the utmost
+"conservatism," enabling General Johnston to collect back of Magruder
+the army that was finally to drive McClellan back to his base. It is
+further in evidence from the later records that when some weeks later
+General Johnston concentrated his army at Gaines's Mill upon Porter, who
+was separated from McClellan by the Chickahominy, there was but an
+inconsiderable force between McClellan and Richmond.
+
+At the close of the seven days' retreat, McClellan, who had with a
+magnificent army thrown away a series of positions, writes to Lincoln
+that he (Lincoln) "had sacrificed the army." In another letter,
+McClellan lays down the laws of a national policy with a completeness
+and a dictatorial utterance such as would hardly have been justified if
+he had succeeded through his own military genius in bringing the War to
+a close, but which, coming from a defeated general, was ridiculous
+enough. Lincoln's correspondence with McClellan brings out the infinite
+patience of the President, and his desire to make sure that before
+putting the General to one side as a vainglorious incompetent, he had
+been allowed the fullest possible test. Lincoln passes over without
+reference and apparently without thought the long series of impertinent
+impersonalities of McClellan. In this correspondence, as in all his
+correspondence, the great captain showed himself absolutely devoted to
+the cause he had in mind. Early in the year, months before the
+Peninsular campaign, when McClellan had had the army in camp for a
+series of months without expressing the least intention of action,
+Lincoln had in talking with the Secretary of War used the expression:
+"If General McClellan does not want to use the army just now, I
+would like to borrow it for a while." That was as far as the
+Commander-in-chief ever went in criticism of the General in the field.
+While operations in Virginia, conducted by a vacillating and
+vainglorious engineer officer, gave little encouragement, something was
+being done to advance the cause of the Union in the West. In 1862, a
+young man named Grant, who had returned to the army and who had been
+trusted with the command of a few brigades, captured Fort Donelson and
+thus opened the Tennessee River to the advance of the army southward.
+The capture of Fort Donelson was rendered possible by the use of mortars
+and was the first occasion in the war in which mortars had been brought
+to bear. I chanced to come into touch with the record of the preparation
+of the mortars that were supplied to Grant's army at Cairo. Sometime in
+the nineties I was sojourning with the late Abram S. Hewitt at his home
+in Ringwood, New Jersey. I noticed, in looking out from the piazza, a
+mortar, properly mounted on a mortar-bed and encompassed by some yards
+of a great chain, placed on the slope overlooking the little valley
+below, as if to protect the house. I asked my host what was the history
+of this piece of ordnance. "Well," he said, "the chain you might have
+some personal interest in. It is a part of the chain your great-uncle
+Israel placed across the river at West Point for the purpose of blocking
+or at least of checking the passage of the British vessels. The chain
+was forged here in the Ringwood foundry and I have secured a part of it
+as a memento. The mortar was given to me by President Lincoln, as also
+was the mortar-bed." This report naturally brought out the further
+question as to the grounds for the gift. "I made this mortar-bed," said
+Hewitt, "together with some others, and Lincoln was good enough to say
+that I had in this work rendered a service to the State. It was in
+December, 1861, when the expedition against Fort Donelson and Fort Henry
+was being organised at Fort Cairo under the leadership of General Grant.
+Grant reported that the field-pieces at his command would not be
+effective against the earthworks that were to be shelled and made
+requisition for mortars." The mortar I may explain to my unmilitary
+readers is a short carronade of large bore and with a comparatively
+short range. The mortar with a heavy charge throws its missile at a
+sharp angle upwards, so that, instead of attempting to go through an
+earthwork, it is thrown into the enclosure. The recoil from a mortar is
+very heavy, necessitating the construction of a foundation called a
+mortar-bed which is not only solid but which possesses a certain amount
+of elasticity through which the shock of the recoil is absorbed. It is
+only through the use of such a bed that a mortar can be fired from the
+deck of a vessel. Without such, protection, the shock would smash
+through the deck and might send the craft to the bottom.
+
+The Ordnance Department reported to the Secretary of War and the
+Secretary to Lincoln that mortars were on hand but that no mortar-beds
+were available. It was one of the many cases in which the unpreparedness
+of the government had left a serious gap in the equipment. The further
+report was given to Lincoln that two or three months' time would be
+required to manufacture the thirty mortar-beds that were needed. A delay
+of any such period would have blocked the entire purpose of Grant's
+expedition. In his perplexity, Lincoln remembered that in his famous
+visit to New York two years before, he had been introduced to Mr.
+Hewitt, "a well-known iron merchant," as "a man who does things."
+Lincoln telegraphed to Hewitt asking if Hewitt could make thirty
+mortar-beds and how long it would take. Hewitt told me that the message
+reached him on a Saturday evening at the house of a friend. He wired an
+acknowledgment with the word that he would send a report on the
+following day. Sunday morning he looked up the ordnance officer of New
+York for the purpose of ascertaining where the pattern mortar-bed was
+kept. "It was rather important, Major," said Hewitt to me, "that I
+should have an opportunity of examining this pattern for I had never
+seen a mortar-bed in my life, but this of course I did not admit to the
+ordnance officer." The pattern required was, it seemed, in the armory
+at Springfield. Hewitt wired to Lincoln asking that the bed should be
+forwarded by the night boat to him in New York. Hewitt and his men met
+the boat, secured the pattern bed, and gave some hours to puzzling over
+the construction. At noon on Monday, Hewitt wired to Lincoln that he
+could make thirty mortar-beds in thirty days. In another hour he
+received by wire instructions from Lincoln to go ahead. In twenty-eight
+days he had the thirty mortar-beds in readiness; and Tom Scott, who had
+at the time, very fortunately for the country, taken charge of the
+military transportation, had provided thirty flat-cars for the transit
+of the mortar-beds to Cairo. The train was addressed to "U.S. Grant,
+Cairo," and each car contained a notification, painted in white on a
+black ground, "not to be switched on the penalty of death." That train
+got through and as other portions of the equipment had also been
+delayed, the mortars were not so very late. Six schooners, each equipped
+with a mortar, were hurried up the river to support the attack of the
+army on Fort Donelson. A first assault had been made and had failed. The
+field artillery was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against the
+earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate infantry, protected by
+their works, had proved most severe. The instant, however, that from
+behind a point on the river below the fort shells were thrown from the
+schooners into the inner circle of the fortifications, the Confederate
+commander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was untenable. He slipped
+away that night leaving his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with
+Grant, and those terms were "unconditional surrender," which were later
+so frequently connected with the initials of U.S.G.
+
+Buckner's name comes again into history in a pleasant fashion. Years
+after the War, when General Grant had, through the rascality of a Wall
+Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, Buckner, himself a poor man,
+wrote begging Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his
+convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand dollars. Other friends
+came to the rescue of Grant, and through the earnings of his own pen, he
+was before his death able to make good all indebtedness and to leave a
+competency to his widow. The check sent by Buckner was not used, but the
+prompt friendliness was something not to be forgotten.
+
+Hewitt's mortar-beds were used again a few weeks later for the capture
+of Island Number Ten and they also proved serviceable, used in the same
+fashion from the decks of schooners, in the capture of Forts Jackson and
+St. Philip which blocked the river below New Orleans. It was only
+through the fire from these schooners, which were moored behind a point
+on the river below the forts, that it was possible to reach the inner
+circle of the works.
+
+I asked Hewitt whether he had seen Lincoln after this matter of the
+mortar-beds. "Yes," said Hewitt, "I saw him a year later and Lincoln's
+action was characteristic. I was in Washington and thought it was proper
+to call and pay my respects. I was told on reaching the White House that
+it was late in the day and that the waiting-room was very full and that
+I probably should not be reached. 'Well,' I said, 'in that case, I will
+simply ask you to take in my card.' No sooner had the card been
+delivered than the door of the study opened and Lincoln appeared
+reaching out both hands. 'Where is Mr. Hewitt?' he said; 'I want to see,
+I want to thank, the man who does things.' I sat with him for a time, a
+little nervous in connection with the number of people who were waiting
+outside, but Lincoln would not let me go. Finally he asked, 'What are
+you in Washington for?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said I, 'I have some
+business here. I want to get paid for those mortar-beds.' 'What?' said
+Lincoln, 'you have not yet got what the nation owes you? That is
+disgraceful.' He rang the bell violently and sent an aid for Secretary
+Stanton and when the Secretary appeared, he was questioned rather
+sharply. 'How about Mr. Hewitt's bill against the War Department? Why
+does he have to wait for his money?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said Stanton,
+'the order for those mortar-beds was given rather irregularly. It never
+passed through the War Department and consequently the account when
+rendered could not receive the approval of any ordnance officer, and
+until so approved could not be paid by the Treasury.' 'If,' said
+Lincoln, 'I should write on that account an order to have it paid, do
+you suppose the Secretary of the Treasury would pay it?' 'I suppose that
+he would,' said Stanton. The account was sent for and Lincoln wrote at
+the bottom: 'Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln.' 'Now, Mr. Stanton,' said
+Lincoln, 'Mr. Hewitt has been very badly treated in this matter and I
+want you to take a little pains to see that he gets his money. I am
+going to ask you to go over to the Treasury with Mr. Hewitt and to get
+the proper signatures on this account so that Mr. Hewitt can carry a
+draft with him back to New York.' Stanton, rather reluctantly, accepted
+the instruction and," said Hewitt, "he walked with me through the
+various departments of the Treasury until the final signature had been
+placed on the bill and I was able to exchange this for a Treasury
+warrant. I should," said Hewitt, "have been much pleased to retain the
+bill with that signature of Lincoln beneath the words, 'Pay this now.'
+
+"Towards the end of the War," he continued, "when there was no further
+requirement for mortars, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln and asked whether I
+might buy a mortar with its bed. Lincoln replied promptly that he had
+directed the Ordnance Department to send me mortar and bed with 'the
+compliments of the administration.' I am puzzled to think," said Hewitt,
+"how that particular item in the accounts of the Ordnance Department was
+ever adjusted, but I am very glad to have this reminiscence of the War
+and of the President."
+
+Lincoln's relations with McClellan have already been touched upon. There
+would not be space in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken
+by Lincoln with other army commanders East and West. The problem that
+confronted the Commander-in-chief of selecting the right leaders for
+this or that undertaking, and of promoting the men who gave evidence of
+the greater capacity that was required for the larger armies that were
+being placed in the field, was one of no little difficulty. The reader
+of history, looking back to-day, with the advantage of the full record
+of the careers of the various generals, is tempted to indulge in easy
+criticism of the blunders made by the President. Why did the President
+put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of
+McClellan? Why should he have accepted even for one brief and
+unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope? Why was a
+slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in the
+long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and
+of force that had been secured by the army of the West? Why was a
+political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a
+well-meaning politician like Banks with still less capacity for the
+management of troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the field,
+making blunders that involved waste of life and of resources and the
+loss of campaigns? Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant,
+Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought more promptly into the
+important positions? Why was the army of the South permitted during the
+first two years of the War to have so large an advantage in skilled and
+enterprising leadership? A little reflection will show how unjust is the
+criticism implied through such questions. We know of the incapacity of
+the generals who failed and of the effectiveness of those who succeeded,
+only through the results of the campaigns themselves. Lincoln could only
+study the men as he came to know about them and he experimented first
+with one and then with another, doing what seemed to be practicable to
+secure a natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Such
+watchful supervision and painstaking experimenting was carried out with
+infinite patience and with an increasing knowledge both of the
+requirements and of the men fitted to fill the requirements.
+
+We must also recall that, Commander-in-chief as he was, Lincoln was not
+free to exercise without restriction his own increasingly valuable
+judgment in the appointment of the generals. It was necessary to give
+consideration to the opinion of the country, that is to say, to the
+individual judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation was
+absolutely essential for the support of the nation's cause. These
+opinions of the citizens were expressed sometimes through the appeals of
+earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of Massachusetts, or Curtin of
+Pennsylvania, and sometimes through the articles of a strenuous editor
+like Greeley, whose influence and support it was, of course, all
+important to retain. Greeley's absolute ignorance of military conditions
+did not prevent him from emphasising with the President and the public
+his very decided conclusions in regard to the selection of men and the
+conduct of campaigns. In this all-perplexing problem of the shaping of
+campaigns, Lincoln had to consider the responsibilities of
+representative government. The task would, of course, have been much
+easier if he had had power as an autocrat to act on his own decisions
+simply. The appointment of Butler and Banks was thought to be necessary
+for the purpose of meeting the views of the loyal citizens of so
+important a State as Massachusetts, and other appointments, the results
+of which were more or less unfortunate, may in like manner be traced to
+causes or influences outside of a military or army policy.
+
+General Frank V. Greene, in a paper on Lincoln as Commander-in-chief,
+writes in regard to his capacity as a leader as follows:
+
+"As time goes on, Lincoln's fame looms ever larger and larger. Great
+statesman, astute politician, clear thinker, classic writer, master of
+men, kindly, lovable man,--these are his titles. To these must be
+added--military leader. Had he failed in that quality, the others would
+have been forgotten. Had peace been made on any terms but those of the
+surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the Union,
+Lincoln's career would have been a colossal failure and the Emancipation
+Proclamation a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was military
+success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect of nearly half a
+century, with his every written word now in print and with all the facts
+of the period brought out and placed in proper perspective by the
+endless studies, discussions, and arguments of the intervening years, it
+becomes clear that, first and last and at all times during his
+Presidency, in military affairs his was not only the guiding but the
+controlling hand."
+
+It is interesting, as the War progressed, to trace the development of
+Lincoln's own military judgment. He was always modest in regard to
+matters in which his experience was limited, and during the first twelve
+months in Washington, he had comparatively little to say in regard to
+the planning or even the supervision of campaigns. His letters, however,
+to McClellan and his later correspondence with Burnside, with Hooker,
+and with other commanders give evidence of a steadily developing
+intelligence in regard to larger military movements. History has shown
+that Lincoln's judgment in regard to the essential purpose of a
+campaign, and the best methods for carrying out such purpose, was in a
+large number of cases decidedly sounder than that of the general in the
+field. When he emphasised with McClellan that the true objective was the
+Confederate army in the field and not the city of Richmond, he laid down
+a principle which seems to us elementary but to which McClellan had been
+persistently blinded. Lincoln writes to Hooker: "We have word that the
+head of Lee's army is near Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley while
+you report that you have a substantial force still opposed to you on the
+Rappahannock. It appears, therefore that the line must be forty miles
+long. The animal is evidently very slim somewhere and it ought to be
+possible for you to cut it at some point." Hooker had the same
+information but did not draw the same inference.
+
+Apart from Lincoln's work in selecting, and in large measure in
+directing, the generals, he had a further important relation with the
+army as a whole. We are familiar with the term "the man behind the
+gun." It is a truism to say that the gun has little value whether for
+offence or for defence unless the man behind it possesses the right kind
+of spirit which will infuse and guide his purpose and his action with
+the gun. For the long years of the War, the Commander-in-chief was the
+man behind all the guns in the field. The men in the front came to have
+a realising sense of the infinite patience, the persistent hopefulness,
+the steadiness of spirit, the devoted watchfulness of the great captain
+in Washington. It was through the spirit of Lincoln that the spirit in
+the ranks was preserved during the long months of discouragement and the
+many defeats and retreats. The final advance of Grant which ended at
+Appomattox, and the triumphant march of Sherman which culminated in the
+surrender at Goldsborough of the last of the armies of the Confederacy,
+were the results of the inspiration, given alike to soldier and to
+general, from the patient and devoted soul of the nation's leader.
+
+In March, 1862, Lincoln received the news of the victory won at Pea
+Ridge, in Arkansas, by Curtis and Sigel, a battle which had lasted three
+days. The first day was a defeat and our troops were forced back; the
+fighting of the second resulted in what might be called a drawn battle;
+but on the third, our army broke its way through the enclosing lines,
+bringing the heavier loss to the Confederates, and regained its base.
+This battle was in a sense typical of much of the fighting of the War.
+It was one of a long series of fights which continued for more than one
+day. The history of the War presents many instances of battles that
+lasted two days, three days, four days, and in one case seven days. It
+was difficult to convince the American soldier, on either side of the
+line, that he was beaten. The general might lose his head, but the
+soldiers, in the larger number of cases, went on fighting until, with a
+new leader or with more intelligent dispositions on the part of the
+original leader, a first disaster had been repaired. There is no example
+in modern history of fighting of such stubborn character, or it is
+fairer to say, there was no example until the Russo-Japanese War in
+Manchuria. The record shows that European armies, when outgeneralled or
+outmanoeuvred, had the habit of retiring from the field, sometimes in
+good order, more frequently in a state of demoralisation. The American
+soldier fought the thing out because he thought the thing out. The
+patience and persistence of the soldier in the field was characteristic
+of, and, it may fairly be claimed, was in part due to, the patience and
+persistence of the great leader in Washington.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DARK DAYS OF 1862
+
+
+The dark days of 1862 were in April brightened by the all-important news
+that Admiral Farragut had succeeded in bringing the Federal fleet, or at
+least the leading vessels in this fleet, past the batteries of Forts St.
+Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi, and had compelled the surrender
+of New Orleans. The opening of the Mississippi River had naturally been
+included among the most essential things to be accomplished in the
+campaign for the restoration of the national authority. It was of first
+importance that the States of the North-west and the enormous contiguous
+territory which depended upon the Mississippi for its water connection
+with the outer world should not be cut off from the Gulf. The prophecy
+was in fact made more than once that in case the States of the South had
+succeeded in establishing their independence, there would have come into
+existence on the continent not two confederacies, but probably four. The
+communities on the Pacific Coast would naturally have been tempted to
+set up for themselves, and a similar course might also naturally have
+been followed by the great States of the North-west whose interests were
+so closely bound up with the waterways running southward. It was
+essential that no effort should be spared to bring the loyal States of
+the West into control of the line of the Mississippi. More than twelve
+months was still required after the capture of New Orleans on the first
+of May, 1862, before the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port
+Hudson to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal control of the
+great river. The occupation of the river by the Federals was of
+importance in more ways than one. The States to the west of the
+river--Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas--were for the first two years of
+the War important sources of supplies for the food of the Confederate
+army. Corn on the cob or in bags was brought across the river by boats,
+while the herds of live cattle were made to swim the stream, and were
+then most frequently marched across country to the commissary depots of
+the several armies. After the fall of Port Hudson, the connection for
+such supplies was practically stopped; although I may recall that even
+as late as 1864, the command to which I was attached had the
+opportunity of stopping the swimming across the Mississippi of a herd of
+cattle that was in transit for the army of General Joe Johnston.
+
+In April, 1862, just after the receipt by Lincoln of the disappointing
+news of the first repulse at Vicksburg, he finds time to write a little
+autograph note to a boy, "Master Crocker," with thanks for a present of
+a white rabbit that the youngster had sent to the President with the
+suggestion that perhaps the President had a boy who would be pleased
+with it.
+
+During the early part of 1862, Lincoln is giving renewed thought to the
+great problem of emancipation. He becomes more and more convinced that
+the success of the War calls for definite action on the part of the
+administration in the matter of slavery. He was, as before pointed out,
+anxious, not only as a matter of justice to loyal citizens, but on the
+ground of the importance of retaining for the national cause the support
+of the Border States, to act in such manner that the loyal citizens of
+these States should be exposed to a minimum loss and to the smallest
+possible risk of disaffection. In July, 1862, Lincoln formulated a
+proposition for compensated emancipation. It was his idea that the
+nation should make payment of an appraised value in freeing the slaves
+that were in the ownership of citizens who had remained loyal to the
+government. It was his belief that the funds required would be more than
+offset by the result in furthering the progress of the War. The daily
+expenditure of the government was at the time averaging about a million
+and a half dollars a day, and in 1864 it reached two million dollars a
+day. If the War could be shortened a few months, a sufficient amount of
+money would be saved to offset a very substantial payment to loyal
+citizens for the property rights in their slaves.
+
+The men of the Border States were, however, still too bound to the
+institution of slavery to be prepared to give their assent to any such
+plan. Congress was, naturally, not ready to give support to such a
+policy unless it could be made clear that it was satisfactory to the
+people most concerned. The result of the unwise stubbornness in this
+matter of the loyal citizens of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
+Maryland was that they were finally obliged to surrender without
+compensation the property control in their slaves. When the plan for
+compensated emancipation had failed, Lincoln decided that the time had
+come for unconditional emancipation. In July, 1862, he prepares the
+first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was his judgment, which
+was shared by the majority of his Cabinet, that the issue of the
+proclamation should, however, be deferred until after some substantial
+victory by the armies of the North. It was undesirable to give to such a
+step the character of an utterance of despair or even of discouragement.
+It seemed evident, however, that the War had brought the country to the
+point at which slavery, the essential cause of the cleavage between the
+States, must be removed. The bringing to an end of the national
+responsibility for slavery would consolidate national opinion throughout
+the States of the North and would also strengthen the hands of the
+friends of the Union in England where the charge had repeatedly been
+made that the North was fighting, not against slavery or for freedom of
+any kind, but for domination. The proclamation was held until after the
+battle of Antietam in September, 1862, and was then issued to take
+effect on the first of January, 1863. It did produce the hoped-for
+results. The cause of the North was now placed on a consistent
+foundation. It was made clear that when the fight for nationality had
+reached a successful termination, there was to be no further national
+responsibility for the great crime against civilisation. The management
+of the contrabands, who were from week to week making their way into the
+lines of the Northern armies, was simplified. There was no further
+question of holding coloured men subject to the possible claim of a
+possibly loyal master. The work of organising coloured troops, which had
+begun in Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, was now pressed
+forward with some measure of efficiency. Boston sent to the front the
+54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of coloured troops and
+led by such men as Shaw and Hallowell. The first South Carolina coloured
+regiment was raised and placed under the command of Colonel Higginson.
+
+I had myself some experience in Louisiana with the work of moulding
+plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the
+promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into the
+camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to
+secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out
+of which to make a soldier. He did not know how to hold himself upright
+or to look the other man in the face. His gait was shambly, his
+perceptions dull. It was difficult for him either to hear clearly, or to
+understand when heard, the word of instruction or command. When,
+however, the plantation rags had been disposed of and (possibly after a
+souse in the Mississippi) the contraband had been put into the blue
+uniform and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, he developed at once
+from a "chattel" to a man. He was still, for a time at least, clumsy and
+shambly. The understanding of the word of command did not come at once
+and his individual action, if by any chance he should be left to act
+alone, was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended upon, than
+that of the white man. But he stood up straight in the garb of manhood,
+looked you fairly in the face, showed by his expression that he was
+anxious for the privilege of fighting for freedom and for citizenship,
+and in Louisiana, and throughout the whole territory of the War, every
+black regiment that came into engagement showed that it could be
+depended upon. Before the War was closed, some two hundred thousand
+negroes had been brought into the ranks of the Federal army and their
+service constituted a very valuable factor in the final outcome of the
+campaigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend, Mississippi,
+inconsiderable in regard to the numbers engaged, was of distinctive
+importance in showing what the black man was able and willing to do when
+brought under fire for the first time. A coloured regiment made up of
+men who only a few weeks before had been plantation hands, had been left
+on a point of the river to be picked up by an expected transport. The
+regiment was attacked by a Confederate force of double or treble the
+number, the Southerners believing that there would be no difficulty in
+driving into the river this group of recent slaves. On the first volley,
+practically all of the officers (who were white) were struck down and
+the loss with the troops was also very heavy. The negroes, who had but
+made a beginning with their education as soldiers, appeared, however,
+not to have learned anything about the conditions for surrender and they
+simply fought on until no one was left standing. The percentage of loss
+to the numbers engaged was the heaviest of any action in the War. The
+Southerners, in their contempt for the possibility of negroes doing any
+real fighting, had in their rushing attack exposed themselves much and
+had themselves suffered seriously. When, in April, 1865, after the
+forcing back of Lee's lines, the hour came, so long waited for and so
+fiercely fought for, to take possession of Richmond, there was a certain
+poetic justice in allowing the negro division, commanded by General
+Weitzel, to head the column of advance.
+
+Through 1862, and later, we find much correspondence from Lincoln in
+regard to the punishment of deserters. The army penalty for desertion
+when the lines were in front of the enemy, was death. Lincoln found it
+very difficult, however, to approve of a sentence of death for any
+soldier. Again and again he writes, instructing the general in the field
+to withhold the execution until he, Lincoln, had had an opportunity of
+passing upon the case. There is a long series of instances in which,
+sometimes upon application from the mother, but more frequently through
+the personal impression gained by himself of the character of the
+delinquent, Lincoln decided to pardon youngsters who had, in his
+judgment, simply failed to realise their full responsibility as
+soldiers. Not a few of these men, permitted to resume their arms, gained
+distinction later for loyal service.
+
+In December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued an order which naturally
+attracted some attention, directing that General Benjamin F. Butler,
+when captured, should be "reserved for execution." Butler never fell
+into the hands of the Confederates and it is probable that if he had
+been taken prisoner, the order would have remained an empty threat. From
+Lincoln came the necessary rejoinder that a Confederate officer of equal
+rank would be held as hostage for the safety of any Northern general
+who, as prisoner, might not be protected under the rules of war.
+
+Lincoln's correspondence during 1862, a year which was in many ways the
+most discouraging of the sad years of the war, shows how much he had to
+endure in the matter of pressure of unrequested advice and of undesired
+counsel from all kinds of voluntary advisers and active-minded citizens,
+all of whom believed that their views were important, if not essential,
+for the salvation of the state. In September, 1862, Lincoln writes to a
+friend:
+
+"I am approached with the most opposite opinions expressed on the part
+of religious men, each of whom is equally certain that he represents the
+divine will."
+
+To one of these delegations of ministers, Lincoln gave a response which
+while homely in its language must have presented to his callers a vivid
+picture of the burdens that were being carried by the leader of the
+state:
+
+    "Gentlemen," he said, "suppose all the property you possess were in
+    gold, and you had placed it in the hands of Blondin to carry across
+    the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps he
+    walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep
+    shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter! Blondin,
+    stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the south! Now
+    lean a little more to north! Would that be your behaviour in such an
+    emergency? No, you would hold your breath, every one of you, as well
+    as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on
+    the other side."
+
+Another delegation, which had been urging some months in advance of what
+Lincoln believed to be the fitting time for the issuing of the
+Proclamation of Emancipation, called asking that there should be no
+further delay in the action. One of the ministers, as he was retiring,
+turned and said to Lincoln: "What you have said to us, Mr. President,
+compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message to you from our
+Divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of
+bondage, that the slave may go free!" Lincoln replied: "That may be,
+sir, for I have studied this question by night and by day, for weeks
+and for months, but if it is, as you say, a message from your Divine
+Master, is it not odd that the only channel He could send it by was that
+roundabout route through the wicked city of Chicago?"
+
+Another version of the story omits the reference to Chicago, and makes
+Lincoln's words:
+
+"I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable
+that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my
+duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me....
+Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do."
+
+In September, 1862, General Lee carried his army into Maryland,
+threatening Baltimore and Washington. It is probable that the purpose of
+this invasion was more political than military. The Confederate
+correspondence shows that Davis was at the time hopeful of securing the
+intervention of Great Britain and France, and it was natural to assume
+that the prospects of such intervention would be furthered if it could
+be shown that the Southern army, instead of being engaged in the defence
+of its own capital, was actually threatening Washington and was possibly
+strong enough to advance farther north.
+
+General Pope had, as a result of his defeat at the second Bull Run, in
+July, 1862, lost the confidence of the President and of the country. The
+defeat alone would not necessarily have undermined his reputation, which
+had been that of an effective soldier. He had, however, the fatal
+quality, too common with active Americans, of talking too much, whether
+in speech or in the written word, of promising things that did not come
+off, and of emphasising his high opinion of his own capacity. Under the
+pressure of the new peril indicated by the presence of Lee's troops
+within a few miles of the capital, Lincoln put to one side his own grave
+doubts in regard to the effectiveness and trustworthiness of McClellan
+and gave McClellan one further opportunity to prove his ability as a
+soldier. The personal reflections and aspersions against his
+Commander-in-chief of which McClellan had been guilty, weighed with
+Lincoln not at all; the President's sole thought was at this time, as
+always, how with the material available could the country best be
+served.
+
+McClellan had his chance (and to few men is it given to have more than
+one great opportunity) and again he threw it away. His army was stronger
+than that of Lee and he had the advantage of position and (for the
+first time against this particular antagonist) of nearness to his base
+of supplies. Lee had been compelled to divide his army in order to get
+it promptly into position on the north side of the Potomac. McClellan's
+tardiness sacrificed Harper's Ferry (which, on September 15th, was
+actually surrounded by Lee's advance) with the loss of twelve thousand
+prisoners. Through an exceptional piece of good fortune, there came into
+McClellan's hands a despatch showing the actual position of the
+different divisions of Lee's army and giving evidence that the two wings
+were so far separated that they could not be brought together within
+twenty-four hours. The history now makes clear that for twenty-four
+hours McClellan had the safety of Lee's army in his hands, but those
+precious hours were spent by McClellan in "getting ready," that is to
+say, in vacillating.
+
+Finally, there came the trifling success at South Mountain and the drawn
+battle of Antietam. Lee's army was permitted to recross the Potomac with
+all its trains and even with the captured prisoners, and McClellan lay
+waiting through the weeks for something to turn up.
+
+A letter written by Lincoln on the 13th of October shows a wonderfully
+accurate understanding of military conditions, and throws light also
+upon the character and the methods of thought of the two men:
+
+    "Are you not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what
+    the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least
+    his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you
+    telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at
+    Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be
+    put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at
+    Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great as you would have to
+    do, without the railroad last named. He now waggons from Culpeper
+    Court House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to
+    do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well
+    provided with waggons as you are.... Again, one of the standard
+    maxims of war, as you know, is to 'operate upon the enemy's
+    communications without exposing your own.' You seem to act as if
+    this applies against you, but cannot apply it in your favour. Change
+    positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your
+    communication with Richmond in twenty-four hours?... You are now
+    nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route you can and he must
+    take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that
+    he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a
+    circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on your side
+    as on his ... If he should move northward, I would follow him
+    closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our
+    seizing his communications and move towards Richmond, I would press
+    closely to him, fight him, if a favourable opportunity should
+    present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside
+    track. I say 'Try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.... If
+    we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we
+    never can when we bear the wastage of going to him.... As we must
+    beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier
+    near to us than far away.... It is all easy if our troops march as
+    well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say that they cannot do it."
+
+The patience of Lincoln and that of the country behind Lincoln were at
+last exhausted. McClellan was ordered to report to his home in New
+Jersey and the General who had come to the front with such flourish of
+trumpets and had undertaken to dictate a national policy at a time when
+he was not able to keep his own army in position, retires from the
+history of the War.
+
+The responsibility again comes to the weary Commander-in-chief of
+finding a leader who could lead, in whom the troops and the country
+would have confidence, and who could be trusted to do his simple duty as
+a general in the field without confusing his military responsibilities
+with political scheming. The choice first fell upon Burnside. Burnside
+was neither ambitious nor self-confident. He was a good division
+general, but he doubted his ability for the general command. Burnside
+loyally accepts the task, does the best that was within his power and,
+pitted against a commander who was very much his superior in general
+capacity as well as in military skill, he fails. Once more has the
+President on his hands the serious problem of finding the right man.
+This time the commission was given to General Joseph Hooker. With the
+later records before us, it is easy to point out that this selection
+also was a blunder. There were better men in the group of
+major-generals. Reynolds, Meade, or Hancock would doubtless have made
+more effective use of the power of the army of the Potomac, but in
+January, 1863, the relative characters and abilities of these generals
+were not so easily to be determined. Lincoln's letter to Hooker was
+noteworthy, not only in the indication that it gives of Hooker's
+character but as an example of the President's width of view and of his
+method of coming into the right relation with men. He writes:
+
+    "You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an
+    indispensable quality.... I think, however, that during General
+    Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your
+    ambition and have thwarted him as much as you could, in which you
+    did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and
+    honourable brother officer. I have heard 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 the
+    command. Only those generals who gain success can set up as
+    dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk
+    the dictatorship. The government will support you to the best of its
+    ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do
+    for all its commanders.... Beware of rashness, but with energy and
+    sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
+
+Hooker, like Burnside, undoubtedly did the best that he could. He was a
+loyal patriot and had shown himself a good division commander. It is
+probable, however, that the limit of his ability as a general in the
+field was the management of an army corps; he seems to have been
+confused in the attempt to direct the movements of the larger body. At
+Chancellorsville, he was clearly outwitted by his opponents, Lee and
+Jackson. The men of the army of the Potomac fought steadily as always
+but with the discouraging feeling that the soldiers on the other side of
+the line had the advantage of better brain power behind them. It is
+humiliating to read in the life of Jackson the reply given by him to Lee
+when Lee questioned the safety of the famous march planned by Jackson
+across the front of the Federal line. Said Lee: "There are several
+points along the line of your proposed march at which your column could
+be taken in flank with disastrous results." "But, General Lee," replies
+Jackson, "we must surely in planning any military movements take into
+account the personality of the leaders to whom we are opposed."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR
+
+
+Chancellorsville was fought and lost, and again, under political
+pressure from Richmond rather than with any hope of advantage on simple
+military lines, Lee leads his army to an invasion of the North. For this
+there were at the time several apparent advantages; the army of the
+Potomac had been twice beaten and, while by no means demoralised, was
+discouraged and no longer had faith in its commander. There was much
+inevitable disappointment throughout the North that, so far from making
+progress in the attempt to restore the authority of the government, the
+national troops were on the defensive but a few miles from the national
+capital. The Confederate correspondence from London and from Paris gave
+fresh hopes for the long expected intervention.
+
+Lee's army was cleverly withdrawn from Hooker's front and was carried
+through western Maryland into Pennsylvania by the old line of the
+Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac at Falling Waters. Hooker
+reports to Lincoln under date of June 4th that the army or an army is
+still in his front on the line of the Rappahannock, Lincoln writes to
+Hooker under date of June 5th, "We have report that Lee's army is moving
+westward and that a large portion of it is already to the west of the
+Blue Ridge. The 'bull' [Lee's army] is across the fence and it surely
+ought to be possible to worry him." On June 14th, Lincoln writes again,
+reporting to Hooker that Lee with the body of his troops is approaching
+the Potomac at a point forty miles away from the line of the
+entrenchments on the Rappahannock. "The animal [Lee's army] is extended
+over a line of forty miles. It must be very slim somewhere. Can you not
+cut it?" The phrases are not in military form but they give evidence of
+sound military judgment. Hooker was unable to grasp the opportunity, and
+realising this himself, he asked to be relieved. The troublesome and
+anxious honour of the command of the army now falls upon General Meade.
+He takes over the responsibility at a time when Lee's army is already
+safely across the Potomac and advancing northward, apparently towards
+Philadelphia. His troops are more or less scattered and no definite
+plan of campaign appears to have been formulated. The events of the next
+three weeks constitute possibly the best known portion of the War. Meade
+shows good energy in breaking up his encampment along the Rappahannock
+and getting his column on to the road northward. Fortunately, the army
+of the Potomac for once has the advantage of the interior line so that
+Meade is able to place his army in a position that protects at once
+Washington on the south-west, Baltimore on the east, and Philadelphia on
+the north-east. We can, however, picture to ourselves the anxiety that
+must have rested upon the Commander-in-chief in Washington during the
+weeks of the campaign and during the three days of the great battle
+which was fought on Northern soil and miles to the north of the Northern
+capital. If, on that critical third day of July, the Federal lines had
+been broken and the army disorganised, there was nothing that could
+prevent the national capital from coming into the control of Lee's army.
+The surrender of Washington meant the intervention of France and
+England, meant the failure of the attempt to preserve the nation's
+existence, meant that Abraham Lincoln would go down to history as the
+last President of the United States, the President under whose
+leadership the national history had come to a close. But the Federal
+lines were not broken. The third day of Gettysburg made clear that with
+equality of position and with substantial equality in numbers there was
+no better fighting material in the army of the grey than in the army of
+the blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the crest of Cemetery
+Ridge marked the high tide of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men
+were not able to prevail against the sturdy defence of Hancock's second
+corps and when, on the Fourth of July, Lee's army took up its line of
+retreat to the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead and wounded,
+the calm judgment of Lee and his associates must have made clear to them
+that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army of Northern
+Virginia had shattered itself against the defences of the North, and
+there was for Lee no reserve line. For a long series of months to come,
+Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he was, and with a sturdy
+persistency which withstood all disaster, was able to maintain defensive
+lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in front of Petersburg, but
+as his brigades crumbled away under the persistent and unceasing attacks
+of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised long before the day
+of Appomattox that his task was impossible. What Gettysburg decided in
+the East was confirmed with equal emphasis by the fall of Vicksburg in
+the West. On the Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, defeated
+and discouraged, was taking his shattered army out of Pennsylvania,
+General Grant was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earthworks of
+Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now under the control of the Federalists
+from its source to the mouth, and that portion of the Confederacy lying
+to the west of the river was cut off so that from this territory no
+further co-operation of importance could be rendered to the armies
+either of Johnston or of Lee.
+
+Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg giving, with his
+word of congratulation, the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted the
+wisdom or the practicability of Grant's movement to the south of
+Vicksburg and inland to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, "and I
+was wrong."
+
+On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so eloquent
+in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history
+ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such
+suggestive thought, and such high idealism. The speech is one that
+children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.
+
+    [Illustration:
+
+    FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
+
+
+    Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.
+
+    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
+    continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
+    proposition that all men are created equal.
+
+    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
+    nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
+    endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come
+    to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
+    those who here gave their lives that their nation might live. It is
+    altogether fitting and proper that we should this.
+
+    But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
+    cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who
+    struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
+    or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say
+    here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
+    living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
+    who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
+    to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that
+    from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
+    which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here
+    highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
+    this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
+    government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
+    perish from the earth.
+
+    Abraham Lincoln
+
+    November 19, 1863]
+
+There was disappointment that Meade had not shown more energy after
+Gettysburg in the pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, at least,
+had not been made to interfere with the retreat across the Potomac.
+Military critics have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid himself
+open to criticism in the management of the battle itself. At the time of
+the repulse of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the left and in
+rear of his centre the sixth corps which had hardly been engaged on the
+previous two days, and which included some of the best fighting material
+in the army. It has been pointed out more than once that if that corps
+had been thrown in at once with a countercharge upon the heels of the
+retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's right must have been curled up
+and overwhelmed. If this had happened, Lee's army would have been so
+seriously shattered that its power for future service would have been
+inconsiderable. Meade was accepted as a good working general but the
+occasion demanded something more forcible in the way of leadership and,
+early in 1864, Lincoln sends for the man who by his success in the West
+had won the hopeful confidence of the President and the people.
+
+Before this appointment of General-in-chief was given to General Grant,
+and he came to the East to take charge of the armies in Virginia, he had
+brought to a successful conclusion a dramatic campaign, of which
+Chattanooga was the centre. In September, 1863, General Rosecrans, who
+had occupied Chattanooga, was defeated some twenty miles to the south on
+the field of Chickamauga, a defeat which was the result of too much
+confidence on the part of the Federal commander, who in pressing his
+advance had unwisely separated the great divisions of his army, and of
+excellent skill and enterprise on the part of the Confederate commander,
+General Bragg. If the troops of Rosecrans had not been veterans, and if
+the right wing had not been under the immediate command of so sturdy and
+unconquered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat might have become a
+rout. As it was, the army retreated with some discouragement but in good
+fighting force, to the lines of Chattanooga. By skilful disposition of
+his forces across the lines of connection between Chattanooga and the
+base of supplies, General Bragg brought the Federals almost to the point
+of starvation, and there was grave risk that through the necessary
+falling back of the army to secure supplies, the whole advantage of the
+previous year's campaign might be lost. Grant was placed in charge of
+the forces in Chattanooga, and by a good management of the resources
+available, he succeeded in reopening the river and what became known as
+"the cracker line," and in November, 1863, in the dramatic battles of
+Lookout Mountain, fought more immediately by General Hooker, and of
+Missionary Ridge, the troops of which were under the direct command of
+General Sherman, overwhelmed the lines of Bragg, and pressed his forces
+back into a more or less disorderly retreat. An important factor in the
+defeat of Bragg was the detaching from his army of the corps under
+Longstreet which had been sent to Knoxville in a futile attempt to crush
+Burnside and to reconquer East Tennessee for the Confederacy. This plan,
+chiefly political in purpose, was said to have originated with President
+Davis. The armies of the West were now placed under the command of
+General Sherman, and early in 1864, Grant was brought to Virginia to
+take up the perplexing problem of overcoming the sturdy veterans of
+General Lee.
+
+The first action of Grant as commander of all the armies in the field
+was to concentrate all the available forces against the two chief armies
+of the Confederacy. The old policy of occupying outlying territory for
+the sake of making a show of political authority was given up. If
+Johnston in the West and Lee in the East could be crushed, the national
+authority would be restored in due season, and that was the only way in
+which it could be restored. Troops were gathered in from Missouri and
+Arkansas and Louisiana and were placed under the command of Sherman for
+use in the final effort of breaking through the centre of the
+Confederacy, while in the East nothing was neglected on the part of the
+new administration to secure for the direction of the new commander all
+resources available of men and of supplies.
+
+Grant now finds himself pitted against the first soldier of the
+continent, the leader who is to go down to history as probably the
+greatest soldier that America has ever produced. Lee's military career
+is a wonderful example of a combination of brilliancy, daring ingenuity
+of plan, promptness of action, and patient persistence under all kinds
+of discouragement, but it was not only through these qualities that it
+was possible for him to retain control, through three years of heavy
+fighting, of the territory of Virginia, which came to be the chief
+bulwark of the Confederacy. Lee's high character, sweetness of nature,
+and unselfish integrity of purpose had impressed themselves not only
+upon the Confederate administration which had given him the command but
+upon every soldier in that command. For the army of Northern Virginia
+Lee was the man behind the guns just as Lincoln came to be for all the
+men in blue. There never was a more devoted army and there probably
+never was a better handled army than that with which Lee defended for
+three years the lines across Northern Virginia and the remnants of which
+were finally surrendered at Appomattox.
+
+Grant might well have felt concerned with such an opponent in front of
+him. He had on his hands (as had been the almost uniform condition for
+the army of the Potomac) the disadvantage of position. His advance must
+be made from exterior lines and nearly every attack was to be against
+well entrenched positions that had been first selected years back and
+had been strengthened from season to season. On the other hand, Grant
+was able to depend upon the loyal support of the administration through
+which came to his army the full advantage of the great resources of the
+North. His ranks as depleted were filled up, his commissary trains need
+never be long unsupplied, his ammunition waggons were always equipped.
+For Lee, during the years following the Gettysburg battle, the problem
+was unending and increasing: How should the troops be fed and whence
+should they secure the fresh supplies of ammunition?
+
+Between Grant and Lincoln there came to be perfect sympathy of thought
+and action. The men had in their nature (though not in their mental
+equipment) much in common. Grant carries his army through the spring of
+1864, across the much fought over territory, marching and fighting from
+day to day towards the south-west. The effort is always to outflank
+Lee's right, getting in between him and his base at Richmond, but after
+each fight, Lee's army always bars the way. Marching out of the
+Wilderness after seven days' fierce struggle, Grant still finds the line
+of grey blocking his path to Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been
+marching and fighting without break for weeks. There had been but little
+sleep, and the food in the trains was often far out of the reach of the
+men in the fighting line. Men and officers were alike exhausted. While
+advantages had been gained at one point or another along the line, and
+while it was certain that the opposing army had also suffered severely,
+there had been no conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with the
+feeling that they were to seize victory out of the campaign.
+
+In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of the column reached the
+cross-roads the left fork of which led back to the Potomac and the right
+fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the previous campaigns, the army
+of the Potomac, after doing its share of plucky fighting and taking more
+than its share of discouragement, had at such a point been withdrawn for
+rest and recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation that this
+course would be taken in the present campaign. The road to the right
+meant further fatigue and further continuous fighting for men who were
+already exhausted. In the leading brigade it was only the brigade
+commander and the adjutant who had knowledge of the instructions for the
+line of march. When, with a wave of the hand of the adjutant, the guidon
+flag of the brigade was carried to the right and the head of the column
+was set towards Richmond, a shout went up from the men marching behind
+the guidon. It was an utterance not of discouragement but of
+enthusiasm. Exhausting as the campaign had been, the men in the ranks
+preferred to fight it out then and to get through with it. Old soldiers
+as they were, they were able to understand the actual issue of the
+contest. Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as themselves and
+possibly even more exhausted. It was only through the hammering of Lee's
+diminishing army out of existence that the War could be brought to a
+close. The enthusiastic shout of satisfaction rolled through the long
+column reaching twenty miles back, as the news passed from brigade to
+brigade that the army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's report
+to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out on this line if it took all
+summer." When this report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection of
+Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. He said: "We need this
+man. He fights."
+
+In July, 1864, Washington is once more within reach if not of the
+invader at least of the raider. The Federal forces had been concentrated
+in Grant's lines along the James, and General Jubal Early, one of the
+most energetic fighters of the Southern army, tempted by the apparently
+unprotected condition of the capital, dashed across the Potomac on a
+raid that became famous. It is probable that in this undertaking, as in
+some of the other movements that have been referred to on the part of
+the Southern leaders, the purpose was as much political as military.
+Early's force of from fifteen to sixteen thousand men was, of course, in
+no way strong enough to be an army of invasion. The best success for
+which he could hope would be, in breaking through the defences of
+Washington, to hold the capital for a day or even a few hours. The
+capture of Washington in 1864, as in 1863 or in 1862, would in all
+probability have brought about the long-hoped-for intervention of France
+and England. General Lew Wallace, whose name became known in the years
+after the War through some noteworthy romances, _Ben Hur_ and _The Fair
+God_, and who was in command of a division of troops stationed west of
+Washington, and composed in part of loyal Marylanders and in part of
+convalescents who were about to be returned to the front, fell back
+before Early's advance to Monocacy Creek. He disposed his thin line
+cleverly in the thickets on the east side of the creek in such fashion
+as to give the impression of a force of some size with an advance line
+of skirmishers. Early's advance was checked for some hours before he
+realised that there was nothing of importance in front of him; when
+Wallace's division was promptly overwhelmed and scattered. The few hours
+that had thus been saved were, however, of first importance for the
+safety of Washington. Early reached the outer lines of the
+fortifications of the capital some time after sunset. His immediate
+problem was to discover whether the troops which were, as he knew, being
+hurried up from the army of the James, had reached Washington or whether
+the capital was still under the protection only of its so-called
+home-guard of veteran reserves. These reserves were made up of men more
+or less crippled and unfit for work in the field but who were still able
+to do service on fortifications. They comprised in all about six
+thousand men and were under the command of Colonel Wisewell. The force
+was strengthened somewhat that night by the addition of all of the male
+nurses from the hospitals (themselves convalescents) who were able to
+bear arms. That night the women nurses, who had already been in
+attendance during the hours of the day, had to render double service.
+Lincoln had himself in the afternoon stood on the works watching the
+dust of the Confederate advance. Once more there came to the President
+who had in his hands the responsibility for the direction of the War
+the bitterness of the feeling, if not of possible failure, at least of
+immediate mortification. He knew that within twenty-four or thirty-six
+hours Washington could depend upon receiving the troops that were being
+hurried up from Grant's army, but he also realised what enormous
+mischief might be brought about by even a momentary occupation of the
+national capital by Confederate troops. I had some personal interest in
+this side campaign. The 19th army corps, to which my own regiment
+belonged, had been brought from Louisiana to Virginia and had been
+landed on the James River to strengthen the ranks of General Butler.
+There had not been time to assign to us posts in the trenches and we
+had, in fact, not even been placed in position. We were more nearly in
+marching order than any other troops available and it was therefore the
+divisions of the 19th army corps that were selected to be hurried up to
+Washington. To these were added two divisions of the 6th corps.
+
+Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences of the city, realised the
+nature of his problem. He had got to hold the lines of Washington, cost
+what it might, until the arrival of the troops from Grant. He took the
+bold step of placing on the picket line that night every man within
+reach, or at least every loyal man within reach (for plenty of the men
+in Washington were looking and hoping for the success of the South). The
+instructions usually given to pickets were in this instance reversed.
+The men were ordered, in place of keeping their positions hidden and of
+maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post to post along the whole
+line, and they were also ordered, without any reference to the saving of
+ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the least possible pretext
+and without pretext. The armories were then beginning to send to the
+front Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of breech-loading rifles
+came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but
+during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed
+with Sharp's breech-loaders. The infantry weapon used through the War by
+the armies of the North as by those of the South was the muzzle-loading
+rifle which bore the name on our side of the Springfield and on the
+Confederate side of the Enfield. The larger portion of the Northern
+rifles were manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts, while the
+Southern rifles, in great part imported from England, took their name
+from the English factory. It was of convenience for both sides that the
+two rifles were practically identical so that captured pieces and
+captured ammunition could be interchanged without difficulty.
+
+Early's skirmish line was instructed early in the night to "feel" the
+Federal pickets, an instruction which resulted in a perfect blaze of
+carbine fire from Wisewell's men. The report that went to Early was that
+the picket line must be about six thousand strong. The conclusion on the
+part of the old Confederate commander was that the troops from the army
+of the Potomac must have reached the city. If that were true, there was,
+of course, no chance that on the following day he could break through
+the entrenchments, while there was considerable risk that his retreat to
+the Shenandoah might be cut off. Early the next morning, therefore, the
+disappointed Early led his men back to Falling Waters.
+
+I happened during the following winter, when in prison in Danville, to
+meet a Confederate lieutenant who had been on Early's staff and who had
+lost an arm in this little campaign. He reported that when Early, on
+recrossing the Potomac, learned that he had had Washington in his grasp
+and that the divisions marching to its relief did not arrive and could
+not have arrived for another twenty-four hours, he was about the
+maddest Early that the lieutenant had ever seen. "And," added the
+lieutenant, "when Early was angry, the atmosphere became blue."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE FINAL CAMPAIGN
+
+
+After this close escape, it was clear to Grant as it had been clear to
+Lincoln that whatever forces were concentrated before Petersburg, the
+line of advance for Confederate invaders through the Shenandoah must be
+blocked. General Sheridan was placed in charge of the army of the
+Shenandoah and the 19th corps, instead of returning to the trenches of
+the James, marched on from Washington to Martinsburg and Winchester.
+
+In September, the commander in Washington had the satisfaction of
+hearing that his old assailant Early had been sent "whirling through
+Winchester" by the fierce advance of Sheridan. Lincoln recognised the
+possibility that Early might refuse to stay defeated and might make use,
+as had so often before been done by Confederate commanders in the
+Valley, of the short interior line to secure reinforcements from
+Richmond and to make a fresh attack. On the 29th of September, twenty
+days before this attack came off, Lincoln writes to Grant: "Lee may be
+planning to reinforce Early. Care should be taken to trace any movement
+of troops westward." On the 19th of October, the persistent old fighter
+Early, not willing to acknowledge himself beaten and understanding that
+he had to do with an army that for the moment did not have the advantage
+of Sheridan's leadership, made his plucky, and for the time successful,
+fight at Cedar Creek. The arrival of Sheridan at the critical hour in
+the afternoon of the 19th of October did not, as has sometimes been
+stated, check the retreat of a demoralised army. Sheridan found his army
+driven back, to be sure, from its first position, but in occupation of a
+well supported line across the pike from which had just been thrown back
+the last attack made by Early's advance. It was Sheridan however who
+decided not only that the battle which had been lost could be regained,
+but that the work could be done to best advantage right away on that
+day, and it was Sheridan who led his troops through the too short hours
+of the October afternoon back to their original position from which
+before dark they were able to push Early's fatigued fighters across
+Cedar Creek southward. Lincoln had found another man who could fight. He
+was beginning to be able to put trust in leaders who, instead of having
+to be replaced, were with each campaign gathering fresh experience and
+more effective capacity.
+
+From the West also came reports, in this autumn of 1864, from a fighting
+general. Sherman had carried the army, after its success at Chattanooga,
+through the long line of advance to Atlanta, by outflanking movements
+against Joe Johnston, the Fabius of the Confederacy, and when Johnston
+had been replaced by the headstrong Hood, had promptly taken advantage
+of Hood's rashness to shatter the organisation of the army of Georgia.
+The capture of Atlanta in September, 1864, brought to Lincoln in
+Washington and to the North the feeling of certainty that the days of
+the Confederacy were numbered.
+
+The second invasion of Tennessee by the army of Hood, rendered possible
+by the march of Sherman to the sea, appeared for the moment to threaten
+the control that had been secured of the all-important region of which
+Nashville was the centre, but Hood's march could only be described as
+daring but futile. He had no base and no supplies. His advance did some
+desperate fighting at the battle of Franklin and succeeded in driving
+back the rear-guard of Thomas's army, ably commanded by General
+Schofield, but the Confederate ranks were so seriously shattered that
+when they took position in front of Nashville they no longer had
+adequate strength to make the siege of the city serious even as a
+threat. Thomas had only to wait until his own preparations were
+completed and then, on the same day in December on which Sherman was
+entering Savannah, Thomas, so to speak, "took possession" of Hood's
+army. After the fight at Nashville, there were left of the Confederate
+invaders only a few scattered divisions.
+
+It was just before the news of the victory at Nashville that Lincoln
+made time to write the letter to Mrs. Bixby whose name comes into
+history as an illustration of the thoughtful sympathy of the great
+captain:
+
+    "I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of
+    the adjutant-general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of
+    five sons who died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how
+    weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to
+    beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot
+    refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in
+    the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our
+    Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and
+    leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the
+    pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the
+    altar of freedom."
+
+In March, 1864, Lincoln writes to Grant: "New York votes to give votes
+to the soldiers. Tell the soldiers." The decision of New York in regard
+to the collection from the soldiers in each field of the votes for the
+coming Presidential election was in line with that arrived at by all of
+the States. The plan presented difficulties and, in connection with the
+work of special commissioners, it involved also expense. It was,
+however, on every ground desirable that the men who were risking their
+lives in defence of the nation should be given the opportunity of taking
+part in the selection of the nation's leader, who was also under the
+Constitution the commander-in-chief of the armies in the field. The
+votes of some four hundred thousand men constituted also an important
+factor in the election itself. I am not sure that the attempt was ever
+made to separate and classify the soldiers' vote but it is probable that
+although the Democratic candidate was McClellan, a soldier who had won
+the affection of the men serving under him, and the opposing candidate
+was a civilian, a substantial majority of the vote of the soldiers was
+given to Lincoln.
+
+Secretary Chase had fallen into the habit of emphasising what he
+believed to be his indispensability in the Cabinet by threatening to
+resign, or even by submitting a resignation, whenever his suggestions or
+conclusions met with opposition. These threats had been received with
+patience up to the point when patience seemed to be no longer a virtue;
+but finally, when (in May, 1864) such a resignation was tendered under
+some aggravation of opposition or of criticism, very much to Chase's
+surprise the resignation was accepted.
+
+The Secretary had had in train for some months active plans for becoming
+the Republican candidate for the Presidential campaign of 1864. Evidence
+had from time to time during the preceding year been brought to Lincoln
+of Chase's antagonism and of his hopes of securing the leadership of the
+party. Chase's opposition to certain of Lincoln's policies was doubtless
+honest enough. He had brought himself to believe that Lincoln did not
+possess the force and the qualities required to bring the War to a
+close. He had also convinced himself that he, Chase, was the man, and
+possibly was the only man, who was fitted to meet the special
+requirements of the task. Mr. Chase did possess the confidence of the
+more extreme of the anti-slavery groups throughout the country. His
+administration of the Treasury had been able and valuable, but the
+increasing difficulty that had been found in keeping the Secretary of
+the Treasury in harmonious relations with the other members of the
+administration caused his retirement to be on the whole a relief.
+Lincoln came to the conclusion that more effective service could be
+secured from some other man, even if possessing less ability, whose
+temperament made it possible for him to work in co-operation. The
+unexpected acceptance of the resignation caused to Chase and to Chase's
+friends no little bitterness, which found vent in sharp criticisms of
+the President. Neither bitterness nor criticisms could, however, prevent
+Lincoln from retaining a cordial appreciation for the abilities and the
+patriotism of the man, and, later in the year, Lincoln sent in his
+nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Chase himself, in his
+lack of capacity to appreciate the self-forgetfulness of Lincoln's
+nature, was probably more surprised by his nomination as Chief Justice
+than he had been by the acceptance of his resignation as Secretary of
+the Treasury.
+
+In July, 1864, comes a fresh risk of international complications
+through the invasion of Mexico by a French army commanded by Bazaine,
+seven years later to be known as the (more or less) hero of Metz. Lotus
+Napoleon had been unwilling to give up his dream of a French empire, or
+of an empire instituted under French influence, in the Western
+Hemisphere. He was still hopeful, if not confident, that the United
+States would not be able to maintain its existence; and he felt assured
+that if the Southern Confederacy should finally be established with the
+friendly co-operation of France, he would be left unmolested to carry
+out his own schemes in Mexico. He had induced an honest-minded but not
+very clearheaded Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of
+Austria, to accept a throne in Mexico to be established by French
+bayonets, and which, as the result showed, could sustain itself only
+while those bayonets were available. The presence of French troops on
+American soil brought fresh anxieties to the administration; but it was
+recognised that nothing could be done for the moment, and Lincoln and
+his advisers were hopeful that the Mexicans, before their capital had
+been taken possession of by the invader, would be able to maintain some
+national government until, with the successful close of its own War,
+the United States could come to the defence of the sister republic.
+
+The extreme anti-slavery group of the Republican party had, as
+indicated, never been fully satisfied with the thoroughness of the
+anti-slavery policy of the administration and Mr. Chase retained until
+the action of the convention in June the hope that he might through the
+influence of this group secure the Presidency. Lincoln remarks in
+connection with this candidacy: "If Chase becomes President, all right.
+I hope we may never have a worse man." From the more conservative wing
+of the Republican party came suggestions as to the nomination of Grant
+and this plan brought from Lincoln the remark: "If Grant takes Richmond,
+by all means let him have the nomination." When the delegates came
+together, however, in Baltimore, it was evident that, representing as
+they did the sober and well-thought-out convictions of the people, no
+candidacy but that of Lincoln could secure consideration and his
+nomination was practically unanimous.
+
+The election in November gave evidence that, even in the midst of civil
+war, a people's government can sustain the responsibility of a national
+election. The large popular majorities in nearly all of the voting
+States constituted not only a cordial recognition of the service that
+was being rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's administration, but a
+substantial assurance that the cause of nationality was to be sustained
+with all the resources of the nation. The Presidential election of this
+year gave the final blow to the hopes of the Confederacy.
+
+I had myself a part in a very small division of this election, a
+division which could have no effect in the final gathering of the votes,
+but which was in a way typical of the spirit of the army. On the 6th of
+November, 1864, I was in Libby Prison, having been captured at the
+battle of Cedar Creek in October. It was decided to hold a Presidential
+election in the prison, although some of us were rather doubtful as to
+the policy and anxious in regard to the result. The exchange of
+prisoners had been blocked for nearly a year on the ground of the
+refusal on the part of the South to exchange the coloured troops or
+white officers who held commissions in coloured regiments. Lincoln took
+the ground, very properly, that all of the nation's soldiers must be
+treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. Until the
+coloured troops should be included in the exchange, "there can," said
+Lincoln, "be no exchanging of prisoners." This decision, while sound,
+just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction
+to the men in prison and to their friends at home. When I reached Libby
+in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven
+months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners
+for five months more. Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and
+mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very
+severe. It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the Confederate
+authorities to keep any prisoners in Richmond during that last winter of
+the War. It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of
+which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for
+Lee's army. It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south,
+in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the
+inhabitants of the town. It was inevitable under the circumstances that
+the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths
+from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken
+from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there
+should be further deaths from starvation.
+
+It was not unnatural that under such conditions the prisoners should
+have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison authorities,
+but for discontent with their own administration. One may in fact be
+surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured
+spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we
+found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The
+soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison
+votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual
+ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but
+twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, that this vote of the
+prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so
+recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.
+
+In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the part
+of certain members of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear upon
+Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's reply made clear that he
+proposed to remain President. He says to the member reporting for
+himself and his associates the protest against Seward: "I propose to be
+the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my
+Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once have secured peace within the
+Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he had
+been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had
+associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens,
+who would have been competent to carry on the routine responsibilities
+of their posts. The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion or
+any working action between men differing from each other as widely as
+did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and
+in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an
+attempt that brought upon the chief daily burdens and many keen
+anxieties. Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important for the
+proper carrying on of the contest that the Cabinet should contain
+representatives of the several loyal sections of the country and of the
+various phases of opinion. The extreme anti-slavery men were entitled to
+be heard even though their spokesman Chase was often intemperate,
+ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States men had a right to be
+represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they had
+a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might
+show himself, as he often did show himself, quite incapable of
+understanding, much less of sympathising with, the real spirit of the
+North. Stanton might be truculent and even brutal, but he was willing to
+work, he knew how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, scholar
+and statesman as he was, had been ready to give needless provocation to
+Europe and was often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the
+conservative Border States on the one hand and of the New England
+abolitionists on the other, but Seward was a patriot as well as a
+scholar and was a representative not only of New York but of the best of
+the Whig Republican sentiment of the entire North, and Seward could not
+be spared. It is difficult to recall in history a government made up of
+such discordant elements which through the patience, tact, and genius of
+one man was made to do effective work.
+
+In February, 1865, in response to suggestions from the South which
+indicated the possibility of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with
+Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners to talk over measures
+for bringing the War to a close. The meeting was held on a gun-boat on
+the James River. It seems probable from the later history that Stephens
+had convinced himself that the Confederacy could not conquer its
+independence and that it only remained to secure the best terms
+possible for a surrender. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis was not yet
+prepared to consider any terms short of a recognition of the
+independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens could act only under the
+instructions received from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention that
+the government of the United States could not treat with rebels (or,
+dropping the word "rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The first
+step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, "be the laying down of arms.
+There is no precedent in history for a government entering into
+negotiations with its own armed citizens."
+
+"But there is a precedent, Mr. Lincoln," said Stephens, "King Charles of
+England treated with the Cromwellians."
+
+"Yes," said Lincoln, "I believe that is so. I usually leave historical
+details to Mr. Seward, who is a student. It is, however, my memory that
+King Charles lost his head."
+
+It soon became evident that there was no real basis for negotiations,
+and Stephens and his associates had to return to Richmond disappointed.
+In the same month, was adopted by both Houses of Congress the Thirteenth
+Amendment, which prohibited slavery throughout the whole dominion of the
+United States. By the close of 1865, this amendment had been confirmed
+by thirty-three States. It is probable that among these thirty-three
+there were several States the names of which were hardly familiar to
+some of the older citizens of the South, the men who had accepted the
+responsibility for the rebellion. The state of mind of these older
+Southerners in regard more particularly to the resources of the
+North-west was recalled to me years after the War by an incident related
+by General Sherman at a dinner of the New England Society. Sherman said
+that during the march through Georgia he had found himself one day at
+noon, when near the head of his column, passing below the piazza of a
+comfortable-looking old plantation house. He stopped to rest on the
+piazza with one or two of his staff and was received by the old planter
+with all the courtliness that a Southern gentleman could show, even to
+an invader, when doing the honours of his own house. The General and the
+planter sat on the piazza, looking at the troops below and discussing,
+as it was inevitable under the circumstances that they must discuss, the
+causes of the War.
+
+"General," said the planter, "what troops are those passing below?" The
+General leans over the piazza, and calls to the standard bearers,
+"Throw out your flag, boys," and as the flag was thrown out, he reports
+to his host, "The 30th Wisconsin."
+
+"Wisconsin?" said the planter, "Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin?"
+
+"It is one of the States of the North-west," said Sherman.
+
+"When I was studying geography," said the planter, "I knew of Wisconsin
+simply as the name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are there in a
+regiment?"
+
+"Well, there were a thousand when they started," said Sherman.
+
+"Do you mean to say," said the planter, "that there is a State called
+Wisconsin that has sent thirty thousand men into your armies?"
+
+"Oh, probably forty thousand," answered Sherman.
+
+With the next battalion the questions and the answers are repeated. The
+flag was that of a Minnesota regiment, say the 32d. The old planter had
+never heard that there was such a State.
+
+"My God!" he said when he had figured out the thousands of men who had
+come to the front, from these so-called Indian territories, to maintain
+the existence of the nation, "If we in the South had known that you had
+turned those Indian territories into great States, we never should have
+gone into this war." The incident throws a light upon the state of mind
+of men in the South, even of well educated men in the South, at the
+outbreak of the War. They might, of course, have known by statistics
+that great States had grown up in the North-west, representing a
+population of millions and able themselves to put into the field armies
+to be counted by the thousand. They might have realised that these great
+States of the North-west were vitally concerned with the necessity of
+keeping the Mississippi open for their trade from its source to the Gulf
+of Mexico. They might have known that those States, largely settled from
+New England, were absolutely opposed to slavery. This knowledge was
+within their reach but they had not realised the facts of the case. It
+was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to do only
+with New England and the Middle States and they felt that they were
+strong enough to hold their own against this group of opponents. That
+feeling would have been justified. The South could never have been
+overcome and the existence of the nation could never have been
+maintained if it had not been for the loyal co-operation and the
+magnificent resources of men and of national wealth that were
+contributed to the cause by the States of the North-west. In 1880, I had
+occasion, in talking to the two thousand students of the University of
+Minnesota, to recall the utterance of the old planter. The students of
+that magnificent University, placed in a beautiful city of two hundred
+and fifty thousand inhabitants, found it difficult on their part to
+realise, amidst their laughter at the ignorance of the old planter, just
+what the relations of the South had been before the War to the new free
+communities of the North-west.
+
+In February, 1865, with the fall of Fort Fisher and the capture of
+Wilmington, the control of the coast of the Confederacy became complete.
+The Southerners and their friends in Great Britain and the Bahamas (a
+group of friends whose sympathies for the cause were very much enhanced
+by the opportunity of making large profits out of their friendly
+relations) had shown during the years of the War exceptional ingenuity,
+daring, and persistence in carrying on the blockade-running. The ports
+of the British West Indies were very handy, and, particularly during the
+stormy months of the winter, it was hardly practicable to maintain an
+absolutely assured barrier of blockades along a line of coast
+aggregating about two thousand miles. The profits on a single voyage on
+the cotton taken out and on the stores brought back were sufficient to
+make good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three disastrous trips.
+The blockade-runners, Southerners and Englishmen, took their lives in
+their hands and they fairly earned all the returns that came to them. I
+happened to have early experience of the result of the fall of Fort
+Fisher and of the final closing of the last inlet for British goods. I
+was at the time in prison in Danville, Virginia. I was one of the few
+men in the prison (the group comprised about a dozen) who had been
+fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. We wore our tooth-brushes
+fastened into the front button-holes of our blouses, partly possibly
+from ostentation, but chiefly for the purpose of keeping them from being
+stolen. I was struck by receiving an offer one morning from the
+lieutenant of the prison guard of $300 for my tooth-brush. The "dollars"
+meant of course Confederate dollars and I doubtless hardly realised from
+the scanty information that leaked into the prison how low down in
+February, 1865, Confederate currency had depreciated. But still it was a
+large sum and the tooth-brush had been in use for a number of months.
+It then leaked out from a word dropped by the lieutenant that no more
+English tooth-brushes could get into the Confederacy and those of us who
+had been studying possibilities on the coast realised that Fort Fisher
+must have fallen.
+
+In this same month of February, into which were crowded some of the most
+noteworthy of the closing events of the War, Charleston was evacuated as
+Sherman's army on its sweep northward passed back of the city. I am not
+sure whether the fiercer of the old Charlestonians were not more annoyed
+at the lack of attention paid by Sherman to the fire-eating little city
+in which four years back had been fired the gun that opened the War,
+than they would have been by an immediate and strenuous occupation.
+Sherman had more important matters on hand than the business of looking
+after the original fire-eaters. He was hurrying northward, close on the
+heels of Johnston, to prevent if possible the combination of Johnston's
+troops with Lee's army which was supposed to be retreating from
+Virginia.
+
+On the 4th of March comes the second inaugural, in which Lincoln speaks
+almost in the language of a Hebrew prophet. The feeling is strong upon
+him that the clouds of war are about to roll away but he cannot free
+himself from the oppression that the burdens of the War have produced.
+The emphasis is placed on the all-important task of bringing the
+enmities to a close with the end of the actual fighting. He points out
+that responsibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the South and
+he invokes from those who under his leadership are bringing the contest
+to a triumphant close, their sympathy and their help for their
+fellow-men who have been overcome. The address is possibly the most
+impressive utterance ever made by a national leader and it is most
+characteristic of the fineness and largeness of nature of the man. I
+cite the closing paragraph:
+
+    "If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in
+    the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued
+    through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He
+    gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those
+    by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure
+    from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God
+    always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
+    this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills
+    that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen
+    in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
+    until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by
+    another drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said two thousand
+    years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord
+    are true, and righteous altogether.... With malice towards none,
+    with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
+    see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind
+    up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the
+    battle and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may
+    achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and
+    with all nations."
+
+After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had been "a common cause, a
+common interest, and a common country." The invocation in this last
+inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common
+country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in
+the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the
+men of the grey and those of the blue.
+
+At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines
+cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of adjustment.
+Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no
+authority to discuss any political relations. On the first of April, the
+right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at
+Five Forks, and on the day following Richmond is evacuated by the
+rear-guard of Lee's army. The defence of Richmond during the long years
+of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the
+entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the
+patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always take
+a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of
+positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction
+of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic
+distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever disposition
+of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from
+month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact
+there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these
+things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the
+resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and
+character of Lee and his associates would however of course have been in
+vain and the lines would have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or in
+1862, if it had not been for the magnificent patience and heroism of the
+rank and file that fought in the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars
+and whose fighting during the last of those months was done in tattered
+uniforms and with a ration less by from one quarter to one half than
+that which had been accepted as normal.
+
+On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes are borne into Richmond by
+the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command
+of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision
+that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should
+be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the
+rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The
+Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping to
+be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified,
+for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as
+remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had
+left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and
+negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all
+authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the city
+was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored
+order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and
+consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, when
+necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but
+not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been
+brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves into
+their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own
+street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate
+safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that the
+first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.
+
+Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and in spite of the
+apprehensions of nearly all his advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming
+down the river from Washington and making his way into the Rebel
+capital. There was no thought of vaingloriousness or of posing as the
+victor. He came under the impression that some civil authorities would
+probably have remained in Richmond with whom immediate measures might be
+taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to secure for the city and for
+the State a return of peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while not a
+great artist was inspired to produce during the War some of the most
+graphic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events,
+made a drawing which was purchased later by the New York Union League
+Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured
+folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowding about the man
+whom they hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic adoration
+trying to touch so much as the hem of his garment. The picture is
+history in showing what actually happened and it is pathetic history in
+recalling how great were the hopes that came to the coloured people from
+the success of the North and from the certainty of the end of slavery.
+It is sad to recall the many disappointments that during the forty years
+since the occupation of Richmond have hampered the uplifting of the
+race. Lincoln's hope that some representative of the Confederacy might
+have remained in Richmond, if only for the purpose of helping to bring
+to a close as rapidly as possible the waste and burdens of continued
+war, was not realised. The members of the Confederate government seem to
+have been interested only in getting away from Richmond and to have
+given no thought to the duty they owed to their own people to cooperate
+with the victors in securing a prompt return of law and order.
+
+On the 9th of April, came the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, four
+years, less three days, from the date of the firing of the first gun of
+the War at Charleston. The muskets turned in by the ragged and starving
+files of the remnants of Lee's army represented only a small portion of
+those which a few days earlier had been holding the entrenchments at
+Petersburg. As soon as it became evident that the army was not going to
+be able to break through the Federal lines and begin a fresh campaign in
+North Carolina, the men scattered from the retreating columns right and
+left, in many cases carrying their muskets to their own homes as a
+memorial fairly earned by plucky and persistent service. There never was
+an army that did better fighting or that was better deserving of the
+recognition, not only of the States in behalf of whose so-called
+"independence" the War had been waged, but on the part of opponents who
+were able to realise the character and the effectiveness of the
+fighting.
+
+The scene in the little farm-house where the two commanders met to
+arrange the terms of surrender was dramatic in more ways than one.
+General Lee had promptly given up his own baggage waggon for use in
+carrying food for the advance brigade and as he could save but one suit
+of clothes, he had naturally taken his best. He was, therefore,
+notwithstanding the fatigues and the privations of the past week, in
+full dress uniform. He was one of the handsomest men of his generation,
+and his beauty was not only of feature but of expression of character.
+Grant, who never gave much thought to his personal appearance, had for
+days been away from his baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping
+as near as possible to the front line with reference to the probability
+of being called to arrange terms for surrender, he had not found the
+opportunity of securing a proper coat in place of his fatigue blouse. I
+believe that even his sword had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow
+one for the occasion from a staff officer. When the main details of the
+surrender had been talked over, Grant looked about the group in the
+room, which included, in addition to two staff officers who had come
+with Lee, a group of five or six of his own assistants, who had managed
+to keep up with the advance, to select the aid who should write out the
+paper. His eye fell upon Colonel Ely Parker, a brigade commander who had
+during the past few months served on Grant's staff. "Colonel Parker, I
+will ask you," said Grant, "as the only real American in the room, to
+draft this paper." Parker was a full-blooded Indian, belonging to one of
+the Iroquois tribes of New York.
+
+Grant's suggestion that the United States had no requirement for the
+horses of Lee's army and that the men might find these convenient for
+"spring ploughing" was received by Lee with full appreciation. The first
+matter in order after the completion of the surrender was the issue of
+rations to the starving Southern troops. "General Grant," said Lee, "a
+train was ordered by way of Danville to bring rations to meet my army
+and it ought to be now at such a point," naming a village eight or nine
+miles to the south-west. General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye,
+now put in a word: "The train from the south is there, General Lee, or
+at least it was there yesterday. My men captured it and the rations will
+be available." General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, a
+valued comrade, and rides slowly through the ranks first of the blue and
+then of the grey. Every hat came off from the men in blue as an
+expression of respect to a great soldier and a true gentleman, while
+from the ranks in grey there was one great sob of passionate grief and
+finally, almost for the first time in Lee's army, a breaking of
+discipline as the men crowded forward to get a closer look at, or
+possibly a grasp of the hand of, the great leader who had fought and
+failed but whose fighting and whose failure had been so magnificent.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED
+
+
+On the 11th of April, Lincoln makes his last public utterance. In a
+brief address to some gathering in Washington, he says, "There will
+shortly be announcement of a new policy." It is hardly to be doubted
+that the announcement which he had in mind was to be concerned with the
+problem of reconstruction. He had already outlined in his mind the
+essential principles on which the readjustment must be made. In this
+same address, he points out that "whether or not the seceded States be
+out of the Union, they are out of their proper relations to the Union."
+We may feel sure that he would not have permitted the essential matters
+of readjustment to be delayed while political lawyers were arguing over
+the constitutional issue. On one side was the group which maintained
+that in instituting the Rebellion and in doing what was in their power
+to destroy the national existence, the people of the seceding States had
+forfeited all claims to the political liberty of their communities.
+According to this contention, the Slave States were to be treated as
+conquered territory, and it simply remained for the government of the
+United States to reshape this territory as might be found convenient or
+expedient. According to the other view, as secession was itself
+something which was not to be admitted, being, from the constitutional
+point of view, impossible, there never had in the legal sense of the
+term been any secession. The instant the armed rebellion had been
+brought to an end, the rebelling States were to be considered as having
+resumed their old-time relations with the States of the North and with
+the central government. They were under the same obligations as before
+for taxation, for subordination in foreign relations, and for the
+acceptance of the control of the Federal government on all matters
+classed as Federal. On the other hand, they were entitled to the
+privileges that had from the beginning been exercised by independent
+States: namely, the control of their local affairs on matters not
+classed as Federal, and they had a right to their proportionate
+representation in Congress and to their proportion of the electoral vote
+for President. It has been very generally recognised in the South as in
+the North that if Lincoln could have lived, some of the most serious of
+the difficulties that arose during the reconstruction period through the
+friction between these conflicting theories would have been avoided. The
+Southerners would have realised that the head of the government had a
+cordial and sympathetic interest in doing what might be practicable not
+only to re-establish their relations as citizens of the United States,
+but to further in every way the return of their communities to
+prosperity, a prosperity which, after the loss of the property in their
+slaves and the enormous destruction of their general resources, seemed
+to be sadly distant.
+
+On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic tragedy ending on the day
+following in the death of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this
+instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation mourned for the loss of
+its leader, while the soldiers were stricken with grief that their great
+captain should have been struck down, while the South might well be
+troubled that the control and adjustment of the great interstate
+perplexities was not to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and
+patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after the four years of
+continuous toil and fearful burdens and anxieties might well have been
+grateful. The great task had been accomplished and the responsibilities
+accepted in the first inaugural had been fulfilled.
+
+In March, 1861, Lincoln had accepted the task of steering the nation
+through the storm of rebellion, the divided opinions and counsels of
+friends, and the fierce onslaught of foes at home and abroad. In April,
+1865, the national existence was assured, the nation's credit was
+established, the troops were prepared to return to their homes and
+resume their work as citizens. At no time in history had any people been
+able against such apparently overwhelming perils and difficulties to
+maintain a national existence. There was, therefore, notwithstanding the
+great misfortune, for the people South and North, in the loss of the
+wise ruler at a time when so many difficulties remained to be adjusted,
+a dramatic fitness in having the life of the leader close just as the
+last army of antagonists was laying down its arms. The first problem of
+the War that came to the administration of 1861 was that of restoring
+the flag over Fort Sumter. On the 14th of April, the day when Booth's
+pistol was laying low the President, General Anderson, who four years
+earlier had so sturdily defended Sumter, was fulfilling the duty of
+restoring the Stars and Stripes.
+
+The news of the death of Lincoln came to the army of Sherman, with
+which my own regiment happened at the time to be associated, on the 17th
+of April. On leaving Savannah, Sherman had sent word to the north to
+have all the troops who were holding posts along the coasts of North
+Carolina concentrated on a line north of Goldsborough. It was his dread
+that General Johnston might be able to effect a junction with the
+retreating forces of Lee and it was important to do whatever was
+practicable, either with forces or with a show of forces, to delay
+Johnston and to make such combination impossible. A thin line of Federal
+troops was brought into position to the north of Johnston's advance, but
+Sherman himself kept so closely on the heels of his plucky and
+persistent antagonist that, irrespective of any opposing line to the
+north, Johnston would have found it impossible to continue his progress
+towards Virginia. He was checked at Goldsborough after the battle of
+Bentonville and it was at Goldsborough that the last important force of
+the Confederacy was surrendered.
+
+We soldiers learned only later some of the complications that preceded
+that surrender. President Davis and his associates in the Confederate
+government had, with one exception, made their way south, passing to
+the west of Sherman's advance. The exception was Post-master-General
+Reagan, who had decided to remain with General Johnston. He appears to
+have made good with Johnston the claim that he, Reagan, represented all
+that was left of the Confederate government. He persuaded Johnston to
+permit him to undertake the negotiations with Sherman, and he had, it
+seems, the ambition of completing with his own authority the
+arrangements that were to terminate the War. Sherman, simple-hearted man
+that he was, permitted himself, for the time, to be confused by Reagan's
+semblance of authority. He executed with Reagan a convention which
+covered not merely the surrender of Johnston's army but the
+preliminaries of a final peace. This convention was of course made
+subject to the approval of the authorities in Washington. When it came
+into the hands of President Johnson, it was, under the counsel of Seward
+and Stanton, promptly disavowed. Johnson instructed Grant, who had
+reported to Washington from Appomattox, to make his way at once to
+Goldsborough and, relieving Sherman, to arrange for the surrender of
+Johnston's army on the terms of Appomattox. Grant's response was
+characteristic. He said in substance: "I am here, Mr. President, to
+obey orders and under the decision of the Commander-in-chief I will go
+to Goldsborough and will carry out your instructions. I prefer, however,
+to act as a messenger simply. I am entirely unwilling to take out of
+General Sherman's hands the command of the army that is so properly
+Sherman's army and that he has led with such distinctive success.
+General Sherman has rendered too great a service to the country to make
+it proper to have him now humiliated on the ground of a political
+blunder, and I at least am unwilling to be in any way a party to his
+humiliation."
+
+Stanton was disposed to approve of Johnson's first instruction and to
+have Sherman at once relieved, but the man who had just come from
+Appomattox was too strong with the people to make it easy to disregard
+his judgment on a matter which was in part at least military. The
+President was still new to his office and he was still prepared to
+accept counsel. The matter was, therefore, arranged as Grant desired.
+Grant took the instructions and had his personal word with Sherman, but
+this word was so quietly given that none of the men in Sherman's army,
+possibly no one but Sherman himself, knew of Grant's visit. Grant took
+pains so to arrange the last stage of his journey that he came into the
+camp at Goldsborough well after dark, and, after an hour's interview
+with Sherman, he made his way at once northward outside of our lines and
+of our knowledge.
+
+On Grant's arrival, Sherman at once assumed that he was to be
+superseded. "No, no," said Grant; "do you not see that I have come
+without even a sword? There is here no question of superseding the
+commander of this army, but simply of correcting an error and of putting
+things as they were. This convention must be cancelled. You will have no
+further negotiation with Mr. Reagan or with any civilian claiming to
+represent the Confederacy. Your transactions will be made with the
+commander of the Confederate army, and you will accept the surrender of
+that army on the terms that were formulated at Appomattox." Sherman was
+keen enough to understand what must have passed in Washington, and was
+able to appreciate the loyal consideration shown by General Grant in the
+successful effort to protect the honour and the prestige of his old
+comrade. The surrender was carried out on the 26th of April, eleven days
+after the death of Lincoln. Johnston's troops, like those of Lee, were
+distributed to their homes. The officers retained their side-arms, and
+the men, leaving their rifles, took with them not only such horses and
+mules as they still had with them connected with the cavalry or
+artillery, but also a number of horses and mules which had been captured
+by Sherman's army and which had not yet been placed on the United States
+army roster. Sherman understood, as did Grant, the importance of giving
+to these poor farmers whatever facilities might be available to enable
+them again to begin their home work. Word was at once sent to General
+Johnston after Grant's departure that the, only terms that could be
+considered was a surrender of the army, and that the details of such
+surrender Sherman would himself arrange with Johnston. Reagan slipped
+away southward and is not further heard of in history.
+
+The record of Lincoln's relations to the events of the War would not be
+complete without a reference to the capture of Jefferson Davis. On
+returning to Washington after his visit to Richmond, Lincoln had been
+asked what should be done with Davis when he was captured. The answer
+was characteristic: "I do not see," said Lincoln, "that we have any use
+for a white elephant." Lincoln's clear judgment had at once recognised
+the difficulties that would arise in case Davis should become a
+prisoner. The question as to the treatment of the ruler of the late
+Confederacy was very different from, and much more complicated than, the
+fixing of terms of surrender for the Confederate armies. If Davis had
+succeeded in getting out of the country, it is probable that the South,
+or at least a large portion of the South, would have used him as a kind
+of a scapegoat. Many of the Confederate soldiers were indignant with
+Davis for his bitter animosities to some of their best leaders. Davis
+was a capable man and had in him the elements of statesmanship. He was,
+however, vain and, like some other vain men, placed the most importance
+upon the capacities in which he was the least effective. He had had a
+brief and creditable military experience, serving as a lieutenant with
+Scott's army in Mexico, and he had impressed himself with the belief
+that he was a great commander. Partly on this ground, and partly
+apparently as a result of general "incompatibility of temper," Davis
+managed to quarrel at different times during the War with some of the
+generals who had shown themselves the most capable and the most
+serviceable. He would probably have quarrelled with Lee, if it had been
+possible for any one to make quarrel relations with that fine-natured
+gentleman, and if Lee had not been too strongly entrenched in the hearts
+of his countrymen to make any interference with him unwise, even for the
+President. Davis had, however, managed to interfere very seriously with
+the operations of men like Beauregard, Sidney Johnson, Joseph Johnston,
+and other commanders whose continued leadership was most important for
+the Confederacy. It was the obstinacy of Davis that had protracted the
+War through the winter and spring of 1865, long after it was evident
+from the reports of Lee and of the other commanders that the resources
+of the Confederacy were exhausted and that any further struggle simply
+meant an inexcusable loss of life on both sides. As a Northern soldier
+who has had experience in Southern prisons, I may be excused also from
+bearing in mind the fearful responsibility that rests upon Davis for the
+mismanagement of those prisons, a mismanagement which caused the death
+of thousands of brave men on the frozen slopes of Belle Isle, on the
+foul floors of Libby and Danville, and on the rotten ground used for
+three years as a living place and as a dying place within the stockade
+at Andersonville. Davis received from month to month the reports of the
+conditions in these and in the other prisons of the Confederacy. Davis
+could not have been unaware of the stupidity and the brutality of
+keeping prisoners in Richmond during the last winter of the War when the
+lines of road still open were absolutely inadequate to supply the troops
+in the trenches or the people of the town. Reports were brought to Davis
+more than once from Andersonville showing that a large portion of the
+deaths that were there occurring were due to the vile and rotten
+condition of the hollow in which for years prisoners had been huddled
+together; but the appeal made to Richmond for permission to move the
+stockade to a clean and dry slope was put to one side as a matter of no
+importance. The entire authority in the matter was in the hands of Davis
+and a word from him would have remedied some of the worst conditions. He
+must share with General Winder, the immediate superintendent of the
+prisons, the responsibility for the heedless and brutal
+mismanagement,--a mismanagement which brought death to thousands and
+which left thousands of others cripples for life.
+
+As a result of the informal word given by Lincoln, it was generally
+understood, by all the officers, at least, in charge of posts and picket
+lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured.
+Unfortunately it had not proved possible to get this informal
+expression of a very important piece of policy conveyed throughout the
+lines farther west. An enterprising and over-zealous captain of cavalry,
+riding across from the Mississippi to the coast, heard of Davis's party
+in Florida and, "butting in," captured, on May 10th, "the white
+elephant."
+
+The last commands of the Confederate army were surrendered with General
+Taylor in Louisiana on the 4th of May and with Kirby Smith in Texas on
+the 26th of May. As Lincoln had foreshadowed, not a few complications
+resulted from this unfortunate capture of Davis, complications that were
+needlessly added to by the lack of clear-headedness or of definite
+policy on the part of a confused and vacillating President. During the
+months in which Davis was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, and while the
+question of his trial for treason was being fiercely debated in
+Washington, the sentiment of the Confederacy naturally concentrated upon
+its late President. He was, as the single prisoner, the surviving emblem
+of the contest. His vanities, irritability, and blunders were forgotten.
+It was natural that, under the circumstances, his people, the people of
+the South, should hold in memory only the fact that he had been their
+leader and that he had through four strenuous years borne the burdens
+of leadership with unflagging zeal, with persistent courage, and with an
+almost foolhardy hopefulness. He had given to the Confederacy the best
+of his life, and he was entitled to the adoration that the survivors of
+the Confederacy gave to him as representing the ideal of the lost cause.
+
+The feeling with which Lincoln was regarded by the men in the front, for
+whom through the early years of their campaigning he had been not only
+the leader but the inspiration, was indicated by the manner in which the
+news of his death was received. I happened myself on the day of those
+sad tidings to be with my division in a little village just outside of
+Goldsborough, North Carolina. We had no telegraphic communication with
+the North, but were accustomed to receive despatches about noon each
+day, carried across the swamps from a station through which connection
+was made with Wilmington and the North. In the course of the morning, I
+had gone to the shanty of an old darky whom I had come to know during
+the days of our sojourn, for the purpose of getting a shave. The old
+fellow took up his razor, put it down again and then again lifted it up,
+but his arm was shaking and I saw that he was so agitated that he was
+not fitted for the task. "Massa," he said, "I can't shave yer this
+mornin'." "What is the matter?" I inquired. "Well," he replied,
+"somethin's happened to Massa Linkum." "Why!" said I, "nothing has
+happened to Lincoln. I know what there is to be known. What are you
+talking about?" "Well!" the old man replied with a half sob, "we
+coloured folks--we get news or we get half news sooner than you-uns. I
+dun know jes' what it is, but somethin' has gone wrong with Massa
+Linkum." I could get nothing more out of the old man, but I was
+sufficiently anxious to make my way to Division headquarters to see if
+there was any news in advance of the arrival of the regular courier. The
+coloured folks were standing in little groups along the village street,
+murmuring to each other or waiting with anxious faces for the bad news
+that they were sure was coming. I found the brigade adjutant and those
+with him were puzzled like myself at the troubled minds of the darkies,
+but still sceptical as to the possibility of any information having
+reached them which was not known through the regular channels.
+
+At noon, the courier made his appearance riding by the wood lane across
+the fields; and the instant he was seen we all realised that there was
+bad news. The man was hurrying his pony and yet seemed to be very
+unwilling to reach the lines where his report must be made. In this
+instance (as was, of course, not usually the case) the courier knew what
+was in his despatches. The Division Adjutant stepped out on the porch of
+the headquarters with the paper in his hand, but he broke down before he
+could begin to read. The Division Commander took the word and was able
+simply to announce: "Lincoln is dead." The word "President" was not
+necessary and he sought in fact for the shortest word. I never before
+had found myself in a mass of men overcome by emotion. Ten thousand
+soldiers were sobbing together. No survivor of the group can recall the
+sadness of that morning without again being touched by the wave of
+emotion which broke down the reserve and control of these war-worn
+veterans on learning that their great captain was dead.
+
+The whole people had come to have with the President a relation similar
+to that which had grown up between the soldiers and their
+Commander-in-chief. With the sympathy and love of the people to sustain
+him, Lincoln had over them an almost unlimited influence. His capacity
+for toil, his sublime patience, his wonderful endurance, his great mind
+and heart, his out-reaching sympathies, his thoughtfulness for the needs
+and requirements of all, had bound him to his fellow-citizens by an
+attachment of genuine sentiment. His appellation throughout the country
+had during the last year of the war become "Father Abraham." We may
+recall in the thought of this relation to the people the record of
+Washington. The first President has come into history as the "Father of
+his Country," but for Washington this rôle of father is something of
+historic development. During Washington's lifetime, or certainly at
+least during the years of his responsibilities as General and as
+President, there was no such general recognition of the leader and ruler
+as the father of his country. He was dear to a small circle of
+intimates; he was held in respectful regard by a larger number of those
+with whom were carried on his responsibilities in the army, and later in
+the nation's government. To many good Americans, however, Washington
+represented for years an antagonistic principle of government. He was
+regarded as an aristocrat and there were not a few political leaders,
+with groups of voters behind them, who dreaded, and doubtless honestly
+dreaded, that the influence of Washington might be utilised to build up
+in this country some fresh form of the monarchy that had been
+overthrown. The years of the Presidency had to be completed and the
+bitter antagonisms of the seven years' fighting and of the issues of the
+Constitution-building had to be outgrown, before the people were able to
+recognise as a whole the perfect integrity of purpose and consistency of
+action of their great leader, the first President. Even then when the
+animosities and suspicions had died away, while the people were ready to
+honour the high character and the accomplishments of Washington, the
+feeling was one of reverence rather than of affection. This sentiment
+gave rise later to the title of the "Father of his Country"; but there
+was no such personal feeling towards Washington as warranted, at least
+during his life, the term father of the people. Thirty years later, the
+ruler of the nation is Andrew Jackson, a man who was, like Lincoln,
+eminently a representative of the common people. His fellow-citizens
+knew that Jackson understood their feelings and their methods and were
+ready to have full confidence in Jackson's patriotism and honesty of
+purpose. His nature lacked, however, the sweet sympathetic qualities
+that characterised Lincoln; and while to a large body of his
+fellow-citizens he commended himself for sturdiness, courage, and
+devotion to the interests of the state, he was never able for himself to
+overcome the feeling that a man who failed to agree with a Jackson
+policy must be either a knave or a fool. He could not place himself in
+the position from which the other fellow was thinking or acting. He
+believed that it was his duty to maintain what he held to be the popular
+cause against the "schemes of the aristocrats," the bugbear of that day.
+He was a fighter from his youth up and his theory of government was that
+of enforcing the control of the side for which he was the partisan. Such
+a man could never be accepted as the father of the people.
+
+Lincoln, coming from those whom he called the common people, feeling
+with their feelings, sympathetic with their needs and ideals, was able
+in the development of his powers to be accepted as the peer of the
+largest intellects in the land. While knowing what was needed by the
+poor whites of Kentucky, he could understand also the point of view of
+Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. In place of emphasising antagonisms,
+he held consistently that the highest interest of one section of the
+country must be the real interest of the whole people, and that the
+ruler of the nation had upon him the responsibility of so shaping the
+national policy that all the people should recognise the government as
+their government. It was this large understanding and width of sympathy
+that made Lincoln in a sense which could be applied to no other ruler of
+this country, the people's President, and no other ruler in the world
+has ever been so sympathetically, so effectively in touch with all of
+the fellow-citizens for whose welfare he made himself responsible. The
+Latin writer, Aulus Gellius, uses for one of his heroes the term "a
+classic character." These words seem to me fairly to apply to Abraham
+Lincoln.
+
+An appreciative Englishman, writing in the London _Nation_ at the time
+of the Centennial commemoration, says of Lincoln:
+
+    The greatness of Lincoln was that of a common man raised to a high
+    dimension. The possibility, still more the existence, of such a man
+    is itself a justification of democracy. We do not say that so
+    independent, so natural, so complete a man cannot in older societies
+    come to wield so large a power over the affairs and the minds of
+    men; we can only say that amid all the stirring movements of the
+    nineteenth century he has not so done. The existence of what may be
+    called a widespread commonalty explains the rarity of personal
+    eminence in America. There has been and still remains a higher
+    general level of personality than in any European country, and the
+    degree of eminence is correspondingly reduced. It is just because
+    America has stood for opportunity that conspicuous individuals have
+    been comparatively rare. Strong personality, however, has not been
+    rare; it is the abundance of such personality that has built up
+    silently into the rising fabric of the American Commonwealth,
+    pioneers, roadmakers, traders, lawyers, soldiers, teachers, toiling
+    terribly over the material and moral foundation of the country, few
+    of whose names have emerged or survived. Lincoln was of this stock,
+    was reared among these rude energetic folk, had lived all those
+    sorts of lives. He was no "sport"; his career is a triumphant
+    refutation of the traditional views of genius. He had no special
+    gift or quality to distinguish him; he was simply the best type of
+    American at a historic juncture when the national safety wanted such
+    a man. The confidence which all Americans express that their country
+    will be equal to any emergency which may threaten it, is not so
+    entirely superstitious as it seems at first sight. For the career of
+    Lincoln shows how it has been done in a country where the "necessary
+    man" can be drawn not from a few leading families, or an educated
+    class, but from the millions.
+
+Rabbi Schechter, in an eloquent address delivered at the Centennial
+celebration, speaks of Lincoln's personality as follows:
+
+    The half century that has elapsed since Lincoln's death has
+    dispelled the mists that encompassed him on earth. Men now not only
+    recognise the right which he championed, but behold in him the
+    standard of righteousness, of liberty, of conciliation, and truth.
+    In him, as it were personified, stands the Union, all that is best
+    and noblest and enduring in its principles in which he devoutly
+    believed and served mightily to save. When to-day, the world
+    celebrates the century of his existence, he has become the ideal of
+    both North and South, of a common country, composed not only of the
+    factions that once confronted each other in war's dreadful array,
+    but of the myriad thousands that have since found in the American
+    nation the hope of the future and the refuge from age-entrenched
+    wrong and absolutism. To them, Lincoln, his life, his history, his
+    character, his entire personality, with all its wondrous charm and
+    grace, its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweetness, has
+    come to be the very prototype of a rising humanity.
+
+Carl Schurz, himself a man of large nature and wide and sympathetic
+comprehension, says of Lincoln:
+
+    In the most conspicuous position of the period, Lincoln drew upon
+    himself the scoffs of polite society; but even then he filled the
+    souls of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur.
+    It was distinctly the weird mixture in him of qualities and forces,
+    of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that
+    which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that
+    made him so fascinating a character among his fellow-men, that gave
+    him his singular power over minds and hearts, that fitted him to be
+    the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national life.
+
+    He possessed the courage to stand alone--that courage which is the
+    first requisite of leadership in a great cause. The charm of
+    Lincoln's oratory flooded all the rare depth and genuineness of his
+    convictions and his sympathetic feelings were the strongest element
+    in his nature. He was one of the greatest Americans and the best of
+    men.
+
+The poet Whittier writes:
+
+    The weary form that rested not
+    Save in a martyr's grave;
+    The care-worn face that none forgot,
+    Turned to the kneeling slave.
+
+    We rest in peace where his sad eyes
+    Saw peril, strife, and pain;
+    His was the awful sacrifice,
+    And ours the priceless gain.
+
+Says Bryant:
+
+    That task is done, the bound are free,
+    We bear thee to an honoured grave,
+    Whose noblest monument shall be
+    The broken fetters of the slave.
+
+    Pure was thy life; its bloody close
+    Hath blessed thee with the sons of light,
+    Among the noble host of those
+    Who perished in the cause of right.
+
+Says Lowell:
+
+    Our children shall behold his fame,
+    The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
+    Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame;
+    New birth of our new soil, the first American.
+
+Ordinary men die when their physical life is brought to a close, if
+perhaps not at once, yet in a brief space, with the passing of the
+little circle of those to whom they were dear.
+
+The man of distinction lives for a time after death. His achievements
+and his character are held in appreciative remembrance by the community
+and the generation he has served. The waves of his influence ripple out
+in a somewhat wider circle before being lost in the ocean of time. We
+call that man great to whom it is given so to impress himself upon his
+fellow-men by deed, by creation, by service to the community, by
+character, by the inspiration from on high that has been breathed
+through his soul, that he is not permitted to die. Such a man secures
+immortality in this world. The knowledge and the influence of his life
+are extended throughout mankind and his memory gathers increasing fame
+from generation to generation.
+
+It is thus that men are to-day honouring the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
+To-day, one hundred years after his birth, and nearly half a century
+since the dramatic close of his life's work, Lincoln stands enshrined in
+the thought and in the hearts of his countrymen. He is our "Father
+Abraham," belonging to us, his fellow-citizens, for ideals, for
+inspiration, and for affectionate regard; but he belongs now also to all
+mankind, for he has been canonised among the noblest of the world's
+heroes.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+
+
+THE ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York,
+
+February 27, 1860.
+
+
+With Introduction by Charles C. Nott; Historical and Analytical Notes by
+Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, and with the Correspondence between
+Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott as Representative of the Committee of the Young
+Men's Republican Union.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+
+The address delivered by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,
+1860 in response to the invitation of certain representative New
+Yorkers, was, as well in its character as in its results, the most
+important of all of his utterances.
+
+The conscientious study of the historical and constitutional record, and
+the arguments and conclusions based upon the analysis of this record,
+were accepted by the Republican leaders as constituting the principles
+and the policy to be maintained during the Presidential campaign of
+1860, a campaign in which was involved not merely the election of a
+President, but the continued existence of the republic.
+
+Under the wise counsels represented by the words of Lincoln, the
+election was fought out substantially on two contentions:
+
+First, that the compact entered into by the Fathers and by their
+immediate successors should be loyally carried out, and that slavery
+should not be interfered with in the original slave States, or in the
+additional territory that had been conceded to it under the Missouri
+Compromise; and, secondly, that not a single further square mile of
+soil, that was still free, should be left available, or should be made
+available, for the incursion of slavery.
+
+It was the conviction of Lincoln and of his associates, as it had been
+the conviction of the Fathers, that under such a restriction slavery
+must certainly in the near future come to an end. It was because these
+convictions, both in the debates with Douglas and in the Cooper
+Institute speech, were presented by Lincoln more forcibly and more
+conclusively than had been done by any other political leader, that
+Lincoln secured the nomination and the presidency. The February address
+was assuredly a deciding factor in the great issue of the time, and it
+certainly belongs, therefore, with the historic documents of the
+republic.
+
+G.H.P.
+
+NEW YORK, September 1, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD
+
+(_From Robert Lincoln_)
+
+    MANCHESTER, VERMONT,
+
+    July 27, 1909.
+
+    DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:
+
+    Your letter of July 23rd reaches me here, and I beg to express my
+    thanks for your kind remembrances of me in London.... I am much
+    interested in learning that you were present at the time my father
+    made his speech at Cooper Institute. I, of course, remember the
+    occasion very well, although I was not present. I was at that time
+    in the middle of my year at Phillips Exeter Academy, preparing for
+    the Harvard entrance examination of the summer of 1860.... After the
+    Cooper Institute address, my father came to Exeter to see how I was
+    getting along, and this visit resulted in his making a number of
+    speeches in New England on his way and on his return, and at Exeter
+    he wrote to my mother a letter which was mainly concerned with me,
+    but which did make reference to these speeches.... He said that he
+    had had some embarrassment with these New England speeches, because
+    in coming East he had anticipated making no speech excepting the
+    one at the Cooper Institute, and he had not prepared himself for
+    anything else.... In the later speeches, he was addressing reading
+    audiences who had, as he thought probable, seen the report of his
+    Cooper Institute speech, and he was obliged, therefore, from day to
+    day (he made about a dozen speeches in New England in all) to bear
+    that fact in mind.
+
+    Sincerely yours,
+
+    ROBERT LINCOLN.
+
+
+(_From Judge Nott_)
+
+    WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.,
+
+    July 26, 1909.
+
+    DEAR PUTNAM:
+
+    I consider it very desirable that the report of Mr. Lincoln's
+    speech, embodying the final revision, should be preserved in book
+    form.... The text in the pamphlet now in your hands is authentic and
+    conclusive. Mr. Lincoln read the proof both of the address and of
+    the notes. I am glad that you are to include in your reprint the
+    letters from Mr. Lincoln, as these letters authenticate this copy of
+    the address as the copy which was corrected by him with his own
+    hand....
+
+    The preface to the address, written in September, 1860, has interest
+    because it shows what we thought of the address at that time....
+    Your worthy father was, if I remember rightly, one of the
+    vice-presidents of the meeting....
+
+    Yours faithfully,
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT.
+
+
+_(From Cephas Brainerd)_
+
+    NEW YORK, August 18, 1909.
+
+    DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:
+
+    I am very glad to learn that there is good prospect that the real
+    Lincoln Cooper Institute address, with the evidence in regard to it,
+    will now be available for the public.... I am glad also that with
+    the address you are proposing to print the letters received by Judge
+    Nott from Mr. Lincoln. One or two of these have, unfortunately, not
+    been preserved. I recall in one an observation made by Lincoln to
+    the effect that he "was not much of a literary man."
+
+    I did not see much of Mr. Lincoln when he was in New York, as my
+    most active responsibility in regard to the meeting was in getting
+    up an audience.... I remember in handing some weeks earlier to John
+    Sherman, who, like Lincoln, had never before spoken in New York,
+    five ten-dollar gold pieces, that he said he "had not expected his
+    expenses to be paid." At a lunch that was given to Sherman a long
+    time afterward, I referred to that meeting. Sherman cocked his eye
+    at me and said: "Yes, I remember it very well; I never was so scar't
+    in all my life." ...
+
+    The observations of Judge Nott in regard to the meeting are about
+    as just as anything that has ever been put into print, and as I
+    concur fully in the accuracy of these recollections, I do not
+    undertake to give my own impressions at any length. I was expecting
+    to hear some specimen of Western stump-speaking as it was then
+    understood. You will, of course, observe that the speech contains
+    nothing of the kind. I do remember, however, that Lincoln spoke of
+    the condition of feeling between the North and the South.... He
+    refers to the treatment which Northern men received in the South,
+    and he remarked, parenthetically, that he had never known of a man
+    who had been able "to whip his wife into loving him," an observation
+    that produced laughter.
+
+    In making up the notes, we ransacked, as you may be sure, all the
+    material available in the libraries in New York, and I also had
+    interviews as to one special point with Mr. Bancroft, with Mr.
+    Hildreth, and with Dr. William Goodell, who was in those times a
+    famous anti-slavery man.
+
+    Your father[3] and William Curtis Noyes were possibly more
+    completely in sympathy than any other two men in New York, with the
+    efforts of these younger men; they impressed me as standing in that
+    respect on the same plane. The next man to them was Charles Wyllis
+    Elliott, the author of a _History of New England_. We never went to
+    your father for advice or assistance when he failed to help us, and
+    he was always so kindly and gentle in what he did and said that
+    every one of us youngsters acquired for him a very great affection.
+    He always had time to see us and was always on hand when he was
+    wanted, and if we desired to have anything, we got it if he had it.
+    Neither your father, nor Mr. Noyes, nor for that matter Mr. Elliott,
+    ever suggested that we were "young" or "fresh" or anything of that
+    sort. The enthusiasm which young fellows have was always recognised
+    by these men as an exceedingly valuable asset in the cause....
+    Pardon all this from a "veteran," and believe me,
+
+    Sincerely yours,
+
+    CEPHAS BRAINERD.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+BY CHARLES C. NOTT
+
+
+The Cooper Institute address is one of the most important addresses ever
+delivered in the life of this nation, for at an eventful time it changed
+the course of history. When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the evening of
+February 27, 1860, he had held no administrative office; he had
+endeavoured to be appointed Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he
+had sought to be elected United States Senator, and had been defeated;
+he had been a member of Congress, yet it was not even remembered; he was
+a lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, but had not
+reached the front rank of the Illinois Bar. The record which Mr. Lincoln
+himself placed in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still be
+taken as the record of his public and official life: "Born February
+12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective. Profession
+a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.
+Postmaster in a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois
+Legislature and a member of the lower house of Congress." Was this the
+record of a man who should be made the head of a nation in troubled
+times? In the estimation of thoughtful Americans east of the Alleghanies
+all that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in regarding him as
+only "a Western stump orator"--successful, distinguished, but nothing
+higher than that--a Western stump orator, who had dared to brave one of
+the strongest men in the Western States, and who had done so with
+wonderful ability and moral success. When Mr. Lincoln closed his address
+he had risen to the rank of statesman, and had stamped himself a
+statesman peculiarly fitted for the exigency of the hour.
+
+Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided at the meeting; and a number of the
+first and ablest citizens of New York were present, among them Horace
+Greeley. Mr. Greeley was pronounced in his appreciation of the address;
+it was the ablest, the greatest, the wisest speech that had yet been
+made; it would reassure the conservative Northerner; it was just what
+was wanted to conciliate the excited Southerner; it was conclusive in
+its argument, and would assure the overthrow of Douglas. Mr. Horace
+White has recently written: "I chanced to open the other day his Cooper
+Institute speech. This is one of the few printed speeches that I did not
+hear him deliver in person. As I read the concluding pages of that
+speech, the conflict of opinion that preceded the conflict of arms then
+sweeping upon the country like an approaching solar eclipse seemed
+prefigured like a chapter of the Book of Fate. Here again he was the
+Old Testament prophet, before whom Horace Greeley bowed his head, saying
+that he had never listened to a greater speech, although he had heard
+several of Webster's best." Later, Mr. Greeley became the leader of the
+Republican forces opposed to the nomination of Mr. Seward and was
+instrumental in concentrating those forces upon Mr. Lincoln.
+Furthermore, the great New York press on the following morning carried
+the address to the country, and before Mr. Lincoln left New York he was
+telegraphed from Connecticut to come and aid in the campaign of the
+approaching spring election. He went, and when the fateful moment came
+in the Convention, Connecticut was one of the Eastern States which first
+broke away from the Seward column and went over to Mr. Lincoln. When
+Connecticut did this, the die was cast.
+
+It is difficult for younger generations of Americans to believe that
+three months before Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency he was
+neither appreciated nor known in New York. That fact can be better
+established by a single incident than by the opinions and assurances of
+a dozen men.
+
+After the address had been delivered, Mr. Lincoln was taken by two
+members of the Young Men's Central Republican Union--Mr. Hiram Barney,
+afterward Collector of the Port of New York, and Mr. Nott, one of the
+subsequent editors of the address--to their club, The Athenæum, where
+a very simple supper was ordered, and five or six Republican members of
+the club who chanced to be in the building were invited in. The supper
+was informal--as informal as anything could be; the conversation was
+easy and familiar; the prospects of the Republican party in the coming
+struggle were talked over, and so little was it supposed by the
+gentlemen who had not heard the address that Mr. Lincoln could possibly
+be the candidate that one of them, Mr. Charles W. Elliott, asked,
+artlessly: "Mr. Lincoln, what candidate do you really think would be
+most likely to carry Illinois?" Mr. Lincoln answered by illustration:
+"Illinois is a peculiar State, in three parts. In northern Illinois, Mr.
+Seward would have a larger majority than I could get. In middle
+Illinois, I think I could call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. In
+southern Illinois, it would make no difference who was the candidate."
+This answer was taken to be merely illustrative by everybody except,
+perhaps, Mr. Barney and Mr. Nott, each of whom, it subsequently
+appeared, had particularly noted Mr. Lincoln's reply.
+
+The little party broke up. Mr. Lincoln had been cordially received, but
+certainly had not been flattered. The others shook him by the hand and,
+as they put on their overcoats, said: "Mr. Nott is going down town and
+he will show you the way to the Astor House." Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott
+started on foot, but the latter observing that Mr. Lincoln was
+apparently Walking with some difficulty said, "Are you lame, Mr.
+Lincoln?" He replied that he had on new boots and they hurt him. The two
+gentlemen then boarded a street car. When they reached the place where
+Mr. Nott would leave the car on his way home, he shook Mr. Lincoln by
+the hand and, bidding him good-bye, told him that this car would carry
+him to the side door of the Astor House. Mr. Lincoln went on alone, the
+only occupant of the car. The next time he came to New York, he rode
+down Broadway to the Astor House standing erect in an open barouche
+drawn by four white horses. He bowed to the patriotic thousands in the
+street, on the sidewalks, in the windows, on the house-tops, and they
+cheered him as the lawfully elected President of the United States and
+bade him go on and, with God's help, save the Union.
+
+His companion in the street car has often wondered since then what Mr.
+Lincoln thought about during the remainder of his ride that night to the
+Astor House. The Cooper Institute had, owing to a snowstorm, not been
+full, and its intelligent, respectable, non-partisan audience had not
+rung out enthusiastic applause like a concourse of Western auditors
+magnetised by their own enthusiasm. Had the address--the most carefully
+prepared, the most elaborately investigated and demonstrated and
+verified of all the work of his life--been a failure? But in the matter
+of quality and ability, if not of quantity and enthusiasm, he had never
+addressed such an audience; and some of the ablest men in the Northern
+States had expressed their opinion of the address in terms which left no
+doubt of the highest appreciation. Did Mr. Lincoln regard the address
+which he had just delivered to a small and critical audience as a
+success? Did he have the faintest glimmer of the brilliant effect which
+was to follow? Did he feel the loneliness of the situation--the want of
+his loyal Illinois adherents? Did his sinking heart infer that he was
+but a speck of humanity to which the great city would never again give a
+thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; unadorned, apparently
+uncultivated, showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His
+dress that night before a New York audience was the most unbecoming that
+a fiend's ingenuity could have devised for a tall, gaunt man--a black
+frock coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and
+arms--a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled
+throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night
+more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more
+conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know
+that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition,
+sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze
+upon the very pinnacle of American fame and aspire to it in a time so
+troubled that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. What were
+this man's thoughts when he was left alone? Did a faint shadow of the
+future rest upon his soul? Did he feel in some mysterious way that on
+that night he had crossed the Rubicon of his life-march--that care and
+trouble and political discord, and slander and misrepresentation and
+ridicule and public responsibilities, such as hardly ever before
+burdened a conscientious soul, coupled with war and defeat and disaster,
+were to be thenceforth his portion nearly to his life's end, and that
+his end was to be a bloody act which would appall the world and send a
+thrill of horror through the hearts of friends and enemies alike, so
+that when the woeful tidings came the bravest of the Southern brave
+should burst into tears and cry aloud, "Oh! the unhappy South, the
+unhappy South!"
+
+The impression left on his companion's mind as he gave a last glance at
+him in the street car was that he seemed sad and lonely; and when it was
+too late, when the car was beyond call, he blamed himself for not
+accompanying Mr. Lincoln to the Astor House--not because he was a
+distinguished stranger, but because he seemed a sad and lonely man.
+
+_February 12, 1908_.
+
+
+
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. LINCOLN
+
+    69 Wall St., New York,
+
+    February 9, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    The "Young Men's Central Republican Union" of this city very
+    cordially desire that you should deliver during the ensuing
+    month--what I may term--_a political lecture_. The peculiarities of
+    the case are these--A series of lectures has been determined
+    upon--The first was delivered by Mr. Blair of St. Louis a short time
+    ago--the second will be in a few days by Mr. C.M. Clay, and the
+    third we would prefer to have from you, rather than from any other
+    person. Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an
+    ordinary political meeting. These lectures have been _contrived_ to
+    call out our better, but busier citizens, who never attend political
+    meetings. A large part of the audience would also consist of ladies.
+    The time we should prefer, would be about the middle of March, but
+    if any earlier or later day will be more convenient for you we would
+    alter our arrangements.
+
+    Allow me to hope that we shall have the pleasure of welcoming you to
+    New York. You are, I believe, an entire stranger to your Republican
+    brethren here; but they have, for you, the highest esteem, and your
+    celebrated contest with Judge Douglas awoke their warmest sympathy
+    and admiration. Those of us who are "in the ranks" would regard your
+    presence as very material aid, and as an honor and pleasure which I
+    cannot sufficiently express.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+
+    To Hon. Abram Lincoln.
+
+    69 Wall St., New York,
+
+    May 23, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    I enclose a copy of your address in New York.
+
+    We (the Young Men's Rep. Union) design to publish a new edition in
+    larger type and better form, with such notes and references as will
+    best attract readers seeking information. Have you any memoranda of
+    your investigations which you would approve of inserting?
+
+    You and your Western friends, I think, underrate this speech. It has
+    produced a greater effect here than any other single speech. It is
+    the real platform in the Eastern States, and must carry the
+    conservative element in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
+
+    Therefore I desire that it should be as nearly perfect as may be.
+    Most of the emendations are trivial and do not affect the
+    substance--all are merely suggested for your judgment.
+
+    I cannot help adding that this speech is an extraordinary example
+    of condensed English. After some experience in criticising for
+    Reviews, I find hardly anything to touch and nothing to omit. It is
+    the only one I know of which I cannot _shorten_, and--like a good
+    arch--moving one word tumbles a whole sentence down.
+
+    Finally--it being a bad and foolish thing for a candidate to write
+    letters, and you having doubtless more to do of that than is
+    pleasant or profitable, we will not add to your burden in that
+    regard, but if you will let any friend who has nothing to do, advise
+    us as to your wishes, in this or any other matter, we will try to
+    carry them out.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+    To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+
+    Springfield, Ills., May 31, 1860.
+
+    Charles C. Nott, Esq.
+
+    _My Dear Sir_:
+
+    Yours of the 23rd, accompanied by a copy of the speech delivered by
+    me at the Cooper Institute, and upon which you have made some notes
+    for emendations, was received some days ago--Of course I would not
+    object to, but would be pleased rather, with a more perfect edition
+    of that speech.
+
+    I did not preserve memoranda of my investigations; and I could not
+    now re-examine, and make notes, without an expenditure of time
+    which I can not bestow upon it--Some of your notes I do not
+    understand.
+
+    So far as it is intended merely to improve in grammar, and elegance
+    of composition, I am quite agreed; but I do not wish the sense
+    changed, or modified, to a hair's breadth--And you, not having
+    studied the particular points so closely as I have, can not be quite
+    sure that you do not change the sense when you do not intend it--For
+    instance, in a note at bottom of first page, you propose to
+    substitute "Democrats" for "Douglas"--But what I am saying there is
+    _true_ of Douglas, and is not true of "Democrats" generally; so that
+    the proposed substitution would be a very considerable blunder--Your
+    proposed insertion of "residences" though it would do little or no
+    harm, is not at all necessary to the sense I was trying to
+    convey--On page 5 your proposed grammatical change would certainly
+    do no harm--The "_impudently absurd"_ I stick to--The striking out
+    "_he"_ and inserting "_we"_ turns the sense exactly wrong--The
+    striking out "_upon it_" leaves the sense too general and
+    incomplete--The sense is "act as they acted _upon that question_
+    "--not as they acted generally.
+
+    After considering your proposed changes on page 7, I do not think
+    them material, but I am willing to defer to you in relation to them.
+
+    On page 9, striking out "_to us_" is probably right--The word
+    "_lawyer's"_ I wish retained. The word "_Courts"_ struck out twice,
+    I wish reduced to "Court" and retained--"Court" as a collection more
+    properly governs the plural "have" as I understand--"The" preceding
+    "Court," in the latter case, must also be retained--The words
+    "quite," "as," and "or" on the same page, I wish retained. The
+    italicising, and quotation marking, I have no objection to.
+
+    As to the note at bottom, I do not think any too much is
+    admitted--What you propose on page 11 is right--I return your copy
+    of the speech, together with one printed here, under my own hasty
+    supervising. That at New York was printed without any supervision by
+    me--If you conclude to publish a new edition, allow me to see the
+    proof-sheets.
+
+    And now thanking you for your very complimentary letter, and your
+    interest for me generally, I subscribe myself.
+
+    Your friend and servant,
+
+    A. Lincoln.
+
+    69 Wall Street, New York.
+
+    August 28, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    Mr. Judd insists on our printing the revised edition of your Cooper
+    Ins. speech _without waiting to send you the_ proofs.
+
+    If this is so determined, I wish you to know, that I have made no
+    alterations other than those you sanctioned, except--
+
+    1. I do not find that Abraham Baldwin voted on the Ordinance of '87.
+    On the contrary he appears _not_ to have acted with Congress during
+    the sitting of the Convention. Wm. Pierce seems to have taken his
+    place then; and his name is recorded as voting for the Ordinance.
+    This makes no difference in the result, but I presume you will not
+    wish the historical inaccuracy (if it is such) to stand. I will
+    therefore (unless you write to the contrary) strike out his name in
+    that place and reduce the number from "four" to "three" where you
+    sum up the number of times he voted.
+
+    2. In the quotations from the Constitution I have given its exact
+    language; as "delegated" instead of "granted," etc. As it is given
+    in _quo_. marks, I presume the exact letter of the text should be
+    followed.
+
+    _If these are not correct please write immediately_.
+
+    _Our_ apology for the delay is that we have been weighed down by
+    other matters; _mine_ that I have but to-day returned to town.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+    To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+
+    69 WALL STREET, N.Y.
+
+    Sept. 17, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    We forward you by this day's express 250 copies, with the last
+    corrections. I delayed sending, thinking that you would prefer these
+    to those first printed.
+
+    The "Abraham Baldwin letter" referred to in your last I regret to
+    say has _not_ arrived. From your not touching the proofs in that
+    regard, I inferred (and hope) that the correction was not itself an
+    error.
+
+    Should you wish a larger number of copies do not hesitate to let us
+    know; it will afford us much pleasure to furnish them and no
+    inconvenience whatever.
+
+    Respectfully, etc.,
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT.
+
+    Hon. A. Lincoln.
+
+
+    SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., Sept. 22, 1860.
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT, Esq.,
+
+    _My Dear Sir_:
+
+    Yours of the 17th was duly received--The 250 copies have not yet
+    arrived--I am greatly obliged to you for what you have done, and
+    what you propose to do.
+
+    The "Abraham Baldwin letter" in substance was that I could not find
+    the Journal of the Confederation Congress for the session at which
+    was passed the Ordinance of 1787--and that in stating Mr. Baldwin
+    had voted for its passage, I had relied on a communication of Mr.
+    Greeley, over his own signature, published in the New York _Weekly
+    Tribune_ of October 15, 1859. If you will turn to that paper, you
+    will there see that Mr. Greeley apparently copies from the Journal,
+    and places the name of Mr. Baldwin among those of the men who voted
+    for the measure.
+
+    Still; if the Journal itself shows differently, of course it is
+    right.
+
+    Yours very truly,
+
+    A. LINCOLN.
+
+The Address of
+
+THE HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+
+In Vindication of the Policy of the Framers of the
+
+Constitution and the Principles of the
+
+Republican Party.
+
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860.
+
+Issued by the Young Men's Republican Union.
+
+With Notes by
+
+CHARLES C. NOTT and CEPHAS BRAINERD,
+
+Members of the Board of Control.
+
+OFFICERS OF THE UNION
+
+CHARLES T. RODGERS, President.
+DEXTER A. HAWKINS, Vice-President.
+ERASMUS STERLING, Secretary.
+WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, Treasurer.
+
+EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
+
+CEPHAS BRAINERD, Chairman.
+BENJAMIN P. MANIERRE,
+RICHARD C. McCORMICK,
+CHARLES C. NOTT,
+CHARLES H. COOPER,
+P.G. DEGRAW,
+JAMES H. WELSH,
+E.C. JOHNSON,
+LEWIS M. PECK.
+
+ADVISORY BOARD
+
+WM. CULLEN BRYANT,
+DANIEL DREW,
+HIRAM BARNEY,
+WILLIAM V. BRADY,
+JOHN JAY,
+GEORGE W. BLUNT,
+HENRY A. HURLBUT,
+ABIJAH MANN, JR.,
+HAMILTON FISH,
+FRANCIS HALL,
+HORACE GREELEY,
+CHARLES A. PEABODY,
+EDGAR KETCHUM,
+JAMES KELLY,
+GEORGE FOLSOM,
+WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES,
+BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This edition of Mr. Lincoln's address has been prepared and published by
+the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, to exemplify its wisdom,
+truthfulness, and learning. No one who has not actually attempted to
+verify its details can understand the patient research and historical
+labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is
+scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters;
+and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and
+in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not
+travelled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every
+trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln
+has turned from the testimony of "the Fathers," on the general question
+of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the
+first line to the last--from his premises to his conclusion, he travels
+with swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled--an
+argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and
+without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A
+single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words contains a
+chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to
+verify and which must have cost the author months of investigation to
+acquire. And, though the public should justly estimate the labor
+bestowed on the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the greater
+labor involved on those which are omitted--how many pages have been
+read--how many works examined--what numerous statutes, resolutions,
+speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked through. Commencing
+with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as
+an historical work--brief, complete, profound, impartial,
+truthful--which will survive the time and the occasion that called it
+forth, and be esteemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth than
+its unpretending modesty.
+
+NEW YORK, September, 1860.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS
+
+    MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which
+    I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+    anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall
+    be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and
+    the inferences and observations following that presentation.
+
+    In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New
+    York _Times_, Senator Douglas said:
+
+    "_Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
+    understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
+    now_."
+
+    I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I
+    so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed
+    starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of
+    the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the
+    inquiry: "_What was the understanding those fathers had of the
+    question mentioned_?"
+
+    What is the frame of Government under which we live?
+
+    The answer must be: "The Constitution of the United States." That
+    Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, (and under
+    which the present Government first went into operation,) and twelve
+    subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed
+    in 1789.[4]
+
+    Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
+    "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly
+    called our fathers who framed that part of the present Government.
+    It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is
+    altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and
+    sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being
+    familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be
+    repeated.[5]
+
+
+    I take these "thirty-nine" for the present, as being "our fathers
+    who framed the Government under which we live."
+
+    What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+    understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
+
+    It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid _our Federal
+    Government_ to control as to slavery in _our Federal Territories_?
+
+    Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans
+    the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this
+    issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our
+    fathers understood "better than we."
+
+    Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever
+    acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon
+    it--how they expressed that better understanding.
+
+    In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
+    owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other,[6] the Congress of
+    the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting
+    slavery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who
+    afterward framed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+    on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh
+    Williamson voted for the prohibition,[7] thus showing that, in their
+    understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+    anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+    to slavery in federal territory. The other of the four--James
+    M'Henry--voted against the prohibition, showing that, for some
+    cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.[8]
+
+    In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the Convention was
+    in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still
+    was the only territory owned by the United States, the same question
+    of prohibiting Slavery in the Territories again came before the
+    Congress of the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who
+    afterward signed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+    on the question. They were William Blount and William Few[9]; and
+    they both voted for the prohibition--thus showing that, in their
+    understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+    anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+    to slavery in federal territory. This time, the prohibition became a
+    law, being part of what is now well known as the Ordinance of
+    '87.[10]
+
+    The question of federal control of slavery in the territories, seems
+    not to have been directly before the Convention which framed the
+    original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
+    "thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
+    expressed any opinion on that precise question.[11]
+
+    In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an
+    act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the
+    prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for
+    this act was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas
+    Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
+    Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of
+    opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
+    which is equivalent to an unanimous passage.[12] In this Congress,
+    there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
+    original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm.
+    S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+    Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Clymer,
+    Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+    Madison.[13]
+
+
+    This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+    federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly
+    forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory; else
+    both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support
+    the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the
+    prohibition.
+
+    Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then
+    President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed
+    the bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing
+    that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from federal
+    authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.
+
+    No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution,
+    North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now
+    constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia
+    ceded that which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and
+    Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the
+    ceding States that the Federal Government should not prohibit
+    slavery in the ceded country.[14] Besides this, slavery was then
+    actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress,
+    on taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit
+    slavery within them. But they did interfere with it--take control of
+    it--even there to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized the
+    Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization, they
+    prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory, from any place
+    without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so
+    brought.[15] This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas
+    and nays. In that Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who
+    framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George
+    Read and Abraham Baldwin.[16] They all, probably, voted for it.
+    Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record,
+    if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the
+    Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.
+
+    In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
+    former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
+    but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In
+    1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
+    which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying
+    within that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There
+    were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
+    extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people. Congress
+    did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; but they did
+    interfere with it--take control of it--in a more marked and
+    extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi. The
+    substance of the provision therein made, in relation to slaves, was:
+
+    _First_. That no slave should be imported into the territory from
+    foreign parts.
+
+    _Second_. That no slave should be carried into it who had been
+    imported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
+
+    _Third_. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the
+    owner, and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the
+    cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the
+    slave.[17]
+
+    This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress
+    which passed it, there were two of the "thirty-nine." They were
+    Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton.[18] As stated in the case of
+    Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. They would not
+    have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition to it,
+    if, in their understanding, it violated either the line properly
+    dividing local from federal authority, or any provision of the
+    Constitution.
+
+    In 1819-20, came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes were
+    taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the
+    various phases of the general question. Two of the
+    "thirty-nine"--Rufus King and Charles Pinckney--were members of
+    that Congress.[19] Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition
+    and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted
+    against slavery prohibition and against all compromises. By this,
+    Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing local
+    from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was
+    violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in federal territory; while
+    Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed that, in his understanding, there
+    was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that
+    case.[20]
+
+    The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine,"
+    or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
+    discover.
+
+    To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
+    in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+    1819-20--there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting
+    John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
+    Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of
+    those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the
+    question, which, by the text, they understood better than we, is
+    twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in
+    anyway.[21]
+
+    Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+    framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
+    official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the
+    very question which the text affirms they "understood just as well,
+    and even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear
+    majority of the whole "thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make
+    them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if,
+    in their understanding, any proper division between local and
+    federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made
+    themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to
+    control as to slavery in the federal territories. Thus the
+    twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
+    actions under such responsibility speak still louder.
+
+    Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+    slavery in the federal territories, in the instances in which they
+    acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
+    known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division
+    of local from federal authority, or some provision or principle of
+    the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
+    question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to
+    them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to
+    support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he
+    understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he
+    may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which
+    he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it
+    inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two
+    who voted against the prohibition, as having done so because, in
+    their understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.[22]
+
+    The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have
+    discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
+    direct question of federal control of slavery in the federal
+    territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
+    understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
+    from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
+    all.[23]
+
+    For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
+    omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+    person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers
+    who framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I
+    have also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by
+    any of the "thirty-nine" even, on any other phase of the general
+    question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and
+    declarations on those other phases, as the foreign slave trade, and
+    the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would appear to us
+    that on the direct question of federal control of slavery in federal
+    territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably
+    have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were
+    several of the most noted anti-slavery men of those times--as Dr.
+    Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris--while there was
+    not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John
+    Rutledge, of South Carolina.[24]
+
+    The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed
+    the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the
+    whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from
+    federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the
+    Federal Government to control slavery in the federal territories;
+    while all the rest probably had the same understanding. Such,
+    unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the
+    original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the
+    question "better than we."
+
+    But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
+    question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In
+    and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it;
+    and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government
+    under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve
+    amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist
+    that federal control of slavery in federal territories violates the
+    Constitution, point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus
+    violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon provisions in
+    these amendatory articles and not in the original instrument. The
+    Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the
+    fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of
+    "life, liberty or property without due process of law"; while
+    Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the
+    tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the
+    United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States
+    respectively, or to the people."[25]
+
+    Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+    Congress which sat under the Constitution--the identical Congress
+    which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of
+    slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the same
+    Congress, but they were the identical same individual men who, at
+    the same session, and at the same time within the session had under
+    consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional
+    amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory
+    the nation then owned. The Constitutional amendments were introduced
+    before, and passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so
+    that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance,
+    the Constitutional amendments were also pending.[26]
+
+    The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+    framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were
+    pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government
+    under which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal
+    Government to control slavery in the federal territories.
+
+    Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm
+    that the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and
+    carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent
+    with each other? And does not such affirmation become impudently
+    absurd when coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth,
+    that those who did the two things, alleged to be inconsistent,
+    understood whether they really were inconsistent better than
+    we--better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent?
+
+    It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the
+    original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
+    which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
+    include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
+    Government under which we live."[27] And so assuming, I defy any man
+    to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that,
+    in his understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. I go
+    a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the
+    whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present
+    century, (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last
+    half of the present century,) declare that, in his understanding,
+    any proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of
+    the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+    slavery in the federal territories. To those who now so declare, I
+    give, not only "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+    live," but with them all other living men within the century in
+    which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be
+    able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
+
+    Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I
+    do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
+    fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current
+    experience--to reject all progress--all improvement. What I do say
+    is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers
+    in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and
+    argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly
+    considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case
+    whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better
+    than we.
+
+    If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of
+    local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
+    forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
+    federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
+    position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can.
+    But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to
+    history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
+    "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," were
+    of the same opinion--thus substituting falsehood and deception for
+    truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day
+    sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the Government under
+    which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which
+    ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local
+    from federal authority or some part of the Constitution, forbids the
+    Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal
+    territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time,
+    brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
+    understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
+    especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that
+    they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we
+    do now."
+
+    But enough! _Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the
+    Government under which we live, understood this question just as
+    well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act
+    as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask--all Republicans
+    desire--in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let
+    it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
+    tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual
+    presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
+    Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly,
+    but fully and fairly maintained_. For this Republicans contend, and
+    with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.
+
+    And now, if they would listen--as I suppose they will not--I would
+    address a few words to the Southern people.
+
+    I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+    people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+    justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you
+    speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
+    or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing
+    to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
+    In all your contentions with one another each of you deems an
+    unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first
+    thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be
+    an indispensable prerequisite--licence, so to speak--among you to be
+    admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be
+    prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just
+    to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and
+    specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
+    justify.
+
+    You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the
+    burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is
+    it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no
+    votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it
+    prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change
+    of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+    cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+    are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+    find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+    your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the
+    truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact
+    that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and
+    not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
+    primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by
+    some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong
+    principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to
+    where you ought to have started--to a discussion of the right or
+    wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would
+    wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object,
+    then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly
+    opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of
+    whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section;
+    and so meet us as if it were possible that something may be said on
+    our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe
+    that the principle which "our fathers who framed the Government
+    under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and
+    indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so
+    clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's
+    consideration.
+
+    Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
+    sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less
+    than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as
+    President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
+    Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
+    Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that
+    subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and
+    about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he
+    considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same
+    connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy
+    of free States.[28]
+
+
+    Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+    upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+    against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself
+    speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+    sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that
+    warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+    example pointing to the right application of it.
+
+    But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we
+    are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is
+    conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the
+    new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+    on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who
+    framed the Government under which we live"; while you with one
+    accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist
+    upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves
+    as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new
+    propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and
+    denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for
+    reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional
+    Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the
+    Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for
+    maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some
+    for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave
+    another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular
+    Sovereignty"; but never a man among you in favor of federal
+    prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the
+    practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+    live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+    advocate in the century within which our Government originated.
+    Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves,
+    and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most
+    clear and stable foundations.
+
+    Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than
+    it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but
+    we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded
+    the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your
+    innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question.
+    Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go
+    back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same
+    conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt
+    the precepts and policy of the old times.
+
+    You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny
+    it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown
+    was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
+    Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our
+    party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it.
+    If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man
+    and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for
+    asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after
+    you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told
+    that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is
+    simply malicious slander.[29]
+
+    Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
+    the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and
+    declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it.
+    We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which was
+    not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under
+    which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
+    affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near
+    at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
+    charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in
+    those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not
+    quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at
+    least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it
+    to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and
+    declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any
+    interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your
+    slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do,
+    in common with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which
+    we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves
+    do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the
+    slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe
+    they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your
+    misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political
+    contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with
+    sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the
+    charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood
+    and thunder among the slaves.
+
+    Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+    Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
+    insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three
+    times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry?[30] You can
+    scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that
+    Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present
+    state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or
+    even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The
+    indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have
+    no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black
+    or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in
+    parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the
+    indispensable connecting trains.
+
+    Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for
+    their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A
+    plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to
+    twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a
+    favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and
+    the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case
+    occurring under peculiar circumstances,[31] The gunpowder plot of
+    British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in
+    point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret;
+    and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the
+    plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.
+    Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy
+    assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score
+    or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but
+    no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this
+    country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such
+    an event, will be alike disappointed.
+
+    In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is
+    still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and
+    deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil
+    will wear off insensibly; and their places be, _pari passu_, filled
+    up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force
+    itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."[32]
+
+    Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+    emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia;
+    and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding
+    States only. The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the
+    power of restraining the extension of the institution--the power to
+    insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American
+    soil which is now free from slavery.
+
+    John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.
+    It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
+    which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd
+    that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
+    could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
+    the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings
+    and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
+    till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He
+    ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
+    execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's
+    attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the
+    same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case,
+    and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of
+    the two things.
+
+    And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
+    Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
+    organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
+    nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against
+    slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
+    votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that
+    sentiment--by breaking up the political organization which rallies
+    around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has
+    been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if
+    you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which
+    created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some
+    other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the
+    number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?
+
+    But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
+    your Constitutional rights.[33]
+
+    That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if
+    not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of
+    numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the
+    Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.
+
+    When you make these declarations, you have a specific and
+    well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of
+    yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them
+    there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the
+    Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such
+    right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
+    in the Constitution, even by implication.
+
+    Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the
+    Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
+    Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and
+    us. You will rule or ruin in all events.
+
+    This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the
+    Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in
+    your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction
+    between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for
+    you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your
+    Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories,
+    and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made
+    in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare
+    majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another
+    in the reasons for making it;[34] that it is so made as that its
+    avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and
+    that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact--the
+    statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is
+    distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."[35]
+
+    An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
+    property in a slave is not "_distinctly_ and _expressly_ affirmed"
+    in it. Bear in mind, the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion
+    that such right is _impliedly_ affirmed in the Constitution; but
+    they pledge their veracity that it is "_distinctly_ and _expressly_"
+    affirmed there--"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything
+    else--"expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the
+    aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.
+
+    If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+    affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to
+    others to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be
+    found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any
+    connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery,
+    and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is
+    called a "person";--and wherever his master's legal right in
+    relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor
+    which may be due,"--as a debt payable in service or labor.[36] Also,
+    it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode
+    of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was
+    employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that
+    there could be property in man.
+
+    To show all this, is easy and certain.[37]
+
+    When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their
+    notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
+    mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?
+
+    And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the
+    Government under which we live"--the men who made the
+    Constitution--decided this same Constitutional question in our
+    favor, long ago--decided it without division among themselves, when
+    making the decision; without division among themselves about the
+    meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is
+    left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.
+
+    Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
+    justified to break up this Government, unless such a court decision
+    as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final
+    rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a
+    Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will
+    destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having
+    destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a
+    pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver
+    or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"
+
+    To be sure, what the robber demanded of me--my money--was my own;
+    and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than
+    my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my
+    money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my
+    vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.
+
+    A few words now to Republicans. _It is exceedingly desirable that
+    all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in
+    harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it
+    so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and
+    ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as
+    listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to
+    them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can_.[38]
+    Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of
+    their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will
+    satisfy them.
+
+    Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
+    surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present
+    complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+    Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them,
+    if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and
+    insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we
+    never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+    this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+    denunciation.
+
+    The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must
+    not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we
+    do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We
+    have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our
+    organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches
+    we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this
+    has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince
+    them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any
+    attempt to disturb them.
+
+    These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+    convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery _wrong_,
+    and join them in calling it _right_. And this must be done
+    thoroughly--done in _acts_ as well as in _words_. Silence will not
+    be tolerated--we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator
+    Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing
+    all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics,
+    in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return
+    their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our
+    Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected
+    from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to
+    believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
+
+    I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+    Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, _do_ nothing
+    to us, and _say_ what you please about slavery." But we do let them
+    alone--have never disturbed them--so that, after all, it is what we
+    say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of
+    doing, until we cease saying.
+
+    I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the
+    overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions.[39] Yet those
+    Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn
+    emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these
+    other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these
+    Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the
+    demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the
+    whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason
+    they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this
+    consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right,
+    and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national
+    recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.[40]
+
+    Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+    conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
+    acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and
+    should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly
+    object to its nationality--its universality; if it is wrong, they
+    cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they
+    ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
+    ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.[41]
+    Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise
+    fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
+    they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as
+    being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
+    Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view
+    of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do
+    this?
+
+    Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
+    where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
+    its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
+    prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to
+    overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids
+    this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let
+    us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith
+    we are so industriously plied and belabored--contrivances such as
+    groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong,
+    vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor
+    a dead man--such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about
+    which all true men do care--such as Union appeals beseeching true
+    Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and
+    calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such as
+    invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington
+    said, and undo what Washington did.
+
+    Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+    against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+    Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT
+    RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO
+    OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+A
+
+Andersonville, responsibility for, 190
+Andrew, John. A., 105
+Antietam, battle of, 115
+Appomattox, the surrender at, 177 ff.
+Atlanta, capture of, 151
+
+
+B
+
+Bahamas, trade of the, with the Confederacy, 167 ff.
+Banks, General N.P., 103
+Bazaine, General, in command of French army in Mexico, 156
+Belle Isle, the prison of, 189
+Bentonville, battle of, 183
+Bixby, Mrs., letter to, from Lincoln, 152
+"Black Republicans," the, 250
+Blair, Prank P., difficulties with, 161
+Blount, William, 237
+Border States, the, and emancipation, 114 ff.
+Bragg, Gen. Braxton, 136 ff.
+Brainerd, Cephas, on the Cooper Union address, 211
+Brown, John, raid of, 254
+Bryant on Lincoln, 202
+Buckner, Gen. S.B., 99
+Bull Run, second battle of, 122
+Burnside, Gen. Ambrose F.,
+  and the Army of the Potomac, 127;
+  and the defence of Knoxville, 137
+Butler, Benjamin F., 103, 120
+
+
+C
+
+Cabinet, cabals in the, 160
+Cedar Creek, the battle of, 150 ff.
+Chancellorsville, battle of, 129
+Charleston, evacuation of, 169
+Chase, Salmon P.,
+  and the Presidential election of 1864, 154;
+  resignation of, 154;
+  appointed chief justice, 155;
+  efforts of, for the Presidency, 157;
+  difficulties with, in the Cabinet, 161
+Chickamauga, battle of, 136
+Clay, Cassius M., 223
+Congress and slavery in the Territories, 246 ff.
+Constitution,
+  the 13th amendment to, 163 ff.;
+  defined by Lincoln, 236 ff.;
+  and property in slaves, 260 ff.
+"Crocker, Master", 113
+Curtin, Gov. A.G., 105
+Curtis, Gen. S.R., 108
+
+
+D
+
+Danville, the prison of, 147, 189 ff.;
+  mortality in, 159
+Davis, Jefferson, and Benj. F. Butler, 120;
+  and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 163;
+  capture of, 187;
+  and the other leaders of the South, 189;
+  and the management of the Southern
+prisons, 190 ff;
+  as a prisoner and martyr, 191
+Douglas, Stephen A., and the debate with Lincoln, cited, 235;
+  and the sedition act, 263;
+  and the Dred Scott decision, 246
+Dred Scott case, the, 246
+
+
+E
+
+Early, Jubal A., raid of on Washington, 142 ff.;
+  and the battle of Winchester, 149;
+  and the battle of Cedar Creek, 150
+Elliott, Charles W., 213
+Emancipation Proclamation, the, 115 ff.
+Enfield rifles, use of, by Confederates, 146
+
+
+F
+
+Farragut, Admiral D.G., 111
+Few, William, 237
+Fisher, Fort, capture of, 167
+Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 238
+Floyd, General John B., 99
+Franklin, battle of, 151 ff.
+Franklin, Benjamin, 245
+
+
+G
+
+Georgia, cession of territory by, 239
+Gettysburg, campaign of, 132 ff.
+Goldsborough, surrender of Johnston's army at, 183
+Goodell, Dr. Wm., 212
+Grant, Gen. U.S., captures Fort Donelson, 99;
+  and the Vicksburg campaign, 134;
+  and the Chattanooga campaign, 136;
+  commander of the armies, 137 ff.;
+  suggested for the Presidency, 157;
+  declines to consider terms of peace, 171;
+  at Appomattox, 177 ff.;
+  at Goldsborough, 184 ff.
+Greeley, Horace, 105
+Greene, Frank V., on Lincoln, 106
+
+
+H
+
+Halleck, Gen. H.W., 103
+Hallowell, Col. Norwood, 116
+Hamilton, Alexander, 245
+Hancock, Gen. W.S., 127
+Harper's Ferry, 124;
+  John Brown's raid at, 254
+Helper, H.R., the "Impending Crisis" of, 258
+Hewitt, Abram S., 99 ff.
+Higginson, Col. T.W., 116
+Hood, Gen. John B., 151 ff.
+Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 107, 127, 130 ff., 137
+
+
+I
+
+Intervention of France and England threatened, 122
+
+
+J
+
+Jefferson, Thomas, on emancipation, 257
+Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 138, 151, 169, 183 ft.
+
+
+K
+
+King, Rufus, 241
+Knoxville, siege of, 137
+
+
+L
+
+Lee, Gen. Robert E. and the Antietam campaign, 122;
+  and the campaign of Gettysburg, 130 ff.;
+  and the defence of Virginia, 137 ff.;
+  proposes treaty of peace, 171;
+  defeated at Five Forks, 171;
+  at Appomattox, 171
+Libby prison, Presidential election in, 158;
+  mortality in, 159;
+  record of, 189 ff.
+Lincoln, Abraham, and Hewitt, A.S., 100 ff.;
+  writes to "Master Crocker", 113;
+  as commander-in-chief, 103 ff.;
+  and the death penalty for soldiers, 119;
+  campaign methods of McClellan, 125 ff.;
+  letter of, appointing Hooker, 128;
+  to Grant on the fall of Vicksburg, 134;
+  address of, at Gettysburg, 134;
+  letter of, to Mrs. Bixby, 152;
+  re-election of, as President, 157;
+  and the exchange of prisoners, 158 ff.;
+  and the control of the administration, 160;
+  and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162 ff.;
+  second inaugural of, 169 ff.;
+  last public address of, 178;
+  death of, 181;
+  and the proposed capture of Jefferson Davis, 188;
+  death of, reported to the army at Goldsborough, 190;
+  comparison of, with Washington and Jackson, 195 ff.;
+  Cooper Union address of, 205 ff.;
+  writes to Nott, 225 ff.
+Lincoln, Robert, on the Cooper Union address, 209
+Longstreet, Gen. James, 133, 137
+Lookout Mountain, battle of, 137
+Louisiana, purchase of, 240
+Lowell on Lincoln, 202
+
+
+M
+
+Maximilian, Prince, and the invasion of Mexico, 156
+McClellan, Gen. George B. 102 ff.;
+  and the Antietam campaign, 122 ff.;
+  ordered to report to New Jersey, 126
+Meade, Gen. Geo. G., 127, 131
+Mifflin, Thomas, 237
+Milliken's Bend, battle of, 118
+Minnesota, troops from, 165;
+  university of, 167
+Missionary Ridge, battle of, 137
+Mississippi, organisation of the Territory of, 240
+Missouri, admission of, 241
+Missouri Compromise, the, 31, 38
+Monocacy Creek, battle of, 143
+Morgan, Gen. John, 177
+Morris, Gouverneur, 245
+
+
+N
+
+Napoleon, Louis, and the invasion of Mexico, 156
+Nashville, battle of, 151 ff.
+_Nation_, the London, on the character of Lincoln, 198 ff.
+New Orleans, capture of, 111 ff.
+Nineteenth Army Corps and Early's raid, 145
+North Carolina, cession of territory by, 239
+Northwestern Territory, the, of the U.S., 237
+Nott, Chas. C.,
+  introduction to the Cooper Union address, 215 ff.;
+  letter of, to Lincoln, 224 ff.
+Noyes, Wm. Curtis, 212
+
+
+O
+
+Ordinance of 1787, 238 ff.
+
+
+P
+
+Pea Ridge, battle of, 108
+Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162
+Pickett, Gen. G.E., 133
+Pinckney, Charles, 241 ff.
+Pope, Gen. John, 103, 122
+Port Hudson, surrender of, 112
+Presidential election in Libby prison, 158
+Prisoners, the exchange of, 158
+Putnam, George Palmer, and the Cooper Union address, 212
+
+
+R
+
+Reagan, Postmaster-general, at Goldsborough, 184
+Reconstruction, Lincoln's views on, 180 ff.
+Republican party, the, and slavery in the Territories, 249 ff.
+Republican Union, the Young Men's, 223, 232
+Reynolds, Gen. J.T., 127
+Rosecrans, Gen. Wm. S., and the Chattanooga campaign, 136
+Rutledge, John, 245
+
+
+S
+
+Schechter, Rabbi, on the character of Lincoln, 200
+Schofield, Gen. Geo. W., 152
+Schurz, Carl, on the character of Lincoln, 201
+Seward, W.H., 64, 160
+Sharp's breech-loaders introduced in 1864, 146
+Shaw, Col. R.G., 116
+Shenandoah, campaign in the valley of the, 149
+Sheridan, Gen. Philip,
+  in the Shenandoah, 149 ff.;
+  wins battle of Five Forks, 171
+Sherman, Roger, 237
+Sherman, Gen. Wm. T.,
+  at Missionary Ridge, 137;
+  captures Atlanta, 151;
+  and the Georgia planter, 164;
+  passes by Charleston, 169;
+  at Goldsborough, 183 ff.
+Sigel, Gen. Franz, 108
+Smith, Gen. Kirby, surrender of, 191
+Soldiers authorised to vote in presidential election, 152
+Southampton, insurrection at, 256
+South Mountain, battle of the, 124
+Stanton, Edwin, M., 65, 101 ff., 185
+Stephens, Alexander H., and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162 ff.
+Sumter, Fort, restoration of the flag on, 182
+
+
+T
+
+Taylor, Gen. Richard, surrender of, 191
+Thomas. Gen. Geo. H., 136
+
+
+V
+
+Vicksburg, surrender of, 112, 134
+
+
+W
+
+Wallace, Gen. Lew, 143
+Washington assailed by Early, 142 ff.
+Washington, George, and the
+  Ordinance of 1787, 239;
+  Farewell Address of, 252;
+  the example of, 266
+Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, 119
+Whittier on Lincoln, 201
+Wilderness, battle of the, 140 ff.
+Williamson, Hugh, 237
+Wilmington, capture of, 167
+Winchester, third battle of, 149
+Winder, Gen., and the management of the Southern prisons, 190
+Wisconsin, troops from, 165
+Wisewell, Col. F.H., 144 ff.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: This letter has not been published. It is cited here
+through the courtesy of Mr. Robert Lincoln and Mr. R.W. Gilder.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The text of the speech, as revised by Lincoln and with the
+introduction and notes by Nott and Brainerd, is given as an appendix to
+this volume.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The late George Palmer Putnam.]
+
+[Footnote 4:--The Constitution is attested September 17, 1787. It was
+ratified by all of the States, excepting North Carolina and Rhode
+Island, in 1788, and went into operation on the first Wednesday in
+January, 1789. The first Congress proposed, in 1789, ten articles of
+amendments, all of which were ratified. Article XI. of the amendments
+was prepared by the Third Congress, in 1794, and Article XII. by the
+Eighth Congress, in 1803. Another Article was proposed by the Eleventh
+Congress, prohibiting _citizens_ from receiving titles of nobility,
+presents or offices, from foreign nations. Although this has been
+printed as one of the amendments, it was in fact never ratified, being
+approved by but twelve States. _Vide_ Message of President Monroe, Feb.
+4, 1818.]
+
+[Footnote 5:--The Convention consisted of _sixty-five_ members. Of
+these, _ten_ did not attend the Convention, and _sixteen_ did not sign
+the Constitution. Of these sixteen, six refused to sign, and published
+their reasons for so refusing, _viz._: Robert Yates and John Lansing, of
+New-York; Edmund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia; Luther Martin,
+of Maryland, and Elbridge Gerry, of Mass. Alexander Hamilton alone
+subscribed for New-York, and Rhode Island was not represented in the
+Convention. The names of the "thirty-nine," and the States which they
+represented are subsequently given.]
+
+[Footnote 6:--The cession of Territory was authorized by New-York, Feb.
+19, 1780; by Virginia, January 2, 1781, and again, (without certain
+conditions at first imposed,) "at their sessions, begun on the 20th day
+of October, 1783;" by Mass., Nov. 13, 1784; by Conn., May----, 1786; by
+S. Carolina, March 8, 1787; by N. Carolina, Dec.----, 1789; and by
+Georgia at some time prior to April, 1802.
+
+The deeds of cession were executed by New-York, March 1, 1781; by
+Virginia, March 1, 1784; by Mass., April 19, 1785; by Conn., Sept. 13,
+1786; by S. Carolina, August 9, 1787; by N. Carolina, Feb. 25, 1790; and
+by Georgia, April 24, 1802. Five of these grants were therefore made
+before the adoption of the Constitution, and one afterward; while the
+sixth (North Carolina) was authorized before, and consummated afterward.
+The cession of this State contains the express proviso "that no
+regulations made, or to be made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate
+slaves." The cession of Georgia conveys the Territory subject to the
+Ordinance of '87, except the provision prohibiting slavery.
+
+These dates are also interesting in connection with the extraordinary
+assertions of Chief Justice Taney, (19 How., page 434,) that "the
+example of Virginia was soon afterwards followed by other States," and
+that (p. 436) the power in the Constitution "to dispose of and make all
+needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other property
+belonging to the United States," was intended only "to transfer to the
+new Government the property then held in common," "and has no reference
+whatever to any Territory or other property which the new sovereignty
+might afterwards itself acquire." On this subject, _vide Federalist_,
+No. 43, sub. 4 and 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7:--Sherman was from Connecticut; Mifflin from Penn.;
+Williamson from North Carolina, and M'Henry from Maryland.]
+
+[Footnote 8:--What Mr. M'Henry's views were, it seems impossible to
+ascertain. When the Ordinance of '87 was passed he was sitting in the
+Convention. He was afterwards appointed Secretary of War; yet no record
+has thus far been discovered of his opinion. Mr. M'Henry also wrote a
+biography of La Fayette, which, however, cannot be found in any of the
+public libraries, among which may be mentioned the State Library at
+Albany, and the Astor, Society, and Historical Society Libraries, at New
+York.
+
+Hamilton says of him, in a letter to Washington _(Works_, vol. vi., p.
+65): "M'Henry you know. He would give no strength to the Administration,
+but he would not disgrace the office; his views are good."]
+
+[Footnote 9:--William Blount was from North Carolina, and William Few
+from Georgia--the two States which afterward ceded their Territory to
+the United States. In addition to these facts the following extract from
+the speech of Rufus King in the Senate, on the Missouri Bill, shows the
+entire unanimity with which the Southern States approved the
+prohibition:
+
+"The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United States her claims to
+this Territory, consented, by her delegates in the Old Congress, to this
+Ordinance. Not only Virginia, but North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, by the unanimous votes of their delegates in the Old Congress,
+approved of the Ordinance of 1787, by which Slavery is forever abolished
+in the Territory northwest of the river Ohio. Without the votes of these
+States, the Ordinance could not have been passed; and there is no
+recollection of an opposition from any of these States to the act of
+confirmation passed under the actual Constitution."]
+
+[Footnote 10:--"The famous Ordinance of Congress of the 13th July, 1787,
+which has ever since constituted, in most respects, the model of all our
+territorial governments, and is equally remarkable for the brevity and
+exactness of its text, and for its masterly display of the fundamental
+principles of civil and religious liberty."--_Justice Story, 1
+Commentaries_: §1312.
+
+"It is well known that the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn by the Hon.
+Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, and adopted with scarcely a verbal
+alteration by Congress. It is a noble and imperishable monument to his
+fame."--_Id._ note.
+
+The ordinance was reported by a committee, of which Wm. S. Johnson and
+Charles Pinckney were members. It recites that, "for extending the
+fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the
+basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are
+erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws,
+constitutions, and governments which forever hereafter shall be formed
+in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment of States
+and permanent government, and for their admission to a share in the
+federal councils, on an equal footing with the original States, at as
+early periods as may be consistent with the general interest--
+
+"It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority aforesaid, that
+the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact
+between the original States and the people and States in the said
+Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to
+wit:"
+
+"_Art._ 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in
+the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof
+the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any
+person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully
+claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
+reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
+service."
+
+On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required by Judge
+Yates, of New York, when it appeared _that his was the only vote in the
+negative_.
+
+The ordinance of April 23, 1784, was a brief outline of that of '87. It
+was reported by a Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was chairman, and
+the report contained a slavery prohibition intended to take effect in
+1800. This was stricken out of the report, six States voting to retain
+it--three voting to strike out--one being divided (N.C.), and the others
+not being represented. (The assent of nine States was necessary to
+retain any provision.) And this is the vote alluded to by Mr. Lincoln.
+But subsequently, March 16, 1785, a motion was made by Rufus King to
+commit a proposition "that there be neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude" in any of the Territories; which was carried by the vote of
+eight States, including Maryland.--_Journal Am. Congress,_ vol. 4, pp.
+373, 380, 481, 752.
+
+When, therefore, the ordinance of '87 came before Congress, on its final
+passage, the subject of slavery prohibition had been "_agitated_" for
+nearly three years; and the deliberate and almost unanimous vote of that
+body upon that question leaves no room to doubt what the fathers
+believed, and how, in that belief, they acted.]
+
+[Footnote 11:--It singularly and fortunately happens that one of the
+"thirty-nine," "while engaged on that instrument," viz., while
+advocating its ratification before the Pennsylvania Convention, did
+express an opinion upon this "precise question," which opinion was
+_never_ disputed or doubted, in that or any other Convention, and was
+accepted by the opponents of the Constitution, as an indisputable fact.
+This was the celebrated James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. The opinion is as
+follows:--
+
+MONDAY, _Dec._ 3, 1787.
+
+"With respect to the clause restricting Congress from prohibiting the
+migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, prior to the year 1808: The Hon.
+gentleman says that this clause is not only dark, but intended to grant
+to Congress, for that time, the power to admit the importation of
+slaves. No such thing was intended; but I will tell you what was done,
+and it gives me high pleasure that so much was done. Under the present
+Confederation, the States may admit the importation of slaves as long as
+they please; but by this article, after the year 1808, the Congress will
+have power to prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the disposition
+of any State to the contrary. I consider this as laying the foundation
+for banishing slavery out of this country; and though the period is more
+distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual
+change which was pursued in Pennsylvania. It is with much satisfaction
+that I view this power in the general government, whereby they may lay
+an interdiction on this reproachful trade. But an immediate advantage is
+also obtained; for a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not
+exceeding $10 for each person; and this, sir, operates as a partial
+prohibition; it was all that could be obtained. I am sorry it was no
+more; but from this I think there is reason to hope that yet a few
+years, and it will be prohibited altogether. _And in the meantime, the
+new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
+in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced amongst
+them_."--2 _Elliott's Debates_, 423.
+
+It was argued by Patrick Henry in the Convention in Virginia, as
+follows:
+
+"May not Congress enact that every black man must fight? Did we not see
+a little of this in the last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make
+emancipation general. But acts of Assembly passed, that every slave who
+would go to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to
+bring this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects.
+We deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let all these
+considerations press with full force on the minds of Congress. Let that
+urbanity which, I trust, will distinguish America, and the necessity of
+national defence--let all these things operate on their minds, they will
+search that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. And have
+they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence
+and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of
+slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be
+warranted by that power? There is no ambiguous implication, no logical
+deduction. The paper speaks to the point; they have the power in clear,
+unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."--3
+_Elliott's Debates_, 534.
+
+Edmund Randolph, one of the framers of the Constitution, replied to Mr.
+Henry, admitting the general force of the argument, but claiming that,
+because of other provisions, it had no application to the _States_ where
+slavery _then_ existed; thus conceding that power to exist in Congress
+as to all territory belonging to the United States.
+
+Dr. Ramsay, a member of the Convention of South Carolina, in his history
+of the United States, vol. 3, pages 36, 37, says: "Under these liberal
+principles, Congress, in organizing _colonies_, bound themselves to
+impart to their inhabitants all the privileges of coequal States, as
+soon as they were capable of enjoying them. In their infancy,
+_government was administered for them_ without any expense. As soon as
+they should have 60,000 inhabitants, they were authorized to call a
+convention, and, by common consent, to form their own constitution. This
+being done, they were entitled to representation in Congress, and every
+right attached to the original States. These privileges are not confined
+to any particular country or _complexion_. They are communicable to the
+emancipated slave (for in the new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether
+prohibited), to the copper-colored native, and all other human beings
+who, after a competent residence and degree of civilization, are capable
+of enjoying the blessings of regular government."]
+
+[Footnote 12:--The Act of 1789, as reported by the Committee, was
+received and read Thursday, July 16th. The second reading was on Friday,
+the 17th, when it was committed to the Committee of the whole house, "on
+Monday next." On Monday, July 20th, it was considered in Committee of
+the whole, and ordered to a third reading on the following day; on the
+21st, it passed the House, and was sent to the Senate. In the Senate it
+had its first reading on the same day, and was ordered to a second
+reading on the following day (July 22d), and on the 4th of August it
+passed, and on the 7th was approved by the President.]
+
+[Footnote 13:--The "sixteen" represented these States: Langdon and
+Oilman, New Hampshire; Sherman and Johnson, Connecticut; Morris,
+Fitzsimmons, and Clymer, Pennsylvania; King, Massachusetts; Paterson,
+New Jersey; Few and Baldwin, Georgia; Bassett and Read, Delaware;
+Butler, South Carolina; Carroll, Maryland; and Madison, Virginia]
+
+[Footnote 14:--_Vide_ note 3, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 15:--Chap. 28, § 7, U.S. Statutes, 5th Congress, 2d Session.]
+
+[Footnote 16:--Langdon was from New Hampshire, Read from Delaware, and
+Baldwin from Georgia.]
+
+[Footnote 17:--Chap. 38, § 10, U.S. Statutes, 8th Congress, 1st
+Session.]
+
+[Footnote 18:--Baldwin was from Georgia, and Dayton from New Jersey.]
+
+[Footnote 19:--Rufus King, who sat in the old Congress, and also in the
+Convention, as the representative of Massachusetts, removed to New York
+and was sent by that State to the U.S. Senate of the first Congress.
+Charles Pinckney was hi the House, as a representative of South
+Carolina.]
+
+[Footnote 20:--Although Mr. Pinckney opposed "slavery prohibition" in
+1820, yet his views, with regard to the _powers_ of the general
+government, may be better judged by his actions in the Convention:
+
+FRIDAY, _June 8th,_ 1787.--"Mr. Pinckney moved 'that the National
+Legislature shall have the power of negativing all laws to be passed by
+the State Legislatures, which they may judge improper,' in the room of
+the clause as it stood reported.
+
+"He grounds his motion on the necessity of one supreme controlling
+power, and he considers this as the _corner-stone_ of the present
+system; and hence the necessity of retrenching the State authorities, in
+order to preserve the good government of the national council."--T. 400,
+_Elliott's Debates_.
+
+And again, THURSDAY, _August 23d,_ 1787, Mr. Pinckney renewed the motion
+with some modifications.--T. 1409. _Madison Papers_.
+
+And although Mr. Pinckney, as correctly stated by Mr. Lincoln, "steadily
+voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises," he
+still regarded the passage of the Missouri Compromise as a great triumph
+of the South, which is apparent from the following letter:
+
+CONGRESS HALL, _March 2d_, 1820, 3 _o'clock at night_.
+
+DEAR SIR:---I hasten to inform you, that this moment we have carried
+the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of
+36° 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South, in a
+short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of
+the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States as a
+great triumph.
+
+The votes were close--ninety to eighty-six--produced by the seceding and
+absence of a few moderate men from the North. To the north of 36° 30,'
+there is to be, by the present law, restriction; which you will see by
+the votes, I voted against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a
+vast tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in which not a
+foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, and in which,
+according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened for a
+great length of time.
+
+With respect, your obedient servant,
+
+CHARLES PINCKNEY.
+
+But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney's views is furnished in the fact
+that _he was himself a member of the Committee which reported the
+Ordinance of_ '87, and that _on every occasion, when it was under the
+consideration of Congress, he voted against all amendments_.--_Jour. Am.
+Congress_, Sept. 29th, 1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up for
+its final passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and did
+not take any part in the proceedings of Congress.]
+
+[Footnote 21:--By reference to notes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, and 16 it will be
+seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon the question of
+prohibition, twelve were from the present slaveholding States.]
+
+[Footnote 22:--_Vide_ notes 5 and 17, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 23:--"The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gorham,
+Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William Livingston and David
+Brearly, New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson,
+and Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson,
+and Jacob Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland;
+John Blair, Virginia; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina; and John
+Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South Carolina.]
+
+[Footnote 24:--"The only distinction between freedom and slavery
+consists in this: in the former state, a man is governed by the laws to
+which he has given his consent, either in person or by his
+representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another. In
+the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they
+depend upon the pleasure of a master. It is easy to discern which of the
+two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing
+to be free rather than slave.... Were not the disadvantages of slavery
+too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the
+tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is
+fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and
+corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the
+sinews of industry and clips the wings of commerce, and works misery and
+indigence in every shape."--HAMILTON, _Works_, vol. 2, pp. 3, 9.
+
+"That you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of _liberty_ to
+those unhappy _men_, who, alone in this land of freedom, are degraded
+into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding
+freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means
+for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American
+people; that you will promote mercy and _justice_ toward this distressed
+race; and that you will step to the _very verge_ of the power vested in
+you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
+fellow-men."--Philadelphia, Feb. 3rd, 1790. _Franklin's Petition to
+Congress for the Abolition of Slavery._
+
+Mr. Gouverneur Morris said: "He never would concur in upholding domestic
+slavery. It was a notorious institution. It was the curse of heaven on
+the States where it prevailed.... The admission of slavery into the
+representation, when fairly explained, comes to this--that the
+inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the coast of
+Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away
+his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to
+the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes, in a government
+instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen
+of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so
+notorious a practice.... He would sooner submit himself to a tax for
+paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity
+with such a constitution."--_Debate on Slave Representation in the
+Convention. Madison Papers_.]
+
+[Footnote 25:--An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has said that
+"The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments, as adopted by
+Congress, is important to show in what light that body considered them."
+(8 _Wend. R.,_ p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State
+Conventions "having at the time of their adopting the Constitution
+_expressed_ a _desire_, in order to prevent _misconstruction or abuse of
+its powers_, that further _declaratory_ and restrictive clauses should
+be added," resolved, etc.
+
+This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the "Conciliatory
+Resolutions" of Massachusetts, which were drawn by Chief Justice
+Parsons, and offered in the Convention as a compromise by John Hancock.
+(_Life Ch. J. Parsons,_ p. 67.) They were afterward copied and adopted
+with some additions by New Hampshire.
+
+The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, is taken almost
+literally from the declaration of rights put forth by the Convention of
+New York, and the clause referred to forms the ninth paragraph of the
+declaration. The tenth amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is
+taken from the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those
+resolutions somewhat modified. Thus, these two amendments, sought to be
+used for slavery, originated in the two great anti-slavery States, New
+York and Massachusetts.]
+
+[Footnote 26:--The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison in the House
+of Representatives, June 8, 1789. They were adopted by the House, August
+24, and some further amendments seem to have been transmitted by the
+Senate, September 9. The printed journals of the Senate do not state the
+time of the final passage, and the message transmitting them to the
+State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted at the first session, begun
+on the fourth day of March, 1789. The date of the introduction and
+passage of the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 will be found at note
+9, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 27:--It is singular that while two of the "thirty-nine" were
+in that Congress of 1819, there was but one (besides Mr. King) of the
+"seventy-six." The one was William Smith, of South Carolina. He was then
+a Senator, and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground.]
+
+[Footnote 28:--The following is an extract from the letter referred to:
+
+"I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro slavery. I
+have long considered it a most serious evil, both socially and
+politically, and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our
+States of such a burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance which
+prohibits the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern
+Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It meets with the
+approval and assent of nearly every member from the States more
+immediately interested in slave labor. The prevailing opinion in
+Virginia is against the spread of slavery in our new Territories, and I
+trust we shall have a confederation of free States."
+
+The following extract from a letter of Washington to Robert Morris,
+April, 12th, 1786, shows how strong were his views, and how clearly he
+deemed emancipation a subject for legislative enactment: "I can only say
+that there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a
+plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but one proper and
+effective mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, BY
+LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY, and that, as far as _my suffrage will go, shall
+never be wanting_."]
+
+[Footnote 29:--A Committee of five, consisting of Messrs. Mason, Davis,
+and Fitch (Democrats), and Collamer and Doolittle (Republicans), was
+appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by the U.S. Senate, to investigate the Harper's
+Ferry affair. That Committee was directed, among other things, to
+inquire: (1) "Whether such invasion and seizure was made under color of
+any organization intended to subvert the government of any of the States
+of the Union." (2) "What was the character and extent of such
+organisation." (3) "And whether any citizens of the United States, not
+present, were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by contributions
+of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise."
+
+The majority of the Committee, Messrs. Mason, Davis, and Fitch, reply to
+the inquiries as follows:
+
+1. "There will be found in the Appendix a copy of the proceedings of a
+Convention held at Chatham, Canada, of the Provisional Form of
+Government there pretended to have been instituted, the object of which
+clearly was to subvert the government of one or more States, and of
+course, to that extent, the government of the United States." By
+reference to the copy of Proceedings it appears that _nineteen_ persons
+were present at that Convention, _eight_ of whom were either killed or
+executed at Charlestown, and one examined before the Committee.
+
+2. "The character of the military organization appears, by the
+commissions issued to certain of the armed party as captains,
+lieutenants, etc., a specimen of which will be found in the Appendix."
+
+(These Commissions are signed by John Brown as Commander-in-Chief, under
+the Provisional Government, and by J.H. Kagi as Secretary.)
+
+"It clearly appeared that the scheme of Brown was to take with him
+comparatively but few men; but those had been carefully trained by
+military instruction previously, and were to act as officers. For his
+military force he relied, very clearly, on inciting insurrection amongst
+the Slaves."
+
+3. "It does not appear that the contributions were made with actual
+knowledge of the use for which they were designed by Brown, although it
+does appear that money was freely contributed by those styling
+themselves the friends of this man Brown, and friends alike of what they
+styled the cause of freedom (of which they claimed him to be an especial
+apostle), without inquiring as to the way in which the money would be
+used by him to advance such pretended cause."
+
+In concluding the report the majority of the Committee thus characterize
+the "invasion": "It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the
+sanction of no public or political authority--distinguishable only from
+ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 30:--The Southampton insurrection, August, 1831, was induced
+by the remarkable ability of a slave calling himself General Nat Turner.
+He led his fellow bondsmen to believe that he was acting under the order
+of Heaven. In proof of this he alleged that the singular appearance of
+the sun at that time was a divine signal for the commencement of the
+struggle which would result in the recovery of their freedom. This
+insurrection resulted in the death of sixty-four white persons, and more
+than one hundred slaves. The Southampton was the eleventh large
+insurrection in the Southern States, besides numerous attempts and
+revolts.]
+
+[Footnote 31:--In March, 1790, the General Assembly of France, on the
+petition of the _free_ people of color in St. Domingo, many of whom were
+intelligent and wealthy, passed a decree intended to be in their favor,
+but so ambiguous as to be construed in favor of both the whites and the
+blacks. The differences growing out of the decree created two
+parties--the _whites_ and the people of color; and some blood was shed.
+In 1791, the blacks again petitioned, and a decree was passed declaring
+the colored people citizens, who were born of free parents on both
+sides. This produced great excitement among the whites, and the two
+parties armed against each other, and horrible massacres and
+conflagrations followed. Then the Assembly rescinded this last decree,
+and like results followed, the blacks being the exasperated parties and
+the aggressors. Then the decree giving citizenship to the blacks was
+restored, and commissioners were sent out to keep the peace. The
+commissioners, unable to sustain themselves, between the two parties,
+with the troops they had, issued a proclamation that all blacks who were
+willing to range themselves under the banner of the Republic should be
+free. As a result a very large proportion of the blacks became in fact
+free. In 1794, the Conventional Assembly _abolished slavery_ throughout
+the French Colonies. Some years afterward, the French Government sought,
+with an army of 60,000 men, to reinstate slavery, but were unsuccessful,
+and then the white planters were driven from the Island.]
+
+[Footnote 32:--_Vide_ Jefferson's Autobiography, commenced January 6th,
+1821. JEFFERSON'S _Works_, vol. 1, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 33:--"I am not ashamed or afraid publicly to avow that the
+election of William H. Seward or Salmon P. Chase, or any such
+representative of the Republican party, upon a sectional platform, ought
+to be resisted to the disruption of every tie that binds this
+Confederacy together. (Applause on the Democratic side of the House.)"
+_Mr. Curry, of Alabama, in the House of Representatives_.
+
+"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing a sectional
+man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, breathing destruction
+and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the
+time will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable
+and decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and he who
+doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I
+think I may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia--that
+when that event happens, they, in my judgment, will consider it an overt
+act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, to take
+into consideration the mode and measure of redress. That is my position;
+and if that be treason to the Government, make the most of it."--_Mr.
+Gartell, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives_.
+
+"I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital of my
+State, on my way here, if such an event did occur," [_i.e._, the
+election of a Republican President, upon a Republican platform], "while
+it would be their duty to determine the course which the State would
+pursue, it would be my privilege to counsel with them as to what I
+believed to be the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now,
+and what I will always say in such an event, that my counsel would be to
+take independence out of the Union in preference to the loss of
+constitutional rights, and consequent degradation and dishonor, in it.
+That is my position, and it is the position which I know the Democratic
+party of the State of Mississippi will maintain."--_Gov. McRae, of
+Mississippi._
+
+"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the present
+temper of the Southern people, it" [_i.e._, the election of a Republican
+President] "cannot be, and will not be, submitted to. The 'irrepressible
+conflict' doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most
+distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of
+war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; and I would
+be disloyal to Virginia and the South, if I did not declare that the
+election of such a man, entertaining such sentiment, and advocating such
+doctrines, _ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States_. The idea
+of permitting such a man to have the control and direction of the army
+and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high judicial and
+executive officers, POSTMASTERS INCLUDED, _cannot_ be entertained by the
+South for a moment."--_Gov. Letcher, of Virginia_.
+
+"Slavery _must_ be maintained--in the Union, if possible; out of it, if
+necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if we must."--_Senator Iverson,
+of Georgia_.
+
+"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected in
+November next, and the South will then decide the great question whether
+they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule--the
+fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised,
+and declared war upon our social institutions. I believe that the honor
+and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt
+secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then to
+obtain from the free States additional and higher guaranties for the
+protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should
+proceed to establish a new government. But while I think such would be
+the imperative duty of the South, I should emphatically reprobate and
+repudiate any scheme having for its object the separate secession of
+South Carolina. If Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone--giving us a
+portion of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts--would unite with this State in
+a common secession upon the election of a Black Republican, I would give
+my consent to the policy."--_Letter of Hon. James L. Orr, of S.C., to
+John Martin and others, July_ 23, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 34:--The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, made the
+following analysis of the Dred Scott case in the Massachusetts
+Legislature. Hon. Caleb Cushing was then a member of that body, but did
+not question its correctness.
+
+"On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of the Dred Scott
+color, extraction, and origin, three Justices, viz., Taney, Wayne, and
+Daniels, held the negative. Nelson and Campbell passed over the plea by
+which the question was raised. Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said the
+question was not open. McLean agreed with Catron, but thought the plea
+bad. Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea,
+met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native
+to any State, is a citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen
+of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.
+
+"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in abatement,
+and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appealed from, then all
+else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a
+cause not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of
+such a majority, one step more was to be taken. And the next step
+reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the
+cause, and putting an end to all the functions of the court.
+
+"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in the State of
+Illinois, where he remained about two years, before going with his
+master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory of Wisconsin. His claim to
+freedom was rested on the alleged effect of his translation from a slave
+State, and again into a free territory. If, by his removal to Illinois,
+he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent continuance of his
+pilgrimage into the Louisiana purchase could not add to his freedom, nor
+alter the fact. If, by reason of any want or infirmity in the laws of
+Illinois, or of conformity on his part to their behests, Dred Scott
+remained a slave while he remained in that State, then--for the sake of
+learning the effect on him of his territorial residence beyond the
+Mississippi, and of his marriage and other proceedings there, and the
+effect of the sojournment and marriage of Harriet, in the same
+territory, upon herself and her children--it might become needful to
+advance one other step into the investigation of the law; to inspect the
+Missouri Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of the line of 36°
+30' in the Louisiana purchase.
+
+"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified that advance;
+for six of the Justices, including the Chief Justice himself, decided
+that the _status_ of the plaintiff, as free or slave, was dependent, not
+upon the laws of the State in which he had been, but of the State of
+Missouri, in which he was at the commencement of the suit. The Chief
+Justice asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the
+highest court in the State, that Scott and his family, on their return
+were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the
+defendant.' This was the burden of the opinion of Nelson, who declares
+'the question is one solely depending upon the law of Missouri, and that
+the Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case before us,
+was bound to follow it.' It received the emphatic endorsement of Wayne,
+whose general concurrence was with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred in
+set terms with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.' Campbell
+says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect to
+be given to his absence from Missouri, in company with his master in
+Illinois and Minnesota, _and this effect is to be ascertained by
+reference to the laws of Missouri_.' Five of the Justices, then (if no
+more of them), regard the law of Missouri as decisive of the plaintiff's
+rights."]
+
+[Footnote 35:--"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this
+opinion upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is
+distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to
+traffic in it, _like an ordinary article of merchandise and property_,
+was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States in every State that
+might desire it, for twenty years."--_Ch. J. Taney_, 19 _How. U.S.R_.,
+p. 451. _Vide_ language of Mr. Madison, note 34, as to "_merchandise_."]
+
+[Footnote 36:--Not only was the right of property _not_ intended to be
+"distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution"; but the
+following extract from Mr. Madison demonstrates that the utmost care was
+taken to avoid so doing:
+
+"The clause as originally offered [respecting fugitive slaves] read, 'If
+any person LEGALLY bound to service or labor in any of the United States
+shall escape into another State," etc., etc. (Vol. 3, p. 1456.) In
+regard to this, Mr. Madison says, "The term '_legally'_ was struck out,
+and the words 'under the laws thereof,' inserted after the word State,
+in compliance with the wish of some who thought the term 'legally'
+equivocal and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a moral point
+of view."--_Ib_., p. 1589.]
+
+[Footnote 37:--We subjoin a portion of the history alluded to by Mr.
+Lincoln. The following extract relates to the provision of the
+Constitution relative to the slave trade. (Article I, Sec. 9.)
+
+_25th August_, 1787.--The report of the Committee of eleven being taken
+up, Gen. [Charles Cotesworth] Pinckney moved to strike out the words
+"the year 1800," and insert the words "the year 1808."
+
+Mr. Gorham seconded the motion.
+
+Mr. Madison--Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be
+apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be
+more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it
+in the Constitution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Gouverneur Morris was for making the clause read at once--
+
+"The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, shall not be prohibited," etc. This, he said, would be most
+fair, and would avoid _the _ ambiguity by which, under the power with
+regard to naturalization, the liberty reserved to the States might be
+defeated. He wished it to be known, also, that this part of the
+Constitution was a compliance with those States. If the change of
+language, however, should be objected to by the members from those
+States, he should not urge it.
+
+Col. Mason (of Virginia) was not against using the term "slaves," but
+against naming North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, lest it
+should give offence to the people of those States.
+
+Mr. Sherman liked a description better than the terms proposed, which
+had been declined by the old Congress and were not pleasing to some
+people.
+
+Mr. Clymer concurred with Mr. Sherman.
+
+Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, said that _both in opinion and
+practice he was against slavery; but thought it more in favor of
+humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina and
+Georgia, on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union_.
+
+Mr. Morris withdrew his motion.
+
+Mr. Dickinson wished the clause to be confined to the States which had
+not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves, and for that
+purpose moved to amend the clause so as to read--
+
+"The importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit the
+same, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the United States,
+until the year 1808," which was disagreed to, _nem. con_.
+
+The first part of the report was then agreed to as follows:
+
+"The migration or importation of such persons as the several States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Legislature prior to the year 1808."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sherman was against the second part ["but a tax or duty may be
+imposed on such migration or importation at a rate not exceeding _the
+average of the duties laid on imports_"], as acknowledging men to be
+property by taxing them as such under the _character_ of slaves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Madison _thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the like idea
+that there could be property in men_. The reason of duties did not hold,
+as slaves _are not, like merchandise_, consumed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was finally agreed, _nem. con_., to make the clause read--
+
+"But a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding
+_ten dollars_ for each PERSON."--_Madison Papers, Aug_. 25, 1787.]
+
+[Footnote 38:--Compare this noble passage and that at page 18, with the
+twaddle of Mr. Orr (note 30), and the slang of Mr. Douglas (note 37).]
+
+[Footnote 39:--That demand has since been made. Says MR. O'CONOR,
+counsel for the State of Virginia in the _Lemon Case_, page 44: "We
+claim that under these various provisions of the Federal Constitution, a
+citizen of Virginia has an immunity against the operation of any law
+which the State of New York can enact, whilst he is a stranger and
+wayfarer, or whilst passing through our territory; and that he has
+absolute protection for all his domestic rights, and for all his rights
+of property, which under the laws of the United States, and the laws of
+his own State, he was entitled to, whilst in his own State. We claim
+this, and neither more NOR LESS."
+
+Throughout the whole of that case, in which the right to pass through
+New York with slaves at the pleasure of the slave owners is maintained,
+it is nowhere contended that the statute is contrary to the Constitution
+of New York; but that the statute and the Constitution of the State are
+both contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
+
+The State of Virginia, not content with the decision of our own courts
+upon the right claimed by them, is now engaged in carrying this, the
+Lemon case, to the Supreme Court of the United States, hoping by a
+decision there, in accordance with the intimations in the Dred Scott
+case, to overthrow the Constitution of New York.
+
+Senator Toombs, of Georgia, has claimed, in the Senate, that laws of
+Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode
+Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, for the exclusion of slavery, conceded
+to be warranted by the State Constitutions, are contrary to the
+Constitution of the United States, and has asked for the enactment of
+laws by the General Government which shall override the laws of those
+States and the Constitutions which authorize them.]
+
+[Footnote 40:--"Policy, humanity, and Christianity, alike forbid the
+extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming
+generations."--_Richmond Enquirer, Jan_. 22, 1856.
+
+"I am satisfied that the mind of the South has undergone a change to
+this great extent, that it is now the _almost universal belief_ in the
+South, not only that the condition of African slavery in their midst, is
+the best condition to which the African race has ever been subjected,
+but that _it has the effect of ennobling both races, the white and the
+black_."--_Senator Mason, of Virginia_.
+
+"I declare again, as I did in reply to the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr.
+Doolittle), that, in my opinion, slavery is a great moral, social, and
+political blessing--a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the
+master."--_Mr. Brown, in the Senate, March_ 6, 1860.
+
+"I am a Southern States' Rights man; I am an African slave-trader. I am
+one of those Southern men who believe that slavery is right--morally,
+religiously, socially, and politically." (Applause.) ... "I represent
+the African Slave-trade interests of that section. (Applause.) I am
+proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe the African
+Slave-trader is a true missionary and a true Christian."
+(Applause.)--_Mr. Gaulden, a delegate from First Congressional District
+of Georgia, in the Charleston Convention, now a supporter of Mr.
+Douglas_.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly speak again, but you see from the
+tones of my voice that I am unable to. This has been a happy, a glorious
+day. I shall never forget it. There is a charm about this beautiful day,
+about this sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of
+yours--a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, in that respect, of
+Southerners. For my own part, I have much more fondness for your clams
+than I have for their niggers. But every man to his taste."--_Hon_
+_Stephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky Point, R.I., Aug._ 2, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 41:--It is interesting to observe how two profoundly logical
+minds, though holding extreme, opposite views, have deduced this common
+conclusion. Says Mr. O'Conor, the eminent leader of the New York Bar,
+and the counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon case, in his
+speech at Cooper Institute, December 19th, 1859:
+
+"That is the point to which this great argument must come--Is negro
+slavery unjust? If it is unjust, it violates that first rule of human
+conduct--'Render to every man his due.' If it is unjust, it violates the
+law of God which says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' for that requires
+that we should perpetrate no injustice. Gentlemen, if it could be
+maintained that negro slavery was unjust, perhaps I might be
+prepared--perhaps we all ought to be prepared--to go with that
+distinguished man to whom allusion is frequently made, and say, 'There
+is a higher law which compels us to trample beneath our feet the
+Constitution established by our fathers, with all the blessings it
+secures to their children.' But I insist--and that is the argument which
+we must meet, and on which we must come to a conclusion that shall
+govern our actions in the future selection of representatives in the
+Congress of the United States--insist that negro slavery is not unjust."]
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11728 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11728 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Abraham Lincoln, by George Haven Putnam</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><img src="images/fp.jpg" alt="Abraham Lincoln"></center>
+<h1>Abraham Lincoln</h1>
+<p style="text-align: center;">The People's Leader in the Struggle for
+National Existence</p>
+<h3>By</h3>
+<h2>George Haven Putnam, Litt. D.</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">Author of </p>
+<p style="text-align: center;">"Books and Their Makers in the Middle
+Ages,"</p>
+<p style="text-align: center;">"The Censorship of the Church," etc.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center;"><i>With the above is included the speech
+delivered by Lincoln in New York,
+February 27, 1860; with an introduction by Charles C. Nott, late Chief
+Justice of the Court of Claims, and annotations by Judge Nott and by
+Cephas Brainerd of New York Bar</i>.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center;">1909</p>
+<br>
+<p style="text-align: center;"><b>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</b></p>
+<br>
+<p>The twelfth of February, 1909, was the hundredth anniversary of the
+birth of Abraham Lincoln. In New York, as in other cities and towns
+throughout the Union, the day was devoted to commemoration exercises,
+and even in the South, in centres like Atlanta (the capture of which in
+1864 had indicated the collapse of the cause of the Confederacy),
+representative Southerners gave their testimony to the life and
+character of the great American.</p>
+<p>The Committee in charge of the commemoration in New York arranged
+for a
+series of addresses to be given to the people of the city and it was my
+privilege to be selected as one of the speakers. It was an indication
+of
+the rapid passing away of the generation which had had to do with the
+events of the War, that the list of orators, forty-six in all, included
+only four men who had ever seen the hero whose life and character they
+were describing.</p>
+<p>In writing out later, primarily for the information of children and
+grandchildren, my own address (which had been delivered without notes),
+I found myself so far absorbed in the interest of the subject and in
+the
+recollections of the War period, that I was impelled to expand the
+paper
+so that it should present a more comprehensive study of the career and
+character of Lincoln than it had been possible to attempt within the
+compass of an hour's talk, and should include also references, in
+outline, to the constitutional struggle that had preceded the contest
+and to the chief events of the War itself with which the great War
+President had been most directly concerned. The monograph, therefore,
+while in the form of an essay or historical sketch, retains in certain
+portions the character of the spoken address with which it originated.</p>
+<p>It is now brought into print in the hope that it may be found of
+interest for certain readers of the younger generation and may serve as
+an incentive to the reading of the fuller histories of the War period,
+and particularly of the best of the biographies of the great American
+whom we honour as the People's leader.</p>
+<p>I have been fortunate enough to secure (only, however, after this
+monograph had been put into type) a copy of the pamphlet printed in
+September, 1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, in
+which is presented the text, as revised by the speaker, of the address
+given by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,&#8212;the address which
+made him President.</p>
+<p>This edition of the speech, prepared for use in the Presidential
+campaign, contains a series of historical annotations by Cephas
+Brainerd
+of the New York Bar and Charles C. Nott, who later rendered further
+distinguished service to his country as Colonel of the 176th Regiment,
+N.Y.S. Volunteers, and (after the close of the War) as chief justice of
+the Court of Claims.</p>
+<p>These young lawyers (not yet leaders of the Bar) appear to have
+realised
+at once that the speech was to constitute the platform upon which the
+issues of the Presidential election were to be contested. Not being
+prophets, they were, of course, not in a position to know that the same
+statements were to represent the contentions of the North upon which
+the
+Civil War was fought out.</p>
+<p>I am able to include, with the scholarly notes of the two lawyers, a
+valuable introduction to the speech, written (as late as February,
+1908)
+by Judge Nott; together with certain letters which in February, 1860,
+passed between him (as the representative of the Committee) and Mr.
+Lincoln.</p>
+<p>The introduction and the letters have never before been published,
+and
+(as is the case also with the material of the notes) are now in print
+only in the present volume.</p>
+<p>I judge, therefore, that I may be doing a service to the survivors
+of
+the generation of 1860 and also to the generations that have grown up
+since the War, by utilising the occasion of the publication of my own
+little monograph for the reprinting of these notes in a form for
+permanent preservation and for reference on the part of students of the
+history of the Republic.</p>
+<p>G.H.P.</p>
+<p>NEW YORK, April 2, 1909.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="CONTENTS"></a>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<a href="#I"><b>I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN</b></a><br>
+<a href="#II"><b>II. WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS</b></a><br>
+<a href="#III"><b>III. THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY</b></a><br>
+<a href="#IV"><b>IV. LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE
+MAINTENANCE OF
+NATIONAL EXISTENCE</b></a><br>
+<a href="#V"><b>V. THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR</b></a><br>
+<a href="#VI"><b>VI. THE DARK. DAYS OF 1862</b></a><br>
+<a href="#VII"><b>VII. THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR</b></a><br>
+<a href="#VIII"><b>VIII. THE FINAL CAMPAIGN</b></a><br>
+<a href="#IX"><b>IX. LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED</b></a><br>
+<a href="#APPENDIX"><b>APPENDIX&#8212;LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS:</b></a><br>
+<div style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_ADDRESS_OF_ABRAHAM_LINCOLN"><b>THE
+ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN</b></a><br>
+<a href="#INTRODUCTORY_NOTE"><b>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</b></a><br>
+<a href="#CORRESPONDENCE_WITH_LINCOLN_NOTT_AND_BRAINERD"><b>CORRESPONDENCE
+WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD</b></a><br>
+<a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE TO THE LINCOLN ADDRESS</b></a><br>
+<a href="#ADDRESS"><b>THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS</b></a><br>
+</div>
+<a href="#INDEX"><b>INDEX</b></a><br>
+<a href="#FOOTNOTES"><b>FOOTNOTES</b></a><br>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_1"></a>
+<a name="Abraham_Lincoln"></a><br>
+<h1>Abraham Lincoln</h1>
+<a name="I"></a>
+<h2>I</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN</p>
+<p>On the twelfth of February, 1909, the hundredth anniversary of the
+birth
+of Abraham Lincoln, Americans gathered together, throughout the entire
+country, to honour the memory of a great American, one who may come to
+be accepted as the greatest of Americans. It was in every way fitting
+that this honour should be rendered to Abraham Lincoln and that, on
+such
+commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in
+honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln
+gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion
+Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain.</p>
+<p>The chief purpose, however, as I understand, of a memorial service
+is
+not so much to glorify <a name="Page_2"></a>the dead as to enlighten
+and inspire the living.
+We borrow the thought of his own Gettysburg address (so eloquent in its
+exquisite simplicity) when we say that no words of ours can add any
+glory to the name of Abraham Lincoln. His work is accomplished. His
+fame
+is secure. It is for us, his fellow-citizens, for the older men who had
+personal touch with the great struggle in which Lincoln was the
+nation's
+leader, for the younger men who have grown up in the generation since
+the War, and for the children by whom are to be handed down through the
+new century the great traditions of the Republic, to secure from the
+life and character of our great leader incentive, illumination, and
+inspiration to good citizenship, in order that Lincoln and his
+fellow-martyrs shall not have died in vain.</p>
+<p>It is possible within the limits of this paper simply to touch upon
+the
+chief events and experiences in Lincoln's life. It has been my
+endeavour
+to select those that were the most important in the forming or in the
+expression of his character. The term "forming" is, however, not
+adequate to indicate the development of a personality like Lincoln's.
+We
+rather think of his sturdy character as having been <i>forged</i> into
+its
+final form through the fiery furnace of fierce struggle, <a
+ name="Page_3"></a>as hammered
+out under the blows of difficulties and disasters, and as pressed
+beneath the weight of the nation's burdens, until was at last produced
+the finely tempered nature of the man we know, the Lincoln of history,
+that exquisite combination of sweetness of nature and strength of
+character. The type is described in Schiller's Song of the Founding of
+the Bell:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Denn, wo das strenge mit dem zarten,</p>
+<p>Wo mildes sich und starkes paarten,</p>
+<p>Da giebt es einen guten Klang.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>There is a tendency to apply the term "miraculous" to the career of
+every hero, and in a sense such description is, of course, true. The
+life of every man, however restricted its range, is something of a
+miracle; but the course of a single life, like that of humanity, is
+assuredly based on a development that proceeds from a series of
+causations. Holmes says that the education of a man begins two
+centuries
+before his birth. We may recall in this connection that Lincoln came of
+good stock. It is true that his parents belonged to the class of poor
+whites; but the Lincoln family can be traced from an eastern county of
+England (we might hope for the purpose of genealogical harmony that the
+county was Lin<a name="Page_4"></a>colnshire) to Hingham in
+Massachusetts, and by way of
+Pennsylvania and Virginia to Kentucky. The grandfather of our Abraham
+was killed, while working in his field on the Kentucky farm, by
+predatory Indians shooting from the cover of the dense forest.
+Abraham's
+father, Thomas, at that time a boy, was working in the field where his
+father was murdered. Such an incident in Kentucky simply repeated what
+had been going on just a century before in Massachusetts, at Deerfield
+and at dozens of other settlements on the edge of the great forest
+which
+was the home of the Indians. During the hundred years, the frontier of
+the white man's domain had been moved a thousand miles to the
+south-west
+and, as ever, there was still friction at the point of contact.</p>
+<p>The record of the boyhood of our Lincoln has been told in dozens of
+forms and in hundreds of monographs. We know of the simplicity, of the
+penury, of the family life in the little one-roomed log hut that formed
+the home for the first ten years of Abraham's life. We know of his
+little group of books collected with toil and self-sacrifice. The
+series, after some years of strenuous labour, comprised the Bible,
+<i>Aesop's Fables</i>, a tattered copy of Euclid's <i>Geometry</i>,
+and Weems's
+<a name="Page_5"></a><i>Life of Washington</i>. The <i>Euclid</i> he
+had secured as a great prize from
+the son of a neighbouring farmer. Abraham had asked the boy the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." His friend said that he did not himself
+know,
+but that he knew the word was in a book which he had at school, and he
+hunted up the <i>Euclid</i>. After some bargaining, the <i>Euclid</i>
+came into
+Abraham's possession. In accordance with his practice, the whole
+contents were learned by heart. Abraham's later opponents at the Bar or
+in political discussion came to realise that he understood the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." In fact, references to specific problems of
+Euclid occurred in some of his earlier speeches at the Bar.</p>
+<p>A year or more later, when the Lincoln family had crossed the river
+to
+Indiana, there was added to the "library" a copy of the revised
+Statutes
+of the State. The Weems's <i>Washington</i> had been borrowed by
+Lincoln from
+a neighbouring farmer. The boy kept it at night under his pillow, and
+on
+the occasion of a storm, the water blew in through the chinks of the
+logs that formed the wall of the cabin, drenching the pillow and the
+head of the boy (a small matter in itself) and wetting and almost
+spoiling the book. This was <a name="Page_6"></a>a grave misfortune.
+Lincoln took his
+damaged volume to the owner and asked how he could make payment for the
+loss. It was arranged that the boy should put in three days' work
+shucking corn on the farm. "Will that work pay for the book or only for
+the damage?" asked the boy. It was agreed that the labour of three days
+should be considered sufficient for the purchase of the book.</p>
+<p>The text of this biography and the words of each valued volume in
+the
+little "library" were absorbed into the memory of the reader. It was
+his
+practice when going into the field for work, to take with him
+written-out paragraphs from the book that he had at the moment in mind
+and to repeat these paragraphs between the various chores or between
+the
+wood-chopping until every page was committed by heart. Paper was scarce
+and dear and for the boy unattainable. He used for his copying bits of
+board shaved smooth with his jack-knife. This material had the
+advantage
+that when the task of one day had been mastered, a little labour with
+the jack-knife prepared the surface of the board for the work of the
+next day. As I read this incident in Lincoln's boyhood, I was reminded
+of an experience of my own in Louisiana. It happened frequently <a
+ name="Page_7"></a>during
+the campaign of 1863 that our supplies were cut off through the capture
+of our waggon trains by that active Confederate commander, General
+Taylor. More than once, we were short of provisions, and, in one
+instance, a supply of stationery for which the adjutants of the brigade
+had been waiting, was carried off to serve the needs of our opponents.
+We tore down a convenient and unnecessary shed and utilised from the
+roof the shingles, the clean portions of which made an admirable
+substitute for paper. For some days, the morning reports of the brigade
+were filed on shingles.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's work as a farm-hand was varied by two trips down the river
+to
+New Orleans. The opportunity had been offered to the young man by the
+neighbouring store-keeper, Gentry, to take part in the trip of a
+flat-boat which carried the produce of the county to New Orleans, to be
+there sold in exchange for sugar or rum. Lincoln was, at the time of
+these trips, already familiar with certain of the aspects and
+conditions
+of slavery, but the inspection of the slave-market in New Orleans
+stamped upon his sensitive imagination a fresh and more sombre picture,
+and made a lasting impression of the iniquity and horror of the
+institution. From the time of his <a name="Page_8"></a>early manhood,
+Lincoln hated slavery.
+What was exceptional, however, in his state of mind was that, while
+abominating the institution, he was able to give a sympathetic
+understanding to the opinions and to the prejudices of the
+slave-owners.
+In all his long fight against slavery as the curse both of the white
+and
+of the black, and as the great obstacle to the natural and wholesome
+development of the nation, we do not at any time find a trace of
+bitterness against the men of the South who were endeavouring to
+maintain and to extend the system.</p>
+<p>It was of essential importance for the development of Lincoln as a
+political leader, first for his State, and later in the contest that
+became national, that he should have possessed an understanding, which
+was denied to many of the anti-slavery leaders, of the actual nature,
+character, and purpose of the men against whom he was contending. It
+became of larger importance when Lincoln was directing from Washington
+the policy of the national administration that he should have a
+sympathetic knowledge of the problems of the men of the Border States
+who with the outbreak of the War had been placed in a position of
+exceptional difficulty, and that he should have secured and retained
+the
+confidence of these <a name="Page_9"></a>men. It seems probable that
+if the War President
+had been a man of Northern birth and Northern prejudices, if he had
+been
+one to whom the wider, the more patient and sympathetic view of these
+problems had been impossible or difficult, the Border States could not
+have been saved to the Union. It is probable that the support given to
+the cause of the North by the sixty thousand or seventy thousand loyal
+recruits from Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia,
+may
+even have proved the deciding factor in turning the tide of events. The
+nation's leader for the struggle seems to have been secured through a
+process of natural selection as had been the case a century earlier
+with
+Washington. We may recall that Washington died but ten years before
+Lincoln was born; and from the fact that each leader was at hand when
+the demand came for his service, and when without such service the
+nation might have been pressed to destruction, we may grasp the hope
+that in time of need the nation will always be provided with the leader
+who can meet the requirement.</p>
+<p>After Lincoln returned from New Orleans, he secured employment for a
+time in the grocery or general store of Gentry, and when he was
+twenty-two years of age, he went into business with a <a name="Page_10"></a>partner,
+some
+twenty years older than himself, in carrying on such a store. He had so
+impressed himself upon the confidence of his neighbours that, while he
+was absolutely without resources, there was no difficulty in his
+borrowing the money required for his share of the capital. The
+undertaking did not prove a success. Lincoln had no business experience
+and no particular business capacity, while his partner proved to be
+untrustworthy. The partner decamped, leaving Lincoln to close up the
+business and to take the responsibility for the joint indebtedness. It
+was seventeen years before Lincoln was able, from his modest earnings
+as
+a lawyer, to clear off this indebtedness. The debt became outlawed in
+six years' time but this could not affect Lincoln's sense of the
+obligation. After the failure of the business, Lincoln secured work as
+county surveyor. In this, he was following the example of his
+predecessor Washington, with whose career as a surveyor the youngster
+who knew Weems's biography by heart, was of course familiar. His new
+occupation took him through the county and brought him into personal
+relations with a much wider circle than he had known in the village of
+New Salem, and in his case, the personal relation counted for much; the
+history shows that <a name="Page_11"></a>no one who knew Lincoln
+failed to be attracted by
+him or to be impressed with the fullest confidence in the man's
+integrity of purpose and of action.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="II"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_12"></a>II</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO
+POLITICS</p>
+<br>
+<p>In 1834, when he was twenty-five years old, Lincoln made his first
+entrance into politics, presenting himself as candidate for the
+Assembly. His defeat was not without compensations; he secured in his
+own village or township, New Salem, no less than 208 out of the 211
+votes cast. This prophet had honour with those who knew him. Two years
+later, he tried again and this time with success. His journeys as a
+surveyor had brought him into touch with, and into the confidence of,
+enough voters throughout the county to secure the needed majority.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's active work as a lawyer lasted from 1834 to 1860, or for
+about
+twenty-six years. He secured in the cases undertaken by him a very
+large
+proportion of successful decisions. Such a result is not entirely to be
+credited to his effectiveness as an advocate. The first reason was that
+in his individual work, that is to say, in the matters that were taken
+up by himself rather than by his <a name="Page_13"></a>partner, he
+accepted no case in the
+justice of which he did not himself have full confidence. As his fame
+as
+an advocate increased, he was approached by an increasing number of
+clients who wanted the advantage of the effective service of the young
+lawyer and also of his assured reputation for honesty of statement and
+of management. Unless, however, he believed in the case, he put such
+suggestions to one side even at the time when the income was meagre and
+when every dollar was of importance.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's record at the Bar has been somewhat obscured by the value
+of
+his public service, but as it comes to be studied, it is shown to have
+been both distinctive and important. His law-books were, like those of
+his original library, few, but whatever volumes he had of his own and
+whatever he was able to place his hands upon from the shelves of his
+friends, he mastered thoroughly. His work at the Bar gave evidence of
+his exceptional powers of reasoning while it was itself also a large
+influence in the development of such powers. The counsel who practised
+with and against him, the judges before whom his arguments were
+presented, and the members of the juries, the hard-headed working
+citizens of the State, seem to have all been equally impressed <a
+ name="Page_14"></a>with the
+exceptional fairness with which the young lawyer presented not only his
+own case but that of his opponent. He had great tact in holding his
+friends, in convincing those who did not agree with him, and in winning
+over opponents; but he gave no futile effort to tasks which his
+judgment
+convinced him would prove impossible. He never, says Horace Porter,
+citing Lincoln's words, "wasted any time in trying to massage the back
+of a political porcupine." "A man might as well," says Lincoln,
+"undertake to throw fleas across the barnyard with a shovel."</p>
+<p>He had as a youngster won repute as a teller of dramatic stories,
+and
+those who listened to his arguments in court were expecting to have his
+words to the jury brightened and rendered for the moment more effective
+by such stories. The hearers were often disappointed in such
+expectation. Neither at the Bar, nor, it may be said here, in his later
+work as a political leader, did Lincoln indulge himself in the telling
+a
+story for the sake of the story, nor for the sake of the laugh to be
+raised by the story, nor for the momentary pleasure or possible
+temporary advantage of the discomfiture of the opponent. The story was
+used, whether in law or in politics, only <a name="Page_15"></a>when
+it happened to be the
+shortest and most effective method of making clear an issue or of
+illustrating a statement. In later years, when he had upon him the
+terrible burdens of the great struggle, Lincoln used stories from time
+to time as a vent to his feelings. The impression given was that by an
+effort of will and in order to keep his mind from dwelling too
+continuously upon the tremendous problems upon which he was engaged, he
+would, by the use of some humorous reminiscence, set his thoughts in a
+direction as different as possible from that of his cares. A third and
+very valuable use of the story which grew up in his Washington days was
+to turn aside some persistent but impossible application; and to give
+to
+the applicant, with the least risk of unnecessary annoyance to his
+feelings, the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless also the case
+that, as has happened to other men gifted with humour, Lincoln's
+reputation as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a great
+series
+of anecdotes and incidents of one kind or another, some of which would
+have been entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his own standard
+and his own method. There is the further and final word to be said
+about
+Lincoln's stories, that they were entitled to the geometrical
+<a name="Page_16"></a>commendation of "being neither too long nor too
+broad."</p>
+<p>In 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress as a Whig. The circle of
+acquaintances whom he had made in the county as surveyor had widened
+out
+with his work as a lawyer; he secured a unanimous nomination and was
+elected without difficulty in a constituency comprising six counties. I
+find in the record of the campaign the detail that Lincoln returned to
+certain of his friends who had undertaken to find the funds for
+election
+expenses, $199.90 out of the $200 subscribed.</p>
+<p>In 1847, Lincoln was one of the group of Whigs in Congress who
+opposed
+the Mexican War. These men took the ground that the war was one of
+aggression and spoliation. Their views, which were quite prevalent
+throughout New England, are effectively presented in Lowell's <i>Biglow
+Papers.</i> When the army was once in the field, Lincoln was, however,
+ready to give his Congressional vote for the fullest and most energetic
+support. A year or more later, he worked actively for the election of
+General Taylor. He took the ground that the responsibility for the war
+rested not with the soldiers who had fought it to a successful
+conclusion, but with the politicians who had devised the original
+land-grabbing scheme.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_17"></a>In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected with
+an invention for lifting
+vessels over shoals. His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his memory
+of
+the attempt, successful for the moment but ending in failure, to make
+the river available for steamboats, had attracted his attention to the
+problem of steering river vessels over shoals.</p>
+<p>In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red River in Louisiana, I
+noticed
+with interest a device that had been put into shape for the purpose of
+lifting river steamers over shoals. This device took the form of stilts
+which for the smaller vessels (and only the smaller steamers could as a
+rule be managed in this way) were fastened on pivots from the upper
+deck
+on the outside of the hull and were worked from the deck with a force
+of
+two or three men at each stilt. The difficulty on the Red River was
+that
+the Rebel sharp-shooters from the banks made the management of the
+stilts irregular.</p>
+<p>In 1854, Douglas carried through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
+This
+bill repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and cancelled also the
+provisions of the series of compromises of 1850. Its purpose was to
+throw open for settlement and for later organisation as Slave States
+the
+whole territory of the North-west from <a name="Page_18"></a>which,
+under the Missouri
+Compromise, slavery had been excluded. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill not
+only
+threw open a great territory to slavery but re-opened the whole slavery
+discussion. The issues that were brought to the front in the
+discussions
+about this bill, and in the still more bitter contests after the
+passage
+of the bill in regard to the admission of Kansas as a Slave State, were
+the immediate precursors of the Civil War. The larger causes lay
+further
+back, but the War would have been postponed for an indefinite period if
+it had not been for the pressing on the part of the South for the right
+to make Slave States throughout the entire territory of the country,
+and
+for the readiness on the part of certain Democratic leaders of the
+North, of whom Douglas was the chief, to accept this contention, and
+through such expedients to gain, or to retain, political control for
+the
+Democratic party.</p>
+<p>In one of the long series of debates in Congress on the question of
+the
+right to take slaves into free territory, a planter from South Carolina
+drew an affecting picture of his relations with his old coloured
+foster-mother, the "mammy" of the plantation. "Do you tell me," he
+said,
+addressing himself to a Free-soil opponent, "that <a name="Page_19"></a>I,
+a free American
+citizen, am not to be permitted, if I want to go across the Missouri
+River, to take with me my whole home circle? Do you say that I must
+leave my old 'Mammy' behind in South Carolina?" "Oh!" replied the
+Westerner, "the trouble with you is not that you cannot take your
+'Mammy' into this free territory, but that you are not to be at liberty
+to sell her when you get her there."</p>
+<p>Lincoln threw himself with full earnestness of conviction and ardour
+into the fight to preserve for freedom the territory belonging to the
+nation. In common with the majority of the Whig party, he held the
+opinion that if slavery could be restricted to the States in which it
+was already in existence, if no further States should be admitted into
+the Union with the burden of slavery, the institution must, in the
+course of a generation or two, die out. He was clear in his mind that
+slavery was an enormous evil for the whites as well as for the blacks,
+for the individual as for the nation. He had himself, as a young man,
+been brought up to do toilsome manual labour. He would not admit that
+there was anything in manual labour that ought to impair the respect of
+the community for the labourer or the worker's respect for himself. Not
+the least of the evils of <a name="Page_20"></a>slavery was, in his
+judgment, its inevitable
+influence in bringing degradation upon labour and the labourer.</p>
+<p>The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act made clear to the North that
+the
+South would accept no limitations for slavery. The position of the
+Southern leaders, in which they had the substantial backing of their
+constituents, was that slaves were property and that the Constitution,
+having guaranteed the protection of property to all the citizens of the
+commonwealth, a slaveholder was deprived of his constitutional rights
+as
+a citizen if his control of this portion of his property was in any way
+interfered with or restricted. The argument in behalf of this extreme
+Southern claim had been shaped most eloquently and most forcibly by
+John
+C. Calhoun during the years between 1830 and 1850. The Calhoun opinion
+was represented a few years later in the Presidential candidacy of John
+C. Breckinridge. The contention of the more extreme of the Northern
+opponents of slavery voters, whose spokesmen were William Lloyd
+Garrison, Wendell Phillips, James G. Birney, Owen Lovejoy, and others,
+was that the Constitution in so far as it recognised slavery (which it
+did only by implication) was a compact with evil. They held that the
+Fathers <a name="Page_21"></a>had been led into this compact
+unwittingly and without full
+realisation of the responsibilities that they were assuming for the
+perpetuation of a great wrong. They refused to accept the view that
+later generations of American citizens were to be bound for an
+indefinite period by this error of judgment on the part of the Fathers.
+They proposed to get rid of slavery, as an institution incompatible
+with
+the principles on which the Republic was founded. They pointed out that
+under the Declaration of Independence all men had an equal right to
+"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and that there was no
+limitation of this claim to men of white race. If it was not going to
+be
+possible to argue slavery out of existence, these men preferred to have
+the Union dissolved rather than to bring upon States like Massachusetts
+a share of the responsibility for the wrong done to mankind and to
+justice under the laws of South Carolina.</p>
+<p>The Whig party, whose great leader, Henry Clay, had closed his life
+in
+1852, just at the time when Lincoln was becoming prominent in politics,
+held that all citizens were bound by the compact entered into by their
+ancestors, first under the Articles of Confederation of 1783, and later
+under the Constitution of 1789. Our ancestors had, <a name="Page_22"></a>for
+the purpose of
+bringing about the organisation of the Union, agreed to respect the
+institution of slavery in the States in which it existed. The Whigs of
+1850, held, therefore, that in such of the Slave States as had been
+part
+of the original thirteen, slavery was an institution to be recognised
+and protected under the law of the land. They admitted, further, that
+what their grandfathers had done in 1789, had been in a measure
+confirmed by the action of their fathers in 1820. The Missouri
+Compromise of 1820, in making clear that all States thereafter
+organised
+north of the line thirty-six thirty were to be Free States, made clear
+also that States south of that line had the privilege of coming into
+the
+Union with the institution of slavery and that the citizens in these
+newer Slave States should be assured of the same recognition and rights
+as had been accorded to those of the original thirteen.</p>
+<p>The Missouri Compromise permitted also the introduction of Missouri
+itself into the Union as a Slave State (as a counterpoise to the State
+of Maine admitted the same year), although almost the entire territory
+of the State of Missouri was north of the latitude 36&deg; 30'.</p>
+<p>We may recall that, under the Constitution, the States of the South,
+while denying the suffrage <a name="Page_23"></a>to the negro, had
+secured the right to
+include the negro population as a basis for their representation in the
+lower House. In apportioning the representatives to the population,
+five
+negroes were to be counted as the equivalent of three white men. The
+passage, in 1854, of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the purpose of which was
+to confirm the existence of slavery and to extend the institution
+throughout the country, was carried in the House by thirteen votes. The
+House contained at that time no less than twenty members representing
+the negro population. The negroes were, therefore, in this instance
+involuntarily made the instruments for strengthening the chains of
+their
+own serfdom.</p>
+<p>It was in 1854 that Lincoln first propounded the famous question,
+"Can
+the nation endure half slave and half free?" This question, slightly
+modified, became the keynote four years later of Lincoln's contention
+against the Douglas theory of "squatter sovereignty." The organisation
+of the Republican party dates from 1856. Various claims have been made
+concerning the precise date and place at which were first presented the
+statement of principles that constituted the final platform of the
+party, and in regard to the men who were responsible for such
+statement.
+At a <a name="Page_24"></a>meeting held as far back as July, 1854, at
+Jackson, Michigan, a
+platform was adopted by a convention which had been brought together to
+formulate opposition to any extension of slavery, and this Jackson
+platform did contain the substance of the conclusions and certain of
+the
+phrases which later were included in the Republican platform. In
+January, 1856, Parke Godwin published in <i>Putnam's Monthly</i>, of
+which he
+was political editor, an article outlining the necessary constitution
+of
+the new party. This article gave a fuller expression than had thus far
+been made of the views of the men who were later accepted as the
+leaders
+of the Republican party. In May, 1856, Lincoln made a speech at
+Bloomington, Illinois, setting forth the principles for the
+anti-slavery
+campaign as they were understood by his group of Whigs. In this speech,
+Lincoln speaks of "that perfect liberty for which our Southern
+fellow-citizens are sighing, the liberty of making slaves of other
+people"; and again, "It is the contention of Mr. Douglas, in his claim
+for the rights of American citizens, that if <i>A</i> sees fit to
+enslave
+<i>B</i>, no other man shall have the right to object." Of this
+Bloomington
+speech, Herndon says: "It was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm;
+it was justice, integrity, truth, <a name="Page_25"></a>and right. The
+words seemed to be set
+ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by a great wrong. The
+utterance was hard, knotty, gnarly, backed with wrath."</p>
+<p>From this time on, Lincoln was becoming known throughout the country
+as
+one of the leaders in the new issues, able and ready to give time and
+service to the anti-slavery fight and to the campaign work of the
+Republican organisation. This political service interfered to some
+extent with his work at the Bar, but he did not permit political
+interests to stand in the way of any obligations that had been assumed
+to his clients. He simply accepted fewer cases, and to this extent
+reduced his very moderate earnings. In his work as a lawyer, he never
+showed any particular capacity for increasing income or for looking
+after his own business interests. It was his principle and his practice
+to discourage litigation. He appears, during the twenty-five years in
+which he was in active practice, to have made absolutely no enemies
+among his professional opponents. He enjoyed an exceptional reputation
+for the frankness with which he would accept the legitimate contentions
+of his opponents or would even himself state their case. Judge David
+Davis, before whom <a name="Page_26"></a>Lincoln had occasion during
+these years to practise,
+says that the Court was always prepared to accept as absolutely fair
+and
+substantially complete Lincoln's statement of the matters at issue.
+Davis says it occasionally happened that Lincoln would supply some
+consideration of importance on his opponent's side of the case that the
+other counsel had overlooked. It was Lincoln's principle to impress
+upon
+himself at the outset the full strength of the other man's position. It
+was also his principle to accept no case in the justice of which he had
+not been able himself to believe. He possessed also by nature an
+exceptional capacity for the detection of faulty reasoning; and his
+exercise of the power of analysis in his work at the Bar proved of
+great
+service later in widening his influence as a political leader. The
+power
+that he possessed, when he was assured of the justice of his cause, of
+convincing court and jury became the power of impressing his
+convictions
+upon great bodies of voters. Later, when he had upon his shoulders the
+leadership of the nation, he took the people into his confidence; he
+reasoned with them as if they were sitting as a great jury for the
+determination of the national policy, and he was able to impress upon
+them his perfect integrity of purpose and the soundness <a
+ name="Page_27"></a>of his
+conclusions,&#8212;conclusions which thus became the policy of the nation.</p>
+<p>He calls himself a "mast-fed lawyer" and it is true that his
+opportunities for reading continued to be most restricted. Davis said
+in
+regard to Lincoln's work as a lawyer: "He had a magnificent equipoise
+of
+head, conscience, and heart. In non-essentials he was pliable; but on
+the underlying principles of truth and justice, his will was as firm as
+steel." We find from the record of Lincoln's work in the Assembly and
+later in Congress that he would never do as a Representative what he
+was
+unwilling to do as an individual. His capacity for seeing the humorous
+side of things was of course but a phase of a general clearness of
+perception. The man who sees things clearly, who is able to recognise
+both sides of a matter, the man who can see all round a position, the
+opposite of the man in blinders, that man necessarily has a sense of
+humour. He is able, if occasion presents, to laugh at himself.
+Lincoln's
+capacity for absorbing and for retaining information and for having
+this
+in readiness for use at the proper time was, as we have seen, something
+that went back to his boyhood. He says of himself: "My mind is
+something
+like a piece of steel; it is very <a name="Page_28"></a>hard to
+scratch anything on it and
+almost impossible after you have got it there to rub it out."</p>
+<p>Lincoln's correspondence has been preserved with what is probably
+substantial completeness. The letters written by him to friends,
+acquaintances, political correspondents, individual men of one kind or
+another, have been gathered together and have been brought into print
+not, as is most frequently the case, under the discretion or judgment
+of
+a friendly biographer, but by a great variety of more or less
+sympathetic people. It would seem as if but very few of Lincoln's
+letters could have been mislaid or destroyed. One can but be impressed,
+in reading these letters, with the absolute honesty of purpose and of
+statement that characterises them. There are very few men, particularly
+those whose active lives have been passed in a period of political
+struggle and civil war, whose correspondence could stand such a test.
+There never came to Lincoln requirement to say to his correspondent,
+"Burn this letter."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="III"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_29"></a>III</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF
+SLAVERY</p>
+<br>
+<p>In 1856, the Supreme Court, under the headship of Judge Taney, gave
+out
+the decision of the Dred Scott case. The purport of this decision was
+that a negro was not to be considered as a person but as a chattel; and
+that the taking of such negro chattel into free territory did not
+cancel
+or impair the property rights of the master. It appeared to the men of
+the North as if under this decision the entire country, including in
+addition to the national territories the independent States which had
+excluded slavery, was to be thrown open to the invasion of the
+institution. The Dred Scott decision, taken in connection with the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise (and the two acts were doubtless a
+part of one thoroughly considered policy), foreshadowed as their
+logical
+and almost inevitable consequence the bringing of the entire nation
+under the control of slavery. The men of the future State of Kansas
+made
+during 1856-57 a plucky fight to keep <a name="Page_30"></a>slavery
+out of their borders. The
+so-called Lecompton Constitution undertook to force slavery upon
+Kansas.
+This constitution was declared by the administration (that of President
+Buchanan) to have been adopted, but the fraudulent character of the
+voting was so evident that Walker, the Democratic Governor, although a
+sympathiser with slavery, felt compelled to repudiate it. This
+constitution was repudiated also by Douglas, although Douglas had
+declared that the State ought to be thrown open to slavery. Jefferson
+Davis, at that time Secretary of War, declared that "Kansas was in a
+state of rebellion and that the rebellion must be crushed." Armed bands
+from Missouri crossed the river to Kansas for the purpose of casting
+fraudulent votes and for the further purpose of keeping the Free-soil
+settlers away from the polls.</p>
+<p>This fight for freedom in Kansas gave a further basis for Lincoln's
+statement "that a house divided against itself cannot stand; this
+government cannot endure half slave and half free." It was with this
+statement as his starting-point that Lincoln entered into his famous
+Senatorial campaign with Douglas. Douglas had already represented
+Illinois in the Senate for two terms and had, therefore, the advantage
+of possession and <a name="Page_31"></a>of a substantial control of
+the machinery of the
+State. He had the repute at the time of being the leading political
+debater in the country. He was shrewd, forcible, courageous, and, in
+the
+matter of convictions, unprincipled. He knew admirably how to cater to
+the prejudices of the masses. His career thus far had been one of
+unbroken success. His Senatorial fight was, in his hope and
+expectation,
+to be but a step towards the Presidency. The Democratic party, with an
+absolute control south of Mason and Dixon's Line and with a very
+substantial support in the Northern States, was in a position, if
+unbroken, to control with practical certainty the Presidential election
+of 1860. Douglas seemed to be the natural leader of the party. It was
+necessary for him, however, while retaining the support of the
+Democrats
+of the North, to make clear to those of the South that his influence
+would work for the maintenance and for the extension of slavery.</p>
+<p>The South was well pleased with the purpose and with the result of
+the
+Dred Scott decision and with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It
+is probable, however, that if the Dred Scott decision had not given to
+the South so full a measure of satisfaction, the South would have <a
+ name="Page_32"></a>been
+more ready to accept the leadership of a Northern Democrat like
+Douglas.
+Up to a certain point in the conflict, they had felt the need of
+Douglas
+and had realised the importance of the support that he was in a
+position
+to bring from the North. When, however, the Missouri Compromise had
+been
+repealed and the Supreme Court had declared that slaves must be
+recognised as property throughout the entire country, the Southern
+claims were increased to a point to which certain of the followers of
+Douglas were not willing to go. It was a large compliment to the young
+lawyer of Illinois to have placed upon him the responsibility of
+leading, against such a competitor as Douglas, the contest of the
+Whigs,
+and of the Free-soilers back of the Whigs, against any further
+extension
+of slavery, a contest which was really a fight for the continued
+existence of the nation.</p>
+<p>Lincoln seems to have gone into the fight with full courage, the
+courage
+of his convictions. He felt that Douglas was a trimmer, and he believed
+that the issue had now been brought to a point at which the trimmer
+could not hold support on both sides of Mason and Dixon's Line. He
+formulated at the outset of the debate a question which was pressed
+persistently upon <a name="Page_33"></a>Douglas during the succeeding
+three weeks. This
+question was worded as follows: "Can the people of a United States
+territory, prior to the formation of a State constitution or against
+the
+protest of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery?"
+Lincoln's
+campaign advisers were of opinion that this question was inadvisable.
+They took the ground that Douglas would answer the question in such way
+as to secure the approval of the voters of Illinois and that in so
+doing
+he would win the Senatorship. Lincoln's response was in substance:
+"That
+may be. I hold, however, that if Douglas answers this question in a way
+to satisfy the Democrats of the North, he will inevitably lose the
+support of the more extreme, at least, of the Democrats of the South.
+We
+may lose the Senatorship as far as my personal candidacy is concerned.
+If, however, Douglas fails to retain the support of the South, he
+cannot
+become President in 1860. The line will be drawn directly between those
+who are willing to accept the extreme claims of the South and those who
+resist these claims. A right decision is the essential thing for the
+safety of the nation." The question gave no little perplexity to
+Douglas. He finally, however, replied that in his judgment the people
+of
+a United States territory had the <a name="Page_34"></a>right to
+exclude slavery. When asked
+again by Lincoln how he brought this decision into accord with the Dred
+Scott decision, he replied in substance: "Well, they have not the right
+to take constitutional measures to exclude slavery but they can by
+local
+legislation render slavery practically impossible." The Dred Scott
+decision had in fact itself overturned the Douglas theory of popular
+sovereignty or "squatter sovereignty." Douglas was only able to say
+that
+his sovereignty contention made provision for such control of domestic
+or local regulations as would make slavery impossible.</p>
+<p>The South, rendered autocratic by the authority of the Supreme
+Court,
+was not willing to accept the possibility of slavery being thus
+restricted out of existence in any part of the country. The Southerners
+repudiated Douglas as Lincoln had prophesied they would do. Douglas had
+been trying the impossible task of carrying water on both shoulders. He
+gained the Senatorship by a narrow margin; he secured in the vote in
+the
+Legislature a majority of eight, but Lincoln had even in this fight won
+the support of the people. His majority on the popular vote was four
+thousand.</p>
+<p>The series of debates between these two leaders <a name="Page_35"></a>came
+to be of national
+importance. It was not merely a question of the representation in the
+Senate from the State of Illinois, but of the presentation of
+arguments,
+not only to the voters of Illinois but to citizens throughout the
+entire
+country, in behalf of the restriction of slavery on the one hand or of
+its indefinite expansion and protection on the other. The debate was
+educational not merely for the voters who listened, but for the
+thousands of other voters who read the reports. It would be an enormous
+advantage for the political education of candidates and for the
+education of voters if such debates could become the routine in
+Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Under the present routine, we
+have, in place of an assembly of voters representing the conflicting
+views of the two parties or of the several political groups, a
+homogeneous audience of one way of thinking, and speakers who have no
+opponent present to check the temptation to launch forth into wild
+statements, personal abuse, and irresponsible conclusions. An
+interruption of the speaker is considered to be a disturbance of order,
+and the man who is not fully in sympathy with the views of the audience
+is likely to be put out as an interloper. With a system of joint
+debates, the speakers would be <a name="Page_36"></a>under an
+educational repression. False
+or exaggerated statements would not be made, or would not be made
+consciously, because they would be promptly corrected by the other
+fellow. There would of necessity come to be a better understanding and
+a
+larger respect for the positions of the opponent. The men who would be
+selected as leaders or speakers to enforce the contentions of the
+party,
+would have to possess some reasoning faculty as well as oratorical
+fluency. The voters, instead of being shut in with one group of
+arguments more or less reasonable, would be brought into touch with the
+arguments of other groups of citizens. I can conceive of no better
+method for bringing representative government on to a higher plane and
+for making an election what it ought to be, a reasonable decision by
+reasoning voters, than the institution of joint debates.</p>
+<p>I cite certain of the incisive statements that came into Lincoln's
+seven
+debates. "A slave, says Judge Douglas (on the authority of Judge
+Taney),
+is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." "I contend
+[says Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's
+nature. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right, and as long as God
+reigns and as school-children read, that black evil can never <a
+ name="Page_37"></a>be
+consecrated into God's truth." "A man does not lose his right to a
+piece
+of property which has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to himself if
+he himself has been stolen?" The following words present a summary of
+Lincoln's statements:</p>
+<p>Judge Douglas contends that if any one man chooses to enslave
+another,
+no third man has a right to object. Our Fathers, in accepting slavery
+under the Constitution as a legal institution, were of opinion, as is
+clearly indicated by the recorded utterances, that slavery would in the
+course of a few years die out. They were quite clear in their minds
+that
+the slave-trade must be abolished and for ever forbidden and this
+decision was arrived at under the leadership of men like Jefferson and
+without a protest from the South. Jefferson was himself the author of
+the Ordinance of 1787, which in prohibiting the introduction of
+slavery,
+consecrated to freedom the great territory of the North-west, and this
+measure was fully approved by Washington and by the other great leaders
+from the South. Where slavery exists, full liberty refuses to enter. It
+was only through this wise action of the Fathers that it was possible
+to
+bring into existence, through colonisation, the great territories and
+great States of the North-<a name="Page_38"></a>west. It is this
+settlement, and the later
+adjustment of 1820, that Douglas and his friends in the South are
+undertaking to overthrow. Slavery is not, as Judge Douglas contends, a
+local issue; it is a national responsibility. The repeal of the
+Missouri
+Compromise throws open not only a great new territory to the curse of
+slavery; it throws open the whole slavery question for the embroiling
+of
+the present generation of Americans. Taking slaves into free territory
+is the same thing as reviving the slave-trade. It perpetuates and
+develops interstate slave-trade. Government derives its just powers
+from
+the consent of the governed. The Fathers did not claim that "the right
+of the people to govern negroes was the right of the people to govern
+themselves."</p>
+<p>The policy of Judge Douglas was based on the theory that the people
+did
+not care, but the people did care, as was evinced two years later by
+the
+popular vote for President throughout the North. One of those who heard
+these debates says: "Lincoln loved truth for its own sake. He had a
+deep, true, living conscience; honesty was his polar star. He never
+acted for stage effect. He was cool, spirited, reflective,
+self-possessed, and self-reliant. His style was clear, terse, compact
+... He became tremendous in the directness of his utterance when, as
+his
+<a name="Page_39"></a>soul was inspired with the thought of human right
+and Divine justice,
+he rose to impassioned eloquence, and at such times he was, in my
+judgment, unsurpassed by Clay or by Mirabeau."</p>
+<p>As the debates progressed, it was increasingly evident that Douglas
+found himself hard pushed. Lincoln would not allow himself to be
+swerved
+from the main issue by any tergiversation or personal attacks. He
+insisted from day to day in bringing Douglas back to this issue: "What
+do you, Douglas, propose to do about slavery in the territories? Is it
+your final judgment that there is to be no further reservation of free
+territory in this country? Do you believe that it is for the advantage
+of this country to put no restriction to the extension of slavery?"
+Douglas wriggled and squirmed under this direct questioning and his
+final replies gave satisfaction neither to the Northern Democrats nor
+to
+those of the South. The issue upon which the Presidential contest of
+1860 was to be fought out had been fairly stated. It was the same issue
+under which, in 1861, the fighting took the form of civil war. It was
+the issue that took four years to fight out and that was finally
+decided
+in favour of the <a name="Page_40"></a>continued existence of the
+nation as a free state. In
+this fight, Lincoln was not only, as the contest was finally shaped,
+the
+original leader; he was the final leader; and at the time of his death
+the great question had been decided for ever.</p>
+<p>Horace White, in summing up the issues that were fought out in
+debate
+between Lincoln and Douglas, says:</p>
+<p>"Forty-four years have passed away since the Civil War came to an
+end
+and we are now able to take a dispassionate view of the question in
+dispute. The people of the South are now generally agreed that the
+institution of slavery was a direful curse to both races. We of the
+North must confess that there was considerable foundation for the
+asserted right of States to secede. Although the Constitution did in
+distinct terms make the Federal Government supreme, it was not so
+understood at first by the people either North or South. Particularism
+prevailed everywhere at the beginning. Nationalism was an aftergrowth
+and a slow growth proceeding mainly from the habit into which people
+fell of finding their common centre of gravity at Washington City and
+of
+viewing it as the place whence the American name and fame were blazoned
+to the world. During the first half century of the Republic, the North
+and South were changing coats from time to time, on the subject of
+State
+Rights and the right to secede, but <a name="Page_41"></a>meanwhile
+the Constitution itself
+was working silently in the North to undermine the particularism of
+Jefferson and to strengthen the nationalism of Hamilton. It had
+accomplished its work in the early thirties, when it found its perfect
+expression in Webster's reply to Hayne. But the Southern people were
+just as firmly convinced that Hayne was the victor in that contest as
+the Northern people were that Webster was. The vast material interests
+bottomed on slavery offset and neutralised the unifying process in the
+South, while it continued its wholesome work in the North, and thus the
+clashing of ideas paved the way for the clash of arms. That the
+behaviour of the slaveholders resulted from the circumstances in which
+they were placed and not from any innate deviltry is a fact now
+conceded
+by all impartial men. It was conceded by Lincoln both before the War
+and
+during the War, and this fact accounts for the affection bestowed upon
+him by Southern hearts to-day."</p>
+<p>Lincoln carried into politics the same standard of consistency of
+action
+that had characterised his work at the Bar. He writes, in 1859, to a
+correspondent whom he was directing to further the organisation of the
+new party: "Do not, in order to secure recruits, lower the standard of
+the Republican party. The true problem for 1860, is to fight to prevent
+slavery from becoming <a name="Page_42"></a>national. We must,
+however, recognise its
+constitutional right to exist in the States in which its existence was
+recognised under the original Constitution." This position was
+unsatisfactory to the Whigs of the Border States who favoured a
+continuing division between Slave States and Free States of the
+territory yet to be organised into States. It was also unsatisfactory
+to
+the extreme anti-slavery Whigs of the new organisation who insisted
+upon
+throttling slavery where-ever it existed. It is probable that the raid
+made by John Brown, in 1859, into Virginia for the purpose of rousing
+the slaves to fight for their own liberty, had some immediate influence
+in checking the activity of the more extreme anti-slavery group and in
+strengthening the conservative side of the new organisation. Lincoln
+disapproved entirely of the purpose of Brown and his associates, while
+ready to give due respect to the idealistic courage of the man.</p>
+<p>In February, 1860, Lincoln was invited by certain of the Republican
+leaders in New York to deliver one of a series of addresses which had
+been planned to make clear to the voters the purposes and the
+foundations of the new party. His name had become known to the
+Republicans of the East through the debates with Douglas. <a
+ name="Page_43"></a>It was
+recognised that Lincoln had taken the highest ground in regard to the
+principles of the new party, and that his counsels should prove of
+practical service in the shaping of the policy of the Presidential
+campaign. It was believed also that his influence would be of value in
+securing voters in the Middle West. The Committee of Invitation
+included, in addition to a group of the old Whigs (of whom my father
+was
+one), representative Free-soil Democrats like William C. Bryant and
+John
+King. Lincoln's methods as a political leader and orator were known to
+one or two men on the committee, but his name was still unfamiliar to
+an
+Eastern audience. It was understood that the new leader from the West
+was going to talk to New York about the fight against slavery. It is
+probable that at least the larger part of the audience expected
+something "wild and woolly." The West at that time seemed very far off
+from New York and was still but little understood by the Eastern
+communities. New Yorkers found it difficult to believe that a man who
+could influence Western audiences could have anything to say that would
+count with the cultivated citizens of the East. The more optimistic of
+the hearers were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry <a
+ name="Page_44"></a>Clay had
+arisen and were looking for utterances of the ornate and grandiloquent
+kind such as they had heard frequently from Clay and from other
+statesmen of the South.</p>
+<p>The first impression of the man from the West did nothing to
+contradict
+the expectation of something weird, rough, and uncultivated. The long,
+ungainly figure upon which hung clothes that, while new for this trip,
+were evidently the work of an unskilful tailor; the large feet, the
+clumsy hands of which, at the outset, at least, the orator seemed to be
+unduly conscious; the long, gaunt head capped by a shock of hair that
+seemed not to have been thoroughly brushed out, made a picture which
+did
+not fit in with New York's conception of a finished statesman. The
+first
+utterance of the voice was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being
+harsh
+and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker
+seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and
+impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and
+the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the
+deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of
+devotion
+to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the
+speaker.
+In place of a "wild and woolly" <a name="Page_45"></a>talk, illumined
+by more or less
+incongruous anecdotes; in place of a high-strung exhortation of general
+principles or of a fierce protest against Southern arrogance, the New
+Yorkers had presented to them a calm but forcible series of
+well-reasoned considerations upon which their action as citizens was to
+be based. It was evident that the man from the West understood
+thoroughly the constitutional history of the country; he had mastered
+the issues that had grown up about the slavery question; he knew
+thoroughly, and was prepared to respect, the rights of his political
+opponents; he knew with equal thoroughness the rights of the men whose
+views he was helping to shape and he insisted that there should be no
+wavering or weakening in regard to the enforcement of those rights; he
+made it clear that the continued existence of the nation depended upon
+having these issues equitably adjusted and he held that the equitable
+adjustment meant the restriction of slavery within its present
+boundaries. He maintained that such restrictions were just and
+necessary
+as well for the sake of fairness to the blacks as for the final welfare
+of the whites. He insisted that the voters in the present States in the
+Union had upon them the largest possible measure of responsibility in
+so
+controlling the <a name="Page_46"></a>great domain of the Republic
+that the States of the
+future, the States in which their children and their grandchildren were
+to grow up as citizens, must be preserved in full liberty, must be
+protected against any invasion of an institution which represented
+barbarity. He maintained that such a contention could interfere in no
+way with the due recognition of the legitimate property rights of the
+present owners of slaves. He pointed out to the New Englander of the
+anti-slavery group that the restriction of slavery meant its early
+extermination. He insisted that war for the purpose of exterminating
+slavery from existing slave territory could not be justified. He was
+prepared, for the purpose of defending against slavery the national
+territory that was still free, to take the risk of the war which the
+South threatened because he believed that only through such defence
+could the existence of the nation be maintained; and he believed,
+further, that the maintenance of the great Republic was essential, not
+only for the interests of its own citizens, but for the interests of
+free government throughout the world. He spoke with full sympathy of
+the
+difficulties and problems resting upon the South, and he insisted that
+the matters at issue could be adjusted only with a fair <a
+ name="Page_47"></a>recognition of
+these difficulties. Aggression from either side of Mason and Dixon's
+Line must be withstood.</p>
+<p>I was but a boy when I first looked upon the gaunt figure of the man
+who
+was to become the people's leader, and listened to his calm but
+forcible
+arguments in behalf of the principles of the Republican party. It is
+not
+likely that at the time I took in, with any adequate appreciation, the
+weight of the speaker's reasoning. I have read the address more than
+once since and it is, of course, impossible to separate my first
+impressions from my later direct knowledge. I do remember that I was at
+once impressed with the feeling that here was a political leader whose
+methods differed from those of any politician to whom I had listened.
+His contentions were based not upon invective or abuse of "the other
+fellow," but purely on considerations of justice, on that everlasting
+principle that what is just, and only what is just, represents the
+largest and highest interests of the nation as a whole. I doubt whether
+there occurred in the whole speech a single example of the stories
+which
+had been associated with Lincoln's name. The speaker was evidently
+himself impressed with the greatness of the opportunity and with the
+<a name="Page_48"></a>dignity and importance of his responsibility. The
+speech in fact gave
+the keynote to the coming campaign.</p>
+<p>It is hardly necessary to add that it also decided the selection of
+the
+national leader not only for the political campaign, but through the
+coming struggle. If it had not been for the impression made upon New
+York and the East generally by Lincoln's speech and by the man himself,
+the vote of New York could not have been secured in the May convention
+for the nomination of the man from Illinois.</p>
+<p>Robert Lincoln (writing to me in July, 1908) says:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"After my father's address in New York in February, 1860, he made a
+trip to New England in order to visit me at Exeter, N.H., where I
+was then a student in the Phillips Academy. It had not been his plan
+to do any speaking in New England, but, as a result of the address
+in New York, he received several requests from New England friends
+for speeches, and I find that before returning to the West, he spoke
+at the following places: Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., Exeter,
+N.H., Dover, N.H., Concord, N.H., Hartford, Conn., Meriden, Conn.,
+New Haven, Conn., Woonsocket, R.I., Norwalk, Conn., and Bridgeport,
+Conn. I am quite sure that coming and going he <a name="Page_49"></a>passed
+through
+Boston merely as an unknown traveller."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Mr. Lincoln writes to his wife from Exeter, N.H., March 4, 1860, as
+follows:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had foreseen it, I
+think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New York,
+being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well
+and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine
+others, before reading audiences who had already seen all my ideas
+in print."<a name="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+</div>
+<p>An edition of Mr. Lincoln's address was brought into print in
+September,
+1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, with notes by
+Charles C. Nott (later Colonel, and after the war Judge of the Court of
+Claims in Washington) and Cephas Brainerd. The publication of this
+pamphlet shows that as early as September, 1860, the historic
+importance
+and permanent value of this speech were fairly realised by the national
+leaders of the day. In the preface to the reprint, the editors say:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"The address is characterised by wisdom, truthfulness and learning<a
+ name="Page_50"></a>
+...From the first line to the last&#8212;from his premises to his
+conclusion, the speaker travels with a swift, unerring directness
+that no logician has ever excelled. His argument is complete and is
+presented without the affectation of learning, and without the
+stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details ...A single
+simple sentence contains a chapter of history that has taken days of
+labour to verify, and that must have cost the author months of
+investigation to acquire. The reader may take up this address as a
+political pamphlet, but he will leave it as an historical
+treatise&#8212;brief, complete, perfect, sound, impartial truth&#8212;which
+will serve the time and the occasion that called it forth, and which
+will be esteemed hereafter no less for its unpretending modesty than
+for its intrinsic worth."<a name="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_2_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+</div>
+<p>Horace White, who was himself present at the Chicago Convention,
+writes
+(in 1909) as follows:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"To anybody looking back at the Republican National Convention of
+1860, it must be plain that there were only two men who had any
+chance of being nominated for President.</p>
+<p>"These were Lincoln and Seward. I was present at the Convention as a
+spectator and I knew this fact at the time, but it seemed to me at
+the beginning <a name="Page_51"></a>that Seward's chances were the
+better. One third of
+the delegates of Illinois preferred Seward and expected to vote for
+him after a few complimentary ballots for Lincoln. If there had been
+no Lincoln in the field, Seward would certainly have been nominated
+and then the course of history would have been very different from
+what it was, for if Seward had been nominated and elected there
+would have been no forcible opposition to the withdrawal of such
+States as then desired to secede. And as a consequence the
+Republican party would have been rent in twain and disabled from
+making effectual resistance to other demands of the South.</p>
+<p>"It was Seward's conviction that the policy of non-coercion would
+have quieted the secession movement in the Border States and that
+the Gulf States would, after a while, have returned to the Union
+like repentant prodigal sons. His proposal to Lincoln to seek a
+quarrel with four European nations, who had done us no harm, in
+order to arouse a feeling of Americanism in the Confederate States,
+was an outgrowth of this conviction. It was an indefensible
+proposition, akin to that which prompted Bismarck to make use of
+France as an anvil on which to hammer and weld Germany together, but
+it was not an unpatriotic one, since it was bottomed on a desire to
+preserve the Union without civil war."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Never was a political leadership more fairly, <a name="Page_52"></a>more
+nobly, and more
+reasonably won. When the ballot boxes were opened on the first Tuesday
+in November, Lincoln was found to have secured the electoral vote of
+every Northern State except New Jersey, and in New Jersey four electors
+out of seven. Breckinridge, the leader of the extreme Southern
+Democrats, had back of him only the votes of the Southern States
+outside
+of the Border States, these latter being divided between Bell and
+Douglas. Douglas and his shallow theories of "squatter sovereignty" had
+been buried beneath the good sense of the voters of the North.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="IV"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_53"></a>IV</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE
+PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+NATIONAL EXISTENCE</p>
+<br>
+<p>After the election of November, 1860, events moved swiftly. On the
+20th
+of December, comes the first act of the Civil War, the secession of
+South Carolina. The secession of Georgia had for a time been delayed by
+the influence of Alexander H. Stephens who, on the 14th of November,
+had
+made a great argument for the maintenance of the Union. His chief local
+opponent at the time was Robert Toombs, the Southern leader who
+proposed
+in the near future to "call the roll-call of his slaves on Bunker
+Hill."
+Lincoln was still hopeful of saving to the cause of the Union the
+Border
+States and the more conservative divisions of States, like North
+Carolina, which had supported the Whig party.</p>
+<p>In December, we find correspondence between Lincoln and Gilmer of
+North
+Carolina, whom he had known in Washington. "The essential <a
+ name="Page_54"></a>difference,"
+says Lincoln, "between your group and mine is that you hold slavery to
+be in itself desirable and as something to be extended. I hold it to be
+an essential evil which, with due regard to existing rights, must be
+restricted and in the near future exterminated."</p>
+<p>On the 23d of February, 1861, Lincoln reaches Washington where he is
+to
+spend a weary and anxious two weeks of waiting for the burden of his
+new
+responsibilities. He is at this time fifty-two years of age. In one of
+his brief addresses on the way to Washington he says:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"It is but little to a man of my age, but a great deal to thirty
+millions of the citizens of the United States, and to posterity in
+all coming time, if the Union of the States and the liberties of the
+people are to be lost. If the majority is not to rule, who would be
+the judge of the issue or where is such judge to be found?"</p>
+</div>
+<p>It is difficult to imagine a more exasperating condition of affairs
+than
+obtained in Washington while Lincoln was awaiting the day of
+inauguration. The government appeared to be crumbling away under the
+nerveless direction, or lack of direction, of President Buchanan and
+his
+associates. In his last message to Congress, Buchanan <a name="Page_55"></a>had
+taken the
+ground that the Constitution made no provision for the secession of
+States or for the breaking up of the Union; but that it also failed to
+contain any provision for measures that could prevent such secession
+and
+the consequent destruction of the nation. The old gentleman appeared to
+be entirely unnerved by the pressure of events. He could not see any
+duty before him. He certainly failed to realise that the more immediate
+cause of the storm was the breaking down, through the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise, of the barriers that had in 1820, and in 1850,
+been
+placed against the extension of slavery. He evidently failed to
+understand that it was his own action in backing up the infamous
+Lecompton Constitution, and the invasion of Kansas by the slave-owners,
+which had finally aroused the spirit of the North, and further that it
+was the influence of his administration which had given to the South
+the
+belief that it was now in a position to control for slavery the whole
+territory of the Republic.</p>
+<p>It has before now been pointed out that, under certain
+contingencies,
+the long interval between the national election and the inaugural of
+the
+new President from the first Tuesday in November until the fourth day
+of
+March must, in not a few <a name="Page_56"></a>instances, bring
+inconvenience, disadvantage,
+and difficulty not only to the new administration but to the nation.
+These months in which the members of an administration which had
+practically committed itself to the cause of disintegration, were left
+in charge of the resources of the nation gave a most serious example
+and
+evidence of such disadvantage. This historic instance ought to have
+been
+utilised immediately after the War as an influence for bringing about a
+change in the date for bringing into power the administration that has
+been chosen in November.</p>
+<p>By the time when Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet had placed
+in
+their hands the responsibilities of administration, the resources at
+the
+disposal of the government had, as far as practicable, been scattered
+or
+rendered unavailable. The Secretary of the Navy, a Southerner, had
+taken
+pains to send to the farthest waters of the Pacific as many as possible
+of the vessels of the American fleet; the Secretary of War, also a
+Southerner, had for months been busy in transferring to the arsenals of
+the South the guns and ammunition that had been stored in the Federal
+arsenals of the North; the Secretary of the Treasury had had no
+difficulty in disposing of government funds in one direction or another
+<a name="Page_57"></a>so that there was practically no balance to hand
+over to his successor
+available for the most immediate necessities of the new administration.</p>
+<p>One of the sayings quoted from Washington during these weeks was the
+answer given by Count Gurowski to the inquiry, "Is there anything in
+addition this morning?" "No," said Gurowski, "it is all in subtraction."</p>
+<p>By the day of the inaugural, the secession of seven States was an
+accomplished fact and the government of the Confederacy had already
+been
+organised in Montgomery. Alexander H. Stephens had so far modified his
+original position that he had accepted the post of Vice-President and
+in
+his own inaugural address had used the phrase, "Slavery is the
+corner-stone of our new nation," a phrase that was to make much
+mischief
+in Europe for the hopes of the new Confederacy.</p>
+<p>In the first inaugural, one of the great addresses in a noteworthy
+series, Lincoln presented to the attention of the leaders of the South
+certain very trenchant arguments against the wisdom of their course. He
+says of secession for the purpose of preserving the institution of
+slavery:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"You complain that under the government of the United States your
+slaves have from time to time <a name="Page_58"></a>escaped across
+your borders and have
+not been returned to you. Their value as property has been lessened
+by the fact that adjoining your Slave States were certain States
+inhabited by people who did not believe in your institution. How is
+this condition going to be changed by war even under the assumption
+that the war may be successful in securing your independence? Your
+slave territory will still adjoin territory inhabited by free men
+who are inimical to your institution; but these men will no longer
+be bound by any of the restrictions which have obtained under the
+Constitution. They will not have to give consideration to the rights
+of slave-owners who are fellow-citizens. Your slaves will escape as
+before and you will have no measure of redress. Your indignation may
+produce further wars, but the wars can but have the same result
+until finally, after indefinite loss of life and of resources, the
+institution will have been hammered out of existence by the
+inevitable conditions of existing civilisation."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Lincoln points out further in this same address the difference
+between
+his responsibilities and those of the Southern leaders who are
+organising for war. "You," he says, "have no oath registered in Heaven
+to destroy this government, while I have the most solemn oath to
+preserve, direct, and defend it."</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"It was not necessary," says Lincoln, "for the Constitution to<a
+ name="Page_59"></a>
+contain any provision expressly forbidding the disintegration of the
+state; perpetuity and the right to maintain self-existence will be
+considered as a fundamental law of all national government. If the
+theory be accepted that the United States was an association or
+federation of communities, the creation or continued existence of
+such federation must rest upon contract; and before such contract
+can be rescinded, the consent is required of both or of all of the
+parties assenting to it."</p>
+</div>
+<p>He closes with the famous invocation to the fellow Americans of the
+South against whom throughout the whole message there had not been one
+word of bitterness or rancour: "We are not enemies but friends. We must
+not be enemies. Though passion may have strained our relations, it must
+not break our bonds of affection."</p>
+<p>It was, however, too late for argument, and too late for invocations
+of
+friendship. The issue had been forced by the South and the war for
+which
+the leaders of the South had for months, if not for years, been making
+preparation was now to be begun by Southern action. It remained to make
+clear to the North, where the people up to the last moment had been
+unwilling to believe in the possibility of civil war, that the nation
+could be preserved only by fighting for its exist<a name="Page_60"></a>ence.
+It remained to
+organise the men of the North into armies which should be competent to
+carry out this tremendous task of maintaining the nation's existence.</p>
+<p>It was just after the great inaugural and when his head must have
+been
+full of cares and his hands of work, that Lincoln took time to write a
+touching little note that I find in his correspondence. It was
+addressed
+to a boy who had evidently spoken with natural pride of having met the
+President and whose word had been questioned:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"The White House, March 18, 1861.</p>
+<p>"I did see and talk in May last at Springfield, Illinois, with
+Master George Edward Patten."</p>
+</div>
+<p>With the beginning of the work of the administration, came trouble
+with
+the members of the Cabinet. The several secretaries were, in form at
+least, the choice of the President, but as must always be the case in
+the shaping of a Cabinet, and as was particularly necessary at a time
+when it was of first importance to bring into harmonious relations all
+of the political groups of the North which were prepared to be loyal to
+the government, the men who took office in the first Cabinet of Lincoln
+represented not any personal <a name="Page_61"></a>preference of the
+President, but political
+or national requirements. The Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, had, as
+we
+know, been Lincoln's leading opponent for the Presidential nomination
+and had expressed with some freedom of criticism his disappointment
+that
+he, the natural leader of the party, should be put to one side for an
+uncultivated, inexperienced Westerner. Mr. Seward possessed both
+experience and culture; more than this, he was a scholar, and came of a
+long line of gentlefolk. He had public spirit, courage, legitimate
+political ambition, and some of the qualities of leadership. His nature
+was, however, not quite large enough to stand the pressure of political
+disappointment nor quite elastic enough to develop rapidly under the
+tremendous urgency of absolutely new requirements. It is in evidence
+that more than once in the management of the complex and serious
+difficulties of the State Department during the years of war, Seward
+lost his head. It is also on record that the wise-minded and
+fair-minded
+President was able to supply certain serious gaps and deficiencies in
+the direction of the work of the Department, and further that his
+service was so rendered as to save the dignity and the repute of the
+Secretary. Seward's subjectivity, <a name="Page_62"></a>not to say
+vanity, was great, and it
+took some little time before he was able to realise that his was not
+the
+first mind or the strongest will-power in the new administration. On
+the
+first of April, 1861, less than thirty days after the organisation of
+the Cabinet, Seward writes to Lincoln complaining that the "government
+had as yet no policy; that its action seemed to be simply drifting";
+that there was a lack of any clear-minded control in the direction of
+affairs within the Cabinet, in the presentation to the people of the
+purposes of the government, and in the shaping of the all-important
+relations with foreign states. "Who," said Seward, "is to control the
+national policy?" The letter goes on to suggest that Mr. Seward is
+willing to take the responsibility, leaving, if needs be, the credit to
+the nominal chief. The letter was a curious example of the weakness and
+of the bumptiousness of the man, while it gave evidence also, it is
+fair
+to say, of a real public-spirited desire that things should go right
+and
+that the nation should be saved. It was evident that he had as yet no
+adequate faith in the capacity of the President.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's answer was characteristic of the man. There was no
+irritation
+with the bumptiousness, no annoyance at the lack of confidence on <a
+ name="Page_63"></a>the
+part of his associate. He states simply: "There must, of course, be
+control and the responsibility for this control must rest with me." He
+points out further that the general policy of the administration had
+been outlined in the inaugural, that no action since taken had been
+inconsistent with this. The necessary preparations for the defence of
+the government were in train and, as the President trusted, were being
+energetically pushed forward by the several department heads. "I have a
+right," said Lincoln, "to expect loyal co-operation from my associates
+in the Cabinet. I need their counsel and the nation needs the best
+service that can be secured from our united wisdom." The letter of
+Seward was put away and appears never to have been referred to between
+the two men. It saw the light only after the President's death. If he
+had lived it might possibly have been suppressed altogether. A month
+later, Seward said to a friend, "There is in the Cabinet but one vote
+and that is cast by the President."</p>
+<p>The post next in importance under the existing war conditions was
+that
+of Secretary of War. The first man to hold this post was Simon Cameron
+of Pennsylvania. Cameron was very far from being a friend of Lincoln's.
+The two men had <a name="Page_64"></a>had no personal relations and
+what Lincoln knew of him
+he liked not at all. The appointment had been made under the pressure
+of
+the Republicans of Pennsylvania, a State whose support was, of course,
+all important for the administration. It was not the first nor the last
+time that the Republicans of this great State, whose Republicanism
+seems
+to be much safer than its judgment, have committed themselves to
+unworthy and undesirable representatives, men who were not fitted to
+stand for Pennsylvania and who were neither willing nor able to be of
+any service to the country. The appointment of Cameron had, as appears
+from the later history, been promised to Pennsylvania by Judge Davis in
+return for the support of the Pennsylvania delegation for the
+nomination
+of Lincoln. Lincoln knew nothing of the promise and was able to say
+with
+truth, and to prove, that he had authorised no promises and no
+engagements whatsoever. He had, in fact, absolutely prohibited Davis
+and
+the one or two other men who were supposed to have some right to speak
+for him in the convention, from the acceptance of any engagements or
+obligations whatsoever. Davis made the promise to Pennsylvania on his
+own responsibility and at his own risk; Lincoln felt under too much
+<a name="Page_65"></a>obligation to Davis for personal service and for
+friendly loyalty to be
+willing, when the claim was finally pressed, to put it to one side as
+unwarranted. The appointment of Cameron was made and proved to be
+expensive for the efficiency of the War Department and for the repute
+of
+the administration. It became necessary within a comparatively short
+period to secure his resignation. It was in evidence that he was
+trafficking in appointments and in contracts. He was replaced by Edwin
+M. Stanton, who was known later as "the Carnot of the War." Stanton's
+career as a lawyer had given him no direct experience of army affairs.
+He showed, however, exceptional ability, great will power, and an
+enormous capacity for work. He was ambitious, self-willed, and most
+arbitrary in deed and in speech. The difficulty with Stanton was that
+he
+was as likely to insult and to browbeat some loyal supporter of the
+government as to bring to book, and, when necessary, to crush, greedy
+speculators and disloyal tricksters. His judgment in regard to men was
+in fact very often at fault. He came into early and unnecessary
+conflict
+with his chief and he found there a will stronger than his own. The
+respect of the two men for each other grew into a cordial regard. <a
+ name="Page_66"></a>Each
+recognised the loyalty of purpose and the patriotism by which the
+actions of both were influenced. Lincoln was able to some extent to
+soften and to modify the needless truculency of the great War
+Secretary,
+and notwithstanding a good deal of troublesome friction, armies were
+organised and the troops were sent to the front.</p>
+<p>The management of the Treasury, a responsibility hardly less in
+importance under the war conditions than that of the organisation of
+the
+armies, was placed in the hands of Senator Chase. He received from his
+precursor an empty treasury while from the administration came demands
+for immediate and rapidly increasing weekly supplies of funds. The task
+came upon him first of establishing a national credit and secondly of
+utilising this credit for loans such as the civilised world had not
+before known. The expenditures extended by leaps and bounds until by
+the
+middle of 1864 they had reached the sum of $2,000,000 a day. Blunders
+were made in large matters and in small, but, under the circumstances,
+blunders were not to be avoided and the chief purpose was carried out.
+A
+sufficient credit was established, first with the citizens at home and
+later with investors abroad, to make a market for the millions of bonds
+in the two great issues, <a name="Page_67"></a>the so-called
+seven-thirties and
+five-twenties. The sales of these bonds, together with a wide-reaching
+and, in fact, unduly complex system of taxation, secured the funds
+necessary for the support of the army and the navy. At the close of the
+War, the government, after meeting this expenditure, had a national war
+debt of something over four thousand millions of dollars. The gross
+indebtedness resulting from the War was of course, however, much larger
+because each State had incurred war expenditures and counties as well
+as
+States had issued bonds for the payment of bounties, etc. The criticism
+was made at the time by the opponents of the financial system which was
+shaped by the Committee of Ways and Means in co-operation with the
+Secretary, a criticism that has often been repeated since, that the War
+expenditure would have been much less if the amounts needed beyond what
+could be secured by present taxation had been supplied entirely by the
+proceeds of bonds. In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the
+government issued currency to a large amount, which was made legal
+tender and which on the face of it was not made subject to redemption.</p>
+<p>In addition to the bills ranging in denomination from one dollar to
+one
+thousand, the government <a name="Page_68"></a>brought into
+distribution what was called
+"postal currency." I landed in New York in August, 1862, having
+returned
+from a University in Germany for the purpose of enlisting in the army.
+I
+was amused to see my father make payment in the restaurant for my first
+lunch in postage stamps. He picked the requisite number, or the number
+that he believed would be requisite, from a ball of stamps which had,
+under the influence of the summer heat, stuck together so closely as to
+be very difficult to handle. Many of the stamps were in fact
+practically
+destroyed and were unavailable. Some question arose between the
+restaurant keeper and my father as to the availability of one or two of
+the stamps that had been handed over. My father explained to me that
+immediately after the outbreak of the War, specie, including even the
+nickels and copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, and the
+people had been utilising for the small change necessary for current
+operations the postage stamps, a use which, in connection with the
+large
+percentage of destruction, was profitable to the government, but
+extravagant for the community. A little later, the postal department
+was
+considerate enough to bring into print a series of postage stamps
+without any gum on <a name="Page_69"></a>the back. These could, of
+course, be handled more
+easily, but were still seriously perishable. Towards the close of the
+year, the Treasury department printed from artistically engraved plates
+a baby currency in notes of about two and a half inches long by one and
+a half inches wide. The denominations comprised ten cents, fifteen
+cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and seventy-five cents. The
+fifteen cents and the seventy-five cents were not much called for, and
+were probably not printed more than once. They would now be scarce as
+curiosities. The postal currency was well printed on substantial paper,
+but in connection with the large requirement for handling that is
+always
+placed upon small currency, these little paper notes became very dirty
+and were easily used up. The government must have made a large profit
+from the percentage that was destroyed. The necessary effect of this
+distribution of government "I.O.U.'s," based not upon any redemption
+fund of gold but merely upon the general credit of the government, was
+to appreciate the value of gold. In June, 1863, just before the battle
+of Gettysburg, the depreciation of this paper currency, which
+represented of course the appreciation of gold, was in the ratio of 100
+to 290. It happened that the number <a name="Page_70"></a>290, which
+marked the highest price
+reached by gold during the War, was the number that had been given in
+Laird's ship-yard (on the Mersey) to the Confederate cruiser <i>Alabama</i>.</p>
+<p>Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary of the Treasury but an
+ambitious, active-minded, and intriguing politician. He represented in
+the administration the more extreme anti-slavery group. He was one of
+those who favoured from the beginning immediate action on the part of
+the government in regard to the slaves in the territory that was still
+controlled by the government. It is doubtless the case that he held
+these anti-slavery views as a matter of honest conviction. It is in
+evidence also from his correspondence that he connected with these
+views
+the hope and the expectation of becoming President. His scheming for
+the
+nomination for 1864 was carried on with the machinery that he had at
+his
+disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The issues between Chase and
+Seward and between Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The pressure
+on the part of the conservative Republicans to get Chase out of the
+Cabinet was considerable. Lincoln, believing that his service was
+valuable, refused to be influenced by any feeling of personal
+antagonism
+or personal rivalry. <a name="Page_71"></a>He held on to the Secretary
+until the last year of
+the War, when deciding that the Cabinet could then work more smoothly
+without him, he accepted his resignation. Even then, however, although
+he had had placed in his hands a note indicating a measure of what
+might
+be called personal disloyalty on the part of Chase, Lincoln was
+unwilling to lose his service for the country and appointed him as
+Chief
+Justice.</p>
+<p>Montgomery Blair was put into the Cabinet as Postmaster-General more
+particularly as the representative of the loyalists of the Border
+States. His father was a leader in politics in Missouri, in which the
+family had long been of importance. His brother, Frank P. Blair, served
+with credit in the army, reaching the rank of Major-General. The Blair
+family was quite ready to fight for the Union, but was very unwilling
+to
+do any fighting for the black man. They wanted the Union restored as it
+had been, Missouri Compromise and all. It was Blair who had occasion
+from time to time to point out, and with perfect truth, that if,
+through
+the influence of Chase and of the men back of Chase in Massachusetts
+and
+northern Ohio, immediate action should be taken to abolish slavery in
+the Border States, fifty thousand men who had marched out of <a
+ name="Page_72"></a>those
+States to the support of the Union might be and probably would be
+recalled. "By a stroke of the pen," said Blair, "Missouri, eastern
+Tennessee, western Maryland, loyal Kentucky, now loyally supporting the
+cause of the nation, will be thrown into the arms of the Confederacy."
+During the first two years of the War, and in fact up to September,
+1863, the views of Blair and his associates prevailed, and with the
+fuller history before us, we may conclude that it was best that they
+should have prevailed. This was, at least, the conclusion of Lincoln,
+the one man who knew no sectional prejudices, who had before him all
+the
+information and all the arguments, and who had upon him the pressure
+from all quarters. It was not easy under the circumstances to keep
+peace
+between Blair and Chase. Probably no man but Lincoln could have met the
+requirement.</p>
+<p>The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, while not
+a
+man of brilliancy or of great initiative, appears to have done his part
+quietly and effectively in the great work of the building and
+organising
+of a new fleet. He contributed nothing to the friction of the Cabinet
+and he was from the beginning a loyal supporter of the President. What
+we know now <a name="Page_73"></a>about the issues that arose between
+the different members
+of the Cabinet family comes to us chiefly through the Diary of Welles,
+who has described with apparent impartiality the idiosyncrasies of each
+of the secretaries and whose references to the tact, patience, and
+gracefully exercised will-power of the President are fully in line with
+the best estimates of Lincoln's character.</p>
+<p>One of the first and most difficult tasks confronting the President
+and
+his secretaries in the organisation of the army and of the navy was in
+the matter of the higher appointments. The army had always been a
+favourite provision for the men from the South. The representatives of
+Southern families were, as a rule, averse to trade and there were, in
+fact, under the more restricted conditions of business in the Southern
+States, comparatively few openings for trading on the larger or
+mercantile scale. As a result of this preference, the cadetships in
+West
+Point and the commissions in the army had been held in much larger
+proportion (according to the population) by men of Southern birth. This
+was less the case in the navy because the marine interests of New
+England and of the Middle States had educated a larger number of
+Northern men for naval <a name="Page_74"></a>interests. When the war
+began, a very
+considerable number of the best trained and most valuable officers in
+the army resigned to take part with their States. The army lost the
+service of men like Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, and many others. A few
+good Southerners, such as Thomas of Virginia and Anderson of Kentucky,
+took the ground that their duty to the Union and to the flag was
+greater
+than their obligation to their State. In the navy, Maury, Semmes,
+Buchanan, and other men of ability resigned their commissions and
+devoted themselves to the (by no means easy) task of building up a navy
+for the South; but Farragut of Tennessee remained with the navy to
+carry
+the flag of his country to New Orleans and to Mobile.</p>
+<p>It was easy and natural during the heat of 1861 to characterise as
+traitors the men who went with their States to fight against the flag
+of
+their country. Looking at the matter now, forty-seven years later, we
+are better able to estimate the character and the integrity of the
+motives by which they were actuated. We do not need to-day to use the
+term traitors for men like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all
+unnatural
+that with their understanding of the government of the States in which
+they had been born, and <a name="Page_75"></a>with their belief that
+these States had a right
+to take action for themselves, they should have decided that their
+obligation lay to the State rather than to what they had persisted in
+thinking of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. We may rather
+believe that Lee was as honest in his way as Thomas and Farragut in
+theirs, but the view that the United States is a nation has been
+maintained through the loyal services of the men who held with Thomas
+and with Farragut.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="V"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_76"></a>V</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR</p>
+<p>On April 12, 1861, came with the bombardment of Fort Sumter the
+actual
+beginning of the War. The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted
+all suggestions for any such immediate action on the part of the
+government as would place upon the North the responsibility for the
+opening of hostilities. Shortly after the fall of Sumter, a despatch
+was
+drafted by Seward for the guidance of American ministers abroad. The
+first reports in regard to the probable action of European governments
+gave the impression that the sympathy of these governments was largely
+with the South. In France and England, expressions had been used by
+leading officials which appeared to foreshadow an early recognition of
+the Confederacy. Seward's despatch as first drafted was unwisely angry
+and truculent in tone. If brought into publication, it would probably
+have increased the antagonism of the men who were <a name="Page_77"></a>ruling
+England. It
+appeared in fact to foreshadow war with England. Seward had assumed
+that
+England was going to take active part with the South and was at once
+throwing down the gauntlet of defiance. It was Lincoln who insisted
+that
+this was no time, whatever might be the provocation, for the United
+States to be shaking its fist at Europe. The despatch was reworded and
+the harsh and angry expressions were eliminated. The right claimed by
+the United States, in common with all nations, to maintain its own
+existence was set forth with full force, while it was also made clear
+that the nation was strong enough to maintain its rights against all
+foes whether within or without its boundaries. It is rather strange to
+recall that throughout the relations of the two men, it was the trained
+and scholarly statesman of the East who had to be repressed for unwise
+truculency and that the repression was done under the direction of the
+comparatively inexperienced representative of the West, the man who had
+been dreaded by the conservative Republicans of New York as likely to
+introduce into the national policy "wild and woolly" notions.</p>
+<p>In Lincoln's first message to Congress, he asks the following
+question:
+"Must a government <a name="Page_78"></a>be of necessity too strong
+for the liberties of its
+own people or too weak to maintain its own existence? Is there in all
+republics this inherent weakness?" The people of the United States were
+able under the wise leadership of Lincoln to answer this question "no."
+Lincoln begins at once with the public utterances of the first year of
+the War to take the people of the United States into his confidence. He
+is their representative, their servant. He reasons out before the
+people, as if it constituted a great jury, the analysis of their
+position, of their responsibilities, and the grounds on which as their
+representative this or that decision is arrived at. Says Schurz:
+"Lincoln wielded the powers of government when stern resolution and
+relentless force were the order of the day, and, won and ruled the
+popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature."</p>
+<p>The attack on Sumter placed upon the administration the duty of
+organising at once for the contest now inevitable the forces of the
+country. This work of organisation came at best but late because those
+who were fighting to break up the nation had their preparations well
+advanced. The first call for troops directed the governors of the loyal
+States to supply seventy-five thou<a name="Page_79"></a>sand men for
+the restoration of the
+authority of the government. Massachusetts was the first State to
+respond by despatching to the front, within twenty-four hours of the
+publication of the call, its Sixth Regiment of Militia; the Seventh of
+New York started twenty-four hours later. The history of the passage of
+the Sixth through Baltimore, of the attack upon the columns, and of the
+deaths, in the resulting affray, of soldiers and of citizens has often
+been told. When word came to Washington that Baltimore was obstructing
+the passage of troops bound southward, troops called for the defence of
+the capital, the isolation of the government became sadly apparent. For
+a weary and anxious ten days, Lincoln and his associates were dreading
+from morning to morning the approach over the long bridge of the troops
+from Virginia whose camp-fires could be seen from the southern windows
+of the White House, and were looking anxiously northward for the
+arrival
+of the men on whose prompt service the safety of the capital was to
+depend. I have myself stood in Lincoln's old study, the windows of
+which
+overlook the Potomac, and have recalled to mind the fearful pressure of
+anxiety that must have weighed upon the President during those long
+days; as looking across the river, he could <a name="Page_80"></a>trace
+by the smoke the
+picket lines of the Virginia troops. He must have thought of the
+possibility that he was to be the last President of the United States,
+that the torch handed over to him by the faltering hands of his
+predecessor was to expire while he was responsible for the flame. The
+immediate tension was finally broken by the appearance of the weary and
+battered companies of the Massachusetts troops and the arrival two days
+later, by the way of Annapolis, of the New York Seventh with an
+additional battalion from Boston.</p>
+<p>It was, however, not only in April, 1861, that the capital was in
+peril.
+The anxiety of the President (never for himself but only for his
+responsibilities) was to be repeated in July, 1863, when Lee was in
+Maryland, and in July, 1864, at the time of Early's raid.</p>
+<p>We may remember the peculiar burdens that come upon the
+commander-in-chief through his position at the rear of the armies he is
+directing. The rear of a battle is, even in the time of victory, a
+place
+of demoralising influence. It takes a man of strong nerve not to lose
+heart when the only people with whom he is in immediate contact are
+those who through disability or discouragement are making their way to
+the rear. The sutlers, the <a name="Page_81"></a>teamsters, the
+wounded men, the panic-struck
+(and with the best of soldiers certain groups do lose heart from time
+to
+time, men who in another action when started right are ready to take
+their full share of the fighting)&#8212;these are the groups that in any
+action are streaming to the rear. It is impossible not to be affected
+by
+the undermining of their spirits and of their hopefulness. If the
+battle
+is going wrongly, if in addition to those who are properly making their
+way to the rear, there come also bodies of troops pushed out of their
+position who have lost heart and who have lost faith in their
+commanders, the pressure towards demoralisation is almost irresistible.</p>
+<p>We may recall that during the entire four years of War, Lincoln, the
+commander-in-chief, was always in the rear. Difficult as was the task
+of
+the men who led columns into action, of the generals in the field who
+had the immediate responsibility for the direction of those columns and
+of the fighting line, it was in no way to be compared with the pressure
+and sadness of the burden of the man who stood back of all the lines,
+and to whom came all the discouragements, the complaints, the growls,
+the criticisms, the requisitions or demands for resources that were not
+available, the reports of disasters, sometimes ex<a name="Page_82"></a>aggerated
+and
+sometimes unduly smoothed over, the futile suggestions, the conflicting
+counsels, the indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the self-seeking
+applications, that poured into the White House from all points of the
+field of action and from all parts of the Border States and of the
+North. The man who during four years could stand that kind of battering
+and pressure and who, instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of
+him, instead of losing heart or power of direction or the full control
+of his responsibilities, steadily developed in patience, in strength,
+in
+width of nature, and in the wisdom of experience, so that he was able
+not only to keep heart firm and mind clear but to give to the soldiers
+in the front and to the nation behind the soldiers the influence of his
+great heart and clear mind and of his firm purpose, that man had within
+him the nature of the hero. Selected in time of need to bear the
+burdens
+of the nation, he was able so to fulfil his responsibilities that he
+takes place in the world's history as a leader of men.</p>
+<p>In July, 1861, one of the special problems to be adjusted was the
+attitude of the Border States. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West
+Virginia had not been willing at the outset to cast in their lot with
+the South, but they were not pre<a name="Page_83"></a>pared to give any
+assured or active
+support to the authority of the national government. The Governor and
+the Legislature of Kentucky issued a proclamation of neutrality; they
+demanded that the soil of the State should be respected and that it
+should not be traversed by armed forces from either side. The Governor
+of Missouri, while not able to commit the State to secession, did have
+behind him what was possibly a majority of the citizens in the policy
+of
+attempting to prevent the Federal troops from entering the State.
+Maryland, or at least eastern Maryland, was sullen and antagonistic.
+Thousands of the Marylanders had in fact already made their way into
+Virginia for service with the Confederacy. On the other hand, there
+were
+also thousands of loyal citizens in these States who were prepared,
+under proper guidance and conservative management, to give their own
+direct aid to the cause of nationality. In the course of the succeeding
+two years, the Border States sent into the field in the Union ranks
+some
+fifty thousand men. At certain points of the conflict, the presence of
+these Union men of Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri was the
+deciding factor. While these men were willing to fight for the Union,
+they were strongly opposed <a name="Page_84"></a>to being used for the
+destruction of slavery
+and for the freeing of the blacks. The acceptance, therefore, of the
+policy that was pressed by the extreme anti-slavery group, for
+immediate
+action in regard to the freeing of the slaves, would have meant at once
+the dissatisfaction of this great body of loyalists important in number
+and particularly important on account of their geographical position.
+Lincoln was able, although with no little difficulty, to hold back the
+pressure of Northern sentiment in regard to anti-slavery action until
+the course of the War had finally committed the loyalists of the Border
+States to the support of the Union. For the support of this policy, it
+became necessary to restrain certain of the leaders in the field who
+were mixing up civil and constitutional matters with their military
+responsibilities. Proclamations issued by Fremont in Missouri and later
+by Hunter in South Carolina, giving freedom to the slaves within the
+territory of their departments, were promptly and properly disavowed.
+Said Lincoln: "A general cannot be permitted to make laws for the
+district in which he happens to have an army."</p>
+<p>The difficulties in regard to the matter of slavery during the war
+brought Lincoln into active cor<a name="Page_85"></a>respondence with
+men like Beecher and
+Greeley, anti-slavery leaders who enjoyed a large share of popular
+confidence and support. In November, 1861, Lincoln says of Greeley:
+"His
+backing is as good as that of an army of one hundred thousand men."
+There could be no question of the earnest loyalty of Horace Greeley.
+Under his management, the New York <i>Tribune</i> had become a great
+force in
+the community. The paper represented perhaps more nearly than any paper
+in the country the purpose and the policy of the new Republican party.
+Unfortunately, Mr. Greeley's judgment and width of view did not develop
+with his years and with the increasing influence of his journal. He
+became unduly self-sufficient; he undertook not only to lay down a
+policy for the guidance of the constitutional responsibilities of the
+government, but to dictate methods for the campaigns. The <i>Tribune</i>
+articles headed "On to Richmond!" while causing irritation to
+commanders
+in the field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens at home, were
+finally classed with the things to be laughed at. In the later years of
+the War, the influence of the <i>Tribune</i> declined very
+considerably.
+Henry J. Raymond with his newly founded <i>Times</i> succeeded to some
+of the
+power <a name="Page_86"></a>as a journalist that had been wielded by
+Greeley.</p>
+<p>In November, 1861, occurred an incident which for a time threatened
+a
+very grave international complication, a complication that would, if
+unwisely handled, have determined the fate of the Republic. Early in
+the
+year, the Confederate government had sent certain representatives
+across
+the Atlantic to do what might be practicable to enlist the sympathies
+of
+European governments, or of individuals in these governments, to make a
+market for the Confederate cotton bonds, to arrange for the purchase of
+supplies for the army and navy, and to secure the circulation of
+documents presenting the case of the South. Mr. Yancey of Mississippi
+was the best-known of this first group of emissaries. With him was
+associated Judge Mann of Virginia and it was Mann who in November,
+1861,
+was in charge of the London office of the Confederacy. In this month,
+Mr. Davis appointed as successor to Mann, Mr. Mason of Virginia, to
+whom
+was given a more formal authorisation of action. At the same time,
+Judge
+Slidell of Louisiana was appointed as the representative to France.
+Mason and Slidell made their way to Jamaica and sailed from Jamaica to
+Liverpool in the British mail <a name="Page_87"></a>steamer <i>Trent</i>.
+Captain Charles Wilkes,
+in the United States frigate <i>San Jacinto</i>, had been watching the
+West
+Indies waters with reference to blockade runners and to Wilkes came
+knowledge of the voyage of the two emissaries. Wilkes took the
+responsibility of stopping the <i>Trent</i> when she was a hundred
+miles or
+more out of Kingston and of taking from her as prisoners the two
+commissioners. The commissioners were brought to Boston and were there
+kept under arrest awaiting the decision from Washington as to their
+status. This stopping on the high seas of a British steamer brought out
+a great flood of indignation in Great Britain. It gave to Palmerston
+and
+Russell, who were at that time in charge of the government, the
+opportunity for which they had been looking to place on the side of the
+Confederacy the weight of the influence of Great Britain. It
+strengthened the hopes of Louis Napoleon for carrying out, in
+conjunction with Great Britain, a scheme that he had formulated under
+which France was to secure a western empire in Mexico, leaving England
+to do what she might find convenient in the adjustment of the affairs
+of
+the so-called United States.</p>
+<p>The first report secured from the law officers of the Crown took the
+ground that the capture <a name="Page_88"></a>was legal under
+international law and under the
+practice of Great Britain itself. This report was, however, pushed to
+one side, and Palmerston drafted a demand for the immediate surrender
+of
+the commissioners. This demand was so worded that a self-respecting
+government would have had great difficulty in assenting to it without
+risk of forfeiting support with its own citizens. It was in fact
+intended to bring about a state of war. Under the wise influence of
+Prince Albert, Queen Victoria refused to give her approval to the
+document. It was reworded by Albert in such fashion as to give to the
+government of the United States an opportunity for adjustment without
+loss of dignity. Albert was clear in his mind that Great Britain ought
+not to be committed to war for the destruction of the great Republic of
+the West and for the establishment of a state of which the corner-stone
+was slavery. Fortunately, Victoria was quite prepared to accept in this
+matter Albert's judgment. Palmerston protested and threatened
+resignation, but finally submitted.</p>
+<p>When the news of the capture of the commissioners came to
+Washington,
+Seward for once was in favour of a conservative rather than a truculent
+course of action. He advised that the <a name="Page_89"></a>commissioners
+should be
+surrendered at once rather than to leave to Great Britain the
+opportunity for making a dictatorial demand. Lincoln admitted the risk
+of such demand and the disadvantage of making the surrender under
+pressure, but he took the ground that if the United States waited for
+the British contention, a certain diplomatic advantage could be gained.
+When the demand came, Lincoln was able, with a rewording (not for the
+first time) of Seward's despatch, to take the ground that the
+government
+of the United States was "well pleased that Her Majesty's government
+should have finally accepted the old-time American contention that
+vessels of peace should not be searched on the high seas by vessels of
+war." It may be recalled that the exercise of the right of search had
+been one of the most important of the grievances which had brought
+about
+the War of 1812-1814. In the discussion of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814,
+the English and American commissioners, while agreeing that this right
+of search must be given up, had not been able to arrive at a form of
+words, satisfactory to both parties, for its revocation. Both sets of
+commissioners were very eager to bring their proceedings to a close.
+The
+Americans could of course not realise that if they had waited a few
+weeks <a name="Page_90"></a>the news of the battle of New Orleans,
+fought in January, 1815,
+would have greatly strengthened their position. It was finally agreed
+"as between gentlemen" that the right of search should be no longer
+exercised by Great Britain. This right was, however, not formally
+abrogated until December, 1861, nearly half a century later. This
+little
+diplomatic triumph smoothed over for the public of the North the
+annoyance of having to accept the British demand. It helped to
+strengthen the administration, which in this first year of the War was
+by no means sure of its foundations. It strengthened also the opinion
+of
+citizens generally in their estimate of the wise management and
+tactfulness of the President.</p>
+<p>Some of the most serious of the perplexities that came upon Lincoln
+during the first two years of the War were the result of the peculiar
+combination of abilities and disabilities that characterised General
+McClellan. McClellan's work prior to the War had been that of an
+engineer. He had taken high rank at West Point and later, resigning
+from
+the army, had rendered distinguished service in civil engineering. At
+the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, McClellan was president of the
+Illinois Central Railroad. He was a close friend and backer of Douglas
+and he had <a name="Page_91"></a>done what was practicable with the
+all-important machinery
+of the railroad company to render comfortable the travelling of his
+candidate and to insure his success. Returning to the army with the
+opening of the War, he had won success in a brief campaign in Virginia
+in which he was opposed by a comparatively inexperienced officer and by
+a smaller force than his own. Placed in command of the army of the
+Potomac shortly after the Bull Run campaign, he had shown exceptional
+ability in bringing the troops into a state of organisation. He was
+probably the best man in the United States to fit an army for action.
+There were few engineer officers in the army who could have rendered
+better service in the shaping of fortifications or in the construction
+of an entrenched position. He showed later that he was not a bad leader
+for a defeated army in the supervision of the retreat. He had, however,
+no real capacity for leadership in an aggressive campaign. His
+disposition led him to be full of apprehension of what the other fellow
+was doing. He suffered literally from nightmares in which he
+exaggerated
+enormously the perils in his paths, making obstacles where none
+existed,
+multiplying by two or by three the troops against him, insisting upon
+the necessity of <a name="Page_92"></a>providing not only for probable
+contingencies but for
+very impossible contingencies. He was never ready for an advance and he
+always felt proudly triumphant, after having come into touch with the
+enemy, that he had accomplished the task of saving his army.</p>
+<p>The only thing about which he was neither apprehensive nor doubtful
+was
+his ability as a leader, whether military or political. While he found
+it difficult to impress his will upon an opponent in the field, he was
+very sturdy with his pen in laying down the law to the
+Commander-in-chief (the President) and in emphasising the importance of
+his own views not only in things military but in regard to the whole
+policy of the government. The peculiarity about the nightmares and
+miscalculations of McClellan was that they persisted long after the
+data
+for their correction were available. In a book brought into print years
+after the War, when the Confederate rosters were easily accessible in
+Washington, McClellan did not hesitate to make the same statements in
+regard to the numbers of the Confederate forces opposed to him that he
+had brought into the long series of complaining letters to Lincoln in
+which he demanded reinforcements that did not exist.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_93"></a>The records now show that at the time of the
+slow advance of
+McClellan's army by the Williamsburg Peninsula, General Magruder had
+been able, with a few thousand men and with dummy guns made of logs, to
+give the impression that a substantial army was blocking the way to
+Richmond. McClellan's advance was, therefore, made with the utmost
+"conservatism," enabling General Johnston to collect back of Magruder
+the army that was finally to drive McClellan back to his base. It is
+further in evidence from the later records that when some weeks later
+General Johnston concentrated his army at Gaines's Mill upon Porter,
+who
+was separated from McClellan by the Chickahominy, there was but an
+inconsiderable force between McClellan and Richmond.</p>
+<p>At the close of the seven days' retreat, McClellan, who had with a
+magnificent army thrown away a series of positions, writes to Lincoln
+that he (Lincoln) "had sacrificed the army." In another letter,
+McClellan lays down the laws of a national policy with a completeness
+and a dictatorial utterance such as would hardly have been justified if
+he had succeeded through his own military genius in bringing the War to
+a close, but which, coming from a defeated general, was ridiculous
+enough. Lincoln's correspondence with McClellan <a name="Page_94"></a>brings
+out the infinite
+patience of the President, and his desire to make sure that before
+putting the General to one side as a vainglorious incompetent, he had
+been allowed the fullest possible test. Lincoln passes over without
+reference and apparently without thought the long series of impertinent
+impersonalities of McClellan. In this correspondence, as in all his
+correspondence, the great captain showed himself absolutely devoted to
+the cause he had in mind. Early in the year, months before the
+Peninsular campaign, when McClellan had had the army in camp for a
+series of months without expressing the least intention of action,
+Lincoln had in talking with the Secretary of War used the expression:
+"If General McClellan does not want to use the army just now, I
+would like to borrow it for a while." That was as far as the
+Commander-in-chief ever went in criticism of the General in the field.
+While operations in Virginia, conducted by a vacillating and
+vainglorious engineer officer, gave little encouragement, something was
+being done to advance the cause of the Union in the West. In 1862, a
+young man named Grant, who had returned to the army and who had been
+trusted with the command of a few brigades, captured Fort Donelson and
+thus opened the <a name="Page_95"></a>Tennessee River to the advance
+of the army southward.
+The capture of Fort Donelson was rendered possible by the use of
+mortars
+and was the first occasion in the war in which mortars had been brought
+to bear. I chanced to come into touch with the record of the
+preparation
+of the mortars that were supplied to Grant's army at Cairo. Sometime in
+the nineties I was sojourning with the late Abram S. Hewitt at his home
+in Ringwood, New Jersey. I noticed, in looking out from the piazza, a
+mortar, properly mounted on a mortar-bed and encompassed by some yards
+of a great chain, placed on the slope overlooking the little valley
+below, as if to protect the house. I asked my host what was the history
+of this piece of ordnance. "Well," he said, "the chain you might have
+some personal interest in. It is a part of the chain your great-uncle
+Israel placed across the river at West Point for the purpose of
+blocking
+or at least of checking the passage of the British vessels. The chain
+was forged here in the Ringwood foundry and I have secured a part of it
+as a memento. The mortar was given to me by President Lincoln, as also
+was the mortar-bed." This report naturally brought out the further
+question as to the grounds for the gift. "I made this mortar-bed," said
+Hewitt, "together <a name="Page_96"></a>with some others, and Lincoln
+was good enough to say
+that I had in this work rendered a service to the State. It was in
+December, 1861, when the expedition against Fort Donelson and Fort
+Henry
+was being organised at Fort Cairo under the leadership of General
+Grant.
+Grant reported that the field-pieces at his command would not be
+effective against the earthworks that were to be shelled and made
+requisition for mortars." The mortar I may explain to my unmilitary
+readers is a short carronade of large bore and with a comparatively
+short range. The mortar with a heavy charge throws its missile at a
+sharp angle upwards, so that, instead of attempting to go through an
+earthwork, it is thrown into the enclosure. The recoil from a mortar is
+very heavy, necessitating the construction of a foundation called a
+mortar-bed which is not only solid but which possesses a certain amount
+of elasticity through which the shock of the recoil is absorbed. It is
+only through the use of such a bed that a mortar can be fired from the
+deck of a vessel. Without such, protection, the shock would smash
+through the deck and might send the craft to the bottom.</p>
+<p>The Ordnance Department reported to the Secretary of War and the
+Secretary to Lincoln that <a name="Page_97"></a>mortars were on hand
+but that no mortar-beds
+were available. It was one of the many cases in which the
+unpreparedness
+of the government had left a serious gap in the equipment. The further
+report was given to Lincoln that two or three months' time would be
+required to manufacture the thirty mortar-beds that were needed. A
+delay
+of any such period would have blocked the entire purpose of Grant's
+expedition. In his perplexity, Lincoln remembered that in his famous
+visit to New York two years before, he had been introduced to Mr.
+Hewitt, "a well-known iron merchant," as "a man who does things."
+Lincoln telegraphed to Hewitt asking if Hewitt could make thirty
+mortar-beds and how long it would take. Hewitt told me that the message
+reached him on a Saturday evening at the house of a friend. He wired an
+acknowledgment with the word that he would send a report on the
+following day. Sunday morning he looked up the ordnance officer of New
+York for the purpose of ascertaining where the pattern mortar-bed was
+kept. "It was rather important, Major," said Hewitt to me, "that I
+should have an opportunity of examining this pattern for I had never
+seen a mortar-bed in my life, but this of course I did not admit to the
+ordnance officer." The pattern required was, <a name="Page_98"></a>it
+seemed, in the armory
+at Springfield. Hewitt wired to Lincoln asking that the bed should be
+forwarded by the night boat to him in New York. Hewitt and his men met
+the boat, secured the pattern bed, and gave some hours to puzzling over
+the construction. At noon on Monday, Hewitt wired to Lincoln that he
+could make thirty mortar-beds in thirty days. In another hour he
+received by wire instructions from Lincoln to go ahead. In twenty-eight
+days he had the thirty mortar-beds in readiness; and Tom Scott, who had
+at the time, very fortunately for the country, taken charge of the
+military transportation, had provided thirty flat-cars for the transit
+of the mortar-beds to Cairo. The train was addressed to "U.S. Grant,
+Cairo," and each car contained a notification, painted in white on a
+black ground, "not to be switched on the penalty of death." That train
+got through and as other portions of the equipment had also been
+delayed, the mortars were not so very late. Six schooners, each
+equipped
+with a mortar, were hurried up the river to support the attack of the
+army on Fort Donelson. A first assault had been made and had failed.
+The
+field artillery was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against the
+earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate <a name="Page_99"></a>infantry,
+protected by
+their works, had proved most severe. The instant, however, that from
+behind a point on the river below the fort shells were thrown from the
+schooners into the inner circle of the fortifications, the Confederate
+commander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was untenable. He slipped
+away that night leaving his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with
+Grant, and those terms were "unconditional surrender," which were later
+so frequently connected with the initials of U.S.G.</p>
+<p>Buckner's name comes again into history in a pleasant fashion. Years
+after the War, when General Grant had, through the rascality of a Wall
+Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, Buckner, himself a poor man,
+wrote begging Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his
+convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand dollars. Other friends
+came to the rescue of Grant, and through the earnings of his own pen,
+he
+was before his death able to make good all indebtedness and to leave a
+competency to his widow. The check sent by Buckner was not used, but
+the
+prompt friendliness was something not to be forgotten.</p>
+<p>Hewitt's mortar-beds were used again a few weeks later for the
+capture
+of Island Number <a name="Page_100"></a>Ten and they also proved
+serviceable, used in the same
+fashion from the decks of schooners, in the capture of Forts Jackson
+and
+St. Philip which blocked the river below New Orleans. It was only
+through the fire from these schooners, which were moored behind a point
+on the river below the forts, that it was possible to reach the inner
+circle of the works.</p>
+<p>I asked Hewitt whether he had seen Lincoln after this matter of the
+mortar-beds. "Yes," said Hewitt, "I saw him a year later and Lincoln's
+action was characteristic. I was in Washington and thought it was
+proper
+to call and pay my respects. I was told on reaching the White House
+that
+it was late in the day and that the waiting-room was very full and that
+I probably should not be reached. 'Well,' I said, 'in that case, I will
+simply ask you to take in my card.' No sooner had the card been
+delivered than the door of the study opened and Lincoln appeared
+reaching out both hands. 'Where is Mr. Hewitt?' he said; 'I want to
+see,
+I want to thank, the man who does things.' I sat with him for a time, a
+little nervous in connection with the number of people who were waiting
+outside, but Lincoln would not let me go. Finally he asked, 'What are
+you in Washington for?' 'Well, Mr. Lin<a name="Page_101"></a>coln,'
+said I, 'I have some
+business here. I want to get paid for those mortar-beds.' 'What?' said
+Lincoln, 'you have not yet got what the nation owes you? That is
+disgraceful.' He rang the bell violently and sent an aid for Secretary
+Stanton and when the Secretary appeared, he was questioned rather
+sharply. 'How about Mr. Hewitt's bill against the War Department? Why
+does he have to wait for his money?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said Stanton,
+'the order for those mortar-beds was given rather irregularly. It never
+passed through the War Department and consequently the account when
+rendered could not receive the approval of any ordnance officer, and
+until so approved could not be paid by the Treasury.' 'If,' said
+Lincoln, 'I should write on that account an order to have it paid, do
+you suppose the Secretary of the Treasury would pay it?' 'I suppose
+that
+he would,' said Stanton. The account was sent for and Lincoln wrote at
+the bottom: 'Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln.' 'Now, Mr. Stanton,' said
+Lincoln, 'Mr. Hewitt has been very badly treated in this matter and I
+want you to take a little pains to see that he gets his money. I am
+going to ask you to go over to the Treasury with Mr. Hewitt and to get
+the proper signatures on this account so that <a name="Page_102"></a>Mr.
+Hewitt can carry a
+draft with him back to New York.' Stanton, rather reluctantly, accepted
+the instruction and," said Hewitt, "he walked with me through the
+various departments of the Treasury until the final signature had been
+placed on the bill and I was able to exchange this for a Treasury
+warrant. I should," said Hewitt, "have been much pleased to retain the
+bill with that signature of Lincoln beneath the words, 'Pay this now.'</p>
+<p>"Towards the end of the War," he continued, "when there was no
+further
+requirement for mortars, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln and asked whether I
+might buy a mortar with its bed. Lincoln replied promptly that he had
+directed the Ordnance Department to send me mortar and bed with 'the
+compliments of the administration.' I am puzzled to think," said
+Hewitt,
+"how that particular item in the accounts of the Ordnance Department
+was
+ever adjusted, but I am very glad to have this reminiscence of the War
+and of the President."</p>
+<p>Lincoln's relations with McClellan have already been touched upon.
+There
+would not be space in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken
+by Lincoln with other army commanders East and West. The problem that
+confronted the <a name="Page_103"></a>Commander-in-chief of selecting
+the right leaders for
+this or that undertaking, and of promoting the men who gave evidence of
+the greater capacity that was required for the larger armies that were
+being placed in the field, was one of no little difficulty. The reader
+of history, looking back to-day, with the advantage of the full record
+of the careers of the various generals, is tempted to indulge in easy
+criticism of the blunders made by the President. Why did the President
+put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of
+McClellan? Why should he have accepted even for one brief and
+unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope? Why was a
+slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in
+the
+long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and
+of force that had been secured by the army of the West? Why was a
+political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a
+well-meaning politician like Banks with still less capacity for the
+management of troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the
+field,
+making blunders that involved waste of life and of resources and the
+loss of campaigns? Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant,
+Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought <a name="Page_104"></a>more
+promptly into the
+important positions? Why was the army of the South permitted during the
+first two years of the War to have so large an advantage in skilled and
+enterprising leadership? A little reflection will show how unjust is
+the
+criticism implied through such questions. We know of the incapacity of
+the generals who failed and of the effectiveness of those who
+succeeded,
+only through the results of the campaigns themselves. Lincoln could
+only
+study the men as he came to know about them and he experimented first
+with one and then with another, doing what seemed to be practicable to
+secure a natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Such
+watchful supervision and painstaking experimenting was carried out with
+infinite patience and with an increasing knowledge both of the
+requirements and of the men fitted to fill the requirements.</p>
+<p>We must also recall that, Commander-in-chief as he was, Lincoln was
+not
+free to exercise without restriction his own increasingly valuable
+judgment in the appointment of the generals. It was necessary to give
+consideration to the opinion of the country, that is to say, to the
+individual judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation was
+absolutely essential for the support of the <a name="Page_105"></a>nation's
+cause. These
+opinions of the citizens were expressed sometimes through the appeals
+of
+earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of Massachusetts, or Curtin of
+Pennsylvania, and sometimes through the articles of a strenuous editor
+like Greeley, whose influence and support it was, of course, all
+important to retain. Greeley's absolute ignorance of military
+conditions
+did not prevent him from emphasising with the President and the public
+his very decided conclusions in regard to the selection of men and the
+conduct of campaigns. In this all-perplexing problem of the shaping of
+campaigns, Lincoln had to consider the responsibilities of
+representative government. The task would, of course, have been much
+easier if he had had power as an autocrat to act on his own decisions
+simply. The appointment of Butler and Banks was thought to be necessary
+for the purpose of meeting the views of the loyal citizens of so
+important a State as Massachusetts, and other appointments, the results
+of which were more or less unfortunate, may in like manner be traced to
+causes or influences outside of a military or army policy.</p>
+<p>General Frank V. Greene, in a paper on Lincoln as
+Commander-in-chief,
+writes in regard to his capacity as a leader as follows:</p>
+<p>"<a name="Page_106"></a>As time goes on, Lincoln's fame looms ever
+larger and larger. Great
+statesman, astute politician, clear thinker, classic writer, master of
+men, kindly, lovable man,&#8212;these are his titles. To these must be
+added&#8212;military leader. Had he failed in that quality, the others would
+have been forgotten. Had peace been made on any terms but those of the
+surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the Union,
+Lincoln's career would have been a colossal failure and the
+Emancipation
+Proclamation a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was military
+success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect of nearly half a
+century, with his every written word now in print and with all the
+facts
+of the period brought out and placed in proper perspective by the
+endless studies, discussions, and arguments of the intervening years,
+it
+becomes clear that, first and last and at all times during his
+Presidency, in military affairs his was not only the guiding but the
+controlling hand."</p>
+<p>It is interesting, as the War progressed, to trace the development
+of
+Lincoln's own military judgment. He was always modest in regard to
+matters in which his experience was limited, and during the first
+twelve
+months in Washington, he had comparatively little to say in regard to
+the planning or even the supervision of campaigns. His letters,
+however,
+to McClellan and his later <a name="Page_107"></a>correspondence with
+Burnside, with Hooker,
+and with other commanders give evidence of a steadily developing
+intelligence in regard to larger military movements. History has shown
+that Lincoln's judgment in regard to the essential purpose of a
+campaign, and the best methods for carrying out such purpose, was in a
+large number of cases decidedly sounder than that of the general in the
+field. When he emphasised with McClellan that the true objective was
+the
+Confederate army in the field and not the city of Richmond, he laid
+down
+a principle which seems to us elementary but to which McClellan had
+been
+persistently blinded. Lincoln writes to Hooker: "We have word that the
+head of Lee's army is near Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley while
+you report that you have a substantial force still opposed to you on
+the
+Rappahannock. It appears, therefore that the line must be forty miles
+long. The animal is evidently very slim somewhere and it ought to be
+possible for you to cut it at some point." Hooker had the same
+information but did not draw the same inference.</p>
+<p>Apart from Lincoln's work in selecting, and in large measure in
+directing, the generals, he had a further important relation with the
+army as <a name="Page_108"></a>a whole. We are familiar with the term
+"the man behind the
+gun." It is a truism to say that the gun has little value whether for
+offence or for defence unless the man behind it possesses the right
+kind
+of spirit which will infuse and guide his purpose and his action with
+the gun. For the long years of the War, the Commander-in-chief was the
+man behind all the guns in the field. The men in the front came to have
+a realising sense of the infinite patience, the persistent hopefulness,
+the steadiness of spirit, the devoted watchfulness of the great captain
+in Washington. It was through the spirit of Lincoln that the spirit in
+the ranks was preserved during the long months of discouragement and
+the
+many defeats and retreats. The final advance of Grant which ended at
+Appomattox, and the triumphant march of Sherman which culminated in the
+surrender at Goldsborough of the last of the armies of the Confederacy,
+were the results of the inspiration, given alike to soldier and to
+general, from the patient and devoted soul of the nation's leader.</p>
+<p>In March, 1862, Lincoln received the news of the victory won at Pea
+Ridge, in Arkansas, by Curtis and Sigel, a battle which had lasted
+three
+days. The first day was a defeat and our troops <a name="Page_109"></a>were
+forced back; the
+fighting of the second resulted in what might be called a drawn battle;
+but on the third, our army broke its way through the enclosing lines,
+bringing the heavier loss to the Confederates, and regained its base.
+This battle was in a sense typical of much of the fighting of the War.
+It was one of a long series of fights which continued for more than one
+day. The history of the War presents many instances of battles that
+lasted two days, three days, four days, and in one case seven days. It
+was difficult to convince the American soldier, on either side of the
+line, that he was beaten. The general might lose his head, but the
+soldiers, in the larger number of cases, went on fighting until, with a
+new leader or with more intelligent dispositions on the part of the
+original leader, a first disaster had been repaired. There is no
+example
+in modern history of fighting of such stubborn character, or it is
+fairer to say, there was no example until the Russo-Japanese War in
+Manchuria. The record shows that European armies, when outgeneralled or
+outmanoeuvred, had the habit of retiring from the field, sometimes in
+good order, more frequently in a state of demoralisation. The American
+soldier fought the thing out because he thought the thing out. <a
+ name="Page_110"></a>The
+patience and persistence of the soldier in the field was characteristic
+of, and, it may fairly be claimed, was in part due to, the patience and
+persistence of the great leader in Washington.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="VI"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_111"></a>VI</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE DARK DAYS OF 1862</p>
+<br>
+<p>The dark days of 1862 were in April brightened by the all-important
+news
+that Admiral Farragut had succeeded in bringing the Federal fleet, or
+at
+least the leading vessels in this fleet, past the batteries of Forts
+St.
+Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi, and had compelled the surrender
+of New Orleans. The opening of the Mississippi River had naturally been
+included among the most essential things to be accomplished in the
+campaign for the restoration of the national authority. It was of first
+importance that the States of the North-west and the enormous
+contiguous
+territory which depended upon the Mississippi for its water connection
+with the outer world should not be cut off from the Gulf. The prophecy
+was in fact made more than once that in case the States of the South
+had
+succeeded in establishing their independence, there would have come
+into
+existence on the continent not two confederacies, but probably four.
+The
+<a name="Page_112"></a>communities on the Pacific Coast would naturally
+have been tempted to
+set up for themselves, and a similar course might also naturally have
+been followed by the great States of the North-west whose interests
+were
+so closely bound up with the waterways running southward. It was
+essential that no effort should be spared to bring the loyal States of
+the West into control of the line of the Mississippi. More than twelve
+months was still required after the capture of New Orleans on the first
+of May, 1862, before the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port
+Hudson to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal control of
+the
+great river. The occupation of the river by the Federals was of
+importance in more ways than one. The States to the west of the
+river&#8212;Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas&#8212;were for the first two years of
+the War important sources of supplies for the food of the Confederate
+army. Corn on the cob or in bags was brought across the river by boats,
+while the herds of live cattle were made to swim the stream, and were
+then most frequently marched across country to the commissary depots of
+the several armies. After the fall of Port Hudson, the connection for
+such supplies was practically stopped; although I may recall that even
+as late <a name="Page_113"></a>as 1864, the command to which I was
+attached had the
+opportunity of stopping the swimming across the Mississippi of a herd
+of
+cattle that was in transit for the army of General Joe Johnston.</p>
+<p>In April, 1862, just after the receipt by Lincoln of the
+disappointing
+news of the first repulse at Vicksburg, he finds time to write a little
+autograph note to a boy, "Master Crocker," with thanks for a present of
+a white rabbit that the youngster had sent to the President with the
+suggestion that perhaps the President had a boy who would be pleased
+with it.</p>
+<p>During the early part of 1862, Lincoln is giving renewed thought to
+the
+great problem of emancipation. He becomes more and more convinced that
+the success of the War calls for definite action on the part of the
+administration in the matter of slavery. He was, as before pointed out,
+anxious, not only as a matter of justice to loyal citizens, but on the
+ground of the importance of retaining for the national cause the
+support
+of the Border States, to act in such manner that the loyal citizens of
+these States should be exposed to a minimum loss and to the smallest
+possible risk of disaffection. In July, 1862, Lincoln formulated a
+proposition for com<a name="Page_114"></a>pensated emancipation. It was
+his idea that the
+nation should make payment of an appraised value in freeing the slaves
+that were in the ownership of citizens who had remained loyal to the
+government. It was his belief that the funds required would be more
+than
+offset by the result in furthering the progress of the War. The daily
+expenditure of the government was at the time averaging about a million
+and a half dollars a day, and in 1864 it reached two million dollars a
+day. If the War could be shortened a few months, a sufficient amount of
+money would be saved to offset a very substantial payment to loyal
+citizens for the property rights in their slaves.</p>
+<p>The men of the Border States were, however, still too bound to the
+institution of slavery to be prepared to give their assent to any such
+plan. Congress was, naturally, not ready to give support to such a
+policy unless it could be made clear that it was satisfactory to the
+people most concerned. The result of the unwise stubbornness in this
+matter of the loyal citizens of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
+Maryland was that they were finally obliged to surrender without
+compensation the property control in their slaves. When the plan for
+compensated <a name="Page_115"></a>emancipation had failed, Lincoln
+decided that the time had
+come for unconditional emancipation. In July, 1862, he prepares the
+first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was his judgment,
+which
+was shared by the majority of his Cabinet, that the issue of the
+proclamation should, however, be deferred until after some substantial
+victory by the armies of the North. It was undesirable to give to such
+a
+step the character of an utterance of despair or even of
+discouragement.
+It seemed evident, however, that the War had brought the country to the
+point at which slavery, the essential cause of the cleavage between the
+States, must be removed. The bringing to an end of the national
+responsibility for slavery would consolidate national opinion
+throughout
+the States of the North and would also strengthen the hands of the
+friends of the Union in England where the charge had repeatedly been
+made that the North was fighting, not against slavery or for freedom of
+any kind, but for domination. The proclamation was held until after the
+battle of Antietam in September, 1862, and was then issued to take
+effect on the first of January, 1863. It did produce the hoped-for
+results. The cause of the North was now placed on a <a name="Page_116"></a>consistent
+foundation. It was made clear that when the fight for nationality had
+reached a successful termination, there was to be no further national
+responsibility for the great crime against civilisation. The management
+of the contrabands, who were from week to week making their way into
+the
+lines of the Northern armies, was simplified. There was no further
+question of holding coloured men subject to the possible claim of a
+possibly loyal master. The work of organising coloured troops, which
+had
+begun in Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, was now pressed
+forward with some measure of efficiency. Boston sent to the front the
+54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of coloured troops and
+led by such men as Shaw and Hallowell. The first South Carolina
+coloured
+regiment was raised and placed under the command of Colonel Higginson.</p>
+<p>I had myself some experience in Louisiana with the work of moulding
+plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the
+promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into
+the
+camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to
+secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out
+of which to <a name="Page_117"></a>make a soldier. He did not know how
+to hold himself upright
+or to look the other man in the face. His gait was shambly, his
+perceptions dull. It was difficult for him either to hear clearly, or
+to
+understand when heard, the word of instruction or command. When,
+however, the plantation rags had been disposed of and (possibly after a
+souse in the Mississippi) the contraband had been put into the blue
+uniform and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, he developed at
+once
+from a "chattel" to a man. He was still, for a time at least, clumsy
+and
+shambly. The understanding of the word of command did not come at once
+and his individual action, if by any chance he should be left to act
+alone, was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended upon, than
+that of the white man. But he stood up straight in the garb of manhood,
+looked you fairly in the face, showed by his expression that he was
+anxious for the privilege of fighting for freedom and for citizenship,
+and in Louisiana, and throughout the whole territory of the War, every
+black regiment that came into engagement showed that it could be
+depended upon. Before the War was closed, some two hundred thousand
+negroes had been brought into the ranks of the Federal army and their
+service constituted a very <a name="Page_118"></a>valuable factor in
+the final outcome of the
+campaigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend, Mississippi,
+inconsiderable in regard to the numbers engaged, was of distinctive
+importance in showing what the black man was able and willing to do
+when
+brought under fire for the first time. A coloured regiment made up of
+men who only a few weeks before had been plantation hands, had been
+left
+on a point of the river to be picked up by an expected transport. The
+regiment was attacked by a Confederate force of double or treble the
+number, the Southerners believing that there would be no difficulty in
+driving into the river this group of recent slaves. On the first
+volley,
+practically all of the officers (who were white) were struck down and
+the loss with the troops was also very heavy. The negroes, who had but
+made a beginning with their education as soldiers, appeared, however,
+not to have learned anything about the conditions for surrender and
+they
+simply fought on until no one was left standing. The percentage of loss
+to the numbers engaged was the heaviest of any action in the War. The
+Southerners, in their contempt for the possibility of negroes doing any
+real fighting, had in their rushing attack exposed themselves much and
+had themselves suffered <a name="Page_119"></a>seriously. When, in
+April, 1865, after the
+forcing back of Lee's lines, the hour came, so long waited for and so
+fiercely fought for, to take possession of Richmond, there was a
+certain
+poetic justice in allowing the negro division, commanded by General
+Weitzel, to head the column of advance.</p>
+<p>Through 1862, and later, we find much correspondence from Lincoln in
+regard to the punishment of deserters. The army penalty for desertion
+when the lines were in front of the enemy, was death. Lincoln found it
+very difficult, however, to approve of a sentence of death for any
+soldier. Again and again he writes, instructing the general in the
+field
+to withhold the execution until he, Lincoln, had had an opportunity of
+passing upon the case. There is a long series of instances in which,
+sometimes upon application from the mother, but more frequently through
+the personal impression gained by himself of the character of the
+delinquent, Lincoln decided to pardon youngsters who had, in his
+judgment, simply failed to realise their full responsibility as
+soldiers. Not a few of these men, permitted to resume their arms,
+gained
+distinction later for loyal service.</p>
+<p>In December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued an order which naturally
+attracted some attention, <a name="Page_120"></a>directing that
+General Benjamin F. Butler,
+when captured, should be "reserved for execution." Butler never fell
+into the hands of the Confederates and it is probable that if he had
+been taken prisoner, the order would have remained an empty threat.
+From
+Lincoln came the necessary rejoinder that a Confederate officer of
+equal
+rank would be held as hostage for the safety of any Northern general
+who, as prisoner, might not be protected under the rules of war.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's correspondence during 1862, a year which was in many ways
+the
+most discouraging of the sad years of the war, shows how much he had to
+endure in the matter of pressure of unrequested advice and of undesired
+counsel from all kinds of voluntary advisers and active-minded
+citizens,
+all of whom believed that their views were important, if not essential,
+for the salvation of the state. In September, 1862, Lincoln writes to a
+friend:</p>
+<p>"I am approached with the most opposite opinions expressed on the
+part
+of religious men, each of whom is equally certain that he represents
+the
+divine will."</p>
+<p>To one of these delegations of ministers, Lincoln gave a response
+which
+while homely in its language must have presented to his callers a vivid
+picture <a name="Page_121"></a>of the burdens that were being carried
+by the leader of the
+state:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"Gentlemen," he said, "suppose all the property you possess were in
+gold, and you had placed it in the hands of Blondin to carry across
+the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps he
+walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep
+shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter! Blondin,
+stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the south! Now
+lean a little more to north! Would that be your behaviour in such an
+emergency? No, you would hold your breath, every one of you, as well
+as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on
+the other side."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Another delegation, which had been urging some months in advance of
+what
+Lincoln believed to be the fitting time for the issuing of the
+Proclamation of Emancipation, called asking that there should be no
+further delay in the action. One of the ministers, as he was retiring,
+turned and said to Lincoln: "What you have said to us, Mr. President,
+compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message to you from our
+Divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of
+bondage, that the slave may go free!" Lincoln replied: "That may be,
+sir, <a name="Page_122"></a>for I have studied this question by night
+and by day, for weeks
+and for months, but if it is, as you say, a message from your Divine
+Master, is it not odd that the only channel He could send it by was
+that
+roundabout route through the wicked city of Chicago?"</p>
+<p>Another version of the story omits the reference to Chicago, and
+makes
+Lincoln's words:</p>
+<p>"I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is
+probable
+that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with
+my
+duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me....
+Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do."</p>
+<p>In September, 1862, General Lee carried his army into Maryland,
+threatening Baltimore and Washington. It is probable that the purpose
+of
+this invasion was more political than military. The Confederate
+correspondence shows that Davis was at the time hopeful of securing the
+intervention of Great Britain and France, and it was natural to assume
+that the prospects of such intervention would be furthered if it could
+be shown that the Southern army, instead of being engaged in the
+defence
+of its own capital, was actually threatening Washington and was
+possibly
+strong enough to advance farther north.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_123"></a>General Pope had, as a result of his defeat
+at the second Bull Run, in
+July, 1862, lost the confidence of the President and of the country.
+The
+defeat alone would not necessarily have undermined his reputation,
+which
+had been that of an effective soldier. He had, however, the fatal
+quality, too common with active Americans, of talking too much, whether
+in speech or in the written word, of promising things that did not come
+off, and of emphasising his high opinion of his own capacity. Under the
+pressure of the new peril indicated by the presence of Lee's troops
+within a few miles of the capital, Lincoln put to one side his own
+grave
+doubts in regard to the effectiveness and trustworthiness of McClellan
+and gave McClellan one further opportunity to prove his ability as a
+soldier. The personal reflections and aspersions against his
+Commander-in-chief of which McClellan had been guilty, weighed with
+Lincoln not at all; the President's sole thought was at this time, as
+always, how with the material available could the country best be
+served.</p>
+<p>McClellan had his chance (and to few men is it given to have more
+than
+one great opportunity) and again he threw it away. His army was
+stronger
+than that of Lee and he had the advan<a name="Page_124"></a>tage of
+position and (for the
+first time against this particular antagonist) of nearness to his base
+of supplies. Lee had been compelled to divide his army in order to get
+it promptly into position on the north side of the Potomac. McClellan's
+tardiness sacrificed Harper's Ferry (which, on September 15th, was
+actually surrounded by Lee's advance) with the loss of twelve thousand
+prisoners. Through an exceptional piece of good fortune, there came
+into
+McClellan's hands a despatch showing the actual position of the
+different divisions of Lee's army and giving evidence that the two
+wings
+were so far separated that they could not be brought together within
+twenty-four hours. The history now makes clear that for twenty-four
+hours McClellan had the safety of Lee's army in his hands, but those
+precious hours were spent by McClellan in "getting ready," that is to
+say, in vacillating.</p>
+<p>Finally, there came the trifling success at South Mountain and the
+drawn
+battle of Antietam. Lee's army was permitted to recross the Potomac
+with
+all its trains and even with the captured prisoners, and McClellan lay
+waiting through the weeks for something to turn up.</p>
+<p>A letter written by Lincoln on the 13th of October shows a
+wonderfully
+accurate under<a name="Page_125"></a>standing of military conditions,
+and throws light also
+upon the character and the methods of thought of the two men:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"Are you not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what
+the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least
+his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you
+telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at
+Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be
+put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at
+Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great as you would have to
+do, without the railroad last named. He now waggons from Culpeper
+Court House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to
+do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well
+provided with waggons as you are.... Again, one of the standard
+maxims of war, as you know, is to 'operate upon the enemy's
+communications without exposing your own.' You seem to act as if
+this applies against you, but cannot apply it in your favour. Change
+positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your
+communication with Richmond in twenty-four hours?... You are now
+nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route you can and he must
+take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that
+he is more than your equal on a march? His <a name="Page_126"></a>route
+is the arc of a
+circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on your side
+as on his ... If he should move northward, I would follow him
+closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our
+seizing his communications and move towards Richmond, I would press
+closely to him, fight him, if a favourable opportunity should
+present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside
+track. I say 'Try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.... If
+we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we
+never can when we bear the wastage of going to him.... As we must
+beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier
+near to us than far away.... It is all easy if our troops march as
+well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say that they cannot do it."</p>
+</div>
+<p>The patience of Lincoln and that of the country behind Lincoln were
+at
+last exhausted. McClellan was ordered to report to his home in New
+Jersey and the General who had come to the front with such flourish of
+trumpets and had undertaken to dictate a national policy at a time when
+he was not able to keep his own army in position, retires from the
+history of the War.</p>
+<p>The responsibility again comes to the weary Commander-in-chief of
+finding a leader who <a name="Page_127"></a>could lead, in whom the
+troops and the country
+would have confidence, and who could be trusted to do his simple duty
+as
+a general in the field without confusing his military responsibilities
+with political scheming. The choice first fell upon Burnside. Burnside
+was neither ambitious nor self-confident. He was a good division
+general, but he doubted his ability for the general command. Burnside
+loyally accepts the task, does the best that was within his power and,
+pitted against a commander who was very much his superior in general
+capacity as well as in military skill, he fails. Once more has the
+President on his hands the serious problem of finding the right man.
+This time the commission was given to General Joseph Hooker. With the
+later records before us, it is easy to point out that this selection
+also was a blunder. There were better men in the group of
+major-generals. Reynolds, Meade, or Hancock would doubtless have made
+more effective use of the power of the army of the Potomac, but in
+January, 1863, the relative characters and abilities of these generals
+were not so easily to be determined. Lincoln's letter to Hooker was
+noteworthy, not only in the indication that it gives of Hooker's
+character but as an example of the President's width of view and <a
+ name="Page_128"></a>of his
+method of coming into the right relation with men. He writes:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an
+indispensable quality.... I think, however, that during General
+Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your
+ambition and have thwarted him as much as you could, in which you
+did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and
+honourable brother officer. I have heard 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 the
+command. Only those generals who gain success can set up as
+dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk
+the dictatorship. The government will support you to the best of its
+ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do
+for all its commanders.... Beware of rashness, but with energy and
+sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Hooker, like Burnside, undoubtedly did the best that he could. He
+was a
+loyal patriot and had shown himself a good division commander. It is
+probable, however, that the limit of his ability as a general in the
+field was the management of an army corps; he seems to have been
+confused in <a name="Page_129"></a>the attempt to direct the movements
+of the larger body. At
+Chancellorsville, he was clearly outwitted by his opponents, Lee and
+Jackson. The men of the army of the Potomac fought steadily as always
+but with the discouraging feeling that the soldiers on the other side
+of
+the line had the advantage of better brain power behind them. It is
+humiliating to read in the life of Jackson the reply given by him to
+Lee
+when Lee questioned the safety of the famous march planned by Jackson
+across the front of the Federal line. Said Lee: "There are several
+points along the line of your proposed march at which your column could
+be taken in flank with disastrous results." "But, General Lee," replies
+Jackson, "we must surely in planning any military movements take into
+account the personality of the leaders to whom we are opposed."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="VII"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_130"></a>VII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR</p>
+<br>
+<p>Chancellorsville was fought and lost, and again, under political
+pressure from Richmond rather than with any hope of advantage on simple
+military lines, Lee leads his army to an invasion of the North. For
+this
+there were at the time several apparent advantages; the army of the
+Potomac had been twice beaten and, while by no means demoralised, was
+discouraged and no longer had faith in its commander. There was much
+inevitable disappointment throughout the North that, so far from making
+progress in the attempt to restore the authority of the government, the
+national troops were on the defensive but a few miles from the national
+capital. The Confederate correspondence from London and from Paris gave
+fresh hopes for the long expected intervention.</p>
+<p>Lee's army was cleverly withdrawn from Hooker's front and was
+carried
+through western Maryland into Pennsylvania by the old line of <a
+ name="Page_131"></a>the
+Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac at Falling Waters. Hooker
+reports to Lincoln under date of June 4th that the army or an army is
+still in his front on the line of the Rappahannock, Lincoln writes to
+Hooker under date of June 5th, "We have report that Lee's army is
+moving
+westward and that a large portion of it is already to the west of the
+Blue Ridge. The 'bull' [Lee's army] is across the fence and it surely
+ought to be possible to worry him." On June 14th, Lincoln writes again,
+reporting to Hooker that Lee with the body of his troops is approaching
+the Potomac at a point forty miles away from the line of the
+entrenchments on the Rappahannock. "The animal [Lee's army] is extended
+over a line of forty miles. It must be very slim somewhere. Can you not
+cut it?" The phrases are not in military form but they give evidence of
+sound military judgment. Hooker was unable to grasp the opportunity,
+and
+realising this himself, he asked to be relieved. The troublesome and
+anxious honour of the command of the army now falls upon General Meade.
+He takes over the responsibility at a time when Lee's army is already
+safely across the Potomac and advancing northward, apparently towards
+Philadelphia. His troops <a name="Page_132"></a>are more or less
+scattered and no definite
+plan of campaign appears to have been formulated. The events of the
+next
+three weeks constitute possibly the best known portion of the War.
+Meade
+shows good energy in breaking up his encampment along the Rappahannock
+and getting his column on to the road northward. Fortunately, the army
+of the Potomac for once has the advantage of the interior line so that
+Meade is able to place his army in a position that protects at once
+Washington on the south-west, Baltimore on the east, and Philadelphia
+on
+the north-east. We can, however, picture to ourselves the anxiety that
+must have rested upon the Commander-in-chief in Washington during the
+weeks of the campaign and during the three days of the great battle
+which was fought on Northern soil and miles to the north of the
+Northern
+capital. If, on that critical third day of July, the Federal lines had
+been broken and the army disorganised, there was nothing that could
+prevent the national capital from coming into the control of Lee's
+army.
+The surrender of Washington meant the intervention of France and
+England, meant the failure of the attempt to preserve the nation's
+existence, meant that Abraham Lincoln would go down to history as the
+last President of the <a name="Page_133"></a>United States, the
+President under whose
+leadership the national history had come to a close. But the Federal
+lines were not broken. The third day of Gettysburg made clear that with
+equality of position and with substantial equality in numbers there was
+no better fighting material in the army of the grey than in the army of
+the blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the crest of Cemetery
+Ridge marked the high tide of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men
+were not able to prevail against the sturdy defence of Hancock's second
+corps and when, on the Fourth of July, Lee's army took up its line of
+retreat to the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead and
+wounded,
+the calm judgment of Lee and his associates must have made clear to
+them
+that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army of Northern
+Virginia had shattered itself against the defences of the North, and
+there was for Lee no reserve line. For a long series of months to come,
+Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he was, and with a sturdy
+persistency which withstood all disaster, was able to maintain
+defensive
+lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in front of Petersburg,
+but
+as his brigades crumbled away under the persistent and unceasing
+attacks
+of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised <a name="Page_134"></a>long
+before the day
+of Appomattox that his task was impossible. What Gettysburg decided in
+the East was confirmed with equal emphasis by the fall of Vicksburg in
+the West. On the Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, defeated
+and discouraged, was taking his shattered army out of Pennsylvania,
+General Grant was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earthworks of
+Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now under the control of the Federalists
+from its source to the mouth, and that portion of the Confederacy lying
+to the west of the river was cut off so that from this territory no
+further co-operation of importance could be rendered to the armies
+either of Johnston or of Lee.</p>
+<p>Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg giving, with his
+word of congratulation, the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted the
+wisdom or the practicability of Grant's movement to the south of
+Vicksburg and inland to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, "and I
+was wrong."</p>
+<p>On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so
+eloquent
+in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history
+ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such
+suggestive thought, and such <a name="Page_135"></a>high idealism. The
+speech is one that
+children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.</p>
+<center><img src="images/gbaa.png" alt="FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS">
+<img src="images/gbab.png" alt="FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS"></center>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p><b>FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.</b></p>
+<p>Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.</p>
+<p>Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
+continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
+proposition that all men are created equal.</p>
+<p>Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
+nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
+endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come
+to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
+those who here gave their lives that their nation might live. It is
+altogether fitting and proper that we should this.</p>
+<p>But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
+cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who
+struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
+or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say
+here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
+living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
+who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
+to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us&mdash;that
+from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
+which they gave the last full measure of devotion&mdash;that we here
+highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
+this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
+government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
+perish from the earth.</p>
+<p>Abraham Lincoln</p>
+<p>November 19, 1863</p>
+</div>
+<p>There was disappointment that Meade had not shown more energy after
+Gettysburg in the pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, at
+least,
+had not been made to interfere with the retreat across the Potomac.
+Military critics have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid himself
+open to criticism in the management of the battle itself. At the time
+of
+the repulse of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the left and in
+rear of his centre the sixth corps which had hardly been engaged on the
+previous two days, and which included some of the best fighting
+material
+in the army. It has been pointed out more than once that if that corps
+had been thrown in at once with a countercharge upon the heels of the
+retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's right must have been curled
+up
+and overwhelmed. If this had happened, Lee's army would have been so
+seriously shattered that its power for future service would have been
+inconsiderable. Meade was accepted as a good working general but the
+occasion demanded something more forcible in the way of leadership and,
+early in 1864, Lincoln sends for the man who by his success in the West
+had <a name="Page_136"></a>won the hopeful confidence of the President
+and the people.</p>
+<p>Before this appointment of General-in-chief was given to General
+Grant,
+and he came to the East to take charge of the armies in Virginia, he
+had
+brought to a successful conclusion a dramatic campaign, of which
+Chattanooga was the centre. In September, 1863, General Rosecrans, who
+had occupied Chattanooga, was defeated some twenty miles to the south
+on
+the field of Chickamauga, a defeat which was the result of too much
+confidence on the part of the Federal commander, who in pressing his
+advance had unwisely separated the great divisions of his army, and of
+excellent skill and enterprise on the part of the Confederate
+commander,
+General Bragg. If the troops of Rosecrans had not been veterans, and if
+the right wing had not been under the immediate command of so sturdy
+and
+unconquered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat might have become a
+rout. As it was, the army retreated with some discouragement but in
+good
+fighting force, to the lines of Chattanooga. By skilful disposition of
+his forces across the lines of connection between Chattanooga and the
+base of supplies, General Bragg brought the Federals almost to the
+point
+of starvation, and <a name="Page_137"></a>there was grave risk that
+through the necessary
+falling back of the army to secure supplies, the whole advantage of the
+previous year's campaign might be lost. Grant was placed in charge of
+the forces in Chattanooga, and by a good management of the resources
+available, he succeeded in reopening the river and what became known as
+"the cracker line," and in November, 1863, in the dramatic battles of
+Lookout Mountain, fought more immediately by General Hooker, and of
+Missionary Ridge, the troops of which were under the direct command of
+General Sherman, overwhelmed the lines of Bragg, and pressed his forces
+back into a more or less disorderly retreat. An important factor in the
+defeat of Bragg was the detaching from his army of the corps under
+Longstreet which had been sent to Knoxville in a futile attempt to
+crush
+Burnside and to reconquer East Tennessee for the Confederacy. This
+plan,
+chiefly political in purpose, was said to have originated with
+President
+Davis. The armies of the West were now placed under the command of
+General Sherman, and early in 1864, Grant was brought to Virginia to
+take up the perplexing problem of overcoming the sturdy veterans of
+General Lee.</p>
+<p>The first action of Grant as commander of all <a name="Page_138"></a>the
+armies in the field
+was to concentrate all the available forces against the two chief
+armies
+of the Confederacy. The old policy of occupying outlying territory for
+the sake of making a show of political authority was given up. If
+Johnston in the West and Lee in the East could be crushed, the national
+authority would be restored in due season, and that was the only way in
+which it could be restored. Troops were gathered in from Missouri and
+Arkansas and Louisiana and were placed under the command of Sherman for
+use in the final effort of breaking through the centre of the
+Confederacy, while in the East nothing was neglected on the part of the
+new administration to secure for the direction of the new commander all
+resources available of men and of supplies.</p>
+<p>Grant now finds himself pitted against the first soldier of the
+continent, the leader who is to go down to history as probably the
+greatest soldier that America has ever produced. Lee's military career
+is a wonderful example of a combination of brilliancy, daring ingenuity
+of plan, promptness of action, and patient persistence under all kinds
+of discouragement, but it was not only through these qualities that it
+was possible for him to retain control, through three <a
+ name="Page_139"></a>years of heavy
+fighting, of the territory of Virginia, which came to be the chief
+bulwark of the Confederacy. Lee's high character, sweetness of nature,
+and unselfish integrity of purpose had impressed themselves not only
+upon the Confederate administration which had given him the command but
+upon every soldier in that command. For the army of Northern Virginia
+Lee was the man behind the guns just as Lincoln came to be for all the
+men in blue. There never was a more devoted army and there probably
+never was a better handled army than that with which Lee defended for
+three years the lines across Northern Virginia and the remnants of
+which
+were finally surrendered at Appomattox.</p>
+<p>Grant might well have felt concerned with such an opponent in front
+of
+him. He had on his hands (as had been the almost uniform condition for
+the army of the Potomac) the disadvantage of position. His advance must
+be made from exterior lines and nearly every attack was to be against
+well entrenched positions that had been first selected years back and
+had been strengthened from season to season. On the other hand, Grant
+was able to depend upon the loyal support of the administration through
+which came to his army the full advantage of the great resources <a
+ name="Page_140"></a>of the
+North. His ranks as depleted were filled up, his commissary trains need
+never be long unsupplied, his ammunition waggons were always equipped.
+For Lee, during the years following the Gettysburg battle, the problem
+was unending and increasing: How should the troops be fed and whence
+should they secure the fresh supplies of ammunition?</p>
+<p>Between Grant and Lincoln there came to be perfect sympathy of
+thought
+and action. The men had in their nature (though not in their mental
+equipment) much in common. Grant carries his army through the spring of
+1864, across the much fought over territory, marching and fighting from
+day to day towards the south-west. The effort is always to outflank
+Lee's right, getting in between him and his base at Richmond, but after
+each fight, Lee's army always bars the way. Marching out of the
+Wilderness after seven days' fierce struggle, Grant still finds the
+line
+of grey blocking his path to Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been
+marching and fighting without break for weeks. There had been but
+little
+sleep, and the food in the trains was often far out of the reach of the
+men in the fighting line. Men and officers were alike exhausted. While
+advantages had been <a name="Page_141"></a>gained at one point or
+another along the line, and
+while it was certain that the opposing army had also suffered severely,
+there had been no conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with the
+feeling that they were to seize victory out of the campaign.</p>
+<p>In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of the column reached the
+cross-roads the left fork of which led back to the Potomac and the
+right
+fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the previous campaigns, the army
+of the Potomac, after doing its share of plucky fighting and taking
+more
+than its share of discouragement, had at such a point been withdrawn
+for
+rest and recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation that this
+course would be taken in the present campaign. The road to the right
+meant further fatigue and further continuous fighting for men who were
+already exhausted. In the leading brigade it was only the brigade
+commander and the adjutant who had knowledge of the instructions for
+the
+line of march. When, with a wave of the hand of the adjutant, the
+guidon
+flag of the brigade was carried to the right and the head of the column
+was set towards Richmond, a shout went up from the men marching behind
+the guidon. It was an utterance not of dis<a name="Page_142"></a>couragement
+but of
+enthusiasm. Exhausting as the campaign had been, the men in the ranks
+preferred to fight it out then and to get through with it. Old soldiers
+as they were, they were able to understand the actual issue of the
+contest. Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as themselves and
+possibly even more exhausted. It was only through the hammering of
+Lee's
+diminishing army out of existence that the War could be brought to a
+close. The enthusiastic shout of satisfaction rolled through the long
+column reaching twenty miles back, as the news passed from brigade to
+brigade that the army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's
+report
+to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out on this line if it took all
+summer." When this report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection
+of
+Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. He said: "We need this
+man. He fights."</p>
+<p>In July, 1864, Washington is once more within reach if not of the
+invader at least of the raider. The Federal forces had been
+concentrated
+in Grant's lines along the James, and General Jubal Early, one of the
+most energetic fighters of the Southern army, tempted by the apparently
+unprotected condition of the capital, dashed across the Potomac on a
+raid that became famous. <a name="Page_143"></a>It is probable that in
+this undertaking, as in
+some of the other movements that have been referred to on the part of
+the Southern leaders, the purpose was as much political as military.
+Early's force of from fifteen to sixteen thousand men was, of course,
+in
+no way strong enough to be an army of invasion. The best success for
+which he could hope would be, in breaking through the defences of
+Washington, to hold the capital for a day or even a few hours. The
+capture of Washington in 1864, as in 1863 or in 1862, would in all
+probability have brought about the long-hoped-for intervention of
+France
+and England. General Lew Wallace, whose name became known in the years
+after the War through some noteworthy romances, <i>Ben Hur</i> and <i>The
+Fair
+God</i>, and who was in command of a division of troops stationed west
+of
+Washington, and composed in part of loyal Marylanders and in part of
+convalescents who were about to be returned to the front, fell back
+before Early's advance to Monocacy Creek. He disposed his thin line
+cleverly in the thickets on the east side of the creek in such fashion
+as to give the impression of a force of some size with an advance line
+of skirmishers. Early's advance was checked for some hours before he
+realised that there was nothing of importance <a name="Page_144"></a>in
+front of him; when
+Wallace's division was promptly overwhelmed and scattered. The few
+hours
+that had thus been saved were, however, of first importance for the
+safety of Washington. Early reached the outer lines of the
+fortifications of the capital some time after sunset. His immediate
+problem was to discover whether the troops which were, as he knew,
+being
+hurried up from the army of the James, had reached Washington or
+whether
+the capital was still under the protection only of its so-called
+home-guard of veteran reserves. These reserves were made up of men more
+or less crippled and unfit for work in the field but who were still
+able
+to do service on fortifications. They comprised in all about six
+thousand men and were under the command of Colonel Wisewell. The force
+was strengthened somewhat that night by the addition of all of the male
+nurses from the hospitals (themselves convalescents) who were able to
+bear arms. That night the women nurses, who had already been in
+attendance during the hours of the day, had to render double service.
+Lincoln had himself in the afternoon stood on the works watching the
+dust of the Confederate advance. Once more there came to the President
+who had in his hands the responsibility for the direction <a
+ name="Page_145"></a>of the War
+the bitterness of the feeling, if not of possible failure, at least of
+immediate mortification. He knew that within twenty-four or thirty-six
+hours Washington could depend upon receiving the troops that were being
+hurried up from Grant's army, but he also realised what enormous
+mischief might be brought about by even a momentary occupation of the
+national capital by Confederate troops. I had some personal interest in
+this side campaign. The 19th army corps, to which my own regiment
+belonged, had been brought from Louisiana to Virginia and had been
+landed on the James River to strengthen the ranks of General Butler.
+There had not been time to assign to us posts in the trenches and we
+had, in fact, not even been placed in position. We were more nearly in
+marching order than any other troops available and it was therefore the
+divisions of the 19th army corps that were selected to be hurried up to
+Washington. To these were added two divisions of the 6th corps.</p>
+<p>Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences of the city, realised the
+nature of his problem. He had got to hold the lines of Washington, cost
+what it might, until the arrival of the troops from Grant. He took the
+bold step of placing on the picket line that night every man within
+<a name="Page_146"></a>reach, or at least every loyal man within reach
+(for plenty of the men
+in Washington were looking and hoping for the success of the South).
+The
+instructions usually given to pickets were in this instance reversed.
+The men were ordered, in place of keeping their positions hidden and of
+maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post to post along the whole
+line, and they were also ordered, without any reference to the saving
+of
+ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the least possible pretext
+and without pretext. The armories were then beginning to send to the
+front Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of breech-loading
+rifles
+came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but
+during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed
+with Sharp's breech-loaders. The infantry weapon used through the War
+by
+the armies of the North as by those of the South was the muzzle-loading
+rifle which bore the name on our side of the Springfield and on the
+Confederate side of the Enfield. The larger portion of the Northern
+rifles were manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts, while the
+Southern rifles, in great part imported from England, took their name
+from the English factory. It was of convenience for both sides that the
+two rifles <a name="Page_147"></a>were practically identical so that
+captured pieces and
+captured ammunition could be interchanged without difficulty.</p>
+<p>Early's skirmish line was instructed early in the night to "feel"
+the
+Federal pickets, an instruction which resulted in a perfect blaze of
+carbine fire from Wisewell's men. The report that went to Early was
+that
+the picket line must be about six thousand strong. The conclusion on
+the
+part of the old Confederate commander was that the troops from the army
+of the Potomac must have reached the city. If that were true, there
+was,
+of course, no chance that on the following day he could break through
+the entrenchments, while there was considerable risk that his retreat
+to
+the Shenandoah might be cut off. Early the next morning, therefore, the
+disappointed Early led his men back to Falling Waters.</p>
+<p>I happened during the following winter, when in prison in Danville,
+to
+meet a Confederate lieutenant who had been on Early's staff and who had
+lost an arm in this little campaign. He reported that when Early, on
+recrossing the Potomac, learned that he had had Washington in his grasp
+and that the divisions marching to its relief did not arrive and could
+not have arrived for another twenty-four hours, he was about the
+<a name="Page_148"></a>maddest Early that the lieutenant had ever seen.
+"And," added the
+lieutenant, "when Early was angry, the atmosphere became blue."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="VIII"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_149"></a>VIII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE FINAL CAMPAIGN</p>
+<br>
+<p>After this close escape, it was clear to Grant as it had been clear
+to
+Lincoln that whatever forces were concentrated before Petersburg, the
+line of advance for Confederate invaders through the Shenandoah must be
+blocked. General Sheridan was placed in charge of the army of the
+Shenandoah and the 19th corps, instead of returning to the trenches of
+the James, marched on from Washington to Martinsburg and Winchester.</p>
+<p>In September, the commander in Washington had the satisfaction of
+hearing that his old assailant Early had been sent "whirling through
+Winchester" by the fierce advance of Sheridan. Lincoln recognised the
+possibility that Early might refuse to stay defeated and might make
+use,
+as had so often before been done by Confederate commanders in the
+Valley, of the short interior line to secure reinforcements from
+Richmond and to make a fresh attack. On the 29th of September, twenty
+days before this <a name="Page_150"></a>attack came off, Lincoln
+writes to Grant: "Lee may be
+planning to reinforce Early. Care should be taken to trace any movement
+of troops westward." On the 19th of October, the persistent old fighter
+Early, not willing to acknowledge himself beaten and understanding that
+he had to do with an army that for the moment did not have the
+advantage
+of Sheridan's leadership, made his plucky, and for the time successful,
+fight at Cedar Creek. The arrival of Sheridan at the critical hour in
+the afternoon of the 19th of October did not, as has sometimes been
+stated, check the retreat of a demoralised army. Sheridan found his
+army
+driven back, to be sure, from its first position, but in occupation of
+a
+well supported line across the pike from which had just been thrown
+back
+the last attack made by Early's advance. It was Sheridan however who
+decided not only that the battle which had been lost could be regained,
+but that the work could be done to best advantage right away on that
+day, and it was Sheridan who led his troops through the too short hours
+of the October afternoon back to their original position from which
+before dark they were able to push Early's fatigued fighters across
+Cedar Creek southward. Lincoln had found another man who could fight.
+He
+<a name="Page_151"></a>was beginning to be able to put trust in leaders
+who, instead of having
+to be replaced, were with each campaign gathering fresh experience and
+more effective capacity.</p>
+<p>From the West also came reports, in this autumn of 1864, from a
+fighting
+general. Sherman had carried the army, after its success at
+Chattanooga,
+through the long line of advance to Atlanta, by outflanking movements
+against Joe Johnston, the Fabius of the Confederacy, and when Johnston
+had been replaced by the headstrong Hood, had promptly taken advantage
+of Hood's rashness to shatter the organisation of the army of Georgia.
+The capture of Atlanta in September, 1864, brought to Lincoln in
+Washington and to the North the feeling of certainty that the days of
+the Confederacy were numbered.</p>
+<p>The second invasion of Tennessee by the army of Hood, rendered
+possible
+by the march of Sherman to the sea, appeared for the moment to threaten
+the control that had been secured of the all-important region of which
+Nashville was the centre, but Hood's march could only be described as
+daring but futile. He had no base and no supplies. His advance did some
+desperate fighting at the battle of Franklin and succeeded in driving
+back the rear-guard of Thomas's army, <a name="Page_152"></a>ably
+commanded by General
+Schofield, but the Confederate ranks were so seriously shattered that
+when they took position in front of Nashville they no longer had
+adequate strength to make the siege of the city serious even as a
+threat. Thomas had only to wait until his own preparations were
+completed and then, on the same day in December on which Sherman was
+entering Savannah, Thomas, so to speak, "took possession" of Hood's
+army. After the fight at Nashville, there were left of the Confederate
+invaders only a few scattered divisions.</p>
+<p>It was just before the news of the victory at Nashville that Lincoln
+made time to write the letter to Mrs. Bixby whose name comes into
+history as an illustration of the thoughtful sympathy of the great
+captain:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of
+the adjutant-general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of
+five sons who died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how
+weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to
+beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot
+refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in
+the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our
+Heavenly Father may assuage the <a name="Page_153"></a>anguish of your
+bereavement and
+leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the
+pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the
+altar of freedom."</p>
+</div>
+<p>In March, 1864, Lincoln writes to Grant: "New York votes to give
+votes
+to the soldiers. Tell the soldiers." The decision of New York in regard
+to the collection from the soldiers in each field of the votes for the
+coming Presidential election was in line with that arrived at by all of
+the States. The plan presented difficulties and, in connection with the
+work of special commissioners, it involved also expense. It was,
+however, on every ground desirable that the men who were risking their
+lives in defence of the nation should be given the opportunity of
+taking
+part in the selection of the nation's leader, who was also under the
+Constitution the commander-in-chief of the armies in the field. The
+votes of some four hundred thousand men constituted also an important
+factor in the election itself. I am not sure that the attempt was ever
+made to separate and classify the soldiers' vote but it is probable
+that
+although the Democratic candidate was McClellan, a soldier who had won
+the affection of the men serving under him, and the opposing candidate
+was a civilian, a substantial majority <a name="Page_154"></a>of the
+vote of the soldiers was
+given to Lincoln.</p>
+<p>Secretary Chase had fallen into the habit of emphasising what he
+believed to be his indispensability in the Cabinet by threatening to
+resign, or even by submitting a resignation, whenever his suggestions
+or
+conclusions met with opposition. These threats had been received with
+patience up to the point when patience seemed to be no longer a virtue;
+but finally, when (in May, 1864) such a resignation was tendered under
+some aggravation of opposition or of criticism, very much to Chase's
+surprise the resignation was accepted.</p>
+<p>The Secretary had had in train for some months active plans for
+becoming
+the Republican candidate for the Presidential campaign of 1864.
+Evidence
+had from time to time during the preceding year been brought to Lincoln
+of Chase's antagonism and of his hopes of securing the leadership of
+the
+party. Chase's opposition to certain of Lincoln's policies was
+doubtless
+honest enough. He had brought himself to believe that Lincoln did not
+possess the force and the qualities required to bring the War to a
+close. He had also convinced himself that he, Chase, was the man, and
+possibly was the only man, who was fitted to meet the special
+requirements of the task. <a name="Page_155"></a>Mr. Chase did possess
+the confidence of the
+more extreme of the anti-slavery groups throughout the country. His
+administration of the Treasury had been able and valuable, but the
+increasing difficulty that had been found in keeping the Secretary of
+the Treasury in harmonious relations with the other members of the
+administration caused his retirement to be on the whole a relief.
+Lincoln came to the conclusion that more effective service could be
+secured from some other man, even if possessing less ability, whose
+temperament made it possible for him to work in co-operation. The
+unexpected acceptance of the resignation caused to Chase and to Chase's
+friends no little bitterness, which found vent in sharp criticisms of
+the President. Neither bitterness nor criticisms could, however,
+prevent
+Lincoln from retaining a cordial appreciation for the abilities and the
+patriotism of the man, and, later in the year, Lincoln sent in his
+nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Chase himself, in his
+lack of capacity to appreciate the self-forgetfulness of Lincoln's
+nature, was probably more surprised by his nomination as Chief Justice
+than he had been by the acceptance of his resignation as Secretary of
+the Treasury.</p>
+<p>In July, 1864, comes a fresh risk of international <a
+ name="Page_156"></a>complications
+through the invasion of Mexico by a French army commanded by Bazaine,
+seven years later to be known as the (more or less) hero of Metz. Lotus
+Napoleon had been unwilling to give up his dream of a French empire, or
+of an empire instituted under French influence, in the Western
+Hemisphere. He was still hopeful, if not confident, that the United
+States would not be able to maintain its existence; and he felt assured
+that if the Southern Confederacy should finally be established with the
+friendly co-operation of France, he would be left unmolested to carry
+out his own schemes in Mexico. He had induced an honest-minded but not
+very clearheaded Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of
+Austria, to accept a throne in Mexico to be established by French
+bayonets, and which, as the result showed, could sustain itself only
+while those bayonets were available. The presence of French troops on
+American soil brought fresh anxieties to the administration; but it was
+recognised that nothing could be done for the moment, and Lincoln and
+his advisers were hopeful that the Mexicans, before their capital had
+been taken possession of by the invader, would be able to maintain some
+national government until, with the successful close of <a
+ name="Page_157"></a>its own War,
+the United States could come to the defence of the sister republic.</p>
+<p>The extreme anti-slavery group of the Republican party had, as
+indicated, never been fully satisfied with the thoroughness of the
+anti-slavery policy of the administration and Mr. Chase retained until
+the action of the convention in June the hope that he might through the
+influence of this group secure the Presidency. Lincoln remarks in
+connection with this candidacy: "If Chase becomes President, all right.
+I hope we may never have a worse man." From the more conservative wing
+of the Republican party came suggestions as to the nomination of Grant
+and this plan brought from Lincoln the remark: "If Grant takes
+Richmond,
+by all means let him have the nomination." When the delegates came
+together, however, in Baltimore, it was evident that, representing as
+they did the sober and well-thought-out convictions of the people, no
+candidacy but that of Lincoln could secure consideration and his
+nomination was practically unanimous.</p>
+<p>The election in November gave evidence that, even in the midst of
+civil
+war, a people's government can sustain the responsibility of a national
+election. The large popular majorities in nearly <a name="Page_158"></a>all
+of the voting
+States constituted not only a cordial recognition of the service that
+was being rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's administration, but a
+substantial assurance that the cause of nationality was to be sustained
+with all the resources of the nation. The Presidential election of this
+year gave the final blow to the hopes of the Confederacy.</p>
+<p>I had myself a part in a very small division of this election, a
+division which could have no effect in the final gathering of the
+votes,
+but which was in a way typical of the spirit of the army. On the 6th of
+November, 1864, I was in Libby Prison, having been captured at the
+battle of Cedar Creek in October. It was decided to hold a Presidential
+election in the prison, although some of us were rather doubtful as to
+the policy and anxious in regard to the result. The exchange of
+prisoners had been blocked for nearly a year on the ground of the
+refusal on the part of the South to exchange the coloured troops or
+white officers who held commissions in coloured regiments. Lincoln took
+the ground, very properly, that all of the nation's soldiers must be
+treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. Until the
+coloured troops should be included in the exchange, "there can," said
+Lincoln, "be no <a name="Page_159"></a>exchanging of prisoners." This
+decision, while sound,
+just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction
+to the men in prison and to their friends at home. When I reached Libby
+in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven
+months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners
+for five months more. Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and
+mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very
+severe. It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the
+Confederate
+authorities to keep any prisoners in Richmond during that last winter
+of
+the War. It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of
+which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for
+Lee's army. It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south,
+in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the
+inhabitants of the town. It was inevitable under the circumstances that
+the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths
+from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken
+from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there
+should be further deaths from starvation.</p>
+<p>It was not unnatural that under such conditions <a name="Page_160"></a>the
+prisoners should
+have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison
+authorities,
+but for discontent with their own administration. One may in fact be
+surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured
+spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we
+found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The
+soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison
+votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual
+ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but
+twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, that this vote of the
+prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so
+recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.</p>
+<p>In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the
+part
+of certain members of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear upon
+Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's reply made clear that he
+proposed to remain President. He says to the member reporting for
+himself and his associates the protest against Seward: "I propose to be
+the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my
+Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once <a name="Page_161"></a>have
+secured peace within the
+Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he
+had
+been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had
+associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens,
+who would have been competent to carry on the routine responsibilities
+of their posts. The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion or
+any working action between men differing from each other as widely as
+did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and
+in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an
+attempt that brought upon the chief daily burdens and many keen
+anxieties. Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important for the
+proper carrying on of the contest that the Cabinet should contain
+representatives of the several loyal sections of the country and of the
+various phases of opinion. The extreme anti-slavery men were entitled
+to
+be heard even though their spokesman Chase was often intemperate,
+ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States men had a right to be
+represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they
+had
+a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might
+show himself, as he often did show himself, quite incapable of
+understanding, <a name="Page_162"></a>much less of sympathising with,
+the real spirit of the
+North. Stanton might be truculent and even brutal, but he was willing
+to
+work, he knew how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, scholar
+and statesman as he was, had been ready to give needless provocation to
+Europe and was often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the
+conservative Border States on the one hand and of the New England
+abolitionists on the other, but Seward was a patriot as well as a
+scholar and was a representative not only of New York but of the best
+of
+the Whig Republican sentiment of the entire North, and Seward could not
+be spared. It is difficult to recall in history a government made up of
+such discordant elements which through the patience, tact, and genius
+of
+one man was made to do effective work.</p>
+<p>In February, 1865, in response to suggestions from the South which
+indicated the possibility of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with
+Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners to talk over measures
+for bringing the War to a close. The meeting was held on a gun-boat on
+the James River. It seems probable from the later history that Stephens
+had convinced himself that the Confederacy could not conquer its
+independence and that it only remained to secure <a name="Page_163"></a>the
+best terms
+possible for a surrender. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis was not
+yet
+prepared to consider any terms short of a recognition of the
+independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens could act only under the
+instructions received from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention that
+the government of the United States could not treat with rebels (or,
+dropping the word "rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The first
+step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, "be the laying down of arms.
+There is no precedent in history for a government entering into
+negotiations with its own armed citizens."</p>
+<p>"But there is a precedent, Mr. Lincoln," said Stephens, "King
+Charles of
+England treated with the Cromwellians."</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Lincoln, "I believe that is so. I usually leave
+historical
+details to Mr. Seward, who is a student. It is, however, my memory that
+King Charles lost his head."</p>
+<p>It soon became evident that there was no real basis for
+negotiations,
+and Stephens and his associates had to return to Richmond disappointed.
+In the same month, was adopted by both Houses of Congress the
+Thirteenth
+Amendment, which prohibited slavery throughout the whole dominion of
+the
+United States. By the close of 1865, this <a name="Page_164"></a>amendment
+had been confirmed
+by thirty-three States. It is probable that among these thirty-three
+there were several States the names of which were hardly familiar to
+some of the older citizens of the South, the men who had accepted the
+responsibility for the rebellion. The state of mind of these older
+Southerners in regard more particularly to the resources of the
+North-west was recalled to me years after the War by an incident
+related
+by General Sherman at a dinner of the New England Society. Sherman said
+that during the march through Georgia he had found himself one day at
+noon, when near the head of his column, passing below the piazza of a
+comfortable-looking old plantation house. He stopped to rest on the
+piazza with one or two of his staff and was received by the old planter
+with all the courtliness that a Southern gentleman could show, even to
+an invader, when doing the honours of his own house. The General and
+the
+planter sat on the piazza, looking at the troops below and discussing,
+as it was inevitable under the circumstances that they must discuss,
+the
+causes of the War.</p>
+<p>"General," said the planter, "what troops are those passing below?"
+The
+General leans over the piazza, and calls to the standard bearers,
+"<a name="Page_165"></a>Throw out your flag, boys," and as the flag was
+thrown out, he reports
+to his host, "The 30th Wisconsin."</p>
+<p>"Wisconsin?" said the planter, "Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin?"</p>
+<p>"It is one of the States of the North-west," said Sherman.</p>
+<p>"When I was studying geography," said the planter, "I knew of
+Wisconsin
+simply as the name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are there in a
+regiment?"</p>
+<p>"Well, there were a thousand when they started," said Sherman.</p>
+<p>"Do you mean to say," said the planter, "that there is a State
+called
+Wisconsin that has sent thirty thousand men into your armies?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, probably forty thousand," answered Sherman.</p>
+<p>With the next battalion the questions and the answers are repeated.
+The
+flag was that of a Minnesota regiment, say the 32d. The old planter had
+never heard that there was such a State.</p>
+<p>"My God!" he said when he had figured out the thousands of men who
+had
+come to the front, from these so-called Indian territories, to maintain
+the existence of the nation, "If we in <a name="Page_166"></a>the
+South had known that you had
+turned those Indian territories into great States, we never should have
+gone into this war." The incident throws a light upon the state of mind
+of men in the South, even of well educated men in the South, at the
+outbreak of the War. They might, of course, have known by statistics
+that great States had grown up in the North-west, representing a
+population of millions and able themselves to put into the field armies
+to be counted by the thousand. They might have realised that these
+great
+States of the North-west were vitally concerned with the necessity of
+keeping the Mississippi open for their trade from its source to the
+Gulf
+of Mexico. They might have known that those States, largely settled
+from
+New England, were absolutely opposed to slavery. This knowledge was
+within their reach but they had not realised the facts of the case. It
+was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to do only
+with New England and the Middle States and they felt that they were
+strong enough to hold their own against this group of opponents. That
+feeling would have been justified. The South could never have been
+overcome and the existence of the nation could never have been
+maintained if it had not been for the loyal co-<a name="Page_167"></a>operation
+and the
+magnificent resources of men and of national wealth that were
+contributed to the cause by the States of the North-west. In 1880, I
+had
+occasion, in talking to the two thousand students of the University of
+Minnesota, to recall the utterance of the old planter. The students of
+that magnificent University, placed in a beautiful city of two hundred
+and fifty thousand inhabitants, found it difficult on their part to
+realise, amidst their laughter at the ignorance of the old planter,
+just
+what the relations of the South had been before the War to the new free
+communities of the North-west.</p>
+<p>In February, 1865, with the fall of Fort Fisher and the capture of
+Wilmington, the control of the coast of the Confederacy became
+complete.
+The Southerners and their friends in Great Britain and the Bahamas (a
+group of friends whose sympathies for the cause were very much enhanced
+by the opportunity of making large profits out of their friendly
+relations) had shown during the years of the War exceptional ingenuity,
+daring, and persistence in carrying on the blockade-running. The ports
+of the British West Indies were very handy, and, particularly during
+the
+stormy months of the winter, it was hardly practicable to maintain an
+absolutely assured <a name="Page_168"></a>barrier of blockades along a
+line of coast
+aggregating about two thousand miles. The profits on a single voyage on
+the cotton taken out and on the stores brought back were sufficient to
+make good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three disastrous trips.
+The blockade-runners, Southerners and Englishmen, took their lives in
+their hands and they fairly earned all the returns that came to them. I
+happened to have early experience of the result of the fall of Fort
+Fisher and of the final closing of the last inlet for British goods. I
+was at the time in prison in Danville, Virginia. I was one of the few
+men in the prison (the group comprised about a dozen) who had been
+fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. We wore our tooth-brushes
+fastened into the front button-holes of our blouses, partly possibly
+from ostentation, but chiefly for the purpose of keeping them from
+being
+stolen. I was struck by receiving an offer one morning from the
+lieutenant of the prison guard of $300 for my tooth-brush. The
+"dollars"
+meant of course Confederate dollars and I doubtless hardly realised
+from
+the scanty information that leaked into the prison how low down in
+February, 1865, Confederate currency had depreciated. But still it was
+a
+large sum and the tooth-brush had been in use <a name="Page_169"></a>for
+a number of months.
+It then leaked out from a word dropped by the lieutenant that no more
+English tooth-brushes could get into the Confederacy and those of us
+who
+had been studying possibilities on the coast realised that Fort Fisher
+must have fallen.</p>
+<p>In this same month of February, into which were crowded some of the
+most
+noteworthy of the closing events of the War, Charleston was evacuated
+as
+Sherman's army on its sweep northward passed back of the city. I am not
+sure whether the fiercer of the old Charlestonians were not more
+annoyed
+at the lack of attention paid by Sherman to the fire-eating little city
+in which four years back had been fired the gun that opened the War,
+than they would have been by an immediate and strenuous occupation.
+Sherman had more important matters on hand than the business of looking
+after the original fire-eaters. He was hurrying northward, close on the
+heels of Johnston, to prevent if possible the combination of Johnston's
+troops with Lee's army which was supposed to be retreating from
+Virginia.</p>
+<p>On the 4th of March comes the second inaugural, in which Lincoln
+speaks
+almost in the language of a Hebrew prophet. The feeling is strong upon
+<a name="Page_170"></a>him that the clouds of war are about to roll
+away but he cannot free
+himself from the oppression that the burdens of the War have produced.
+The emphasis is placed on the all-important task of bringing the
+enmities to a close with the end of the actual fighting. He points out
+that responsibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the South and
+he invokes from those who under his leadership are bringing the contest
+to a triumphant close, their sympathy and their help for their
+fellow-men who have been overcome. The address is possibly the most
+impressive utterance ever made by a national leader and it is most
+characteristic of the fineness and largeness of nature of the man. I
+cite the closing paragraph:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in
+the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued
+through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He
+gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those
+by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure
+from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God
+always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
+this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills
+that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen
+in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
+until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by
+another <a name="Page_171"></a>drop of blood drawn by the War, as was
+said two thousand
+years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord
+are true, and righteous altogether.... With malice towards none,
+with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
+see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind
+up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the
+battle and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may
+achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and
+with all nations."</p>
+</div>
+<p>After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had been "a common cause,
+a
+common interest, and a common country." The invocation in this last
+inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common
+country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in
+the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the
+men of the grey and those of the blue.</p>
+<p>At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines
+cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of
+adjustment.
+Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no
+authority to discuss any political relations. On the first of April,
+the
+right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at
+Five Forks, and on <a name="Page_172"></a>the day following Richmond
+is evacuated by the
+rear-guard of Lee's army. The defence of Richmond during the long years
+of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the
+entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the
+patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always
+take
+a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of
+positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction
+of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic
+distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever
+disposition
+of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from
+month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact
+there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these
+things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the
+resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and
+character of Lee and his associates would however of course have been
+in
+vain and the lines would have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or
+in
+1862, if it had not been for the magnificent patience and heroism of
+the
+rank and file that fought in the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars
+and whose fighting during the last of those months <a name="Page_173"></a>was
+done in tattered
+uniforms and with a ration less by from one quarter to one half than
+that which had been accepted as normal.</p>
+<p>On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes are borne into
+Richmond by
+the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command
+of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision
+that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should
+be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the
+rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The
+Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping
+to
+be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified,
+for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as
+remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had
+left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and
+negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all
+authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the
+city
+was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored
+order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and
+consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, <a
+ name="Page_174"></a>when
+necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but
+not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been
+brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves
+into
+their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own
+street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate
+safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that
+the
+first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.</p>
+<p>Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and in spite of the
+apprehensions of nearly all his advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming
+down the river from Washington and making his way into the Rebel
+capital. There was no thought of vaingloriousness or of posing as the
+victor. He came under the impression that some civil authorities would
+probably have remained in Richmond with whom immediate measures might
+be
+taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to secure for the city and for
+the State a return of peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while not a
+great artist was inspired to produce during the War some of the most
+graphic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events,
+made a drawing which was purchased later by <a name="Page_175"></a>the
+New York Union League
+Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured
+folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowding about the man
+whom they hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic
+adoration
+trying to touch so much as the hem of his garment. The picture is
+history in showing what actually happened and it is pathetic history in
+recalling how great were the hopes that came to the coloured people
+from
+the success of the North and from the certainty of the end of slavery.
+It is sad to recall the many disappointments that during the forty
+years
+since the occupation of Richmond have hampered the uplifting of the
+race. Lincoln's hope that some representative of the Confederacy might
+have remained in Richmond, if only for the purpose of helping to bring
+to a close as rapidly as possible the waste and burdens of continued
+war, was not realised. The members of the Confederate government seem
+to
+have been interested only in getting away from Richmond and to have
+given no thought to the duty they owed to their own people to cooperate
+with the victors in securing a prompt return of law and order.</p>
+<p>On the 9th of April, came the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, four
+years, less three days, <a name="Page_176"></a>from the date of the
+firing of the first gun of
+the War at Charleston. The muskets turned in by the ragged and starving
+files of the remnants of Lee's army represented only a small portion of
+those which a few days earlier had been holding the entrenchments at
+Petersburg. As soon as it became evident that the army was not going to
+be able to break through the Federal lines and begin a fresh campaign
+in
+North Carolina, the men scattered from the retreating columns right and
+left, in many cases carrying their muskets to their own homes as a
+memorial fairly earned by plucky and persistent service. There never
+was
+an army that did better fighting or that was better deserving of the
+recognition, not only of the States in behalf of whose so-called
+"independence" the War had been waged, but on the part of opponents who
+were able to realise the character and the effectiveness of the
+fighting.</p>
+<p>The scene in the little farm-house where the two commanders met to
+arrange the terms of surrender was dramatic in more ways than one.
+General Lee had promptly given up his own baggage waggon for use in
+carrying food for the advance brigade and as he could save but one suit
+of clothes, he had naturally taken his best. He was, therefore,
+notwithstanding the fatigues <a name="Page_177"></a>and the privations
+of the past week, in
+full dress uniform. He was one of the handsomest men of his generation,
+and his beauty was not only of feature but of expression of character.
+Grant, who never gave much thought to his personal appearance, had for
+days been away from his baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping
+as near as possible to the front line with reference to the probability
+of being called to arrange terms for surrender, he had not found the
+opportunity of securing a proper coat in place of his fatigue blouse. I
+believe that even his sword had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow
+one for the occasion from a staff officer. When the main details of the
+surrender had been talked over, Grant looked about the group in the
+room, which included, in addition to two staff officers who had come
+with Lee, a group of five or six of his own assistants, who had managed
+to keep up with the advance, to select the aid who should write out the
+paper. His eye fell upon Colonel Ely Parker, a brigade commander who
+had
+during the past few months served on Grant's staff. "Colonel Parker, I
+will ask you," said Grant, "as the only real American in the room, to
+draft this paper." Parker was a full-blooded Indian, belonging to one
+of
+the Iroquois tribes of New York.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_178"></a>Grant's suggestion that the United States had
+no requirement for the
+horses of Lee's army and that the men might find these convenient for
+"spring ploughing" was received by Lee with full appreciation. The
+first
+matter in order after the completion of the surrender was the issue of
+rations to the starving Southern troops. "General Grant," said Lee, "a
+train was ordered by way of Danville to bring rations to meet my army
+and it ought to be now at such a point," naming a village eight or nine
+miles to the south-west. General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye,
+now put in a word: "The train from the south is there, General Lee, or
+at least it was there yesterday. My men captured it and the rations
+will
+be available." General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, a
+valued comrade, and rides slowly through the ranks first of the blue
+and
+then of the grey. Every hat came off from the men in blue as an
+expression of respect to a great soldier and a true gentleman, while
+from the ranks in grey there was one great sob of passionate grief and
+finally, almost for the first time in Lee's army, a breaking of
+discipline as the men crowded forward to get a closer look at, or
+possibly a grasp of the hand of, the great leader who had fought and
+failed but whose fighting and whose failure had been so magnificent.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="IX"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_179"></a>IX</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED</p>
+<br>
+<p>On the 11th of April, Lincoln makes his last public utterance. In a
+brief address to some gathering in Washington, he says, "There will
+shortly be announcement of a new policy." It is hardly to be doubted
+that the announcement which he had in mind was to be concerned with the
+problem of reconstruction. He had already outlined in his mind the
+essential principles on which the readjustment must be made. In this
+same address, he points out that "whether or not the seceded States be
+out of the Union, they are out of their proper relations to the Union."
+We may feel sure that he would not have permitted the essential matters
+of readjustment to be delayed while political lawyers were arguing over
+the constitutional issue. On one side was the group which maintained
+that in instituting the Rebellion and in doing what was in their power
+to destroy the national existence, the people of the seceding States
+had
+forfeited all claims <a name="Page_180"></a>to the political liberty
+of their communities.
+According to this contention, the Slave States were to be treated as
+conquered territory, and it simply remained for the government of the
+United States to reshape this territory as might be found convenient or
+expedient. According to the other view, as secession was itself
+something which was not to be admitted, being, from the constitutional
+point of view, impossible, there never had in the legal sense of the
+term been any secession. The instant the armed rebellion had been
+brought to an end, the rebelling States were to be considered as having
+resumed their old-time relations with the States of the North and with
+the central government. They were under the same obligations as before
+for taxation, for subordination in foreign relations, and for the
+acceptance of the control of the Federal government on all matters
+classed as Federal. On the other hand, they were entitled to the
+privileges that had from the beginning been exercised by independent
+States: namely, the control of their local affairs on matters not
+classed as Federal, and they had a right to their proportionate
+representation in Congress and to their proportion of the electoral
+vote
+for President. It has been very generally recognised in the South <a
+ name="Page_181"></a>as in
+the North that if Lincoln could have lived, some of the most serious of
+the difficulties that arose during the reconstruction period through
+the
+friction between these conflicting theories would have been avoided.
+The
+Southerners would have realised that the head of the government had a
+cordial and sympathetic interest in doing what might be practicable not
+only to re-establish their relations as citizens of the United States,
+but to further in every way the return of their communities to
+prosperity, a prosperity which, after the loss of the property in their
+slaves and the enormous destruction of their general resources, seemed
+to be sadly distant.</p>
+<p>On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic tragedy ending on the day
+following in the death of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this
+instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation mourned for the loss
+of
+its leader, while the soldiers were stricken with grief that their
+great
+captain should have been struck down, while the South might well be
+troubled that the control and adjustment of the great interstate
+perplexities was not to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and
+patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after the four years of
+continuous toil and fearful burdens and anxieties might well have been
+grateful. <a name="Page_182"></a>The great task had been accomplished
+and the responsibilities
+accepted in the first inaugural had been fulfilled.</p>
+<p>In March, 1861, Lincoln had accepted the task of steering the nation
+through the storm of rebellion, the divided opinions and counsels of
+friends, and the fierce onslaught of foes at home and abroad. In April,
+1865, the national existence was assured, the nation's credit was
+established, the troops were prepared to return to their homes and
+resume their work as citizens. At no time in history had any people
+been
+able against such apparently overwhelming perils and difficulties to
+maintain a national existence. There was, therefore, notwithstanding
+the
+great misfortune, for the people South and North, in the loss of the
+wise ruler at a time when so many difficulties remained to be adjusted,
+a dramatic fitness in having the life of the leader close just as the
+last army of antagonists was laying down its arms. The first problem of
+the War that came to the administration of 1861 was that of restoring
+the flag over Fort Sumter. On the 14th of April, the day when Booth's
+pistol was laying low the President, General Anderson, who four years
+earlier had so sturdily defended Sumter, was fulfilling the duty of
+restoring the Stars and Stripes.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_183"></a>The news of the death of Lincoln came to the
+army of Sherman, with
+which my own regiment happened at the time to be associated, on the
+17th
+of April. On leaving Savannah, Sherman had sent word to the north to
+have all the troops who were holding posts along the coasts of North
+Carolina concentrated on a line north of Goldsborough. It was his dread
+that General Johnston might be able to effect a junction with the
+retreating forces of Lee and it was important to do whatever was
+practicable, either with forces or with a show of forces, to delay
+Johnston and to make such combination impossible. A thin line of
+Federal
+troops was brought into position to the north of Johnston's advance,
+but
+Sherman himself kept so closely on the heels of his plucky and
+persistent antagonist that, irrespective of any opposing line to the
+north, Johnston would have found it impossible to continue his progress
+towards Virginia. He was checked at Goldsborough after the battle of
+Bentonville and it was at Goldsborough that the last important force of
+the Confederacy was surrendered.</p>
+<p>We soldiers learned only later some of the complications that
+preceded
+that surrender. President Davis and his associates in the Confederate
+government had, with one exception, <a name="Page_184"></a>made their
+way south, passing to
+the west of Sherman's advance. The exception was Post-master-General
+Reagan, who had decided to remain with General Johnston. He appears to
+have made good with Johnston the claim that he, Reagan, represented all
+that was left of the Confederate government. He persuaded Johnston to
+permit him to undertake the negotiations with Sherman, and he had, it
+seems, the ambition of completing with his own authority the
+arrangements that were to terminate the War. Sherman, simple-hearted
+man
+that he was, permitted himself, for the time, to be confused by
+Reagan's
+semblance of authority. He executed with Reagan a convention which
+covered not merely the surrender of Johnston's army but the
+preliminaries of a final peace. This convention was of course made
+subject to the approval of the authorities in Washington. When it came
+into the hands of President Johnson, it was, under the counsel of
+Seward
+and Stanton, promptly disavowed. Johnson instructed Grant, who had
+reported to Washington from Appomattox, to make his way at once to
+Goldsborough and, relieving Sherman, to arrange for the surrender of
+Johnston's army on the terms of Appomattox. Grant's response was
+characteristic. He said in <a name="Page_185"></a>substance: "I am
+here, Mr. President, to
+obey orders and under the decision of the Commander-in-chief I will go
+to Goldsborough and will carry out your instructions. I prefer,
+however,
+to act as a messenger simply. I am entirely unwilling to take out of
+General Sherman's hands the command of the army that is so properly
+Sherman's army and that he has led with such distinctive success.
+General Sherman has rendered too great a service to the country to make
+it proper to have him now humiliated on the ground of a political
+blunder, and I at least am unwilling to be in any way a party to his
+humiliation."</p>
+<p>Stanton was disposed to approve of Johnson's first instruction and
+to
+have Sherman at once relieved, but the man who had just come from
+Appomattox was too strong with the people to make it easy to disregard
+his judgment on a matter which was in part at least military. The
+President was still new to his office and he was still prepared to
+accept counsel. The matter was, therefore, arranged as Grant desired.
+Grant took the instructions and had his personal word with Sherman, but
+this word was so quietly given that none of the men in Sherman's army,
+possibly no one but Sherman himself, knew of Grant's visit. Grant took
+pains so to arrange the last stage of <a name="Page_186"></a>his
+journey that he came into the
+camp at Goldsborough well after dark, and, after an hour's interview
+with Sherman, he made his way at once northward outside of our lines
+and
+of our knowledge.</p>
+<p>On Grant's arrival, Sherman at once assumed that he was to be
+superseded. "No, no," said Grant; "do you not see that I have come
+without even a sword? There is here no question of superseding the
+commander of this army, but simply of correcting an error and of
+putting
+things as they were. This convention must be cancelled. You will have
+no
+further negotiation with Mr. Reagan or with any civilian claiming to
+represent the Confederacy. Your transactions will be made with the
+commander of the Confederate army, and you will accept the surrender of
+that army on the terms that were formulated at Appomattox." Sherman was
+keen enough to understand what must have passed in Washington, and was
+able to appreciate the loyal consideration shown by General Grant in
+the
+successful effort to protect the honour and the prestige of his old
+comrade. The surrender was carried out on the 26th of April, eleven
+days
+after the death of Lincoln. Johnston's troops, like those of Lee, were
+distributed to their homes. The officers retained <a name="Page_187"></a>their
+side-arms, and
+the men, leaving their rifles, took with them not only such horses and
+mules as they still had with them connected with the cavalry or
+artillery, but also a number of horses and mules which had been
+captured
+by Sherman's army and which had not yet been placed on the United
+States
+army roster. Sherman understood, as did Grant, the importance of giving
+to these poor farmers whatever facilities might be available to enable
+them again to begin their home work. Word was at once sent to General
+Johnston after Grant's departure that the, only terms that could be
+considered was a surrender of the army, and that the details of such
+surrender Sherman would himself arrange with Johnston. Reagan slipped
+away southward and is not further heard of in history.</p>
+<p>The record of Lincoln's relations to the events of the War would not
+be
+complete without a reference to the capture of Jefferson Davis. On
+returning to Washington after his visit to Richmond, Lincoln had been
+asked what should be done with Davis when he was captured. The answer
+was characteristic: "I do not see," said Lincoln, "that we have any use
+for a white elephant." Lincoln's clear judgment had at once recognised
+the difficulties that would arise in <a name="Page_188"></a>case Davis
+should become a
+prisoner. The question as to the treatment of the ruler of the late
+Confederacy was very different from, and much more complicated than,
+the
+fixing of terms of surrender for the Confederate armies. If Davis had
+succeeded in getting out of the country, it is probable that the South,
+or at least a large portion of the South, would have used him as a kind
+of a scapegoat. Many of the Confederate soldiers were indignant with
+Davis for his bitter animosities to some of their best leaders. Davis
+was a capable man and had in him the elements of statesmanship. He was,
+however, vain and, like some other vain men, placed the most importance
+upon the capacities in which he was the least effective. He had had a
+brief and creditable military experience, serving as a lieutenant with
+Scott's army in Mexico, and he had impressed himself with the belief
+that he was a great commander. Partly on this ground, and partly
+apparently as a result of general "incompatibility of temper," Davis
+managed to quarrel at different times during the War with some of the
+generals who had shown themselves the most capable and the most
+serviceable. He would probably have quarrelled with Lee, if it had been
+possible for any one to make quarrel relations with that fine-<a
+ name="Page_189"></a>natured
+gentleman, and if Lee had not been too strongly entrenched in the
+hearts
+of his countrymen to make any interference with him unwise, even for
+the
+President. Davis had, however, managed to interfere very seriously with
+the operations of men like Beauregard, Sidney Johnson, Joseph Johnston,
+and other commanders whose continued leadership was most important for
+the Confederacy. It was the obstinacy of Davis that had protracted the
+War through the winter and spring of 1865, long after it was evident
+from the reports of Lee and of the other commanders that the resources
+of the Confederacy were exhausted and that any further struggle simply
+meant an inexcusable loss of life on both sides. As a Northern soldier
+who has had experience in Southern prisons, I may be excused also from
+bearing in mind the fearful responsibility that rests upon Davis for
+the
+mismanagement of those prisons, a mismanagement which caused the death
+of thousands of brave men on the frozen slopes of Belle Isle, on the
+foul floors of Libby and Danville, and on the rotten ground used for
+three years as a living place and as a dying place within the stockade
+at Andersonville. Davis received from month to month the reports of the
+conditions in these and in the other prisons of the Con<a
+ name="Page_190"></a>federacy. Davis
+could not have been unaware of the stupidity and the brutality of
+keeping prisoners in Richmond during the last winter of the War when
+the
+lines of road still open were absolutely inadequate to supply the
+troops
+in the trenches or the people of the town. Reports were brought to
+Davis
+more than once from Andersonville showing that a large portion of the
+deaths that were there occurring were due to the vile and rotten
+condition of the hollow in which for years prisoners had been huddled
+together; but the appeal made to Richmond for permission to move the
+stockade to a clean and dry slope was put to one side as a matter of no
+importance. The entire authority in the matter was in the hands of
+Davis
+and a word from him would have remedied some of the worst conditions.
+He
+must share with General Winder, the immediate superintendent of the
+prisons, the responsibility for the heedless and brutal
+mismanagement,&#8212;a mismanagement which brought death to thousands and
+which left thousands of others cripples for life.</p>
+<p>As a result of the informal word given by Lincoln, it was generally
+understood, by all the officers, at least, in charge of posts and
+picket
+lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured.
+Unfortunately it had not proved <a name="Page_191"></a>possible to get
+this informal
+expression of a very important piece of policy conveyed throughout the
+lines farther west. An enterprising and over-zealous captain of
+cavalry,
+riding across from the Mississippi to the coast, heard of Davis's party
+in Florida and, "butting in," captured, on May 10th, "the white
+elephant."</p>
+<p>The last commands of the Confederate army were surrendered with
+General
+Taylor in Louisiana on the 4th of May and with Kirby Smith in Texas on
+the 26th of May. As Lincoln had foreshadowed, not a few complications
+resulted from this unfortunate capture of Davis, complications that
+were
+needlessly added to by the lack of clear-headedness or of definite
+policy on the part of a confused and vacillating President. During the
+months in which Davis was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, and while the
+question of his trial for treason was being fiercely debated in
+Washington, the sentiment of the Confederacy naturally concentrated
+upon
+its late President. He was, as the single prisoner, the surviving
+emblem
+of the contest. His vanities, irritability, and blunders were
+forgotten.
+It was natural that, under the circumstances, his people, the people of
+the South, should hold in memory only the fact that he had been their
+leader and that <a name="Page_192"></a>he had through four strenuous
+years borne the burdens
+of leadership with unflagging zeal, with persistent courage, and with
+an
+almost foolhardy hopefulness. He had given to the Confederacy the best
+of his life, and he was entitled to the adoration that the survivors of
+the Confederacy gave to him as representing the ideal of the lost cause.</p>
+<p>The feeling with which Lincoln was regarded by the men in the front,
+for
+whom through the early years of their campaigning he had been not only
+the leader but the inspiration, was indicated by the manner in which
+the
+news of his death was received. I happened myself on the day of those
+sad tidings to be with my division in a little village just outside of
+Goldsborough, North Carolina. We had no telegraphic communication with
+the North, but were accustomed to receive despatches about noon each
+day, carried across the swamps from a station through which connection
+was made with Wilmington and the North. In the course of the morning, I
+had gone to the shanty of an old darky whom I had come to know during
+the days of our sojourn, for the purpose of getting a shave. The old
+fellow took up his razor, put it down again and then again lifted it
+up,
+but his arm was shaking and I saw that he was <a name="Page_193"></a>so
+agitated that he was
+not fitted for the task. "Massa," he said, "I can't shave yer this
+mornin'." "What is the matter?" I inquired. "Well," he replied,
+"somethin's happened to Massa Linkum." "Why!" said I, "nothing has
+happened to Lincoln. I know what there is to be known. What are you
+talking about?" "Well!" the old man replied with a half sob, "we
+coloured folks&#8212;we get news or we get half news sooner than you-uns. I
+dun know jes' what it is, but somethin' has gone wrong with Massa
+Linkum." I could get nothing more out of the old man, but I was
+sufficiently anxious to make my way to Division headquarters to see if
+there was any news in advance of the arrival of the regular courier.
+The
+coloured folks were standing in little groups along the village street,
+murmuring to each other or waiting with anxious faces for the bad news
+that they were sure was coming. I found the brigade adjutant and those
+with him were puzzled like myself at the troubled minds of the darkies,
+but still sceptical as to the possibility of any information having
+reached them which was not known through the regular channels.</p>
+<p>At noon, the courier made his appearance riding by the wood lane
+across
+the fields; and the instant he was seen we all realised that there was
+<a name="Page_194"></a>bad news. The man was hurrying his pony and yet
+seemed to be very
+unwilling to reach the lines where his report must be made. In this
+instance (as was, of course, not usually the case) the courier knew
+what
+was in his despatches. The Division Adjutant stepped out on the porch
+of
+the headquarters with the paper in his hand, but he broke down before
+he
+could begin to read. The Division Commander took the word and was able
+simply to announce: "Lincoln is dead." The word "President" was not
+necessary and he sought in fact for the shortest word. I never before
+had found myself in a mass of men overcome by emotion. Ten thousand
+soldiers were sobbing together. No survivor of the group can recall the
+sadness of that morning without again being touched by the wave of
+emotion which broke down the reserve and control of these war-worn
+veterans on learning that their great captain was dead.</p>
+<p>The whole people had come to have with the President a relation
+similar
+to that which had grown up between the soldiers and their
+Commander-in-chief. With the sympathy and love of the people to sustain
+him, Lincoln had over them an almost unlimited influence. His capacity
+for toil, his sublime patience, his wonderful endur<a name="Page_195"></a>ance,
+his great mind
+and heart, his out-reaching sympathies, his thoughtfulness for the
+needs
+and requirements of all, had bound him to his fellow-citizens by an
+attachment of genuine sentiment. His appellation throughout the country
+had during the last year of the war become "Father Abraham." We may
+recall in the thought of this relation to the people the record of
+Washington. The first President has come into history as the "Father of
+his Country," but for Washington this r&ocirc;le of father is something
+of
+historic development. During Washington's lifetime, or certainly at
+least during the years of his responsibilities as General and as
+President, there was no such general recognition of the leader and
+ruler
+as the father of his country. He was dear to a small circle of
+intimates; he was held in respectful regard by a larger number of those
+with whom were carried on his responsibilities in the army, and later
+in
+the nation's government. To many good Americans, however, Washington
+represented for years an antagonistic principle of government. He was
+regarded as an aristocrat and there were not a few political leaders,
+with groups of voters behind them, who dreaded, and doubtless honestly
+dreaded, that the influence of Washington might be utilised to build up
+in this country <a name="Page_196"></a>some fresh form of the monarchy
+that had been
+overthrown. The years of the Presidency had to be completed and the
+bitter antagonisms of the seven years' fighting and of the issues of
+the
+Constitution-building had to be outgrown, before the people were able
+to
+recognise as a whole the perfect integrity of purpose and consistency
+of
+action of their great leader, the first President. Even then when the
+animosities and suspicions had died away, while the people were ready
+to
+honour the high character and the accomplishments of Washington, the
+feeling was one of reverence rather than of affection. This sentiment
+gave rise later to the title of the "Father of his Country"; but there
+was no such personal feeling towards Washington as warranted, at least
+during his life, the term father of the people. Thirty years later, the
+ruler of the nation is Andrew Jackson, a man who was, like Lincoln,
+eminently a representative of the common people. His fellow-citizens
+knew that Jackson understood their feelings and their methods and were
+ready to have full confidence in Jackson's patriotism and honesty of
+purpose. His nature lacked, however, the sweet sympathetic qualities
+that characterised Lincoln; and while to a large body of his
+fellow-citizens he commended himself <a name="Page_197"></a>for
+sturdiness, courage, and
+devotion to the interests of the state, he was never able for himself
+to
+overcome the feeling that a man who failed to agree with a Jackson
+policy must be either a knave or a fool. He could not place himself in
+the position from which the other fellow was thinking or acting. He
+believed that it was his duty to maintain what he held to be the
+popular
+cause against the "schemes of the aristocrats," the bugbear of that
+day.
+He was a fighter from his youth up and his theory of government was
+that
+of enforcing the control of the side for which he was the partisan.
+Such
+a man could never be accepted as the father of the people.</p>
+<p>Lincoln, coming from those whom he called the common people, feeling
+with their feelings, sympathetic with their needs and ideals, was able
+in the development of his powers to be accepted as the peer of the
+largest intellects in the land. While knowing what was needed by the
+poor whites of Kentucky, he could understand also the point of view of
+Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. In place of emphasising antagonisms,
+he held consistently that the highest interest of one section of the
+country must be the real interest of the whole people, and that the
+ruler of the nation had upon him the responsibility of so shaping the
+<a name="Page_198"></a>national policy that all the people should
+recognise the government as
+their government. It was this large understanding and width of sympathy
+that made Lincoln in a sense which could be applied to no other ruler
+of
+this country, the people's President, and no other ruler in the world
+has ever been so sympathetically, so effectively in touch with all of
+the fellow-citizens for whose welfare he made himself responsible. The
+Latin writer, Aulus Gellius, uses for one of his heroes the term "a
+classic character." These words seem to me fairly to apply to Abraham
+Lincoln.</p>
+<p>An appreciative Englishman, writing in the London <i>Nation</i> at
+the time
+of the Centennial commemoration, says of Lincoln:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>The greatness of Lincoln was that of a common man raised to a high
+dimension. The possibility, still more the existence, of such a man
+is itself a justification of democracy. We do not say that so
+independent, so natural, so complete a man cannot in older societies
+come to wield so large a power over the affairs and the minds of
+men; we can only say that amid all the stirring movements of the
+nineteenth century he has not so done. The existence of what may be
+called a widespread commonalty explains the rarity of personal
+eminence in America. <a name="Page_199"></a>There has been and still
+remains a higher
+general level of personality than in any European country, and the
+degree of eminence is correspondingly reduced. It is just because
+America has stood for opportunity that conspicuous individuals have
+been comparatively rare. Strong personality, however, has not been
+rare; it is the abundance of such personality that has built up
+silently into the rising fabric of the American Commonwealth,
+pioneers, roadmakers, traders, lawyers, soldiers, teachers, toiling
+terribly over the material and moral foundation of the country, few
+of whose names have emerged or survived. Lincoln was of this stock,
+was reared among these rude energetic folk, had lived all those
+sorts of lives. He was no "sport"; his career is a triumphant
+refutation of the traditional views of genius. He had no special
+gift or quality to distinguish him; he was simply the best type of
+American at a historic juncture when the national safety wanted such
+a man. The confidence which all Americans express that their country
+will be equal to any emergency which may threaten it, is not so
+entirely superstitious as it seems at first sight. For the career of
+Lincoln shows how it has been done in a country where the "necessary
+man" can be drawn not from a few leading families, or an educated
+class, but from the millions.</p>
+</div>
+<p>Rabbi Schechter, in an eloquent address de<a name="Page_200"></a>livered
+at the Centennial
+celebration, speaks of Lincoln's personality as follows:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>The half century that has elapsed since Lincoln's death has
+dispelled the mists that encompassed him on earth. Men now not only
+recognise the right which he championed, but behold in him the
+standard of righteousness, of liberty, of conciliation, and truth.
+In him, as it were personified, stands the Union, all that is best
+and noblest and enduring in its principles in which he devoutly
+believed and served mightily to save. When to-day, the world
+celebrates the century of his existence, he has become the ideal of
+both North and South, of a common country, composed not only of the
+factions that once confronted each other in war's dreadful array,
+but of the myriad thousands that have since found in the American
+nation the hope of the future and the refuge from age-entrenched
+wrong and absolutism. To them, Lincoln, his life, his history, his
+character, his entire personality, with all its wondrous charm and
+grace, its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweetness, has
+come to be the very prototype of a rising humanity.</p>
+</div>
+<p>Carl Schurz, himself a man of large nature and wide and sympathetic
+comprehension, says of Lincoln:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>In the most conspicuous position of the period, Lincoln drew upon<a
+ name="Page_201"></a>
+himself the scoffs of polite society; but even then he filled the
+souls of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur.
+It was distinctly the weird mixture in him of qualities and forces,
+of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that
+which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that
+made him so fascinating a character among his fellow-men, that gave
+him his singular power over minds and hearts, that fitted him to be
+the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national life.</p>
+<p>He possessed the courage to stand alone&#8212;that courage which is the
+first requisite of leadership in a great cause. The charm of
+Lincoln's oratory flooded all the rare depth and genuineness of his
+convictions and his sympathetic feelings were the strongest element
+in his nature. He was one of the greatest Americans and the best of
+men.</p>
+</div>
+<p>The poet Whittier writes:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>The weary form that rested not</p>
+<p>Save in a martyr's grave;</p>
+<p>The care-worn face that none forgot,</p>
+<p>Turned to the kneeling slave.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>We rest in peace where his sad eyes</p>
+<p>Saw peril, strife, and pain;</p>
+<p>His was the awful sacrifice,</p>
+<p>And ours the priceless gain.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_202"></a>Says Bryant:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>That task is done, the bound are free,</p>
+<p>We bear thee to an honoured grave,</p>
+<p>Whose noblest monument shall be</p>
+<p>The broken fetters of the slave.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Pure was thy life; its bloody close</p>
+<p>Hath blessed thee with the sons of light,</p>
+<p>Among the noble host of those</p>
+<p>Who perished in the cause of right.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>Says Lowell:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Our children shall behold his fame,</p>
+<p>The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,</p>
+<p>Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame;</p>
+<p>New birth of our new soil, the first American.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>Ordinary men die when their physical life is brought to a close, if
+perhaps not at once, yet in a brief space, with the passing of the
+little circle of those to whom they were dear.</p>
+<p>The man of distinction lives for a time after death. His
+achievements
+and his character are held in appreciative remembrance by the community
+and the generation he has served. The waves of his influence ripple out
+in a somewhat wider circle before being lost in the ocean of time. We
+call that man great to whom it is given so to <a name="Page_203"></a>impress
+himself upon his
+fellow-men by deed, by creation, by service to the community, by
+character, by the inspiration from on high that has been breathed
+through his soul, that he is not permitted to die. Such a man secures
+immortality in this world. The knowledge and the influence of his life
+are extended throughout mankind and his memory gathers increasing fame
+from generation to generation.</p>
+<p>It is thus that men are to-day honouring the memory of Abraham
+Lincoln.
+To-day, one hundred years after his birth, and nearly half a century
+since the dramatic close of his life's work, Lincoln stands enshrined
+in
+the thought and in the hearts of his countrymen. He is our "Father
+Abraham," belonging to us, his fellow-citizens, for ideals, for
+inspiration, and for affectionate regard; but he belongs now also to
+all
+mankind, for he has been canonised among the noblest of the world's
+heroes.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_204"></a>
+<a name="APPENDIX"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_205"></a>APPENDIX</h2>
+<a name="THE_ADDRESS_OF_ABRAHAM_LINCOLN"></a>
+<h2>THE ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN</h2>
+<p>Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York,</p>
+<p>February 27, 1860.</p>
+<br>
+<p>With Introduction by Charles C. Nott; Historical and Analytical
+Notes by
+Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, and with the Correspondence
+between
+Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott as Representative of the Committee of the
+Young
+Men's Republican Union.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_206"></a>
+<a name="INTRODUCTORY_NOTE"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_207"></a>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</h2>
+<br>
+<p>The address delivered by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in
+February,
+1860 in response to the invitation of certain representative New
+Yorkers, was, as well in its character as in its results, the most
+important of all of his utterances.</p>
+<p>The conscientious study of the historical and constitutional record,
+and
+the arguments and conclusions based upon the analysis of this record,
+were accepted by the Republican leaders as constituting the principles
+and the policy to be maintained during the Presidential campaign of
+1860, a campaign in which was involved not merely the election of a
+President, but the continued existence of the republic.</p>
+<p>Under the wise counsels represented by the words of Lincoln, the
+election was fought out substantially on two contentions:</p>
+<p>First, that the compact entered into by the Fathers and by their
+immediate successors should be loyally carried out, and that slavery
+should not be interfered with in the original slave States, or in the
+additional territory that had been conceded to it under the Missouri
+Compromise; and, secondly, that not a single further square mile of
+soil, that was still free, should <a name="Page_208"></a>be left
+available, or should be made
+available, for the incursion of slavery.</p>
+<p>It was the conviction of Lincoln and of his associates, as it had
+been
+the conviction of the Fathers, that under such a restriction slavery
+must certainly in the near future come to an end. It was because these
+convictions, both in the debates with Douglas and in the Cooper
+Institute speech, were presented by Lincoln more forcibly and more
+conclusively than had been done by any other political leader, that
+Lincoln secured the nomination and the presidency. The February address
+was assuredly a deciding factor in the great issue of the time, and it
+certainly belongs, therefore, with the historic documents of the
+republic.</p>
+<p>G.H.P.</p>
+<p>NEW YORK, September 1, 1909.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="CORRESPONDENCE_WITH_LINCOLN_NOTT_AND_BRAINERD"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_209"></a>CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, AND
+BRAINERD</h2>
+<p>(<i>From Robert Lincoln</i>)</p>
+<div class="blkquot">MANCHESTER, VERMONT,
+<p>July 27, 1909.</p>
+<p>DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:</p>
+<p>Your letter of July 23rd reaches me here, and I beg to express my
+thanks for your kind remembrances of me in London.... I am much
+interested in learning that you were present at the time my father
+made his speech at Cooper Institute. I, of course, remember the
+occasion very well, although I was not present. I was at that time
+in the middle of my year at Phillips Exeter Academy, preparing for
+the Harvard entrance examination of the summer of 1860.... After the
+Cooper Institute address, my father came to Exeter to see how I was
+getting along, and this visit resulted in his making a number of
+speeches in New England on his way and on his return, and at Exeter
+he wrote to my mother a letter which was mainly concerned with me,
+but which did make reference to these speeches.... He said that he
+had had some embarrassment with these New England speeches, because
+in coming East he had <a name="Page_210"></a>anticipated making no
+speech excepting the
+one at the Cooper Institute, and he had not prepared himself for
+anything else.... In the later speeches, he was addressing reading
+audiences who had, as he thought probable, seen the report of his
+Cooper Institute speech, and he was obliged, therefore, from day to
+day (he made about a dozen speeches in New England in all) to bear
+that fact in mind.</p>
+<p>Sincerely yours,</p>
+<p>ROBERT LINCOLN.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<p>(<i>From Judge Nott</i>)</p>
+<div class="blkquot">WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.,
+<p>July 26, 1909.</p>
+<p>DEAR PUTNAM:</p>
+<p>I consider it very desirable that the report of Mr. Lincoln's
+speech, embodying the final revision, should be preserved in book
+form.... The text in the pamphlet now in your hands is authentic and
+conclusive. Mr. Lincoln read the proof both of the address and of
+the notes. I am glad that you are to include in your reprint the
+letters from Mr. Lincoln, as these letters authenticate this copy of
+the address as the copy which was corrected by him with his own
+hand....</p>
+<p>The preface to the address, written in September, 1860, has interest
+because it shows what we thought of the address at that time....
+Your worthy <a name="Page_211"></a>father was, if I remember rightly,
+one of the
+vice-presidents of the meeting....</p>
+<p>Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p>CHARLES C. NOTT.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<p><i>(From Cephas Brainerd)</i></p>
+<div class="blkquot">NEW YORK, August 18, 1909.
+<p>DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:</p>
+<p>I am very glad to learn that there is good prospect that the real
+Lincoln Cooper Institute address, with the evidence in regard to it,
+will now be available for the public.... I am glad also that with
+the address you are proposing to print the letters received by Judge
+Nott from Mr. Lincoln. One or two of these have, unfortunately, not
+been preserved. I recall in one an observation made by Lincoln to
+the effect that he "was not much of a literary man."</p>
+<p>I did not see much of Mr. Lincoln when he was in New York, as my
+most active responsibility in regard to the meeting was in getting
+up an audience.... I remember in handing some weeks earlier to John
+Sherman, who, like Lincoln, had never before spoken in New York,
+five ten-dollar gold pieces, that he said he "had not expected his
+expenses to be paid." At a lunch that was given to Sherman a long
+time afterward, I referred to that meeting. Sherman cocked his eye
+at me and said: "Yes, I remember it very well; I never was so scar't
+in all my life." ...</p>
+<a name="Page_212"></a>
+<p>The observations of Judge Nott in regard to the meeting are about
+as just as anything that has ever been put into print, and as I
+concur fully in the accuracy of these recollections, I do not
+undertake to give my own impressions at any length. I was expecting
+to hear some specimen of Western stump-speaking as it was then
+understood. You will, of course, observe that the speech contains
+nothing of the kind. I do remember, however, that Lincoln spoke of
+the condition of feeling between the North and the South.... He
+refers to the treatment which Northern men received in the South,
+and he remarked, parenthetically, that he had never known of a man
+who had been able "to whip his wife into loving him," an observation
+that produced laughter.</p>
+<p>In making up the notes, we ransacked, as you may be sure, all the
+material available in the libraries in New York, and I also had
+interviews as to one special point with Mr. Bancroft, with Mr.
+Hildreth, and with Dr. William Goodell, who was in those times a
+famous anti-slavery man.</p>
+<p>Your father<a name="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a>
+and William Curtis Noyes were possibly more
+completely in sympathy than any other two men in New York, with the
+efforts of these younger men; they impressed me as standing in that
+respect on the same plane. The next man to them was Charles Wyllis
+Elliott, the author of a <i>History of New England</i>. We never went
+to
+your father <a name="Page_213"></a>for advice or assistance when he
+failed to help us, and
+he was always so kindly and gentle in what he did and said that
+every one of us youngsters acquired for him a very great affection.
+He always had time to see us and was always on hand when he was
+wanted, and if we desired to have anything, we got it if he had it.
+Neither your father, nor Mr. Noyes, nor for that matter Mr. Elliott,
+ever suggested that we were "young" or "fresh" or anything of that
+sort. The enthusiasm which young fellows have was always recognised
+by these men as an exceedingly valuable asset in the cause....
+Pardon all this from a "veteran," and believe me,</p>
+<p>Sincerely yours,</p>
+<p>CEPHAS BRAINERD.</p>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_214"></a>
+<a name="INTRODUCTION"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_215"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+<p>BY CHARLES C. NOTT</p>
+<br>
+<p>The Cooper Institute address is one of the most important addresses
+ever
+delivered in the life of this nation, for at an eventful time it
+changed
+the course of history. When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the evening of
+February 27, 1860, he had held no administrative office; he had
+endeavoured to be appointed Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he
+had sought to be elected United States Senator, and had been defeated;
+he had been a member of Congress, yet it was not even remembered; he
+was
+a lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, but had not
+reached the front rank of the Illinois Bar. The record which Mr.
+Lincoln
+himself placed in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still be
+taken as the record of his public and official life: "Born February
+12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective. Profession
+a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.
+Postmaster in a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois
+Legislature and a member of the lower house of Congress." Was this the
+record of a man who should be made the head of a <a name="Page_216"></a>nation
+in troubled
+times? In the estimation of thoughtful Americans east of the
+Alleghanies
+all that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in regarding him as
+only "a Western stump orator"&#8212;successful, distinguished, but nothing
+higher than that&#8212;a Western stump orator, who had dared to brave one of
+the strongest men in the Western States, and who had done so with
+wonderful ability and moral success. When Mr. Lincoln closed his
+address
+he had risen to the rank of statesman, and had stamped himself a
+statesman peculiarly fitted for the exigency of the hour.</p>
+<p>Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided at the meeting; and a number of
+the
+first and ablest citizens of New York were present, among them Horace
+Greeley. Mr. Greeley was pronounced in his appreciation of the address;
+it was the ablest, the greatest, the wisest speech that had yet been
+made; it would reassure the conservative Northerner; it was just what
+was wanted to conciliate the excited Southerner; it was conclusive in
+its argument, and would assure the overthrow of Douglas. Mr. Horace
+White has recently written: "I chanced to open the other day his Cooper
+Institute speech. This is one of the few printed speeches that I did
+not
+hear him deliver in person. As I read the concluding pages of that
+speech, the conflict of opinion that preceded the conflict of arms then
+sweeping upon the country like an approaching solar eclipse seemed
+prefigured <a name="Page_217"></a>like a chapter of the Book of Fate.
+Here again he was the
+Old Testament prophet, before whom Horace Greeley bowed his head,
+saying
+that he had never listened to a greater speech, although he had heard
+several of Webster's best." Later, Mr. Greeley became the leader of the
+Republican forces opposed to the nomination of Mr. Seward and was
+instrumental in concentrating those forces upon Mr. Lincoln.
+Furthermore, the great New York press on the following morning carried
+the address to the country, and before Mr. Lincoln left New York he was
+telegraphed from Connecticut to come and aid in the campaign of the
+approaching spring election. He went, and when the fateful moment came
+in the Convention, Connecticut was one of the Eastern States which
+first
+broke away from the Seward column and went over to Mr. Lincoln. When
+Connecticut did this, the die was cast.</p>
+<p>It is difficult for younger generations of Americans to believe that
+three months before Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency he was
+neither appreciated nor known in New York. That fact can be better
+established by a single incident than by the opinions and assurances of
+a dozen men.</p>
+<p>After the address had been delivered, Mr. Lincoln was taken by two
+members of the Young Men's Central Republican Union&#8212;Mr. Hiram Barney,
+afterward Collector of the Port of New York, and Mr. Nott, one of the
+subsequent editors of the ad<a name="Page_218"></a>dress&#8212;to their club,
+The Athen&aelig;um, where
+a very simple supper was ordered, and five or six Republican members of
+the club who chanced to be in the building were invited in. The supper
+was informal&#8212;as informal as anything could be; the conversation was
+easy and familiar; the prospects of the Republican party in the coming
+struggle were talked over, and so little was it supposed by the
+gentlemen who had not heard the address that Mr. Lincoln could possibly
+be the candidate that one of them, Mr. Charles W. Elliott, asked,
+artlessly: "Mr. Lincoln, what candidate do you really think would be
+most likely to carry Illinois?" Mr. Lincoln answered by illustration:
+"Illinois is a peculiar State, in three parts. In northern Illinois,
+Mr.
+Seward would have a larger majority than I could get. In middle
+Illinois, I think I could call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. In
+southern Illinois, it would make no difference who was the candidate."
+This answer was taken to be merely illustrative by everybody except,
+perhaps, Mr. Barney and Mr. Nott, each of whom, it subsequently
+appeared, had particularly noted Mr. Lincoln's reply.</p>
+<p>The little party broke up. Mr. Lincoln had been cordially received,
+but
+certainly had not been flattered. The others shook him by the hand and,
+as they put on their overcoats, said: "Mr. Nott is going down town and
+he will show you the way to the Astor House." Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott
+started on foot, but the <a name="Page_219"></a>latter observing that
+Mr. Lincoln was
+apparently Walking with some difficulty said, "Are you lame, Mr.
+Lincoln?" He replied that he had on new boots and they hurt him. The
+two
+gentlemen then boarded a street car. When they reached the place where
+Mr. Nott would leave the car on his way home, he shook Mr. Lincoln by
+the hand and, bidding him good-bye, told him that this car would carry
+him to the side door of the Astor House. Mr. Lincoln went on alone, the
+only occupant of the car. The next time he came to New York, he rode
+down Broadway to the Astor House standing erect in an open barouche
+drawn by four white horses. He bowed to the patriotic thousands in the
+street, on the sidewalks, in the windows, on the house-tops, and they
+cheered him as the lawfully elected President of the United States and
+bade him go on and, with God's help, save the Union.</p>
+<p>His companion in the street car has often wondered since then what
+Mr.
+Lincoln thought about during the remainder of his ride that night to
+the
+Astor House. The Cooper Institute had, owing to a snowstorm, not been
+full, and its intelligent, respectable, non-partisan audience had not
+rung out enthusiastic applause like a concourse of Western auditors
+magnetised by their own enthusiasm. Had the address&#8212;the most carefully
+prepared, the most elaborately investigated and demonstrated and
+verified of all the work of his life&#8212;been a failure? <a name="Page_220"></a>But
+in the matter
+of quality and ability, if not of quantity and enthusiasm, he had never
+addressed such an audience; and some of the ablest men in the Northern
+States had expressed their opinion of the address in terms which left
+no
+doubt of the highest appreciation. Did Mr. Lincoln regard the address
+which he had just delivered to a small and critical audience as a
+success? Did he have the faintest glimmer of the brilliant effect which
+was to follow? Did he feel the loneliness of the situation&#8212;the want of
+his loyal Illinois adherents? Did his sinking heart infer that he was
+but a speck of humanity to which the great city would never again give
+a
+thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; unadorned, apparently
+uncultivated, showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His
+dress that night before a New York audience was the most unbecoming
+that
+a fiend's ingenuity could have devised for a tall, gaunt man&#8212;a black
+frock coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and
+arms&#8212;a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled
+throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that
+night
+more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more
+conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know
+that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition,
+sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze
+upon the very pinnacle of <a name="Page_221"></a>American fame and
+aspire to it in a time so
+troubled that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. What
+were
+this man's thoughts when he was left alone? Did a faint shadow of the
+future rest upon his soul? Did he feel in some mysterious way that on
+that night he had crossed the Rubicon of his life-march&#8212;that care and
+trouble and political discord, and slander and misrepresentation and
+ridicule and public responsibilities, such as hardly ever before
+burdened a conscientious soul, coupled with war and defeat and
+disaster,
+were to be thenceforth his portion nearly to his life's end, and that
+his end was to be a bloody act which would appall the world and send a
+thrill of horror through the hearts of friends and enemies alike, so
+that when the woeful tidings came the bravest of the Southern brave
+should burst into tears and cry aloud, "Oh! the unhappy South, the
+unhappy South!"</p>
+<p>The impression left on his companion's mind as he gave a last glance
+at
+him in the street car was that he seemed sad and lonely; and when it
+was
+too late, when the car was beyond call, he blamed himself for not
+accompanying Mr. Lincoln to the Astor House&#8212;not because he was a
+distinguished stranger, but because he seemed a sad and lonely man.</p>
+<p><i>February 12, 1908</i>.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_222"></a>
+<a name="CORRESPONDENCE_WITH_MR_LINCOLN"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_223"></a>CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. LINCOLN</h2>
+<div class="blkquot">69 Wall St., New York,
+<p>February 9, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>The "Young Men's Central Republican Union" of this city very
+cordially desire that you should deliver during the ensuing
+month&#8212;what I may term&#8212;<i>a political lecture</i>. The peculiarities of
+the case are these&#8212;A series of lectures has been determined
+upon&#8212;The first was delivered by Mr. Blair of St. Louis a short time
+ago&#8212;the second will be in a few days by Mr. C.M. Clay, and the
+third we would prefer to have from you, rather than from any other
+person. Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an
+ordinary political meeting. These lectures have been <i>contrived</i>
+to
+call out our better, but busier citizens, who never attend political
+meetings. A large part of the audience would also consist of ladies.
+The time we should prefer, would be about the middle of March, but
+if any earlier or later day will be more convenient for you we would
+alter our arrangements.</p>
+<p>Allow me to hope that we shall have the pleasure of welcoming you to
+New York. You are, I believe, <a name="Page_224"></a>an entire
+stranger to your Republican
+brethren here; but they have, for you, the highest esteem, and your
+celebrated contest with Judge Douglas awoke their warmest sympathy
+and admiration. Those of us who are "in the ranks" would regard your
+presence as very material aid, and as an honor and pleasure which I
+cannot sufficiently express.</p>
+<p>Respectfully,</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">To Hon. Abram Lincoln.
+<p>69 Wall St., New York,</p>
+<p>May 23, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>I enclose a copy of your address in New York.</p>
+<p>We (the Young Men's Rep. Union) design to publish a new edition in
+larger type and better form, with such notes and references as will
+best attract readers seeking information. Have you any memoranda of
+your investigations which you would approve of inserting?</p>
+<p>You and your Western friends, I think, underrate this speech. It has
+produced a greater effect here than any other single speech. It is
+the real platform in the Eastern States, and must carry the
+conservative element in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.</p>
+<p>Therefore I desire that it should be as nearly perfect as may be.
+Most of the emendations are trivial and do not affect the
+substance&#8212;all are merely suggested for your judgment.</p>
+<a name="Page_225"></a>
+<p>I cannot help adding that this speech is an extraordinary example
+of condensed English. After some experience in criticising for
+Reviews, I find hardly anything to touch and nothing to omit. It is
+the only one I know of which I cannot <i>shorten</i>, and&#8212;like a good
+arch&#8212;moving one word tumbles a whole sentence down.</p>
+<p>Finally&#8212;it being a bad and foolish thing for a candidate to write
+letters, and you having doubtless more to do of that than is
+pleasant or profitable, we will not add to your burden in that
+regard, but if you will let any friend who has nothing to do, advise
+us as to your wishes, in this or any other matter, we will try to
+carry them out.</p>
+<p>Respectfully,</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+<p>Springfield, Ills., May 31, 1860.</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott, Esq.</p>
+<p><i>My Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>Yours of the 23rd, accompanied by a copy of the speech delivered by
+me at the Cooper Institute, and upon which you have made some notes
+for emendations, was received some days ago&#8212;Of course I would not
+object to, but would be pleased rather, with a more perfect edition
+of that speech.</p>
+<p>I did not preserve memoranda of my investigations; and I could not
+now re-examine, and make <a name="Page_226"></a>notes, without an
+expenditure of time
+which I can not bestow upon it&#8212;Some of your notes I do not
+understand.</p>
+<p>So far as it is intended merely to improve in grammar, and elegance
+of composition, I am quite agreed; but I do not wish the sense
+changed, or modified, to a hair's breadth&#8212;And you, not having
+studied the particular points so closely as I have, can not be quite
+sure that you do not change the sense when you do not intend it&#8212;For
+instance, in a note at bottom of first page, you propose to
+substitute "Democrats" for "Douglas"&#8212;But what I am saying there is
+<i>true</i> of Douglas, and is not true of "Democrats" generally; so
+that
+the proposed substitution would be a very considerable blunder&#8212;Your
+proposed insertion of "residences" though it would do little or no
+harm, is not at all necessary to the sense I was trying to
+convey&#8212;On page 5 your proposed grammatical change would certainly
+do no harm&#8212;The "<i>impudently absurd"</i> I stick to&#8212;The striking out
+"<i>he"</i> and inserting "<i>we"</i> turns the sense exactly wrong&#8212;The
+striking out "<i>upon it</i>" leaves the sense too general and
+incomplete&#8212;The sense is "act as they acted <i>upon that question</i>
+"&#8212;not as they acted generally.</p>
+<p>After considering your proposed changes on page 7, I do not think
+them material, but I am willing to defer to you in relation to them.</p>
+<p>On page 9, striking out "<i>to us</i>" is probably right&#8212;The word
+"<i>lawyer's"</i> I wish retained. The word "<a name="Page_227"></a><i>Courts"</i>
+struck out twice,
+I wish reduced to "Court" and retained&#8212;"Court" as a collection more
+properly governs the plural "have" as I understand&#8212;"The" preceding
+"Court," in the latter case, must also be retained&#8212;The words
+"quite," "as," and "or" on the same page, I wish retained. The
+italicising, and quotation marking, I have no objection to.</p>
+<p>As to the note at bottom, I do not think any too much is
+admitted&#8212;What you propose on page 11 is right&#8212;I return your copy
+of the speech, together with one printed here, under my own hasty
+supervising. That at New York was printed without any supervision by
+me&#8212;If you conclude to publish a new edition, allow me to see the
+proof-sheets.</p>
+<p>And now thanking you for your very complimentary letter, and your
+interest for me generally, I subscribe myself.</p>
+<p>Your friend and servant,</p>
+<p>A. Lincoln.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">69 Wall Street, New York.
+<p>August 28, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>Mr. Judd insists on our printing the revised edition of your Cooper
+Ins. speech <i>without waiting to send you the</i> proofs.</p>
+<p>If this is so determined, I wish you to know, that <a
+ name="Page_228"></a>I have made no
+alterations other than those you sanctioned, except&#8212;</p>
+<p>1. I do not find that Abraham Baldwin voted on the Ordinance of '87.
+On the contrary he appears <i>not</i> to have acted with Congress
+during
+the sitting of the Convention. Wm. Pierce seems to have taken his
+place then; and his name is recorded as voting for the Ordinance.
+This makes no difference in the result, but I presume you will not
+wish the historical inaccuracy (if it is such) to stand. I will
+therefore (unless you write to the contrary) strike out his name in
+that place and reduce the number from "four" to "three" where you
+sum up the number of times he voted.</p>
+<p>2. In the quotations from the Constitution I have given its exact
+language; as "delegated" instead of "granted," etc. As it is given
+in <i>quo</i>. marks, I presume the exact letter of the text should be
+followed.</p>
+<p><i>If these are not correct please write immediately</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Our</i> apology for the delay is that we have been weighed down
+by
+other matters; <i>mine</i> that I have but to-day returned to town.</p>
+<p>Respectfully,</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+<a name="Page_229"></a>
+<p>69 WALL STREET, N.Y.</p>
+<p>Sept. 17, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>We forward you by this day's express 250 copies, with the last
+corrections. I delayed sending, thinking that you would prefer these
+to those first printed.</p>
+<p>The "Abraham Baldwin letter" referred to in your last I regret to
+say has <i>not</i> arrived. From your not touching the proofs in that
+regard, I inferred (and hope) that the correction was not itself an
+error.</p>
+<p>Should you wish a larger number of copies do not hesitate to let us
+know; it will afford us much pleasure to furnish them and no
+inconvenience whatever.</p>
+<p>Respectfully, etc.,</p>
+<p>CHARLES C. NOTT.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="blkquot">Hon. A. Lincoln.
+<br>
+<hr>
+<p>SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., Sept. 22, 1860.</p>
+<p>CHARLES C. NOTT, Esq.,</p>
+<p><i>My Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>Yours of the 17th was duly received&#8212;The 250 copies have not yet
+arrived&#8212;I am greatly obliged to you for what you have done, and
+what you propose to do.</p>
+<p>The "Abraham Baldwin letter" in substance was that I could not find
+the Journal of the Confederation Congress for the session at which
+was passed the <a name="Page_230"></a>Ordinance of 1787&#8212;and that in
+stating Mr. Baldwin
+had voted for its passage, I had relied on a communication of Mr.
+Greeley, over his own signature, published in the New York <i>Weekly
+Tribune</i> of October 15, 1859. If you will turn to that paper, you
+will there see that Mr. Greeley apparently copies from the Journal,
+and places the name of Mr. Baldwin among those of the men who voted
+for the measure.</p>
+<p>Still; if the Journal itself shows differently, of course it is
+right.</p>
+<p>Yours very truly,</p>
+<p>A. LINCOLN.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<center><a name="Page_231"></a>
+The Address of<br>
+<br>
+<b>THE HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,</b><br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-align: center;">In Vindication of the Policy of the
+Framers of the
+Constitution<br>
+and the Principles of the
+Republican Party.</p>
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860.<br>
+Issued by the Young Men's Republican Union.<br>
+<br>
+With Notes by<br>
+CHARLES C. NOTT and CEPHAS BRAINERD,<br>
+Members of the Board of Control.<br>
+<br>
+<b>OFFICERS OF THE UNION</b><br>
+<a name="Page_232"></a><br>
+CHARLES T. RODGERS, <i>President</i>.<br>
+DEXTER A. HAWKINS, <i>Vice-President</i>.<br>
+ERASMUS STERLING, <i>Secretary</i>.<br>
+WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, <i>Treasurer</i>.<br>
+<br>
+<b>EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE</b><br>
+<br>
+CEPHAS BRAINERD, <i>Chairman</i>.<br>
+BENJAMIN P. MANIERRE,<br>
+RICHARD C. McCORMICK,<br>
+CHARLES C. NOTT,<br>
+CHARLES H. COOPER,<br>
+P.G. DEGRAW,<br>
+JAMES H. WELSH,<br>
+E.C. JOHNSON,<br>
+LEWIS M. PECK.<br>
+<br>
+<b>ADVISORY BOARD</b><br>
+<br>
+WM. CULLEN BRYANT,<br>
+DANIEL DREW,<br>
+HIRAM BARNEY,<br>
+WILLIAM V. BRADY,<br>
+JOHN JAY,<br>
+GEORGE W. BLUNT,<br>
+HENRY A. HURLBUT,<br>
+ABIJAH MANN, JR.,<br>
+HAMILTON FISH,<br>
+FRANCIS HALL,<br>
+HORACE GREELEY,<br>
+CHARLES A. PEABODY,<br>
+EDGAR KETCHUM,<br>
+JAMES KELLY,<br>
+GEORGE FOLSOM,<br>
+WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES,<br>
+BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE.<br>
+</center>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="PREFACE"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_233"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+<br>
+<p>This edition of Mr. Lincoln's address has been prepared and
+published by
+the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, to exemplify its wisdom,
+truthfulness, and learning. No one who has not actually attempted to
+verify its details can understand the patient research and historical
+labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is
+scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters;
+and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and
+in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not
+travelled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every
+trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln
+has turned from the testimony of "the Fathers," on the general question
+of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the
+first line to the last&#8212;from his premises to his conclusion, he travels
+with swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled&#8212;an
+argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and
+without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A
+single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon <a name="Page_234"></a>words
+contains a
+chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to
+verify and which must have cost the author months of investigation to
+acquire. And, though the public should justly estimate the labor
+bestowed on the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the
+greater
+labor involved on those which are omitted&#8212;how many pages have been
+read&#8212;how many works examined&#8212;what numerous statutes, resolutions,
+speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked through. Commencing
+with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as
+an historical work&#8212;brief, complete, profound, impartial,
+truthful&#8212;which will survive the time and the occasion that called it
+forth, and be esteemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth than
+its unpretending modesty.</p>
+<p>NEW YORK, <i>September</i>, 1860.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="ADDRESS"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_235"></a>ADDRESS</h2>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:&#8212;The facts with which
+I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall
+be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and
+the inferences and observations following that presentation.</p>
+<p>In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New
+York <i>Times</i>, Senator Douglas said:</p>
+<p>"<i>Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we
+live,
+understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
+now</i>."</p>
+<p>I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I
+so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed
+starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of
+the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the
+inquiry: "<i>What was the understanding those fathers had of the
+question mentioned</i>?"</p>
+<p>What is the frame of Government under which we live?</p>
+<p>The answer must be: "The Constitution of the United States." That
+Constitution consists of the <a name="Page_236"></a>original, framed
+in 1787, (and under
+which the present Government first went into operation,) and twelve
+subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed
+in 1789.<a name="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
+"thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly
+called our fathers who framed that part of the present Government.
+It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is
+altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and
+sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being
+familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be
+repeated.<a name="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+<p>I take these "thirty-nine" for the present, as being "our fathers
+who framed the Government under which we live."</p>
+<p>What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?</p>
+<p>It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal
+authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid <i>our Federal
+Government</i> to control as to slavery in <i>our Federal Territories</i>?</p>
+<p>Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans
+the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this
+issue&#8212;this question&#8212;is precisely what the text declares our
+fathers understood "better than we."</p>
+<a name="Page_237"></a>
+<p>Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever
+acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon
+it&#8212;how they expressed that better understanding.</p>
+<p>In 1784, three years before the Constitution&#8212;the United States then
+owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other,<a name="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_6_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> the Congress of
+the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting
+slavery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who
+afterward framed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh
+Williamson voted for the prohibition,<a name="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_7_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> thus showing that, in their
+understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+to slavery in federal territory. The other of the four&#8212;James
+M'Henry&#8212;voted against the prohibition, showing that, for some
+cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.<a name="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_8_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+<p>In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the Convention was
+in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still
+was the only territory owned by the United States, the same question
+of prohibiting Slavery in the Territories again came before the
+Congress of the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who
+afterward signed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+on the question. They were William Blount and William Few<a
+ name="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a>; <a
+ name="Page_238"></a>and
+they both voted for the prohibition&#8212;thus showing that, in their
+understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+to slavery in federal territory. This time, the prohibition became a
+law, being part of what is now well known as the Ordinance of
+'87.<a name="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The question of federal control of slavery in the territories, seems
+not to have been directly before the Convention which framed the
+original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
+"thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
+expressed any opinion on that precise question.<a name="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_11_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a></p>
+<p>In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an
+act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the
+prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for
+this act was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas
+Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
+Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of
+opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
+which is equivalent to an unanimous passage.<a name="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_12_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> In this Congress,
+there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
+original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm.
+S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William <a name="Page_239"></a>Paterson,
+George Clymer,
+Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+Madison.<a name="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+<p>This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly
+forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory; else
+both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support
+the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the
+prohibition.</p>
+<p>Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then
+President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed
+the bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing
+that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from federal
+authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.</p>
+<p>No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution,
+North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now
+constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia
+ceded that which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and
+Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the
+ceding States that the Federal Government should not prohibit
+slavery in the ceded country.<a name="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_14_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> Besides this, slavery was
+then
+actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress,
+on taking charge of these countries, did not <a name="Page_240"></a>absolutely
+prohibit
+slavery within them. But they did interfere with it&#8212;take control of
+it&#8212;even there to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized the
+Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization, they
+prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory, from any place
+without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so
+brought.<a name="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a>
+This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas
+and nays. In that Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who
+framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George
+Read and Abraham Baldwin.<a name="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_16_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> They all, probably, voted
+for it.
+Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record,
+if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from federal
+authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.</p>
+<p>In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
+former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
+but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In
+1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
+which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying
+within that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There
+were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
+extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people. Congress
+did not, in the Territorial <a name="Page_241"></a>Act, prohibit
+slavery; but they did
+interfere with it&#8212;take control of it&#8212;in a more marked and
+extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi. The
+substance of the provision therein made, in relation to slaves, was:</p>
+<p><i>First</i>. That no slave should be imported into the territory
+from
+foreign parts.</p>
+<p><i>Second</i>. That no slave should be carried into it who had been
+imported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.</p>
+<p><i>Third</i>. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the
+owner, and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the
+cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the
+slave.<a name="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
+<p>This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress
+which passed it, there were two of the "thirty-nine." They were
+Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton.<a name="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_18_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> As stated in the case of
+Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. They would not
+have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition to it,
+if, in their understanding, it violated either the line properly
+dividing local from federal authority, or any provision of the
+Constitution.</p>
+<p>In 1819-20, came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes were
+taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the
+various phases of the general question. Two of the
+"thirty-nine"&#8212;Rufus King and Charles Pinckney&#8212;were members <a
+ name="Page_242"></a>of
+that Congress.<a name="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a>
+Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition
+and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted
+against slavery prohibition and against all compromises. By this,
+Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing local
+from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was
+violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in federal territory; while
+Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed that, in his understanding, there
+was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that
+case.<a name="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine,"
+or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
+discover.</p>
+<p>To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
+in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+1819-20&#8212;there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting
+John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
+Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of
+those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the
+question, which, by the text, they understood better than we, is
+twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in
+anyway.<a name="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
+official respon<a name="Page_243"></a>sibility and their corporal
+oaths, acted upon the
+very question which the text affirms they "understood just as well,
+and even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them&#8212;a clear
+majority of the whole "thirty-nine"&#8212;so acting upon it as to make
+them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if,
+in their understanding, any proper division between local and
+federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made
+themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in the federal territories. Thus the
+twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
+actions under such responsibility speak still louder.</p>
+<p>Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+slavery in the federal territories, in the instances in which they
+acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
+known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division
+of local from federal authority, or some provision or principle of
+the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
+question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to
+them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to
+support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he
+understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he
+may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which
+he deems constitutional, if, at the <a name="Page_244"></a>same time,
+he deems it
+inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two
+who voted against the prohibition, as having done so because, in
+their understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.<a
+ name="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have
+discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
+direct question of federal control of slavery in the federal
+territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
+understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
+from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
+all.<a name="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a></p>
+<p>For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
+omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers
+who framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I
+have also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by
+any of the "thirty-nine" even, on any other phase of the general
+question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and
+declarations on those other phases, as the foreign slave trade, and
+the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would appear to us
+that on the direct question of federal control of slavery in federal
+territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would <a
+ name="Page_245"></a>probably
+have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were
+several of the most noted anti-slavery men of those times&#8212;as Dr.
+Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris&#8212;while there was
+not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John
+Rutledge, of South Carolina.<a name="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_24_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed
+the original Constitution, twenty-one&#8212;a clear majority of the
+whole&#8212;certainly understood that no proper division of local from
+federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the
+Federal Government to control slavery in the federal territories;
+while all the rest probably had the same understanding. Such,
+unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the
+original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the
+question "better than we."</p>
+<p>But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
+question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In
+and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it;
+and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government
+under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve
+amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist
+that federal control of slavery in federal territories violates the
+Constitution, point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus
+violates; and, as I understand, they <a name="Page_246"></a>all fix
+upon provisions in
+these amendatory articles and not in the original instrument. The
+Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the
+fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of
+"life, liberty or property without due process of law"; while
+Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the
+tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the
+United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States
+respectively, or to the people."<a name="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_25_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+Congress which sat under the Constitution&#8212;the identical Congress
+which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the same
+Congress, but they were the identical same individual men who, at
+the same session, and at the same time within the session had under
+consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional
+amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory
+the nation then owned. The Constitutional amendments were introduced
+before, and passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so
+that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance,
+the Constitutional amendments were also pending.<a name="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_26_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+framers of the original Constitu<a name="Page_247"></a>tion, as before
+stated, were
+pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government
+under which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal
+Government to control slavery in the federal territories.</p>
+<p>Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm
+that the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and
+carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent
+with each other? And does not such affirmation become impudently
+absurd when coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth,
+that those who did the two things, alleged to be inconsistent,
+understood whether they really were inconsistent better than
+we&#8212;better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent?</p>
+<p>It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the
+original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
+which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
+include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live."<a name="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_27_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> And so assuming, I defy any
+man
+to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that,
+in his understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. I go
+a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the
+whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of <a name="Page_248"></a>the
+present
+century, (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last
+half of the present century,) declare that, in his understanding,
+any proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of
+the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+slavery in the federal territories. To those who now so declare, I
+give, not only "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live," but with them all other living men within the century in
+which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be
+able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.</p>
+<p>Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I
+do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
+fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current
+experience&#8212;to reject all progress&#8212;all improvement. What I do say
+is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers
+in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and
+argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly
+considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case
+whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better
+than we.</p>
+<p>If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of
+local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
+forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
+federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
+position by all <a name="Page_249"></a>truthful evidence and fair
+argument which he can.
+But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to
+history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
+"our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," were
+of the same opinion&#8212;thus substituting falsehood and deception for
+truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day
+sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the Government under
+which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which
+ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local
+from federal authority or some part of the Constitution, forbids the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal
+territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time,
+brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
+understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
+especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that
+they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we
+do now."</p>
+<p>But enough! <i>Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed
+the
+Government under which we live, understood this question just as
+well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act
+as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask&#8212;all Republicans
+desire&#8212;in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let
+it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
+tolerated and protected only <a name="Page_250"></a>because of and so
+far as its actual
+presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
+Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly,
+but fully and fairly maintained</i>. For this Republicans contend, and
+with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.</p>
+<p>And now, if they would listen&#8212;as I suppose they will not&#8212;I would
+address a few words to the Southern people.</p>
+<p>I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you
+speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
+or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing
+to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
+In all your contentions with one another each of you deems an
+unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first
+thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be
+an indispensable prerequisite&#8212;licence, so to speak&#8212;among you to be
+admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be
+prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just
+to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and
+specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
+justify.</p>
+<p>You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the
+burden of proof is upon you. <a name="Page_251"></a>You produce your
+proof; and what is
+it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section&#8212;gets no
+votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it
+prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change
+of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the
+truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact
+that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and
+not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
+primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by
+some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong
+principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to
+where you ought to have started&#8212;to a discussion of the right or
+wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would
+wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object,
+then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly
+opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of
+whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section;
+and so meet us as if it were possible that something may be said on
+our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe
+<a name="Page_252"></a>that the principle which "our fathers who framed
+the Government
+under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and
+indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so
+clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's
+consideration.</p>
+<p>Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
+sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less
+than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as
+President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
+Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
+Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that
+subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and
+about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he
+considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same
+connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy
+of free States.<a name="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+<p>Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself
+speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that
+warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+example pointing to the right application of it.</p>
+<a name="Page_253"></a>
+<p>But you say you are conservative&#8212;eminently conservative&#8212;while we
+are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is
+conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the
+new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live"; while you with one
+accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist
+upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves
+as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new
+propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and
+denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for
+reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional
+Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the
+Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for
+maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some
+for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave
+another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular
+Sovereignty"; but never a man among you in favor of federal
+prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the
+practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+advocate in the century within which our Government originated.
+Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism <a name="Page_254"></a>for
+yourselves,
+and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most
+clear and stable foundations.</p>
+<p>Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than
+it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but
+we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded
+the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your
+innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question.
+Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go
+back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same
+conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt
+the precepts and policy of the old times.</p>
+<p>You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny
+it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown
+was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
+Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our
+party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it.
+If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man
+and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for
+asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after
+you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told
+that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is
+simply malicious slander.<a name="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_29_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
+<a name="Page_255"></a>
+<p>Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
+the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and
+declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it.
+We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which was
+not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under
+which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
+affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near
+at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
+charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in
+those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not
+quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at
+least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it
+to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and
+declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any
+interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your
+slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do,
+in common with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which
+we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves
+do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the
+slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe
+they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your
+misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political
+contests among yourselves, each faction <a name="Page_256"></a>charges
+the other with
+sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the
+charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood
+and thunder among the slaves.</p>
+<p>Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
+insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three
+times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry?<a
+ name="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a>
+You can
+scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that
+Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present
+state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or
+even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The
+indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have
+no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black
+or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in
+parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the
+indispensable connecting trains.</p>
+<p>Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for
+their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A
+plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to
+twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a
+favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and
+the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case
+occurring under peculiar circumstances,<a name="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_31_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> The gunpowder plot of
+<a name="Page_257"></a>British history, though not connected with
+slaves, was more in
+point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret;
+and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the
+plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.
+Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy
+assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score
+or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but
+no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this
+country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such
+an event, will be alike disappointed.</p>
+<p>In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is
+still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and
+deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil
+will wear off insensibly; and their places be, <i>pari passu</i>,
+filled
+up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force
+itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."<a
+ name="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia;
+and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding
+States only. The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the
+power of restraining the extension of the institution&#8212;the power to
+insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American
+soil which is now free from slavery.</p>
+<a name="Page_258"></a>
+<p>John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.
+It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
+which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd
+that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
+could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
+the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings
+and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
+till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He
+ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
+execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's
+attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the
+same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case,
+and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of
+the two things.</p>
+<p>And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
+Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
+organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
+nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against
+slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
+votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling&#8212;that
+sentiment&#8212;by breaking up the political organization which rallies
+around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has
+been formed into order in the face of <a name="Page_259"></a>your
+heaviest fire; but if
+you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which
+created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some
+other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the
+number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?</p>
+<p>But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
+your Constitutional rights.<a name="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_33_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a></p>
+<p>That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if
+not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of
+numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the
+Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.</p>
+<p>When you make these declarations, you have a specific and
+well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of
+yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them
+there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the
+Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such
+right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
+in the Constitution, even by implication.</p>
+<p>Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the
+Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
+Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and
+us. You will rule or ruin in all events.</p>
+<p>This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the
+Supreme Court has decided the <a name="Page_260"></a>disputed
+Constitutional question in
+your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction
+between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for
+you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your
+Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories,
+and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made
+in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare
+majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another
+in the reasons for making it;<a name="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_34_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> that it is so made as that
+its
+avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and
+that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact&#8212;the
+statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is
+distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."<a
+ name="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a></p>
+<p>An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
+property in a slave is not "<i>distinctly</i> and <i>expressly</i>
+affirmed"
+in it. Bear in mind, the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion
+that such right is <i>impliedly</i> affirmed in the Constitution; but
+they pledge their veracity that it is "<i>distinctly</i> and <i>expressly</i>"
+affirmed there&#8212;"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything
+else&#8212;"expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the
+aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.</p>
+<p>If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to
+others to show that neither <a name="Page_261"></a>the word "slave"
+nor "slavery" is to be
+found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any
+connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery,
+and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is
+called a "person";&#8212;and wherever his master's legal right in
+relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor
+which may be due,"&#8212;as a debt payable in service or labor.<a
+ name="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a>
+Also,
+it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode
+of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was
+employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that
+there could be property in man.</p>
+<p>To show all this, is easy and certain.<a name="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_37_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a></p>
+<p>When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their
+notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
+mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?</p>
+<p>And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the
+Government under which we live"&#8212;the men who made the
+Constitution&#8212;decided this same Constitutional question in our
+favor, long ago&#8212;decided it without division among themselves, when
+making the decision; without division among themselves about the
+meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is
+left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.</p>
+<p>Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
+justified to break up this Government, <a name="Page_262"></a>unless
+such a court decision
+as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final
+rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a
+Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will
+destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having
+destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a
+pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver
+or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"</p>
+<p>To be sure, what the robber demanded of me&#8212;my money&#8212;was my own;
+and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than
+my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my
+money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my
+vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.</p>
+<p>A few words now to Republicans. <i>It is exceedingly desirable that
+all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in
+harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it
+so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and
+ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as
+listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to
+them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can</i>.<a
+ name="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a>
+Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of
+their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will
+satisfy them.</p>
+<p>Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondi<a
+ name="Page_263"></a>tionally
+surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present
+complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them,
+if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and
+insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we
+never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+denunciation.</p>
+<p>The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must
+not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we
+do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We
+have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our
+organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches
+we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this
+has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince
+them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any
+attempt to disturb them.</p>
+<p>These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery <i>wrong</i>,
+and join them in calling it <i>right</i>. And this must be done
+thoroughly&#8212;done in <i>acts</i> as well as in <i>words</i>. Silence
+will not
+be tolerated&#8212;we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator
+Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing
+all declarations <a name="Page_264"></a>that slavery is wrong, whether
+made in politics,
+in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return
+their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our
+Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected
+from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to
+believe that all their troubles proceed from us.</p>
+<p>I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, <i>do</i>
+nothing
+to us, and <i>say</i> what you please about slavery." But we do let
+them
+alone&#8212;have never disturbed them&#8212;so that, after all, it is what we
+say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of
+doing, until we cease saying.</p>
+<p>I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the
+overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions.<a name="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_39_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> Yet those
+Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn
+emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these
+other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these
+Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the
+demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the
+whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason
+they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this
+consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right,
+and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national
+recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.<a
+ name="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a></p>
+<a name="Page_265"></a>
+<p>Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
+acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and
+should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly
+object to its nationality&#8212;its universality; if it is wrong, they
+cannot justly insist upon its extension&#8212;its enlargement. All they
+ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
+ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.<a
+ name="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a>
+Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise
+fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
+they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as
+being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
+Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view
+of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do
+this?</p>
+<p>Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
+where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
+its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
+prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to
+overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids
+this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let
+us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith
+we are so industriously plied and belabored&#8212;contrivances such as
+groping for some middle ground between the right <a name="Page_266"></a>and
+the wrong,
+vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor
+a dead man&#8212;such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about
+which all true men do care&#8212;such as Union appeals beseeching true
+Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and
+calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance&#8212;such as
+invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington
+said, and undo what Washington did.</p>
+<p>Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT
+RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO
+OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Page_267"></a>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="INDEX"></a>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+<b>A</b><br>
+<br>
+Andersonville, responsibility for, <a href="#Page_190">190</a><br>
+Andrew, John. A., <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br>
+Antietam, battle of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br>
+Appomattox, the surrender at, <a href="#Page_177">177 ff.</a><br>
+Atlanta, capture of, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>B</b><br>
+<br>
+Bahamas, trade of the, with the Confederacy, <a href="#Page_167">167
+ff.</a><br>
+Banks, General N.P., <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br>
+Bazaine, General, in command of French army in Mexico, <a
+ href="#Page_156">156</a><br>
+Belle Isle, the prison of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a><br>
+Bentonville, battle of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br>
+Bixby, Mrs., letter to, from Lincoln, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br>
+"Black Republicans," the, <a href="#Page_250">250</a><br>
+Blair, Prank P., difficulties with, <a href="#Page_161">161</a><br>
+Blount, William, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Border States, the, and emancipation, <a href="#Page_114">114 ff.</a><br>
+Bragg, Gen. Braxton, <a href="#Page_136">136 ff.</a><br>
+Brainerd, Cephas, on the Cooper Union address, <a href="#Page_211">211</a><br>
+Brown, John, raid of, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br>
+Bryant on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_202">202</a><br>
+Buckner, Gen. S.B., <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br>
+Bull Run, second battle of, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br>
+Burnside, Gen. Ambrose F.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Army of the Potomac, <a
+ href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the defence of Knoxville, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137</a></span><br>
+Butler, Benjamin F., <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>C</b><br>
+<br>
+Cabinet, cabals in the, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br>
+Cedar Creek, the battle of, <a href="#Page_150">150 ff.</a><br>
+Chancellorsville, battle of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a><br>
+Charleston, evacuation of, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br>
+Chase, Salmon P.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Presidential election of 1864, <a
+ href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resignation of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed chief justice, <a
+ href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">efforts of, for the Presidency, <a
+ href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">difficulties with, in the Cabinet, <a
+ href="#Page_161">161</a></span><br>
+Chickamauga, battle of, <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br>
+Clay, Cassius M., <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br>
+Congress and slavery in the Territories, <a href="#Page_246">246 ff.</a><br>
+Constitution,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the 13th amendment to, <a
+ href="#Page_163">163 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defined by Lincoln, <a href="#Page_236">236
+ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and property in slaves, <a
+ href="#Page_260">260 ff.</a></span><br>
+"Crocker, Master", <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br>
+Curtin, Gov. A.G., <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br>
+Curtis, Gen. S.R., <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>D</b><br>
+<br>
+Danville, the prison of, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_189">189 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mortality in, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></span><br>
+Davis, Jefferson, and Benj. F. Butler, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865,
+<a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">capture of, <a href="#Page_"></a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the other leaders of the South, <a
+ href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the management of the Southern</span><br>
+prisons, <a href="#Page_190">190 ff;</a><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as a prisoner and martyr, <a
+ href="#Page_191">191</a></span><br>
+Douglas, Stephen A., and the debate with Lincoln, cited, <a
+ href="#Page_235">235</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the sedition act, <a
+ href="#Page_263">263</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Dred Scott decision, <a
+ href="#Page_246">246</a></span><br>
+Dred Scott case, the, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>E</b><br>
+<br>
+Early, Jubal A., raid of on Washington, <a href="#Page_142">142 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the battle of Winchester, <a
+ href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the battle of Cedar Creek, <a
+ href="#Page_150">150</a></span><br>
+Elliott, Charles W., <a href="#Page_213">213</a><br>
+Emancipation Proclamation, the, <a href="#Page_115">115 ff.</a><br>
+Enfield rifles, use of, by Confederates, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>F</b><br>
+<br>
+Farragut, Admiral D.G., <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br>
+Few, William, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Fisher, Fort, capture of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a><br>
+Fitzsimmons, Thomas, <a href="#Page_238">238</a><br>
+Floyd, General John B., <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br>
+Franklin, battle of, <a href="#Page_151">151 ff.</a><br>
+Franklin, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>G</b><br>
+<br>
+Georgia, cession of territory by, <a href="#Page_239">239</a><br>
+Gettysburg, campaign of, <a href="#Page_132">132 ff.</a><br>
+Goldsborough, surrender of Johnston's army at, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br>
+Goodell, Dr. Wm., <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br>
+Grant, Gen. U.S., captures Fort Donelson, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Vicksburg campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Chattanooga campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commander of the armies, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggested for the Presidency, <a
+ href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">declines to consider terms of peace, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Appomattox, <a href="#Page_177">177
+ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_184">184
+ff.</a></span><br>
+Greeley, Horace, <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br>
+Greene, Frank V., on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>H</b><br>
+<br>
+Halleck, Gen. H.W., <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br>
+Hallowell, Col. Norwood, <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br>
+Hamilton, Alexander, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+Hancock, Gen. W.S., <a href="#Page_127">127</a><br>
+Harper's Ferry, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">John Brown's raid at, <a
+ href="#Page_254">254</a></span><br>
+Helper, H.R., the "Impending Crisis" of, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br>
+Hewitt, Abram S., <a href="#Page_99">99 ff.</a><br>
+Higginson, Col. T.W., <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br>
+Hood, Gen. John B., <a href="#Page_151">151 ff.</a><br>
+Hooker, Gen. Joseph, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>,
+<a href="#Page_130">130 ff.</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>I</b><br>
+<br>
+Intervention of France and England threatened, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>J</b><br>
+<br>
+Jefferson, Thomas, on emancipation, <a href="#Page_257">257</a><br>
+Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_183">183</a> ft.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>K</b><br>
+<br>
+King, Rufus, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br>
+Knoxville, siege of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>L</b><br>
+<br>
+Lee, Gen. Robert E. and the Antietam campaign, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the campaign of Gettysburg, <a
+ href="#Page_130">130 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the defence of Virginia, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposes treaty of peace, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated at Five Forks, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Appomattox, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></span><br>
+Libby prison, Presidential election in, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mortality in, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">record of, <a href="#Page_189">189 ff.</a></span><br>
+Lincoln, Abraham, and Hewitt, A.S., <a href="#Page_100">100 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes to "Master Crocker", <a
+ href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as commander-in-chief, <a
+ href="#Page_103">103 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the death penalty for soldiers, <a
+ href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">campaign methods of McClellan, <a
+ href="#Page_125">125 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, appointing Hooker, <a
+ href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to Grant on the fall of Vicksburg, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address of, at Gettysburg, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, to Mrs. Bixby, <a
+ href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">re-election of, as President, <a
+ href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the exchange of prisoners, <a
+ href="#Page_158">158 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the control of the administration, <a
+ href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865,
+<a href="#Page_162">162 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second inaugural of, <a
+ href="#Page_169">169 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last public address of, <a
+ href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the proposed capture of Jefferson
+Davis, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, reported to the army at
+Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">comparison of, with Washington and
+Jackson, <a href="#Page_195">195 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cooper Union address of, <a
+ href="#Page_205">205 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes to Nott, <a href="#Page_225">225
+ff.</a></span><br>
+Lincoln, Robert, on the Cooper Union address, <a href="#Page_209">209</a><br>
+Longstreet, Gen. James, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+Lookout Mountain, battle of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+Louisiana, purchase of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br>
+Lowell on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_202">202</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>M</b><br>
+<br>
+Maximilian, Prince, and the invasion of Mexico, <a href="#Page_156">156</a><br>
+McClellan, Gen. George B. <a href="#Page_102">102 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Antietam campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_122">122 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ordered to report to New Jersey, <a
+ href="#Page_126">126</a></span><br>
+Meade, Gen. Geo. G., <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br>
+Mifflin, Thomas, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Milliken's Bend, battle of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a><br>
+Minnesota, troops from, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">university of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></span><br>
+Missionary Ridge, battle of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+Mississippi, organisation of the Territory of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br>
+Missouri, admission of, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br>
+Missouri Compromise, the, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_38">38</a><br>
+Monocacy Creek, battle of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br>
+Morgan, Gen. John, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br>
+Morris, Gouverneur, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>N</b><br>
+<br>
+Napoleon, Louis, and the invasion of Mexico, <a href="#Page_156">156</a><br>
+Nashville, battle of, <a href="#Page_151">151 ff.</a><br>
+<i>Nation</i>, the London, on the character of Lincoln, <a
+ href="#Page_198">198 ff.</a><br>
+New Orleans, capture of, <a href="#Page_111">111 ff.</a><br>
+Nineteenth Army Corps and Early's raid, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br>
+North Carolina, cession of territory by, <a href="#Page_239">239</a><br>
+Northwestern Territory, the, of the U.S., <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Nott, Chas. C.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction to the Cooper Union
+address, <a href="#Page_215">215 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, to Lincoln, <a
+ href="#Page_224">224 ff.</a></span><br>
+Noyes, Wm. Curtis, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>O</b><br>
+<br>
+Ordinance of 1787, <a href="#Page_238">238 ff.</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>P</b><br>
+<br>
+Pea Ridge, battle of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br>
+Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, <a href="#Page_162">162</a><br>
+Pickett, Gen. G.E., <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br>
+Pinckney, Charles, <a href="#Page_241">241 ff.</a><br>
+Pope, Gen. John, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br>
+Port Hudson, surrender of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br>
+Presidential election in Libby prison, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br>
+Prisoners, the exchange of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br>
+Putnam, George Palmer, and the Cooper Union address, <a
+ href="#Page_212">212</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>R</b><br>
+<br>
+Reagan, Postmaster-general, at Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br>
+Reconstruction, Lincoln's views on, <a href="#Page_180">180 ff.</a><br>
+Republican party, the, and slavery in the Territories, <a
+ href="#Page_249">249 ff.</a><br>
+Republican Union, the Young Men's, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_232">232</a><br>
+Reynolds, Gen. J.T., <a href="#Page_127">127</a><br>
+Rosecrans, Gen. Wm. S., and the Chattanooga campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_136">136</a><br>
+Rutledge, John, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>S</b><br>
+<br>
+Schechter, Rabbi, on the character of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br>
+Schofield, Gen. Geo. W., <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br>
+Schurz, Carl, on the character of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br>
+Seward, W.H., <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br>
+Sharp's breech-loaders introduced in 1864, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br>
+Shaw, Col. R.G., <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br>
+Shenandoah, campaign in the valley of the, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br>
+Sheridan, Gen. Philip,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Shenandoah, <a href="#Page_149">149
+ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wins battle of Five Forks, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a></span><br>
+Sherman, Roger, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Sherman, Gen. Wm. T.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Missionary Ridge, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">captures Atlanta, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Georgia planter, <a
+ href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">passes by Charleston, <a
+ href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_183">183
+ff.</a></span><br>
+Sigel, Gen. Franz, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br>
+Smith, Gen. Kirby, surrender of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a><br>
+Soldiers authorised to vote in presidential election, <a
+ href="#Page_152">152</a><br>
+Southampton, insurrection at, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br>
+South Mountain, battle of the, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br>
+Stanton, Edwin, M., <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101
+ff.</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a><br>
+Stephens, Alexander H., and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, <a
+ href="#Page_162">162 ff.</a><br>
+Sumter, Fort, restoration of the flag on, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>T</b><br>
+<br>
+Taylor, Gen. Richard, surrender of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a><br>
+Thomas. Gen. Geo. H., <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>V</b><br>
+<br>
+Vicksburg, surrender of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>W</b><br>
+<br>
+Wallace, Gen. Lew, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br>
+Washington assailed by Early, <a href="#Page_142">142 ff.</a><br>
+Washington, George, and the<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ordinance of 1787, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Farewell Address of, <a
+ href="#Page_252">252</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the example of, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></span><br>
+Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br>
+Whittier on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br>
+Wilderness, battle of the, <a href="#Page_140">140 ff.</a><br>
+Williamson, Hugh, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Wilmington, capture of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a><br>
+Winchester, third battle of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br>
+Winder, Gen., and the management of the Southern prisons, <a
+ href="#Page_190">190</a><br>
+Wisconsin, troops from, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br>
+Wisewell, Col. F.H., <a href="#Page_144">144 ff.</a><br>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="FOOTNOTES"></a>
+<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+<a name="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p> This letter has not been published. It is cited here
+through the courtesy of Mr. Robert Lincoln and Mr. R.W. Gilder.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p> The text of the speech, as revised by Lincoln and with the
+introduction and notes by Nott and Brainerd, is given as an appendix to
+this volume.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3">[3]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p> The late George Palmer Putnam.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4">[4]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Constitution is attested September 17, 1787. It was
+ratified by all of the States, excepting North Carolina and Rhode
+Island, in 1788, and went into operation on the first Wednesday in
+January, 1789. The first Congress proposed, in 1789, ten articles of
+amendments, all of which were ratified. Article XI. of the amendments
+was prepared by the Third Congress, in 1794, and Article XII. by the
+Eighth Congress, in 1803. Another Article was proposed by the Eleventh
+Congress, prohibiting <i>citizens</i> from receiving titles of
+nobility,
+presents or offices, from foreign nations. Although this has been
+printed as one of the amendments, it was in fact never ratified, being
+approved by but twelve States. <i>Vide</i> Message of President
+Monroe, Feb.
+4, 1818.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5">[5]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Convention consisted of <i>sixty-five</i> members. Of
+these, <i>ten</i> did not attend the Convention, and <i>sixteen</i>
+did not sign
+the Constitution. Of these sixteen, six refused to sign, and published
+their reasons for so refusing, <i>viz.</i>: Robert Yates and John
+Lansing, of
+New-York; Edmund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia; Luther Martin,
+of Maryland, and Elbridge Gerry, of Mass. Alexander Hamilton alone
+subscribed for New-York, and Rhode Island was not represented in the
+Convention. The names of the "thirty-nine," and the States which they
+represented are subsequently given.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6">[6]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The cession of Territory was authorized by New-York, Feb.
+19, 1780; by Virginia, January 2, 1781, and again, (without certain
+conditions at first imposed,) "at their sessions, begun on the 20th day
+of October, 1783;" by Mass., Nov. 13, 1784; by Conn., May&mdash;&mdash;, 1786; by
+S. Carolina, March 8, 1787; by N. Carolina, Dec.&mdash;&mdash;, 1789; and by
+Georgia at some time prior to April, 1802.
+</p>
+<p>The deeds of cession were executed by New-York, March 1, 1781; by
+Virginia, March 1, 1784; by Mass., April 19, 1785; by Conn., Sept. 13,
+1786; by S. Carolina, August 9, 1787; by N. Carolina, Feb. 25, 1790;
+and
+by Georgia, April 24, 1802. Five of these grants were therefore made
+before the adoption of the Constitution, and one afterward; while the
+sixth (North Carolina) was authorized before, and consummated
+afterward.
+The cession of this State contains the express proviso "that no
+regulations made, or to be made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate
+slaves." The cession of Georgia conveys the Territory subject to the
+Ordinance of '87, except the provision prohibiting slavery.
+</p>
+<p>These dates are also interesting in connection with the
+extraordinary
+assertions of Chief Justice Taney, (19 How., page 434,) that "the
+example of Virginia was soon afterwards followed by other States," and
+that (p. 436) the power in the Constitution "to dispose of and make all
+needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other
+property
+belonging to the United States," was intended only "to transfer to the
+new Government the property then held in common," "and has no reference
+whatever to any Territory or other property which the new sovereignty
+might afterwards itself acquire." On this subject, <i>vide Federalist</i>,
+No. 43, sub. 4 and 5.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7">[7]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Sherman was from Connecticut; Mifflin from Penn.;
+Williamson from North Carolina, and M'Henry from Maryland.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8">[8]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;What Mr. M'Henry's views were, it seems impossible to
+ascertain. When the Ordinance of '87 was passed he was sitting in the
+Convention. He was afterwards appointed Secretary of War; yet no record
+has thus far been discovered of his opinion. Mr. M'Henry also wrote a
+biography of La Fayette, which, however, cannot be found in any of the
+public libraries, among which may be mentioned the State Library at
+Albany, and the Astor, Society, and Historical Society Libraries, at
+New
+York.
+</p>
+<p>Hamilton says of him, in a letter to Washington <i>(Works</i>, vol.
+vi., p.
+65): "M'Henry you know. He would give no strength to the
+Administration,
+but he would not disgrace the office; his views are good."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9">[9]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;William Blount was from North Carolina, and William Few
+from Georgia&#8212;the two States which afterward ceded their Territory to
+the United States. In addition to these facts the following extract
+from
+the speech of Rufus King in the Senate, on the Missouri Bill, shows the
+entire unanimity with which the Southern States approved the
+prohibition:
+</p>
+<p>"The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United States her claims
+to
+this Territory, consented, by her delegates in the Old Congress, to
+this
+Ordinance. Not only Virginia, but North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, by the unanimous votes of their delegates in the Old Congress,
+approved of the Ordinance of 1787, by which Slavery is forever
+abolished
+in the Territory northwest of the river Ohio. Without the votes of
+these
+States, the Ordinance could not have been passed; and there is no
+recollection of an opposition from any of these States to the act of
+confirmation passed under the actual Constitution."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10">[10]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"The famous Ordinance of Congress of the 13th July, 1787,
+which has ever since constituted, in most respects, the model of all
+our
+territorial governments, and is equally remarkable for the brevity and
+exactness of its text, and for its masterly display of the fundamental
+principles of civil and religious liberty."&#8212;<i>Justice Story, 1
+Commentaries</i>: &sect;1312.
+</p>
+<p>"It is well known that the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn by the Hon.
+Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, and adopted with scarcely a verbal
+alteration by Congress. It is a noble and imperishable monument to his
+fame."&#8212;<i>Id.</i> note.
+</p>
+<p>The ordinance was reported by a committee, of which Wm. S. Johnson
+and
+Charles Pinckney were members. It recites that, "for extending the
+fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the
+basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are
+erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all
+laws,
+constitutions, and governments which forever hereafter shall be formed
+in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment of States
+and permanent government, and for their admission to a share in the
+federal councils, on an equal footing with the original States, at as
+early periods as may be consistent with the general interest&#8212;
+</p>
+<p>"It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority aforesaid,
+that
+the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact
+between the original States and the people and States in the said
+Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to
+wit:"
+</p>
+<p>"<i>Art.</i> 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude in
+the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof
+the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any
+person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully
+claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be
+lawfully
+reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
+service."
+</p>
+<p>On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required by Judge
+Yates, of New York, when it appeared <i>that his was the only vote in
+the
+negative</i>.
+</p>
+<p>The ordinance of April 23, 1784, was a brief outline of that of '87.
+It
+was reported by a Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was chairman, and
+the report contained a slavery prohibition intended to take effect in
+1800. This was stricken out of the report, six States voting to retain
+it&#8212;three voting to strike out&#8212;one being divided (N.C.), and the others
+not being represented. (The assent of nine States was necessary to
+retain any provision.) And this is the vote alluded to by Mr. Lincoln.
+But subsequently, March 16, 1785, a motion was made by Rufus King to
+commit a proposition "that there be neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude" in any of the Territories; which was carried by the vote of
+eight States, including Maryland.&#8212;<i>Journal Am. Congress,</i> vol. 4,
+pp.
+373, 380, 481, 752.
+</p>
+<p>When, therefore, the ordinance of '87 came before Congress, on its
+final
+passage, the subject of slavery prohibition had been "<i>agitated</i>"
+for
+nearly three years; and the deliberate and almost unanimous vote of
+that
+body upon that question leaves no room to doubt what the fathers
+believed, and how, in that belief, they acted.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11">[11]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;It singularly and fortunately happens that one of the
+"thirty-nine," "while engaged on that instrument," viz., while
+advocating its ratification before the Pennsylvania Convention, did
+express an opinion upon this "precise question," which opinion was
+<i>never</i> disputed or doubted, in that or any other Convention, and
+was
+accepted by the opponents of the Constitution, as an indisputable fact.
+This was the celebrated James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. The opinion is
+as
+follows:&#8212;
+</p>
+<p>MONDAY, <i>Dec.</i> 3, 1787.
+</p>
+<p>"With respect to the clause restricting Congress from prohibiting
+the
+migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, prior to the year 1808: The Hon.
+gentleman says that this clause is not only dark, but intended to grant
+to Congress, for that time, the power to admit the importation of
+slaves. No such thing was intended; but I will tell you what was done,
+and it gives me high pleasure that so much was done. Under the present
+Confederation, the States may admit the importation of slaves as long
+as
+they please; but by this article, after the year 1808, the Congress
+will
+have power to prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the
+disposition
+of any State to the contrary. I consider this as laying the foundation
+for banishing slavery out of this country; and though the period is
+more
+distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual
+change which was pursued in Pennsylvania. It is with much satisfaction
+that I view this power in the general government, whereby they may lay
+an interdiction on this reproachful trade. But an immediate advantage
+is
+also obtained; for a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation,
+not
+exceeding $10 for each person; and this, sir, operates as a partial
+prohibition; it was all that could be obtained. I am sorry it was no
+more; but from this I think there is reason to hope that yet a few
+years, and it will be prohibited altogether. <i>And in the meantime,
+the
+new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
+in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced amongst
+them</i>."&#8212;2 <i>Elliott's Debates</i>, 423.
+</p>
+<p>It was argued by Patrick Henry in the Convention in Virginia, as
+follows:
+</p>
+<p>"May not Congress enact that every black man must fight? Did we not
+see
+a little of this in the last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make
+emancipation general. But acts of Assembly passed, that every slave who
+would go to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to
+bring this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects.
+We deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let all these
+considerations press with full force on the minds of Congress. Let that
+urbanity which, I trust, will distinguish America, and the necessity of
+national defence&#8212;let all these things operate on their minds, they will
+search that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. And have
+they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence
+and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of
+slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be
+warranted by that power? There is no ambiguous implication, no logical
+deduction. The paper speaks to the point; they have the power in clear,
+unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."&#8212;3
+<i>Elliott's Debates</i>, 534.
+</p>
+<p>Edmund Randolph, one of the framers of the Constitution, replied to
+Mr.
+Henry, admitting the general force of the argument, but claiming that,
+because of other provisions, it had no application to the <i>States</i>
+where
+slavery <i>then</i> existed; thus conceding that power to exist in
+Congress
+as to all territory belonging to the United States.
+</p>
+<p>Dr. Ramsay, a member of the Convention of South Carolina, in his
+history
+of the United States, vol. 3, pages 36, 37, says: "Under these liberal
+principles, Congress, in organizing <i>colonies</i>, bound themselves
+to
+impart to their inhabitants all the privileges of coequal States, as
+soon as they were capable of enjoying them. In their infancy,
+<i>government was administered for them</i> without any expense. As
+soon as
+they should have 60,000 inhabitants, they were authorized to call a
+convention, and, by common consent, to form their own constitution.
+This
+being done, they were entitled to representation in Congress, and every
+right attached to the original States. These privileges are not
+confined
+to any particular country or <i>complexion</i>. They are communicable
+to the
+emancipated slave (for in the new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether
+prohibited), to the copper-colored native, and all other human beings
+who, after a competent residence and degree of civilization, are
+capable
+of enjoying the blessings of regular government."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12">[12]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Act of 1789, as reported by the Committee, was
+received and read Thursday, July 16th. The second reading was on
+Friday,
+the 17th, when it was committed to the Committee of the whole house,
+"on
+Monday next." On Monday, July 20th, it was considered in Committee of
+the whole, and ordered to a third reading on the following day; on the
+21st, it passed the House, and was sent to the Senate. In the Senate it
+had its first reading on the same day, and was ordered to a second
+reading on the following day (July 22d), and on the 4th of August it
+passed, and on the 7th was approved by the President.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13">[13]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The "sixteen" represented these States: Langdon and
+Oilman, New Hampshire; Sherman and Johnson, Connecticut; Morris,
+Fitzsimmons, and Clymer, Pennsylvania; King, Massachusetts; Paterson,
+New Jersey; Few and Baldwin, Georgia; Bassett and Read, Delaware;
+Butler, South Carolina; Carroll, Maryland; and Madison, Virginia</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14">[14]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;<i>Vide</i> note 3, <i>ante</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15">[15]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Chap. 28, &sect; 7, U.S. Statutes, 5th Congress, 2d Session.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16">[16]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Langdon was from New Hampshire, Read from Delaware, and
+Baldwin from Georgia.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17">[17]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Chap. 38, &sect; 10, U.S. Statutes, 8th Congress, 1st
+Session.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18">[18]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Baldwin was from Georgia, and Dayton from New Jersey.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19">[19]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Rufus King, who sat in the old Congress, and also in the
+Convention, as the representative of Massachusetts, removed to New York
+and was sent by that State to the U.S. Senate of the first Congress.
+Charles Pinckney was hi the House, as a representative of South
+Carolina.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20">[20]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Although Mr. Pinckney opposed "slavery prohibition" in
+1820, yet his views, with regard to the <i>powers</i> of the general
+government, may be better judged by his actions in the Convention:
+</p>
+<p>FRIDAY, <i>June 8th,</i> 1787.&#8212;"Mr. Pinckney moved 'that the
+National
+Legislature shall have the power of negativing all laws to be passed by
+the State Legislatures, which they may judge improper,' in the room of
+the clause as it stood reported.
+</p>
+<p>"He grounds his motion on the necessity of one supreme controlling
+power, and he considers this as the <i>corner-stone</i> of the present
+system; and hence the necessity of retrenching the State authorities,
+in
+order to preserve the good government of the national council."&#8212;T. 400,
+<i>Elliott's Debates</i>.
+</p>
+<p>And again, THURSDAY, <i>August 23d,</i> 1787, Mr. Pinckney renewed
+the motion
+with some modifications.&#8212;T. 1409. <i>Madison Papers</i>.
+</p>
+<p>And although Mr. Pinckney, as correctly stated by Mr. Lincoln,
+"steadily
+voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises," he
+still regarded the passage of the Missouri Compromise as a great
+triumph
+of the South, which is apparent from the following letter:
+</p>
+<p>CONGRESS HALL, <i>March 2d</i>, 1820, 3 <i>o'clock at night</i>.
+</p>
+<p>DEAR SIR:&mdash;&mdash;I hasten to inform you, that this moment we have carried
+the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of
+36&deg; 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South,
+in a
+short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of
+the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States as
+a
+great triumph.
+</p>
+<p>The votes were close&#8212;ninety to eighty-six&#8212;produced by the seceding
+and
+absence of a few moderate men from the North. To the north of 36&deg;
+30,'
+there is to be, by the present law, restriction; which you will see by
+the votes, I voted against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a
+vast tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in which not
+a
+foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, and in which,
+according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened for a
+great length of time.
+</p>
+<p>With respect, your obedient servant,
+</p>
+<p>CHARLES PINCKNEY.
+</p>
+<p>But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney's views is furnished in the
+fact
+that <i>he was himself a member of the Committee which reported the
+Ordinance of</i> '87, and that <i>on every occasion, when it was under
+the
+consideration of Congress, he voted against all amendments</i>.&#8212;<i>Jour.
+Am.
+Congress</i>, Sept. 29th, 1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up
+for
+its final passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and did
+not take any part in the proceedings of Congress.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21">[21]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;By reference to notes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, and 16 it will be
+seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon the question of
+prohibition, twelve were from the present slaveholding States.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22">[22]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;<i>Vide</i> notes 5 and 17, <i>ante</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23">[23]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gorham,
+Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William Livingston and David
+Brearly, New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson,
+and Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson,
+and Jacob Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland;
+John Blair, Virginia; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina; and John
+Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South Carolina.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24">[24]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"The only distinction between freedom and slavery
+consists in this: in the former state, a man is governed by the laws to
+which he has given his consent, either in person or by his
+representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another.
+In
+the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they
+depend upon the pleasure of a master. It is easy to discern which of
+the
+two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing
+to be free rather than slave.... Were not the disadvantages of slavery
+too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the
+tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it
+is
+fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and
+corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the
+sinews of industry and clips the wings of commerce, and works misery
+and
+indigence in every shape."&#8212;HAMILTON, <i>Works</i>, vol. 2, pp. 3, 9.
+</p>
+<p>"That you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of <i>liberty</i>
+to
+those unhappy <i>men</i>, who, alone in this land of freedom, are
+degraded
+into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding
+freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means
+for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American
+people; that you will promote mercy and <i>justice</i> toward this
+distressed
+race; and that you will step to the <i>very verge</i> of the power
+vested in
+you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
+fellow-men."&#8212;Philadelphia, Feb. 3rd, 1790. <i>Franklin's Petition to
+Congress for the Abolition of Slavery.</i>
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Gouverneur Morris said: "He never would concur in upholding
+domestic
+slavery. It was a notorious institution. It was the curse of heaven on
+the States where it prevailed.... The admission of slavery into the
+representation, when fairly explained, comes to this&#8212;that the
+inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the coast of
+Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears
+away
+his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to
+the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes, in a government
+instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the
+citizen
+of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so
+notorious a practice.... He would sooner submit himself to a tax for
+paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity
+with such a constitution."&#8212;<i>Debate on Slave Representation in the
+Convention. Madison Papers</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25">[25]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has said that
+"The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments, as adopted by
+Congress, is important to show in what light that body considered
+them."
+(8 <i>Wend. R.,</i> p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State
+Conventions "having at the time of their adopting the Constitution
+<i>expressed</i> a <i>desire</i>, in order to prevent <i>misconstruction
+or abuse of
+its powers</i>, that further <i>declaratory</i> and restrictive
+clauses should
+be added," resolved, etc.
+</p>
+<p>This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the
+"Conciliatory
+Resolutions" of Massachusetts, which were drawn by Chief Justice
+Parsons, and offered in the Convention as a compromise by John Hancock.
+(<i>Life Ch. J. Parsons,</i> p. 67.) They were afterward copied and
+adopted
+with some additions by New Hampshire.
+</p>
+<p>The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, is taken
+almost
+literally from the declaration of rights put forth by the Convention of
+New York, and the clause referred to forms the ninth paragraph of the
+declaration. The tenth amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is
+taken from the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those
+resolutions somewhat modified. Thus, these two amendments, sought to be
+used for slavery, originated in the two great anti-slavery States, New
+York and Massachusetts.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26">[26]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison in the House
+of Representatives, June 8, 1789. They were adopted by the House,
+August
+24, and some further amendments seem to have been transmitted by the
+Senate, September 9. The printed journals of the Senate do not state
+the
+time of the final passage, and the message transmitting them to the
+State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted at the first session,
+begun
+on the fourth day of March, 1789. The date of the introduction and
+passage of the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 will be found at note
+9, <i>ante</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27">[27]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;It is singular that while two of the "thirty-nine" were
+in that Congress of 1819, there was but one (besides Mr. King) of the
+"seventy-six." The one was William Smith, of South Carolina. He was
+then
+a Senator, and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28">[28]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The following is an extract from the letter referred to:
+</p>
+<p>"I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro
+slavery. I
+have long considered it a most serious evil, both socially and
+politically, and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our
+States of such a burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance
+which
+prohibits the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern
+Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It meets with the
+approval and assent of nearly every member from the States more
+immediately interested in slave labor. The prevailing opinion in
+Virginia is against the spread of slavery in our new Territories, and I
+trust we shall have a confederation of free States."
+</p>
+<p>The following extract from a letter of Washington to Robert Morris,
+April, 12th, 1786, shows how strong were his views, and how clearly he
+deemed emancipation a subject for legislative enactment: "I can only
+say
+that there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see
+a
+plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but one proper and
+effective mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, BY
+LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY, and that, as far as <i>my suffrage will go,
+shall
+never be wanting</i>."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29">[29]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;A Committee of five, consisting of Messrs. Mason, Davis,
+and Fitch (Democrats), and Collamer and Doolittle (Republicans), was
+appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by the U.S. Senate, to investigate the
+Harper's
+Ferry affair. That Committee was directed, among other things, to
+inquire: (1) "Whether such invasion and seizure was made under color of
+any organization intended to subvert the government of any of the
+States
+of the Union." (2) "What was the character and extent of such
+organisation." (3) "And whether any citizens of the United States, not
+present, were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by
+contributions
+of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise."
+</p>
+<p>The majority of the Committee, Messrs. Mason, Davis, and Fitch,
+reply to
+the inquiries as follows:
+</p>
+<p>1. "There will be found in the Appendix a copy of the proceedings of
+a
+Convention held at Chatham, Canada, of the Provisional Form of
+Government there pretended to have been instituted, the object of which
+clearly was to subvert the government of one or more States, and of
+course, to that extent, the government of the United States." By
+reference to the copy of Proceedings it appears that <i>nineteen</i>
+persons
+were present at that Convention, <i>eight</i> of whom were either
+killed or
+executed at Charlestown, and one examined before the Committee.
+</p>
+<p>2. "The character of the military organization appears, by the
+commissions issued to certain of the armed party as captains,
+lieutenants, etc., a specimen of which will be found in the Appendix."
+</p>
+<p>(These Commissions are signed by John Brown as Commander-in-Chief,
+under
+the Provisional Government, and by J.H. Kagi as Secretary.)
+</p>
+<p>"It clearly appeared that the scheme of Brown was to take with him
+comparatively but few men; but those had been carefully trained by
+military instruction previously, and were to act as officers. For his
+military force he relied, very clearly, on inciting insurrection
+amongst
+the Slaves."
+</p>
+<p>3. "It does not appear that the contributions were made with actual
+knowledge of the use for which they were designed by Brown, although it
+does appear that money was freely contributed by those styling
+themselves the friends of this man Brown, and friends alike of what
+they
+styled the cause of freedom (of which they claimed him to be an
+especial
+apostle), without inquiring as to the way in which the money would be
+used by him to advance such pretended cause."
+</p>
+<p>In concluding the report the majority of the Committee thus
+characterize
+the "invasion": "It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the
+sanction of no public or political authority&#8212;distinguishable only from
+ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them," etc.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30">[30]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Southampton insurrection, August, 1831, was induced
+by the remarkable ability of a slave calling himself General Nat
+Turner.
+He led his fellow bondsmen to believe that he was acting under the
+order
+of Heaven. In proof of this he alleged that the singular appearance of
+the sun at that time was a divine signal for the commencement of the
+struggle which would result in the recovery of their freedom. This
+insurrection resulted in the death of sixty-four white persons, and
+more
+than one hundred slaves. The Southampton was the eleventh large
+insurrection in the Southern States, besides numerous attempts and
+revolts.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31">[31]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;In March, 1790, the General Assembly of France, on the
+petition of the <i>free</i> people of color in St. Domingo, many of
+whom were
+intelligent and wealthy, passed a decree intended to be in their favor,
+but so ambiguous as to be construed in favor of both the whites and the
+blacks. The differences growing out of the decree created two
+parties&#8212;the <i>whites</i> and the people of color; and some blood was
+shed.
+In 1791, the blacks again petitioned, and a decree was passed declaring
+the colored people citizens, who were born of free parents on both
+sides. This produced great excitement among the whites, and the two
+parties armed against each other, and horrible massacres and
+conflagrations followed. Then the Assembly rescinded this last decree,
+and like results followed, the blacks being the exasperated parties and
+the aggressors. Then the decree giving citizenship to the blacks was
+restored, and commissioners were sent out to keep the peace. The
+commissioners, unable to sustain themselves, between the two parties,
+with the troops they had, issued a proclamation that all blacks who
+were
+willing to range themselves under the banner of the Republic should be
+free. As a result a very large proportion of the blacks became in fact
+free. In 1794, the Conventional Assembly <i>abolished slavery</i>
+throughout
+the French Colonies. Some years afterward, the French Government
+sought,
+with an army of 60,000 men, to reinstate slavery, but were
+unsuccessful,
+and then the white planters were driven from the Island.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32">[32]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;<i>Vide</i> Jefferson's Autobiography, commenced January 6th,
+1821. JEFFERSON'S <i>Works</i>, vol. 1, p. 49.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33">[33]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"I am not ashamed or afraid publicly to avow that the
+election of William H. Seward or Salmon P. Chase, or any such
+representative of the Republican party, upon a sectional platform,
+ought
+to be resisted to the disruption of every tie that binds this
+Confederacy together. (Applause on the Democratic side of the House.)"
+<i>Mr. Curry, of Alabama, in the House of Representatives</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing a
+sectional
+man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, breathing destruction
+and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the
+time will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable
+and decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and he who
+doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I
+think I may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia&#8212;that
+when that event happens, they, in my judgment, will consider it an
+overt
+act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, to take
+into consideration the mode and measure of redress. That is my
+position;
+and if that be treason to the Government, make the most of it."&#8212;<i>Mr.
+Gartell, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital of my
+State, on my way here, if such an event did occur," [<i>i.e.</i>, the
+election of a Republican President, upon a Republican platform], "while
+it would be their duty to determine the course which the State would
+pursue, it would be my privilege to counsel with them as to what I
+believed to be the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now,
+and what I will always say in such an event, that my counsel would be
+to
+take independence out of the Union in preference to the loss of
+constitutional rights, and consequent degradation and dishonor, in it.
+That is my position, and it is the position which I know the Democratic
+party of the State of Mississippi will maintain."&#8212;<i>Gov. McRae, of
+Mississippi.</i>
+</p>
+<p>"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the present
+temper of the Southern people, it" [<i>i.e.</i>, the election of a
+Republican
+President] "cannot be, and will not be, submitted to. The
+'irrepressible
+conflict' doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most
+distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of
+war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; and I would
+be disloyal to Virginia and the South, if I did not declare that the
+election of such a man, entertaining such sentiment, and advocating
+such
+doctrines, <i>ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States</i>. The
+idea
+of permitting such a man to have the control and direction of the army
+and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high judicial and
+executive officers, POSTMASTERS INCLUDED, <i>cannot</i> be entertained
+by the
+South for a moment."&#8212;<i>Gov. Letcher, of Virginia</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Slavery <i>must</i> be maintained&#8212;in the Union, if possible; out
+of it, if
+necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if we must."&#8212;<i>Senator
+Iverson,
+of Georgia</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected
+in
+November next, and the South will then decide the great question
+whether
+they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule&#8212;the
+fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised,
+and declared war upon our social institutions. I believe that the honor
+and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt
+secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then
+to
+obtain from the free States additional and higher guaranties for the
+protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should
+proceed to establish a new government. But while I think such would be
+the imperative duty of the South, I should emphatically reprobate and
+repudiate any scheme having for its object the separate secession of
+South Carolina. If Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone&#8212;giving us a
+portion of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts&#8212;would unite with this State in
+a common secession upon the election of a Black Republican, I would
+give
+my consent to the policy."&#8212;<i>Letter of Hon. James L. Orr, of S.C., to
+John Martin and others, July</i> 23, 1860.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34">[34]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, made the
+following analysis of the Dred Scott case in the Massachusetts
+Legislature. Hon. Caleb Cushing was then a member of that body, but did
+not question its correctness.
+</p>
+<p>"On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of the Dred
+Scott
+color, extraction, and origin, three Justices, viz., Taney, Wayne, and
+Daniels, held the negative. Nelson and Campbell passed over the plea by
+which the question was raised. Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said
+the
+question was not open. McLean agreed with Catron, but thought the plea
+bad. Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea,
+met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native
+to any State, is a citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen
+of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.
+</p>
+<p>"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in
+abatement,
+and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appealed from, then
+all
+else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a
+cause not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of
+such a majority, one step more was to be taken. And the next step
+reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the
+cause, and putting an end to all the functions of the court.
+</p>
+<p>"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in the State of
+Illinois, where he remained about two years, before going with his
+master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory of Wisconsin. His claim to
+freedom was rested on the alleged effect of his translation from a
+slave
+State, and again into a free territory. If, by his removal to Illinois,
+he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent continuance of
+his
+pilgrimage into the Louisiana purchase could not add to his freedom,
+nor
+alter the fact. If, by reason of any want or infirmity in the laws of
+Illinois, or of conformity on his part to their behests, Dred Scott
+remained a slave while he remained in that State, then&#8212;for the sake of
+learning the effect on him of his territorial residence beyond the
+Mississippi, and of his marriage and other proceedings there, and the
+effect of the sojournment and marriage of Harriet, in the same
+territory, upon herself and her children&#8212;it might become needful to
+advance one other step into the investigation of the law; to inspect
+the
+Missouri Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of the line of
+36&deg;
+30' in the Louisiana purchase.
+</p>
+<p>"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified that
+advance;
+for six of the Justices, including the Chief Justice himself, decided
+that the <i>status</i> of the plaintiff, as free or slave, was
+dependent, not
+upon the laws of the State in which he had been, but of the State of
+Missouri, in which he was at the commencement of the suit. The Chief
+Justice asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the
+highest court in the State, that Scott and his family, on their return
+were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the
+defendant.' This was the burden of the opinion of Nelson, who declares
+'the question is one solely depending upon the law of Missouri, and
+that
+the Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case before us,
+was bound to follow it.' It received the emphatic endorsement of Wayne,
+whose general concurrence was with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred
+in
+set terms with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.' Campbell
+says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect to
+be given to his absence from Missouri, in company with his master in
+Illinois and Minnesota, <i>and this effect is to be ascertained by
+reference to the laws of Missouri</i>.' Five of the Justices, then (if
+no
+more of them), regard the law of Missouri as decisive of the
+plaintiff's
+rights."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35">[35]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this
+opinion upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is
+distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to
+traffic in it, <i>like an ordinary article of merchandise and property</i>,
+was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States in every State that
+might desire it, for twenty years."&#8212;<i>Ch. J. Taney</i>, 19 <i>How.
+U.S.R</i>.,
+p. 451. <i>Vide</i> language of Mr. Madison, note 34, as to "<i>merchandise</i>."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36">[36]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Not only was the right of property <i>not</i> intended to be
+"distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution"; but the
+following extract from Mr. Madison demonstrates that the utmost care
+was
+taken to avoid so doing:</p>
+<p>"The clause as originally offered [respecting fugitive slaves] read,
+'If
+any person LEGALLY bound to service or labor in any of the United
+States
+shall escape into another State," etc., etc. (Vol. 3, p. 1456.) In
+regard to this, Mr. Madison says, "The term '<i>legally'</i> was struck
+out,
+and the words 'under the laws thereof,' inserted after the word State,
+in compliance with the wish of some who thought the term 'legally'
+equivocal and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a moral point
+of view."&#8212;<i>Ib</i>., p. 1589.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37">[37]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;We subjoin a portion of the history alluded to by Mr.
+Lincoln. The following extract relates to the provision of the
+Constitution relative to the slave trade. (Article I, Sec. 9.)</p>
+<p><i>25th August</i>, 1787.&#8212;The report of the Committee of eleven
+being taken
+up, Gen. [Charles Cotesworth] Pinckney moved to strike out the words
+"the year 1800," and insert the words "the year 1808."</p>
+<p>Mr. Gorham seconded the motion.</p>
+<p>Mr. Madison&#8212;Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be
+apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be
+more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about
+it
+in the Constitution.</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>Mr. Gouverneur Morris was for making the clause read at once&#8212;</p>
+<p>"The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, shall not be prohibited," etc. This, he said, would be most
+fair, and would avoid <i>the </i> ambiguity by which, under the power
+with
+regard to naturalization, the liberty reserved to the States might be
+defeated. He wished it to be known, also, that this part of the
+Constitution was a compliance with those States. If the change of
+language, however, should be objected to by the members from those
+States, he should not urge it.</p>
+<p>Col. Mason (of Virginia) was not against using the term "slaves,"
+but
+against naming North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, lest it
+should give offence to the people of those States.</p>
+<p>Mr. Sherman liked a description better than the terms proposed,
+which
+had been declined by the old Congress and were not pleasing to some
+people.</p>
+<p>Mr. Clymer concurred with Mr. Sherman.</p>
+<p>Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, said that <i>both in opinion and
+practice he was against slavery; but thought it more in favor of
+humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina
+and
+Georgia, on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union</i>.</p>
+<p>Mr. Morris withdrew his motion.</p>
+<p>Mr. Dickinson wished the clause to be confined to the States which
+had
+not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves, and for that
+purpose moved to amend the clause so as to read&#8212;</p>
+<p>"The importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit
+the
+same, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the United States,
+until the year 1808," which was disagreed to, <i>nem. con</i>.
+</p>
+<p>The first part of the report was then agreed to as follows:
+</p>
+<p>"The migration or importation of such persons as the several States
+now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Legislature prior to the year 1808."
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>Mr. Sherman was against the second part ["but a tax or duty may be
+imposed on such migration or importation at a rate not exceeding <i>the
+average of the duties laid on imports</i>"], as acknowledging men to be
+property by taxing them as such under the <i>character</i> of slaves.
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>Mr. Madison <i>thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the
+like idea
+that there could be property in men</i>. The reason of duties did not
+hold,
+as slaves <i>are not, like merchandise</i>, consumed.
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>It was finally agreed, <i>nem. con</i>., to make the clause read&#8212;
+</p>
+<p>"But a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding
+<i>ten dollars</i> for each PERSON."&#8212;<i>Madison Papers, Aug</i>. 25,
+1787.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38">[38]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Compare this noble passage and that at page 18, with the
+twaddle of Mr. Orr (note 30), and the slang of Mr. Douglas (note 37).</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39">[39]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;That demand has since been made. Says MR. O'CONOR,
+counsel for the State of Virginia in the <i>Lemon Case</i>, page 44:
+"We
+claim that under these various provisions of the Federal Constitution,
+a
+citizen of Virginia has an immunity against the operation of any law
+which the State of New York can enact, whilst he is a stranger and
+wayfarer, or whilst passing through our territory; and that he has
+absolute protection for all his domestic rights, and for all his rights
+of property, which under the laws of the United States, and the laws of
+his own State, he was entitled to, whilst in his own State. We claim
+this, and neither more NOR LESS."
+</p>
+<p>Throughout the whole of that case, in which the right to pass
+through
+New York with slaves at the pleasure of the slave owners is maintained,
+it is nowhere contended that the statute is contrary to the
+Constitution
+of New York; but that the statute and the Constitution of the State are
+both contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
+</p>
+<p>The State of Virginia, not content with the decision of our own
+courts
+upon the right claimed by them, is now engaged in carrying this, the
+Lemon case, to the Supreme Court of the United States, hoping by a
+decision there, in accordance with the intimations in the Dred Scott
+case, to overthrow the Constitution of New York.
+</p>
+<p>Senator Toombs, of Georgia, has claimed, in the Senate, that laws of
+Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode
+Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, for the exclusion of slavery, conceded
+to be warranted by the State Constitutions, are contrary to the
+Constitution of the United States, and has asked for the enactment of
+laws by the General Government which shall override the laws of those
+States and the Constitutions which authorize them.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40">[40]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"Policy, humanity, and Christianity, alike forbid the
+extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming
+generations."&#8212;<i>Richmond Enquirer, Jan</i>. 22, 1856.
+</p>
+<p>"I am satisfied that the mind of the South has undergone a change to
+this great extent, that it is now the <i>almost universal belief</i>
+in the
+South, not only that the condition of African slavery in their midst,
+is
+the best condition to which the African race has ever been subjected,
+but that <i>it has the effect of ennobling both races, the white and
+the
+black</i>."&#8212;<i>Senator Mason, of Virginia</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"I declare again, as I did in reply to the Senator from Wisconsin
+(Mr.
+Doolittle), that, in my opinion, slavery is a great moral, social, and
+political blessing&#8212;a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the
+master."&#8212;<i>Mr. Brown, in the Senate, March</i> 6, 1860.
+</p>
+<p>"I am a Southern States' Rights man; I am an African slave-trader. I
+am
+one of those Southern men who believe that slavery is right&#8212;morally,
+religiously, socially, and politically." (Applause.) ... "I represent
+the African Slave-trade interests of that section. (Applause.) I am
+proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe the African
+Slave-trader is a true missionary and a true Christian."
+(Applause.)&#8212;<i>Mr. Gaulden, a delegate from First Congressional
+District
+of Georgia, in the Charleston Convention, now a supporter of Mr.
+Douglas</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly speak again, but you see from
+the
+tones of my voice that I am unable to. This has been a happy, a
+glorious
+day. I shall never forget it. There is a charm about this beautiful
+day,
+about this sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of
+yours&#8212;a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, in that respect, of
+Southerners. For my own part, I have much more fondness for your clams
+than I have for their niggers. But every man to his taste."&#8212;<i>Hon</i>
+<i>Stephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky Point, R.I., Aug.</i> 2, 1860.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41">[41]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;It is interesting to observe how two profoundly logical
+minds, though holding extreme, opposite views, have deduced this common
+conclusion. Says Mr. O'Conor, the eminent leader of the New York Bar,
+and the counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon case, in his
+speech at Cooper Institute, December 19th, 1859:</p>
+<p>"That is the point to which this great argument must come&#8212;Is negro
+slavery unjust? If it is unjust, it violates that first rule of human
+conduct&#8212;'Render to every man his due.' If it is unjust, it violates the
+law of God which says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' for that
+requires
+that we should perpetrate no injustice. Gentlemen, if it could be
+maintained that negro slavery was unjust, perhaps I might be
+prepared&#8212;perhaps we all ought to be prepared&#8212;to go with that
+distinguished man to whom allusion is frequently made, and say, 'There
+is a higher law which compels us to trample beneath our feet the
+Constitution established by our fathers, with all the blessings it
+secures to their children.' But I insist&#8212;and that is the argument which
+we must meet, and on which we must come to a conclusion that shall
+govern our actions in the future selection of representatives in the
+Congress of the United States&#8212;insist that negro slavery is not unjust."</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11728 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #11728 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11728)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Abraham Lincoln, by George Haven Putnam
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Abraham Lincoln
+
+Author: George Haven Putnam
+
+Release Date: March 27, 2004  [eBook #11728]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Steve Schulze and Project Gutenberg Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 11728-h.htm or 11728-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/7/2/11728/11728-h/11728-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/7/2/11728/11728-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+The People's Leader in the Struggle for National Existence
+
+By
+
+GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM, LITT. D.
+
+Author of
+"Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages,"
+"The Censorship of the Church," etc.
+
+With the above is included the speech delivered by Lincoln in New York,
+February 27, 1860; with an introduction by Charles C. Nott, late Chief
+Justice of the Court of Claims, and annotations by Judge Nott and by
+Cephas Brainerd of New York Bar.
+
+1909
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+
+The twelfth of February, 1909, was the hundredth anniversary of the
+birth of Abraham Lincoln. In New York, as in other cities and towns
+throughout the Union, the day was devoted to commemoration exercises,
+and even in the South, in centres like Atlanta (the capture of which in
+1864 had indicated the collapse of the cause of the Confederacy),
+representative Southerners gave their testimony to the life and
+character of the great American.
+
+The Committee in charge of the commemoration in New York arranged for a
+series of addresses to be given to the people of the city and it was my
+privilege to be selected as one of the speakers. It was an indication of
+the rapid passing away of the generation which had had to do with the
+events of the War, that the list of orators, forty-six in all, included
+only four men who had ever seen the hero whose life and character they
+were describing.
+
+In writing out later, primarily for the information of children and
+grandchildren, my own address (which had been delivered without notes),
+I found myself so far absorbed in the interest of the subject and in the
+recollections of the War period, that I was impelled to expand the paper
+so that it should present a more comprehensive study of the career and
+character of Lincoln than it had been possible to attempt within the
+compass of an hour's talk, and should include also references, in
+outline, to the constitutional struggle that had preceded the contest
+and to the chief events of the War itself with which the great War
+President had been most directly concerned. The monograph, therefore,
+while in the form of an essay or historical sketch, retains in certain
+portions the character of the spoken address with which it originated.
+
+It is now brought into print in the hope that it may be found of
+interest for certain readers of the younger generation and may serve as
+an incentive to the reading of the fuller histories of the War period,
+and particularly of the best of the biographies of the great American
+whom we honour as the People's leader.
+
+I have been fortunate enough to secure (only, however, after this
+monograph had been put into type) a copy of the pamphlet printed in
+September, 1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, in
+which is presented the text, as revised by the speaker, of the address
+given by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,--the address which
+made him President.
+
+This edition of the speech, prepared for use in the Presidential
+campaign, contains a series of historical annotations by Cephas Brainerd
+of the New York Bar and Charles C. Nott, who later rendered further
+distinguished service to his country as Colonel of the 176th Regiment,
+N.Y.S. Volunteers, and (after the close of the War) as chief justice of
+the Court of Claims.
+
+These young lawyers (not yet leaders of the Bar) appear to have realised
+at once that the speech was to constitute the platform upon which the
+issues of the Presidential election were to be contested. Not being
+prophets, they were, of course, not in a position to know that the same
+statements were to represent the contentions of the North upon which the
+Civil War was fought out.
+
+I am able to include, with the scholarly notes of the two lawyers, a
+valuable introduction to the speech, written (as late as February, 1908)
+by Judge Nott; together with certain letters which in February, 1860,
+passed between him (as the representative of the Committee) and Mr.
+Lincoln.
+
+The introduction and the letters have never before been published, and
+(as is the case also with the material of the notes) are now in print
+only in the present volume.
+
+I judge, therefore, that I may be doing a service to the survivors of
+the generation of 1860 and also to the generations that have grown up
+since the War, by utilising the occasion of the publication of my own
+little monograph for the reprinting of these notes in a form for
+permanent preservation and for reference on the part of students of the
+history of the Republic.
+
+G.H.P.
+
+NEW YORK, April 2, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN
+
+  II. WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS
+
+ III. THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY
+
+  IV. LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+      NATIONAL EXISTENCE
+
+   V. THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+  VI. THE DARK. DAYS OF 1862
+
+ VII. THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR
+
+VIII. THE FINAL CAMPAIGN
+
+  IX. LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED
+
+      APPENDIX--LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS:
+
+      INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+      CORRESPONDENCE WITH ROBERT LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD
+
+      INTRODUCTION
+
+      CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN
+
+      TITLE PAGE OF ORIGINAL ISSUE
+
+      OFFICERS OF THE REPUBLICAN UNION
+
+      PREFACE TO THE LINCOLN ADDRESS
+
+      THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS
+
+      INDEX
+
+      FOOTNOTES
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN
+
+
+On the twelfth of February, 1909, the hundredth anniversary of the birth
+of Abraham Lincoln, Americans gathered together, throughout the entire
+country, to honour the memory of a great American, one who may come to
+be accepted as the greatest of Americans. It was in every way fitting
+that this honour should be rendered to Abraham Lincoln and that, on such
+commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in
+honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln
+gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion
+Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain.
+
+The chief purpose, however, as I understand, of a memorial service is
+not so much to glorify the dead as to enlighten and inspire the living.
+We borrow the thought of his own Gettysburg address (so eloquent in its
+exquisite simplicity) when we say that no words of ours can add any
+glory to the name of Abraham Lincoln. His work is accomplished. His fame
+is secure. It is for us, his fellow-citizens, for the older men who had
+personal touch with the great struggle in which Lincoln was the nation's
+leader, for the younger men who have grown up in the generation since
+the War, and for the children by whom are to be handed down through the
+new century the great traditions of the Republic, to secure from the
+life and character of our great leader incentive, illumination, and
+inspiration to good citizenship, in order that Lincoln and his
+fellow-martyrs shall not have died in vain.
+
+It is possible within the limits of this paper simply to touch upon the
+chief events and experiences in Lincoln's life. It has been my endeavour
+to select those that were the most important in the forming or in the
+expression of his character. The term "forming" is, however, not
+adequate to indicate the development of a personality like Lincoln's. We
+rather think of his sturdy character as having been _forged_ into its
+final form through the fiery furnace of fierce struggle, as hammered
+out under the blows of difficulties and disasters, and as pressed
+beneath the weight of the nation's burdens, until was at last produced
+the finely tempered nature of the man we know, the Lincoln of history,
+that exquisite combination of sweetness of nature and strength of
+character. The type is described in Schiller's Song of the Founding of
+the Bell:
+
+    Denn, wo das strenge mit dem zarten,
+    Wo mildes sich und starkes paarten,
+    Da giebt es einen guten Klang.
+
+There is a tendency to apply the term "miraculous" to the career of
+every hero, and in a sense such description is, of course, true. The
+life of every man, however restricted its range, is something of a
+miracle; but the course of a single life, like that of humanity, is
+assuredly based on a development that proceeds from a series of
+causations. Holmes says that the education of a man begins two centuries
+before his birth. We may recall in this connection that Lincoln came of
+good stock. It is true that his parents belonged to the class of poor
+whites; but the Lincoln family can be traced from an eastern county of
+England (we might hope for the purpose of genealogical harmony that the
+county was Lincolnshire) to Hingham in Massachusetts, and by way of
+Pennsylvania and Virginia to Kentucky. The grandfather of our Abraham
+was killed, while working in his field on the Kentucky farm, by
+predatory Indians shooting from the cover of the dense forest. Abraham's
+father, Thomas, at that time a boy, was working in the field where his
+father was murdered. Such an incident in Kentucky simply repeated what
+had been going on just a century before in Massachusetts, at Deerfield
+and at dozens of other settlements on the edge of the great forest which
+was the home of the Indians. During the hundred years, the frontier of
+the white man's domain had been moved a thousand miles to the south-west
+and, as ever, there was still friction at the point of contact.
+
+The record of the boyhood of our Lincoln has been told in dozens of
+forms and in hundreds of monographs. We know of the simplicity, of the
+penury, of the family life in the little one-roomed log hut that formed
+the home for the first ten years of Abraham's life. We know of his
+little group of books collected with toil and self-sacrifice. The
+series, after some years of strenuous labour, comprised the Bible,
+_Aesop's Fables_, a tattered copy of Euclid's _Geometry_, and Weems's
+_Life of Washington_. The _Euclid_ he had secured as a great prize from
+the son of a neighbouring farmer. Abraham had asked the boy the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." His friend said that he did not himself know,
+but that he knew the word was in a book which he had at school, and he
+hunted up the _Euclid_. After some bargaining, the _Euclid_ came into
+Abraham's possession. In accordance with his practice, the whole
+contents were learned by heart. Abraham's later opponents at the Bar or
+in political discussion came to realise that he understood the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." In fact, references to specific problems of
+Euclid occurred in some of his earlier speeches at the Bar.
+
+A year or more later, when the Lincoln family had crossed the river to
+Indiana, there was added to the "library" a copy of the revised Statutes
+of the State. The Weems's _Washington_ had been borrowed by Lincoln from
+a neighbouring farmer. The boy kept it at night under his pillow, and on
+the occasion of a storm, the water blew in through the chinks of the
+logs that formed the wall of the cabin, drenching the pillow and the
+head of the boy (a small matter in itself) and wetting and almost
+spoiling the book. This was a grave misfortune. Lincoln took his
+damaged volume to the owner and asked how he could make payment for the
+loss. It was arranged that the boy should put in three days' work
+shucking corn on the farm. "Will that work pay for the book or only for
+the damage?" asked the boy. It was agreed that the labour of three days
+should be considered sufficient for the purchase of the book.
+
+The text of this biography and the words of each valued volume in the
+little "library" were absorbed into the memory of the reader. It was his
+practice when going into the field for work, to take with him
+written-out paragraphs from the book that he had at the moment in mind
+and to repeat these paragraphs between the various chores or between the
+wood-chopping until every page was committed by heart. Paper was scarce
+and dear and for the boy unattainable. He used for his copying bits of
+board shaved smooth with his jack-knife. This material had the advantage
+that when the task of one day had been mastered, a little labour with
+the jack-knife prepared the surface of the board for the work of the
+next day. As I read this incident in Lincoln's boyhood, I was reminded
+of an experience of my own in Louisiana. It happened frequently during
+the campaign of 1863 that our supplies were cut off through the capture
+of our waggon trains by that active Confederate commander, General
+Taylor. More than once, we were short of provisions, and, in one
+instance, a supply of stationery for which the adjutants of the brigade
+had been waiting, was carried off to serve the needs of our opponents.
+We tore down a convenient and unnecessary shed and utilised from the
+roof the shingles, the clean portions of which made an admirable
+substitute for paper. For some days, the morning reports of the brigade
+were filed on shingles.
+
+Lincoln's work as a farm-hand was varied by two trips down the river to
+New Orleans. The opportunity had been offered to the young man by the
+neighbouring store-keeper, Gentry, to take part in the trip of a
+flat-boat which carried the produce of the county to New Orleans, to be
+there sold in exchange for sugar or rum. Lincoln was, at the time of
+these trips, already familiar with certain of the aspects and conditions
+of slavery, but the inspection of the slave-market in New Orleans
+stamped upon his sensitive imagination a fresh and more sombre picture,
+and made a lasting impression of the iniquity and horror of the
+institution. From the time of his early manhood, Lincoln hated slavery.
+What was exceptional, however, in his state of mind was that, while
+abominating the institution, he was able to give a sympathetic
+understanding to the opinions and to the prejudices of the slave-owners.
+In all his long fight against slavery as the curse both of the white and
+of the black, and as the great obstacle to the natural and wholesome
+development of the nation, we do not at any time find a trace of
+bitterness against the men of the South who were endeavouring to
+maintain and to extend the system.
+
+It was of essential importance for the development of Lincoln as a
+political leader, first for his State, and later in the contest that
+became national, that he should have possessed an understanding, which
+was denied to many of the anti-slavery leaders, of the actual nature,
+character, and purpose of the men against whom he was contending. It
+became of larger importance when Lincoln was directing from Washington
+the policy of the national administration that he should have a
+sympathetic knowledge of the problems of the men of the Border States
+who with the outbreak of the War had been placed in a position of
+exceptional difficulty, and that he should have secured and retained the
+confidence of these men. It seems probable that if the War President
+had been a man of Northern birth and Northern prejudices, if he had been
+one to whom the wider, the more patient and sympathetic view of these
+problems had been impossible or difficult, the Border States could not
+have been saved to the Union. It is probable that the support given to
+the cause of the North by the sixty thousand or seventy thousand loyal
+recruits from Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia, may
+even have proved the deciding factor in turning the tide of events. The
+nation's leader for the struggle seems to have been secured through a
+process of natural selection as had been the case a century earlier with
+Washington. We may recall that Washington died but ten years before
+Lincoln was born; and from the fact that each leader was at hand when
+the demand came for his service, and when without such service the
+nation might have been pressed to destruction, we may grasp the hope
+that in time of need the nation will always be provided with the leader
+who can meet the requirement.
+
+After Lincoln returned from New Orleans, he secured employment for a
+time in the grocery or general store of Gentry, and when he was
+twenty-two years of age, he went into business with a partner, some
+twenty years older than himself, in carrying on such a store. He had so
+impressed himself upon the confidence of his neighbours that, while he
+was absolutely without resources, there was no difficulty in his
+borrowing the money required for his share of the capital. The
+undertaking did not prove a success. Lincoln had no business experience
+and no particular business capacity, while his partner proved to be
+untrustworthy. The partner decamped, leaving Lincoln to close up the
+business and to take the responsibility for the joint indebtedness. It
+was seventeen years before Lincoln was able, from his modest earnings as
+a lawyer, to clear off this indebtedness. The debt became outlawed in
+six years' time but this could not affect Lincoln's sense of the
+obligation. After the failure of the business, Lincoln secured work as
+county surveyor. In this, he was following the example of his
+predecessor Washington, with whose career as a surveyor the youngster
+who knew Weems's biography by heart, was of course familiar. His new
+occupation took him through the county and brought him into personal
+relations with a much wider circle than he had known in the village of
+New Salem, and in his case, the personal relation counted for much; the
+history shows that no one who knew Lincoln failed to be attracted by
+him or to be impressed with the fullest confidence in the man's
+integrity of purpose and of action.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS
+
+
+In 1834, when he was twenty-five years old, Lincoln made his first
+entrance into politics, presenting himself as candidate for the
+Assembly. His defeat was not without compensations; he secured in his
+own village or township, New Salem, no less than 208 out of the 211
+votes cast. This prophet had honour with those who knew him. Two years
+later, he tried again and this time with success. His journeys as a
+surveyor had brought him into touch with, and into the confidence of,
+enough voters throughout the county to secure the needed majority.
+
+Lincoln's active work as a lawyer lasted from 1834 to 1860, or for about
+twenty-six years. He secured in the cases undertaken by him a very large
+proportion of successful decisions. Such a result is not entirely to be
+credited to his effectiveness as an advocate. The first reason was that
+in his individual work, that is to say, in the matters that were taken
+up by himself rather than by his partner, he accepted no case in the
+justice of which he did not himself have full confidence. As his fame as
+an advocate increased, he was approached by an increasing number of
+clients who wanted the advantage of the effective service of the young
+lawyer and also of his assured reputation for honesty of statement and
+of management. Unless, however, he believed in the case, he put such
+suggestions to one side even at the time when the income was meagre and
+when every dollar was of importance.
+
+Lincoln's record at the Bar has been somewhat obscured by the value of
+his public service, but as it comes to be studied, it is shown to have
+been both distinctive and important. His law-books were, like those of
+his original library, few, but whatever volumes he had of his own and
+whatever he was able to place his hands upon from the shelves of his
+friends, he mastered thoroughly. His work at the Bar gave evidence of
+his exceptional powers of reasoning while it was itself also a large
+influence in the development of such powers. The counsel who practised
+with and against him, the judges before whom his arguments were
+presented, and the members of the juries, the hard-headed working
+citizens of the State, seem to have all been equally impressed with the
+exceptional fairness with which the young lawyer presented not only his
+own case but that of his opponent. He had great tact in holding his
+friends, in convincing those who did not agree with him, and in winning
+over opponents; but he gave no futile effort to tasks which his judgment
+convinced him would prove impossible. He never, says Horace Porter,
+citing Lincoln's words, "wasted any time in trying to massage the back
+of a political porcupine." "A man might as well," says Lincoln,
+"undertake to throw fleas across the barnyard with a shovel."
+
+He had as a youngster won repute as a teller of dramatic stories, and
+those who listened to his arguments in court were expecting to have his
+words to the jury brightened and rendered for the moment more effective
+by such stories. The hearers were often disappointed in such
+expectation. Neither at the Bar, nor, it may be said here, in his later
+work as a political leader, did Lincoln indulge himself in the telling a
+story for the sake of the story, nor for the sake of the laugh to be
+raised by the story, nor for the momentary pleasure or possible
+temporary advantage of the discomfiture of the opponent. The story was
+used, whether in law or in politics, only when it happened to be the
+shortest and most effective method of making clear an issue or of
+illustrating a statement. In later years, when he had upon him the
+terrible burdens of the great struggle, Lincoln used stories from time
+to time as a vent to his feelings. The impression given was that by an
+effort of will and in order to keep his mind from dwelling too
+continuously upon the tremendous problems upon which he was engaged, he
+would, by the use of some humorous reminiscence, set his thoughts in a
+direction as different as possible from that of his cares. A third and
+very valuable use of the story which grew up in his Washington days was
+to turn aside some persistent but impossible application; and to give to
+the applicant, with the least risk of unnecessary annoyance to his
+feelings, the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless also the case
+that, as has happened to other men gifted with humour, Lincoln's
+reputation as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a great series
+of anecdotes and incidents of one kind or another, some of which would
+have been entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his own standard
+and his own method. There is the further and final word to be said about
+Lincoln's stories, that they were entitled to the geometrical
+commendation of "being neither too long nor too broad."
+
+In 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress as a Whig. The circle of
+acquaintances whom he had made in the county as surveyor had widened out
+with his work as a lawyer; he secured a unanimous nomination and was
+elected without difficulty in a constituency comprising six counties. I
+find in the record of the campaign the detail that Lincoln returned to
+certain of his friends who had undertaken to find the funds for election
+expenses, $199.90 out of the $200 subscribed.
+
+In 1847, Lincoln was one of the group of Whigs in Congress who opposed
+the Mexican War. These men took the ground that the war was one of
+aggression and spoliation. Their views, which were quite prevalent
+throughout New England, are effectively presented in Lowell's _Biglow
+Papers._ When the army was once in the field, Lincoln was, however,
+ready to give his Congressional vote for the fullest and most energetic
+support. A year or more later, he worked actively for the election of
+General Taylor. He took the ground that the responsibility for the war
+rested not with the soldiers who had fought it to a successful
+conclusion, but with the politicians who had devised the original
+land-grabbing scheme.
+
+In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected with an invention for lifting
+vessels over shoals. His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his memory of
+the attempt, successful for the moment but ending in failure, to make
+the river available for steamboats, had attracted his attention to the
+problem of steering river vessels over shoals.
+
+In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red River in Louisiana, I noticed
+with interest a device that had been put into shape for the purpose of
+lifting river steamers over shoals. This device took the form of stilts
+which for the smaller vessels (and only the smaller steamers could as a
+rule be managed in this way) were fastened on pivots from the upper deck
+on the outside of the hull and were worked from the deck with a force of
+two or three men at each stilt. The difficulty on the Red River was that
+the Rebel sharp-shooters from the banks made the management of the
+stilts irregular.
+
+In 1854, Douglas carried through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. This
+bill repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and cancelled also the
+provisions of the series of compromises of 1850. Its purpose was to
+throw open for settlement and for later organisation as Slave States the
+whole territory of the North-west from which, under the Missouri
+Compromise, slavery had been excluded. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill not only
+threw open a great territory to slavery but re-opened the whole slavery
+discussion. The issues that were brought to the front in the discussions
+about this bill, and in the still more bitter contests after the passage
+of the bill in regard to the admission of Kansas as a Slave State, were
+the immediate precursors of the Civil War. The larger causes lay further
+back, but the War would have been postponed for an indefinite period if
+it had not been for the pressing on the part of the South for the right
+to make Slave States throughout the entire territory of the country, and
+for the readiness on the part of certain Democratic leaders of the
+North, of whom Douglas was the chief, to accept this contention, and
+through such expedients to gain, or to retain, political control for the
+Democratic party.
+
+In one of the long series of debates in Congress on the question of the
+right to take slaves into free territory, a planter from South Carolina
+drew an affecting picture of his relations with his old coloured
+foster-mother, the "mammy" of the plantation. "Do you tell me," he said,
+addressing himself to a Free-soil opponent, "that I, a free American
+citizen, am not to be permitted, if I want to go across the Missouri
+River, to take with me my whole home circle? Do you say that I must
+leave my old 'Mammy' behind in South Carolina?" "Oh!" replied the
+Westerner, "the trouble with you is not that you cannot take your
+'Mammy' into this free territory, but that you are not to be at liberty
+to sell her when you get her there."
+
+Lincoln threw himself with full earnestness of conviction and ardour
+into the fight to preserve for freedom the territory belonging to the
+nation. In common with the majority of the Whig party, he held the
+opinion that if slavery could be restricted to the States in which it
+was already in existence, if no further States should be admitted into
+the Union with the burden of slavery, the institution must, in the
+course of a generation or two, die out. He was clear in his mind that
+slavery was an enormous evil for the whites as well as for the blacks,
+for the individual as for the nation. He had himself, as a young man,
+been brought up to do toilsome manual labour. He would not admit that
+there was anything in manual labour that ought to impair the respect of
+the community for the labourer or the worker's respect for himself. Not
+the least of the evils of slavery was, in his judgment, its inevitable
+influence in bringing degradation upon labour and the labourer.
+
+The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act made clear to the North that the
+South would accept no limitations for slavery. The position of the
+Southern leaders, in which they had the substantial backing of their
+constituents, was that slaves were property and that the Constitution,
+having guaranteed the protection of property to all the citizens of the
+commonwealth, a slaveholder was deprived of his constitutional rights as
+a citizen if his control of this portion of his property was in any way
+interfered with or restricted. The argument in behalf of this extreme
+Southern claim had been shaped most eloquently and most forcibly by John
+C. Calhoun during the years between 1830 and 1850. The Calhoun opinion
+was represented a few years later in the Presidential candidacy of John
+C. Breckinridge. The contention of the more extreme of the Northern
+opponents of slavery voters, whose spokesmen were William Lloyd
+Garrison, Wendell Phillips, James G. Birney, Owen Lovejoy, and others,
+was that the Constitution in so far as it recognised slavery (which it
+did only by implication) was a compact with evil. They held that the
+Fathers had been led into this compact unwittingly and without full
+realisation of the responsibilities that they were assuming for the
+perpetuation of a great wrong. They refused to accept the view that
+later generations of American citizens were to be bound for an
+indefinite period by this error of judgment on the part of the Fathers.
+They proposed to get rid of slavery, as an institution incompatible with
+the principles on which the Republic was founded. They pointed out that
+under the Declaration of Independence all men had an equal right to
+"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and that there was no
+limitation of this claim to men of white race. If it was not going to be
+possible to argue slavery out of existence, these men preferred to have
+the Union dissolved rather than to bring upon States like Massachusetts
+a share of the responsibility for the wrong done to mankind and to
+justice under the laws of South Carolina.
+
+The Whig party, whose great leader, Henry Clay, had closed his life in
+1852, just at the time when Lincoln was becoming prominent in politics,
+held that all citizens were bound by the compact entered into by their
+ancestors, first under the Articles of Confederation of 1783, and later
+under the Constitution of 1789. Our ancestors had, for the purpose of
+bringing about the organisation of the Union, agreed to respect the
+institution of slavery in the States in which it existed. The Whigs of
+1850, held, therefore, that in such of the Slave States as had been part
+of the original thirteen, slavery was an institution to be recognised
+and protected under the law of the land. They admitted, further, that
+what their grandfathers had done in 1789, had been in a measure
+confirmed by the action of their fathers in 1820. The Missouri
+Compromise of 1820, in making clear that all States thereafter organised
+north of the line thirty-six thirty were to be Free States, made clear
+also that States south of that line had the privilege of coming into the
+Union with the institution of slavery and that the citizens in these
+newer Slave States should be assured of the same recognition and rights
+as had been accorded to those of the original thirteen.
+
+The Missouri Compromise permitted also the introduction of Missouri
+itself into the Union as a Slave State (as a counterpoise to the State
+of Maine admitted the same year), although almost the entire territory
+of the State of Missouri was north of the latitude 36° 30'.
+
+We may recall that, under the Constitution, the States of the South,
+while denying the suffrage to the negro, had secured the right to
+include the negro population as a basis for their representation in the
+lower House. In apportioning the representatives to the population, five
+negroes were to be counted as the equivalent of three white men. The
+passage, in 1854, of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the purpose of which was
+to confirm the existence of slavery and to extend the institution
+throughout the country, was carried in the House by thirteen votes. The
+House contained at that time no less than twenty members representing
+the negro population. The negroes were, therefore, in this instance
+involuntarily made the instruments for strengthening the chains of their
+own serfdom.
+
+It was in 1854 that Lincoln first propounded the famous question, "Can
+the nation endure half slave and half free?" This question, slightly
+modified, became the keynote four years later of Lincoln's contention
+against the Douglas theory of "squatter sovereignty." The organisation
+of the Republican party dates from 1856. Various claims have been made
+concerning the precise date and place at which were first presented the
+statement of principles that constituted the final platform of the
+party, and in regard to the men who were responsible for such statement.
+At a meeting held as far back as July, 1854, at Jackson, Michigan, a
+platform was adopted by a convention which had been brought together to
+formulate opposition to any extension of slavery, and this Jackson
+platform did contain the substance of the conclusions and certain of the
+phrases which later were included in the Republican platform. In
+January, 1856, Parke Godwin published in _Putnam's Monthly_, of which he
+was political editor, an article outlining the necessary constitution of
+the new party. This article gave a fuller expression than had thus far
+been made of the views of the men who were later accepted as the leaders
+of the Republican party. In May, 1856, Lincoln made a speech at
+Bloomington, Illinois, setting forth the principles for the anti-slavery
+campaign as they were understood by his group of Whigs. In this speech,
+Lincoln speaks of "that perfect liberty for which our Southern
+fellow-citizens are sighing, the liberty of making slaves of other
+people"; and again, "It is the contention of Mr. Douglas, in his claim
+for the rights of American citizens, that if _A_ sees fit to enslave
+_B_, no other man shall have the right to object." Of this Bloomington
+speech, Herndon says: "It was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm;
+it was justice, integrity, truth, and right. The words seemed to be set
+ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by a great wrong. The
+utterance was hard, knotty, gnarly, backed with wrath."
+
+From this time on, Lincoln was becoming known throughout the country as
+one of the leaders in the new issues, able and ready to give time and
+service to the anti-slavery fight and to the campaign work of the
+Republican organisation. This political service interfered to some
+extent with his work at the Bar, but he did not permit political
+interests to stand in the way of any obligations that had been assumed
+to his clients. He simply accepted fewer cases, and to this extent
+reduced his very moderate earnings. In his work as a lawyer, he never
+showed any particular capacity for increasing income or for looking
+after his own business interests. It was his principle and his practice
+to discourage litigation. He appears, during the twenty-five years in
+which he was in active practice, to have made absolutely no enemies
+among his professional opponents. He enjoyed an exceptional reputation
+for the frankness with which he would accept the legitimate contentions
+of his opponents or would even himself state their case. Judge David
+Davis, before whom Lincoln had occasion during these years to practise,
+says that the Court was always prepared to accept as absolutely fair and
+substantially complete Lincoln's statement of the matters at issue.
+Davis says it occasionally happened that Lincoln would supply some
+consideration of importance on his opponent's side of the case that the
+other counsel had overlooked. It was Lincoln's principle to impress upon
+himself at the outset the full strength of the other man's position. It
+was also his principle to accept no case in the justice of which he had
+not been able himself to believe. He possessed also by nature an
+exceptional capacity for the detection of faulty reasoning; and his
+exercise of the power of analysis in his work at the Bar proved of great
+service later in widening his influence as a political leader. The power
+that he possessed, when he was assured of the justice of his cause, of
+convincing court and jury became the power of impressing his convictions
+upon great bodies of voters. Later, when he had upon his shoulders the
+leadership of the nation, he took the people into his confidence; he
+reasoned with them as if they were sitting as a great jury for the
+determination of the national policy, and he was able to impress upon
+them his perfect integrity of purpose and the soundness of his
+conclusions,--conclusions which thus became the policy of the nation.
+
+He calls himself a "mast-fed lawyer" and it is true that his
+opportunities for reading continued to be most restricted. Davis said in
+regard to Lincoln's work as a lawyer: "He had a magnificent equipoise of
+head, conscience, and heart. In non-essentials he was pliable; but on
+the underlying principles of truth and justice, his will was as firm as
+steel." We find from the record of Lincoln's work in the Assembly and
+later in Congress that he would never do as a Representative what he was
+unwilling to do as an individual. His capacity for seeing the humorous
+side of things was of course but a phase of a general clearness of
+perception. The man who sees things clearly, who is able to recognise
+both sides of a matter, the man who can see all round a position, the
+opposite of the man in blinders, that man necessarily has a sense of
+humour. He is able, if occasion presents, to laugh at himself. Lincoln's
+capacity for absorbing and for retaining information and for having this
+in readiness for use at the proper time was, as we have seen, something
+that went back to his boyhood. He says of himself: "My mind is something
+like a piece of steel; it is very hard to scratch anything on it and
+almost impossible after you have got it there to rub it out."
+
+Lincoln's correspondence has been preserved with what is probably
+substantial completeness. The letters written by him to friends,
+acquaintances, political correspondents, individual men of one kind or
+another, have been gathered together and have been brought into print
+not, as is most frequently the case, under the discretion or judgment of
+a friendly biographer, but by a great variety of more or less
+sympathetic people. It would seem as if but very few of Lincoln's
+letters could have been mislaid or destroyed. One can but be impressed,
+in reading these letters, with the absolute honesty of purpose and of
+statement that characterises them. There are very few men, particularly
+those whose active lives have been passed in a period of political
+struggle and civil war, whose correspondence could stand such a test.
+There never came to Lincoln requirement to say to his correspondent,
+"Burn this letter."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY
+
+
+In 1856, the Supreme Court, under the headship of Judge Taney, gave out
+the decision of the Dred Scott case. The purport of this decision was
+that a negro was not to be considered as a person but as a chattel; and
+that the taking of such negro chattel into free territory did not cancel
+or impair the property rights of the master. It appeared to the men of
+the North as if under this decision the entire country, including in
+addition to the national territories the independent States which had
+excluded slavery, was to be thrown open to the invasion of the
+institution. The Dred Scott decision, taken in connection with the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise (and the two acts were doubtless a
+part of one thoroughly considered policy), foreshadowed as their logical
+and almost inevitable consequence the bringing of the entire nation
+under the control of slavery. The men of the future State of Kansas made
+during 1856-57 a plucky fight to keep slavery out of their borders. The
+so-called Lecompton Constitution undertook to force slavery upon Kansas.
+This constitution was declared by the administration (that of President
+Buchanan) to have been adopted, but the fraudulent character of the
+voting was so evident that Walker, the Democratic Governor, although a
+sympathiser with slavery, felt compelled to repudiate it. This
+constitution was repudiated also by Douglas, although Douglas had
+declared that the State ought to be thrown open to slavery. Jefferson
+Davis, at that time Secretary of War, declared that "Kansas was in a
+state of rebellion and that the rebellion must be crushed." Armed bands
+from Missouri crossed the river to Kansas for the purpose of casting
+fraudulent votes and for the further purpose of keeping the Free-soil
+settlers away from the polls.
+
+This fight for freedom in Kansas gave a further basis for Lincoln's
+statement "that a house divided against itself cannot stand; this
+government cannot endure half slave and half free." It was with this
+statement as his starting-point that Lincoln entered into his famous
+Senatorial campaign with Douglas. Douglas had already represented
+Illinois in the Senate for two terms and had, therefore, the advantage
+of possession and of a substantial control of the machinery of the
+State. He had the repute at the time of being the leading political
+debater in the country. He was shrewd, forcible, courageous, and, in the
+matter of convictions, unprincipled. He knew admirably how to cater to
+the prejudices of the masses. His career thus far had been one of
+unbroken success. His Senatorial fight was, in his hope and expectation,
+to be but a step towards the Presidency. The Democratic party, with an
+absolute control south of Mason and Dixon's Line and with a very
+substantial support in the Northern States, was in a position, if
+unbroken, to control with practical certainty the Presidential election
+of 1860. Douglas seemed to be the natural leader of the party. It was
+necessary for him, however, while retaining the support of the Democrats
+of the North, to make clear to those of the South that his influence
+would work for the maintenance and for the extension of slavery.
+
+The South was well pleased with the purpose and with the result of the
+Dred Scott decision and with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It
+is probable, however, that if the Dred Scott decision had not given to
+the South so full a measure of satisfaction, the South would have been
+more ready to accept the leadership of a Northern Democrat like Douglas.
+Up to a certain point in the conflict, they had felt the need of Douglas
+and had realised the importance of the support that he was in a position
+to bring from the North. When, however, the Missouri Compromise had been
+repealed and the Supreme Court had declared that slaves must be
+recognised as property throughout the entire country, the Southern
+claims were increased to a point to which certain of the followers of
+Douglas were not willing to go. It was a large compliment to the young
+lawyer of Illinois to have placed upon him the responsibility of
+leading, against such a competitor as Douglas, the contest of the Whigs,
+and of the Free-soilers back of the Whigs, against any further extension
+of slavery, a contest which was really a fight for the continued
+existence of the nation.
+
+Lincoln seems to have gone into the fight with full courage, the courage
+of his convictions. He felt that Douglas was a trimmer, and he believed
+that the issue had now been brought to a point at which the trimmer
+could not hold support on both sides of Mason and Dixon's Line. He
+formulated at the outset of the debate a question which was pressed
+persistently upon Douglas during the succeeding three weeks. This
+question was worded as follows: "Can the people of a United States
+territory, prior to the formation of a State constitution or against the
+protest of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery?" Lincoln's
+campaign advisers were of opinion that this question was inadvisable.
+They took the ground that Douglas would answer the question in such way
+as to secure the approval of the voters of Illinois and that in so doing
+he would win the Senatorship. Lincoln's response was in substance: "That
+may be. I hold, however, that if Douglas answers this question in a way
+to satisfy the Democrats of the North, he will inevitably lose the
+support of the more extreme, at least, of the Democrats of the South. We
+may lose the Senatorship as far as my personal candidacy is concerned.
+If, however, Douglas fails to retain the support of the South, he cannot
+become President in 1860. The line will be drawn directly between those
+who are willing to accept the extreme claims of the South and those who
+resist these claims. A right decision is the essential thing for the
+safety of the nation." The question gave no little perplexity to
+Douglas. He finally, however, replied that in his judgment the people of
+a United States territory had the right to exclude slavery. When asked
+again by Lincoln how he brought this decision into accord with the Dred
+Scott decision, he replied in substance: "Well, they have not the right
+to take constitutional measures to exclude slavery but they can by local
+legislation render slavery practically impossible." The Dred Scott
+decision had in fact itself overturned the Douglas theory of popular
+sovereignty or "squatter sovereignty." Douglas was only able to say that
+his sovereignty contention made provision for such control of domestic
+or local regulations as would make slavery impossible.
+
+The South, rendered autocratic by the authority of the Supreme Court,
+was not willing to accept the possibility of slavery being thus
+restricted out of existence in any part of the country. The Southerners
+repudiated Douglas as Lincoln had prophesied they would do. Douglas had
+been trying the impossible task of carrying water on both shoulders. He
+gained the Senatorship by a narrow margin; he secured in the vote in the
+Legislature a majority of eight, but Lincoln had even in this fight won
+the support of the people. His majority on the popular vote was four
+thousand.
+
+The series of debates between these two leaders came to be of national
+importance. It was not merely a question of the representation in the
+Senate from the State of Illinois, but of the presentation of arguments,
+not only to the voters of Illinois but to citizens throughout the entire
+country, in behalf of the restriction of slavery on the one hand or of
+its indefinite expansion and protection on the other. The debate was
+educational not merely for the voters who listened, but for the
+thousands of other voters who read the reports. It would be an enormous
+advantage for the political education of candidates and for the
+education of voters if such debates could become the routine in
+Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Under the present routine, we
+have, in place of an assembly of voters representing the conflicting
+views of the two parties or of the several political groups, a
+homogeneous audience of one way of thinking, and speakers who have no
+opponent present to check the temptation to launch forth into wild
+statements, personal abuse, and irresponsible conclusions. An
+interruption of the speaker is considered to be a disturbance of order,
+and the man who is not fully in sympathy with the views of the audience
+is likely to be put out as an interloper. With a system of joint
+debates, the speakers would be under an educational repression. False
+or exaggerated statements would not be made, or would not be made
+consciously, because they would be promptly corrected by the other
+fellow. There would of necessity come to be a better understanding and a
+larger respect for the positions of the opponent. The men who would be
+selected as leaders or speakers to enforce the contentions of the party,
+would have to possess some reasoning faculty as well as oratorical
+fluency. The voters, instead of being shut in with one group of
+arguments more or less reasonable, would be brought into touch with the
+arguments of other groups of citizens. I can conceive of no better
+method for bringing representative government on to a higher plane and
+for making an election what it ought to be, a reasonable decision by
+reasoning voters, than the institution of joint debates.
+
+I cite certain of the incisive statements that came into Lincoln's seven
+debates. "A slave, says Judge Douglas (on the authority of Judge Taney),
+is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." "I contend
+[says Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's
+nature. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right, and as long as God
+reigns and as school-children read, that black evil can never be
+consecrated into God's truth." "A man does not lose his right to a piece
+of property which has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to himself if
+he himself has been stolen?" The following words present a summary of
+Lincoln's statements:
+
+Judge Douglas contends that if any one man chooses to enslave another,
+no third man has a right to object. Our Fathers, in accepting slavery
+under the Constitution as a legal institution, were of opinion, as is
+clearly indicated by the recorded utterances, that slavery would in the
+course of a few years die out. They were quite clear in their minds that
+the slave-trade must be abolished and for ever forbidden and this
+decision was arrived at under the leadership of men like Jefferson and
+without a protest from the South. Jefferson was himself the author of
+the Ordinance of 1787, which in prohibiting the introduction of slavery,
+consecrated to freedom the great territory of the North-west, and this
+measure was fully approved by Washington and by the other great leaders
+from the South. Where slavery exists, full liberty refuses to enter. It
+was only through this wise action of the Fathers that it was possible to
+bring into existence, through colonisation, the great territories and
+great States of the North-west. It is this settlement, and the later
+adjustment of 1820, that Douglas and his friends in the South are
+undertaking to overthrow. Slavery is not, as Judge Douglas contends, a
+local issue; it is a national responsibility. The repeal of the Missouri
+Compromise throws open not only a great new territory to the curse of
+slavery; it throws open the whole slavery question for the embroiling of
+the present generation of Americans. Taking slaves into free territory
+is the same thing as reviving the slave-trade. It perpetuates and
+develops interstate slave-trade. Government derives its just powers from
+the consent of the governed. The Fathers did not claim that "the right
+of the people to govern negroes was the right of the people to govern
+themselves."
+
+The policy of Judge Douglas was based on the theory that the people did
+not care, but the people did care, as was evinced two years later by the
+popular vote for President throughout the North. One of those who heard
+these debates says: "Lincoln loved truth for its own sake. He had a
+deep, true, living conscience; honesty was his polar star. He never
+acted for stage effect. He was cool, spirited, reflective,
+self-possessed, and self-reliant. His style was clear, terse, compact
+... He became tremendous in the directness of his utterance when, as his
+soul was inspired with the thought of human right and Divine justice,
+he rose to impassioned eloquence, and at such times he was, in my
+judgment, unsurpassed by Clay or by Mirabeau."
+
+As the debates progressed, it was increasingly evident that Douglas
+found himself hard pushed. Lincoln would not allow himself to be swerved
+from the main issue by any tergiversation or personal attacks. He
+insisted from day to day in bringing Douglas back to this issue: "What
+do you, Douglas, propose to do about slavery in the territories? Is it
+your final judgment that there is to be no further reservation of free
+territory in this country? Do you believe that it is for the advantage
+of this country to put no restriction to the extension of slavery?"
+Douglas wriggled and squirmed under this direct questioning and his
+final replies gave satisfaction neither to the Northern Democrats nor to
+those of the South. The issue upon which the Presidential contest of
+1860 was to be fought out had been fairly stated. It was the same issue
+under which, in 1861, the fighting took the form of civil war. It was
+the issue that took four years to fight out and that was finally decided
+in favour of the continued existence of the nation as a free state. In
+this fight, Lincoln was not only, as the contest was finally shaped, the
+original leader; he was the final leader; and at the time of his death
+the great question had been decided for ever.
+
+Horace White, in summing up the issues that were fought out in debate
+between Lincoln and Douglas, says:
+
+"Forty-four years have passed away since the Civil War came to an end
+and we are now able to take a dispassionate view of the question in
+dispute. The people of the South are now generally agreed that the
+institution of slavery was a direful curse to both races. We of the
+North must confess that there was considerable foundation for the
+asserted right of States to secede. Although the Constitution did in
+distinct terms make the Federal Government supreme, it was not so
+understood at first by the people either North or South. Particularism
+prevailed everywhere at the beginning. Nationalism was an aftergrowth
+and a slow growth proceeding mainly from the habit into which people
+fell of finding their common centre of gravity at Washington City and of
+viewing it as the place whence the American name and fame were blazoned
+to the world. During the first half century of the Republic, the North
+and South were changing coats from time to time, on the subject of State
+Rights and the right to secede, but meanwhile the Constitution itself
+was working silently in the North to undermine the particularism of
+Jefferson and to strengthen the nationalism of Hamilton. It had
+accomplished its work in the early thirties, when it found its perfect
+expression in Webster's reply to Hayne. But the Southern people were
+just as firmly convinced that Hayne was the victor in that contest as
+the Northern people were that Webster was. The vast material interests
+bottomed on slavery offset and neutralised the unifying process in the
+South, while it continued its wholesome work in the North, and thus the
+clashing of ideas paved the way for the clash of arms. That the
+behaviour of the slaveholders resulted from the circumstances in which
+they were placed and not from any innate deviltry is a fact now conceded
+by all impartial men. It was conceded by Lincoln both before the War and
+during the War, and this fact accounts for the affection bestowed upon
+him by Southern hearts to-day."
+
+Lincoln carried into politics the same standard of consistency of action
+that had characterised his work at the Bar. He writes, in 1859, to a
+correspondent whom he was directing to further the organisation of the
+new party: "Do not, in order to secure recruits, lower the standard of
+the Republican party. The true problem for 1860, is to fight to prevent
+slavery from becoming national. We must, however, recognise its
+constitutional right to exist in the States in which its existence was
+recognised under the original Constitution." This position was
+unsatisfactory to the Whigs of the Border States who favoured a
+continuing division between Slave States and Free States of the
+territory yet to be organised into States. It was also unsatisfactory to
+the extreme anti-slavery Whigs of the new organisation who insisted upon
+throttling slavery where-ever it existed. It is probable that the raid
+made by John Brown, in 1859, into Virginia for the purpose of rousing
+the slaves to fight for their own liberty, had some immediate influence
+in checking the activity of the more extreme anti-slavery group and in
+strengthening the conservative side of the new organisation. Lincoln
+disapproved entirely of the purpose of Brown and his associates, while
+ready to give due respect to the idealistic courage of the man.
+
+In February, 1860, Lincoln was invited by certain of the Republican
+leaders in New York to deliver one of a series of addresses which had
+been planned to make clear to the voters the purposes and the
+foundations of the new party. His name had become known to the
+Republicans of the East through the debates with Douglas. It was
+recognised that Lincoln had taken the highest ground in regard to the
+principles of the new party, and that his counsels should prove of
+practical service in the shaping of the policy of the Presidential
+campaign. It was believed also that his influence would be of value in
+securing voters in the Middle West. The Committee of Invitation
+included, in addition to a group of the old Whigs (of whom my father was
+one), representative Free-soil Democrats like William C. Bryant and John
+King. Lincoln's methods as a political leader and orator were known to
+one or two men on the committee, but his name was still unfamiliar to an
+Eastern audience. It was understood that the new leader from the West
+was going to talk to New York about the fight against slavery. It is
+probable that at least the larger part of the audience expected
+something "wild and woolly." The West at that time seemed very far off
+from New York and was still but little understood by the Eastern
+communities. New Yorkers found it difficult to believe that a man who
+could influence Western audiences could have anything to say that would
+count with the cultivated citizens of the East. The more optimistic of
+the hearers were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry Clay had
+arisen and were looking for utterances of the ornate and grandiloquent
+kind such as they had heard frequently from Clay and from other
+statesmen of the South.
+
+The first impression of the man from the West did nothing to contradict
+the expectation of something weird, rough, and uncultivated. The long,
+ungainly figure upon which hung clothes that, while new for this trip,
+were evidently the work of an unskilful tailor; the large feet, the
+clumsy hands of which, at the outset, at least, the orator seemed to be
+unduly conscious; the long, gaunt head capped by a shock of hair that
+seemed not to have been thoroughly brushed out, made a picture which did
+not fit in with New York's conception of a finished statesman. The first
+utterance of the voice was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being harsh
+and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker
+seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and
+impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and
+the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the
+deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of devotion
+to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the speaker.
+In place of a "wild and woolly" talk, illumined by more or less
+incongruous anecdotes; in place of a high-strung exhortation of general
+principles or of a fierce protest against Southern arrogance, the New
+Yorkers had presented to them a calm but forcible series of
+well-reasoned considerations upon which their action as citizens was to
+be based. It was evident that the man from the West understood
+thoroughly the constitutional history of the country; he had mastered
+the issues that had grown up about the slavery question; he knew
+thoroughly, and was prepared to respect, the rights of his political
+opponents; he knew with equal thoroughness the rights of the men whose
+views he was helping to shape and he insisted that there should be no
+wavering or weakening in regard to the enforcement of those rights; he
+made it clear that the continued existence of the nation depended upon
+having these issues equitably adjusted and he held that the equitable
+adjustment meant the restriction of slavery within its present
+boundaries. He maintained that such restrictions were just and necessary
+as well for the sake of fairness to the blacks as for the final welfare
+of the whites. He insisted that the voters in the present States in the
+Union had upon them the largest possible measure of responsibility in so
+controlling the great domain of the Republic that the States of the
+future, the States in which their children and their grandchildren were
+to grow up as citizens, must be preserved in full liberty, must be
+protected against any invasion of an institution which represented
+barbarity. He maintained that such a contention could interfere in no
+way with the due recognition of the legitimate property rights of the
+present owners of slaves. He pointed out to the New Englander of the
+anti-slavery group that the restriction of slavery meant its early
+extermination. He insisted that war for the purpose of exterminating
+slavery from existing slave territory could not be justified. He was
+prepared, for the purpose of defending against slavery the national
+territory that was still free, to take the risk of the war which the
+South threatened because he believed that only through such defence
+could the existence of the nation be maintained; and he believed,
+further, that the maintenance of the great Republic was essential, not
+only for the interests of its own citizens, but for the interests of
+free government throughout the world. He spoke with full sympathy of the
+difficulties and problems resting upon the South, and he insisted that
+the matters at issue could be adjusted only with a fair recognition of
+these difficulties. Aggression from either side of Mason and Dixon's
+Line must be withstood.
+
+I was but a boy when I first looked upon the gaunt figure of the man who
+was to become the people's leader, and listened to his calm but forcible
+arguments in behalf of the principles of the Republican party. It is not
+likely that at the time I took in, with any adequate appreciation, the
+weight of the speaker's reasoning. I have read the address more than
+once since and it is, of course, impossible to separate my first
+impressions from my later direct knowledge. I do remember that I was at
+once impressed with the feeling that here was a political leader whose
+methods differed from those of any politician to whom I had listened.
+His contentions were based not upon invective or abuse of "the other
+fellow," but purely on considerations of justice, on that everlasting
+principle that what is just, and only what is just, represents the
+largest and highest interests of the nation as a whole. I doubt whether
+there occurred in the whole speech a single example of the stories which
+had been associated with Lincoln's name. The speaker was evidently
+himself impressed with the greatness of the opportunity and with the
+dignity and importance of his responsibility. The speech in fact gave
+the keynote to the coming campaign.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add that it also decided the selection of the
+national leader not only for the political campaign, but through the
+coming struggle. If it had not been for the impression made upon New
+York and the East generally by Lincoln's speech and by the man himself,
+the vote of New York could not have been secured in the May convention
+for the nomination of the man from Illinois.
+
+Robert Lincoln (writing to me in July, 1908) says:
+
+    "After my father's address in New York in February, 1860, he made a
+    trip to New England in order to visit me at Exeter, N.H., where I
+    was then a student in the Phillips Academy. It had not been his plan
+    to do any speaking in New England, but, as a result of the address
+    in New York, he received several requests from New England friends
+    for speeches, and I find that before returning to the West, he spoke
+    at the following places: Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., Exeter,
+    N.H., Dover, N.H., Concord, N.H., Hartford, Conn., Meriden, Conn.,
+    New Haven, Conn., Woonsocket, R.I., Norwalk, Conn., and Bridgeport,
+    Conn. I am quite sure that coming and going he passed through
+    Boston merely as an unknown traveller."
+
+Mr. Lincoln writes to his wife from Exeter, N.H., March 4, 1860, as
+follows:
+
+    "I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had foreseen it, I
+    think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New York,
+    being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well
+    and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine
+    others, before reading audiences who had already seen all my ideas
+    in print."[1]
+
+An edition of Mr. Lincoln's address was brought into print in September,
+1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, with notes by
+Charles C. Nott (later Colonel, and after the war Judge of the Court of
+Claims in Washington) and Cephas Brainerd. The publication of this
+pamphlet shows that as early as September, 1860, the historic importance
+and permanent value of this speech were fairly realised by the national
+leaders of the day. In the preface to the reprint, the editors say:
+
+    "The address is characterised by wisdom, truthfulness and learning
+    ...From the first line to the last--from his premises to his
+    conclusion, the speaker travels with a swift, unerring directness
+    that no logician has ever excelled. His argument is complete and is
+    presented without the affectation of learning, and without the
+    stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details ...A single
+    simple sentence contains a chapter of history that has taken days of
+    labour to verify, and that must have cost the author months of
+    investigation to acquire. The reader may take up this address as a
+    political pamphlet, but he will leave it as an historical
+    treatise--brief, complete, perfect, sound, impartial truth--which
+    will serve the time and the occasion that called it forth, and which
+    will be esteemed hereafter no less for its unpretending modesty than
+    for its intrinsic worth."[2]
+
+Horace White, who was himself present at the Chicago Convention, writes
+(in 1909) as follows:
+
+    "To anybody looking back at the Republican National Convention of
+    1860, it must be plain that there were only two men who had any
+    chance of being nominated for President.
+
+    "These were Lincoln and Seward. I was present at the Convention as a
+    spectator and I knew this fact at the time, but it seemed to me at
+    the beginning that Seward's chances were the better. One third of
+    the delegates of Illinois preferred Seward and expected to vote for
+    him after a few complimentary ballots for Lincoln. If there had been
+    no Lincoln in the field, Seward would certainly have been nominated
+    and then the course of history would have been very different from
+    what it was, for if Seward had been nominated and elected there
+    would have been no forcible opposition to the withdrawal of such
+    States as then desired to secede. And as a consequence the
+    Republican party would have been rent in twain and disabled from
+    making effectual resistance to other demands of the South.
+
+    "It was Seward's conviction that the policy of non-coercion would
+    have quieted the secession movement in the Border States and that
+    the Gulf States would, after a while, have returned to the Union
+    like repentant prodigal sons. His proposal to Lincoln to seek a
+    quarrel with four European nations, who had done us no harm, in
+    order to arouse a feeling of Americanism in the Confederate States,
+    was an outgrowth of this conviction. It was an indefensible
+    proposition, akin to that which prompted Bismarck to make use of
+    France as an anvil on which to hammer and weld Germany together, but
+    it was not an unpatriotic one, since it was bottomed on a desire to
+    preserve the Union without civil war."
+
+Never was a political leadership more fairly, more nobly, and more
+reasonably won. When the ballot boxes were opened on the first Tuesday
+in November, Lincoln was found to have secured the electoral vote of
+every Northern State except New Jersey, and in New Jersey four electors
+out of seven. Breckinridge, the leader of the extreme Southern
+Democrats, had back of him only the votes of the Southern States outside
+of the Border States, these latter being divided between Bell and
+Douglas. Douglas and his shallow theories of "squatter sovereignty" had
+been buried beneath the good sense of the voters of the North.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+NATIONAL EXISTENCE
+
+
+After the election of November, 1860, events moved swiftly. On the 20th
+of December, comes the first act of the Civil War, the secession of
+South Carolina. The secession of Georgia had for a time been delayed by
+the influence of Alexander H. Stephens who, on the 14th of November, had
+made a great argument for the maintenance of the Union. His chief local
+opponent at the time was Robert Toombs, the Southern leader who proposed
+in the near future to "call the roll-call of his slaves on Bunker Hill."
+Lincoln was still hopeful of saving to the cause of the Union the Border
+States and the more conservative divisions of States, like North
+Carolina, which had supported the Whig party.
+
+In December, we find correspondence between Lincoln and Gilmer of North
+Carolina, whom he had known in Washington. "The essential difference,"
+says Lincoln, "between your group and mine is that you hold slavery to
+be in itself desirable and as something to be extended. I hold it to be
+an essential evil which, with due regard to existing rights, must be
+restricted and in the near future exterminated."
+
+On the 23d of February, 1861, Lincoln reaches Washington where he is to
+spend a weary and anxious two weeks of waiting for the burden of his new
+responsibilities. He is at this time fifty-two years of age. In one of
+his brief addresses on the way to Washington he says:
+
+    "It is but little to a man of my age, but a great deal to thirty
+    millions of the citizens of the United States, and to posterity in
+    all coming time, if the Union of the States and the liberties of the
+    people are to be lost. If the majority is not to rule, who would be
+    the judge of the issue or where is such judge to be found?"
+
+It is difficult to imagine a more exasperating condition of affairs than
+obtained in Washington while Lincoln was awaiting the day of
+inauguration. The government appeared to be crumbling away under the
+nerveless direction, or lack of direction, of President Buchanan and his
+associates. In his last message to Congress, Buchanan had taken the
+ground that the Constitution made no provision for the secession of
+States or for the breaking up of the Union; but that it also failed to
+contain any provision for measures that could prevent such secession and
+the consequent destruction of the nation. The old gentleman appeared to
+be entirely unnerved by the pressure of events. He could not see any
+duty before him. He certainly failed to realise that the more immediate
+cause of the storm was the breaking down, through the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise, of the barriers that had in 1820, and in 1850, been
+placed against the extension of slavery. He evidently failed to
+understand that it was his own action in backing up the infamous
+Lecompton Constitution, and the invasion of Kansas by the slave-owners,
+which had finally aroused the spirit of the North, and further that it
+was the influence of his administration which had given to the South the
+belief that it was now in a position to control for slavery the whole
+territory of the Republic.
+
+It has before now been pointed out that, under certain contingencies,
+the long interval between the national election and the inaugural of the
+new President from the first Tuesday in November until the fourth day of
+March must, in not a few instances, bring inconvenience, disadvantage,
+and difficulty not only to the new administration but to the nation.
+These months in which the members of an administration which had
+practically committed itself to the cause of disintegration, were left
+in charge of the resources of the nation gave a most serious example and
+evidence of such disadvantage. This historic instance ought to have been
+utilised immediately after the War as an influence for bringing about a
+change in the date for bringing into power the administration that has
+been chosen in November.
+
+By the time when Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet had placed in
+their hands the responsibilities of administration, the resources at the
+disposal of the government had, as far as practicable, been scattered or
+rendered unavailable. The Secretary of the Navy, a Southerner, had taken
+pains to send to the farthest waters of the Pacific as many as possible
+of the vessels of the American fleet; the Secretary of War, also a
+Southerner, had for months been busy in transferring to the arsenals of
+the South the guns and ammunition that had been stored in the Federal
+arsenals of the North; the Secretary of the Treasury had had no
+difficulty in disposing of government funds in one direction or another
+so that there was practically no balance to hand over to his successor
+available for the most immediate necessities of the new administration.
+
+One of the sayings quoted from Washington during these weeks was the
+answer given by Count Gurowski to the inquiry, "Is there anything in
+addition this morning?" "No," said Gurowski, "it is all in subtraction."
+
+By the day of the inaugural, the secession of seven States was an
+accomplished fact and the government of the Confederacy had already been
+organised in Montgomery. Alexander H. Stephens had so far modified his
+original position that he had accepted the post of Vice-President and in
+his own inaugural address had used the phrase, "Slavery is the
+corner-stone of our new nation," a phrase that was to make much mischief
+in Europe for the hopes of the new Confederacy.
+
+In the first inaugural, one of the great addresses in a noteworthy
+series, Lincoln presented to the attention of the leaders of the South
+certain very trenchant arguments against the wisdom of their course. He
+says of secession for the purpose of preserving the institution of
+slavery:
+
+    "You complain that under the government of the United States your
+    slaves have from time to time escaped across your borders and have
+    not been returned to you. Their value as property has been lessened
+    by the fact that adjoining your Slave States were certain States
+    inhabited by people who did not believe in your institution. How is
+    this condition going to be changed by war even under the assumption
+    that the war may be successful in securing your independence? Your
+    slave territory will still adjoin territory inhabited by free men
+    who are inimical to your institution; but these men will no longer
+    be bound by any of the restrictions which have obtained under the
+    Constitution. They will not have to give consideration to the rights
+    of slave-owners who are fellow-citizens. Your slaves will escape as
+    before and you will have no measure of redress. Your indignation may
+    produce further wars, but the wars can but have the same result
+    until finally, after indefinite loss of life and of resources, the
+    institution will have been hammered out of existence by the
+    inevitable conditions of existing civilisation."
+
+Lincoln points out further in this same address the difference between
+his responsibilities and those of the Southern leaders who are
+organising for war. "You," he says, "have no oath registered in Heaven
+to destroy this government, while I have the most solemn oath to
+preserve, direct, and defend it."
+
+    "It was not necessary," says Lincoln, "for the Constitution to
+    contain any provision expressly forbidding the disintegration of the
+    state; perpetuity and the right to maintain self-existence will be
+    considered as a fundamental law of all national government. If the
+    theory be accepted that the United States was an association or
+    federation of communities, the creation or continued existence of
+    such federation must rest upon contract; and before such contract
+    can be rescinded, the consent is required of both or of all of the
+    parties assenting to it."
+
+He closes with the famous invocation to the fellow Americans of the
+South against whom throughout the whole message there had not been one
+word of bitterness or rancour: "We are not enemies but friends. We must
+not be enemies. Though passion may have strained our relations, it must
+not break our bonds of affection."
+
+It was, however, too late for argument, and too late for invocations of
+friendship. The issue had been forced by the South and the war for which
+the leaders of the South had for months, if not for years, been making
+preparation was now to be begun by Southern action. It remained to make
+clear to the North, where the people up to the last moment had been
+unwilling to believe in the possibility of civil war, that the nation
+could be preserved only by fighting for its existence. It remained to
+organise the men of the North into armies which should be competent to
+carry out this tremendous task of maintaining the nation's existence.
+
+It was just after the great inaugural and when his head must have been
+full of cares and his hands of work, that Lincoln took time to write a
+touching little note that I find in his correspondence. It was addressed
+to a boy who had evidently spoken with natural pride of having met the
+President and whose word had been questioned:
+
+    "The White House, March 18, 1861.
+
+    "I did see and talk in May last at Springfield, Illinois, with
+    Master George Edward Patten."
+
+With the beginning of the work of the administration, came trouble with
+the members of the Cabinet. The several secretaries were, in form at
+least, the choice of the President, but as must always be the case in
+the shaping of a Cabinet, and as was particularly necessary at a time
+when it was of first importance to bring into harmonious relations all
+of the political groups of the North which were prepared to be loyal to
+the government, the men who took office in the first Cabinet of Lincoln
+represented not any personal preference of the President, but political
+or national requirements. The Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, had, as we
+know, been Lincoln's leading opponent for the Presidential nomination
+and had expressed with some freedom of criticism his disappointment that
+he, the natural leader of the party, should be put to one side for an
+uncultivated, inexperienced Westerner. Mr. Seward possessed both
+experience and culture; more than this, he was a scholar, and came of a
+long line of gentlefolk. He had public spirit, courage, legitimate
+political ambition, and some of the qualities of leadership. His nature
+was, however, not quite large enough to stand the pressure of political
+disappointment nor quite elastic enough to develop rapidly under the
+tremendous urgency of absolutely new requirements. It is in evidence
+that more than once in the management of the complex and serious
+difficulties of the State Department during the years of war, Seward
+lost his head. It is also on record that the wise-minded and fair-minded
+President was able to supply certain serious gaps and deficiencies in
+the direction of the work of the Department, and further that his
+service was so rendered as to save the dignity and the repute of the
+Secretary. Seward's subjectivity, not to say vanity, was great, and it
+took some little time before he was able to realise that his was not the
+first mind or the strongest will-power in the new administration. On the
+first of April, 1861, less than thirty days after the organisation of
+the Cabinet, Seward writes to Lincoln complaining that the "government
+had as yet no policy; that its action seemed to be simply drifting";
+that there was a lack of any clear-minded control in the direction of
+affairs within the Cabinet, in the presentation to the people of the
+purposes of the government, and in the shaping of the all-important
+relations with foreign states. "Who," said Seward, "is to control the
+national policy?" The letter goes on to suggest that Mr. Seward is
+willing to take the responsibility, leaving, if needs be, the credit to
+the nominal chief. The letter was a curious example of the weakness and
+of the bumptiousness of the man, while it gave evidence also, it is fair
+to say, of a real public-spirited desire that things should go right and
+that the nation should be saved. It was evident that he had as yet no
+adequate faith in the capacity of the President.
+
+Lincoln's answer was characteristic of the man. There was no irritation
+with the bumptiousness, no annoyance at the lack of confidence on the
+part of his associate. He states simply: "There must, of course, be
+control and the responsibility for this control must rest with me." He
+points out further that the general policy of the administration had
+been outlined in the inaugural, that no action since taken had been
+inconsistent with this. The necessary preparations for the defence of
+the government were in train and, as the President trusted, were being
+energetically pushed forward by the several department heads. "I have a
+right," said Lincoln, "to expect loyal co-operation from my associates
+in the Cabinet. I need their counsel and the nation needs the best
+service that can be secured from our united wisdom." The letter of
+Seward was put away and appears never to have been referred to between
+the two men. It saw the light only after the President's death. If he
+had lived it might possibly have been suppressed altogether. A month
+later, Seward said to a friend, "There is in the Cabinet but one vote
+and that is cast by the President."
+
+The post next in importance under the existing war conditions was that
+of Secretary of War. The first man to hold this post was Simon Cameron
+of Pennsylvania. Cameron was very far from being a friend of Lincoln's.
+The two men had had no personal relations and what Lincoln knew of him
+he liked not at all. The appointment had been made under the pressure of
+the Republicans of Pennsylvania, a State whose support was, of course,
+all important for the administration. It was not the first nor the last
+time that the Republicans of this great State, whose Republicanism seems
+to be much safer than its judgment, have committed themselves to
+unworthy and undesirable representatives, men who were not fitted to
+stand for Pennsylvania and who were neither willing nor able to be of
+any service to the country. The appointment of Cameron had, as appears
+from the later history, been promised to Pennsylvania by Judge Davis in
+return for the support of the Pennsylvania delegation for the nomination
+of Lincoln. Lincoln knew nothing of the promise and was able to say with
+truth, and to prove, that he had authorised no promises and no
+engagements whatsoever. He had, in fact, absolutely prohibited Davis and
+the one or two other men who were supposed to have some right to speak
+for him in the convention, from the acceptance of any engagements or
+obligations whatsoever. Davis made the promise to Pennsylvania on his
+own responsibility and at his own risk; Lincoln felt under too much
+obligation to Davis for personal service and for friendly loyalty to be
+willing, when the claim was finally pressed, to put it to one side as
+unwarranted. The appointment of Cameron was made and proved to be
+expensive for the efficiency of the War Department and for the repute of
+the administration. It became necessary within a comparatively short
+period to secure his resignation. It was in evidence that he was
+trafficking in appointments and in contracts. He was replaced by Edwin
+M. Stanton, who was known later as "the Carnot of the War." Stanton's
+career as a lawyer had given him no direct experience of army affairs.
+He showed, however, exceptional ability, great will power, and an
+enormous capacity for work. He was ambitious, self-willed, and most
+arbitrary in deed and in speech. The difficulty with Stanton was that he
+was as likely to insult and to browbeat some loyal supporter of the
+government as to bring to book, and, when necessary, to crush, greedy
+speculators and disloyal tricksters. His judgment in regard to men was
+in fact very often at fault. He came into early and unnecessary conflict
+with his chief and he found there a will stronger than his own. The
+respect of the two men for each other grew into a cordial regard. Each
+recognised the loyalty of purpose and the patriotism by which the
+actions of both were influenced. Lincoln was able to some extent to
+soften and to modify the needless truculency of the great War Secretary,
+and notwithstanding a good deal of troublesome friction, armies were
+organised and the troops were sent to the front.
+
+The management of the Treasury, a responsibility hardly less in
+importance under the war conditions than that of the organisation of the
+armies, was placed in the hands of Senator Chase. He received from his
+precursor an empty treasury while from the administration came demands
+for immediate and rapidly increasing weekly supplies of funds. The task
+came upon him first of establishing a national credit and secondly of
+utilising this credit for loans such as the civilised world had not
+before known. The expenditures extended by leaps and bounds until by the
+middle of 1864 they had reached the sum of $2,000,000 a day. Blunders
+were made in large matters and in small, but, under the circumstances,
+blunders were not to be avoided and the chief purpose was carried out. A
+sufficient credit was established, first with the citizens at home and
+later with investors abroad, to make a market for the millions of bonds
+in the two great issues, the so-called seven-thirties and
+five-twenties. The sales of these bonds, together with a wide-reaching
+and, in fact, unduly complex system of taxation, secured the funds
+necessary for the support of the army and the navy. At the close of the
+War, the government, after meeting this expenditure, had a national war
+debt of something over four thousand millions of dollars. The gross
+indebtedness resulting from the War was of course, however, much larger
+because each State had incurred war expenditures and counties as well as
+States had issued bonds for the payment of bounties, etc. The criticism
+was made at the time by the opponents of the financial system which was
+shaped by the Committee of Ways and Means in co-operation with the
+Secretary, a criticism that has often been repeated since, that the War
+expenditure would have been much less if the amounts needed beyond what
+could be secured by present taxation had been supplied entirely by the
+proceeds of bonds. In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the
+government issued currency to a large amount, which was made legal
+tender and which on the face of it was not made subject to redemption.
+
+In addition to the bills ranging in denomination from one dollar to one
+thousand, the government brought into distribution what was called
+"postal currency." I landed in New York in August, 1862, having returned
+from a University in Germany for the purpose of enlisting in the army. I
+was amused to see my father make payment in the restaurant for my first
+lunch in postage stamps. He picked the requisite number, or the number
+that he believed would be requisite, from a ball of stamps which had,
+under the influence of the summer heat, stuck together so closely as to
+be very difficult to handle. Many of the stamps were in fact practically
+destroyed and were unavailable. Some question arose between the
+restaurant keeper and my father as to the availability of one or two of
+the stamps that had been handed over. My father explained to me that
+immediately after the outbreak of the War, specie, including even the
+nickels and copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, and the
+people had been utilising for the small change necessary for current
+operations the postage stamps, a use which, in connection with the large
+percentage of destruction, was profitable to the government, but
+extravagant for the community. A little later, the postal department was
+considerate enough to bring into print a series of postage stamps
+without any gum on the back. These could, of course, be handled more
+easily, but were still seriously perishable. Towards the close of the
+year, the Treasury department printed from artistically engraved plates
+a baby currency in notes of about two and a half inches long by one and
+a half inches wide. The denominations comprised ten cents, fifteen
+cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and seventy-five cents. The
+fifteen cents and the seventy-five cents were not much called for, and
+were probably not printed more than once. They would now be scarce as
+curiosities. The postal currency was well printed on substantial paper,
+but in connection with the large requirement for handling that is always
+placed upon small currency, these little paper notes became very dirty
+and were easily used up. The government must have made a large profit
+from the percentage that was destroyed. The necessary effect of this
+distribution of government "I.O.U.'s," based not upon any redemption
+fund of gold but merely upon the general credit of the government, was
+to appreciate the value of gold. In June, 1863, just before the battle
+of Gettysburg, the depreciation of this paper currency, which
+represented of course the appreciation of gold, was in the ratio of 100
+to 290. It happened that the number 290, which marked the highest price
+reached by gold during the War, was the number that had been given in
+Laird's ship-yard (on the Mersey) to the Confederate cruiser _Alabama_.
+
+Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary of the Treasury but an
+ambitious, active-minded, and intriguing politician. He represented in
+the administration the more extreme anti-slavery group. He was one of
+those who favoured from the beginning immediate action on the part of
+the government in regard to the slaves in the territory that was still
+controlled by the government. It is doubtless the case that he held
+these anti-slavery views as a matter of honest conviction. It is in
+evidence also from his correspondence that he connected with these views
+the hope and the expectation of becoming President. His scheming for the
+nomination for 1864 was carried on with the machinery that he had at his
+disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The issues between Chase and
+Seward and between Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The pressure
+on the part of the conservative Republicans to get Chase out of the
+Cabinet was considerable. Lincoln, believing that his service was
+valuable, refused to be influenced by any feeling of personal antagonism
+or personal rivalry. He held on to the Secretary until the last year of
+the War, when deciding that the Cabinet could then work more smoothly
+without him, he accepted his resignation. Even then, however, although
+he had had placed in his hands a note indicating a measure of what might
+be called personal disloyalty on the part of Chase, Lincoln was
+unwilling to lose his service for the country and appointed him as Chief
+Justice.
+
+Montgomery Blair was put into the Cabinet as Postmaster-General more
+particularly as the representative of the loyalists of the Border
+States. His father was a leader in politics in Missouri, in which the
+family had long been of importance. His brother, Frank P. Blair, served
+with credit in the army, reaching the rank of Major-General. The Blair
+family was quite ready to fight for the Union, but was very unwilling to
+do any fighting for the black man. They wanted the Union restored as it
+had been, Missouri Compromise and all. It was Blair who had occasion
+from time to time to point out, and with perfect truth, that if, through
+the influence of Chase and of the men back of Chase in Massachusetts and
+northern Ohio, immediate action should be taken to abolish slavery in
+the Border States, fifty thousand men who had marched out of those
+States to the support of the Union might be and probably would be
+recalled. "By a stroke of the pen," said Blair, "Missouri, eastern
+Tennessee, western Maryland, loyal Kentucky, now loyally supporting the
+cause of the nation, will be thrown into the arms of the Confederacy."
+During the first two years of the War, and in fact up to September,
+1863, the views of Blair and his associates prevailed, and with the
+fuller history before us, we may conclude that it was best that they
+should have prevailed. This was, at least, the conclusion of Lincoln,
+the one man who knew no sectional prejudices, who had before him all the
+information and all the arguments, and who had upon him the pressure
+from all quarters. It was not easy under the circumstances to keep peace
+between Blair and Chase. Probably no man but Lincoln could have met the
+requirement.
+
+The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, while not a
+man of brilliancy or of great initiative, appears to have done his part
+quietly and effectively in the great work of the building and organising
+of a new fleet. He contributed nothing to the friction of the Cabinet
+and he was from the beginning a loyal supporter of the President. What
+we know now about the issues that arose between the different members
+of the Cabinet family comes to us chiefly through the Diary of Welles,
+who has described with apparent impartiality the idiosyncrasies of each
+of the secretaries and whose references to the tact, patience, and
+gracefully exercised will-power of the President are fully in line with
+the best estimates of Lincoln's character.
+
+One of the first and most difficult tasks confronting the President and
+his secretaries in the organisation of the army and of the navy was in
+the matter of the higher appointments. The army had always been a
+favourite provision for the men from the South. The representatives of
+Southern families were, as a rule, averse to trade and there were, in
+fact, under the more restricted conditions of business in the Southern
+States, comparatively few openings for trading on the larger or
+mercantile scale. As a result of this preference, the cadetships in West
+Point and the commissions in the army had been held in much larger
+proportion (according to the population) by men of Southern birth. This
+was less the case in the navy because the marine interests of New
+England and of the Middle States had educated a larger number of
+Northern men for naval interests. When the war began, a very
+considerable number of the best trained and most valuable officers in
+the army resigned to take part with their States. The army lost the
+service of men like Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, and many others. A few
+good Southerners, such as Thomas of Virginia and Anderson of Kentucky,
+took the ground that their duty to the Union and to the flag was greater
+than their obligation to their State. In the navy, Maury, Semmes,
+Buchanan, and other men of ability resigned their commissions and
+devoted themselves to the (by no means easy) task of building up a navy
+for the South; but Farragut of Tennessee remained with the navy to carry
+the flag of his country to New Orleans and to Mobile.
+
+It was easy and natural during the heat of 1861 to characterise as
+traitors the men who went with their States to fight against the flag of
+their country. Looking at the matter now, forty-seven years later, we
+are better able to estimate the character and the integrity of the
+motives by which they were actuated. We do not need to-day to use the
+term traitors for men like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all unnatural
+that with their understanding of the government of the States in which
+they had been born, and with their belief that these States had a right
+to take action for themselves, they should have decided that their
+obligation lay to the State rather than to what they had persisted in
+thinking of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. We may rather
+believe that Lee was as honest in his way as Thomas and Farragut in
+theirs, but the view that the United States is a nation has been
+maintained through the loyal services of the men who held with Thomas
+and with Farragut.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+On April 12, 1861, came with the bombardment of Fort Sumter the actual
+beginning of the War. The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted
+all suggestions for any such immediate action on the part of the
+government as would place upon the North the responsibility for the
+opening of hostilities. Shortly after the fall of Sumter, a despatch was
+drafted by Seward for the guidance of American ministers abroad. The
+first reports in regard to the probable action of European governments
+gave the impression that the sympathy of these governments was largely
+with the South. In France and England, expressions had been used by
+leading officials which appeared to foreshadow an early recognition of
+the Confederacy. Seward's despatch as first drafted was unwisely angry
+and truculent in tone. If brought into publication, it would probably
+have increased the antagonism of the men who were ruling England. It
+appeared in fact to foreshadow war with England. Seward had assumed that
+England was going to take active part with the South and was at once
+throwing down the gauntlet of defiance. It was Lincoln who insisted that
+this was no time, whatever might be the provocation, for the United
+States to be shaking its fist at Europe. The despatch was reworded and
+the harsh and angry expressions were eliminated. The right claimed by
+the United States, in common with all nations, to maintain its own
+existence was set forth with full force, while it was also made clear
+that the nation was strong enough to maintain its rights against all
+foes whether within or without its boundaries. It is rather strange to
+recall that throughout the relations of the two men, it was the trained
+and scholarly statesman of the East who had to be repressed for unwise
+truculency and that the repression was done under the direction of the
+comparatively inexperienced representative of the West, the man who had
+been dreaded by the conservative Republicans of New York as likely to
+introduce into the national policy "wild and woolly" notions.
+
+In Lincoln's first message to Congress, he asks the following question:
+"Must a government be of necessity too strong for the liberties of its
+own people or too weak to maintain its own existence? Is there in all
+republics this inherent weakness?" The people of the United States were
+able under the wise leadership of Lincoln to answer this question "no."
+Lincoln begins at once with the public utterances of the first year of
+the War to take the people of the United States into his confidence. He
+is their representative, their servant. He reasons out before the
+people, as if it constituted a great jury, the analysis of their
+position, of their responsibilities, and the grounds on which as their
+representative this or that decision is arrived at. Says Schurz:
+"Lincoln wielded the powers of government when stern resolution and
+relentless force were the order of the day, and, won and ruled the
+popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature."
+
+The attack on Sumter placed upon the administration the duty of
+organising at once for the contest now inevitable the forces of the
+country. This work of organisation came at best but late because those
+who were fighting to break up the nation had their preparations well
+advanced. The first call for troops directed the governors of the loyal
+States to supply seventy-five thousand men for the restoration of the
+authority of the government. Massachusetts was the first State to
+respond by despatching to the front, within twenty-four hours of the
+publication of the call, its Sixth Regiment of Militia; the Seventh of
+New York started twenty-four hours later. The history of the passage of
+the Sixth through Baltimore, of the attack upon the columns, and of the
+deaths, in the resulting affray, of soldiers and of citizens has often
+been told. When word came to Washington that Baltimore was obstructing
+the passage of troops bound southward, troops called for the defence of
+the capital, the isolation of the government became sadly apparent. For
+a weary and anxious ten days, Lincoln and his associates were dreading
+from morning to morning the approach over the long bridge of the troops
+from Virginia whose camp-fires could be seen from the southern windows
+of the White House, and were looking anxiously northward for the arrival
+of the men on whose prompt service the safety of the capital was to
+depend. I have myself stood in Lincoln's old study, the windows of which
+overlook the Potomac, and have recalled to mind the fearful pressure of
+anxiety that must have weighed upon the President during those long
+days; as looking across the river, he could trace by the smoke the
+picket lines of the Virginia troops. He must have thought of the
+possibility that he was to be the last President of the United States,
+that the torch handed over to him by the faltering hands of his
+predecessor was to expire while he was responsible for the flame. The
+immediate tension was finally broken by the appearance of the weary and
+battered companies of the Massachusetts troops and the arrival two days
+later, by the way of Annapolis, of the New York Seventh with an
+additional battalion from Boston.
+
+It was, however, not only in April, 1861, that the capital was in peril.
+The anxiety of the President (never for himself but only for his
+responsibilities) was to be repeated in July, 1863, when Lee was in
+Maryland, and in July, 1864, at the time of Early's raid.
+
+We may remember the peculiar burdens that come upon the
+commander-in-chief through his position at the rear of the armies he is
+directing. The rear of a battle is, even in the time of victory, a place
+of demoralising influence. It takes a man of strong nerve not to lose
+heart when the only people with whom he is in immediate contact are
+those who through disability or discouragement are making their way to
+the rear. The sutlers, the teamsters, the wounded men, the panic-struck
+(and with the best of soldiers certain groups do lose heart from time to
+time, men who in another action when started right are ready to take
+their full share of the fighting)--these are the groups that in any
+action are streaming to the rear. It is impossible not to be affected by
+the undermining of their spirits and of their hopefulness. If the battle
+is going wrongly, if in addition to those who are properly making their
+way to the rear, there come also bodies of troops pushed out of their
+position who have lost heart and who have lost faith in their
+commanders, the pressure towards demoralisation is almost irresistible.
+
+We may recall that during the entire four years of War, Lincoln, the
+commander-in-chief, was always in the rear. Difficult as was the task of
+the men who led columns into action, of the generals in the field who
+had the immediate responsibility for the direction of those columns and
+of the fighting line, it was in no way to be compared with the pressure
+and sadness of the burden of the man who stood back of all the lines,
+and to whom came all the discouragements, the complaints, the growls,
+the criticisms, the requisitions or demands for resources that were not
+available, the reports of disasters, sometimes exaggerated and
+sometimes unduly smoothed over, the futile suggestions, the conflicting
+counsels, the indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the self-seeking
+applications, that poured into the White House from all points of the
+field of action and from all parts of the Border States and of the
+North. The man who during four years could stand that kind of battering
+and pressure and who, instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of
+him, instead of losing heart or power of direction or the full control
+of his responsibilities, steadily developed in patience, in strength, in
+width of nature, and in the wisdom of experience, so that he was able
+not only to keep heart firm and mind clear but to give to the soldiers
+in the front and to the nation behind the soldiers the influence of his
+great heart and clear mind and of his firm purpose, that man had within
+him the nature of the hero. Selected in time of need to bear the burdens
+of the nation, he was able so to fulfil his responsibilities that he
+takes place in the world's history as a leader of men.
+
+In July, 1861, one of the special problems to be adjusted was the
+attitude of the Border States. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West
+Virginia had not been willing at the outset to cast in their lot with
+the South, but they were not prepared to give any assured or active
+support to the authority of the national government. The Governor and
+the Legislature of Kentucky issued a proclamation of neutrality; they
+demanded that the soil of the State should be respected and that it
+should not be traversed by armed forces from either side. The Governor
+of Missouri, while not able to commit the State to secession, did have
+behind him what was possibly a majority of the citizens in the policy of
+attempting to prevent the Federal troops from entering the State.
+Maryland, or at least eastern Maryland, was sullen and antagonistic.
+Thousands of the Marylanders had in fact already made their way into
+Virginia for service with the Confederacy. On the other hand, there were
+also thousands of loyal citizens in these States who were prepared,
+under proper guidance and conservative management, to give their own
+direct aid to the cause of nationality. In the course of the succeeding
+two years, the Border States sent into the field in the Union ranks some
+fifty thousand men. At certain points of the conflict, the presence of
+these Union men of Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri was the
+deciding factor. While these men were willing to fight for the Union,
+they were strongly opposed to being used for the destruction of slavery
+and for the freeing of the blacks. The acceptance, therefore, of the
+policy that was pressed by the extreme anti-slavery group, for immediate
+action in regard to the freeing of the slaves, would have meant at once
+the dissatisfaction of this great body of loyalists important in number
+and particularly important on account of their geographical position.
+Lincoln was able, although with no little difficulty, to hold back the
+pressure of Northern sentiment in regard to anti-slavery action until
+the course of the War had finally committed the loyalists of the Border
+States to the support of the Union. For the support of this policy, it
+became necessary to restrain certain of the leaders in the field who
+were mixing up civil and constitutional matters with their military
+responsibilities. Proclamations issued by Fremont in Missouri and later
+by Hunter in South Carolina, giving freedom to the slaves within the
+territory of their departments, were promptly and properly disavowed.
+Said Lincoln: "A general cannot be permitted to make laws for the
+district in which he happens to have an army."
+
+The difficulties in regard to the matter of slavery during the war
+brought Lincoln into active correspondence with men like Beecher and
+Greeley, anti-slavery leaders who enjoyed a large share of popular
+confidence and support. In November, 1861, Lincoln says of Greeley: "His
+backing is as good as that of an army of one hundred thousand men."
+There could be no question of the earnest loyalty of Horace Greeley.
+Under his management, the New York _Tribune_ had become a great force in
+the community. The paper represented perhaps more nearly than any paper
+in the country the purpose and the policy of the new Republican party.
+Unfortunately, Mr. Greeley's judgment and width of view did not develop
+with his years and with the increasing influence of his journal. He
+became unduly self-sufficient; he undertook not only to lay down a
+policy for the guidance of the constitutional responsibilities of the
+government, but to dictate methods for the campaigns. The _Tribune_
+articles headed "On to Richmond!" while causing irritation to commanders
+in the field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens at home, were
+finally classed with the things to be laughed at. In the later years of
+the War, the influence of the _Tribune_ declined very considerably.
+Henry J. Raymond with his newly founded _Times_ succeeded to some of the
+power as a journalist that had been wielded by Greeley.
+
+In November, 1861, occurred an incident which for a time threatened a
+very grave international complication, a complication that would, if
+unwisely handled, have determined the fate of the Republic. Early in the
+year, the Confederate government had sent certain representatives across
+the Atlantic to do what might be practicable to enlist the sympathies of
+European governments, or of individuals in these governments, to make a
+market for the Confederate cotton bonds, to arrange for the purchase of
+supplies for the army and navy, and to secure the circulation of
+documents presenting the case of the South. Mr. Yancey of Mississippi
+was the best-known of this first group of emissaries. With him was
+associated Judge Mann of Virginia and it was Mann who in November, 1861,
+was in charge of the London office of the Confederacy. In this month,
+Mr. Davis appointed as successor to Mann, Mr. Mason of Virginia, to whom
+was given a more formal authorisation of action. At the same time, Judge
+Slidell of Louisiana was appointed as the representative to France.
+Mason and Slidell made their way to Jamaica and sailed from Jamaica to
+Liverpool in the British mail steamer _Trent_. Captain Charles Wilkes,
+in the United States frigate _San Jacinto_, had been watching the West
+Indies waters with reference to blockade runners and to Wilkes came
+knowledge of the voyage of the two emissaries. Wilkes took the
+responsibility of stopping the _Trent_ when she was a hundred miles or
+more out of Kingston and of taking from her as prisoners the two
+commissioners. The commissioners were brought to Boston and were there
+kept under arrest awaiting the decision from Washington as to their
+status. This stopping on the high seas of a British steamer brought out
+a great flood of indignation in Great Britain. It gave to Palmerston and
+Russell, who were at that time in charge of the government, the
+opportunity for which they had been looking to place on the side of the
+Confederacy the weight of the influence of Great Britain. It
+strengthened the hopes of Louis Napoleon for carrying out, in
+conjunction with Great Britain, a scheme that he had formulated under
+which France was to secure a western empire in Mexico, leaving England
+to do what she might find convenient in the adjustment of the affairs of
+the so-called United States.
+
+The first report secured from the law officers of the Crown took the
+ground that the capture was legal under international law and under the
+practice of Great Britain itself. This report was, however, pushed to
+one side, and Palmerston drafted a demand for the immediate surrender of
+the commissioners. This demand was so worded that a self-respecting
+government would have had great difficulty in assenting to it without
+risk of forfeiting support with its own citizens. It was in fact
+intended to bring about a state of war. Under the wise influence of
+Prince Albert, Queen Victoria refused to give her approval to the
+document. It was reworded by Albert in such fashion as to give to the
+government of the United States an opportunity for adjustment without
+loss of dignity. Albert was clear in his mind that Great Britain ought
+not to be committed to war for the destruction of the great Republic of
+the West and for the establishment of a state of which the corner-stone
+was slavery. Fortunately, Victoria was quite prepared to accept in this
+matter Albert's judgment. Palmerston protested and threatened
+resignation, but finally submitted.
+
+When the news of the capture of the commissioners came to Washington,
+Seward for once was in favour of a conservative rather than a truculent
+course of action. He advised that the commissioners should be
+surrendered at once rather than to leave to Great Britain the
+opportunity for making a dictatorial demand. Lincoln admitted the risk
+of such demand and the disadvantage of making the surrender under
+pressure, but he took the ground that if the United States waited for
+the British contention, a certain diplomatic advantage could be gained.
+When the demand came, Lincoln was able, with a rewording (not for the
+first time) of Seward's despatch, to take the ground that the government
+of the United States was "well pleased that Her Majesty's government
+should have finally accepted the old-time American contention that
+vessels of peace should not be searched on the high seas by vessels of
+war." It may be recalled that the exercise of the right of search had
+been one of the most important of the grievances which had brought about
+the War of 1812-1814. In the discussion of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814,
+the English and American commissioners, while agreeing that this right
+of search must be given up, had not been able to arrive at a form of
+words, satisfactory to both parties, for its revocation. Both sets of
+commissioners were very eager to bring their proceedings to a close. The
+Americans could of course not realise that if they had waited a few
+weeks the news of the battle of New Orleans, fought in January, 1815,
+would have greatly strengthened their position. It was finally agreed
+"as between gentlemen" that the right of search should be no longer
+exercised by Great Britain. This right was, however, not formally
+abrogated until December, 1861, nearly half a century later. This little
+diplomatic triumph smoothed over for the public of the North the
+annoyance of having to accept the British demand. It helped to
+strengthen the administration, which in this first year of the War was
+by no means sure of its foundations. It strengthened also the opinion of
+citizens generally in their estimate of the wise management and
+tactfulness of the President.
+
+Some of the most serious of the perplexities that came upon Lincoln
+during the first two years of the War were the result of the peculiar
+combination of abilities and disabilities that characterised General
+McClellan. McClellan's work prior to the War had been that of an
+engineer. He had taken high rank at West Point and later, resigning from
+the army, had rendered distinguished service in civil engineering. At
+the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, McClellan was president of the
+Illinois Central Railroad. He was a close friend and backer of Douglas
+and he had done what was practicable with the all-important machinery
+of the railroad company to render comfortable the travelling of his
+candidate and to insure his success. Returning to the army with the
+opening of the War, he had won success in a brief campaign in Virginia
+in which he was opposed by a comparatively inexperienced officer and by
+a smaller force than his own. Placed in command of the army of the
+Potomac shortly after the Bull Run campaign, he had shown exceptional
+ability in bringing the troops into a state of organisation. He was
+probably the best man in the United States to fit an army for action.
+There were few engineer officers in the army who could have rendered
+better service in the shaping of fortifications or in the construction
+of an entrenched position. He showed later that he was not a bad leader
+for a defeated army in the supervision of the retreat. He had, however,
+no real capacity for leadership in an aggressive campaign. His
+disposition led him to be full of apprehension of what the other fellow
+was doing. He suffered literally from nightmares in which he exaggerated
+enormously the perils in his paths, making obstacles where none existed,
+multiplying by two or by three the troops against him, insisting upon
+the necessity of providing not only for probable contingencies but for
+very impossible contingencies. He was never ready for an advance and he
+always felt proudly triumphant, after having come into touch with the
+enemy, that he had accomplished the task of saving his army.
+
+The only thing about which he was neither apprehensive nor doubtful was
+his ability as a leader, whether military or political. While he found
+it difficult to impress his will upon an opponent in the field,
+he was very sturdy with his pen in laying down the law to the
+Commander-in-chief (the President) and in emphasising the importance of
+his own views not only in things military but in regard to the whole
+policy of the government. The peculiarity about the nightmares and
+miscalculations of McClellan was that they persisted long after the data
+for their correction were available. In a book brought into print years
+after the War, when the Confederate rosters were easily accessible in
+Washington, McClellan did not hesitate to make the same statements in
+regard to the numbers of the Confederate forces opposed to him that he
+had brought into the long series of complaining letters to Lincoln in
+which he demanded reinforcements that did not exist.
+
+The records now show that at the time of the slow advance of
+McClellan's army by the Williamsburg Peninsula, General Magruder had
+been able, with a few thousand men and with dummy guns made of logs, to
+give the impression that a substantial army was blocking the way to
+Richmond. McClellan's advance was, therefore, made with the utmost
+"conservatism," enabling General Johnston to collect back of Magruder
+the army that was finally to drive McClellan back to his base. It is
+further in evidence from the later records that when some weeks later
+General Johnston concentrated his army at Gaines's Mill upon Porter, who
+was separated from McClellan by the Chickahominy, there was but an
+inconsiderable force between McClellan and Richmond.
+
+At the close of the seven days' retreat, McClellan, who had with a
+magnificent army thrown away a series of positions, writes to Lincoln
+that he (Lincoln) "had sacrificed the army." In another letter,
+McClellan lays down the laws of a national policy with a completeness
+and a dictatorial utterance such as would hardly have been justified if
+he had succeeded through his own military genius in bringing the War to
+a close, but which, coming from a defeated general, was ridiculous
+enough. Lincoln's correspondence with McClellan brings out the infinite
+patience of the President, and his desire to make sure that before
+putting the General to one side as a vainglorious incompetent, he had
+been allowed the fullest possible test. Lincoln passes over without
+reference and apparently without thought the long series of impertinent
+impersonalities of McClellan. In this correspondence, as in all his
+correspondence, the great captain showed himself absolutely devoted to
+the cause he had in mind. Early in the year, months before the
+Peninsular campaign, when McClellan had had the army in camp for a
+series of months without expressing the least intention of action,
+Lincoln had in talking with the Secretary of War used the expression:
+"If General McClellan does not want to use the army just now, I
+would like to borrow it for a while." That was as far as the
+Commander-in-chief ever went in criticism of the General in the field.
+While operations in Virginia, conducted by a vacillating and
+vainglorious engineer officer, gave little encouragement, something was
+being done to advance the cause of the Union in the West. In 1862, a
+young man named Grant, who had returned to the army and who had been
+trusted with the command of a few brigades, captured Fort Donelson and
+thus opened the Tennessee River to the advance of the army southward.
+The capture of Fort Donelson was rendered possible by the use of mortars
+and was the first occasion in the war in which mortars had been brought
+to bear. I chanced to come into touch with the record of the preparation
+of the mortars that were supplied to Grant's army at Cairo. Sometime in
+the nineties I was sojourning with the late Abram S. Hewitt at his home
+in Ringwood, New Jersey. I noticed, in looking out from the piazza, a
+mortar, properly mounted on a mortar-bed and encompassed by some yards
+of a great chain, placed on the slope overlooking the little valley
+below, as if to protect the house. I asked my host what was the history
+of this piece of ordnance. "Well," he said, "the chain you might have
+some personal interest in. It is a part of the chain your great-uncle
+Israel placed across the river at West Point for the purpose of blocking
+or at least of checking the passage of the British vessels. The chain
+was forged here in the Ringwood foundry and I have secured a part of it
+as a memento. The mortar was given to me by President Lincoln, as also
+was the mortar-bed." This report naturally brought out the further
+question as to the grounds for the gift. "I made this mortar-bed," said
+Hewitt, "together with some others, and Lincoln was good enough to say
+that I had in this work rendered a service to the State. It was in
+December, 1861, when the expedition against Fort Donelson and Fort Henry
+was being organised at Fort Cairo under the leadership of General Grant.
+Grant reported that the field-pieces at his command would not be
+effective against the earthworks that were to be shelled and made
+requisition for mortars." The mortar I may explain to my unmilitary
+readers is a short carronade of large bore and with a comparatively
+short range. The mortar with a heavy charge throws its missile at a
+sharp angle upwards, so that, instead of attempting to go through an
+earthwork, it is thrown into the enclosure. The recoil from a mortar is
+very heavy, necessitating the construction of a foundation called a
+mortar-bed which is not only solid but which possesses a certain amount
+of elasticity through which the shock of the recoil is absorbed. It is
+only through the use of such a bed that a mortar can be fired from the
+deck of a vessel. Without such, protection, the shock would smash
+through the deck and might send the craft to the bottom.
+
+The Ordnance Department reported to the Secretary of War and the
+Secretary to Lincoln that mortars were on hand but that no mortar-beds
+were available. It was one of the many cases in which the unpreparedness
+of the government had left a serious gap in the equipment. The further
+report was given to Lincoln that two or three months' time would be
+required to manufacture the thirty mortar-beds that were needed. A delay
+of any such period would have blocked the entire purpose of Grant's
+expedition. In his perplexity, Lincoln remembered that in his famous
+visit to New York two years before, he had been introduced to Mr.
+Hewitt, "a well-known iron merchant," as "a man who does things."
+Lincoln telegraphed to Hewitt asking if Hewitt could make thirty
+mortar-beds and how long it would take. Hewitt told me that the message
+reached him on a Saturday evening at the house of a friend. He wired an
+acknowledgment with the word that he would send a report on the
+following day. Sunday morning he looked up the ordnance officer of New
+York for the purpose of ascertaining where the pattern mortar-bed was
+kept. "It was rather important, Major," said Hewitt to me, "that I
+should have an opportunity of examining this pattern for I had never
+seen a mortar-bed in my life, but this of course I did not admit to the
+ordnance officer." The pattern required was, it seemed, in the armory
+at Springfield. Hewitt wired to Lincoln asking that the bed should be
+forwarded by the night boat to him in New York. Hewitt and his men met
+the boat, secured the pattern bed, and gave some hours to puzzling over
+the construction. At noon on Monday, Hewitt wired to Lincoln that he
+could make thirty mortar-beds in thirty days. In another hour he
+received by wire instructions from Lincoln to go ahead. In twenty-eight
+days he had the thirty mortar-beds in readiness; and Tom Scott, who had
+at the time, very fortunately for the country, taken charge of the
+military transportation, had provided thirty flat-cars for the transit
+of the mortar-beds to Cairo. The train was addressed to "U.S. Grant,
+Cairo," and each car contained a notification, painted in white on a
+black ground, "not to be switched on the penalty of death." That train
+got through and as other portions of the equipment had also been
+delayed, the mortars were not so very late. Six schooners, each equipped
+with a mortar, were hurried up the river to support the attack of the
+army on Fort Donelson. A first assault had been made and had failed. The
+field artillery was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against the
+earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate infantry, protected by
+their works, had proved most severe. The instant, however, that from
+behind a point on the river below the fort shells were thrown from the
+schooners into the inner circle of the fortifications, the Confederate
+commander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was untenable. He slipped
+away that night leaving his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with
+Grant, and those terms were "unconditional surrender," which were later
+so frequently connected with the initials of U.S.G.
+
+Buckner's name comes again into history in a pleasant fashion. Years
+after the War, when General Grant had, through the rascality of a Wall
+Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, Buckner, himself a poor man,
+wrote begging Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his
+convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand dollars. Other friends
+came to the rescue of Grant, and through the earnings of his own pen, he
+was before his death able to make good all indebtedness and to leave a
+competency to his widow. The check sent by Buckner was not used, but the
+prompt friendliness was something not to be forgotten.
+
+Hewitt's mortar-beds were used again a few weeks later for the capture
+of Island Number Ten and they also proved serviceable, used in the same
+fashion from the decks of schooners, in the capture of Forts Jackson and
+St. Philip which blocked the river below New Orleans. It was only
+through the fire from these schooners, which were moored behind a point
+on the river below the forts, that it was possible to reach the inner
+circle of the works.
+
+I asked Hewitt whether he had seen Lincoln after this matter of the
+mortar-beds. "Yes," said Hewitt, "I saw him a year later and Lincoln's
+action was characteristic. I was in Washington and thought it was proper
+to call and pay my respects. I was told on reaching the White House that
+it was late in the day and that the waiting-room was very full and that
+I probably should not be reached. 'Well,' I said, 'in that case, I will
+simply ask you to take in my card.' No sooner had the card been
+delivered than the door of the study opened and Lincoln appeared
+reaching out both hands. 'Where is Mr. Hewitt?' he said; 'I want to see,
+I want to thank, the man who does things.' I sat with him for a time, a
+little nervous in connection with the number of people who were waiting
+outside, but Lincoln would not let me go. Finally he asked, 'What are
+you in Washington for?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said I, 'I have some
+business here. I want to get paid for those mortar-beds.' 'What?' said
+Lincoln, 'you have not yet got what the nation owes you? That is
+disgraceful.' He rang the bell violently and sent an aid for Secretary
+Stanton and when the Secretary appeared, he was questioned rather
+sharply. 'How about Mr. Hewitt's bill against the War Department? Why
+does he have to wait for his money?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said Stanton,
+'the order for those mortar-beds was given rather irregularly. It never
+passed through the War Department and consequently the account when
+rendered could not receive the approval of any ordnance officer, and
+until so approved could not be paid by the Treasury.' 'If,' said
+Lincoln, 'I should write on that account an order to have it paid, do
+you suppose the Secretary of the Treasury would pay it?' 'I suppose that
+he would,' said Stanton. The account was sent for and Lincoln wrote at
+the bottom: 'Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln.' 'Now, Mr. Stanton,' said
+Lincoln, 'Mr. Hewitt has been very badly treated in this matter and I
+want you to take a little pains to see that he gets his money. I am
+going to ask you to go over to the Treasury with Mr. Hewitt and to get
+the proper signatures on this account so that Mr. Hewitt can carry a
+draft with him back to New York.' Stanton, rather reluctantly, accepted
+the instruction and," said Hewitt, "he walked with me through the
+various departments of the Treasury until the final signature had been
+placed on the bill and I was able to exchange this for a Treasury
+warrant. I should," said Hewitt, "have been much pleased to retain the
+bill with that signature of Lincoln beneath the words, 'Pay this now.'
+
+"Towards the end of the War," he continued, "when there was no further
+requirement for mortars, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln and asked whether I
+might buy a mortar with its bed. Lincoln replied promptly that he had
+directed the Ordnance Department to send me mortar and bed with 'the
+compliments of the administration.' I am puzzled to think," said Hewitt,
+"how that particular item in the accounts of the Ordnance Department was
+ever adjusted, but I am very glad to have this reminiscence of the War
+and of the President."
+
+Lincoln's relations with McClellan have already been touched upon. There
+would not be space in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken
+by Lincoln with other army commanders East and West. The problem that
+confronted the Commander-in-chief of selecting the right leaders for
+this or that undertaking, and of promoting the men who gave evidence of
+the greater capacity that was required for the larger armies that were
+being placed in the field, was one of no little difficulty. The reader
+of history, looking back to-day, with the advantage of the full record
+of the careers of the various generals, is tempted to indulge in easy
+criticism of the blunders made by the President. Why did the President
+put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of
+McClellan? Why should he have accepted even for one brief and
+unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope? Why was a
+slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in the
+long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and
+of force that had been secured by the army of the West? Why was a
+political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a
+well-meaning politician like Banks with still less capacity for the
+management of troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the field,
+making blunders that involved waste of life and of resources and the
+loss of campaigns? Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant,
+Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought more promptly into the
+important positions? Why was the army of the South permitted during the
+first two years of the War to have so large an advantage in skilled and
+enterprising leadership? A little reflection will show how unjust is the
+criticism implied through such questions. We know of the incapacity of
+the generals who failed and of the effectiveness of those who succeeded,
+only through the results of the campaigns themselves. Lincoln could only
+study the men as he came to know about them and he experimented first
+with one and then with another, doing what seemed to be practicable to
+secure a natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Such
+watchful supervision and painstaking experimenting was carried out with
+infinite patience and with an increasing knowledge both of the
+requirements and of the men fitted to fill the requirements.
+
+We must also recall that, Commander-in-chief as he was, Lincoln was not
+free to exercise without restriction his own increasingly valuable
+judgment in the appointment of the generals. It was necessary to give
+consideration to the opinion of the country, that is to say, to the
+individual judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation was
+absolutely essential for the support of the nation's cause. These
+opinions of the citizens were expressed sometimes through the appeals of
+earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of Massachusetts, or Curtin of
+Pennsylvania, and sometimes through the articles of a strenuous editor
+like Greeley, whose influence and support it was, of course, all
+important to retain. Greeley's absolute ignorance of military conditions
+did not prevent him from emphasising with the President and the public
+his very decided conclusions in regard to the selection of men and the
+conduct of campaigns. In this all-perplexing problem of the shaping of
+campaigns, Lincoln had to consider the responsibilities of
+representative government. The task would, of course, have been much
+easier if he had had power as an autocrat to act on his own decisions
+simply. The appointment of Butler and Banks was thought to be necessary
+for the purpose of meeting the views of the loyal citizens of so
+important a State as Massachusetts, and other appointments, the results
+of which were more or less unfortunate, may in like manner be traced to
+causes or influences outside of a military or army policy.
+
+General Frank V. Greene, in a paper on Lincoln as Commander-in-chief,
+writes in regard to his capacity as a leader as follows:
+
+"As time goes on, Lincoln's fame looms ever larger and larger. Great
+statesman, astute politician, clear thinker, classic writer, master of
+men, kindly, lovable man,--these are his titles. To these must be
+added--military leader. Had he failed in that quality, the others would
+have been forgotten. Had peace been made on any terms but those of the
+surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the Union,
+Lincoln's career would have been a colossal failure and the Emancipation
+Proclamation a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was military
+success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect of nearly half a
+century, with his every written word now in print and with all the facts
+of the period brought out and placed in proper perspective by the
+endless studies, discussions, and arguments of the intervening years, it
+becomes clear that, first and last and at all times during his
+Presidency, in military affairs his was not only the guiding but the
+controlling hand."
+
+It is interesting, as the War progressed, to trace the development of
+Lincoln's own military judgment. He was always modest in regard to
+matters in which his experience was limited, and during the first twelve
+months in Washington, he had comparatively little to say in regard to
+the planning or even the supervision of campaigns. His letters, however,
+to McClellan and his later correspondence with Burnside, with Hooker,
+and with other commanders give evidence of a steadily developing
+intelligence in regard to larger military movements. History has shown
+that Lincoln's judgment in regard to the essential purpose of a
+campaign, and the best methods for carrying out such purpose, was in a
+large number of cases decidedly sounder than that of the general in the
+field. When he emphasised with McClellan that the true objective was the
+Confederate army in the field and not the city of Richmond, he laid down
+a principle which seems to us elementary but to which McClellan had been
+persistently blinded. Lincoln writes to Hooker: "We have word that the
+head of Lee's army is near Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley while
+you report that you have a substantial force still opposed to you on the
+Rappahannock. It appears, therefore that the line must be forty miles
+long. The animal is evidently very slim somewhere and it ought to be
+possible for you to cut it at some point." Hooker had the same
+information but did not draw the same inference.
+
+Apart from Lincoln's work in selecting, and in large measure in
+directing, the generals, he had a further important relation with the
+army as a whole. We are familiar with the term "the man behind the
+gun." It is a truism to say that the gun has little value whether for
+offence or for defence unless the man behind it possesses the right kind
+of spirit which will infuse and guide his purpose and his action with
+the gun. For the long years of the War, the Commander-in-chief was the
+man behind all the guns in the field. The men in the front came to have
+a realising sense of the infinite patience, the persistent hopefulness,
+the steadiness of spirit, the devoted watchfulness of the great captain
+in Washington. It was through the spirit of Lincoln that the spirit in
+the ranks was preserved during the long months of discouragement and the
+many defeats and retreats. The final advance of Grant which ended at
+Appomattox, and the triumphant march of Sherman which culminated in the
+surrender at Goldsborough of the last of the armies of the Confederacy,
+were the results of the inspiration, given alike to soldier and to
+general, from the patient and devoted soul of the nation's leader.
+
+In March, 1862, Lincoln received the news of the victory won at Pea
+Ridge, in Arkansas, by Curtis and Sigel, a battle which had lasted three
+days. The first day was a defeat and our troops were forced back; the
+fighting of the second resulted in what might be called a drawn battle;
+but on the third, our army broke its way through the enclosing lines,
+bringing the heavier loss to the Confederates, and regained its base.
+This battle was in a sense typical of much of the fighting of the War.
+It was one of a long series of fights which continued for more than one
+day. The history of the War presents many instances of battles that
+lasted two days, three days, four days, and in one case seven days. It
+was difficult to convince the American soldier, on either side of the
+line, that he was beaten. The general might lose his head, but the
+soldiers, in the larger number of cases, went on fighting until, with a
+new leader or with more intelligent dispositions on the part of the
+original leader, a first disaster had been repaired. There is no example
+in modern history of fighting of such stubborn character, or it is
+fairer to say, there was no example until the Russo-Japanese War in
+Manchuria. The record shows that European armies, when outgeneralled or
+outmanoeuvred, had the habit of retiring from the field, sometimes in
+good order, more frequently in a state of demoralisation. The American
+soldier fought the thing out because he thought the thing out. The
+patience and persistence of the soldier in the field was characteristic
+of, and, it may fairly be claimed, was in part due to, the patience and
+persistence of the great leader in Washington.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DARK DAYS OF 1862
+
+
+The dark days of 1862 were in April brightened by the all-important news
+that Admiral Farragut had succeeded in bringing the Federal fleet, or at
+least the leading vessels in this fleet, past the batteries of Forts St.
+Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi, and had compelled the surrender
+of New Orleans. The opening of the Mississippi River had naturally been
+included among the most essential things to be accomplished in the
+campaign for the restoration of the national authority. It was of first
+importance that the States of the North-west and the enormous contiguous
+territory which depended upon the Mississippi for its water connection
+with the outer world should not be cut off from the Gulf. The prophecy
+was in fact made more than once that in case the States of the South had
+succeeded in establishing their independence, there would have come into
+existence on the continent not two confederacies, but probably four. The
+communities on the Pacific Coast would naturally have been tempted to
+set up for themselves, and a similar course might also naturally have
+been followed by the great States of the North-west whose interests were
+so closely bound up with the waterways running southward. It was
+essential that no effort should be spared to bring the loyal States of
+the West into control of the line of the Mississippi. More than twelve
+months was still required after the capture of New Orleans on the first
+of May, 1862, before the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port
+Hudson to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal control of the
+great river. The occupation of the river by the Federals was of
+importance in more ways than one. The States to the west of the
+river--Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas--were for the first two years of
+the War important sources of supplies for the food of the Confederate
+army. Corn on the cob or in bags was brought across the river by boats,
+while the herds of live cattle were made to swim the stream, and were
+then most frequently marched across country to the commissary depots of
+the several armies. After the fall of Port Hudson, the connection for
+such supplies was practically stopped; although I may recall that even
+as late as 1864, the command to which I was attached had the
+opportunity of stopping the swimming across the Mississippi of a herd of
+cattle that was in transit for the army of General Joe Johnston.
+
+In April, 1862, just after the receipt by Lincoln of the disappointing
+news of the first repulse at Vicksburg, he finds time to write a little
+autograph note to a boy, "Master Crocker," with thanks for a present of
+a white rabbit that the youngster had sent to the President with the
+suggestion that perhaps the President had a boy who would be pleased
+with it.
+
+During the early part of 1862, Lincoln is giving renewed thought to the
+great problem of emancipation. He becomes more and more convinced that
+the success of the War calls for definite action on the part of the
+administration in the matter of slavery. He was, as before pointed out,
+anxious, not only as a matter of justice to loyal citizens, but on the
+ground of the importance of retaining for the national cause the support
+of the Border States, to act in such manner that the loyal citizens of
+these States should be exposed to a minimum loss and to the smallest
+possible risk of disaffection. In July, 1862, Lincoln formulated a
+proposition for compensated emancipation. It was his idea that the
+nation should make payment of an appraised value in freeing the slaves
+that were in the ownership of citizens who had remained loyal to the
+government. It was his belief that the funds required would be more than
+offset by the result in furthering the progress of the War. The daily
+expenditure of the government was at the time averaging about a million
+and a half dollars a day, and in 1864 it reached two million dollars a
+day. If the War could be shortened a few months, a sufficient amount of
+money would be saved to offset a very substantial payment to loyal
+citizens for the property rights in their slaves.
+
+The men of the Border States were, however, still too bound to the
+institution of slavery to be prepared to give their assent to any such
+plan. Congress was, naturally, not ready to give support to such a
+policy unless it could be made clear that it was satisfactory to the
+people most concerned. The result of the unwise stubbornness in this
+matter of the loyal citizens of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
+Maryland was that they were finally obliged to surrender without
+compensation the property control in their slaves. When the plan for
+compensated emancipation had failed, Lincoln decided that the time had
+come for unconditional emancipation. In July, 1862, he prepares the
+first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was his judgment, which
+was shared by the majority of his Cabinet, that the issue of the
+proclamation should, however, be deferred until after some substantial
+victory by the armies of the North. It was undesirable to give to such a
+step the character of an utterance of despair or even of discouragement.
+It seemed evident, however, that the War had brought the country to the
+point at which slavery, the essential cause of the cleavage between the
+States, must be removed. The bringing to an end of the national
+responsibility for slavery would consolidate national opinion throughout
+the States of the North and would also strengthen the hands of the
+friends of the Union in England where the charge had repeatedly been
+made that the North was fighting, not against slavery or for freedom of
+any kind, but for domination. The proclamation was held until after the
+battle of Antietam in September, 1862, and was then issued to take
+effect on the first of January, 1863. It did produce the hoped-for
+results. The cause of the North was now placed on a consistent
+foundation. It was made clear that when the fight for nationality had
+reached a successful termination, there was to be no further national
+responsibility for the great crime against civilisation. The management
+of the contrabands, who were from week to week making their way into the
+lines of the Northern armies, was simplified. There was no further
+question of holding coloured men subject to the possible claim of a
+possibly loyal master. The work of organising coloured troops, which had
+begun in Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, was now pressed
+forward with some measure of efficiency. Boston sent to the front the
+54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of coloured troops and
+led by such men as Shaw and Hallowell. The first South Carolina coloured
+regiment was raised and placed under the command of Colonel Higginson.
+
+I had myself some experience in Louisiana with the work of moulding
+plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the
+promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into the
+camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to
+secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out
+of which to make a soldier. He did not know how to hold himself upright
+or to look the other man in the face. His gait was shambly, his
+perceptions dull. It was difficult for him either to hear clearly, or to
+understand when heard, the word of instruction or command. When,
+however, the plantation rags had been disposed of and (possibly after a
+souse in the Mississippi) the contraband had been put into the blue
+uniform and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, he developed at once
+from a "chattel" to a man. He was still, for a time at least, clumsy and
+shambly. The understanding of the word of command did not come at once
+and his individual action, if by any chance he should be left to act
+alone, was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended upon, than
+that of the white man. But he stood up straight in the garb of manhood,
+looked you fairly in the face, showed by his expression that he was
+anxious for the privilege of fighting for freedom and for citizenship,
+and in Louisiana, and throughout the whole territory of the War, every
+black regiment that came into engagement showed that it could be
+depended upon. Before the War was closed, some two hundred thousand
+negroes had been brought into the ranks of the Federal army and their
+service constituted a very valuable factor in the final outcome of the
+campaigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend, Mississippi,
+inconsiderable in regard to the numbers engaged, was of distinctive
+importance in showing what the black man was able and willing to do when
+brought under fire for the first time. A coloured regiment made up of
+men who only a few weeks before had been plantation hands, had been left
+on a point of the river to be picked up by an expected transport. The
+regiment was attacked by a Confederate force of double or treble the
+number, the Southerners believing that there would be no difficulty in
+driving into the river this group of recent slaves. On the first volley,
+practically all of the officers (who were white) were struck down and
+the loss with the troops was also very heavy. The negroes, who had but
+made a beginning with their education as soldiers, appeared, however,
+not to have learned anything about the conditions for surrender and they
+simply fought on until no one was left standing. The percentage of loss
+to the numbers engaged was the heaviest of any action in the War. The
+Southerners, in their contempt for the possibility of negroes doing any
+real fighting, had in their rushing attack exposed themselves much and
+had themselves suffered seriously. When, in April, 1865, after the
+forcing back of Lee's lines, the hour came, so long waited for and so
+fiercely fought for, to take possession of Richmond, there was a certain
+poetic justice in allowing the negro division, commanded by General
+Weitzel, to head the column of advance.
+
+Through 1862, and later, we find much correspondence from Lincoln in
+regard to the punishment of deserters. The army penalty for desertion
+when the lines were in front of the enemy, was death. Lincoln found it
+very difficult, however, to approve of a sentence of death for any
+soldier. Again and again he writes, instructing the general in the field
+to withhold the execution until he, Lincoln, had had an opportunity of
+passing upon the case. There is a long series of instances in which,
+sometimes upon application from the mother, but more frequently through
+the personal impression gained by himself of the character of the
+delinquent, Lincoln decided to pardon youngsters who had, in his
+judgment, simply failed to realise their full responsibility as
+soldiers. Not a few of these men, permitted to resume their arms, gained
+distinction later for loyal service.
+
+In December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued an order which naturally
+attracted some attention, directing that General Benjamin F. Butler,
+when captured, should be "reserved for execution." Butler never fell
+into the hands of the Confederates and it is probable that if he had
+been taken prisoner, the order would have remained an empty threat. From
+Lincoln came the necessary rejoinder that a Confederate officer of equal
+rank would be held as hostage for the safety of any Northern general
+who, as prisoner, might not be protected under the rules of war.
+
+Lincoln's correspondence during 1862, a year which was in many ways the
+most discouraging of the sad years of the war, shows how much he had to
+endure in the matter of pressure of unrequested advice and of undesired
+counsel from all kinds of voluntary advisers and active-minded citizens,
+all of whom believed that their views were important, if not essential,
+for the salvation of the state. In September, 1862, Lincoln writes to a
+friend:
+
+"I am approached with the most opposite opinions expressed on the part
+of religious men, each of whom is equally certain that he represents the
+divine will."
+
+To one of these delegations of ministers, Lincoln gave a response which
+while homely in its language must have presented to his callers a vivid
+picture of the burdens that were being carried by the leader of the
+state:
+
+    "Gentlemen," he said, "suppose all the property you possess were in
+    gold, and you had placed it in the hands of Blondin to carry across
+    the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps he
+    walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep
+    shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter! Blondin,
+    stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the south! Now
+    lean a little more to north! Would that be your behaviour in such an
+    emergency? No, you would hold your breath, every one of you, as well
+    as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on
+    the other side."
+
+Another delegation, which had been urging some months in advance of what
+Lincoln believed to be the fitting time for the issuing of the
+Proclamation of Emancipation, called asking that there should be no
+further delay in the action. One of the ministers, as he was retiring,
+turned and said to Lincoln: "What you have said to us, Mr. President,
+compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message to you from our
+Divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of
+bondage, that the slave may go free!" Lincoln replied: "That may be,
+sir, for I have studied this question by night and by day, for weeks
+and for months, but if it is, as you say, a message from your Divine
+Master, is it not odd that the only channel He could send it by was that
+roundabout route through the wicked city of Chicago?"
+
+Another version of the story omits the reference to Chicago, and makes
+Lincoln's words:
+
+"I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable
+that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my
+duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me....
+Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do."
+
+In September, 1862, General Lee carried his army into Maryland,
+threatening Baltimore and Washington. It is probable that the purpose of
+this invasion was more political than military. The Confederate
+correspondence shows that Davis was at the time hopeful of securing the
+intervention of Great Britain and France, and it was natural to assume
+that the prospects of such intervention would be furthered if it could
+be shown that the Southern army, instead of being engaged in the defence
+of its own capital, was actually threatening Washington and was possibly
+strong enough to advance farther north.
+
+General Pope had, as a result of his defeat at the second Bull Run, in
+July, 1862, lost the confidence of the President and of the country. The
+defeat alone would not necessarily have undermined his reputation, which
+had been that of an effective soldier. He had, however, the fatal
+quality, too common with active Americans, of talking too much, whether
+in speech or in the written word, of promising things that did not come
+off, and of emphasising his high opinion of his own capacity. Under the
+pressure of the new peril indicated by the presence of Lee's troops
+within a few miles of the capital, Lincoln put to one side his own grave
+doubts in regard to the effectiveness and trustworthiness of McClellan
+and gave McClellan one further opportunity to prove his ability as a
+soldier. The personal reflections and aspersions against his
+Commander-in-chief of which McClellan had been guilty, weighed with
+Lincoln not at all; the President's sole thought was at this time, as
+always, how with the material available could the country best be
+served.
+
+McClellan had his chance (and to few men is it given to have more than
+one great opportunity) and again he threw it away. His army was stronger
+than that of Lee and he had the advantage of position and (for the
+first time against this particular antagonist) of nearness to his base
+of supplies. Lee had been compelled to divide his army in order to get
+it promptly into position on the north side of the Potomac. McClellan's
+tardiness sacrificed Harper's Ferry (which, on September 15th, was
+actually surrounded by Lee's advance) with the loss of twelve thousand
+prisoners. Through an exceptional piece of good fortune, there came into
+McClellan's hands a despatch showing the actual position of the
+different divisions of Lee's army and giving evidence that the two wings
+were so far separated that they could not be brought together within
+twenty-four hours. The history now makes clear that for twenty-four
+hours McClellan had the safety of Lee's army in his hands, but those
+precious hours were spent by McClellan in "getting ready," that is to
+say, in vacillating.
+
+Finally, there came the trifling success at South Mountain and the drawn
+battle of Antietam. Lee's army was permitted to recross the Potomac with
+all its trains and even with the captured prisoners, and McClellan lay
+waiting through the weeks for something to turn up.
+
+A letter written by Lincoln on the 13th of October shows a wonderfully
+accurate understanding of military conditions, and throws light also
+upon the character and the methods of thought of the two men:
+
+    "Are you not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what
+    the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least
+    his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you
+    telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at
+    Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be
+    put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at
+    Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great as you would have to
+    do, without the railroad last named. He now waggons from Culpeper
+    Court House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to
+    do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well
+    provided with waggons as you are.... Again, one of the standard
+    maxims of war, as you know, is to 'operate upon the enemy's
+    communications without exposing your own.' You seem to act as if
+    this applies against you, but cannot apply it in your favour. Change
+    positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your
+    communication with Richmond in twenty-four hours?... You are now
+    nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route you can and he must
+    take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that
+    he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a
+    circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on your side
+    as on his ... If he should move northward, I would follow him
+    closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our
+    seizing his communications and move towards Richmond, I would press
+    closely to him, fight him, if a favourable opportunity should
+    present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside
+    track. I say 'Try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.... If
+    we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we
+    never can when we bear the wastage of going to him.... As we must
+    beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier
+    near to us than far away.... It is all easy if our troops march as
+    well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say that they cannot do it."
+
+The patience of Lincoln and that of the country behind Lincoln were at
+last exhausted. McClellan was ordered to report to his home in New
+Jersey and the General who had come to the front with such flourish of
+trumpets and had undertaken to dictate a national policy at a time when
+he was not able to keep his own army in position, retires from the
+history of the War.
+
+The responsibility again comes to the weary Commander-in-chief of
+finding a leader who could lead, in whom the troops and the country
+would have confidence, and who could be trusted to do his simple duty as
+a general in the field without confusing his military responsibilities
+with political scheming. The choice first fell upon Burnside. Burnside
+was neither ambitious nor self-confident. He was a good division
+general, but he doubted his ability for the general command. Burnside
+loyally accepts the task, does the best that was within his power and,
+pitted against a commander who was very much his superior in general
+capacity as well as in military skill, he fails. Once more has the
+President on his hands the serious problem of finding the right man.
+This time the commission was given to General Joseph Hooker. With the
+later records before us, it is easy to point out that this selection
+also was a blunder. There were better men in the group of
+major-generals. Reynolds, Meade, or Hancock would doubtless have made
+more effective use of the power of the army of the Potomac, but in
+January, 1863, the relative characters and abilities of these generals
+were not so easily to be determined. Lincoln's letter to Hooker was
+noteworthy, not only in the indication that it gives of Hooker's
+character but as an example of the President's width of view and of his
+method of coming into the right relation with men. He writes:
+
+    "You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an
+    indispensable quality.... I think, however, that during General
+    Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your
+    ambition and have thwarted him as much as you could, in which you
+    did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and
+    honourable brother officer. I have heard 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 the
+    command. Only those generals who gain success can set up as
+    dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk
+    the dictatorship. The government will support you to the best of its
+    ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do
+    for all its commanders.... Beware of rashness, but with energy and
+    sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
+
+Hooker, like Burnside, undoubtedly did the best that he could. He was a
+loyal patriot and had shown himself a good division commander. It is
+probable, however, that the limit of his ability as a general in the
+field was the management of an army corps; he seems to have been
+confused in the attempt to direct the movements of the larger body. At
+Chancellorsville, he was clearly outwitted by his opponents, Lee and
+Jackson. The men of the army of the Potomac fought steadily as always
+but with the discouraging feeling that the soldiers on the other side of
+the line had the advantage of better brain power behind them. It is
+humiliating to read in the life of Jackson the reply given by him to Lee
+when Lee questioned the safety of the famous march planned by Jackson
+across the front of the Federal line. Said Lee: "There are several
+points along the line of your proposed march at which your column could
+be taken in flank with disastrous results." "But, General Lee," replies
+Jackson, "we must surely in planning any military movements take into
+account the personality of the leaders to whom we are opposed."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR
+
+
+Chancellorsville was fought and lost, and again, under political
+pressure from Richmond rather than with any hope of advantage on simple
+military lines, Lee leads his army to an invasion of the North. For this
+there were at the time several apparent advantages; the army of the
+Potomac had been twice beaten and, while by no means demoralised, was
+discouraged and no longer had faith in its commander. There was much
+inevitable disappointment throughout the North that, so far from making
+progress in the attempt to restore the authority of the government, the
+national troops were on the defensive but a few miles from the national
+capital. The Confederate correspondence from London and from Paris gave
+fresh hopes for the long expected intervention.
+
+Lee's army was cleverly withdrawn from Hooker's front and was carried
+through western Maryland into Pennsylvania by the old line of the
+Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac at Falling Waters. Hooker
+reports to Lincoln under date of June 4th that the army or an army is
+still in his front on the line of the Rappahannock, Lincoln writes to
+Hooker under date of June 5th, "We have report that Lee's army is moving
+westward and that a large portion of it is already to the west of the
+Blue Ridge. The 'bull' [Lee's army] is across the fence and it surely
+ought to be possible to worry him." On June 14th, Lincoln writes again,
+reporting to Hooker that Lee with the body of his troops is approaching
+the Potomac at a point forty miles away from the line of the
+entrenchments on the Rappahannock. "The animal [Lee's army] is extended
+over a line of forty miles. It must be very slim somewhere. Can you not
+cut it?" The phrases are not in military form but they give evidence of
+sound military judgment. Hooker was unable to grasp the opportunity, and
+realising this himself, he asked to be relieved. The troublesome and
+anxious honour of the command of the army now falls upon General Meade.
+He takes over the responsibility at a time when Lee's army is already
+safely across the Potomac and advancing northward, apparently towards
+Philadelphia. His troops are more or less scattered and no definite
+plan of campaign appears to have been formulated. The events of the next
+three weeks constitute possibly the best known portion of the War. Meade
+shows good energy in breaking up his encampment along the Rappahannock
+and getting his column on to the road northward. Fortunately, the army
+of the Potomac for once has the advantage of the interior line so that
+Meade is able to place his army in a position that protects at once
+Washington on the south-west, Baltimore on the east, and Philadelphia on
+the north-east. We can, however, picture to ourselves the anxiety that
+must have rested upon the Commander-in-chief in Washington during the
+weeks of the campaign and during the three days of the great battle
+which was fought on Northern soil and miles to the north of the Northern
+capital. If, on that critical third day of July, the Federal lines had
+been broken and the army disorganised, there was nothing that could
+prevent the national capital from coming into the control of Lee's army.
+The surrender of Washington meant the intervention of France and
+England, meant the failure of the attempt to preserve the nation's
+existence, meant that Abraham Lincoln would go down to history as the
+last President of the United States, the President under whose
+leadership the national history had come to a close. But the Federal
+lines were not broken. The third day of Gettysburg made clear that with
+equality of position and with substantial equality in numbers there was
+no better fighting material in the army of the grey than in the army of
+the blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the crest of Cemetery
+Ridge marked the high tide of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men
+were not able to prevail against the sturdy defence of Hancock's second
+corps and when, on the Fourth of July, Lee's army took up its line of
+retreat to the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead and wounded,
+the calm judgment of Lee and his associates must have made clear to them
+that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army of Northern
+Virginia had shattered itself against the defences of the North, and
+there was for Lee no reserve line. For a long series of months to come,
+Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he was, and with a sturdy
+persistency which withstood all disaster, was able to maintain defensive
+lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in front of Petersburg, but
+as his brigades crumbled away under the persistent and unceasing attacks
+of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised long before the day
+of Appomattox that his task was impossible. What Gettysburg decided in
+the East was confirmed with equal emphasis by the fall of Vicksburg in
+the West. On the Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, defeated
+and discouraged, was taking his shattered army out of Pennsylvania,
+General Grant was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earthworks of
+Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now under the control of the Federalists
+from its source to the mouth, and that portion of the Confederacy lying
+to the west of the river was cut off so that from this territory no
+further co-operation of importance could be rendered to the armies
+either of Johnston or of Lee.
+
+Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg giving, with his
+word of congratulation, the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted the
+wisdom or the practicability of Grant's movement to the south of
+Vicksburg and inland to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, "and I
+was wrong."
+
+On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so eloquent
+in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history
+ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such
+suggestive thought, and such high idealism. The speech is one that
+children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.
+
+    [Illustration:
+
+    FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
+
+
+    Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.
+
+    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
+    continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
+    proposition that all men are created equal.
+
+    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
+    nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
+    endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come
+    to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
+    those who here gave their lives that their nation might live. It is
+    altogether fitting and proper that we should this.
+
+    But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
+    cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who
+    struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
+    or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say
+    here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
+    living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
+    who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
+    to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that
+    from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
+    which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here
+    highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
+    this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
+    government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
+    perish from the earth.
+
+    Abraham Lincoln
+
+    November 19, 1863]
+
+There was disappointment that Meade had not shown more energy after
+Gettysburg in the pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, at least,
+had not been made to interfere with the retreat across the Potomac.
+Military critics have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid himself
+open to criticism in the management of the battle itself. At the time of
+the repulse of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the left and in
+rear of his centre the sixth corps which had hardly been engaged on the
+previous two days, and which included some of the best fighting material
+in the army. It has been pointed out more than once that if that corps
+had been thrown in at once with a countercharge upon the heels of the
+retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's right must have been curled up
+and overwhelmed. If this had happened, Lee's army would have been so
+seriously shattered that its power for future service would have been
+inconsiderable. Meade was accepted as a good working general but the
+occasion demanded something more forcible in the way of leadership and,
+early in 1864, Lincoln sends for the man who by his success in the West
+had won the hopeful confidence of the President and the people.
+
+Before this appointment of General-in-chief was given to General Grant,
+and he came to the East to take charge of the armies in Virginia, he had
+brought to a successful conclusion a dramatic campaign, of which
+Chattanooga was the centre. In September, 1863, General Rosecrans, who
+had occupied Chattanooga, was defeated some twenty miles to the south on
+the field of Chickamauga, a defeat which was the result of too much
+confidence on the part of the Federal commander, who in pressing his
+advance had unwisely separated the great divisions of his army, and of
+excellent skill and enterprise on the part of the Confederate commander,
+General Bragg. If the troops of Rosecrans had not been veterans, and if
+the right wing had not been under the immediate command of so sturdy and
+unconquered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat might have become a
+rout. As it was, the army retreated with some discouragement but in good
+fighting force, to the lines of Chattanooga. By skilful disposition of
+his forces across the lines of connection between Chattanooga and the
+base of supplies, General Bragg brought the Federals almost to the point
+of starvation, and there was grave risk that through the necessary
+falling back of the army to secure supplies, the whole advantage of the
+previous year's campaign might be lost. Grant was placed in charge of
+the forces in Chattanooga, and by a good management of the resources
+available, he succeeded in reopening the river and what became known as
+"the cracker line," and in November, 1863, in the dramatic battles of
+Lookout Mountain, fought more immediately by General Hooker, and of
+Missionary Ridge, the troops of which were under the direct command of
+General Sherman, overwhelmed the lines of Bragg, and pressed his forces
+back into a more or less disorderly retreat. An important factor in the
+defeat of Bragg was the detaching from his army of the corps under
+Longstreet which had been sent to Knoxville in a futile attempt to crush
+Burnside and to reconquer East Tennessee for the Confederacy. This plan,
+chiefly political in purpose, was said to have originated with President
+Davis. The armies of the West were now placed under the command of
+General Sherman, and early in 1864, Grant was brought to Virginia to
+take up the perplexing problem of overcoming the sturdy veterans of
+General Lee.
+
+The first action of Grant as commander of all the armies in the field
+was to concentrate all the available forces against the two chief armies
+of the Confederacy. The old policy of occupying outlying territory for
+the sake of making a show of political authority was given up. If
+Johnston in the West and Lee in the East could be crushed, the national
+authority would be restored in due season, and that was the only way in
+which it could be restored. Troops were gathered in from Missouri and
+Arkansas and Louisiana and were placed under the command of Sherman for
+use in the final effort of breaking through the centre of the
+Confederacy, while in the East nothing was neglected on the part of the
+new administration to secure for the direction of the new commander all
+resources available of men and of supplies.
+
+Grant now finds himself pitted against the first soldier of the
+continent, the leader who is to go down to history as probably the
+greatest soldier that America has ever produced. Lee's military career
+is a wonderful example of a combination of brilliancy, daring ingenuity
+of plan, promptness of action, and patient persistence under all kinds
+of discouragement, but it was not only through these qualities that it
+was possible for him to retain control, through three years of heavy
+fighting, of the territory of Virginia, which came to be the chief
+bulwark of the Confederacy. Lee's high character, sweetness of nature,
+and unselfish integrity of purpose had impressed themselves not only
+upon the Confederate administration which had given him the command but
+upon every soldier in that command. For the army of Northern Virginia
+Lee was the man behind the guns just as Lincoln came to be for all the
+men in blue. There never was a more devoted army and there probably
+never was a better handled army than that with which Lee defended for
+three years the lines across Northern Virginia and the remnants of which
+were finally surrendered at Appomattox.
+
+Grant might well have felt concerned with such an opponent in front of
+him. He had on his hands (as had been the almost uniform condition for
+the army of the Potomac) the disadvantage of position. His advance must
+be made from exterior lines and nearly every attack was to be against
+well entrenched positions that had been first selected years back and
+had been strengthened from season to season. On the other hand, Grant
+was able to depend upon the loyal support of the administration through
+which came to his army the full advantage of the great resources of the
+North. His ranks as depleted were filled up, his commissary trains need
+never be long unsupplied, his ammunition waggons were always equipped.
+For Lee, during the years following the Gettysburg battle, the problem
+was unending and increasing: How should the troops be fed and whence
+should they secure the fresh supplies of ammunition?
+
+Between Grant and Lincoln there came to be perfect sympathy of thought
+and action. The men had in their nature (though not in their mental
+equipment) much in common. Grant carries his army through the spring of
+1864, across the much fought over territory, marching and fighting from
+day to day towards the south-west. The effort is always to outflank
+Lee's right, getting in between him and his base at Richmond, but after
+each fight, Lee's army always bars the way. Marching out of the
+Wilderness after seven days' fierce struggle, Grant still finds the line
+of grey blocking his path to Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been
+marching and fighting without break for weeks. There had been but little
+sleep, and the food in the trains was often far out of the reach of the
+men in the fighting line. Men and officers were alike exhausted. While
+advantages had been gained at one point or another along the line, and
+while it was certain that the opposing army had also suffered severely,
+there had been no conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with the
+feeling that they were to seize victory out of the campaign.
+
+In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of the column reached the
+cross-roads the left fork of which led back to the Potomac and the right
+fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the previous campaigns, the army
+of the Potomac, after doing its share of plucky fighting and taking more
+than its share of discouragement, had at such a point been withdrawn for
+rest and recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation that this
+course would be taken in the present campaign. The road to the right
+meant further fatigue and further continuous fighting for men who were
+already exhausted. In the leading brigade it was only the brigade
+commander and the adjutant who had knowledge of the instructions for the
+line of march. When, with a wave of the hand of the adjutant, the guidon
+flag of the brigade was carried to the right and the head of the column
+was set towards Richmond, a shout went up from the men marching behind
+the guidon. It was an utterance not of discouragement but of
+enthusiasm. Exhausting as the campaign had been, the men in the ranks
+preferred to fight it out then and to get through with it. Old soldiers
+as they were, they were able to understand the actual issue of the
+contest. Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as themselves and
+possibly even more exhausted. It was only through the hammering of Lee's
+diminishing army out of existence that the War could be brought to a
+close. The enthusiastic shout of satisfaction rolled through the long
+column reaching twenty miles back, as the news passed from brigade to
+brigade that the army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's report
+to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out on this line if it took all
+summer." When this report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection of
+Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. He said: "We need this
+man. He fights."
+
+In July, 1864, Washington is once more within reach if not of the
+invader at least of the raider. The Federal forces had been concentrated
+in Grant's lines along the James, and General Jubal Early, one of the
+most energetic fighters of the Southern army, tempted by the apparently
+unprotected condition of the capital, dashed across the Potomac on a
+raid that became famous. It is probable that in this undertaking, as in
+some of the other movements that have been referred to on the part of
+the Southern leaders, the purpose was as much political as military.
+Early's force of from fifteen to sixteen thousand men was, of course, in
+no way strong enough to be an army of invasion. The best success for
+which he could hope would be, in breaking through the defences of
+Washington, to hold the capital for a day or even a few hours. The
+capture of Washington in 1864, as in 1863 or in 1862, would in all
+probability have brought about the long-hoped-for intervention of France
+and England. General Lew Wallace, whose name became known in the years
+after the War through some noteworthy romances, _Ben Hur_ and _The Fair
+God_, and who was in command of a division of troops stationed west of
+Washington, and composed in part of loyal Marylanders and in part of
+convalescents who were about to be returned to the front, fell back
+before Early's advance to Monocacy Creek. He disposed his thin line
+cleverly in the thickets on the east side of the creek in such fashion
+as to give the impression of a force of some size with an advance line
+of skirmishers. Early's advance was checked for some hours before he
+realised that there was nothing of importance in front of him; when
+Wallace's division was promptly overwhelmed and scattered. The few hours
+that had thus been saved were, however, of first importance for the
+safety of Washington. Early reached the outer lines of the
+fortifications of the capital some time after sunset. His immediate
+problem was to discover whether the troops which were, as he knew, being
+hurried up from the army of the James, had reached Washington or whether
+the capital was still under the protection only of its so-called
+home-guard of veteran reserves. These reserves were made up of men more
+or less crippled and unfit for work in the field but who were still able
+to do service on fortifications. They comprised in all about six
+thousand men and were under the command of Colonel Wisewell. The force
+was strengthened somewhat that night by the addition of all of the male
+nurses from the hospitals (themselves convalescents) who were able to
+bear arms. That night the women nurses, who had already been in
+attendance during the hours of the day, had to render double service.
+Lincoln had himself in the afternoon stood on the works watching the
+dust of the Confederate advance. Once more there came to the President
+who had in his hands the responsibility for the direction of the War
+the bitterness of the feeling, if not of possible failure, at least of
+immediate mortification. He knew that within twenty-four or thirty-six
+hours Washington could depend upon receiving the troops that were being
+hurried up from Grant's army, but he also realised what enormous
+mischief might be brought about by even a momentary occupation of the
+national capital by Confederate troops. I had some personal interest in
+this side campaign. The 19th army corps, to which my own regiment
+belonged, had been brought from Louisiana to Virginia and had been
+landed on the James River to strengthen the ranks of General Butler.
+There had not been time to assign to us posts in the trenches and we
+had, in fact, not even been placed in position. We were more nearly in
+marching order than any other troops available and it was therefore the
+divisions of the 19th army corps that were selected to be hurried up to
+Washington. To these were added two divisions of the 6th corps.
+
+Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences of the city, realised the
+nature of his problem. He had got to hold the lines of Washington, cost
+what it might, until the arrival of the troops from Grant. He took the
+bold step of placing on the picket line that night every man within
+reach, or at least every loyal man within reach (for plenty of the men
+in Washington were looking and hoping for the success of the South). The
+instructions usually given to pickets were in this instance reversed.
+The men were ordered, in place of keeping their positions hidden and of
+maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post to post along the whole
+line, and they were also ordered, without any reference to the saving of
+ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the least possible pretext
+and without pretext. The armories were then beginning to send to the
+front Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of breech-loading rifles
+came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but
+during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed
+with Sharp's breech-loaders. The infantry weapon used through the War by
+the armies of the North as by those of the South was the muzzle-loading
+rifle which bore the name on our side of the Springfield and on the
+Confederate side of the Enfield. The larger portion of the Northern
+rifles were manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts, while the
+Southern rifles, in great part imported from England, took their name
+from the English factory. It was of convenience for both sides that the
+two rifles were practically identical so that captured pieces and
+captured ammunition could be interchanged without difficulty.
+
+Early's skirmish line was instructed early in the night to "feel" the
+Federal pickets, an instruction which resulted in a perfect blaze of
+carbine fire from Wisewell's men. The report that went to Early was that
+the picket line must be about six thousand strong. The conclusion on the
+part of the old Confederate commander was that the troops from the army
+of the Potomac must have reached the city. If that were true, there was,
+of course, no chance that on the following day he could break through
+the entrenchments, while there was considerable risk that his retreat to
+the Shenandoah might be cut off. Early the next morning, therefore, the
+disappointed Early led his men back to Falling Waters.
+
+I happened during the following winter, when in prison in Danville, to
+meet a Confederate lieutenant who had been on Early's staff and who had
+lost an arm in this little campaign. He reported that when Early, on
+recrossing the Potomac, learned that he had had Washington in his grasp
+and that the divisions marching to its relief did not arrive and could
+not have arrived for another twenty-four hours, he was about the
+maddest Early that the lieutenant had ever seen. "And," added the
+lieutenant, "when Early was angry, the atmosphere became blue."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE FINAL CAMPAIGN
+
+
+After this close escape, it was clear to Grant as it had been clear to
+Lincoln that whatever forces were concentrated before Petersburg, the
+line of advance for Confederate invaders through the Shenandoah must be
+blocked. General Sheridan was placed in charge of the army of the
+Shenandoah and the 19th corps, instead of returning to the trenches of
+the James, marched on from Washington to Martinsburg and Winchester.
+
+In September, the commander in Washington had the satisfaction of
+hearing that his old assailant Early had been sent "whirling through
+Winchester" by the fierce advance of Sheridan. Lincoln recognised the
+possibility that Early might refuse to stay defeated and might make use,
+as had so often before been done by Confederate commanders in the
+Valley, of the short interior line to secure reinforcements from
+Richmond and to make a fresh attack. On the 29th of September, twenty
+days before this attack came off, Lincoln writes to Grant: "Lee may be
+planning to reinforce Early. Care should be taken to trace any movement
+of troops westward." On the 19th of October, the persistent old fighter
+Early, not willing to acknowledge himself beaten and understanding that
+he had to do with an army that for the moment did not have the advantage
+of Sheridan's leadership, made his plucky, and for the time successful,
+fight at Cedar Creek. The arrival of Sheridan at the critical hour in
+the afternoon of the 19th of October did not, as has sometimes been
+stated, check the retreat of a demoralised army. Sheridan found his army
+driven back, to be sure, from its first position, but in occupation of a
+well supported line across the pike from which had just been thrown back
+the last attack made by Early's advance. It was Sheridan however who
+decided not only that the battle which had been lost could be regained,
+but that the work could be done to best advantage right away on that
+day, and it was Sheridan who led his troops through the too short hours
+of the October afternoon back to their original position from which
+before dark they were able to push Early's fatigued fighters across
+Cedar Creek southward. Lincoln had found another man who could fight. He
+was beginning to be able to put trust in leaders who, instead of having
+to be replaced, were with each campaign gathering fresh experience and
+more effective capacity.
+
+From the West also came reports, in this autumn of 1864, from a fighting
+general. Sherman had carried the army, after its success at Chattanooga,
+through the long line of advance to Atlanta, by outflanking movements
+against Joe Johnston, the Fabius of the Confederacy, and when Johnston
+had been replaced by the headstrong Hood, had promptly taken advantage
+of Hood's rashness to shatter the organisation of the army of Georgia.
+The capture of Atlanta in September, 1864, brought to Lincoln in
+Washington and to the North the feeling of certainty that the days of
+the Confederacy were numbered.
+
+The second invasion of Tennessee by the army of Hood, rendered possible
+by the march of Sherman to the sea, appeared for the moment to threaten
+the control that had been secured of the all-important region of which
+Nashville was the centre, but Hood's march could only be described as
+daring but futile. He had no base and no supplies. His advance did some
+desperate fighting at the battle of Franklin and succeeded in driving
+back the rear-guard of Thomas's army, ably commanded by General
+Schofield, but the Confederate ranks were so seriously shattered that
+when they took position in front of Nashville they no longer had
+adequate strength to make the siege of the city serious even as a
+threat. Thomas had only to wait until his own preparations were
+completed and then, on the same day in December on which Sherman was
+entering Savannah, Thomas, so to speak, "took possession" of Hood's
+army. After the fight at Nashville, there were left of the Confederate
+invaders only a few scattered divisions.
+
+It was just before the news of the victory at Nashville that Lincoln
+made time to write the letter to Mrs. Bixby whose name comes into
+history as an illustration of the thoughtful sympathy of the great
+captain:
+
+    "I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of
+    the adjutant-general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of
+    five sons who died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how
+    weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to
+    beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot
+    refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in
+    the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our
+    Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and
+    leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the
+    pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the
+    altar of freedom."
+
+In March, 1864, Lincoln writes to Grant: "New York votes to give votes
+to the soldiers. Tell the soldiers." The decision of New York in regard
+to the collection from the soldiers in each field of the votes for the
+coming Presidential election was in line with that arrived at by all of
+the States. The plan presented difficulties and, in connection with the
+work of special commissioners, it involved also expense. It was,
+however, on every ground desirable that the men who were risking their
+lives in defence of the nation should be given the opportunity of taking
+part in the selection of the nation's leader, who was also under the
+Constitution the commander-in-chief of the armies in the field. The
+votes of some four hundred thousand men constituted also an important
+factor in the election itself. I am not sure that the attempt was ever
+made to separate and classify the soldiers' vote but it is probable that
+although the Democratic candidate was McClellan, a soldier who had won
+the affection of the men serving under him, and the opposing candidate
+was a civilian, a substantial majority of the vote of the soldiers was
+given to Lincoln.
+
+Secretary Chase had fallen into the habit of emphasising what he
+believed to be his indispensability in the Cabinet by threatening to
+resign, or even by submitting a resignation, whenever his suggestions or
+conclusions met with opposition. These threats had been received with
+patience up to the point when patience seemed to be no longer a virtue;
+but finally, when (in May, 1864) such a resignation was tendered under
+some aggravation of opposition or of criticism, very much to Chase's
+surprise the resignation was accepted.
+
+The Secretary had had in train for some months active plans for becoming
+the Republican candidate for the Presidential campaign of 1864. Evidence
+had from time to time during the preceding year been brought to Lincoln
+of Chase's antagonism and of his hopes of securing the leadership of the
+party. Chase's opposition to certain of Lincoln's policies was doubtless
+honest enough. He had brought himself to believe that Lincoln did not
+possess the force and the qualities required to bring the War to a
+close. He had also convinced himself that he, Chase, was the man, and
+possibly was the only man, who was fitted to meet the special
+requirements of the task. Mr. Chase did possess the confidence of the
+more extreme of the anti-slavery groups throughout the country. His
+administration of the Treasury had been able and valuable, but the
+increasing difficulty that had been found in keeping the Secretary of
+the Treasury in harmonious relations with the other members of the
+administration caused his retirement to be on the whole a relief.
+Lincoln came to the conclusion that more effective service could be
+secured from some other man, even if possessing less ability, whose
+temperament made it possible for him to work in co-operation. The
+unexpected acceptance of the resignation caused to Chase and to Chase's
+friends no little bitterness, which found vent in sharp criticisms of
+the President. Neither bitterness nor criticisms could, however, prevent
+Lincoln from retaining a cordial appreciation for the abilities and the
+patriotism of the man, and, later in the year, Lincoln sent in his
+nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Chase himself, in his
+lack of capacity to appreciate the self-forgetfulness of Lincoln's
+nature, was probably more surprised by his nomination as Chief Justice
+than he had been by the acceptance of his resignation as Secretary of
+the Treasury.
+
+In July, 1864, comes a fresh risk of international complications
+through the invasion of Mexico by a French army commanded by Bazaine,
+seven years later to be known as the (more or less) hero of Metz. Lotus
+Napoleon had been unwilling to give up his dream of a French empire, or
+of an empire instituted under French influence, in the Western
+Hemisphere. He was still hopeful, if not confident, that the United
+States would not be able to maintain its existence; and he felt assured
+that if the Southern Confederacy should finally be established with the
+friendly co-operation of France, he would be left unmolested to carry
+out his own schemes in Mexico. He had induced an honest-minded but not
+very clearheaded Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of
+Austria, to accept a throne in Mexico to be established by French
+bayonets, and which, as the result showed, could sustain itself only
+while those bayonets were available. The presence of French troops on
+American soil brought fresh anxieties to the administration; but it was
+recognised that nothing could be done for the moment, and Lincoln and
+his advisers were hopeful that the Mexicans, before their capital had
+been taken possession of by the invader, would be able to maintain some
+national government until, with the successful close of its own War,
+the United States could come to the defence of the sister republic.
+
+The extreme anti-slavery group of the Republican party had, as
+indicated, never been fully satisfied with the thoroughness of the
+anti-slavery policy of the administration and Mr. Chase retained until
+the action of the convention in June the hope that he might through the
+influence of this group secure the Presidency. Lincoln remarks in
+connection with this candidacy: "If Chase becomes President, all right.
+I hope we may never have a worse man." From the more conservative wing
+of the Republican party came suggestions as to the nomination of Grant
+and this plan brought from Lincoln the remark: "If Grant takes Richmond,
+by all means let him have the nomination." When the delegates came
+together, however, in Baltimore, it was evident that, representing as
+they did the sober and well-thought-out convictions of the people, no
+candidacy but that of Lincoln could secure consideration and his
+nomination was practically unanimous.
+
+The election in November gave evidence that, even in the midst of civil
+war, a people's government can sustain the responsibility of a national
+election. The large popular majorities in nearly all of the voting
+States constituted not only a cordial recognition of the service that
+was being rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's administration, but a
+substantial assurance that the cause of nationality was to be sustained
+with all the resources of the nation. The Presidential election of this
+year gave the final blow to the hopes of the Confederacy.
+
+I had myself a part in a very small division of this election, a
+division which could have no effect in the final gathering of the votes,
+but which was in a way typical of the spirit of the army. On the 6th of
+November, 1864, I was in Libby Prison, having been captured at the
+battle of Cedar Creek in October. It was decided to hold a Presidential
+election in the prison, although some of us were rather doubtful as to
+the policy and anxious in regard to the result. The exchange of
+prisoners had been blocked for nearly a year on the ground of the
+refusal on the part of the South to exchange the coloured troops or
+white officers who held commissions in coloured regiments. Lincoln took
+the ground, very properly, that all of the nation's soldiers must be
+treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. Until the
+coloured troops should be included in the exchange, "there can," said
+Lincoln, "be no exchanging of prisoners." This decision, while sound,
+just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction
+to the men in prison and to their friends at home. When I reached Libby
+in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven
+months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners
+for five months more. Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and
+mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very
+severe. It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the Confederate
+authorities to keep any prisoners in Richmond during that last winter of
+the War. It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of
+which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for
+Lee's army. It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south,
+in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the
+inhabitants of the town. It was inevitable under the circumstances that
+the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths
+from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken
+from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there
+should be further deaths from starvation.
+
+It was not unnatural that under such conditions the prisoners should
+have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison authorities,
+but for discontent with their own administration. One may in fact be
+surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured
+spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we
+found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The
+soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison
+votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual
+ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but
+twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, that this vote of the
+prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so
+recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.
+
+In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the part
+of certain members of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear upon
+Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's reply made clear that he
+proposed to remain President. He says to the member reporting for
+himself and his associates the protest against Seward: "I propose to be
+the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my
+Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once have secured peace within the
+Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he had
+been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had
+associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens,
+who would have been competent to carry on the routine responsibilities
+of their posts. The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion or
+any working action between men differing from each other as widely as
+did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and
+in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an
+attempt that brought upon the chief daily burdens and many keen
+anxieties. Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important for the
+proper carrying on of the contest that the Cabinet should contain
+representatives of the several loyal sections of the country and of the
+various phases of opinion. The extreme anti-slavery men were entitled to
+be heard even though their spokesman Chase was often intemperate,
+ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States men had a right to be
+represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they had
+a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might
+show himself, as he often did show himself, quite incapable of
+understanding, much less of sympathising with, the real spirit of the
+North. Stanton might be truculent and even brutal, but he was willing to
+work, he knew how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, scholar
+and statesman as he was, had been ready to give needless provocation to
+Europe and was often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the
+conservative Border States on the one hand and of the New England
+abolitionists on the other, but Seward was a patriot as well as a
+scholar and was a representative not only of New York but of the best of
+the Whig Republican sentiment of the entire North, and Seward could not
+be spared. It is difficult to recall in history a government made up of
+such discordant elements which through the patience, tact, and genius of
+one man was made to do effective work.
+
+In February, 1865, in response to suggestions from the South which
+indicated the possibility of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with
+Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners to talk over measures
+for bringing the War to a close. The meeting was held on a gun-boat on
+the James River. It seems probable from the later history that Stephens
+had convinced himself that the Confederacy could not conquer its
+independence and that it only remained to secure the best terms
+possible for a surrender. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis was not yet
+prepared to consider any terms short of a recognition of the
+independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens could act only under the
+instructions received from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention that
+the government of the United States could not treat with rebels (or,
+dropping the word "rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The first
+step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, "be the laying down of arms.
+There is no precedent in history for a government entering into
+negotiations with its own armed citizens."
+
+"But there is a precedent, Mr. Lincoln," said Stephens, "King Charles of
+England treated with the Cromwellians."
+
+"Yes," said Lincoln, "I believe that is so. I usually leave historical
+details to Mr. Seward, who is a student. It is, however, my memory that
+King Charles lost his head."
+
+It soon became evident that there was no real basis for negotiations,
+and Stephens and his associates had to return to Richmond disappointed.
+In the same month, was adopted by both Houses of Congress the Thirteenth
+Amendment, which prohibited slavery throughout the whole dominion of the
+United States. By the close of 1865, this amendment had been confirmed
+by thirty-three States. It is probable that among these thirty-three
+there were several States the names of which were hardly familiar to
+some of the older citizens of the South, the men who had accepted the
+responsibility for the rebellion. The state of mind of these older
+Southerners in regard more particularly to the resources of the
+North-west was recalled to me years after the War by an incident related
+by General Sherman at a dinner of the New England Society. Sherman said
+that during the march through Georgia he had found himself one day at
+noon, when near the head of his column, passing below the piazza of a
+comfortable-looking old plantation house. He stopped to rest on the
+piazza with one or two of his staff and was received by the old planter
+with all the courtliness that a Southern gentleman could show, even to
+an invader, when doing the honours of his own house. The General and the
+planter sat on the piazza, looking at the troops below and discussing,
+as it was inevitable under the circumstances that they must discuss, the
+causes of the War.
+
+"General," said the planter, "what troops are those passing below?" The
+General leans over the piazza, and calls to the standard bearers,
+"Throw out your flag, boys," and as the flag was thrown out, he reports
+to his host, "The 30th Wisconsin."
+
+"Wisconsin?" said the planter, "Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin?"
+
+"It is one of the States of the North-west," said Sherman.
+
+"When I was studying geography," said the planter, "I knew of Wisconsin
+simply as the name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are there in a
+regiment?"
+
+"Well, there were a thousand when they started," said Sherman.
+
+"Do you mean to say," said the planter, "that there is a State called
+Wisconsin that has sent thirty thousand men into your armies?"
+
+"Oh, probably forty thousand," answered Sherman.
+
+With the next battalion the questions and the answers are repeated. The
+flag was that of a Minnesota regiment, say the 32d. The old planter had
+never heard that there was such a State.
+
+"My God!" he said when he had figured out the thousands of men who had
+come to the front, from these so-called Indian territories, to maintain
+the existence of the nation, "If we in the South had known that you had
+turned those Indian territories into great States, we never should have
+gone into this war." The incident throws a light upon the state of mind
+of men in the South, even of well educated men in the South, at the
+outbreak of the War. They might, of course, have known by statistics
+that great States had grown up in the North-west, representing a
+population of millions and able themselves to put into the field armies
+to be counted by the thousand. They might have realised that these great
+States of the North-west were vitally concerned with the necessity of
+keeping the Mississippi open for their trade from its source to the Gulf
+of Mexico. They might have known that those States, largely settled from
+New England, were absolutely opposed to slavery. This knowledge was
+within their reach but they had not realised the facts of the case. It
+was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to do only
+with New England and the Middle States and they felt that they were
+strong enough to hold their own against this group of opponents. That
+feeling would have been justified. The South could never have been
+overcome and the existence of the nation could never have been
+maintained if it had not been for the loyal co-operation and the
+magnificent resources of men and of national wealth that were
+contributed to the cause by the States of the North-west. In 1880, I had
+occasion, in talking to the two thousand students of the University of
+Minnesota, to recall the utterance of the old planter. The students of
+that magnificent University, placed in a beautiful city of two hundred
+and fifty thousand inhabitants, found it difficult on their part to
+realise, amidst their laughter at the ignorance of the old planter, just
+what the relations of the South had been before the War to the new free
+communities of the North-west.
+
+In February, 1865, with the fall of Fort Fisher and the capture of
+Wilmington, the control of the coast of the Confederacy became complete.
+The Southerners and their friends in Great Britain and the Bahamas (a
+group of friends whose sympathies for the cause were very much enhanced
+by the opportunity of making large profits out of their friendly
+relations) had shown during the years of the War exceptional ingenuity,
+daring, and persistence in carrying on the blockade-running. The ports
+of the British West Indies were very handy, and, particularly during the
+stormy months of the winter, it was hardly practicable to maintain an
+absolutely assured barrier of blockades along a line of coast
+aggregating about two thousand miles. The profits on a single voyage on
+the cotton taken out and on the stores brought back were sufficient to
+make good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three disastrous trips.
+The blockade-runners, Southerners and Englishmen, took their lives in
+their hands and they fairly earned all the returns that came to them. I
+happened to have early experience of the result of the fall of Fort
+Fisher and of the final closing of the last inlet for British goods. I
+was at the time in prison in Danville, Virginia. I was one of the few
+men in the prison (the group comprised about a dozen) who had been
+fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. We wore our tooth-brushes
+fastened into the front button-holes of our blouses, partly possibly
+from ostentation, but chiefly for the purpose of keeping them from being
+stolen. I was struck by receiving an offer one morning from the
+lieutenant of the prison guard of $300 for my tooth-brush. The "dollars"
+meant of course Confederate dollars and I doubtless hardly realised from
+the scanty information that leaked into the prison how low down in
+February, 1865, Confederate currency had depreciated. But still it was a
+large sum and the tooth-brush had been in use for a number of months.
+It then leaked out from a word dropped by the lieutenant that no more
+English tooth-brushes could get into the Confederacy and those of us who
+had been studying possibilities on the coast realised that Fort Fisher
+must have fallen.
+
+In this same month of February, into which were crowded some of the most
+noteworthy of the closing events of the War, Charleston was evacuated as
+Sherman's army on its sweep northward passed back of the city. I am not
+sure whether the fiercer of the old Charlestonians were not more annoyed
+at the lack of attention paid by Sherman to the fire-eating little city
+in which four years back had been fired the gun that opened the War,
+than they would have been by an immediate and strenuous occupation.
+Sherman had more important matters on hand than the business of looking
+after the original fire-eaters. He was hurrying northward, close on the
+heels of Johnston, to prevent if possible the combination of Johnston's
+troops with Lee's army which was supposed to be retreating from
+Virginia.
+
+On the 4th of March comes the second inaugural, in which Lincoln speaks
+almost in the language of a Hebrew prophet. The feeling is strong upon
+him that the clouds of war are about to roll away but he cannot free
+himself from the oppression that the burdens of the War have produced.
+The emphasis is placed on the all-important task of bringing the
+enmities to a close with the end of the actual fighting. He points out
+that responsibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the South and
+he invokes from those who under his leadership are bringing the contest
+to a triumphant close, their sympathy and their help for their
+fellow-men who have been overcome. The address is possibly the most
+impressive utterance ever made by a national leader and it is most
+characteristic of the fineness and largeness of nature of the man. I
+cite the closing paragraph:
+
+    "If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in
+    the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued
+    through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He
+    gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those
+    by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure
+    from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God
+    always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
+    this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills
+    that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen
+    in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
+    until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by
+    another drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said two thousand
+    years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord
+    are true, and righteous altogether.... With malice towards none,
+    with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
+    see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind
+    up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the
+    battle and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may
+    achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and
+    with all nations."
+
+After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had been "a common cause, a
+common interest, and a common country." The invocation in this last
+inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common
+country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in
+the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the
+men of the grey and those of the blue.
+
+At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines
+cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of adjustment.
+Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no
+authority to discuss any political relations. On the first of April, the
+right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at
+Five Forks, and on the day following Richmond is evacuated by the
+rear-guard of Lee's army. The defence of Richmond during the long years
+of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the
+entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the
+patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always take
+a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of
+positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction
+of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic
+distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever disposition
+of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from
+month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact
+there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these
+things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the
+resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and
+character of Lee and his associates would however of course have been in
+vain and the lines would have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or in
+1862, if it had not been for the magnificent patience and heroism of the
+rank and file that fought in the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars
+and whose fighting during the last of those months was done in tattered
+uniforms and with a ration less by from one quarter to one half than
+that which had been accepted as normal.
+
+On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes are borne into Richmond by
+the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command
+of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision
+that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should
+be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the
+rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The
+Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping to
+be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified,
+for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as
+remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had
+left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and
+negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all
+authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the city
+was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored
+order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and
+consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, when
+necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but
+not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been
+brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves into
+their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own
+street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate
+safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that the
+first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.
+
+Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and in spite of the
+apprehensions of nearly all his advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming
+down the river from Washington and making his way into the Rebel
+capital. There was no thought of vaingloriousness or of posing as the
+victor. He came under the impression that some civil authorities would
+probably have remained in Richmond with whom immediate measures might be
+taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to secure for the city and for
+the State a return of peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while not a
+great artist was inspired to produce during the War some of the most
+graphic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events,
+made a drawing which was purchased later by the New York Union League
+Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured
+folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowding about the man
+whom they hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic adoration
+trying to touch so much as the hem of his garment. The picture is
+history in showing what actually happened and it is pathetic history in
+recalling how great were the hopes that came to the coloured people from
+the success of the North and from the certainty of the end of slavery.
+It is sad to recall the many disappointments that during the forty years
+since the occupation of Richmond have hampered the uplifting of the
+race. Lincoln's hope that some representative of the Confederacy might
+have remained in Richmond, if only for the purpose of helping to bring
+to a close as rapidly as possible the waste and burdens of continued
+war, was not realised. The members of the Confederate government seem to
+have been interested only in getting away from Richmond and to have
+given no thought to the duty they owed to their own people to cooperate
+with the victors in securing a prompt return of law and order.
+
+On the 9th of April, came the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, four
+years, less three days, from the date of the firing of the first gun of
+the War at Charleston. The muskets turned in by the ragged and starving
+files of the remnants of Lee's army represented only a small portion of
+those which a few days earlier had been holding the entrenchments at
+Petersburg. As soon as it became evident that the army was not going to
+be able to break through the Federal lines and begin a fresh campaign in
+North Carolina, the men scattered from the retreating columns right and
+left, in many cases carrying their muskets to their own homes as a
+memorial fairly earned by plucky and persistent service. There never was
+an army that did better fighting or that was better deserving of the
+recognition, not only of the States in behalf of whose so-called
+"independence" the War had been waged, but on the part of opponents who
+were able to realise the character and the effectiveness of the
+fighting.
+
+The scene in the little farm-house where the two commanders met to
+arrange the terms of surrender was dramatic in more ways than one.
+General Lee had promptly given up his own baggage waggon for use in
+carrying food for the advance brigade and as he could save but one suit
+of clothes, he had naturally taken his best. He was, therefore,
+notwithstanding the fatigues and the privations of the past week, in
+full dress uniform. He was one of the handsomest men of his generation,
+and his beauty was not only of feature but of expression of character.
+Grant, who never gave much thought to his personal appearance, had for
+days been away from his baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping
+as near as possible to the front line with reference to the probability
+of being called to arrange terms for surrender, he had not found the
+opportunity of securing a proper coat in place of his fatigue blouse. I
+believe that even his sword had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow
+one for the occasion from a staff officer. When the main details of the
+surrender had been talked over, Grant looked about the group in the
+room, which included, in addition to two staff officers who had come
+with Lee, a group of five or six of his own assistants, who had managed
+to keep up with the advance, to select the aid who should write out the
+paper. His eye fell upon Colonel Ely Parker, a brigade commander who had
+during the past few months served on Grant's staff. "Colonel Parker, I
+will ask you," said Grant, "as the only real American in the room, to
+draft this paper." Parker was a full-blooded Indian, belonging to one of
+the Iroquois tribes of New York.
+
+Grant's suggestion that the United States had no requirement for the
+horses of Lee's army and that the men might find these convenient for
+"spring ploughing" was received by Lee with full appreciation. The first
+matter in order after the completion of the surrender was the issue of
+rations to the starving Southern troops. "General Grant," said Lee, "a
+train was ordered by way of Danville to bring rations to meet my army
+and it ought to be now at such a point," naming a village eight or nine
+miles to the south-west. General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye,
+now put in a word: "The train from the south is there, General Lee, or
+at least it was there yesterday. My men captured it and the rations will
+be available." General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, a
+valued comrade, and rides slowly through the ranks first of the blue and
+then of the grey. Every hat came off from the men in blue as an
+expression of respect to a great soldier and a true gentleman, while
+from the ranks in grey there was one great sob of passionate grief and
+finally, almost for the first time in Lee's army, a breaking of
+discipline as the men crowded forward to get a closer look at, or
+possibly a grasp of the hand of, the great leader who had fought and
+failed but whose fighting and whose failure had been so magnificent.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED
+
+
+On the 11th of April, Lincoln makes his last public utterance. In a
+brief address to some gathering in Washington, he says, "There will
+shortly be announcement of a new policy." It is hardly to be doubted
+that the announcement which he had in mind was to be concerned with the
+problem of reconstruction. He had already outlined in his mind the
+essential principles on which the readjustment must be made. In this
+same address, he points out that "whether or not the seceded States be
+out of the Union, they are out of their proper relations to the Union."
+We may feel sure that he would not have permitted the essential matters
+of readjustment to be delayed while political lawyers were arguing over
+the constitutional issue. On one side was the group which maintained
+that in instituting the Rebellion and in doing what was in their power
+to destroy the national existence, the people of the seceding States had
+forfeited all claims to the political liberty of their communities.
+According to this contention, the Slave States were to be treated as
+conquered territory, and it simply remained for the government of the
+United States to reshape this territory as might be found convenient or
+expedient. According to the other view, as secession was itself
+something which was not to be admitted, being, from the constitutional
+point of view, impossible, there never had in the legal sense of the
+term been any secession. The instant the armed rebellion had been
+brought to an end, the rebelling States were to be considered as having
+resumed their old-time relations with the States of the North and with
+the central government. They were under the same obligations as before
+for taxation, for subordination in foreign relations, and for the
+acceptance of the control of the Federal government on all matters
+classed as Federal. On the other hand, they were entitled to the
+privileges that had from the beginning been exercised by independent
+States: namely, the control of their local affairs on matters not
+classed as Federal, and they had a right to their proportionate
+representation in Congress and to their proportion of the electoral vote
+for President. It has been very generally recognised in the South as in
+the North that if Lincoln could have lived, some of the most serious of
+the difficulties that arose during the reconstruction period through the
+friction between these conflicting theories would have been avoided. The
+Southerners would have realised that the head of the government had a
+cordial and sympathetic interest in doing what might be practicable not
+only to re-establish their relations as citizens of the United States,
+but to further in every way the return of their communities to
+prosperity, a prosperity which, after the loss of the property in their
+slaves and the enormous destruction of their general resources, seemed
+to be sadly distant.
+
+On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic tragedy ending on the day
+following in the death of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this
+instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation mourned for the loss of
+its leader, while the soldiers were stricken with grief that their great
+captain should have been struck down, while the South might well be
+troubled that the control and adjustment of the great interstate
+perplexities was not to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and
+patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after the four years of
+continuous toil and fearful burdens and anxieties might well have been
+grateful. The great task had been accomplished and the responsibilities
+accepted in the first inaugural had been fulfilled.
+
+In March, 1861, Lincoln had accepted the task of steering the nation
+through the storm of rebellion, the divided opinions and counsels of
+friends, and the fierce onslaught of foes at home and abroad. In April,
+1865, the national existence was assured, the nation's credit was
+established, the troops were prepared to return to their homes and
+resume their work as citizens. At no time in history had any people been
+able against such apparently overwhelming perils and difficulties to
+maintain a national existence. There was, therefore, notwithstanding the
+great misfortune, for the people South and North, in the loss of the
+wise ruler at a time when so many difficulties remained to be adjusted,
+a dramatic fitness in having the life of the leader close just as the
+last army of antagonists was laying down its arms. The first problem of
+the War that came to the administration of 1861 was that of restoring
+the flag over Fort Sumter. On the 14th of April, the day when Booth's
+pistol was laying low the President, General Anderson, who four years
+earlier had so sturdily defended Sumter, was fulfilling the duty of
+restoring the Stars and Stripes.
+
+The news of the death of Lincoln came to the army of Sherman, with
+which my own regiment happened at the time to be associated, on the 17th
+of April. On leaving Savannah, Sherman had sent word to the north to
+have all the troops who were holding posts along the coasts of North
+Carolina concentrated on a line north of Goldsborough. It was his dread
+that General Johnston might be able to effect a junction with the
+retreating forces of Lee and it was important to do whatever was
+practicable, either with forces or with a show of forces, to delay
+Johnston and to make such combination impossible. A thin line of Federal
+troops was brought into position to the north of Johnston's advance, but
+Sherman himself kept so closely on the heels of his plucky and
+persistent antagonist that, irrespective of any opposing line to the
+north, Johnston would have found it impossible to continue his progress
+towards Virginia. He was checked at Goldsborough after the battle of
+Bentonville and it was at Goldsborough that the last important force of
+the Confederacy was surrendered.
+
+We soldiers learned only later some of the complications that preceded
+that surrender. President Davis and his associates in the Confederate
+government had, with one exception, made their way south, passing to
+the west of Sherman's advance. The exception was Post-master-General
+Reagan, who had decided to remain with General Johnston. He appears to
+have made good with Johnston the claim that he, Reagan, represented all
+that was left of the Confederate government. He persuaded Johnston to
+permit him to undertake the negotiations with Sherman, and he had, it
+seems, the ambition of completing with his own authority the
+arrangements that were to terminate the War. Sherman, simple-hearted man
+that he was, permitted himself, for the time, to be confused by Reagan's
+semblance of authority. He executed with Reagan a convention which
+covered not merely the surrender of Johnston's army but the
+preliminaries of a final peace. This convention was of course made
+subject to the approval of the authorities in Washington. When it came
+into the hands of President Johnson, it was, under the counsel of Seward
+and Stanton, promptly disavowed. Johnson instructed Grant, who had
+reported to Washington from Appomattox, to make his way at once to
+Goldsborough and, relieving Sherman, to arrange for the surrender of
+Johnston's army on the terms of Appomattox. Grant's response was
+characteristic. He said in substance: "I am here, Mr. President, to
+obey orders and under the decision of the Commander-in-chief I will go
+to Goldsborough and will carry out your instructions. I prefer, however,
+to act as a messenger simply. I am entirely unwilling to take out of
+General Sherman's hands the command of the army that is so properly
+Sherman's army and that he has led with such distinctive success.
+General Sherman has rendered too great a service to the country to make
+it proper to have him now humiliated on the ground of a political
+blunder, and I at least am unwilling to be in any way a party to his
+humiliation."
+
+Stanton was disposed to approve of Johnson's first instruction and to
+have Sherman at once relieved, but the man who had just come from
+Appomattox was too strong with the people to make it easy to disregard
+his judgment on a matter which was in part at least military. The
+President was still new to his office and he was still prepared to
+accept counsel. The matter was, therefore, arranged as Grant desired.
+Grant took the instructions and had his personal word with Sherman, but
+this word was so quietly given that none of the men in Sherman's army,
+possibly no one but Sherman himself, knew of Grant's visit. Grant took
+pains so to arrange the last stage of his journey that he came into the
+camp at Goldsborough well after dark, and, after an hour's interview
+with Sherman, he made his way at once northward outside of our lines and
+of our knowledge.
+
+On Grant's arrival, Sherman at once assumed that he was to be
+superseded. "No, no," said Grant; "do you not see that I have come
+without even a sword? There is here no question of superseding the
+commander of this army, but simply of correcting an error and of putting
+things as they were. This convention must be cancelled. You will have no
+further negotiation with Mr. Reagan or with any civilian claiming to
+represent the Confederacy. Your transactions will be made with the
+commander of the Confederate army, and you will accept the surrender of
+that army on the terms that were formulated at Appomattox." Sherman was
+keen enough to understand what must have passed in Washington, and was
+able to appreciate the loyal consideration shown by General Grant in the
+successful effort to protect the honour and the prestige of his old
+comrade. The surrender was carried out on the 26th of April, eleven days
+after the death of Lincoln. Johnston's troops, like those of Lee, were
+distributed to their homes. The officers retained their side-arms, and
+the men, leaving their rifles, took with them not only such horses and
+mules as they still had with them connected with the cavalry or
+artillery, but also a number of horses and mules which had been captured
+by Sherman's army and which had not yet been placed on the United States
+army roster. Sherman understood, as did Grant, the importance of giving
+to these poor farmers whatever facilities might be available to enable
+them again to begin their home work. Word was at once sent to General
+Johnston after Grant's departure that the, only terms that could be
+considered was a surrender of the army, and that the details of such
+surrender Sherman would himself arrange with Johnston. Reagan slipped
+away southward and is not further heard of in history.
+
+The record of Lincoln's relations to the events of the War would not be
+complete without a reference to the capture of Jefferson Davis. On
+returning to Washington after his visit to Richmond, Lincoln had been
+asked what should be done with Davis when he was captured. The answer
+was characteristic: "I do not see," said Lincoln, "that we have any use
+for a white elephant." Lincoln's clear judgment had at once recognised
+the difficulties that would arise in case Davis should become a
+prisoner. The question as to the treatment of the ruler of the late
+Confederacy was very different from, and much more complicated than, the
+fixing of terms of surrender for the Confederate armies. If Davis had
+succeeded in getting out of the country, it is probable that the South,
+or at least a large portion of the South, would have used him as a kind
+of a scapegoat. Many of the Confederate soldiers were indignant with
+Davis for his bitter animosities to some of their best leaders. Davis
+was a capable man and had in him the elements of statesmanship. He was,
+however, vain and, like some other vain men, placed the most importance
+upon the capacities in which he was the least effective. He had had a
+brief and creditable military experience, serving as a lieutenant with
+Scott's army in Mexico, and he had impressed himself with the belief
+that he was a great commander. Partly on this ground, and partly
+apparently as a result of general "incompatibility of temper," Davis
+managed to quarrel at different times during the War with some of the
+generals who had shown themselves the most capable and the most
+serviceable. He would probably have quarrelled with Lee, if it had been
+possible for any one to make quarrel relations with that fine-natured
+gentleman, and if Lee had not been too strongly entrenched in the hearts
+of his countrymen to make any interference with him unwise, even for the
+President. Davis had, however, managed to interfere very seriously with
+the operations of men like Beauregard, Sidney Johnson, Joseph Johnston,
+and other commanders whose continued leadership was most important for
+the Confederacy. It was the obstinacy of Davis that had protracted the
+War through the winter and spring of 1865, long after it was evident
+from the reports of Lee and of the other commanders that the resources
+of the Confederacy were exhausted and that any further struggle simply
+meant an inexcusable loss of life on both sides. As a Northern soldier
+who has had experience in Southern prisons, I may be excused also from
+bearing in mind the fearful responsibility that rests upon Davis for the
+mismanagement of those prisons, a mismanagement which caused the death
+of thousands of brave men on the frozen slopes of Belle Isle, on the
+foul floors of Libby and Danville, and on the rotten ground used for
+three years as a living place and as a dying place within the stockade
+at Andersonville. Davis received from month to month the reports of the
+conditions in these and in the other prisons of the Confederacy. Davis
+could not have been unaware of the stupidity and the brutality of
+keeping prisoners in Richmond during the last winter of the War when the
+lines of road still open were absolutely inadequate to supply the troops
+in the trenches or the people of the town. Reports were brought to Davis
+more than once from Andersonville showing that a large portion of the
+deaths that were there occurring were due to the vile and rotten
+condition of the hollow in which for years prisoners had been huddled
+together; but the appeal made to Richmond for permission to move the
+stockade to a clean and dry slope was put to one side as a matter of no
+importance. The entire authority in the matter was in the hands of Davis
+and a word from him would have remedied some of the worst conditions. He
+must share with General Winder, the immediate superintendent of the
+prisons, the responsibility for the heedless and brutal
+mismanagement,--a mismanagement which brought death to thousands and
+which left thousands of others cripples for life.
+
+As a result of the informal word given by Lincoln, it was generally
+understood, by all the officers, at least, in charge of posts and picket
+lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured.
+Unfortunately it had not proved possible to get this informal
+expression of a very important piece of policy conveyed throughout the
+lines farther west. An enterprising and over-zealous captain of cavalry,
+riding across from the Mississippi to the coast, heard of Davis's party
+in Florida and, "butting in," captured, on May 10th, "the white
+elephant."
+
+The last commands of the Confederate army were surrendered with General
+Taylor in Louisiana on the 4th of May and with Kirby Smith in Texas on
+the 26th of May. As Lincoln had foreshadowed, not a few complications
+resulted from this unfortunate capture of Davis, complications that were
+needlessly added to by the lack of clear-headedness or of definite
+policy on the part of a confused and vacillating President. During the
+months in which Davis was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, and while the
+question of his trial for treason was being fiercely debated in
+Washington, the sentiment of the Confederacy naturally concentrated upon
+its late President. He was, as the single prisoner, the surviving emblem
+of the contest. His vanities, irritability, and blunders were forgotten.
+It was natural that, under the circumstances, his people, the people of
+the South, should hold in memory only the fact that he had been their
+leader and that he had through four strenuous years borne the burdens
+of leadership with unflagging zeal, with persistent courage, and with an
+almost foolhardy hopefulness. He had given to the Confederacy the best
+of his life, and he was entitled to the adoration that the survivors of
+the Confederacy gave to him as representing the ideal of the lost cause.
+
+The feeling with which Lincoln was regarded by the men in the front, for
+whom through the early years of their campaigning he had been not only
+the leader but the inspiration, was indicated by the manner in which the
+news of his death was received. I happened myself on the day of those
+sad tidings to be with my division in a little village just outside of
+Goldsborough, North Carolina. We had no telegraphic communication with
+the North, but were accustomed to receive despatches about noon each
+day, carried across the swamps from a station through which connection
+was made with Wilmington and the North. In the course of the morning, I
+had gone to the shanty of an old darky whom I had come to know during
+the days of our sojourn, for the purpose of getting a shave. The old
+fellow took up his razor, put it down again and then again lifted it up,
+but his arm was shaking and I saw that he was so agitated that he was
+not fitted for the task. "Massa," he said, "I can't shave yer this
+mornin'." "What is the matter?" I inquired. "Well," he replied,
+"somethin's happened to Massa Linkum." "Why!" said I, "nothing has
+happened to Lincoln. I know what there is to be known. What are you
+talking about?" "Well!" the old man replied with a half sob, "we
+coloured folks--we get news or we get half news sooner than you-uns. I
+dun know jes' what it is, but somethin' has gone wrong with Massa
+Linkum." I could get nothing more out of the old man, but I was
+sufficiently anxious to make my way to Division headquarters to see if
+there was any news in advance of the arrival of the regular courier. The
+coloured folks were standing in little groups along the village street,
+murmuring to each other or waiting with anxious faces for the bad news
+that they were sure was coming. I found the brigade adjutant and those
+with him were puzzled like myself at the troubled minds of the darkies,
+but still sceptical as to the possibility of any information having
+reached them which was not known through the regular channels.
+
+At noon, the courier made his appearance riding by the wood lane across
+the fields; and the instant he was seen we all realised that there was
+bad news. The man was hurrying his pony and yet seemed to be very
+unwilling to reach the lines where his report must be made. In this
+instance (as was, of course, not usually the case) the courier knew what
+was in his despatches. The Division Adjutant stepped out on the porch of
+the headquarters with the paper in his hand, but he broke down before he
+could begin to read. The Division Commander took the word and was able
+simply to announce: "Lincoln is dead." The word "President" was not
+necessary and he sought in fact for the shortest word. I never before
+had found myself in a mass of men overcome by emotion. Ten thousand
+soldiers were sobbing together. No survivor of the group can recall the
+sadness of that morning without again being touched by the wave of
+emotion which broke down the reserve and control of these war-worn
+veterans on learning that their great captain was dead.
+
+The whole people had come to have with the President a relation similar
+to that which had grown up between the soldiers and their
+Commander-in-chief. With the sympathy and love of the people to sustain
+him, Lincoln had over them an almost unlimited influence. His capacity
+for toil, his sublime patience, his wonderful endurance, his great mind
+and heart, his out-reaching sympathies, his thoughtfulness for the needs
+and requirements of all, had bound him to his fellow-citizens by an
+attachment of genuine sentiment. His appellation throughout the country
+had during the last year of the war become "Father Abraham." We may
+recall in the thought of this relation to the people the record of
+Washington. The first President has come into history as the "Father of
+his Country," but for Washington this rôle of father is something of
+historic development. During Washington's lifetime, or certainly at
+least during the years of his responsibilities as General and as
+President, there was no such general recognition of the leader and ruler
+as the father of his country. He was dear to a small circle of
+intimates; he was held in respectful regard by a larger number of those
+with whom were carried on his responsibilities in the army, and later in
+the nation's government. To many good Americans, however, Washington
+represented for years an antagonistic principle of government. He was
+regarded as an aristocrat and there were not a few political leaders,
+with groups of voters behind them, who dreaded, and doubtless honestly
+dreaded, that the influence of Washington might be utilised to build up
+in this country some fresh form of the monarchy that had been
+overthrown. The years of the Presidency had to be completed and the
+bitter antagonisms of the seven years' fighting and of the issues of the
+Constitution-building had to be outgrown, before the people were able to
+recognise as a whole the perfect integrity of purpose and consistency of
+action of their great leader, the first President. Even then when the
+animosities and suspicions had died away, while the people were ready to
+honour the high character and the accomplishments of Washington, the
+feeling was one of reverence rather than of affection. This sentiment
+gave rise later to the title of the "Father of his Country"; but there
+was no such personal feeling towards Washington as warranted, at least
+during his life, the term father of the people. Thirty years later, the
+ruler of the nation is Andrew Jackson, a man who was, like Lincoln,
+eminently a representative of the common people. His fellow-citizens
+knew that Jackson understood their feelings and their methods and were
+ready to have full confidence in Jackson's patriotism and honesty of
+purpose. His nature lacked, however, the sweet sympathetic qualities
+that characterised Lincoln; and while to a large body of his
+fellow-citizens he commended himself for sturdiness, courage, and
+devotion to the interests of the state, he was never able for himself to
+overcome the feeling that a man who failed to agree with a Jackson
+policy must be either a knave or a fool. He could not place himself in
+the position from which the other fellow was thinking or acting. He
+believed that it was his duty to maintain what he held to be the popular
+cause against the "schemes of the aristocrats," the bugbear of that day.
+He was a fighter from his youth up and his theory of government was that
+of enforcing the control of the side for which he was the partisan. Such
+a man could never be accepted as the father of the people.
+
+Lincoln, coming from those whom he called the common people, feeling
+with their feelings, sympathetic with their needs and ideals, was able
+in the development of his powers to be accepted as the peer of the
+largest intellects in the land. While knowing what was needed by the
+poor whites of Kentucky, he could understand also the point of view of
+Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. In place of emphasising antagonisms,
+he held consistently that the highest interest of one section of the
+country must be the real interest of the whole people, and that the
+ruler of the nation had upon him the responsibility of so shaping the
+national policy that all the people should recognise the government as
+their government. It was this large understanding and width of sympathy
+that made Lincoln in a sense which could be applied to no other ruler of
+this country, the people's President, and no other ruler in the world
+has ever been so sympathetically, so effectively in touch with all of
+the fellow-citizens for whose welfare he made himself responsible. The
+Latin writer, Aulus Gellius, uses for one of his heroes the term "a
+classic character." These words seem to me fairly to apply to Abraham
+Lincoln.
+
+An appreciative Englishman, writing in the London _Nation_ at the time
+of the Centennial commemoration, says of Lincoln:
+
+    The greatness of Lincoln was that of a common man raised to a high
+    dimension. The possibility, still more the existence, of such a man
+    is itself a justification of democracy. We do not say that so
+    independent, so natural, so complete a man cannot in older societies
+    come to wield so large a power over the affairs and the minds of
+    men; we can only say that amid all the stirring movements of the
+    nineteenth century he has not so done. The existence of what may be
+    called a widespread commonalty explains the rarity of personal
+    eminence in America. There has been and still remains a higher
+    general level of personality than in any European country, and the
+    degree of eminence is correspondingly reduced. It is just because
+    America has stood for opportunity that conspicuous individuals have
+    been comparatively rare. Strong personality, however, has not been
+    rare; it is the abundance of such personality that has built up
+    silently into the rising fabric of the American Commonwealth,
+    pioneers, roadmakers, traders, lawyers, soldiers, teachers, toiling
+    terribly over the material and moral foundation of the country, few
+    of whose names have emerged or survived. Lincoln was of this stock,
+    was reared among these rude energetic folk, had lived all those
+    sorts of lives. He was no "sport"; his career is a triumphant
+    refutation of the traditional views of genius. He had no special
+    gift or quality to distinguish him; he was simply the best type of
+    American at a historic juncture when the national safety wanted such
+    a man. The confidence which all Americans express that their country
+    will be equal to any emergency which may threaten it, is not so
+    entirely superstitious as it seems at first sight. For the career of
+    Lincoln shows how it has been done in a country where the "necessary
+    man" can be drawn not from a few leading families, or an educated
+    class, but from the millions.
+
+Rabbi Schechter, in an eloquent address delivered at the Centennial
+celebration, speaks of Lincoln's personality as follows:
+
+    The half century that has elapsed since Lincoln's death has
+    dispelled the mists that encompassed him on earth. Men now not only
+    recognise the right which he championed, but behold in him the
+    standard of righteousness, of liberty, of conciliation, and truth.
+    In him, as it were personified, stands the Union, all that is best
+    and noblest and enduring in its principles in which he devoutly
+    believed and served mightily to save. When to-day, the world
+    celebrates the century of his existence, he has become the ideal of
+    both North and South, of a common country, composed not only of the
+    factions that once confronted each other in war's dreadful array,
+    but of the myriad thousands that have since found in the American
+    nation the hope of the future and the refuge from age-entrenched
+    wrong and absolutism. To them, Lincoln, his life, his history, his
+    character, his entire personality, with all its wondrous charm and
+    grace, its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweetness, has
+    come to be the very prototype of a rising humanity.
+
+Carl Schurz, himself a man of large nature and wide and sympathetic
+comprehension, says of Lincoln:
+
+    In the most conspicuous position of the period, Lincoln drew upon
+    himself the scoffs of polite society; but even then he filled the
+    souls of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur.
+    It was distinctly the weird mixture in him of qualities and forces,
+    of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that
+    which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that
+    made him so fascinating a character among his fellow-men, that gave
+    him his singular power over minds and hearts, that fitted him to be
+    the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national life.
+
+    He possessed the courage to stand alone--that courage which is the
+    first requisite of leadership in a great cause. The charm of
+    Lincoln's oratory flooded all the rare depth and genuineness of his
+    convictions and his sympathetic feelings were the strongest element
+    in his nature. He was one of the greatest Americans and the best of
+    men.
+
+The poet Whittier writes:
+
+    The weary form that rested not
+    Save in a martyr's grave;
+    The care-worn face that none forgot,
+    Turned to the kneeling slave.
+
+    We rest in peace where his sad eyes
+    Saw peril, strife, and pain;
+    His was the awful sacrifice,
+    And ours the priceless gain.
+
+Says Bryant:
+
+    That task is done, the bound are free,
+    We bear thee to an honoured grave,
+    Whose noblest monument shall be
+    The broken fetters of the slave.
+
+    Pure was thy life; its bloody close
+    Hath blessed thee with the sons of light,
+    Among the noble host of those
+    Who perished in the cause of right.
+
+Says Lowell:
+
+    Our children shall behold his fame,
+    The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
+    Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame;
+    New birth of our new soil, the first American.
+
+Ordinary men die when their physical life is brought to a close, if
+perhaps not at once, yet in a brief space, with the passing of the
+little circle of those to whom they were dear.
+
+The man of distinction lives for a time after death. His achievements
+and his character are held in appreciative remembrance by the community
+and the generation he has served. The waves of his influence ripple out
+in a somewhat wider circle before being lost in the ocean of time. We
+call that man great to whom it is given so to impress himself upon his
+fellow-men by deed, by creation, by service to the community, by
+character, by the inspiration from on high that has been breathed
+through his soul, that he is not permitted to die. Such a man secures
+immortality in this world. The knowledge and the influence of his life
+are extended throughout mankind and his memory gathers increasing fame
+from generation to generation.
+
+It is thus that men are to-day honouring the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
+To-day, one hundred years after his birth, and nearly half a century
+since the dramatic close of his life's work, Lincoln stands enshrined in
+the thought and in the hearts of his countrymen. He is our "Father
+Abraham," belonging to us, his fellow-citizens, for ideals, for
+inspiration, and for affectionate regard; but he belongs now also to all
+mankind, for he has been canonised among the noblest of the world's
+heroes.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+
+
+THE ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York,
+
+February 27, 1860.
+
+
+With Introduction by Charles C. Nott; Historical and Analytical Notes by
+Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, and with the Correspondence between
+Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott as Representative of the Committee of the Young
+Men's Republican Union.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+
+The address delivered by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,
+1860 in response to the invitation of certain representative New
+Yorkers, was, as well in its character as in its results, the most
+important of all of his utterances.
+
+The conscientious study of the historical and constitutional record, and
+the arguments and conclusions based upon the analysis of this record,
+were accepted by the Republican leaders as constituting the principles
+and the policy to be maintained during the Presidential campaign of
+1860, a campaign in which was involved not merely the election of a
+President, but the continued existence of the republic.
+
+Under the wise counsels represented by the words of Lincoln, the
+election was fought out substantially on two contentions:
+
+First, that the compact entered into by the Fathers and by their
+immediate successors should be loyally carried out, and that slavery
+should not be interfered with in the original slave States, or in the
+additional territory that had been conceded to it under the Missouri
+Compromise; and, secondly, that not a single further square mile of
+soil, that was still free, should be left available, or should be made
+available, for the incursion of slavery.
+
+It was the conviction of Lincoln and of his associates, as it had been
+the conviction of the Fathers, that under such a restriction slavery
+must certainly in the near future come to an end. It was because these
+convictions, both in the debates with Douglas and in the Cooper
+Institute speech, were presented by Lincoln more forcibly and more
+conclusively than had been done by any other political leader, that
+Lincoln secured the nomination and the presidency. The February address
+was assuredly a deciding factor in the great issue of the time, and it
+certainly belongs, therefore, with the historic documents of the
+republic.
+
+G.H.P.
+
+NEW YORK, September 1, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD
+
+(_From Robert Lincoln_)
+
+    MANCHESTER, VERMONT,
+
+    July 27, 1909.
+
+    DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:
+
+    Your letter of July 23rd reaches me here, and I beg to express my
+    thanks for your kind remembrances of me in London.... I am much
+    interested in learning that you were present at the time my father
+    made his speech at Cooper Institute. I, of course, remember the
+    occasion very well, although I was not present. I was at that time
+    in the middle of my year at Phillips Exeter Academy, preparing for
+    the Harvard entrance examination of the summer of 1860.... After the
+    Cooper Institute address, my father came to Exeter to see how I was
+    getting along, and this visit resulted in his making a number of
+    speeches in New England on his way and on his return, and at Exeter
+    he wrote to my mother a letter which was mainly concerned with me,
+    but which did make reference to these speeches.... He said that he
+    had had some embarrassment with these New England speeches, because
+    in coming East he had anticipated making no speech excepting the
+    one at the Cooper Institute, and he had not prepared himself for
+    anything else.... In the later speeches, he was addressing reading
+    audiences who had, as he thought probable, seen the report of his
+    Cooper Institute speech, and he was obliged, therefore, from day to
+    day (he made about a dozen speeches in New England in all) to bear
+    that fact in mind.
+
+    Sincerely yours,
+
+    ROBERT LINCOLN.
+
+
+(_From Judge Nott_)
+
+    WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.,
+
+    July 26, 1909.
+
+    DEAR PUTNAM:
+
+    I consider it very desirable that the report of Mr. Lincoln's
+    speech, embodying the final revision, should be preserved in book
+    form.... The text in the pamphlet now in your hands is authentic and
+    conclusive. Mr. Lincoln read the proof both of the address and of
+    the notes. I am glad that you are to include in your reprint the
+    letters from Mr. Lincoln, as these letters authenticate this copy of
+    the address as the copy which was corrected by him with his own
+    hand....
+
+    The preface to the address, written in September, 1860, has interest
+    because it shows what we thought of the address at that time....
+    Your worthy father was, if I remember rightly, one of the
+    vice-presidents of the meeting....
+
+    Yours faithfully,
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT.
+
+
+_(From Cephas Brainerd)_
+
+    NEW YORK, August 18, 1909.
+
+    DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:
+
+    I am very glad to learn that there is good prospect that the real
+    Lincoln Cooper Institute address, with the evidence in regard to it,
+    will now be available for the public.... I am glad also that with
+    the address you are proposing to print the letters received by Judge
+    Nott from Mr. Lincoln. One or two of these have, unfortunately, not
+    been preserved. I recall in one an observation made by Lincoln to
+    the effect that he "was not much of a literary man."
+
+    I did not see much of Mr. Lincoln when he was in New York, as my
+    most active responsibility in regard to the meeting was in getting
+    up an audience.... I remember in handing some weeks earlier to John
+    Sherman, who, like Lincoln, had never before spoken in New York,
+    five ten-dollar gold pieces, that he said he "had not expected his
+    expenses to be paid." At a lunch that was given to Sherman a long
+    time afterward, I referred to that meeting. Sherman cocked his eye
+    at me and said: "Yes, I remember it very well; I never was so scar't
+    in all my life." ...
+
+    The observations of Judge Nott in regard to the meeting are about
+    as just as anything that has ever been put into print, and as I
+    concur fully in the accuracy of these recollections, I do not
+    undertake to give my own impressions at any length. I was expecting
+    to hear some specimen of Western stump-speaking as it was then
+    understood. You will, of course, observe that the speech contains
+    nothing of the kind. I do remember, however, that Lincoln spoke of
+    the condition of feeling between the North and the South.... He
+    refers to the treatment which Northern men received in the South,
+    and he remarked, parenthetically, that he had never known of a man
+    who had been able "to whip his wife into loving him," an observation
+    that produced laughter.
+
+    In making up the notes, we ransacked, as you may be sure, all the
+    material available in the libraries in New York, and I also had
+    interviews as to one special point with Mr. Bancroft, with Mr.
+    Hildreth, and with Dr. William Goodell, who was in those times a
+    famous anti-slavery man.
+
+    Your father[3] and William Curtis Noyes were possibly more
+    completely in sympathy than any other two men in New York, with the
+    efforts of these younger men; they impressed me as standing in that
+    respect on the same plane. The next man to them was Charles Wyllis
+    Elliott, the author of a _History of New England_. We never went to
+    your father for advice or assistance when he failed to help us, and
+    he was always so kindly and gentle in what he did and said that
+    every one of us youngsters acquired for him a very great affection.
+    He always had time to see us and was always on hand when he was
+    wanted, and if we desired to have anything, we got it if he had it.
+    Neither your father, nor Mr. Noyes, nor for that matter Mr. Elliott,
+    ever suggested that we were "young" or "fresh" or anything of that
+    sort. The enthusiasm which young fellows have was always recognised
+    by these men as an exceedingly valuable asset in the cause....
+    Pardon all this from a "veteran," and believe me,
+
+    Sincerely yours,
+
+    CEPHAS BRAINERD.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+BY CHARLES C. NOTT
+
+
+The Cooper Institute address is one of the most important addresses ever
+delivered in the life of this nation, for at an eventful time it changed
+the course of history. When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the evening of
+February 27, 1860, he had held no administrative office; he had
+endeavoured to be appointed Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he
+had sought to be elected United States Senator, and had been defeated;
+he had been a member of Congress, yet it was not even remembered; he was
+a lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, but had not
+reached the front rank of the Illinois Bar. The record which Mr. Lincoln
+himself placed in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still be
+taken as the record of his public and official life: "Born February
+12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective. Profession
+a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.
+Postmaster in a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois
+Legislature and a member of the lower house of Congress." Was this the
+record of a man who should be made the head of a nation in troubled
+times? In the estimation of thoughtful Americans east of the Alleghanies
+all that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in regarding him as
+only "a Western stump orator"--successful, distinguished, but nothing
+higher than that--a Western stump orator, who had dared to brave one of
+the strongest men in the Western States, and who had done so with
+wonderful ability and moral success. When Mr. Lincoln closed his address
+he had risen to the rank of statesman, and had stamped himself a
+statesman peculiarly fitted for the exigency of the hour.
+
+Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided at the meeting; and a number of the
+first and ablest citizens of New York were present, among them Horace
+Greeley. Mr. Greeley was pronounced in his appreciation of the address;
+it was the ablest, the greatest, the wisest speech that had yet been
+made; it would reassure the conservative Northerner; it was just what
+was wanted to conciliate the excited Southerner; it was conclusive in
+its argument, and would assure the overthrow of Douglas. Mr. Horace
+White has recently written: "I chanced to open the other day his Cooper
+Institute speech. This is one of the few printed speeches that I did not
+hear him deliver in person. As I read the concluding pages of that
+speech, the conflict of opinion that preceded the conflict of arms then
+sweeping upon the country like an approaching solar eclipse seemed
+prefigured like a chapter of the Book of Fate. Here again he was the
+Old Testament prophet, before whom Horace Greeley bowed his head, saying
+that he had never listened to a greater speech, although he had heard
+several of Webster's best." Later, Mr. Greeley became the leader of the
+Republican forces opposed to the nomination of Mr. Seward and was
+instrumental in concentrating those forces upon Mr. Lincoln.
+Furthermore, the great New York press on the following morning carried
+the address to the country, and before Mr. Lincoln left New York he was
+telegraphed from Connecticut to come and aid in the campaign of the
+approaching spring election. He went, and when the fateful moment came
+in the Convention, Connecticut was one of the Eastern States which first
+broke away from the Seward column and went over to Mr. Lincoln. When
+Connecticut did this, the die was cast.
+
+It is difficult for younger generations of Americans to believe that
+three months before Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency he was
+neither appreciated nor known in New York. That fact can be better
+established by a single incident than by the opinions and assurances of
+a dozen men.
+
+After the address had been delivered, Mr. Lincoln was taken by two
+members of the Young Men's Central Republican Union--Mr. Hiram Barney,
+afterward Collector of the Port of New York, and Mr. Nott, one of the
+subsequent editors of the address--to their club, The Athenæum, where
+a very simple supper was ordered, and five or six Republican members of
+the club who chanced to be in the building were invited in. The supper
+was informal--as informal as anything could be; the conversation was
+easy and familiar; the prospects of the Republican party in the coming
+struggle were talked over, and so little was it supposed by the
+gentlemen who had not heard the address that Mr. Lincoln could possibly
+be the candidate that one of them, Mr. Charles W. Elliott, asked,
+artlessly: "Mr. Lincoln, what candidate do you really think would be
+most likely to carry Illinois?" Mr. Lincoln answered by illustration:
+"Illinois is a peculiar State, in three parts. In northern Illinois, Mr.
+Seward would have a larger majority than I could get. In middle
+Illinois, I think I could call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. In
+southern Illinois, it would make no difference who was the candidate."
+This answer was taken to be merely illustrative by everybody except,
+perhaps, Mr. Barney and Mr. Nott, each of whom, it subsequently
+appeared, had particularly noted Mr. Lincoln's reply.
+
+The little party broke up. Mr. Lincoln had been cordially received, but
+certainly had not been flattered. The others shook him by the hand and,
+as they put on their overcoats, said: "Mr. Nott is going down town and
+he will show you the way to the Astor House." Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott
+started on foot, but the latter observing that Mr. Lincoln was
+apparently Walking with some difficulty said, "Are you lame, Mr.
+Lincoln?" He replied that he had on new boots and they hurt him. The two
+gentlemen then boarded a street car. When they reached the place where
+Mr. Nott would leave the car on his way home, he shook Mr. Lincoln by
+the hand and, bidding him good-bye, told him that this car would carry
+him to the side door of the Astor House. Mr. Lincoln went on alone, the
+only occupant of the car. The next time he came to New York, he rode
+down Broadway to the Astor House standing erect in an open barouche
+drawn by four white horses. He bowed to the patriotic thousands in the
+street, on the sidewalks, in the windows, on the house-tops, and they
+cheered him as the lawfully elected President of the United States and
+bade him go on and, with God's help, save the Union.
+
+His companion in the street car has often wondered since then what Mr.
+Lincoln thought about during the remainder of his ride that night to the
+Astor House. The Cooper Institute had, owing to a snowstorm, not been
+full, and its intelligent, respectable, non-partisan audience had not
+rung out enthusiastic applause like a concourse of Western auditors
+magnetised by their own enthusiasm. Had the address--the most carefully
+prepared, the most elaborately investigated and demonstrated and
+verified of all the work of his life--been a failure? But in the matter
+of quality and ability, if not of quantity and enthusiasm, he had never
+addressed such an audience; and some of the ablest men in the Northern
+States had expressed their opinion of the address in terms which left no
+doubt of the highest appreciation. Did Mr. Lincoln regard the address
+which he had just delivered to a small and critical audience as a
+success? Did he have the faintest glimmer of the brilliant effect which
+was to follow? Did he feel the loneliness of the situation--the want of
+his loyal Illinois adherents? Did his sinking heart infer that he was
+but a speck of humanity to which the great city would never again give a
+thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; unadorned, apparently
+uncultivated, showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His
+dress that night before a New York audience was the most unbecoming that
+a fiend's ingenuity could have devised for a tall, gaunt man--a black
+frock coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and
+arms--a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled
+throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night
+more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more
+conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know
+that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition,
+sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze
+upon the very pinnacle of American fame and aspire to it in a time so
+troubled that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. What were
+this man's thoughts when he was left alone? Did a faint shadow of the
+future rest upon his soul? Did he feel in some mysterious way that on
+that night he had crossed the Rubicon of his life-march--that care and
+trouble and political discord, and slander and misrepresentation and
+ridicule and public responsibilities, such as hardly ever before
+burdened a conscientious soul, coupled with war and defeat and disaster,
+were to be thenceforth his portion nearly to his life's end, and that
+his end was to be a bloody act which would appall the world and send a
+thrill of horror through the hearts of friends and enemies alike, so
+that when the woeful tidings came the bravest of the Southern brave
+should burst into tears and cry aloud, "Oh! the unhappy South, the
+unhappy South!"
+
+The impression left on his companion's mind as he gave a last glance at
+him in the street car was that he seemed sad and lonely; and when it was
+too late, when the car was beyond call, he blamed himself for not
+accompanying Mr. Lincoln to the Astor House--not because he was a
+distinguished stranger, but because he seemed a sad and lonely man.
+
+_February 12, 1908_.
+
+
+
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. LINCOLN
+
+    69 Wall St., New York,
+
+    February 9, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    The "Young Men's Central Republican Union" of this city very
+    cordially desire that you should deliver during the ensuing
+    month--what I may term--_a political lecture_. The peculiarities of
+    the case are these--A series of lectures has been determined
+    upon--The first was delivered by Mr. Blair of St. Louis a short time
+    ago--the second will be in a few days by Mr. C.M. Clay, and the
+    third we would prefer to have from you, rather than from any other
+    person. Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an
+    ordinary political meeting. These lectures have been _contrived_ to
+    call out our better, but busier citizens, who never attend political
+    meetings. A large part of the audience would also consist of ladies.
+    The time we should prefer, would be about the middle of March, but
+    if any earlier or later day will be more convenient for you we would
+    alter our arrangements.
+
+    Allow me to hope that we shall have the pleasure of welcoming you to
+    New York. You are, I believe, an entire stranger to your Republican
+    brethren here; but they have, for you, the highest esteem, and your
+    celebrated contest with Judge Douglas awoke their warmest sympathy
+    and admiration. Those of us who are "in the ranks" would regard your
+    presence as very material aid, and as an honor and pleasure which I
+    cannot sufficiently express.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+
+    To Hon. Abram Lincoln.
+
+    69 Wall St., New York,
+
+    May 23, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    I enclose a copy of your address in New York.
+
+    We (the Young Men's Rep. Union) design to publish a new edition in
+    larger type and better form, with such notes and references as will
+    best attract readers seeking information. Have you any memoranda of
+    your investigations which you would approve of inserting?
+
+    You and your Western friends, I think, underrate this speech. It has
+    produced a greater effect here than any other single speech. It is
+    the real platform in the Eastern States, and must carry the
+    conservative element in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
+
+    Therefore I desire that it should be as nearly perfect as may be.
+    Most of the emendations are trivial and do not affect the
+    substance--all are merely suggested for your judgment.
+
+    I cannot help adding that this speech is an extraordinary example
+    of condensed English. After some experience in criticising for
+    Reviews, I find hardly anything to touch and nothing to omit. It is
+    the only one I know of which I cannot _shorten_, and--like a good
+    arch--moving one word tumbles a whole sentence down.
+
+    Finally--it being a bad and foolish thing for a candidate to write
+    letters, and you having doubtless more to do of that than is
+    pleasant or profitable, we will not add to your burden in that
+    regard, but if you will let any friend who has nothing to do, advise
+    us as to your wishes, in this or any other matter, we will try to
+    carry them out.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+    To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+
+    Springfield, Ills., May 31, 1860.
+
+    Charles C. Nott, Esq.
+
+    _My Dear Sir_:
+
+    Yours of the 23rd, accompanied by a copy of the speech delivered by
+    me at the Cooper Institute, and upon which you have made some notes
+    for emendations, was received some days ago--Of course I would not
+    object to, but would be pleased rather, with a more perfect edition
+    of that speech.
+
+    I did not preserve memoranda of my investigations; and I could not
+    now re-examine, and make notes, without an expenditure of time
+    which I can not bestow upon it--Some of your notes I do not
+    understand.
+
+    So far as it is intended merely to improve in grammar, and elegance
+    of composition, I am quite agreed; but I do not wish the sense
+    changed, or modified, to a hair's breadth--And you, not having
+    studied the particular points so closely as I have, can not be quite
+    sure that you do not change the sense when you do not intend it--For
+    instance, in a note at bottom of first page, you propose to
+    substitute "Democrats" for "Douglas"--But what I am saying there is
+    _true_ of Douglas, and is not true of "Democrats" generally; so that
+    the proposed substitution would be a very considerable blunder--Your
+    proposed insertion of "residences" though it would do little or no
+    harm, is not at all necessary to the sense I was trying to
+    convey--On page 5 your proposed grammatical change would certainly
+    do no harm--The "_impudently absurd"_ I stick to--The striking out
+    "_he"_ and inserting "_we"_ turns the sense exactly wrong--The
+    striking out "_upon it_" leaves the sense too general and
+    incomplete--The sense is "act as they acted _upon that question_
+    "--not as they acted generally.
+
+    After considering your proposed changes on page 7, I do not think
+    them material, but I am willing to defer to you in relation to them.
+
+    On page 9, striking out "_to us_" is probably right--The word
+    "_lawyer's"_ I wish retained. The word "_Courts"_ struck out twice,
+    I wish reduced to "Court" and retained--"Court" as a collection more
+    properly governs the plural "have" as I understand--"The" preceding
+    "Court," in the latter case, must also be retained--The words
+    "quite," "as," and "or" on the same page, I wish retained. The
+    italicising, and quotation marking, I have no objection to.
+
+    As to the note at bottom, I do not think any too much is
+    admitted--What you propose on page 11 is right--I return your copy
+    of the speech, together with one printed here, under my own hasty
+    supervising. That at New York was printed without any supervision by
+    me--If you conclude to publish a new edition, allow me to see the
+    proof-sheets.
+
+    And now thanking you for your very complimentary letter, and your
+    interest for me generally, I subscribe myself.
+
+    Your friend and servant,
+
+    A. Lincoln.
+
+    69 Wall Street, New York.
+
+    August 28, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    Mr. Judd insists on our printing the revised edition of your Cooper
+    Ins. speech _without waiting to send you the_ proofs.
+
+    If this is so determined, I wish you to know, that I have made no
+    alterations other than those you sanctioned, except--
+
+    1. I do not find that Abraham Baldwin voted on the Ordinance of '87.
+    On the contrary he appears _not_ to have acted with Congress during
+    the sitting of the Convention. Wm. Pierce seems to have taken his
+    place then; and his name is recorded as voting for the Ordinance.
+    This makes no difference in the result, but I presume you will not
+    wish the historical inaccuracy (if it is such) to stand. I will
+    therefore (unless you write to the contrary) strike out his name in
+    that place and reduce the number from "four" to "three" where you
+    sum up the number of times he voted.
+
+    2. In the quotations from the Constitution I have given its exact
+    language; as "delegated" instead of "granted," etc. As it is given
+    in _quo_. marks, I presume the exact letter of the text should be
+    followed.
+
+    _If these are not correct please write immediately_.
+
+    _Our_ apology for the delay is that we have been weighed down by
+    other matters; _mine_ that I have but to-day returned to town.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+    To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+
+    69 WALL STREET, N.Y.
+
+    Sept. 17, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    We forward you by this day's express 250 copies, with the last
+    corrections. I delayed sending, thinking that you would prefer these
+    to those first printed.
+
+    The "Abraham Baldwin letter" referred to in your last I regret to
+    say has _not_ arrived. From your not touching the proofs in that
+    regard, I inferred (and hope) that the correction was not itself an
+    error.
+
+    Should you wish a larger number of copies do not hesitate to let us
+    know; it will afford us much pleasure to furnish them and no
+    inconvenience whatever.
+
+    Respectfully, etc.,
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT.
+
+    Hon. A. Lincoln.
+
+
+    SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., Sept. 22, 1860.
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT, Esq.,
+
+    _My Dear Sir_:
+
+    Yours of the 17th was duly received--The 250 copies have not yet
+    arrived--I am greatly obliged to you for what you have done, and
+    what you propose to do.
+
+    The "Abraham Baldwin letter" in substance was that I could not find
+    the Journal of the Confederation Congress for the session at which
+    was passed the Ordinance of 1787--and that in stating Mr. Baldwin
+    had voted for its passage, I had relied on a communication of Mr.
+    Greeley, over his own signature, published in the New York _Weekly
+    Tribune_ of October 15, 1859. If you will turn to that paper, you
+    will there see that Mr. Greeley apparently copies from the Journal,
+    and places the name of Mr. Baldwin among those of the men who voted
+    for the measure.
+
+    Still; if the Journal itself shows differently, of course it is
+    right.
+
+    Yours very truly,
+
+    A. LINCOLN.
+
+The Address of
+
+THE HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+
+In Vindication of the Policy of the Framers of the
+
+Constitution and the Principles of the
+
+Republican Party.
+
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860.
+
+Issued by the Young Men's Republican Union.
+
+With Notes by
+
+CHARLES C. NOTT and CEPHAS BRAINERD,
+
+Members of the Board of Control.
+
+OFFICERS OF THE UNION
+
+CHARLES T. RODGERS, President.
+DEXTER A. HAWKINS, Vice-President.
+ERASMUS STERLING, Secretary.
+WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, Treasurer.
+
+EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
+
+CEPHAS BRAINERD, Chairman.
+BENJAMIN P. MANIERRE,
+RICHARD C. McCORMICK,
+CHARLES C. NOTT,
+CHARLES H. COOPER,
+P.G. DEGRAW,
+JAMES H. WELSH,
+E.C. JOHNSON,
+LEWIS M. PECK.
+
+ADVISORY BOARD
+
+WM. CULLEN BRYANT,
+DANIEL DREW,
+HIRAM BARNEY,
+WILLIAM V. BRADY,
+JOHN JAY,
+GEORGE W. BLUNT,
+HENRY A. HURLBUT,
+ABIJAH MANN, JR.,
+HAMILTON FISH,
+FRANCIS HALL,
+HORACE GREELEY,
+CHARLES A. PEABODY,
+EDGAR KETCHUM,
+JAMES KELLY,
+GEORGE FOLSOM,
+WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES,
+BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This edition of Mr. Lincoln's address has been prepared and published by
+the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, to exemplify its wisdom,
+truthfulness, and learning. No one who has not actually attempted to
+verify its details can understand the patient research and historical
+labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is
+scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters;
+and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and
+in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not
+travelled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every
+trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln
+has turned from the testimony of "the Fathers," on the general question
+of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the
+first line to the last--from his premises to his conclusion, he travels
+with swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled--an
+argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and
+without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A
+single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words contains a
+chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to
+verify and which must have cost the author months of investigation to
+acquire. And, though the public should justly estimate the labor
+bestowed on the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the greater
+labor involved on those which are omitted--how many pages have been
+read--how many works examined--what numerous statutes, resolutions,
+speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked through. Commencing
+with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as
+an historical work--brief, complete, profound, impartial,
+truthful--which will survive the time and the occasion that called it
+forth, and be esteemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth than
+its unpretending modesty.
+
+NEW YORK, September, 1860.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS
+
+    MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which
+    I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+    anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall
+    be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and
+    the inferences and observations following that presentation.
+
+    In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New
+    York _Times_, Senator Douglas said:
+
+    "_Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
+    understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
+    now_."
+
+    I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I
+    so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed
+    starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of
+    the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the
+    inquiry: "_What was the understanding those fathers had of the
+    question mentioned_?"
+
+    What is the frame of Government under which we live?
+
+    The answer must be: "The Constitution of the United States." That
+    Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, (and under
+    which the present Government first went into operation,) and twelve
+    subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed
+    in 1789.[4]
+
+    Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
+    "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly
+    called our fathers who framed that part of the present Government.
+    It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is
+    altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and
+    sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being
+    familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be
+    repeated.[5]
+
+
+    I take these "thirty-nine" for the present, as being "our fathers
+    who framed the Government under which we live."
+
+    What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+    understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
+
+    It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid _our Federal
+    Government_ to control as to slavery in _our Federal Territories_?
+
+    Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans
+    the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this
+    issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our
+    fathers understood "better than we."
+
+    Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever
+    acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon
+    it--how they expressed that better understanding.
+
+    In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
+    owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other,[6] the Congress of
+    the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting
+    slavery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who
+    afterward framed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+    on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh
+    Williamson voted for the prohibition,[7] thus showing that, in their
+    understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+    anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+    to slavery in federal territory. The other of the four--James
+    M'Henry--voted against the prohibition, showing that, for some
+    cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.[8]
+
+    In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the Convention was
+    in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still
+    was the only territory owned by the United States, the same question
+    of prohibiting Slavery in the Territories again came before the
+    Congress of the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who
+    afterward signed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+    on the question. They were William Blount and William Few[9]; and
+    they both voted for the prohibition--thus showing that, in their
+    understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+    anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+    to slavery in federal territory. This time, the prohibition became a
+    law, being part of what is now well known as the Ordinance of
+    '87.[10]
+
+    The question of federal control of slavery in the territories, seems
+    not to have been directly before the Convention which framed the
+    original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
+    "thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
+    expressed any opinion on that precise question.[11]
+
+    In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an
+    act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the
+    prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for
+    this act was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas
+    Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
+    Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of
+    opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
+    which is equivalent to an unanimous passage.[12] In this Congress,
+    there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
+    original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm.
+    S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+    Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Clymer,
+    Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+    Madison.[13]
+
+
+    This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+    federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly
+    forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory; else
+    both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support
+    the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the
+    prohibition.
+
+    Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then
+    President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed
+    the bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing
+    that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from federal
+    authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.
+
+    No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution,
+    North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now
+    constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia
+    ceded that which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and
+    Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the
+    ceding States that the Federal Government should not prohibit
+    slavery in the ceded country.[14] Besides this, slavery was then
+    actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress,
+    on taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit
+    slavery within them. But they did interfere with it--take control of
+    it--even there to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized the
+    Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization, they
+    prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory, from any place
+    without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so
+    brought.[15] This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas
+    and nays. In that Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who
+    framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George
+    Read and Abraham Baldwin.[16] They all, probably, voted for it.
+    Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record,
+    if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the
+    Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.
+
+    In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
+    former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
+    but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In
+    1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
+    which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying
+    within that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There
+    were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
+    extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people. Congress
+    did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; but they did
+    interfere with it--take control of it--in a more marked and
+    extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi. The
+    substance of the provision therein made, in relation to slaves, was:
+
+    _First_. That no slave should be imported into the territory from
+    foreign parts.
+
+    _Second_. That no slave should be carried into it who had been
+    imported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
+
+    _Third_. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the
+    owner, and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the
+    cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the
+    slave.[17]
+
+    This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress
+    which passed it, there were two of the "thirty-nine." They were
+    Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton.[18] As stated in the case of
+    Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. They would not
+    have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition to it,
+    if, in their understanding, it violated either the line properly
+    dividing local from federal authority, or any provision of the
+    Constitution.
+
+    In 1819-20, came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes were
+    taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the
+    various phases of the general question. Two of the
+    "thirty-nine"--Rufus King and Charles Pinckney--were members of
+    that Congress.[19] Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition
+    and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted
+    against slavery prohibition and against all compromises. By this,
+    Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing local
+    from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was
+    violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in federal territory; while
+    Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed that, in his understanding, there
+    was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that
+    case.[20]
+
+    The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine,"
+    or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
+    discover.
+
+    To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
+    in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+    1819-20--there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting
+    John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
+    Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of
+    those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the
+    question, which, by the text, they understood better than we, is
+    twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in
+    anyway.[21]
+
+    Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+    framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
+    official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the
+    very question which the text affirms they "understood just as well,
+    and even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear
+    majority of the whole "thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make
+    them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if,
+    in their understanding, any proper division between local and
+    federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made
+    themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to
+    control as to slavery in the federal territories. Thus the
+    twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
+    actions under such responsibility speak still louder.
+
+    Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+    slavery in the federal territories, in the instances in which they
+    acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
+    known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division
+    of local from federal authority, or some provision or principle of
+    the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
+    question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to
+    them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to
+    support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he
+    understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he
+    may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which
+    he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it
+    inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two
+    who voted against the prohibition, as having done so because, in
+    their understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.[22]
+
+    The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have
+    discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
+    direct question of federal control of slavery in the federal
+    territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
+    understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
+    from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
+    all.[23]
+
+    For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
+    omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+    person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers
+    who framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I
+    have also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by
+    any of the "thirty-nine" even, on any other phase of the general
+    question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and
+    declarations on those other phases, as the foreign slave trade, and
+    the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would appear to us
+    that on the direct question of federal control of slavery in federal
+    territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably
+    have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were
+    several of the most noted anti-slavery men of those times--as Dr.
+    Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris--while there was
+    not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John
+    Rutledge, of South Carolina.[24]
+
+    The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed
+    the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the
+    whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from
+    federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the
+    Federal Government to control slavery in the federal territories;
+    while all the rest probably had the same understanding. Such,
+    unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the
+    original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the
+    question "better than we."
+
+    But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
+    question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In
+    and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it;
+    and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government
+    under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve
+    amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist
+    that federal control of slavery in federal territories violates the
+    Constitution, point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus
+    violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon provisions in
+    these amendatory articles and not in the original instrument. The
+    Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the
+    fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of
+    "life, liberty or property without due process of law"; while
+    Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the
+    tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the
+    United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States
+    respectively, or to the people."[25]
+
+    Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+    Congress which sat under the Constitution--the identical Congress
+    which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of
+    slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the same
+    Congress, but they were the identical same individual men who, at
+    the same session, and at the same time within the session had under
+    consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional
+    amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory
+    the nation then owned. The Constitutional amendments were introduced
+    before, and passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so
+    that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance,
+    the Constitutional amendments were also pending.[26]
+
+    The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+    framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were
+    pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government
+    under which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal
+    Government to control slavery in the federal territories.
+
+    Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm
+    that the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and
+    carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent
+    with each other? And does not such affirmation become impudently
+    absurd when coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth,
+    that those who did the two things, alleged to be inconsistent,
+    understood whether they really were inconsistent better than
+    we--better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent?
+
+    It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the
+    original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
+    which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
+    include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
+    Government under which we live."[27] And so assuming, I defy any man
+    to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that,
+    in his understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. I go
+    a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the
+    whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present
+    century, (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last
+    half of the present century,) declare that, in his understanding,
+    any proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of
+    the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+    slavery in the federal territories. To those who now so declare, I
+    give, not only "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+    live," but with them all other living men within the century in
+    which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be
+    able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
+
+    Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I
+    do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
+    fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current
+    experience--to reject all progress--all improvement. What I do say
+    is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers
+    in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and
+    argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly
+    considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case
+    whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better
+    than we.
+
+    If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of
+    local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
+    forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
+    federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
+    position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can.
+    But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to
+    history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
+    "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," were
+    of the same opinion--thus substituting falsehood and deception for
+    truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day
+    sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the Government under
+    which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which
+    ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local
+    from federal authority or some part of the Constitution, forbids the
+    Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal
+    territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time,
+    brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
+    understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
+    especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that
+    they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we
+    do now."
+
+    But enough! _Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the
+    Government under which we live, understood this question just as
+    well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act
+    as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask--all Republicans
+    desire--in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let
+    it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
+    tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual
+    presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
+    Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly,
+    but fully and fairly maintained_. For this Republicans contend, and
+    with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.
+
+    And now, if they would listen--as I suppose they will not--I would
+    address a few words to the Southern people.
+
+    I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+    people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+    justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you
+    speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
+    or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing
+    to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
+    In all your contentions with one another each of you deems an
+    unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first
+    thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be
+    an indispensable prerequisite--licence, so to speak--among you to be
+    admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be
+    prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just
+    to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and
+    specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
+    justify.
+
+    You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the
+    burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is
+    it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no
+    votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it
+    prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change
+    of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+    cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+    are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+    find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+    your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the
+    truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact
+    that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and
+    not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
+    primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by
+    some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong
+    principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to
+    where you ought to have started--to a discussion of the right or
+    wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would
+    wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object,
+    then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly
+    opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of
+    whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section;
+    and so meet us as if it were possible that something may be said on
+    our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe
+    that the principle which "our fathers who framed the Government
+    under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and
+    indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so
+    clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's
+    consideration.
+
+    Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
+    sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less
+    than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as
+    President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
+    Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
+    Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that
+    subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and
+    about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he
+    considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same
+    connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy
+    of free States.[28]
+
+
+    Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+    upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+    against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself
+    speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+    sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that
+    warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+    example pointing to the right application of it.
+
+    But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we
+    are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is
+    conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the
+    new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+    on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who
+    framed the Government under which we live"; while you with one
+    accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist
+    upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves
+    as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new
+    propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and
+    denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for
+    reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional
+    Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the
+    Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for
+    maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some
+    for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave
+    another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular
+    Sovereignty"; but never a man among you in favor of federal
+    prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the
+    practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+    live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+    advocate in the century within which our Government originated.
+    Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves,
+    and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most
+    clear and stable foundations.
+
+    Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than
+    it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but
+    we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded
+    the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your
+    innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question.
+    Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go
+    back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same
+    conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt
+    the precepts and policy of the old times.
+
+    You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny
+    it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown
+    was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
+    Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our
+    party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it.
+    If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man
+    and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for
+    asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after
+    you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told
+    that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is
+    simply malicious slander.[29]
+
+    Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
+    the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and
+    declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it.
+    We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which was
+    not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under
+    which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
+    affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near
+    at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
+    charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in
+    those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not
+    quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at
+    least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it
+    to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and
+    declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any
+    interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your
+    slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do,
+    in common with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which
+    we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves
+    do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the
+    slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe
+    they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your
+    misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political
+    contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with
+    sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the
+    charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood
+    and thunder among the slaves.
+
+    Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+    Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
+    insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three
+    times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry?[30] You can
+    scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that
+    Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present
+    state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or
+    even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The
+    indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have
+    no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black
+    or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in
+    parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the
+    indispensable connecting trains.
+
+    Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for
+    their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A
+    plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to
+    twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a
+    favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and
+    the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case
+    occurring under peculiar circumstances,[31] The gunpowder plot of
+    British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in
+    point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret;
+    and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the
+    plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.
+    Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy
+    assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score
+    or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but
+    no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this
+    country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such
+    an event, will be alike disappointed.
+
+    In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is
+    still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and
+    deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil
+    will wear off insensibly; and their places be, _pari passu_, filled
+    up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force
+    itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."[32]
+
+    Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+    emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia;
+    and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding
+    States only. The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the
+    power of restraining the extension of the institution--the power to
+    insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American
+    soil which is now free from slavery.
+
+    John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.
+    It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
+    which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd
+    that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
+    could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
+    the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings
+    and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
+    till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He
+    ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
+    execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's
+    attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the
+    same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case,
+    and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of
+    the two things.
+
+    And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
+    Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
+    organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
+    nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against
+    slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
+    votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that
+    sentiment--by breaking up the political organization which rallies
+    around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has
+    been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if
+    you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which
+    created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some
+    other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the
+    number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?
+
+    But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
+    your Constitutional rights.[33]
+
+    That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if
+    not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of
+    numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the
+    Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.
+
+    When you make these declarations, you have a specific and
+    well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of
+    yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them
+    there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the
+    Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such
+    right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
+    in the Constitution, even by implication.
+
+    Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the
+    Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
+    Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and
+    us. You will rule or ruin in all events.
+
+    This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the
+    Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in
+    your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction
+    between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for
+    you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your
+    Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories,
+    and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made
+    in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare
+    majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another
+    in the reasons for making it;[34] that it is so made as that its
+    avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and
+    that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact--the
+    statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is
+    distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."[35]
+
+    An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
+    property in a slave is not "_distinctly_ and _expressly_ affirmed"
+    in it. Bear in mind, the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion
+    that such right is _impliedly_ affirmed in the Constitution; but
+    they pledge their veracity that it is "_distinctly_ and _expressly_"
+    affirmed there--"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything
+    else--"expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the
+    aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.
+
+    If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+    affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to
+    others to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be
+    found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any
+    connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery,
+    and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is
+    called a "person";--and wherever his master's legal right in
+    relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor
+    which may be due,"--as a debt payable in service or labor.[36] Also,
+    it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode
+    of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was
+    employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that
+    there could be property in man.
+
+    To show all this, is easy and certain.[37]
+
+    When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their
+    notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
+    mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?
+
+    And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the
+    Government under which we live"--the men who made the
+    Constitution--decided this same Constitutional question in our
+    favor, long ago--decided it without division among themselves, when
+    making the decision; without division among themselves about the
+    meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is
+    left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.
+
+    Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
+    justified to break up this Government, unless such a court decision
+    as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final
+    rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a
+    Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will
+    destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having
+    destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a
+    pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver
+    or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"
+
+    To be sure, what the robber demanded of me--my money--was my own;
+    and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than
+    my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my
+    money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my
+    vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.
+
+    A few words now to Republicans. _It is exceedingly desirable that
+    all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in
+    harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it
+    so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and
+    ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as
+    listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to
+    them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can_.[38]
+    Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of
+    their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will
+    satisfy them.
+
+    Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
+    surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present
+    complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+    Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them,
+    if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and
+    insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we
+    never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+    this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+    denunciation.
+
+    The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must
+    not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we
+    do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We
+    have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our
+    organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches
+    we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this
+    has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince
+    them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any
+    attempt to disturb them.
+
+    These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+    convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery _wrong_,
+    and join them in calling it _right_. And this must be done
+    thoroughly--done in _acts_ as well as in _words_. Silence will not
+    be tolerated--we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator
+    Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing
+    all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics,
+    in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return
+    their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our
+    Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected
+    from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to
+    believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
+
+    I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+    Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, _do_ nothing
+    to us, and _say_ what you please about slavery." But we do let them
+    alone--have never disturbed them--so that, after all, it is what we
+    say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of
+    doing, until we cease saying.
+
+    I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the
+    overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions.[39] Yet those
+    Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn
+    emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these
+    other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these
+    Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the
+    demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the
+    whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason
+    they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this
+    consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right,
+    and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national
+    recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.[40]
+
+    Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+    conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
+    acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and
+    should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly
+    object to its nationality--its universality; if it is wrong, they
+    cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they
+    ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
+    ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.[41]
+    Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise
+    fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
+    they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as
+    being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
+    Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view
+    of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do
+    this?
+
+    Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
+    where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
+    its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
+    prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to
+    overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids
+    this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let
+    us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith
+    we are so industriously plied and belabored--contrivances such as
+    groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong,
+    vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor
+    a dead man--such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about
+    which all true men do care--such as Union appeals beseeching true
+    Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and
+    calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such as
+    invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington
+    said, and undo what Washington did.
+
+    Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+    against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+    Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT
+    RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO
+    OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+A
+
+Andersonville, responsibility for, 190
+Andrew, John. A., 105
+Antietam, battle of, 115
+Appomattox, the surrender at, 177 ff.
+Atlanta, capture of, 151
+
+
+B
+
+Bahamas, trade of the, with the Confederacy, 167 ff.
+Banks, General N.P., 103
+Bazaine, General, in command of French army in Mexico, 156
+Belle Isle, the prison of, 189
+Bentonville, battle of, 183
+Bixby, Mrs., letter to, from Lincoln, 152
+"Black Republicans," the, 250
+Blair, Prank P., difficulties with, 161
+Blount, William, 237
+Border States, the, and emancipation, 114 ff.
+Bragg, Gen. Braxton, 136 ff.
+Brainerd, Cephas, on the Cooper Union address, 211
+Brown, John, raid of, 254
+Bryant on Lincoln, 202
+Buckner, Gen. S.B., 99
+Bull Run, second battle of, 122
+Burnside, Gen. Ambrose F.,
+  and the Army of the Potomac, 127;
+  and the defence of Knoxville, 137
+Butler, Benjamin F., 103, 120
+
+
+C
+
+Cabinet, cabals in the, 160
+Cedar Creek, the battle of, 150 ff.
+Chancellorsville, battle of, 129
+Charleston, evacuation of, 169
+Chase, Salmon P.,
+  and the Presidential election of 1864, 154;
+  resignation of, 154;
+  appointed chief justice, 155;
+  efforts of, for the Presidency, 157;
+  difficulties with, in the Cabinet, 161
+Chickamauga, battle of, 136
+Clay, Cassius M., 223
+Congress and slavery in the Territories, 246 ff.
+Constitution,
+  the 13th amendment to, 163 ff.;
+  defined by Lincoln, 236 ff.;
+  and property in slaves, 260 ff.
+"Crocker, Master", 113
+Curtin, Gov. A.G., 105
+Curtis, Gen. S.R., 108
+
+
+D
+
+Danville, the prison of, 147, 189 ff.;
+  mortality in, 159
+Davis, Jefferson, and Benj. F. Butler, 120;
+  and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 163;
+  capture of, 187;
+  and the other leaders of the South, 189;
+  and the management of the Southern
+prisons, 190 ff;
+  as a prisoner and martyr, 191
+Douglas, Stephen A., and the debate with Lincoln, cited, 235;
+  and the sedition act, 263;
+  and the Dred Scott decision, 246
+Dred Scott case, the, 246
+
+
+E
+
+Early, Jubal A., raid of on Washington, 142 ff.;
+  and the battle of Winchester, 149;
+  and the battle of Cedar Creek, 150
+Elliott, Charles W., 213
+Emancipation Proclamation, the, 115 ff.
+Enfield rifles, use of, by Confederates, 146
+
+
+F
+
+Farragut, Admiral D.G., 111
+Few, William, 237
+Fisher, Fort, capture of, 167
+Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 238
+Floyd, General John B., 99
+Franklin, battle of, 151 ff.
+Franklin, Benjamin, 245
+
+
+G
+
+Georgia, cession of territory by, 239
+Gettysburg, campaign of, 132 ff.
+Goldsborough, surrender of Johnston's army at, 183
+Goodell, Dr. Wm., 212
+Grant, Gen. U.S., captures Fort Donelson, 99;
+  and the Vicksburg campaign, 134;
+  and the Chattanooga campaign, 136;
+  commander of the armies, 137 ff.;
+  suggested for the Presidency, 157;
+  declines to consider terms of peace, 171;
+  at Appomattox, 177 ff.;
+  at Goldsborough, 184 ff.
+Greeley, Horace, 105
+Greene, Frank V., on Lincoln, 106
+
+
+H
+
+Halleck, Gen. H.W., 103
+Hallowell, Col. Norwood, 116
+Hamilton, Alexander, 245
+Hancock, Gen. W.S., 127
+Harper's Ferry, 124;
+  John Brown's raid at, 254
+Helper, H.R., the "Impending Crisis" of, 258
+Hewitt, Abram S., 99 ff.
+Higginson, Col. T.W., 116
+Hood, Gen. John B., 151 ff.
+Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 107, 127, 130 ff., 137
+
+
+I
+
+Intervention of France and England threatened, 122
+
+
+J
+
+Jefferson, Thomas, on emancipation, 257
+Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 138, 151, 169, 183 ft.
+
+
+K
+
+King, Rufus, 241
+Knoxville, siege of, 137
+
+
+L
+
+Lee, Gen. Robert E. and the Antietam campaign, 122;
+  and the campaign of Gettysburg, 130 ff.;
+  and the defence of Virginia, 137 ff.;
+  proposes treaty of peace, 171;
+  defeated at Five Forks, 171;
+  at Appomattox, 171
+Libby prison, Presidential election in, 158;
+  mortality in, 159;
+  record of, 189 ff.
+Lincoln, Abraham, and Hewitt, A.S., 100 ff.;
+  writes to "Master Crocker", 113;
+  as commander-in-chief, 103 ff.;
+  and the death penalty for soldiers, 119;
+  campaign methods of McClellan, 125 ff.;
+  letter of, appointing Hooker, 128;
+  to Grant on the fall of Vicksburg, 134;
+  address of, at Gettysburg, 134;
+  letter of, to Mrs. Bixby, 152;
+  re-election of, as President, 157;
+  and the exchange of prisoners, 158 ff.;
+  and the control of the administration, 160;
+  and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162 ff.;
+  second inaugural of, 169 ff.;
+  last public address of, 178;
+  death of, 181;
+  and the proposed capture of Jefferson Davis, 188;
+  death of, reported to the army at Goldsborough, 190;
+  comparison of, with Washington and Jackson, 195 ff.;
+  Cooper Union address of, 205 ff.;
+  writes to Nott, 225 ff.
+Lincoln, Robert, on the Cooper Union address, 209
+Longstreet, Gen. James, 133, 137
+Lookout Mountain, battle of, 137
+Louisiana, purchase of, 240
+Lowell on Lincoln, 202
+
+
+M
+
+Maximilian, Prince, and the invasion of Mexico, 156
+McClellan, Gen. George B. 102 ff.;
+  and the Antietam campaign, 122 ff.;
+  ordered to report to New Jersey, 126
+Meade, Gen. Geo. G., 127, 131
+Mifflin, Thomas, 237
+Milliken's Bend, battle of, 118
+Minnesota, troops from, 165;
+  university of, 167
+Missionary Ridge, battle of, 137
+Mississippi, organisation of the Territory of, 240
+Missouri, admission of, 241
+Missouri Compromise, the, 31, 38
+Monocacy Creek, battle of, 143
+Morgan, Gen. John, 177
+Morris, Gouverneur, 245
+
+
+N
+
+Napoleon, Louis, and the invasion of Mexico, 156
+Nashville, battle of, 151 ff.
+_Nation_, the London, on the character of Lincoln, 198 ff.
+New Orleans, capture of, 111 ff.
+Nineteenth Army Corps and Early's raid, 145
+North Carolina, cession of territory by, 239
+Northwestern Territory, the, of the U.S., 237
+Nott, Chas. C.,
+  introduction to the Cooper Union address, 215 ff.;
+  letter of, to Lincoln, 224 ff.
+Noyes, Wm. Curtis, 212
+
+
+O
+
+Ordinance of 1787, 238 ff.
+
+
+P
+
+Pea Ridge, battle of, 108
+Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162
+Pickett, Gen. G.E., 133
+Pinckney, Charles, 241 ff.
+Pope, Gen. John, 103, 122
+Port Hudson, surrender of, 112
+Presidential election in Libby prison, 158
+Prisoners, the exchange of, 158
+Putnam, George Palmer, and the Cooper Union address, 212
+
+
+R
+
+Reagan, Postmaster-general, at Goldsborough, 184
+Reconstruction, Lincoln's views on, 180 ff.
+Republican party, the, and slavery in the Territories, 249 ff.
+Republican Union, the Young Men's, 223, 232
+Reynolds, Gen. J.T., 127
+Rosecrans, Gen. Wm. S., and the Chattanooga campaign, 136
+Rutledge, John, 245
+
+
+S
+
+Schechter, Rabbi, on the character of Lincoln, 200
+Schofield, Gen. Geo. W., 152
+Schurz, Carl, on the character of Lincoln, 201
+Seward, W.H., 64, 160
+Sharp's breech-loaders introduced in 1864, 146
+Shaw, Col. R.G., 116
+Shenandoah, campaign in the valley of the, 149
+Sheridan, Gen. Philip,
+  in the Shenandoah, 149 ff.;
+  wins battle of Five Forks, 171
+Sherman, Roger, 237
+Sherman, Gen. Wm. T.,
+  at Missionary Ridge, 137;
+  captures Atlanta, 151;
+  and the Georgia planter, 164;
+  passes by Charleston, 169;
+  at Goldsborough, 183 ff.
+Sigel, Gen. Franz, 108
+Smith, Gen. Kirby, surrender of, 191
+Soldiers authorised to vote in presidential election, 152
+Southampton, insurrection at, 256
+South Mountain, battle of the, 124
+Stanton, Edwin, M., 65, 101 ff., 185
+Stephens, Alexander H., and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162 ff.
+Sumter, Fort, restoration of the flag on, 182
+
+
+T
+
+Taylor, Gen. Richard, surrender of, 191
+Thomas. Gen. Geo. H., 136
+
+
+V
+
+Vicksburg, surrender of, 112, 134
+
+
+W
+
+Wallace, Gen. Lew, 143
+Washington assailed by Early, 142 ff.
+Washington, George, and the
+  Ordinance of 1787, 239;
+  Farewell Address of, 252;
+  the example of, 266
+Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, 119
+Whittier on Lincoln, 201
+Wilderness, battle of the, 140 ff.
+Williamson, Hugh, 237
+Wilmington, capture of, 167
+Winchester, third battle of, 149
+Winder, Gen., and the management of the Southern prisons, 190
+Wisconsin, troops from, 165
+Wisewell, Col. F.H., 144 ff.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: This letter has not been published. It is cited here
+through the courtesy of Mr. Robert Lincoln and Mr. R.W. Gilder.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The text of the speech, as revised by Lincoln and with the
+introduction and notes by Nott and Brainerd, is given as an appendix to
+this volume.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The late George Palmer Putnam.]
+
+[Footnote 4:--The Constitution is attested September 17, 1787. It was
+ratified by all of the States, excepting North Carolina and Rhode
+Island, in 1788, and went into operation on the first Wednesday in
+January, 1789. The first Congress proposed, in 1789, ten articles of
+amendments, all of which were ratified. Article XI. of the amendments
+was prepared by the Third Congress, in 1794, and Article XII. by the
+Eighth Congress, in 1803. Another Article was proposed by the Eleventh
+Congress, prohibiting _citizens_ from receiving titles of nobility,
+presents or offices, from foreign nations. Although this has been
+printed as one of the amendments, it was in fact never ratified, being
+approved by but twelve States. _Vide_ Message of President Monroe, Feb.
+4, 1818.]
+
+[Footnote 5:--The Convention consisted of _sixty-five_ members. Of
+these, _ten_ did not attend the Convention, and _sixteen_ did not sign
+the Constitution. Of these sixteen, six refused to sign, and published
+their reasons for so refusing, _viz._: Robert Yates and John Lansing, of
+New-York; Edmund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia; Luther Martin,
+of Maryland, and Elbridge Gerry, of Mass. Alexander Hamilton alone
+subscribed for New-York, and Rhode Island was not represented in the
+Convention. The names of the "thirty-nine," and the States which they
+represented are subsequently given.]
+
+[Footnote 6:--The cession of Territory was authorized by New-York, Feb.
+19, 1780; by Virginia, January 2, 1781, and again, (without certain
+conditions at first imposed,) "at their sessions, begun on the 20th day
+of October, 1783;" by Mass., Nov. 13, 1784; by Conn., May----, 1786; by
+S. Carolina, March 8, 1787; by N. Carolina, Dec.----, 1789; and by
+Georgia at some time prior to April, 1802.
+
+The deeds of cession were executed by New-York, March 1, 1781; by
+Virginia, March 1, 1784; by Mass., April 19, 1785; by Conn., Sept. 13,
+1786; by S. Carolina, August 9, 1787; by N. Carolina, Feb. 25, 1790; and
+by Georgia, April 24, 1802. Five of these grants were therefore made
+before the adoption of the Constitution, and one afterward; while the
+sixth (North Carolina) was authorized before, and consummated afterward.
+The cession of this State contains the express proviso "that no
+regulations made, or to be made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate
+slaves." The cession of Georgia conveys the Territory subject to the
+Ordinance of '87, except the provision prohibiting slavery.
+
+These dates are also interesting in connection with the extraordinary
+assertions of Chief Justice Taney, (19 How., page 434,) that "the
+example of Virginia was soon afterwards followed by other States," and
+that (p. 436) the power in the Constitution "to dispose of and make all
+needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other property
+belonging to the United States," was intended only "to transfer to the
+new Government the property then held in common," "and has no reference
+whatever to any Territory or other property which the new sovereignty
+might afterwards itself acquire." On this subject, _vide Federalist_,
+No. 43, sub. 4 and 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7:--Sherman was from Connecticut; Mifflin from Penn.;
+Williamson from North Carolina, and M'Henry from Maryland.]
+
+[Footnote 8:--What Mr. M'Henry's views were, it seems impossible to
+ascertain. When the Ordinance of '87 was passed he was sitting in the
+Convention. He was afterwards appointed Secretary of War; yet no record
+has thus far been discovered of his opinion. Mr. M'Henry also wrote a
+biography of La Fayette, which, however, cannot be found in any of the
+public libraries, among which may be mentioned the State Library at
+Albany, and the Astor, Society, and Historical Society Libraries, at New
+York.
+
+Hamilton says of him, in a letter to Washington _(Works_, vol. vi., p.
+65): "M'Henry you know. He would give no strength to the Administration,
+but he would not disgrace the office; his views are good."]
+
+[Footnote 9:--William Blount was from North Carolina, and William Few
+from Georgia--the two States which afterward ceded their Territory to
+the United States. In addition to these facts the following extract from
+the speech of Rufus King in the Senate, on the Missouri Bill, shows the
+entire unanimity with which the Southern States approved the
+prohibition:
+
+"The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United States her claims to
+this Territory, consented, by her delegates in the Old Congress, to this
+Ordinance. Not only Virginia, but North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, by the unanimous votes of their delegates in the Old Congress,
+approved of the Ordinance of 1787, by which Slavery is forever abolished
+in the Territory northwest of the river Ohio. Without the votes of these
+States, the Ordinance could not have been passed; and there is no
+recollection of an opposition from any of these States to the act of
+confirmation passed under the actual Constitution."]
+
+[Footnote 10:--"The famous Ordinance of Congress of the 13th July, 1787,
+which has ever since constituted, in most respects, the model of all our
+territorial governments, and is equally remarkable for the brevity and
+exactness of its text, and for its masterly display of the fundamental
+principles of civil and religious liberty."--_Justice Story, 1
+Commentaries_: §1312.
+
+"It is well known that the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn by the Hon.
+Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, and adopted with scarcely a verbal
+alteration by Congress. It is a noble and imperishable monument to his
+fame."--_Id._ note.
+
+The ordinance was reported by a committee, of which Wm. S. Johnson and
+Charles Pinckney were members. It recites that, "for extending the
+fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the
+basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are
+erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws,
+constitutions, and governments which forever hereafter shall be formed
+in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment of States
+and permanent government, and for their admission to a share in the
+federal councils, on an equal footing with the original States, at as
+early periods as may be consistent with the general interest--
+
+"It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority aforesaid, that
+the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact
+between the original States and the people and States in the said
+Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to
+wit:"
+
+"_Art._ 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in
+the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof
+the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any
+person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully
+claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
+reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
+service."
+
+On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required by Judge
+Yates, of New York, when it appeared _that his was the only vote in the
+negative_.
+
+The ordinance of April 23, 1784, was a brief outline of that of '87. It
+was reported by a Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was chairman, and
+the report contained a slavery prohibition intended to take effect in
+1800. This was stricken out of the report, six States voting to retain
+it--three voting to strike out--one being divided (N.C.), and the others
+not being represented. (The assent of nine States was necessary to
+retain any provision.) And this is the vote alluded to by Mr. Lincoln.
+But subsequently, March 16, 1785, a motion was made by Rufus King to
+commit a proposition "that there be neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude" in any of the Territories; which was carried by the vote of
+eight States, including Maryland.--_Journal Am. Congress,_ vol. 4, pp.
+373, 380, 481, 752.
+
+When, therefore, the ordinance of '87 came before Congress, on its final
+passage, the subject of slavery prohibition had been "_agitated_" for
+nearly three years; and the deliberate and almost unanimous vote of that
+body upon that question leaves no room to doubt what the fathers
+believed, and how, in that belief, they acted.]
+
+[Footnote 11:--It singularly and fortunately happens that one of the
+"thirty-nine," "while engaged on that instrument," viz., while
+advocating its ratification before the Pennsylvania Convention, did
+express an opinion upon this "precise question," which opinion was
+_never_ disputed or doubted, in that or any other Convention, and was
+accepted by the opponents of the Constitution, as an indisputable fact.
+This was the celebrated James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. The opinion is as
+follows:--
+
+MONDAY, _Dec._ 3, 1787.
+
+"With respect to the clause restricting Congress from prohibiting the
+migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, prior to the year 1808: The Hon.
+gentleman says that this clause is not only dark, but intended to grant
+to Congress, for that time, the power to admit the importation of
+slaves. No such thing was intended; but I will tell you what was done,
+and it gives me high pleasure that so much was done. Under the present
+Confederation, the States may admit the importation of slaves as long as
+they please; but by this article, after the year 1808, the Congress will
+have power to prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the disposition
+of any State to the contrary. I consider this as laying the foundation
+for banishing slavery out of this country; and though the period is more
+distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual
+change which was pursued in Pennsylvania. It is with much satisfaction
+that I view this power in the general government, whereby they may lay
+an interdiction on this reproachful trade. But an immediate advantage is
+also obtained; for a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not
+exceeding $10 for each person; and this, sir, operates as a partial
+prohibition; it was all that could be obtained. I am sorry it was no
+more; but from this I think there is reason to hope that yet a few
+years, and it will be prohibited altogether. _And in the meantime, the
+new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
+in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced amongst
+them_."--2 _Elliott's Debates_, 423.
+
+It was argued by Patrick Henry in the Convention in Virginia, as
+follows:
+
+"May not Congress enact that every black man must fight? Did we not see
+a little of this in the last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make
+emancipation general. But acts of Assembly passed, that every slave who
+would go to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to
+bring this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects.
+We deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let all these
+considerations press with full force on the minds of Congress. Let that
+urbanity which, I trust, will distinguish America, and the necessity of
+national defence--let all these things operate on their minds, they will
+search that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. And have
+they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence
+and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of
+slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be
+warranted by that power? There is no ambiguous implication, no logical
+deduction. The paper speaks to the point; they have the power in clear,
+unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."--3
+_Elliott's Debates_, 534.
+
+Edmund Randolph, one of the framers of the Constitution, replied to Mr.
+Henry, admitting the general force of the argument, but claiming that,
+because of other provisions, it had no application to the _States_ where
+slavery _then_ existed; thus conceding that power to exist in Congress
+as to all territory belonging to the United States.
+
+Dr. Ramsay, a member of the Convention of South Carolina, in his history
+of the United States, vol. 3, pages 36, 37, says: "Under these liberal
+principles, Congress, in organizing _colonies_, bound themselves to
+impart to their inhabitants all the privileges of coequal States, as
+soon as they were capable of enjoying them. In their infancy,
+_government was administered for them_ without any expense. As soon as
+they should have 60,000 inhabitants, they were authorized to call a
+convention, and, by common consent, to form their own constitution. This
+being done, they were entitled to representation in Congress, and every
+right attached to the original States. These privileges are not confined
+to any particular country or _complexion_. They are communicable to the
+emancipated slave (for in the new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether
+prohibited), to the copper-colored native, and all other human beings
+who, after a competent residence and degree of civilization, are capable
+of enjoying the blessings of regular government."]
+
+[Footnote 12:--The Act of 1789, as reported by the Committee, was
+received and read Thursday, July 16th. The second reading was on Friday,
+the 17th, when it was committed to the Committee of the whole house, "on
+Monday next." On Monday, July 20th, it was considered in Committee of
+the whole, and ordered to a third reading on the following day; on the
+21st, it passed the House, and was sent to the Senate. In the Senate it
+had its first reading on the same day, and was ordered to a second
+reading on the following day (July 22d), and on the 4th of August it
+passed, and on the 7th was approved by the President.]
+
+[Footnote 13:--The "sixteen" represented these States: Langdon and
+Oilman, New Hampshire; Sherman and Johnson, Connecticut; Morris,
+Fitzsimmons, and Clymer, Pennsylvania; King, Massachusetts; Paterson,
+New Jersey; Few and Baldwin, Georgia; Bassett and Read, Delaware;
+Butler, South Carolina; Carroll, Maryland; and Madison, Virginia]
+
+[Footnote 14:--_Vide_ note 3, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 15:--Chap. 28, § 7, U.S. Statutes, 5th Congress, 2d Session.]
+
+[Footnote 16:--Langdon was from New Hampshire, Read from Delaware, and
+Baldwin from Georgia.]
+
+[Footnote 17:--Chap. 38, § 10, U.S. Statutes, 8th Congress, 1st
+Session.]
+
+[Footnote 18:--Baldwin was from Georgia, and Dayton from New Jersey.]
+
+[Footnote 19:--Rufus King, who sat in the old Congress, and also in the
+Convention, as the representative of Massachusetts, removed to New York
+and was sent by that State to the U.S. Senate of the first Congress.
+Charles Pinckney was hi the House, as a representative of South
+Carolina.]
+
+[Footnote 20:--Although Mr. Pinckney opposed "slavery prohibition" in
+1820, yet his views, with regard to the _powers_ of the general
+government, may be better judged by his actions in the Convention:
+
+FRIDAY, _June 8th,_ 1787.--"Mr. Pinckney moved 'that the National
+Legislature shall have the power of negativing all laws to be passed by
+the State Legislatures, which they may judge improper,' in the room of
+the clause as it stood reported.
+
+"He grounds his motion on the necessity of one supreme controlling
+power, and he considers this as the _corner-stone_ of the present
+system; and hence the necessity of retrenching the State authorities, in
+order to preserve the good government of the national council."--T. 400,
+_Elliott's Debates_.
+
+And again, THURSDAY, _August 23d,_ 1787, Mr. Pinckney renewed the motion
+with some modifications.--T. 1409. _Madison Papers_.
+
+And although Mr. Pinckney, as correctly stated by Mr. Lincoln, "steadily
+voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises," he
+still regarded the passage of the Missouri Compromise as a great triumph
+of the South, which is apparent from the following letter:
+
+CONGRESS HALL, _March 2d_, 1820, 3 _o'clock at night_.
+
+DEAR SIR:---I hasten to inform you, that this moment we have carried
+the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of
+36° 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South, in a
+short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of
+the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States as a
+great triumph.
+
+The votes were close--ninety to eighty-six--produced by the seceding and
+absence of a few moderate men from the North. To the north of 36° 30,'
+there is to be, by the present law, restriction; which you will see by
+the votes, I voted against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a
+vast tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in which not a
+foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, and in which,
+according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened for a
+great length of time.
+
+With respect, your obedient servant,
+
+CHARLES PINCKNEY.
+
+But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney's views is furnished in the fact
+that _he was himself a member of the Committee which reported the
+Ordinance of_ '87, and that _on every occasion, when it was under the
+consideration of Congress, he voted against all amendments_.--_Jour. Am.
+Congress_, Sept. 29th, 1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up for
+its final passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and did
+not take any part in the proceedings of Congress.]
+
+[Footnote 21:--By reference to notes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, and 16 it will be
+seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon the question of
+prohibition, twelve were from the present slaveholding States.]
+
+[Footnote 22:--_Vide_ notes 5 and 17, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 23:--"The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gorham,
+Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William Livingston and David
+Brearly, New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson,
+and Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson,
+and Jacob Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland;
+John Blair, Virginia; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina; and John
+Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South Carolina.]
+
+[Footnote 24:--"The only distinction between freedom and slavery
+consists in this: in the former state, a man is governed by the laws to
+which he has given his consent, either in person or by his
+representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another. In
+the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they
+depend upon the pleasure of a master. It is easy to discern which of the
+two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing
+to be free rather than slave.... Were not the disadvantages of slavery
+too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the
+tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is
+fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and
+corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the
+sinews of industry and clips the wings of commerce, and works misery and
+indigence in every shape."--HAMILTON, _Works_, vol. 2, pp. 3, 9.
+
+"That you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of _liberty_ to
+those unhappy _men_, who, alone in this land of freedom, are degraded
+into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding
+freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means
+for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American
+people; that you will promote mercy and _justice_ toward this distressed
+race; and that you will step to the _very verge_ of the power vested in
+you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
+fellow-men."--Philadelphia, Feb. 3rd, 1790. _Franklin's Petition to
+Congress for the Abolition of Slavery._
+
+Mr. Gouverneur Morris said: "He never would concur in upholding domestic
+slavery. It was a notorious institution. It was the curse of heaven on
+the States where it prevailed.... The admission of slavery into the
+representation, when fairly explained, comes to this--that the
+inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the coast of
+Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away
+his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to
+the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes, in a government
+instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen
+of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so
+notorious a practice.... He would sooner submit himself to a tax for
+paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity
+with such a constitution."--_Debate on Slave Representation in the
+Convention. Madison Papers_.]
+
+[Footnote 25:--An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has said that
+"The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments, as adopted by
+Congress, is important to show in what light that body considered them."
+(8 _Wend. R.,_ p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State
+Conventions "having at the time of their adopting the Constitution
+_expressed_ a _desire_, in order to prevent _misconstruction or abuse of
+its powers_, that further _declaratory_ and restrictive clauses should
+be added," resolved, etc.
+
+This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the "Conciliatory
+Resolutions" of Massachusetts, which were drawn by Chief Justice
+Parsons, and offered in the Convention as a compromise by John Hancock.
+(_Life Ch. J. Parsons,_ p. 67.) They were afterward copied and adopted
+with some additions by New Hampshire.
+
+The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, is taken almost
+literally from the declaration of rights put forth by the Convention of
+New York, and the clause referred to forms the ninth paragraph of the
+declaration. The tenth amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is
+taken from the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those
+resolutions somewhat modified. Thus, these two amendments, sought to be
+used for slavery, originated in the two great anti-slavery States, New
+York and Massachusetts.]
+
+[Footnote 26:--The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison in the House
+of Representatives, June 8, 1789. They were adopted by the House, August
+24, and some further amendments seem to have been transmitted by the
+Senate, September 9. The printed journals of the Senate do not state the
+time of the final passage, and the message transmitting them to the
+State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted at the first session, begun
+on the fourth day of March, 1789. The date of the introduction and
+passage of the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 will be found at note
+9, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 27:--It is singular that while two of the "thirty-nine" were
+in that Congress of 1819, there was but one (besides Mr. King) of the
+"seventy-six." The one was William Smith, of South Carolina. He was then
+a Senator, and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground.]
+
+[Footnote 28:--The following is an extract from the letter referred to:
+
+"I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro slavery. I
+have long considered it a most serious evil, both socially and
+politically, and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our
+States of such a burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance which
+prohibits the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern
+Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It meets with the
+approval and assent of nearly every member from the States more
+immediately interested in slave labor. The prevailing opinion in
+Virginia is against the spread of slavery in our new Territories, and I
+trust we shall have a confederation of free States."
+
+The following extract from a letter of Washington to Robert Morris,
+April, 12th, 1786, shows how strong were his views, and how clearly he
+deemed emancipation a subject for legislative enactment: "I can only say
+that there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a
+plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but one proper and
+effective mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, BY
+LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY, and that, as far as _my suffrage will go, shall
+never be wanting_."]
+
+[Footnote 29:--A Committee of five, consisting of Messrs. Mason, Davis,
+and Fitch (Democrats), and Collamer and Doolittle (Republicans), was
+appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by the U.S. Senate, to investigate the Harper's
+Ferry affair. That Committee was directed, among other things, to
+inquire: (1) "Whether such invasion and seizure was made under color of
+any organization intended to subvert the government of any of the States
+of the Union." (2) "What was the character and extent of such
+organisation." (3) "And whether any citizens of the United States, not
+present, were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by contributions
+of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise."
+
+The majority of the Committee, Messrs. Mason, Davis, and Fitch, reply to
+the inquiries as follows:
+
+1. "There will be found in the Appendix a copy of the proceedings of a
+Convention held at Chatham, Canada, of the Provisional Form of
+Government there pretended to have been instituted, the object of which
+clearly was to subvert the government of one or more States, and of
+course, to that extent, the government of the United States." By
+reference to the copy of Proceedings it appears that _nineteen_ persons
+were present at that Convention, _eight_ of whom were either killed or
+executed at Charlestown, and one examined before the Committee.
+
+2. "The character of the military organization appears, by the
+commissions issued to certain of the armed party as captains,
+lieutenants, etc., a specimen of which will be found in the Appendix."
+
+(These Commissions are signed by John Brown as Commander-in-Chief, under
+the Provisional Government, and by J.H. Kagi as Secretary.)
+
+"It clearly appeared that the scheme of Brown was to take with him
+comparatively but few men; but those had been carefully trained by
+military instruction previously, and were to act as officers. For his
+military force he relied, very clearly, on inciting insurrection amongst
+the Slaves."
+
+3. "It does not appear that the contributions were made with actual
+knowledge of the use for which they were designed by Brown, although it
+does appear that money was freely contributed by those styling
+themselves the friends of this man Brown, and friends alike of what they
+styled the cause of freedom (of which they claimed him to be an especial
+apostle), without inquiring as to the way in which the money would be
+used by him to advance such pretended cause."
+
+In concluding the report the majority of the Committee thus characterize
+the "invasion": "It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the
+sanction of no public or political authority--distinguishable only from
+ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 30:--The Southampton insurrection, August, 1831, was induced
+by the remarkable ability of a slave calling himself General Nat Turner.
+He led his fellow bondsmen to believe that he was acting under the order
+of Heaven. In proof of this he alleged that the singular appearance of
+the sun at that time was a divine signal for the commencement of the
+struggle which would result in the recovery of their freedom. This
+insurrection resulted in the death of sixty-four white persons, and more
+than one hundred slaves. The Southampton was the eleventh large
+insurrection in the Southern States, besides numerous attempts and
+revolts.]
+
+[Footnote 31:--In March, 1790, the General Assembly of France, on the
+petition of the _free_ people of color in St. Domingo, many of whom were
+intelligent and wealthy, passed a decree intended to be in their favor,
+but so ambiguous as to be construed in favor of both the whites and the
+blacks. The differences growing out of the decree created two
+parties--the _whites_ and the people of color; and some blood was shed.
+In 1791, the blacks again petitioned, and a decree was passed declaring
+the colored people citizens, who were born of free parents on both
+sides. This produced great excitement among the whites, and the two
+parties armed against each other, and horrible massacres and
+conflagrations followed. Then the Assembly rescinded this last decree,
+and like results followed, the blacks being the exasperated parties and
+the aggressors. Then the decree giving citizenship to the blacks was
+restored, and commissioners were sent out to keep the peace. The
+commissioners, unable to sustain themselves, between the two parties,
+with the troops they had, issued a proclamation that all blacks who were
+willing to range themselves under the banner of the Republic should be
+free. As a result a very large proportion of the blacks became in fact
+free. In 1794, the Conventional Assembly _abolished slavery_ throughout
+the French Colonies. Some years afterward, the French Government sought,
+with an army of 60,000 men, to reinstate slavery, but were unsuccessful,
+and then the white planters were driven from the Island.]
+
+[Footnote 32:--_Vide_ Jefferson's Autobiography, commenced January 6th,
+1821. JEFFERSON'S _Works_, vol. 1, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 33:--"I am not ashamed or afraid publicly to avow that the
+election of William H. Seward or Salmon P. Chase, or any such
+representative of the Republican party, upon a sectional platform, ought
+to be resisted to the disruption of every tie that binds this
+Confederacy together. (Applause on the Democratic side of the House.)"
+_Mr. Curry, of Alabama, in the House of Representatives_.
+
+"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing a sectional
+man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, breathing destruction
+and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the
+time will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable
+and decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and he who
+doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I
+think I may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia--that
+when that event happens, they, in my judgment, will consider it an overt
+act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, to take
+into consideration the mode and measure of redress. That is my position;
+and if that be treason to the Government, make the most of it."--_Mr.
+Gartell, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives_.
+
+"I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital of my
+State, on my way here, if such an event did occur," [_i.e._, the
+election of a Republican President, upon a Republican platform], "while
+it would be their duty to determine the course which the State would
+pursue, it would be my privilege to counsel with them as to what I
+believed to be the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now,
+and what I will always say in such an event, that my counsel would be to
+take independence out of the Union in preference to the loss of
+constitutional rights, and consequent degradation and dishonor, in it.
+That is my position, and it is the position which I know the Democratic
+party of the State of Mississippi will maintain."--_Gov. McRae, of
+Mississippi._
+
+"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the present
+temper of the Southern people, it" [_i.e._, the election of a Republican
+President] "cannot be, and will not be, submitted to. The 'irrepressible
+conflict' doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most
+distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of
+war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; and I would
+be disloyal to Virginia and the South, if I did not declare that the
+election of such a man, entertaining such sentiment, and advocating such
+doctrines, _ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States_. The idea
+of permitting such a man to have the control and direction of the army
+and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high judicial and
+executive officers, POSTMASTERS INCLUDED, _cannot_ be entertained by the
+South for a moment."--_Gov. Letcher, of Virginia_.
+
+"Slavery _must_ be maintained--in the Union, if possible; out of it, if
+necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if we must."--_Senator Iverson,
+of Georgia_.
+
+"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected in
+November next, and the South will then decide the great question whether
+they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule--the
+fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised,
+and declared war upon our social institutions. I believe that the honor
+and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt
+secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then to
+obtain from the free States additional and higher guaranties for the
+protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should
+proceed to establish a new government. But while I think such would be
+the imperative duty of the South, I should emphatically reprobate and
+repudiate any scheme having for its object the separate secession of
+South Carolina. If Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone--giving us a
+portion of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts--would unite with this State in
+a common secession upon the election of a Black Republican, I would give
+my consent to the policy."--_Letter of Hon. James L. Orr, of S.C., to
+John Martin and others, July_ 23, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 34:--The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, made the
+following analysis of the Dred Scott case in the Massachusetts
+Legislature. Hon. Caleb Cushing was then a member of that body, but did
+not question its correctness.
+
+"On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of the Dred Scott
+color, extraction, and origin, three Justices, viz., Taney, Wayne, and
+Daniels, held the negative. Nelson and Campbell passed over the plea by
+which the question was raised. Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said the
+question was not open. McLean agreed with Catron, but thought the plea
+bad. Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea,
+met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native
+to any State, is a citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen
+of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.
+
+"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in abatement,
+and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appealed from, then all
+else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a
+cause not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of
+such a majority, one step more was to be taken. And the next step
+reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the
+cause, and putting an end to all the functions of the court.
+
+"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in the State of
+Illinois, where he remained about two years, before going with his
+master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory of Wisconsin. His claim to
+freedom was rested on the alleged effect of his translation from a slave
+State, and again into a free territory. If, by his removal to Illinois,
+he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent continuance of his
+pilgrimage into the Louisiana purchase could not add to his freedom, nor
+alter the fact. If, by reason of any want or infirmity in the laws of
+Illinois, or of conformity on his part to their behests, Dred Scott
+remained a slave while he remained in that State, then--for the sake of
+learning the effect on him of his territorial residence beyond the
+Mississippi, and of his marriage and other proceedings there, and the
+effect of the sojournment and marriage of Harriet, in the same
+territory, upon herself and her children--it might become needful to
+advance one other step into the investigation of the law; to inspect the
+Missouri Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of the line of 36°
+30' in the Louisiana purchase.
+
+"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified that advance;
+for six of the Justices, including the Chief Justice himself, decided
+that the _status_ of the plaintiff, as free or slave, was dependent, not
+upon the laws of the State in which he had been, but of the State of
+Missouri, in which he was at the commencement of the suit. The Chief
+Justice asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the
+highest court in the State, that Scott and his family, on their return
+were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the
+defendant.' This was the burden of the opinion of Nelson, who declares
+'the question is one solely depending upon the law of Missouri, and that
+the Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case before us,
+was bound to follow it.' It received the emphatic endorsement of Wayne,
+whose general concurrence was with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred in
+set terms with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.' Campbell
+says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect to
+be given to his absence from Missouri, in company with his master in
+Illinois and Minnesota, _and this effect is to be ascertained by
+reference to the laws of Missouri_.' Five of the Justices, then (if no
+more of them), regard the law of Missouri as decisive of the plaintiff's
+rights."]
+
+[Footnote 35:--"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this
+opinion upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is
+distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to
+traffic in it, _like an ordinary article of merchandise and property_,
+was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States in every State that
+might desire it, for twenty years."--_Ch. J. Taney_, 19 _How. U.S.R_.,
+p. 451. _Vide_ language of Mr. Madison, note 34, as to "_merchandise_."]
+
+[Footnote 36:--Not only was the right of property _not_ intended to be
+"distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution"; but the
+following extract from Mr. Madison demonstrates that the utmost care was
+taken to avoid so doing:
+
+"The clause as originally offered [respecting fugitive slaves] read, 'If
+any person LEGALLY bound to service or labor in any of the United States
+shall escape into another State," etc., etc. (Vol. 3, p. 1456.) In
+regard to this, Mr. Madison says, "The term '_legally'_ was struck out,
+and the words 'under the laws thereof,' inserted after the word State,
+in compliance with the wish of some who thought the term 'legally'
+equivocal and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a moral point
+of view."--_Ib_., p. 1589.]
+
+[Footnote 37:--We subjoin a portion of the history alluded to by Mr.
+Lincoln. The following extract relates to the provision of the
+Constitution relative to the slave trade. (Article I, Sec. 9.)
+
+_25th August_, 1787.--The report of the Committee of eleven being taken
+up, Gen. [Charles Cotesworth] Pinckney moved to strike out the words
+"the year 1800," and insert the words "the year 1808."
+
+Mr. Gorham seconded the motion.
+
+Mr. Madison--Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be
+apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be
+more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it
+in the Constitution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Gouverneur Morris was for making the clause read at once--
+
+"The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, shall not be prohibited," etc. This, he said, would be most
+fair, and would avoid _the _ ambiguity by which, under the power with
+regard to naturalization, the liberty reserved to the States might be
+defeated. He wished it to be known, also, that this part of the
+Constitution was a compliance with those States. If the change of
+language, however, should be objected to by the members from those
+States, he should not urge it.
+
+Col. Mason (of Virginia) was not against using the term "slaves," but
+against naming North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, lest it
+should give offence to the people of those States.
+
+Mr. Sherman liked a description better than the terms proposed, which
+had been declined by the old Congress and were not pleasing to some
+people.
+
+Mr. Clymer concurred with Mr. Sherman.
+
+Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, said that _both in opinion and
+practice he was against slavery; but thought it more in favor of
+humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina and
+Georgia, on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union_.
+
+Mr. Morris withdrew his motion.
+
+Mr. Dickinson wished the clause to be confined to the States which had
+not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves, and for that
+purpose moved to amend the clause so as to read--
+
+"The importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit the
+same, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the United States,
+until the year 1808," which was disagreed to, _nem. con_.
+
+The first part of the report was then agreed to as follows:
+
+"The migration or importation of such persons as the several States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Legislature prior to the year 1808."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sherman was against the second part ["but a tax or duty may be
+imposed on such migration or importation at a rate not exceeding _the
+average of the duties laid on imports_"], as acknowledging men to be
+property by taxing them as such under the _character_ of slaves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Madison _thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the like idea
+that there could be property in men_. The reason of duties did not hold,
+as slaves _are not, like merchandise_, consumed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was finally agreed, _nem. con_., to make the clause read--
+
+"But a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding
+_ten dollars_ for each PERSON."--_Madison Papers, Aug_. 25, 1787.]
+
+[Footnote 38:--Compare this noble passage and that at page 18, with the
+twaddle of Mr. Orr (note 30), and the slang of Mr. Douglas (note 37).]
+
+[Footnote 39:--That demand has since been made. Says MR. O'CONOR,
+counsel for the State of Virginia in the _Lemon Case_, page 44: "We
+claim that under these various provisions of the Federal Constitution, a
+citizen of Virginia has an immunity against the operation of any law
+which the State of New York can enact, whilst he is a stranger and
+wayfarer, or whilst passing through our territory; and that he has
+absolute protection for all his domestic rights, and for all his rights
+of property, which under the laws of the United States, and the laws of
+his own State, he was entitled to, whilst in his own State. We claim
+this, and neither more NOR LESS."
+
+Throughout the whole of that case, in which the right to pass through
+New York with slaves at the pleasure of the slave owners is maintained,
+it is nowhere contended that the statute is contrary to the Constitution
+of New York; but that the statute and the Constitution of the State are
+both contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
+
+The State of Virginia, not content with the decision of our own courts
+upon the right claimed by them, is now engaged in carrying this, the
+Lemon case, to the Supreme Court of the United States, hoping by a
+decision there, in accordance with the intimations in the Dred Scott
+case, to overthrow the Constitution of New York.
+
+Senator Toombs, of Georgia, has claimed, in the Senate, that laws of
+Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode
+Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, for the exclusion of slavery, conceded
+to be warranted by the State Constitutions, are contrary to the
+Constitution of the United States, and has asked for the enactment of
+laws by the General Government which shall override the laws of those
+States and the Constitutions which authorize them.]
+
+[Footnote 40:--"Policy, humanity, and Christianity, alike forbid the
+extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming
+generations."--_Richmond Enquirer, Jan_. 22, 1856.
+
+"I am satisfied that the mind of the South has undergone a change to
+this great extent, that it is now the _almost universal belief_ in the
+South, not only that the condition of African slavery in their midst, is
+the best condition to which the African race has ever been subjected,
+but that _it has the effect of ennobling both races, the white and the
+black_."--_Senator Mason, of Virginia_.
+
+"I declare again, as I did in reply to the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr.
+Doolittle), that, in my opinion, slavery is a great moral, social, and
+political blessing--a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the
+master."--_Mr. Brown, in the Senate, March_ 6, 1860.
+
+"I am a Southern States' Rights man; I am an African slave-trader. I am
+one of those Southern men who believe that slavery is right--morally,
+religiously, socially, and politically." (Applause.) ... "I represent
+the African Slave-trade interests of that section. (Applause.) I am
+proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe the African
+Slave-trader is a true missionary and a true Christian."
+(Applause.)--_Mr. Gaulden, a delegate from First Congressional District
+of Georgia, in the Charleston Convention, now a supporter of Mr.
+Douglas_.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly speak again, but you see from the
+tones of my voice that I am unable to. This has been a happy, a glorious
+day. I shall never forget it. There is a charm about this beautiful day,
+about this sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of
+yours--a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, in that respect, of
+Southerners. For my own part, I have much more fondness for your clams
+than I have for their niggers. But every man to his taste."--_Hon_
+_Stephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky Point, R.I., Aug._ 2, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 41:--It is interesting to observe how two profoundly logical
+minds, though holding extreme, opposite views, have deduced this common
+conclusion. Says Mr. O'Conor, the eminent leader of the New York Bar,
+and the counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon case, in his
+speech at Cooper Institute, December 19th, 1859:
+
+"That is the point to which this great argument must come--Is negro
+slavery unjust? If it is unjust, it violates that first rule of human
+conduct--'Render to every man his due.' If it is unjust, it violates the
+law of God which says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' for that requires
+that we should perpetrate no injustice. Gentlemen, if it could be
+maintained that negro slavery was unjust, perhaps I might be
+prepared--perhaps we all ought to be prepared--to go with that
+distinguished man to whom allusion is frequently made, and say, 'There
+is a higher law which compels us to trample beneath our feet the
+Constitution established by our fathers, with all the blessings it
+secures to their children.' But I insist--and that is the argument which
+we must meet, and on which we must come to a conclusion that shall
+govern our actions in the future selection of representatives in the
+Congress of the United States--insist that negro slavery is not unjust."]
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN***
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Abraham Lincoln, by George Haven Putnam</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Abraham Lincoln</p>
+<p>Author: George Haven Putnam</p>
+<p>Release Date: March 27, 2004  [eBook #11728]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN***</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><h3>E-text prepared by Steve Schulze<br>
+            and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</h3></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><img src="images/fp.jpg" alt="Abraham Lincoln"></center>
+<h1>Abraham Lincoln</h1>
+<p style="text-align: center;">The People's Leader in the Struggle for
+National Existence</p>
+<h3>By</h3>
+<h2>George Haven Putnam, Litt. D.</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">Author of </p>
+<p style="text-align: center;">"Books and Their Makers in the Middle
+Ages,"</p>
+<p style="text-align: center;">"The Censorship of the Church," etc.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center;"><i>With the above is included the speech
+delivered by Lincoln in New York,
+February 27, 1860; with an introduction by Charles C. Nott, late Chief
+Justice of the Court of Claims, and annotations by Judge Nott and by
+Cephas Brainerd of New York Bar</i>.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center;">1909</p>
+<br>
+<p style="text-align: center;"><b>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</b></p>
+<br>
+<p>The twelfth of February, 1909, was the hundredth anniversary of the
+birth of Abraham Lincoln. In New York, as in other cities and towns
+throughout the Union, the day was devoted to commemoration exercises,
+and even in the South, in centres like Atlanta (the capture of which in
+1864 had indicated the collapse of the cause of the Confederacy),
+representative Southerners gave their testimony to the life and
+character of the great American.</p>
+<p>The Committee in charge of the commemoration in New York arranged
+for a
+series of addresses to be given to the people of the city and it was my
+privilege to be selected as one of the speakers. It was an indication
+of
+the rapid passing away of the generation which had had to do with the
+events of the War, that the list of orators, forty-six in all, included
+only four men who had ever seen the hero whose life and character they
+were describing.</p>
+<p>In writing out later, primarily for the information of children and
+grandchildren, my own address (which had been delivered without notes),
+I found myself so far absorbed in the interest of the subject and in
+the
+recollections of the War period, that I was impelled to expand the
+paper
+so that it should present a more comprehensive study of the career and
+character of Lincoln than it had been possible to attempt within the
+compass of an hour's talk, and should include also references, in
+outline, to the constitutional struggle that had preceded the contest
+and to the chief events of the War itself with which the great War
+President had been most directly concerned. The monograph, therefore,
+while in the form of an essay or historical sketch, retains in certain
+portions the character of the spoken address with which it originated.</p>
+<p>It is now brought into print in the hope that it may be found of
+interest for certain readers of the younger generation and may serve as
+an incentive to the reading of the fuller histories of the War period,
+and particularly of the best of the biographies of the great American
+whom we honour as the People's leader.</p>
+<p>I have been fortunate enough to secure (only, however, after this
+monograph had been put into type) a copy of the pamphlet printed in
+September, 1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, in
+which is presented the text, as revised by the speaker, of the address
+given by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,&#8212;the address which
+made him President.</p>
+<p>This edition of the speech, prepared for use in the Presidential
+campaign, contains a series of historical annotations by Cephas
+Brainerd
+of the New York Bar and Charles C. Nott, who later rendered further
+distinguished service to his country as Colonel of the 176th Regiment,
+N.Y.S. Volunteers, and (after the close of the War) as chief justice of
+the Court of Claims.</p>
+<p>These young lawyers (not yet leaders of the Bar) appear to have
+realised
+at once that the speech was to constitute the platform upon which the
+issues of the Presidential election were to be contested. Not being
+prophets, they were, of course, not in a position to know that the same
+statements were to represent the contentions of the North upon which
+the
+Civil War was fought out.</p>
+<p>I am able to include, with the scholarly notes of the two lawyers, a
+valuable introduction to the speech, written (as late as February,
+1908)
+by Judge Nott; together with certain letters which in February, 1860,
+passed between him (as the representative of the Committee) and Mr.
+Lincoln.</p>
+<p>The introduction and the letters have never before been published,
+and
+(as is the case also with the material of the notes) are now in print
+only in the present volume.</p>
+<p>I judge, therefore, that I may be doing a service to the survivors
+of
+the generation of 1860 and also to the generations that have grown up
+since the War, by utilising the occasion of the publication of my own
+little monograph for the reprinting of these notes in a form for
+permanent preservation and for reference on the part of students of the
+history of the Republic.</p>
+<p>G.H.P.</p>
+<p>NEW YORK, April 2, 1909.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="CONTENTS"></a>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<a href="#I"><b>I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN</b></a><br>
+<a href="#II"><b>II. WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS</b></a><br>
+<a href="#III"><b>III. THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY</b></a><br>
+<a href="#IV"><b>IV. LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE
+MAINTENANCE OF
+NATIONAL EXISTENCE</b></a><br>
+<a href="#V"><b>V. THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR</b></a><br>
+<a href="#VI"><b>VI. THE DARK. DAYS OF 1862</b></a><br>
+<a href="#VII"><b>VII. THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR</b></a><br>
+<a href="#VIII"><b>VIII. THE FINAL CAMPAIGN</b></a><br>
+<a href="#IX"><b>IX. LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED</b></a><br>
+<a href="#APPENDIX"><b>APPENDIX&#8212;LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS:</b></a><br>
+<div style="margin-left: 2em;"><a href="#THE_ADDRESS_OF_ABRAHAM_LINCOLN"><b>THE
+ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN</b></a><br>
+<a href="#INTRODUCTORY_NOTE"><b>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</b></a><br>
+<a href="#CORRESPONDENCE_WITH_LINCOLN_NOTT_AND_BRAINERD"><b>CORRESPONDENCE
+WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD</b></a><br>
+<a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE TO THE LINCOLN ADDRESS</b></a><br>
+<a href="#ADDRESS"><b>THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS</b></a><br>
+</div>
+<a href="#INDEX"><b>INDEX</b></a><br>
+<a href="#FOOTNOTES"><b>FOOTNOTES</b></a><br>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_1"></a>
+<a name="Abraham_Lincoln"></a><br>
+<h1>Abraham Lincoln</h1>
+<a name="I"></a>
+<h2>I</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN</p>
+<p>On the twelfth of February, 1909, the hundredth anniversary of the
+birth
+of Abraham Lincoln, Americans gathered together, throughout the entire
+country, to honour the memory of a great American, one who may come to
+be accepted as the greatest of Americans. It was in every way fitting
+that this honour should be rendered to Abraham Lincoln and that, on
+such
+commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in
+honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln
+gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion
+Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain.</p>
+<p>The chief purpose, however, as I understand, of a memorial service
+is
+not so much to glorify <a name="Page_2"></a>the dead as to enlighten
+and inspire the living.
+We borrow the thought of his own Gettysburg address (so eloquent in its
+exquisite simplicity) when we say that no words of ours can add any
+glory to the name of Abraham Lincoln. His work is accomplished. His
+fame
+is secure. It is for us, his fellow-citizens, for the older men who had
+personal touch with the great struggle in which Lincoln was the
+nation's
+leader, for the younger men who have grown up in the generation since
+the War, and for the children by whom are to be handed down through the
+new century the great traditions of the Republic, to secure from the
+life and character of our great leader incentive, illumination, and
+inspiration to good citizenship, in order that Lincoln and his
+fellow-martyrs shall not have died in vain.</p>
+<p>It is possible within the limits of this paper simply to touch upon
+the
+chief events and experiences in Lincoln's life. It has been my
+endeavour
+to select those that were the most important in the forming or in the
+expression of his character. The term "forming" is, however, not
+adequate to indicate the development of a personality like Lincoln's.
+We
+rather think of his sturdy character as having been <i>forged</i> into
+its
+final form through the fiery furnace of fierce struggle, <a
+ name="Page_3"></a>as hammered
+out under the blows of difficulties and disasters, and as pressed
+beneath the weight of the nation's burdens, until was at last produced
+the finely tempered nature of the man we know, the Lincoln of history,
+that exquisite combination of sweetness of nature and strength of
+character. The type is described in Schiller's Song of the Founding of
+the Bell:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Denn, wo das strenge mit dem zarten,</p>
+<p>Wo mildes sich und starkes paarten,</p>
+<p>Da giebt es einen guten Klang.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>There is a tendency to apply the term "miraculous" to the career of
+every hero, and in a sense such description is, of course, true. The
+life of every man, however restricted its range, is something of a
+miracle; but the course of a single life, like that of humanity, is
+assuredly based on a development that proceeds from a series of
+causations. Holmes says that the education of a man begins two
+centuries
+before his birth. We may recall in this connection that Lincoln came of
+good stock. It is true that his parents belonged to the class of poor
+whites; but the Lincoln family can be traced from an eastern county of
+England (we might hope for the purpose of genealogical harmony that the
+county was Lin<a name="Page_4"></a>colnshire) to Hingham in
+Massachusetts, and by way of
+Pennsylvania and Virginia to Kentucky. The grandfather of our Abraham
+was killed, while working in his field on the Kentucky farm, by
+predatory Indians shooting from the cover of the dense forest.
+Abraham's
+father, Thomas, at that time a boy, was working in the field where his
+father was murdered. Such an incident in Kentucky simply repeated what
+had been going on just a century before in Massachusetts, at Deerfield
+and at dozens of other settlements on the edge of the great forest
+which
+was the home of the Indians. During the hundred years, the frontier of
+the white man's domain had been moved a thousand miles to the
+south-west
+and, as ever, there was still friction at the point of contact.</p>
+<p>The record of the boyhood of our Lincoln has been told in dozens of
+forms and in hundreds of monographs. We know of the simplicity, of the
+penury, of the family life in the little one-roomed log hut that formed
+the home for the first ten years of Abraham's life. We know of his
+little group of books collected with toil and self-sacrifice. The
+series, after some years of strenuous labour, comprised the Bible,
+<i>Aesop's Fables</i>, a tattered copy of Euclid's <i>Geometry</i>,
+and Weems's
+<a name="Page_5"></a><i>Life of Washington</i>. The <i>Euclid</i> he
+had secured as a great prize from
+the son of a neighbouring farmer. Abraham had asked the boy the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." His friend said that he did not himself
+know,
+but that he knew the word was in a book which he had at school, and he
+hunted up the <i>Euclid</i>. After some bargaining, the <i>Euclid</i>
+came into
+Abraham's possession. In accordance with his practice, the whole
+contents were learned by heart. Abraham's later opponents at the Bar or
+in political discussion came to realise that he understood the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." In fact, references to specific problems of
+Euclid occurred in some of his earlier speeches at the Bar.</p>
+<p>A year or more later, when the Lincoln family had crossed the river
+to
+Indiana, there was added to the "library" a copy of the revised
+Statutes
+of the State. The Weems's <i>Washington</i> had been borrowed by
+Lincoln from
+a neighbouring farmer. The boy kept it at night under his pillow, and
+on
+the occasion of a storm, the water blew in through the chinks of the
+logs that formed the wall of the cabin, drenching the pillow and the
+head of the boy (a small matter in itself) and wetting and almost
+spoiling the book. This was <a name="Page_6"></a>a grave misfortune.
+Lincoln took his
+damaged volume to the owner and asked how he could make payment for the
+loss. It was arranged that the boy should put in three days' work
+shucking corn on the farm. "Will that work pay for the book or only for
+the damage?" asked the boy. It was agreed that the labour of three days
+should be considered sufficient for the purchase of the book.</p>
+<p>The text of this biography and the words of each valued volume in
+the
+little "library" were absorbed into the memory of the reader. It was
+his
+practice when going into the field for work, to take with him
+written-out paragraphs from the book that he had at the moment in mind
+and to repeat these paragraphs between the various chores or between
+the
+wood-chopping until every page was committed by heart. Paper was scarce
+and dear and for the boy unattainable. He used for his copying bits of
+board shaved smooth with his jack-knife. This material had the
+advantage
+that when the task of one day had been mastered, a little labour with
+the jack-knife prepared the surface of the board for the work of the
+next day. As I read this incident in Lincoln's boyhood, I was reminded
+of an experience of my own in Louisiana. It happened frequently <a
+ name="Page_7"></a>during
+the campaign of 1863 that our supplies were cut off through the capture
+of our waggon trains by that active Confederate commander, General
+Taylor. More than once, we were short of provisions, and, in one
+instance, a supply of stationery for which the adjutants of the brigade
+had been waiting, was carried off to serve the needs of our opponents.
+We tore down a convenient and unnecessary shed and utilised from the
+roof the shingles, the clean portions of which made an admirable
+substitute for paper. For some days, the morning reports of the brigade
+were filed on shingles.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's work as a farm-hand was varied by two trips down the river
+to
+New Orleans. The opportunity had been offered to the young man by the
+neighbouring store-keeper, Gentry, to take part in the trip of a
+flat-boat which carried the produce of the county to New Orleans, to be
+there sold in exchange for sugar or rum. Lincoln was, at the time of
+these trips, already familiar with certain of the aspects and
+conditions
+of slavery, but the inspection of the slave-market in New Orleans
+stamped upon his sensitive imagination a fresh and more sombre picture,
+and made a lasting impression of the iniquity and horror of the
+institution. From the time of his <a name="Page_8"></a>early manhood,
+Lincoln hated slavery.
+What was exceptional, however, in his state of mind was that, while
+abominating the institution, he was able to give a sympathetic
+understanding to the opinions and to the prejudices of the
+slave-owners.
+In all his long fight against slavery as the curse both of the white
+and
+of the black, and as the great obstacle to the natural and wholesome
+development of the nation, we do not at any time find a trace of
+bitterness against the men of the South who were endeavouring to
+maintain and to extend the system.</p>
+<p>It was of essential importance for the development of Lincoln as a
+political leader, first for his State, and later in the contest that
+became national, that he should have possessed an understanding, which
+was denied to many of the anti-slavery leaders, of the actual nature,
+character, and purpose of the men against whom he was contending. It
+became of larger importance when Lincoln was directing from Washington
+the policy of the national administration that he should have a
+sympathetic knowledge of the problems of the men of the Border States
+who with the outbreak of the War had been placed in a position of
+exceptional difficulty, and that he should have secured and retained
+the
+confidence of these <a name="Page_9"></a>men. It seems probable that
+if the War President
+had been a man of Northern birth and Northern prejudices, if he had
+been
+one to whom the wider, the more patient and sympathetic view of these
+problems had been impossible or difficult, the Border States could not
+have been saved to the Union. It is probable that the support given to
+the cause of the North by the sixty thousand or seventy thousand loyal
+recruits from Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia,
+may
+even have proved the deciding factor in turning the tide of events. The
+nation's leader for the struggle seems to have been secured through a
+process of natural selection as had been the case a century earlier
+with
+Washington. We may recall that Washington died but ten years before
+Lincoln was born; and from the fact that each leader was at hand when
+the demand came for his service, and when without such service the
+nation might have been pressed to destruction, we may grasp the hope
+that in time of need the nation will always be provided with the leader
+who can meet the requirement.</p>
+<p>After Lincoln returned from New Orleans, he secured employment for a
+time in the grocery or general store of Gentry, and when he was
+twenty-two years of age, he went into business with a <a name="Page_10"></a>partner,
+some
+twenty years older than himself, in carrying on such a store. He had so
+impressed himself upon the confidence of his neighbours that, while he
+was absolutely without resources, there was no difficulty in his
+borrowing the money required for his share of the capital. The
+undertaking did not prove a success. Lincoln had no business experience
+and no particular business capacity, while his partner proved to be
+untrustworthy. The partner decamped, leaving Lincoln to close up the
+business and to take the responsibility for the joint indebtedness. It
+was seventeen years before Lincoln was able, from his modest earnings
+as
+a lawyer, to clear off this indebtedness. The debt became outlawed in
+six years' time but this could not affect Lincoln's sense of the
+obligation. After the failure of the business, Lincoln secured work as
+county surveyor. In this, he was following the example of his
+predecessor Washington, with whose career as a surveyor the youngster
+who knew Weems's biography by heart, was of course familiar. His new
+occupation took him through the county and brought him into personal
+relations with a much wider circle than he had known in the village of
+New Salem, and in his case, the personal relation counted for much; the
+history shows that <a name="Page_11"></a>no one who knew Lincoln
+failed to be attracted by
+him or to be impressed with the fullest confidence in the man's
+integrity of purpose and of action.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="II"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_12"></a>II</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO
+POLITICS</p>
+<br>
+<p>In 1834, when he was twenty-five years old, Lincoln made his first
+entrance into politics, presenting himself as candidate for the
+Assembly. His defeat was not without compensations; he secured in his
+own village or township, New Salem, no less than 208 out of the 211
+votes cast. This prophet had honour with those who knew him. Two years
+later, he tried again and this time with success. His journeys as a
+surveyor had brought him into touch with, and into the confidence of,
+enough voters throughout the county to secure the needed majority.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's active work as a lawyer lasted from 1834 to 1860, or for
+about
+twenty-six years. He secured in the cases undertaken by him a very
+large
+proportion of successful decisions. Such a result is not entirely to be
+credited to his effectiveness as an advocate. The first reason was that
+in his individual work, that is to say, in the matters that were taken
+up by himself rather than by his <a name="Page_13"></a>partner, he
+accepted no case in the
+justice of which he did not himself have full confidence. As his fame
+as
+an advocate increased, he was approached by an increasing number of
+clients who wanted the advantage of the effective service of the young
+lawyer and also of his assured reputation for honesty of statement and
+of management. Unless, however, he believed in the case, he put such
+suggestions to one side even at the time when the income was meagre and
+when every dollar was of importance.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's record at the Bar has been somewhat obscured by the value
+of
+his public service, but as it comes to be studied, it is shown to have
+been both distinctive and important. His law-books were, like those of
+his original library, few, but whatever volumes he had of his own and
+whatever he was able to place his hands upon from the shelves of his
+friends, he mastered thoroughly. His work at the Bar gave evidence of
+his exceptional powers of reasoning while it was itself also a large
+influence in the development of such powers. The counsel who practised
+with and against him, the judges before whom his arguments were
+presented, and the members of the juries, the hard-headed working
+citizens of the State, seem to have all been equally impressed <a
+ name="Page_14"></a>with the
+exceptional fairness with which the young lawyer presented not only his
+own case but that of his opponent. He had great tact in holding his
+friends, in convincing those who did not agree with him, and in winning
+over opponents; but he gave no futile effort to tasks which his
+judgment
+convinced him would prove impossible. He never, says Horace Porter,
+citing Lincoln's words, "wasted any time in trying to massage the back
+of a political porcupine." "A man might as well," says Lincoln,
+"undertake to throw fleas across the barnyard with a shovel."</p>
+<p>He had as a youngster won repute as a teller of dramatic stories,
+and
+those who listened to his arguments in court were expecting to have his
+words to the jury brightened and rendered for the moment more effective
+by such stories. The hearers were often disappointed in such
+expectation. Neither at the Bar, nor, it may be said here, in his later
+work as a political leader, did Lincoln indulge himself in the telling
+a
+story for the sake of the story, nor for the sake of the laugh to be
+raised by the story, nor for the momentary pleasure or possible
+temporary advantage of the discomfiture of the opponent. The story was
+used, whether in law or in politics, only <a name="Page_15"></a>when
+it happened to be the
+shortest and most effective method of making clear an issue or of
+illustrating a statement. In later years, when he had upon him the
+terrible burdens of the great struggle, Lincoln used stories from time
+to time as a vent to his feelings. The impression given was that by an
+effort of will and in order to keep his mind from dwelling too
+continuously upon the tremendous problems upon which he was engaged, he
+would, by the use of some humorous reminiscence, set his thoughts in a
+direction as different as possible from that of his cares. A third and
+very valuable use of the story which grew up in his Washington days was
+to turn aside some persistent but impossible application; and to give
+to
+the applicant, with the least risk of unnecessary annoyance to his
+feelings, the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless also the case
+that, as has happened to other men gifted with humour, Lincoln's
+reputation as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a great
+series
+of anecdotes and incidents of one kind or another, some of which would
+have been entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his own standard
+and his own method. There is the further and final word to be said
+about
+Lincoln's stories, that they were entitled to the geometrical
+<a name="Page_16"></a>commendation of "being neither too long nor too
+broad."</p>
+<p>In 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress as a Whig. The circle of
+acquaintances whom he had made in the county as surveyor had widened
+out
+with his work as a lawyer; he secured a unanimous nomination and was
+elected without difficulty in a constituency comprising six counties. I
+find in the record of the campaign the detail that Lincoln returned to
+certain of his friends who had undertaken to find the funds for
+election
+expenses, $199.90 out of the $200 subscribed.</p>
+<p>In 1847, Lincoln was one of the group of Whigs in Congress who
+opposed
+the Mexican War. These men took the ground that the war was one of
+aggression and spoliation. Their views, which were quite prevalent
+throughout New England, are effectively presented in Lowell's <i>Biglow
+Papers.</i> When the army was once in the field, Lincoln was, however,
+ready to give his Congressional vote for the fullest and most energetic
+support. A year or more later, he worked actively for the election of
+General Taylor. He took the ground that the responsibility for the war
+rested not with the soldiers who had fought it to a successful
+conclusion, but with the politicians who had devised the original
+land-grabbing scheme.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_17"></a>In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected with
+an invention for lifting
+vessels over shoals. His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his memory
+of
+the attempt, successful for the moment but ending in failure, to make
+the river available for steamboats, had attracted his attention to the
+problem of steering river vessels over shoals.</p>
+<p>In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red River in Louisiana, I
+noticed
+with interest a device that had been put into shape for the purpose of
+lifting river steamers over shoals. This device took the form of stilts
+which for the smaller vessels (and only the smaller steamers could as a
+rule be managed in this way) were fastened on pivots from the upper
+deck
+on the outside of the hull and were worked from the deck with a force
+of
+two or three men at each stilt. The difficulty on the Red River was
+that
+the Rebel sharp-shooters from the banks made the management of the
+stilts irregular.</p>
+<p>In 1854, Douglas carried through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
+This
+bill repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and cancelled also the
+provisions of the series of compromises of 1850. Its purpose was to
+throw open for settlement and for later organisation as Slave States
+the
+whole territory of the North-west from <a name="Page_18"></a>which,
+under the Missouri
+Compromise, slavery had been excluded. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill not
+only
+threw open a great territory to slavery but re-opened the whole slavery
+discussion. The issues that were brought to the front in the
+discussions
+about this bill, and in the still more bitter contests after the
+passage
+of the bill in regard to the admission of Kansas as a Slave State, were
+the immediate precursors of the Civil War. The larger causes lay
+further
+back, but the War would have been postponed for an indefinite period if
+it had not been for the pressing on the part of the South for the right
+to make Slave States throughout the entire territory of the country,
+and
+for the readiness on the part of certain Democratic leaders of the
+North, of whom Douglas was the chief, to accept this contention, and
+through such expedients to gain, or to retain, political control for
+the
+Democratic party.</p>
+<p>In one of the long series of debates in Congress on the question of
+the
+right to take slaves into free territory, a planter from South Carolina
+drew an affecting picture of his relations with his old coloured
+foster-mother, the "mammy" of the plantation. "Do you tell me," he
+said,
+addressing himself to a Free-soil opponent, "that <a name="Page_19"></a>I,
+a free American
+citizen, am not to be permitted, if I want to go across the Missouri
+River, to take with me my whole home circle? Do you say that I must
+leave my old 'Mammy' behind in South Carolina?" "Oh!" replied the
+Westerner, "the trouble with you is not that you cannot take your
+'Mammy' into this free territory, but that you are not to be at liberty
+to sell her when you get her there."</p>
+<p>Lincoln threw himself with full earnestness of conviction and ardour
+into the fight to preserve for freedom the territory belonging to the
+nation. In common with the majority of the Whig party, he held the
+opinion that if slavery could be restricted to the States in which it
+was already in existence, if no further States should be admitted into
+the Union with the burden of slavery, the institution must, in the
+course of a generation or two, die out. He was clear in his mind that
+slavery was an enormous evil for the whites as well as for the blacks,
+for the individual as for the nation. He had himself, as a young man,
+been brought up to do toilsome manual labour. He would not admit that
+there was anything in manual labour that ought to impair the respect of
+the community for the labourer or the worker's respect for himself. Not
+the least of the evils of <a name="Page_20"></a>slavery was, in his
+judgment, its inevitable
+influence in bringing degradation upon labour and the labourer.</p>
+<p>The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act made clear to the North that
+the
+South would accept no limitations for slavery. The position of the
+Southern leaders, in which they had the substantial backing of their
+constituents, was that slaves were property and that the Constitution,
+having guaranteed the protection of property to all the citizens of the
+commonwealth, a slaveholder was deprived of his constitutional rights
+as
+a citizen if his control of this portion of his property was in any way
+interfered with or restricted. The argument in behalf of this extreme
+Southern claim had been shaped most eloquently and most forcibly by
+John
+C. Calhoun during the years between 1830 and 1850. The Calhoun opinion
+was represented a few years later in the Presidential candidacy of John
+C. Breckinridge. The contention of the more extreme of the Northern
+opponents of slavery voters, whose spokesmen were William Lloyd
+Garrison, Wendell Phillips, James G. Birney, Owen Lovejoy, and others,
+was that the Constitution in so far as it recognised slavery (which it
+did only by implication) was a compact with evil. They held that the
+Fathers <a name="Page_21"></a>had been led into this compact
+unwittingly and without full
+realisation of the responsibilities that they were assuming for the
+perpetuation of a great wrong. They refused to accept the view that
+later generations of American citizens were to be bound for an
+indefinite period by this error of judgment on the part of the Fathers.
+They proposed to get rid of slavery, as an institution incompatible
+with
+the principles on which the Republic was founded. They pointed out that
+under the Declaration of Independence all men had an equal right to
+"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and that there was no
+limitation of this claim to men of white race. If it was not going to
+be
+possible to argue slavery out of existence, these men preferred to have
+the Union dissolved rather than to bring upon States like Massachusetts
+a share of the responsibility for the wrong done to mankind and to
+justice under the laws of South Carolina.</p>
+<p>The Whig party, whose great leader, Henry Clay, had closed his life
+in
+1852, just at the time when Lincoln was becoming prominent in politics,
+held that all citizens were bound by the compact entered into by their
+ancestors, first under the Articles of Confederation of 1783, and later
+under the Constitution of 1789. Our ancestors had, <a name="Page_22"></a>for
+the purpose of
+bringing about the organisation of the Union, agreed to respect the
+institution of slavery in the States in which it existed. The Whigs of
+1850, held, therefore, that in such of the Slave States as had been
+part
+of the original thirteen, slavery was an institution to be recognised
+and protected under the law of the land. They admitted, further, that
+what their grandfathers had done in 1789, had been in a measure
+confirmed by the action of their fathers in 1820. The Missouri
+Compromise of 1820, in making clear that all States thereafter
+organised
+north of the line thirty-six thirty were to be Free States, made clear
+also that States south of that line had the privilege of coming into
+the
+Union with the institution of slavery and that the citizens in these
+newer Slave States should be assured of the same recognition and rights
+as had been accorded to those of the original thirteen.</p>
+<p>The Missouri Compromise permitted also the introduction of Missouri
+itself into the Union as a Slave State (as a counterpoise to the State
+of Maine admitted the same year), although almost the entire territory
+of the State of Missouri was north of the latitude 36&deg; 30'.</p>
+<p>We may recall that, under the Constitution, the States of the South,
+while denying the suffrage <a name="Page_23"></a>to the negro, had
+secured the right to
+include the negro population as a basis for their representation in the
+lower House. In apportioning the representatives to the population,
+five
+negroes were to be counted as the equivalent of three white men. The
+passage, in 1854, of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the purpose of which was
+to confirm the existence of slavery and to extend the institution
+throughout the country, was carried in the House by thirteen votes. The
+House contained at that time no less than twenty members representing
+the negro population. The negroes were, therefore, in this instance
+involuntarily made the instruments for strengthening the chains of
+their
+own serfdom.</p>
+<p>It was in 1854 that Lincoln first propounded the famous question,
+"Can
+the nation endure half slave and half free?" This question, slightly
+modified, became the keynote four years later of Lincoln's contention
+against the Douglas theory of "squatter sovereignty." The organisation
+of the Republican party dates from 1856. Various claims have been made
+concerning the precise date and place at which were first presented the
+statement of principles that constituted the final platform of the
+party, and in regard to the men who were responsible for such
+statement.
+At a <a name="Page_24"></a>meeting held as far back as July, 1854, at
+Jackson, Michigan, a
+platform was adopted by a convention which had been brought together to
+formulate opposition to any extension of slavery, and this Jackson
+platform did contain the substance of the conclusions and certain of
+the
+phrases which later were included in the Republican platform. In
+January, 1856, Parke Godwin published in <i>Putnam's Monthly</i>, of
+which he
+was political editor, an article outlining the necessary constitution
+of
+the new party. This article gave a fuller expression than had thus far
+been made of the views of the men who were later accepted as the
+leaders
+of the Republican party. In May, 1856, Lincoln made a speech at
+Bloomington, Illinois, setting forth the principles for the
+anti-slavery
+campaign as they were understood by his group of Whigs. In this speech,
+Lincoln speaks of "that perfect liberty for which our Southern
+fellow-citizens are sighing, the liberty of making slaves of other
+people"; and again, "It is the contention of Mr. Douglas, in his claim
+for the rights of American citizens, that if <i>A</i> sees fit to
+enslave
+<i>B</i>, no other man shall have the right to object." Of this
+Bloomington
+speech, Herndon says: "It was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm;
+it was justice, integrity, truth, <a name="Page_25"></a>and right. The
+words seemed to be set
+ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by a great wrong. The
+utterance was hard, knotty, gnarly, backed with wrath."</p>
+<p>From this time on, Lincoln was becoming known throughout the country
+as
+one of the leaders in the new issues, able and ready to give time and
+service to the anti-slavery fight and to the campaign work of the
+Republican organisation. This political service interfered to some
+extent with his work at the Bar, but he did not permit political
+interests to stand in the way of any obligations that had been assumed
+to his clients. He simply accepted fewer cases, and to this extent
+reduced his very moderate earnings. In his work as a lawyer, he never
+showed any particular capacity for increasing income or for looking
+after his own business interests. It was his principle and his practice
+to discourage litigation. He appears, during the twenty-five years in
+which he was in active practice, to have made absolutely no enemies
+among his professional opponents. He enjoyed an exceptional reputation
+for the frankness with which he would accept the legitimate contentions
+of his opponents or would even himself state their case. Judge David
+Davis, before whom <a name="Page_26"></a>Lincoln had occasion during
+these years to practise,
+says that the Court was always prepared to accept as absolutely fair
+and
+substantially complete Lincoln's statement of the matters at issue.
+Davis says it occasionally happened that Lincoln would supply some
+consideration of importance on his opponent's side of the case that the
+other counsel had overlooked. It was Lincoln's principle to impress
+upon
+himself at the outset the full strength of the other man's position. It
+was also his principle to accept no case in the justice of which he had
+not been able himself to believe. He possessed also by nature an
+exceptional capacity for the detection of faulty reasoning; and his
+exercise of the power of analysis in his work at the Bar proved of
+great
+service later in widening his influence as a political leader. The
+power
+that he possessed, when he was assured of the justice of his cause, of
+convincing court and jury became the power of impressing his
+convictions
+upon great bodies of voters. Later, when he had upon his shoulders the
+leadership of the nation, he took the people into his confidence; he
+reasoned with them as if they were sitting as a great jury for the
+determination of the national policy, and he was able to impress upon
+them his perfect integrity of purpose and the soundness <a
+ name="Page_27"></a>of his
+conclusions,&#8212;conclusions which thus became the policy of the nation.</p>
+<p>He calls himself a "mast-fed lawyer" and it is true that his
+opportunities for reading continued to be most restricted. Davis said
+in
+regard to Lincoln's work as a lawyer: "He had a magnificent equipoise
+of
+head, conscience, and heart. In non-essentials he was pliable; but on
+the underlying principles of truth and justice, his will was as firm as
+steel." We find from the record of Lincoln's work in the Assembly and
+later in Congress that he would never do as a Representative what he
+was
+unwilling to do as an individual. His capacity for seeing the humorous
+side of things was of course but a phase of a general clearness of
+perception. The man who sees things clearly, who is able to recognise
+both sides of a matter, the man who can see all round a position, the
+opposite of the man in blinders, that man necessarily has a sense of
+humour. He is able, if occasion presents, to laugh at himself.
+Lincoln's
+capacity for absorbing and for retaining information and for having
+this
+in readiness for use at the proper time was, as we have seen, something
+that went back to his boyhood. He says of himself: "My mind is
+something
+like a piece of steel; it is very <a name="Page_28"></a>hard to
+scratch anything on it and
+almost impossible after you have got it there to rub it out."</p>
+<p>Lincoln's correspondence has been preserved with what is probably
+substantial completeness. The letters written by him to friends,
+acquaintances, political correspondents, individual men of one kind or
+another, have been gathered together and have been brought into print
+not, as is most frequently the case, under the discretion or judgment
+of
+a friendly biographer, but by a great variety of more or less
+sympathetic people. It would seem as if but very few of Lincoln's
+letters could have been mislaid or destroyed. One can but be impressed,
+in reading these letters, with the absolute honesty of purpose and of
+statement that characterises them. There are very few men, particularly
+those whose active lives have been passed in a period of political
+struggle and civil war, whose correspondence could stand such a test.
+There never came to Lincoln requirement to say to his correspondent,
+"Burn this letter."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="III"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_29"></a>III</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF
+SLAVERY</p>
+<br>
+<p>In 1856, the Supreme Court, under the headship of Judge Taney, gave
+out
+the decision of the Dred Scott case. The purport of this decision was
+that a negro was not to be considered as a person but as a chattel; and
+that the taking of such negro chattel into free territory did not
+cancel
+or impair the property rights of the master. It appeared to the men of
+the North as if under this decision the entire country, including in
+addition to the national territories the independent States which had
+excluded slavery, was to be thrown open to the invasion of the
+institution. The Dred Scott decision, taken in connection with the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise (and the two acts were doubtless a
+part of one thoroughly considered policy), foreshadowed as their
+logical
+and almost inevitable consequence the bringing of the entire nation
+under the control of slavery. The men of the future State of Kansas
+made
+during 1856-57 a plucky fight to keep <a name="Page_30"></a>slavery
+out of their borders. The
+so-called Lecompton Constitution undertook to force slavery upon
+Kansas.
+This constitution was declared by the administration (that of President
+Buchanan) to have been adopted, but the fraudulent character of the
+voting was so evident that Walker, the Democratic Governor, although a
+sympathiser with slavery, felt compelled to repudiate it. This
+constitution was repudiated also by Douglas, although Douglas had
+declared that the State ought to be thrown open to slavery. Jefferson
+Davis, at that time Secretary of War, declared that "Kansas was in a
+state of rebellion and that the rebellion must be crushed." Armed bands
+from Missouri crossed the river to Kansas for the purpose of casting
+fraudulent votes and for the further purpose of keeping the Free-soil
+settlers away from the polls.</p>
+<p>This fight for freedom in Kansas gave a further basis for Lincoln's
+statement "that a house divided against itself cannot stand; this
+government cannot endure half slave and half free." It was with this
+statement as his starting-point that Lincoln entered into his famous
+Senatorial campaign with Douglas. Douglas had already represented
+Illinois in the Senate for two terms and had, therefore, the advantage
+of possession and <a name="Page_31"></a>of a substantial control of
+the machinery of the
+State. He had the repute at the time of being the leading political
+debater in the country. He was shrewd, forcible, courageous, and, in
+the
+matter of convictions, unprincipled. He knew admirably how to cater to
+the prejudices of the masses. His career thus far had been one of
+unbroken success. His Senatorial fight was, in his hope and
+expectation,
+to be but a step towards the Presidency. The Democratic party, with an
+absolute control south of Mason and Dixon's Line and with a very
+substantial support in the Northern States, was in a position, if
+unbroken, to control with practical certainty the Presidential election
+of 1860. Douglas seemed to be the natural leader of the party. It was
+necessary for him, however, while retaining the support of the
+Democrats
+of the North, to make clear to those of the South that his influence
+would work for the maintenance and for the extension of slavery.</p>
+<p>The South was well pleased with the purpose and with the result of
+the
+Dred Scott decision and with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It
+is probable, however, that if the Dred Scott decision had not given to
+the South so full a measure of satisfaction, the South would have <a
+ name="Page_32"></a>been
+more ready to accept the leadership of a Northern Democrat like
+Douglas.
+Up to a certain point in the conflict, they had felt the need of
+Douglas
+and had realised the importance of the support that he was in a
+position
+to bring from the North. When, however, the Missouri Compromise had
+been
+repealed and the Supreme Court had declared that slaves must be
+recognised as property throughout the entire country, the Southern
+claims were increased to a point to which certain of the followers of
+Douglas were not willing to go. It was a large compliment to the young
+lawyer of Illinois to have placed upon him the responsibility of
+leading, against such a competitor as Douglas, the contest of the
+Whigs,
+and of the Free-soilers back of the Whigs, against any further
+extension
+of slavery, a contest which was really a fight for the continued
+existence of the nation.</p>
+<p>Lincoln seems to have gone into the fight with full courage, the
+courage
+of his convictions. He felt that Douglas was a trimmer, and he believed
+that the issue had now been brought to a point at which the trimmer
+could not hold support on both sides of Mason and Dixon's Line. He
+formulated at the outset of the debate a question which was pressed
+persistently upon <a name="Page_33"></a>Douglas during the succeeding
+three weeks. This
+question was worded as follows: "Can the people of a United States
+territory, prior to the formation of a State constitution or against
+the
+protest of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery?"
+Lincoln's
+campaign advisers were of opinion that this question was inadvisable.
+They took the ground that Douglas would answer the question in such way
+as to secure the approval of the voters of Illinois and that in so
+doing
+he would win the Senatorship. Lincoln's response was in substance:
+"That
+may be. I hold, however, that if Douglas answers this question in a way
+to satisfy the Democrats of the North, he will inevitably lose the
+support of the more extreme, at least, of the Democrats of the South.
+We
+may lose the Senatorship as far as my personal candidacy is concerned.
+If, however, Douglas fails to retain the support of the South, he
+cannot
+become President in 1860. The line will be drawn directly between those
+who are willing to accept the extreme claims of the South and those who
+resist these claims. A right decision is the essential thing for the
+safety of the nation." The question gave no little perplexity to
+Douglas. He finally, however, replied that in his judgment the people
+of
+a United States territory had the <a name="Page_34"></a>right to
+exclude slavery. When asked
+again by Lincoln how he brought this decision into accord with the Dred
+Scott decision, he replied in substance: "Well, they have not the right
+to take constitutional measures to exclude slavery but they can by
+local
+legislation render slavery practically impossible." The Dred Scott
+decision had in fact itself overturned the Douglas theory of popular
+sovereignty or "squatter sovereignty." Douglas was only able to say
+that
+his sovereignty contention made provision for such control of domestic
+or local regulations as would make slavery impossible.</p>
+<p>The South, rendered autocratic by the authority of the Supreme
+Court,
+was not willing to accept the possibility of slavery being thus
+restricted out of existence in any part of the country. The Southerners
+repudiated Douglas as Lincoln had prophesied they would do. Douglas had
+been trying the impossible task of carrying water on both shoulders. He
+gained the Senatorship by a narrow margin; he secured in the vote in
+the
+Legislature a majority of eight, but Lincoln had even in this fight won
+the support of the people. His majority on the popular vote was four
+thousand.</p>
+<p>The series of debates between these two leaders <a name="Page_35"></a>came
+to be of national
+importance. It was not merely a question of the representation in the
+Senate from the State of Illinois, but of the presentation of
+arguments,
+not only to the voters of Illinois but to citizens throughout the
+entire
+country, in behalf of the restriction of slavery on the one hand or of
+its indefinite expansion and protection on the other. The debate was
+educational not merely for the voters who listened, but for the
+thousands of other voters who read the reports. It would be an enormous
+advantage for the political education of candidates and for the
+education of voters if such debates could become the routine in
+Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Under the present routine, we
+have, in place of an assembly of voters representing the conflicting
+views of the two parties or of the several political groups, a
+homogeneous audience of one way of thinking, and speakers who have no
+opponent present to check the temptation to launch forth into wild
+statements, personal abuse, and irresponsible conclusions. An
+interruption of the speaker is considered to be a disturbance of order,
+and the man who is not fully in sympathy with the views of the audience
+is likely to be put out as an interloper. With a system of joint
+debates, the speakers would be <a name="Page_36"></a>under an
+educational repression. False
+or exaggerated statements would not be made, or would not be made
+consciously, because they would be promptly corrected by the other
+fellow. There would of necessity come to be a better understanding and
+a
+larger respect for the positions of the opponent. The men who would be
+selected as leaders or speakers to enforce the contentions of the
+party,
+would have to possess some reasoning faculty as well as oratorical
+fluency. The voters, instead of being shut in with one group of
+arguments more or less reasonable, would be brought into touch with the
+arguments of other groups of citizens. I can conceive of no better
+method for bringing representative government on to a higher plane and
+for making an election what it ought to be, a reasonable decision by
+reasoning voters, than the institution of joint debates.</p>
+<p>I cite certain of the incisive statements that came into Lincoln's
+seven
+debates. "A slave, says Judge Douglas (on the authority of Judge
+Taney),
+is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." "I contend
+[says Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's
+nature. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right, and as long as God
+reigns and as school-children read, that black evil can never <a
+ name="Page_37"></a>be
+consecrated into God's truth." "A man does not lose his right to a
+piece
+of property which has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to himself if
+he himself has been stolen?" The following words present a summary of
+Lincoln's statements:</p>
+<p>Judge Douglas contends that if any one man chooses to enslave
+another,
+no third man has a right to object. Our Fathers, in accepting slavery
+under the Constitution as a legal institution, were of opinion, as is
+clearly indicated by the recorded utterances, that slavery would in the
+course of a few years die out. They were quite clear in their minds
+that
+the slave-trade must be abolished and for ever forbidden and this
+decision was arrived at under the leadership of men like Jefferson and
+without a protest from the South. Jefferson was himself the author of
+the Ordinance of 1787, which in prohibiting the introduction of
+slavery,
+consecrated to freedom the great territory of the North-west, and this
+measure was fully approved by Washington and by the other great leaders
+from the South. Where slavery exists, full liberty refuses to enter. It
+was only through this wise action of the Fathers that it was possible
+to
+bring into existence, through colonisation, the great territories and
+great States of the North-<a name="Page_38"></a>west. It is this
+settlement, and the later
+adjustment of 1820, that Douglas and his friends in the South are
+undertaking to overthrow. Slavery is not, as Judge Douglas contends, a
+local issue; it is a national responsibility. The repeal of the
+Missouri
+Compromise throws open not only a great new territory to the curse of
+slavery; it throws open the whole slavery question for the embroiling
+of
+the present generation of Americans. Taking slaves into free territory
+is the same thing as reviving the slave-trade. It perpetuates and
+develops interstate slave-trade. Government derives its just powers
+from
+the consent of the governed. The Fathers did not claim that "the right
+of the people to govern negroes was the right of the people to govern
+themselves."</p>
+<p>The policy of Judge Douglas was based on the theory that the people
+did
+not care, but the people did care, as was evinced two years later by
+the
+popular vote for President throughout the North. One of those who heard
+these debates says: "Lincoln loved truth for its own sake. He had a
+deep, true, living conscience; honesty was his polar star. He never
+acted for stage effect. He was cool, spirited, reflective,
+self-possessed, and self-reliant. His style was clear, terse, compact
+... He became tremendous in the directness of his utterance when, as
+his
+<a name="Page_39"></a>soul was inspired with the thought of human right
+and Divine justice,
+he rose to impassioned eloquence, and at such times he was, in my
+judgment, unsurpassed by Clay or by Mirabeau."</p>
+<p>As the debates progressed, it was increasingly evident that Douglas
+found himself hard pushed. Lincoln would not allow himself to be
+swerved
+from the main issue by any tergiversation or personal attacks. He
+insisted from day to day in bringing Douglas back to this issue: "What
+do you, Douglas, propose to do about slavery in the territories? Is it
+your final judgment that there is to be no further reservation of free
+territory in this country? Do you believe that it is for the advantage
+of this country to put no restriction to the extension of slavery?"
+Douglas wriggled and squirmed under this direct questioning and his
+final replies gave satisfaction neither to the Northern Democrats nor
+to
+those of the South. The issue upon which the Presidential contest of
+1860 was to be fought out had been fairly stated. It was the same issue
+under which, in 1861, the fighting took the form of civil war. It was
+the issue that took four years to fight out and that was finally
+decided
+in favour of the <a name="Page_40"></a>continued existence of the
+nation as a free state. In
+this fight, Lincoln was not only, as the contest was finally shaped,
+the
+original leader; he was the final leader; and at the time of his death
+the great question had been decided for ever.</p>
+<p>Horace White, in summing up the issues that were fought out in
+debate
+between Lincoln and Douglas, says:</p>
+<p>"Forty-four years have passed away since the Civil War came to an
+end
+and we are now able to take a dispassionate view of the question in
+dispute. The people of the South are now generally agreed that the
+institution of slavery was a direful curse to both races. We of the
+North must confess that there was considerable foundation for the
+asserted right of States to secede. Although the Constitution did in
+distinct terms make the Federal Government supreme, it was not so
+understood at first by the people either North or South. Particularism
+prevailed everywhere at the beginning. Nationalism was an aftergrowth
+and a slow growth proceeding mainly from the habit into which people
+fell of finding their common centre of gravity at Washington City and
+of
+viewing it as the place whence the American name and fame were blazoned
+to the world. During the first half century of the Republic, the North
+and South were changing coats from time to time, on the subject of
+State
+Rights and the right to secede, but <a name="Page_41"></a>meanwhile
+the Constitution itself
+was working silently in the North to undermine the particularism of
+Jefferson and to strengthen the nationalism of Hamilton. It had
+accomplished its work in the early thirties, when it found its perfect
+expression in Webster's reply to Hayne. But the Southern people were
+just as firmly convinced that Hayne was the victor in that contest as
+the Northern people were that Webster was. The vast material interests
+bottomed on slavery offset and neutralised the unifying process in the
+South, while it continued its wholesome work in the North, and thus the
+clashing of ideas paved the way for the clash of arms. That the
+behaviour of the slaveholders resulted from the circumstances in which
+they were placed and not from any innate deviltry is a fact now
+conceded
+by all impartial men. It was conceded by Lincoln both before the War
+and
+during the War, and this fact accounts for the affection bestowed upon
+him by Southern hearts to-day."</p>
+<p>Lincoln carried into politics the same standard of consistency of
+action
+that had characterised his work at the Bar. He writes, in 1859, to a
+correspondent whom he was directing to further the organisation of the
+new party: "Do not, in order to secure recruits, lower the standard of
+the Republican party. The true problem for 1860, is to fight to prevent
+slavery from becoming <a name="Page_42"></a>national. We must,
+however, recognise its
+constitutional right to exist in the States in which its existence was
+recognised under the original Constitution." This position was
+unsatisfactory to the Whigs of the Border States who favoured a
+continuing division between Slave States and Free States of the
+territory yet to be organised into States. It was also unsatisfactory
+to
+the extreme anti-slavery Whigs of the new organisation who insisted
+upon
+throttling slavery where-ever it existed. It is probable that the raid
+made by John Brown, in 1859, into Virginia for the purpose of rousing
+the slaves to fight for their own liberty, had some immediate influence
+in checking the activity of the more extreme anti-slavery group and in
+strengthening the conservative side of the new organisation. Lincoln
+disapproved entirely of the purpose of Brown and his associates, while
+ready to give due respect to the idealistic courage of the man.</p>
+<p>In February, 1860, Lincoln was invited by certain of the Republican
+leaders in New York to deliver one of a series of addresses which had
+been planned to make clear to the voters the purposes and the
+foundations of the new party. His name had become known to the
+Republicans of the East through the debates with Douglas. <a
+ name="Page_43"></a>It was
+recognised that Lincoln had taken the highest ground in regard to the
+principles of the new party, and that his counsels should prove of
+practical service in the shaping of the policy of the Presidential
+campaign. It was believed also that his influence would be of value in
+securing voters in the Middle West. The Committee of Invitation
+included, in addition to a group of the old Whigs (of whom my father
+was
+one), representative Free-soil Democrats like William C. Bryant and
+John
+King. Lincoln's methods as a political leader and orator were known to
+one or two men on the committee, but his name was still unfamiliar to
+an
+Eastern audience. It was understood that the new leader from the West
+was going to talk to New York about the fight against slavery. It is
+probable that at least the larger part of the audience expected
+something "wild and woolly." The West at that time seemed very far off
+from New York and was still but little understood by the Eastern
+communities. New Yorkers found it difficult to believe that a man who
+could influence Western audiences could have anything to say that would
+count with the cultivated citizens of the East. The more optimistic of
+the hearers were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry <a
+ name="Page_44"></a>Clay had
+arisen and were looking for utterances of the ornate and grandiloquent
+kind such as they had heard frequently from Clay and from other
+statesmen of the South.</p>
+<p>The first impression of the man from the West did nothing to
+contradict
+the expectation of something weird, rough, and uncultivated. The long,
+ungainly figure upon which hung clothes that, while new for this trip,
+were evidently the work of an unskilful tailor; the large feet, the
+clumsy hands of which, at the outset, at least, the orator seemed to be
+unduly conscious; the long, gaunt head capped by a shock of hair that
+seemed not to have been thoroughly brushed out, made a picture which
+did
+not fit in with New York's conception of a finished statesman. The
+first
+utterance of the voice was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being
+harsh
+and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker
+seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and
+impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and
+the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the
+deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of
+devotion
+to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the
+speaker.
+In place of a "wild and woolly" <a name="Page_45"></a>talk, illumined
+by more or less
+incongruous anecdotes; in place of a high-strung exhortation of general
+principles or of a fierce protest against Southern arrogance, the New
+Yorkers had presented to them a calm but forcible series of
+well-reasoned considerations upon which their action as citizens was to
+be based. It was evident that the man from the West understood
+thoroughly the constitutional history of the country; he had mastered
+the issues that had grown up about the slavery question; he knew
+thoroughly, and was prepared to respect, the rights of his political
+opponents; he knew with equal thoroughness the rights of the men whose
+views he was helping to shape and he insisted that there should be no
+wavering or weakening in regard to the enforcement of those rights; he
+made it clear that the continued existence of the nation depended upon
+having these issues equitably adjusted and he held that the equitable
+adjustment meant the restriction of slavery within its present
+boundaries. He maintained that such restrictions were just and
+necessary
+as well for the sake of fairness to the blacks as for the final welfare
+of the whites. He insisted that the voters in the present States in the
+Union had upon them the largest possible measure of responsibility in
+so
+controlling the <a name="Page_46"></a>great domain of the Republic
+that the States of the
+future, the States in which their children and their grandchildren were
+to grow up as citizens, must be preserved in full liberty, must be
+protected against any invasion of an institution which represented
+barbarity. He maintained that such a contention could interfere in no
+way with the due recognition of the legitimate property rights of the
+present owners of slaves. He pointed out to the New Englander of the
+anti-slavery group that the restriction of slavery meant its early
+extermination. He insisted that war for the purpose of exterminating
+slavery from existing slave territory could not be justified. He was
+prepared, for the purpose of defending against slavery the national
+territory that was still free, to take the risk of the war which the
+South threatened because he believed that only through such defence
+could the existence of the nation be maintained; and he believed,
+further, that the maintenance of the great Republic was essential, not
+only for the interests of its own citizens, but for the interests of
+free government throughout the world. He spoke with full sympathy of
+the
+difficulties and problems resting upon the South, and he insisted that
+the matters at issue could be adjusted only with a fair <a
+ name="Page_47"></a>recognition of
+these difficulties. Aggression from either side of Mason and Dixon's
+Line must be withstood.</p>
+<p>I was but a boy when I first looked upon the gaunt figure of the man
+who
+was to become the people's leader, and listened to his calm but
+forcible
+arguments in behalf of the principles of the Republican party. It is
+not
+likely that at the time I took in, with any adequate appreciation, the
+weight of the speaker's reasoning. I have read the address more than
+once since and it is, of course, impossible to separate my first
+impressions from my later direct knowledge. I do remember that I was at
+once impressed with the feeling that here was a political leader whose
+methods differed from those of any politician to whom I had listened.
+His contentions were based not upon invective or abuse of "the other
+fellow," but purely on considerations of justice, on that everlasting
+principle that what is just, and only what is just, represents the
+largest and highest interests of the nation as a whole. I doubt whether
+there occurred in the whole speech a single example of the stories
+which
+had been associated with Lincoln's name. The speaker was evidently
+himself impressed with the greatness of the opportunity and with the
+<a name="Page_48"></a>dignity and importance of his responsibility. The
+speech in fact gave
+the keynote to the coming campaign.</p>
+<p>It is hardly necessary to add that it also decided the selection of
+the
+national leader not only for the political campaign, but through the
+coming struggle. If it had not been for the impression made upon New
+York and the East generally by Lincoln's speech and by the man himself,
+the vote of New York could not have been secured in the May convention
+for the nomination of the man from Illinois.</p>
+<p>Robert Lincoln (writing to me in July, 1908) says:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"After my father's address in New York in February, 1860, he made a
+trip to New England in order to visit me at Exeter, N.H., where I
+was then a student in the Phillips Academy. It had not been his plan
+to do any speaking in New England, but, as a result of the address
+in New York, he received several requests from New England friends
+for speeches, and I find that before returning to the West, he spoke
+at the following places: Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., Exeter,
+N.H., Dover, N.H., Concord, N.H., Hartford, Conn., Meriden, Conn.,
+New Haven, Conn., Woonsocket, R.I., Norwalk, Conn., and Bridgeport,
+Conn. I am quite sure that coming and going he <a name="Page_49"></a>passed
+through
+Boston merely as an unknown traveller."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Mr. Lincoln writes to his wife from Exeter, N.H., March 4, 1860, as
+follows:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had foreseen it, I
+think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New York,
+being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well
+and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine
+others, before reading audiences who had already seen all my ideas
+in print."<a name="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+</div>
+<p>An edition of Mr. Lincoln's address was brought into print in
+September,
+1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, with notes by
+Charles C. Nott (later Colonel, and after the war Judge of the Court of
+Claims in Washington) and Cephas Brainerd. The publication of this
+pamphlet shows that as early as September, 1860, the historic
+importance
+and permanent value of this speech were fairly realised by the national
+leaders of the day. In the preface to the reprint, the editors say:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"The address is characterised by wisdom, truthfulness and learning<a
+ name="Page_50"></a>
+...From the first line to the last&#8212;from his premises to his
+conclusion, the speaker travels with a swift, unerring directness
+that no logician has ever excelled. His argument is complete and is
+presented without the affectation of learning, and without the
+stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details ...A single
+simple sentence contains a chapter of history that has taken days of
+labour to verify, and that must have cost the author months of
+investigation to acquire. The reader may take up this address as a
+political pamphlet, but he will leave it as an historical
+treatise&#8212;brief, complete, perfect, sound, impartial truth&#8212;which
+will serve the time and the occasion that called it forth, and which
+will be esteemed hereafter no less for its unpretending modesty than
+for its intrinsic worth."<a name="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_2_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+</div>
+<p>Horace White, who was himself present at the Chicago Convention,
+writes
+(in 1909) as follows:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"To anybody looking back at the Republican National Convention of
+1860, it must be plain that there were only two men who had any
+chance of being nominated for President.</p>
+<p>"These were Lincoln and Seward. I was present at the Convention as a
+spectator and I knew this fact at the time, but it seemed to me at
+the beginning <a name="Page_51"></a>that Seward's chances were the
+better. One third of
+the delegates of Illinois preferred Seward and expected to vote for
+him after a few complimentary ballots for Lincoln. If there had been
+no Lincoln in the field, Seward would certainly have been nominated
+and then the course of history would have been very different from
+what it was, for if Seward had been nominated and elected there
+would have been no forcible opposition to the withdrawal of such
+States as then desired to secede. And as a consequence the
+Republican party would have been rent in twain and disabled from
+making effectual resistance to other demands of the South.</p>
+<p>"It was Seward's conviction that the policy of non-coercion would
+have quieted the secession movement in the Border States and that
+the Gulf States would, after a while, have returned to the Union
+like repentant prodigal sons. His proposal to Lincoln to seek a
+quarrel with four European nations, who had done us no harm, in
+order to arouse a feeling of Americanism in the Confederate States,
+was an outgrowth of this conviction. It was an indefensible
+proposition, akin to that which prompted Bismarck to make use of
+France as an anvil on which to hammer and weld Germany together, but
+it was not an unpatriotic one, since it was bottomed on a desire to
+preserve the Union without civil war."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Never was a political leadership more fairly, <a name="Page_52"></a>more
+nobly, and more
+reasonably won. When the ballot boxes were opened on the first Tuesday
+in November, Lincoln was found to have secured the electoral vote of
+every Northern State except New Jersey, and in New Jersey four electors
+out of seven. Breckinridge, the leader of the extreme Southern
+Democrats, had back of him only the votes of the Southern States
+outside
+of the Border States, these latter being divided between Bell and
+Douglas. Douglas and his shallow theories of "squatter sovereignty" had
+been buried beneath the good sense of the voters of the North.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="IV"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_53"></a>IV</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE
+PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+NATIONAL EXISTENCE</p>
+<br>
+<p>After the election of November, 1860, events moved swiftly. On the
+20th
+of December, comes the first act of the Civil War, the secession of
+South Carolina. The secession of Georgia had for a time been delayed by
+the influence of Alexander H. Stephens who, on the 14th of November,
+had
+made a great argument for the maintenance of the Union. His chief local
+opponent at the time was Robert Toombs, the Southern leader who
+proposed
+in the near future to "call the roll-call of his slaves on Bunker
+Hill."
+Lincoln was still hopeful of saving to the cause of the Union the
+Border
+States and the more conservative divisions of States, like North
+Carolina, which had supported the Whig party.</p>
+<p>In December, we find correspondence between Lincoln and Gilmer of
+North
+Carolina, whom he had known in Washington. "The essential <a
+ name="Page_54"></a>difference,"
+says Lincoln, "between your group and mine is that you hold slavery to
+be in itself desirable and as something to be extended. I hold it to be
+an essential evil which, with due regard to existing rights, must be
+restricted and in the near future exterminated."</p>
+<p>On the 23d of February, 1861, Lincoln reaches Washington where he is
+to
+spend a weary and anxious two weeks of waiting for the burden of his
+new
+responsibilities. He is at this time fifty-two years of age. In one of
+his brief addresses on the way to Washington he says:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"It is but little to a man of my age, but a great deal to thirty
+millions of the citizens of the United States, and to posterity in
+all coming time, if the Union of the States and the liberties of the
+people are to be lost. If the majority is not to rule, who would be
+the judge of the issue or where is such judge to be found?"</p>
+</div>
+<p>It is difficult to imagine a more exasperating condition of affairs
+than
+obtained in Washington while Lincoln was awaiting the day of
+inauguration. The government appeared to be crumbling away under the
+nerveless direction, or lack of direction, of President Buchanan and
+his
+associates. In his last message to Congress, Buchanan <a name="Page_55"></a>had
+taken the
+ground that the Constitution made no provision for the secession of
+States or for the breaking up of the Union; but that it also failed to
+contain any provision for measures that could prevent such secession
+and
+the consequent destruction of the nation. The old gentleman appeared to
+be entirely unnerved by the pressure of events. He could not see any
+duty before him. He certainly failed to realise that the more immediate
+cause of the storm was the breaking down, through the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise, of the barriers that had in 1820, and in 1850,
+been
+placed against the extension of slavery. He evidently failed to
+understand that it was his own action in backing up the infamous
+Lecompton Constitution, and the invasion of Kansas by the slave-owners,
+which had finally aroused the spirit of the North, and further that it
+was the influence of his administration which had given to the South
+the
+belief that it was now in a position to control for slavery the whole
+territory of the Republic.</p>
+<p>It has before now been pointed out that, under certain
+contingencies,
+the long interval between the national election and the inaugural of
+the
+new President from the first Tuesday in November until the fourth day
+of
+March must, in not a few <a name="Page_56"></a>instances, bring
+inconvenience, disadvantage,
+and difficulty not only to the new administration but to the nation.
+These months in which the members of an administration which had
+practically committed itself to the cause of disintegration, were left
+in charge of the resources of the nation gave a most serious example
+and
+evidence of such disadvantage. This historic instance ought to have
+been
+utilised immediately after the War as an influence for bringing about a
+change in the date for bringing into power the administration that has
+been chosen in November.</p>
+<p>By the time when Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet had placed
+in
+their hands the responsibilities of administration, the resources at
+the
+disposal of the government had, as far as practicable, been scattered
+or
+rendered unavailable. The Secretary of the Navy, a Southerner, had
+taken
+pains to send to the farthest waters of the Pacific as many as possible
+of the vessels of the American fleet; the Secretary of War, also a
+Southerner, had for months been busy in transferring to the arsenals of
+the South the guns and ammunition that had been stored in the Federal
+arsenals of the North; the Secretary of the Treasury had had no
+difficulty in disposing of government funds in one direction or another
+<a name="Page_57"></a>so that there was practically no balance to hand
+over to his successor
+available for the most immediate necessities of the new administration.</p>
+<p>One of the sayings quoted from Washington during these weeks was the
+answer given by Count Gurowski to the inquiry, "Is there anything in
+addition this morning?" "No," said Gurowski, "it is all in subtraction."</p>
+<p>By the day of the inaugural, the secession of seven States was an
+accomplished fact and the government of the Confederacy had already
+been
+organised in Montgomery. Alexander H. Stephens had so far modified his
+original position that he had accepted the post of Vice-President and
+in
+his own inaugural address had used the phrase, "Slavery is the
+corner-stone of our new nation," a phrase that was to make much
+mischief
+in Europe for the hopes of the new Confederacy.</p>
+<p>In the first inaugural, one of the great addresses in a noteworthy
+series, Lincoln presented to the attention of the leaders of the South
+certain very trenchant arguments against the wisdom of their course. He
+says of secession for the purpose of preserving the institution of
+slavery:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"You complain that under the government of the United States your
+slaves have from time to time <a name="Page_58"></a>escaped across
+your borders and have
+not been returned to you. Their value as property has been lessened
+by the fact that adjoining your Slave States were certain States
+inhabited by people who did not believe in your institution. How is
+this condition going to be changed by war even under the assumption
+that the war may be successful in securing your independence? Your
+slave territory will still adjoin territory inhabited by free men
+who are inimical to your institution; but these men will no longer
+be bound by any of the restrictions which have obtained under the
+Constitution. They will not have to give consideration to the rights
+of slave-owners who are fellow-citizens. Your slaves will escape as
+before and you will have no measure of redress. Your indignation may
+produce further wars, but the wars can but have the same result
+until finally, after indefinite loss of life and of resources, the
+institution will have been hammered out of existence by the
+inevitable conditions of existing civilisation."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Lincoln points out further in this same address the difference
+between
+his responsibilities and those of the Southern leaders who are
+organising for war. "You," he says, "have no oath registered in Heaven
+to destroy this government, while I have the most solemn oath to
+preserve, direct, and defend it."</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"It was not necessary," says Lincoln, "for the Constitution to<a
+ name="Page_59"></a>
+contain any provision expressly forbidding the disintegration of the
+state; perpetuity and the right to maintain self-existence will be
+considered as a fundamental law of all national government. If the
+theory be accepted that the United States was an association or
+federation of communities, the creation or continued existence of
+such federation must rest upon contract; and before such contract
+can be rescinded, the consent is required of both or of all of the
+parties assenting to it."</p>
+</div>
+<p>He closes with the famous invocation to the fellow Americans of the
+South against whom throughout the whole message there had not been one
+word of bitterness or rancour: "We are not enemies but friends. We must
+not be enemies. Though passion may have strained our relations, it must
+not break our bonds of affection."</p>
+<p>It was, however, too late for argument, and too late for invocations
+of
+friendship. The issue had been forced by the South and the war for
+which
+the leaders of the South had for months, if not for years, been making
+preparation was now to be begun by Southern action. It remained to make
+clear to the North, where the people up to the last moment had been
+unwilling to believe in the possibility of civil war, that the nation
+could be preserved only by fighting for its exist<a name="Page_60"></a>ence.
+It remained to
+organise the men of the North into armies which should be competent to
+carry out this tremendous task of maintaining the nation's existence.</p>
+<p>It was just after the great inaugural and when his head must have
+been
+full of cares and his hands of work, that Lincoln took time to write a
+touching little note that I find in his correspondence. It was
+addressed
+to a boy who had evidently spoken with natural pride of having met the
+President and whose word had been questioned:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"The White House, March 18, 1861.</p>
+<p>"I did see and talk in May last at Springfield, Illinois, with
+Master George Edward Patten."</p>
+</div>
+<p>With the beginning of the work of the administration, came trouble
+with
+the members of the Cabinet. The several secretaries were, in form at
+least, the choice of the President, but as must always be the case in
+the shaping of a Cabinet, and as was particularly necessary at a time
+when it was of first importance to bring into harmonious relations all
+of the political groups of the North which were prepared to be loyal to
+the government, the men who took office in the first Cabinet of Lincoln
+represented not any personal <a name="Page_61"></a>preference of the
+President, but political
+or national requirements. The Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, had, as
+we
+know, been Lincoln's leading opponent for the Presidential nomination
+and had expressed with some freedom of criticism his disappointment
+that
+he, the natural leader of the party, should be put to one side for an
+uncultivated, inexperienced Westerner. Mr. Seward possessed both
+experience and culture; more than this, he was a scholar, and came of a
+long line of gentlefolk. He had public spirit, courage, legitimate
+political ambition, and some of the qualities of leadership. His nature
+was, however, not quite large enough to stand the pressure of political
+disappointment nor quite elastic enough to develop rapidly under the
+tremendous urgency of absolutely new requirements. It is in evidence
+that more than once in the management of the complex and serious
+difficulties of the State Department during the years of war, Seward
+lost his head. It is also on record that the wise-minded and
+fair-minded
+President was able to supply certain serious gaps and deficiencies in
+the direction of the work of the Department, and further that his
+service was so rendered as to save the dignity and the repute of the
+Secretary. Seward's subjectivity, <a name="Page_62"></a>not to say
+vanity, was great, and it
+took some little time before he was able to realise that his was not
+the
+first mind or the strongest will-power in the new administration. On
+the
+first of April, 1861, less than thirty days after the organisation of
+the Cabinet, Seward writes to Lincoln complaining that the "government
+had as yet no policy; that its action seemed to be simply drifting";
+that there was a lack of any clear-minded control in the direction of
+affairs within the Cabinet, in the presentation to the people of the
+purposes of the government, and in the shaping of the all-important
+relations with foreign states. "Who," said Seward, "is to control the
+national policy?" The letter goes on to suggest that Mr. Seward is
+willing to take the responsibility, leaving, if needs be, the credit to
+the nominal chief. The letter was a curious example of the weakness and
+of the bumptiousness of the man, while it gave evidence also, it is
+fair
+to say, of a real public-spirited desire that things should go right
+and
+that the nation should be saved. It was evident that he had as yet no
+adequate faith in the capacity of the President.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's answer was characteristic of the man. There was no
+irritation
+with the bumptiousness, no annoyance at the lack of confidence on <a
+ name="Page_63"></a>the
+part of his associate. He states simply: "There must, of course, be
+control and the responsibility for this control must rest with me." He
+points out further that the general policy of the administration had
+been outlined in the inaugural, that no action since taken had been
+inconsistent with this. The necessary preparations for the defence of
+the government were in train and, as the President trusted, were being
+energetically pushed forward by the several department heads. "I have a
+right," said Lincoln, "to expect loyal co-operation from my associates
+in the Cabinet. I need their counsel and the nation needs the best
+service that can be secured from our united wisdom." The letter of
+Seward was put away and appears never to have been referred to between
+the two men. It saw the light only after the President's death. If he
+had lived it might possibly have been suppressed altogether. A month
+later, Seward said to a friend, "There is in the Cabinet but one vote
+and that is cast by the President."</p>
+<p>The post next in importance under the existing war conditions was
+that
+of Secretary of War. The first man to hold this post was Simon Cameron
+of Pennsylvania. Cameron was very far from being a friend of Lincoln's.
+The two men had <a name="Page_64"></a>had no personal relations and
+what Lincoln knew of him
+he liked not at all. The appointment had been made under the pressure
+of
+the Republicans of Pennsylvania, a State whose support was, of course,
+all important for the administration. It was not the first nor the last
+time that the Republicans of this great State, whose Republicanism
+seems
+to be much safer than its judgment, have committed themselves to
+unworthy and undesirable representatives, men who were not fitted to
+stand for Pennsylvania and who were neither willing nor able to be of
+any service to the country. The appointment of Cameron had, as appears
+from the later history, been promised to Pennsylvania by Judge Davis in
+return for the support of the Pennsylvania delegation for the
+nomination
+of Lincoln. Lincoln knew nothing of the promise and was able to say
+with
+truth, and to prove, that he had authorised no promises and no
+engagements whatsoever. He had, in fact, absolutely prohibited Davis
+and
+the one or two other men who were supposed to have some right to speak
+for him in the convention, from the acceptance of any engagements or
+obligations whatsoever. Davis made the promise to Pennsylvania on his
+own responsibility and at his own risk; Lincoln felt under too much
+<a name="Page_65"></a>obligation to Davis for personal service and for
+friendly loyalty to be
+willing, when the claim was finally pressed, to put it to one side as
+unwarranted. The appointment of Cameron was made and proved to be
+expensive for the efficiency of the War Department and for the repute
+of
+the administration. It became necessary within a comparatively short
+period to secure his resignation. It was in evidence that he was
+trafficking in appointments and in contracts. He was replaced by Edwin
+M. Stanton, who was known later as "the Carnot of the War." Stanton's
+career as a lawyer had given him no direct experience of army affairs.
+He showed, however, exceptional ability, great will power, and an
+enormous capacity for work. He was ambitious, self-willed, and most
+arbitrary in deed and in speech. The difficulty with Stanton was that
+he
+was as likely to insult and to browbeat some loyal supporter of the
+government as to bring to book, and, when necessary, to crush, greedy
+speculators and disloyal tricksters. His judgment in regard to men was
+in fact very often at fault. He came into early and unnecessary
+conflict
+with his chief and he found there a will stronger than his own. The
+respect of the two men for each other grew into a cordial regard. <a
+ name="Page_66"></a>Each
+recognised the loyalty of purpose and the patriotism by which the
+actions of both were influenced. Lincoln was able to some extent to
+soften and to modify the needless truculency of the great War
+Secretary,
+and notwithstanding a good deal of troublesome friction, armies were
+organised and the troops were sent to the front.</p>
+<p>The management of the Treasury, a responsibility hardly less in
+importance under the war conditions than that of the organisation of
+the
+armies, was placed in the hands of Senator Chase. He received from his
+precursor an empty treasury while from the administration came demands
+for immediate and rapidly increasing weekly supplies of funds. The task
+came upon him first of establishing a national credit and secondly of
+utilising this credit for loans such as the civilised world had not
+before known. The expenditures extended by leaps and bounds until by
+the
+middle of 1864 they had reached the sum of $2,000,000 a day. Blunders
+were made in large matters and in small, but, under the circumstances,
+blunders were not to be avoided and the chief purpose was carried out.
+A
+sufficient credit was established, first with the citizens at home and
+later with investors abroad, to make a market for the millions of bonds
+in the two great issues, <a name="Page_67"></a>the so-called
+seven-thirties and
+five-twenties. The sales of these bonds, together with a wide-reaching
+and, in fact, unduly complex system of taxation, secured the funds
+necessary for the support of the army and the navy. At the close of the
+War, the government, after meeting this expenditure, had a national war
+debt of something over four thousand millions of dollars. The gross
+indebtedness resulting from the War was of course, however, much larger
+because each State had incurred war expenditures and counties as well
+as
+States had issued bonds for the payment of bounties, etc. The criticism
+was made at the time by the opponents of the financial system which was
+shaped by the Committee of Ways and Means in co-operation with the
+Secretary, a criticism that has often been repeated since, that the War
+expenditure would have been much less if the amounts needed beyond what
+could be secured by present taxation had been supplied entirely by the
+proceeds of bonds. In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the
+government issued currency to a large amount, which was made legal
+tender and which on the face of it was not made subject to redemption.</p>
+<p>In addition to the bills ranging in denomination from one dollar to
+one
+thousand, the government <a name="Page_68"></a>brought into
+distribution what was called
+"postal currency." I landed in New York in August, 1862, having
+returned
+from a University in Germany for the purpose of enlisting in the army.
+I
+was amused to see my father make payment in the restaurant for my first
+lunch in postage stamps. He picked the requisite number, or the number
+that he believed would be requisite, from a ball of stamps which had,
+under the influence of the summer heat, stuck together so closely as to
+be very difficult to handle. Many of the stamps were in fact
+practically
+destroyed and were unavailable. Some question arose between the
+restaurant keeper and my father as to the availability of one or two of
+the stamps that had been handed over. My father explained to me that
+immediately after the outbreak of the War, specie, including even the
+nickels and copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, and the
+people had been utilising for the small change necessary for current
+operations the postage stamps, a use which, in connection with the
+large
+percentage of destruction, was profitable to the government, but
+extravagant for the community. A little later, the postal department
+was
+considerate enough to bring into print a series of postage stamps
+without any gum on <a name="Page_69"></a>the back. These could, of
+course, be handled more
+easily, but were still seriously perishable. Towards the close of the
+year, the Treasury department printed from artistically engraved plates
+a baby currency in notes of about two and a half inches long by one and
+a half inches wide. The denominations comprised ten cents, fifteen
+cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and seventy-five cents. The
+fifteen cents and the seventy-five cents were not much called for, and
+were probably not printed more than once. They would now be scarce as
+curiosities. The postal currency was well printed on substantial paper,
+but in connection with the large requirement for handling that is
+always
+placed upon small currency, these little paper notes became very dirty
+and were easily used up. The government must have made a large profit
+from the percentage that was destroyed. The necessary effect of this
+distribution of government "I.O.U.'s," based not upon any redemption
+fund of gold but merely upon the general credit of the government, was
+to appreciate the value of gold. In June, 1863, just before the battle
+of Gettysburg, the depreciation of this paper currency, which
+represented of course the appreciation of gold, was in the ratio of 100
+to 290. It happened that the number <a name="Page_70"></a>290, which
+marked the highest price
+reached by gold during the War, was the number that had been given in
+Laird's ship-yard (on the Mersey) to the Confederate cruiser <i>Alabama</i>.</p>
+<p>Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary of the Treasury but an
+ambitious, active-minded, and intriguing politician. He represented in
+the administration the more extreme anti-slavery group. He was one of
+those who favoured from the beginning immediate action on the part of
+the government in regard to the slaves in the territory that was still
+controlled by the government. It is doubtless the case that he held
+these anti-slavery views as a matter of honest conviction. It is in
+evidence also from his correspondence that he connected with these
+views
+the hope and the expectation of becoming President. His scheming for
+the
+nomination for 1864 was carried on with the machinery that he had at
+his
+disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The issues between Chase and
+Seward and between Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The pressure
+on the part of the conservative Republicans to get Chase out of the
+Cabinet was considerable. Lincoln, believing that his service was
+valuable, refused to be influenced by any feeling of personal
+antagonism
+or personal rivalry. <a name="Page_71"></a>He held on to the Secretary
+until the last year of
+the War, when deciding that the Cabinet could then work more smoothly
+without him, he accepted his resignation. Even then, however, although
+he had had placed in his hands a note indicating a measure of what
+might
+be called personal disloyalty on the part of Chase, Lincoln was
+unwilling to lose his service for the country and appointed him as
+Chief
+Justice.</p>
+<p>Montgomery Blair was put into the Cabinet as Postmaster-General more
+particularly as the representative of the loyalists of the Border
+States. His father was a leader in politics in Missouri, in which the
+family had long been of importance. His brother, Frank P. Blair, served
+with credit in the army, reaching the rank of Major-General. The Blair
+family was quite ready to fight for the Union, but was very unwilling
+to
+do any fighting for the black man. They wanted the Union restored as it
+had been, Missouri Compromise and all. It was Blair who had occasion
+from time to time to point out, and with perfect truth, that if,
+through
+the influence of Chase and of the men back of Chase in Massachusetts
+and
+northern Ohio, immediate action should be taken to abolish slavery in
+the Border States, fifty thousand men who had marched out of <a
+ name="Page_72"></a>those
+States to the support of the Union might be and probably would be
+recalled. "By a stroke of the pen," said Blair, "Missouri, eastern
+Tennessee, western Maryland, loyal Kentucky, now loyally supporting the
+cause of the nation, will be thrown into the arms of the Confederacy."
+During the first two years of the War, and in fact up to September,
+1863, the views of Blair and his associates prevailed, and with the
+fuller history before us, we may conclude that it was best that they
+should have prevailed. This was, at least, the conclusion of Lincoln,
+the one man who knew no sectional prejudices, who had before him all
+the
+information and all the arguments, and who had upon him the pressure
+from all quarters. It was not easy under the circumstances to keep
+peace
+between Blair and Chase. Probably no man but Lincoln could have met the
+requirement.</p>
+<p>The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, while not
+a
+man of brilliancy or of great initiative, appears to have done his part
+quietly and effectively in the great work of the building and
+organising
+of a new fleet. He contributed nothing to the friction of the Cabinet
+and he was from the beginning a loyal supporter of the President. What
+we know now <a name="Page_73"></a>about the issues that arose between
+the different members
+of the Cabinet family comes to us chiefly through the Diary of Welles,
+who has described with apparent impartiality the idiosyncrasies of each
+of the secretaries and whose references to the tact, patience, and
+gracefully exercised will-power of the President are fully in line with
+the best estimates of Lincoln's character.</p>
+<p>One of the first and most difficult tasks confronting the President
+and
+his secretaries in the organisation of the army and of the navy was in
+the matter of the higher appointments. The army had always been a
+favourite provision for the men from the South. The representatives of
+Southern families were, as a rule, averse to trade and there were, in
+fact, under the more restricted conditions of business in the Southern
+States, comparatively few openings for trading on the larger or
+mercantile scale. As a result of this preference, the cadetships in
+West
+Point and the commissions in the army had been held in much larger
+proportion (according to the population) by men of Southern birth. This
+was less the case in the navy because the marine interests of New
+England and of the Middle States had educated a larger number of
+Northern men for naval <a name="Page_74"></a>interests. When the war
+began, a very
+considerable number of the best trained and most valuable officers in
+the army resigned to take part with their States. The army lost the
+service of men like Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, and many others. A few
+good Southerners, such as Thomas of Virginia and Anderson of Kentucky,
+took the ground that their duty to the Union and to the flag was
+greater
+than their obligation to their State. In the navy, Maury, Semmes,
+Buchanan, and other men of ability resigned their commissions and
+devoted themselves to the (by no means easy) task of building up a navy
+for the South; but Farragut of Tennessee remained with the navy to
+carry
+the flag of his country to New Orleans and to Mobile.</p>
+<p>It was easy and natural during the heat of 1861 to characterise as
+traitors the men who went with their States to fight against the flag
+of
+their country. Looking at the matter now, forty-seven years later, we
+are better able to estimate the character and the integrity of the
+motives by which they were actuated. We do not need to-day to use the
+term traitors for men like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all
+unnatural
+that with their understanding of the government of the States in which
+they had been born, and <a name="Page_75"></a>with their belief that
+these States had a right
+to take action for themselves, they should have decided that their
+obligation lay to the State rather than to what they had persisted in
+thinking of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. We may rather
+believe that Lee was as honest in his way as Thomas and Farragut in
+theirs, but the view that the United States is a nation has been
+maintained through the loyal services of the men who held with Thomas
+and with Farragut.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="V"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_76"></a>V</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR</p>
+<p>On April 12, 1861, came with the bombardment of Fort Sumter the
+actual
+beginning of the War. The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted
+all suggestions for any such immediate action on the part of the
+government as would place upon the North the responsibility for the
+opening of hostilities. Shortly after the fall of Sumter, a despatch
+was
+drafted by Seward for the guidance of American ministers abroad. The
+first reports in regard to the probable action of European governments
+gave the impression that the sympathy of these governments was largely
+with the South. In France and England, expressions had been used by
+leading officials which appeared to foreshadow an early recognition of
+the Confederacy. Seward's despatch as first drafted was unwisely angry
+and truculent in tone. If brought into publication, it would probably
+have increased the antagonism of the men who were <a name="Page_77"></a>ruling
+England. It
+appeared in fact to foreshadow war with England. Seward had assumed
+that
+England was going to take active part with the South and was at once
+throwing down the gauntlet of defiance. It was Lincoln who insisted
+that
+this was no time, whatever might be the provocation, for the United
+States to be shaking its fist at Europe. The despatch was reworded and
+the harsh and angry expressions were eliminated. The right claimed by
+the United States, in common with all nations, to maintain its own
+existence was set forth with full force, while it was also made clear
+that the nation was strong enough to maintain its rights against all
+foes whether within or without its boundaries. It is rather strange to
+recall that throughout the relations of the two men, it was the trained
+and scholarly statesman of the East who had to be repressed for unwise
+truculency and that the repression was done under the direction of the
+comparatively inexperienced representative of the West, the man who had
+been dreaded by the conservative Republicans of New York as likely to
+introduce into the national policy "wild and woolly" notions.</p>
+<p>In Lincoln's first message to Congress, he asks the following
+question:
+"Must a government <a name="Page_78"></a>be of necessity too strong
+for the liberties of its
+own people or too weak to maintain its own existence? Is there in all
+republics this inherent weakness?" The people of the United States were
+able under the wise leadership of Lincoln to answer this question "no."
+Lincoln begins at once with the public utterances of the first year of
+the War to take the people of the United States into his confidence. He
+is their representative, their servant. He reasons out before the
+people, as if it constituted a great jury, the analysis of their
+position, of their responsibilities, and the grounds on which as their
+representative this or that decision is arrived at. Says Schurz:
+"Lincoln wielded the powers of government when stern resolution and
+relentless force were the order of the day, and, won and ruled the
+popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature."</p>
+<p>The attack on Sumter placed upon the administration the duty of
+organising at once for the contest now inevitable the forces of the
+country. This work of organisation came at best but late because those
+who were fighting to break up the nation had their preparations well
+advanced. The first call for troops directed the governors of the loyal
+States to supply seventy-five thou<a name="Page_79"></a>sand men for
+the restoration of the
+authority of the government. Massachusetts was the first State to
+respond by despatching to the front, within twenty-four hours of the
+publication of the call, its Sixth Regiment of Militia; the Seventh of
+New York started twenty-four hours later. The history of the passage of
+the Sixth through Baltimore, of the attack upon the columns, and of the
+deaths, in the resulting affray, of soldiers and of citizens has often
+been told. When word came to Washington that Baltimore was obstructing
+the passage of troops bound southward, troops called for the defence of
+the capital, the isolation of the government became sadly apparent. For
+a weary and anxious ten days, Lincoln and his associates were dreading
+from morning to morning the approach over the long bridge of the troops
+from Virginia whose camp-fires could be seen from the southern windows
+of the White House, and were looking anxiously northward for the
+arrival
+of the men on whose prompt service the safety of the capital was to
+depend. I have myself stood in Lincoln's old study, the windows of
+which
+overlook the Potomac, and have recalled to mind the fearful pressure of
+anxiety that must have weighed upon the President during those long
+days; as looking across the river, he could <a name="Page_80"></a>trace
+by the smoke the
+picket lines of the Virginia troops. He must have thought of the
+possibility that he was to be the last President of the United States,
+that the torch handed over to him by the faltering hands of his
+predecessor was to expire while he was responsible for the flame. The
+immediate tension was finally broken by the appearance of the weary and
+battered companies of the Massachusetts troops and the arrival two days
+later, by the way of Annapolis, of the New York Seventh with an
+additional battalion from Boston.</p>
+<p>It was, however, not only in April, 1861, that the capital was in
+peril.
+The anxiety of the President (never for himself but only for his
+responsibilities) was to be repeated in July, 1863, when Lee was in
+Maryland, and in July, 1864, at the time of Early's raid.</p>
+<p>We may remember the peculiar burdens that come upon the
+commander-in-chief through his position at the rear of the armies he is
+directing. The rear of a battle is, even in the time of victory, a
+place
+of demoralising influence. It takes a man of strong nerve not to lose
+heart when the only people with whom he is in immediate contact are
+those who through disability or discouragement are making their way to
+the rear. The sutlers, the <a name="Page_81"></a>teamsters, the
+wounded men, the panic-struck
+(and with the best of soldiers certain groups do lose heart from time
+to
+time, men who in another action when started right are ready to take
+their full share of the fighting)&#8212;these are the groups that in any
+action are streaming to the rear. It is impossible not to be affected
+by
+the undermining of their spirits and of their hopefulness. If the
+battle
+is going wrongly, if in addition to those who are properly making their
+way to the rear, there come also bodies of troops pushed out of their
+position who have lost heart and who have lost faith in their
+commanders, the pressure towards demoralisation is almost irresistible.</p>
+<p>We may recall that during the entire four years of War, Lincoln, the
+commander-in-chief, was always in the rear. Difficult as was the task
+of
+the men who led columns into action, of the generals in the field who
+had the immediate responsibility for the direction of those columns and
+of the fighting line, it was in no way to be compared with the pressure
+and sadness of the burden of the man who stood back of all the lines,
+and to whom came all the discouragements, the complaints, the growls,
+the criticisms, the requisitions or demands for resources that were not
+available, the reports of disasters, sometimes ex<a name="Page_82"></a>aggerated
+and
+sometimes unduly smoothed over, the futile suggestions, the conflicting
+counsels, the indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the self-seeking
+applications, that poured into the White House from all points of the
+field of action and from all parts of the Border States and of the
+North. The man who during four years could stand that kind of battering
+and pressure and who, instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of
+him, instead of losing heart or power of direction or the full control
+of his responsibilities, steadily developed in patience, in strength,
+in
+width of nature, and in the wisdom of experience, so that he was able
+not only to keep heart firm and mind clear but to give to the soldiers
+in the front and to the nation behind the soldiers the influence of his
+great heart and clear mind and of his firm purpose, that man had within
+him the nature of the hero. Selected in time of need to bear the
+burdens
+of the nation, he was able so to fulfil his responsibilities that he
+takes place in the world's history as a leader of men.</p>
+<p>In July, 1861, one of the special problems to be adjusted was the
+attitude of the Border States. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West
+Virginia had not been willing at the outset to cast in their lot with
+the South, but they were not pre<a name="Page_83"></a>pared to give any
+assured or active
+support to the authority of the national government. The Governor and
+the Legislature of Kentucky issued a proclamation of neutrality; they
+demanded that the soil of the State should be respected and that it
+should not be traversed by armed forces from either side. The Governor
+of Missouri, while not able to commit the State to secession, did have
+behind him what was possibly a majority of the citizens in the policy
+of
+attempting to prevent the Federal troops from entering the State.
+Maryland, or at least eastern Maryland, was sullen and antagonistic.
+Thousands of the Marylanders had in fact already made their way into
+Virginia for service with the Confederacy. On the other hand, there
+were
+also thousands of loyal citizens in these States who were prepared,
+under proper guidance and conservative management, to give their own
+direct aid to the cause of nationality. In the course of the succeeding
+two years, the Border States sent into the field in the Union ranks
+some
+fifty thousand men. At certain points of the conflict, the presence of
+these Union men of Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri was the
+deciding factor. While these men were willing to fight for the Union,
+they were strongly opposed <a name="Page_84"></a>to being used for the
+destruction of slavery
+and for the freeing of the blacks. The acceptance, therefore, of the
+policy that was pressed by the extreme anti-slavery group, for
+immediate
+action in regard to the freeing of the slaves, would have meant at once
+the dissatisfaction of this great body of loyalists important in number
+and particularly important on account of their geographical position.
+Lincoln was able, although with no little difficulty, to hold back the
+pressure of Northern sentiment in regard to anti-slavery action until
+the course of the War had finally committed the loyalists of the Border
+States to the support of the Union. For the support of this policy, it
+became necessary to restrain certain of the leaders in the field who
+were mixing up civil and constitutional matters with their military
+responsibilities. Proclamations issued by Fremont in Missouri and later
+by Hunter in South Carolina, giving freedom to the slaves within the
+territory of their departments, were promptly and properly disavowed.
+Said Lincoln: "A general cannot be permitted to make laws for the
+district in which he happens to have an army."</p>
+<p>The difficulties in regard to the matter of slavery during the war
+brought Lincoln into active cor<a name="Page_85"></a>respondence with
+men like Beecher and
+Greeley, anti-slavery leaders who enjoyed a large share of popular
+confidence and support. In November, 1861, Lincoln says of Greeley:
+"His
+backing is as good as that of an army of one hundred thousand men."
+There could be no question of the earnest loyalty of Horace Greeley.
+Under his management, the New York <i>Tribune</i> had become a great
+force in
+the community. The paper represented perhaps more nearly than any paper
+in the country the purpose and the policy of the new Republican party.
+Unfortunately, Mr. Greeley's judgment and width of view did not develop
+with his years and with the increasing influence of his journal. He
+became unduly self-sufficient; he undertook not only to lay down a
+policy for the guidance of the constitutional responsibilities of the
+government, but to dictate methods for the campaigns. The <i>Tribune</i>
+articles headed "On to Richmond!" while causing irritation to
+commanders
+in the field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens at home, were
+finally classed with the things to be laughed at. In the later years of
+the War, the influence of the <i>Tribune</i> declined very
+considerably.
+Henry J. Raymond with his newly founded <i>Times</i> succeeded to some
+of the
+power <a name="Page_86"></a>as a journalist that had been wielded by
+Greeley.</p>
+<p>In November, 1861, occurred an incident which for a time threatened
+a
+very grave international complication, a complication that would, if
+unwisely handled, have determined the fate of the Republic. Early in
+the
+year, the Confederate government had sent certain representatives
+across
+the Atlantic to do what might be practicable to enlist the sympathies
+of
+European governments, or of individuals in these governments, to make a
+market for the Confederate cotton bonds, to arrange for the purchase of
+supplies for the army and navy, and to secure the circulation of
+documents presenting the case of the South. Mr. Yancey of Mississippi
+was the best-known of this first group of emissaries. With him was
+associated Judge Mann of Virginia and it was Mann who in November,
+1861,
+was in charge of the London office of the Confederacy. In this month,
+Mr. Davis appointed as successor to Mann, Mr. Mason of Virginia, to
+whom
+was given a more formal authorisation of action. At the same time,
+Judge
+Slidell of Louisiana was appointed as the representative to France.
+Mason and Slidell made their way to Jamaica and sailed from Jamaica to
+Liverpool in the British mail <a name="Page_87"></a>steamer <i>Trent</i>.
+Captain Charles Wilkes,
+in the United States frigate <i>San Jacinto</i>, had been watching the
+West
+Indies waters with reference to blockade runners and to Wilkes came
+knowledge of the voyage of the two emissaries. Wilkes took the
+responsibility of stopping the <i>Trent</i> when she was a hundred
+miles or
+more out of Kingston and of taking from her as prisoners the two
+commissioners. The commissioners were brought to Boston and were there
+kept under arrest awaiting the decision from Washington as to their
+status. This stopping on the high seas of a British steamer brought out
+a great flood of indignation in Great Britain. It gave to Palmerston
+and
+Russell, who were at that time in charge of the government, the
+opportunity for which they had been looking to place on the side of the
+Confederacy the weight of the influence of Great Britain. It
+strengthened the hopes of Louis Napoleon for carrying out, in
+conjunction with Great Britain, a scheme that he had formulated under
+which France was to secure a western empire in Mexico, leaving England
+to do what she might find convenient in the adjustment of the affairs
+of
+the so-called United States.</p>
+<p>The first report secured from the law officers of the Crown took the
+ground that the capture <a name="Page_88"></a>was legal under
+international law and under the
+practice of Great Britain itself. This report was, however, pushed to
+one side, and Palmerston drafted a demand for the immediate surrender
+of
+the commissioners. This demand was so worded that a self-respecting
+government would have had great difficulty in assenting to it without
+risk of forfeiting support with its own citizens. It was in fact
+intended to bring about a state of war. Under the wise influence of
+Prince Albert, Queen Victoria refused to give her approval to the
+document. It was reworded by Albert in such fashion as to give to the
+government of the United States an opportunity for adjustment without
+loss of dignity. Albert was clear in his mind that Great Britain ought
+not to be committed to war for the destruction of the great Republic of
+the West and for the establishment of a state of which the corner-stone
+was slavery. Fortunately, Victoria was quite prepared to accept in this
+matter Albert's judgment. Palmerston protested and threatened
+resignation, but finally submitted.</p>
+<p>When the news of the capture of the commissioners came to
+Washington,
+Seward for once was in favour of a conservative rather than a truculent
+course of action. He advised that the <a name="Page_89"></a>commissioners
+should be
+surrendered at once rather than to leave to Great Britain the
+opportunity for making a dictatorial demand. Lincoln admitted the risk
+of such demand and the disadvantage of making the surrender under
+pressure, but he took the ground that if the United States waited for
+the British contention, a certain diplomatic advantage could be gained.
+When the demand came, Lincoln was able, with a rewording (not for the
+first time) of Seward's despatch, to take the ground that the
+government
+of the United States was "well pleased that Her Majesty's government
+should have finally accepted the old-time American contention that
+vessels of peace should not be searched on the high seas by vessels of
+war." It may be recalled that the exercise of the right of search had
+been one of the most important of the grievances which had brought
+about
+the War of 1812-1814. In the discussion of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814,
+the English and American commissioners, while agreeing that this right
+of search must be given up, had not been able to arrive at a form of
+words, satisfactory to both parties, for its revocation. Both sets of
+commissioners were very eager to bring their proceedings to a close.
+The
+Americans could of course not realise that if they had waited a few
+weeks <a name="Page_90"></a>the news of the battle of New Orleans,
+fought in January, 1815,
+would have greatly strengthened their position. It was finally agreed
+"as between gentlemen" that the right of search should be no longer
+exercised by Great Britain. This right was, however, not formally
+abrogated until December, 1861, nearly half a century later. This
+little
+diplomatic triumph smoothed over for the public of the North the
+annoyance of having to accept the British demand. It helped to
+strengthen the administration, which in this first year of the War was
+by no means sure of its foundations. It strengthened also the opinion
+of
+citizens generally in their estimate of the wise management and
+tactfulness of the President.</p>
+<p>Some of the most serious of the perplexities that came upon Lincoln
+during the first two years of the War were the result of the peculiar
+combination of abilities and disabilities that characterised General
+McClellan. McClellan's work prior to the War had been that of an
+engineer. He had taken high rank at West Point and later, resigning
+from
+the army, had rendered distinguished service in civil engineering. At
+the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, McClellan was president of the
+Illinois Central Railroad. He was a close friend and backer of Douglas
+and he had <a name="Page_91"></a>done what was practicable with the
+all-important machinery
+of the railroad company to render comfortable the travelling of his
+candidate and to insure his success. Returning to the army with the
+opening of the War, he had won success in a brief campaign in Virginia
+in which he was opposed by a comparatively inexperienced officer and by
+a smaller force than his own. Placed in command of the army of the
+Potomac shortly after the Bull Run campaign, he had shown exceptional
+ability in bringing the troops into a state of organisation. He was
+probably the best man in the United States to fit an army for action.
+There were few engineer officers in the army who could have rendered
+better service in the shaping of fortifications or in the construction
+of an entrenched position. He showed later that he was not a bad leader
+for a defeated army in the supervision of the retreat. He had, however,
+no real capacity for leadership in an aggressive campaign. His
+disposition led him to be full of apprehension of what the other fellow
+was doing. He suffered literally from nightmares in which he
+exaggerated
+enormously the perils in his paths, making obstacles where none
+existed,
+multiplying by two or by three the troops against him, insisting upon
+the necessity of <a name="Page_92"></a>providing not only for probable
+contingencies but for
+very impossible contingencies. He was never ready for an advance and he
+always felt proudly triumphant, after having come into touch with the
+enemy, that he had accomplished the task of saving his army.</p>
+<p>The only thing about which he was neither apprehensive nor doubtful
+was
+his ability as a leader, whether military or political. While he found
+it difficult to impress his will upon an opponent in the field, he was
+very sturdy with his pen in laying down the law to the
+Commander-in-chief (the President) and in emphasising the importance of
+his own views not only in things military but in regard to the whole
+policy of the government. The peculiarity about the nightmares and
+miscalculations of McClellan was that they persisted long after the
+data
+for their correction were available. In a book brought into print years
+after the War, when the Confederate rosters were easily accessible in
+Washington, McClellan did not hesitate to make the same statements in
+regard to the numbers of the Confederate forces opposed to him that he
+had brought into the long series of complaining letters to Lincoln in
+which he demanded reinforcements that did not exist.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_93"></a>The records now show that at the time of the
+slow advance of
+McClellan's army by the Williamsburg Peninsula, General Magruder had
+been able, with a few thousand men and with dummy guns made of logs, to
+give the impression that a substantial army was blocking the way to
+Richmond. McClellan's advance was, therefore, made with the utmost
+"conservatism," enabling General Johnston to collect back of Magruder
+the army that was finally to drive McClellan back to his base. It is
+further in evidence from the later records that when some weeks later
+General Johnston concentrated his army at Gaines's Mill upon Porter,
+who
+was separated from McClellan by the Chickahominy, there was but an
+inconsiderable force between McClellan and Richmond.</p>
+<p>At the close of the seven days' retreat, McClellan, who had with a
+magnificent army thrown away a series of positions, writes to Lincoln
+that he (Lincoln) "had sacrificed the army." In another letter,
+McClellan lays down the laws of a national policy with a completeness
+and a dictatorial utterance such as would hardly have been justified if
+he had succeeded through his own military genius in bringing the War to
+a close, but which, coming from a defeated general, was ridiculous
+enough. Lincoln's correspondence with McClellan <a name="Page_94"></a>brings
+out the infinite
+patience of the President, and his desire to make sure that before
+putting the General to one side as a vainglorious incompetent, he had
+been allowed the fullest possible test. Lincoln passes over without
+reference and apparently without thought the long series of impertinent
+impersonalities of McClellan. In this correspondence, as in all his
+correspondence, the great captain showed himself absolutely devoted to
+the cause he had in mind. Early in the year, months before the
+Peninsular campaign, when McClellan had had the army in camp for a
+series of months without expressing the least intention of action,
+Lincoln had in talking with the Secretary of War used the expression:
+"If General McClellan does not want to use the army just now, I
+would like to borrow it for a while." That was as far as the
+Commander-in-chief ever went in criticism of the General in the field.
+While operations in Virginia, conducted by a vacillating and
+vainglorious engineer officer, gave little encouragement, something was
+being done to advance the cause of the Union in the West. In 1862, a
+young man named Grant, who had returned to the army and who had been
+trusted with the command of a few brigades, captured Fort Donelson and
+thus opened the <a name="Page_95"></a>Tennessee River to the advance
+of the army southward.
+The capture of Fort Donelson was rendered possible by the use of
+mortars
+and was the first occasion in the war in which mortars had been brought
+to bear. I chanced to come into touch with the record of the
+preparation
+of the mortars that were supplied to Grant's army at Cairo. Sometime in
+the nineties I was sojourning with the late Abram S. Hewitt at his home
+in Ringwood, New Jersey. I noticed, in looking out from the piazza, a
+mortar, properly mounted on a mortar-bed and encompassed by some yards
+of a great chain, placed on the slope overlooking the little valley
+below, as if to protect the house. I asked my host what was the history
+of this piece of ordnance. "Well," he said, "the chain you might have
+some personal interest in. It is a part of the chain your great-uncle
+Israel placed across the river at West Point for the purpose of
+blocking
+or at least of checking the passage of the British vessels. The chain
+was forged here in the Ringwood foundry and I have secured a part of it
+as a memento. The mortar was given to me by President Lincoln, as also
+was the mortar-bed." This report naturally brought out the further
+question as to the grounds for the gift. "I made this mortar-bed," said
+Hewitt, "together <a name="Page_96"></a>with some others, and Lincoln
+was good enough to say
+that I had in this work rendered a service to the State. It was in
+December, 1861, when the expedition against Fort Donelson and Fort
+Henry
+was being organised at Fort Cairo under the leadership of General
+Grant.
+Grant reported that the field-pieces at his command would not be
+effective against the earthworks that were to be shelled and made
+requisition for mortars." The mortar I may explain to my unmilitary
+readers is a short carronade of large bore and with a comparatively
+short range. The mortar with a heavy charge throws its missile at a
+sharp angle upwards, so that, instead of attempting to go through an
+earthwork, it is thrown into the enclosure. The recoil from a mortar is
+very heavy, necessitating the construction of a foundation called a
+mortar-bed which is not only solid but which possesses a certain amount
+of elasticity through which the shock of the recoil is absorbed. It is
+only through the use of such a bed that a mortar can be fired from the
+deck of a vessel. Without such, protection, the shock would smash
+through the deck and might send the craft to the bottom.</p>
+<p>The Ordnance Department reported to the Secretary of War and the
+Secretary to Lincoln that <a name="Page_97"></a>mortars were on hand
+but that no mortar-beds
+were available. It was one of the many cases in which the
+unpreparedness
+of the government had left a serious gap in the equipment. The further
+report was given to Lincoln that two or three months' time would be
+required to manufacture the thirty mortar-beds that were needed. A
+delay
+of any such period would have blocked the entire purpose of Grant's
+expedition. In his perplexity, Lincoln remembered that in his famous
+visit to New York two years before, he had been introduced to Mr.
+Hewitt, "a well-known iron merchant," as "a man who does things."
+Lincoln telegraphed to Hewitt asking if Hewitt could make thirty
+mortar-beds and how long it would take. Hewitt told me that the message
+reached him on a Saturday evening at the house of a friend. He wired an
+acknowledgment with the word that he would send a report on the
+following day. Sunday morning he looked up the ordnance officer of New
+York for the purpose of ascertaining where the pattern mortar-bed was
+kept. "It was rather important, Major," said Hewitt to me, "that I
+should have an opportunity of examining this pattern for I had never
+seen a mortar-bed in my life, but this of course I did not admit to the
+ordnance officer." The pattern required was, <a name="Page_98"></a>it
+seemed, in the armory
+at Springfield. Hewitt wired to Lincoln asking that the bed should be
+forwarded by the night boat to him in New York. Hewitt and his men met
+the boat, secured the pattern bed, and gave some hours to puzzling over
+the construction. At noon on Monday, Hewitt wired to Lincoln that he
+could make thirty mortar-beds in thirty days. In another hour he
+received by wire instructions from Lincoln to go ahead. In twenty-eight
+days he had the thirty mortar-beds in readiness; and Tom Scott, who had
+at the time, very fortunately for the country, taken charge of the
+military transportation, had provided thirty flat-cars for the transit
+of the mortar-beds to Cairo. The train was addressed to "U.S. Grant,
+Cairo," and each car contained a notification, painted in white on a
+black ground, "not to be switched on the penalty of death." That train
+got through and as other portions of the equipment had also been
+delayed, the mortars were not so very late. Six schooners, each
+equipped
+with a mortar, were hurried up the river to support the attack of the
+army on Fort Donelson. A first assault had been made and had failed.
+The
+field artillery was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against the
+earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate <a name="Page_99"></a>infantry,
+protected by
+their works, had proved most severe. The instant, however, that from
+behind a point on the river below the fort shells were thrown from the
+schooners into the inner circle of the fortifications, the Confederate
+commander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was untenable. He slipped
+away that night leaving his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with
+Grant, and those terms were "unconditional surrender," which were later
+so frequently connected with the initials of U.S.G.</p>
+<p>Buckner's name comes again into history in a pleasant fashion. Years
+after the War, when General Grant had, through the rascality of a Wall
+Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, Buckner, himself a poor man,
+wrote begging Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his
+convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand dollars. Other friends
+came to the rescue of Grant, and through the earnings of his own pen,
+he
+was before his death able to make good all indebtedness and to leave a
+competency to his widow. The check sent by Buckner was not used, but
+the
+prompt friendliness was something not to be forgotten.</p>
+<p>Hewitt's mortar-beds were used again a few weeks later for the
+capture
+of Island Number <a name="Page_100"></a>Ten and they also proved
+serviceable, used in the same
+fashion from the decks of schooners, in the capture of Forts Jackson
+and
+St. Philip which blocked the river below New Orleans. It was only
+through the fire from these schooners, which were moored behind a point
+on the river below the forts, that it was possible to reach the inner
+circle of the works.</p>
+<p>I asked Hewitt whether he had seen Lincoln after this matter of the
+mortar-beds. "Yes," said Hewitt, "I saw him a year later and Lincoln's
+action was characteristic. I was in Washington and thought it was
+proper
+to call and pay my respects. I was told on reaching the White House
+that
+it was late in the day and that the waiting-room was very full and that
+I probably should not be reached. 'Well,' I said, 'in that case, I will
+simply ask you to take in my card.' No sooner had the card been
+delivered than the door of the study opened and Lincoln appeared
+reaching out both hands. 'Where is Mr. Hewitt?' he said; 'I want to
+see,
+I want to thank, the man who does things.' I sat with him for a time, a
+little nervous in connection with the number of people who were waiting
+outside, but Lincoln would not let me go. Finally he asked, 'What are
+you in Washington for?' 'Well, Mr. Lin<a name="Page_101"></a>coln,'
+said I, 'I have some
+business here. I want to get paid for those mortar-beds.' 'What?' said
+Lincoln, 'you have not yet got what the nation owes you? That is
+disgraceful.' He rang the bell violently and sent an aid for Secretary
+Stanton and when the Secretary appeared, he was questioned rather
+sharply. 'How about Mr. Hewitt's bill against the War Department? Why
+does he have to wait for his money?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said Stanton,
+'the order for those mortar-beds was given rather irregularly. It never
+passed through the War Department and consequently the account when
+rendered could not receive the approval of any ordnance officer, and
+until so approved could not be paid by the Treasury.' 'If,' said
+Lincoln, 'I should write on that account an order to have it paid, do
+you suppose the Secretary of the Treasury would pay it?' 'I suppose
+that
+he would,' said Stanton. The account was sent for and Lincoln wrote at
+the bottom: 'Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln.' 'Now, Mr. Stanton,' said
+Lincoln, 'Mr. Hewitt has been very badly treated in this matter and I
+want you to take a little pains to see that he gets his money. I am
+going to ask you to go over to the Treasury with Mr. Hewitt and to get
+the proper signatures on this account so that <a name="Page_102"></a>Mr.
+Hewitt can carry a
+draft with him back to New York.' Stanton, rather reluctantly, accepted
+the instruction and," said Hewitt, "he walked with me through the
+various departments of the Treasury until the final signature had been
+placed on the bill and I was able to exchange this for a Treasury
+warrant. I should," said Hewitt, "have been much pleased to retain the
+bill with that signature of Lincoln beneath the words, 'Pay this now.'</p>
+<p>"Towards the end of the War," he continued, "when there was no
+further
+requirement for mortars, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln and asked whether I
+might buy a mortar with its bed. Lincoln replied promptly that he had
+directed the Ordnance Department to send me mortar and bed with 'the
+compliments of the administration.' I am puzzled to think," said
+Hewitt,
+"how that particular item in the accounts of the Ordnance Department
+was
+ever adjusted, but I am very glad to have this reminiscence of the War
+and of the President."</p>
+<p>Lincoln's relations with McClellan have already been touched upon.
+There
+would not be space in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken
+by Lincoln with other army commanders East and West. The problem that
+confronted the <a name="Page_103"></a>Commander-in-chief of selecting
+the right leaders for
+this or that undertaking, and of promoting the men who gave evidence of
+the greater capacity that was required for the larger armies that were
+being placed in the field, was one of no little difficulty. The reader
+of history, looking back to-day, with the advantage of the full record
+of the careers of the various generals, is tempted to indulge in easy
+criticism of the blunders made by the President. Why did the President
+put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of
+McClellan? Why should he have accepted even for one brief and
+unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope? Why was a
+slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in
+the
+long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and
+of force that had been secured by the army of the West? Why was a
+political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a
+well-meaning politician like Banks with still less capacity for the
+management of troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the
+field,
+making blunders that involved waste of life and of resources and the
+loss of campaigns? Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant,
+Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought <a name="Page_104"></a>more
+promptly into the
+important positions? Why was the army of the South permitted during the
+first two years of the War to have so large an advantage in skilled and
+enterprising leadership? A little reflection will show how unjust is
+the
+criticism implied through such questions. We know of the incapacity of
+the generals who failed and of the effectiveness of those who
+succeeded,
+only through the results of the campaigns themselves. Lincoln could
+only
+study the men as he came to know about them and he experimented first
+with one and then with another, doing what seemed to be practicable to
+secure a natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Such
+watchful supervision and painstaking experimenting was carried out with
+infinite patience and with an increasing knowledge both of the
+requirements and of the men fitted to fill the requirements.</p>
+<p>We must also recall that, Commander-in-chief as he was, Lincoln was
+not
+free to exercise without restriction his own increasingly valuable
+judgment in the appointment of the generals. It was necessary to give
+consideration to the opinion of the country, that is to say, to the
+individual judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation was
+absolutely essential for the support of the <a name="Page_105"></a>nation's
+cause. These
+opinions of the citizens were expressed sometimes through the appeals
+of
+earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of Massachusetts, or Curtin of
+Pennsylvania, and sometimes through the articles of a strenuous editor
+like Greeley, whose influence and support it was, of course, all
+important to retain. Greeley's absolute ignorance of military
+conditions
+did not prevent him from emphasising with the President and the public
+his very decided conclusions in regard to the selection of men and the
+conduct of campaigns. In this all-perplexing problem of the shaping of
+campaigns, Lincoln had to consider the responsibilities of
+representative government. The task would, of course, have been much
+easier if he had had power as an autocrat to act on his own decisions
+simply. The appointment of Butler and Banks was thought to be necessary
+for the purpose of meeting the views of the loyal citizens of so
+important a State as Massachusetts, and other appointments, the results
+of which were more or less unfortunate, may in like manner be traced to
+causes or influences outside of a military or army policy.</p>
+<p>General Frank V. Greene, in a paper on Lincoln as
+Commander-in-chief,
+writes in regard to his capacity as a leader as follows:</p>
+<p>"<a name="Page_106"></a>As time goes on, Lincoln's fame looms ever
+larger and larger. Great
+statesman, astute politician, clear thinker, classic writer, master of
+men, kindly, lovable man,&#8212;these are his titles. To these must be
+added&#8212;military leader. Had he failed in that quality, the others would
+have been forgotten. Had peace been made on any terms but those of the
+surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the Union,
+Lincoln's career would have been a colossal failure and the
+Emancipation
+Proclamation a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was military
+success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect of nearly half a
+century, with his every written word now in print and with all the
+facts
+of the period brought out and placed in proper perspective by the
+endless studies, discussions, and arguments of the intervening years,
+it
+becomes clear that, first and last and at all times during his
+Presidency, in military affairs his was not only the guiding but the
+controlling hand."</p>
+<p>It is interesting, as the War progressed, to trace the development
+of
+Lincoln's own military judgment. He was always modest in regard to
+matters in which his experience was limited, and during the first
+twelve
+months in Washington, he had comparatively little to say in regard to
+the planning or even the supervision of campaigns. His letters,
+however,
+to McClellan and his later <a name="Page_107"></a>correspondence with
+Burnside, with Hooker,
+and with other commanders give evidence of a steadily developing
+intelligence in regard to larger military movements. History has shown
+that Lincoln's judgment in regard to the essential purpose of a
+campaign, and the best methods for carrying out such purpose, was in a
+large number of cases decidedly sounder than that of the general in the
+field. When he emphasised with McClellan that the true objective was
+the
+Confederate army in the field and not the city of Richmond, he laid
+down
+a principle which seems to us elementary but to which McClellan had
+been
+persistently blinded. Lincoln writes to Hooker: "We have word that the
+head of Lee's army is near Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley while
+you report that you have a substantial force still opposed to you on
+the
+Rappahannock. It appears, therefore that the line must be forty miles
+long. The animal is evidently very slim somewhere and it ought to be
+possible for you to cut it at some point." Hooker had the same
+information but did not draw the same inference.</p>
+<p>Apart from Lincoln's work in selecting, and in large measure in
+directing, the generals, he had a further important relation with the
+army as <a name="Page_108"></a>a whole. We are familiar with the term
+"the man behind the
+gun." It is a truism to say that the gun has little value whether for
+offence or for defence unless the man behind it possesses the right
+kind
+of spirit which will infuse and guide his purpose and his action with
+the gun. For the long years of the War, the Commander-in-chief was the
+man behind all the guns in the field. The men in the front came to have
+a realising sense of the infinite patience, the persistent hopefulness,
+the steadiness of spirit, the devoted watchfulness of the great captain
+in Washington. It was through the spirit of Lincoln that the spirit in
+the ranks was preserved during the long months of discouragement and
+the
+many defeats and retreats. The final advance of Grant which ended at
+Appomattox, and the triumphant march of Sherman which culminated in the
+surrender at Goldsborough of the last of the armies of the Confederacy,
+were the results of the inspiration, given alike to soldier and to
+general, from the patient and devoted soul of the nation's leader.</p>
+<p>In March, 1862, Lincoln received the news of the victory won at Pea
+Ridge, in Arkansas, by Curtis and Sigel, a battle which had lasted
+three
+days. The first day was a defeat and our troops <a name="Page_109"></a>were
+forced back; the
+fighting of the second resulted in what might be called a drawn battle;
+but on the third, our army broke its way through the enclosing lines,
+bringing the heavier loss to the Confederates, and regained its base.
+This battle was in a sense typical of much of the fighting of the War.
+It was one of a long series of fights which continued for more than one
+day. The history of the War presents many instances of battles that
+lasted two days, three days, four days, and in one case seven days. It
+was difficult to convince the American soldier, on either side of the
+line, that he was beaten. The general might lose his head, but the
+soldiers, in the larger number of cases, went on fighting until, with a
+new leader or with more intelligent dispositions on the part of the
+original leader, a first disaster had been repaired. There is no
+example
+in modern history of fighting of such stubborn character, or it is
+fairer to say, there was no example until the Russo-Japanese War in
+Manchuria. The record shows that European armies, when outgeneralled or
+outmanoeuvred, had the habit of retiring from the field, sometimes in
+good order, more frequently in a state of demoralisation. The American
+soldier fought the thing out because he thought the thing out. <a
+ name="Page_110"></a>The
+patience and persistence of the soldier in the field was characteristic
+of, and, it may fairly be claimed, was in part due to, the patience and
+persistence of the great leader in Washington.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="VI"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_111"></a>VI</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE DARK DAYS OF 1862</p>
+<br>
+<p>The dark days of 1862 were in April brightened by the all-important
+news
+that Admiral Farragut had succeeded in bringing the Federal fleet, or
+at
+least the leading vessels in this fleet, past the batteries of Forts
+St.
+Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi, and had compelled the surrender
+of New Orleans. The opening of the Mississippi River had naturally been
+included among the most essential things to be accomplished in the
+campaign for the restoration of the national authority. It was of first
+importance that the States of the North-west and the enormous
+contiguous
+territory which depended upon the Mississippi for its water connection
+with the outer world should not be cut off from the Gulf. The prophecy
+was in fact made more than once that in case the States of the South
+had
+succeeded in establishing their independence, there would have come
+into
+existence on the continent not two confederacies, but probably four.
+The
+<a name="Page_112"></a>communities on the Pacific Coast would naturally
+have been tempted to
+set up for themselves, and a similar course might also naturally have
+been followed by the great States of the North-west whose interests
+were
+so closely bound up with the waterways running southward. It was
+essential that no effort should be spared to bring the loyal States of
+the West into control of the line of the Mississippi. More than twelve
+months was still required after the capture of New Orleans on the first
+of May, 1862, before the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port
+Hudson to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal control of
+the
+great river. The occupation of the river by the Federals was of
+importance in more ways than one. The States to the west of the
+river&#8212;Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas&#8212;were for the first two years of
+the War important sources of supplies for the food of the Confederate
+army. Corn on the cob or in bags was brought across the river by boats,
+while the herds of live cattle were made to swim the stream, and were
+then most frequently marched across country to the commissary depots of
+the several armies. After the fall of Port Hudson, the connection for
+such supplies was practically stopped; although I may recall that even
+as late <a name="Page_113"></a>as 1864, the command to which I was
+attached had the
+opportunity of stopping the swimming across the Mississippi of a herd
+of
+cattle that was in transit for the army of General Joe Johnston.</p>
+<p>In April, 1862, just after the receipt by Lincoln of the
+disappointing
+news of the first repulse at Vicksburg, he finds time to write a little
+autograph note to a boy, "Master Crocker," with thanks for a present of
+a white rabbit that the youngster had sent to the President with the
+suggestion that perhaps the President had a boy who would be pleased
+with it.</p>
+<p>During the early part of 1862, Lincoln is giving renewed thought to
+the
+great problem of emancipation. He becomes more and more convinced that
+the success of the War calls for definite action on the part of the
+administration in the matter of slavery. He was, as before pointed out,
+anxious, not only as a matter of justice to loyal citizens, but on the
+ground of the importance of retaining for the national cause the
+support
+of the Border States, to act in such manner that the loyal citizens of
+these States should be exposed to a minimum loss and to the smallest
+possible risk of disaffection. In July, 1862, Lincoln formulated a
+proposition for com<a name="Page_114"></a>pensated emancipation. It was
+his idea that the
+nation should make payment of an appraised value in freeing the slaves
+that were in the ownership of citizens who had remained loyal to the
+government. It was his belief that the funds required would be more
+than
+offset by the result in furthering the progress of the War. The daily
+expenditure of the government was at the time averaging about a million
+and a half dollars a day, and in 1864 it reached two million dollars a
+day. If the War could be shortened a few months, a sufficient amount of
+money would be saved to offset a very substantial payment to loyal
+citizens for the property rights in their slaves.</p>
+<p>The men of the Border States were, however, still too bound to the
+institution of slavery to be prepared to give their assent to any such
+plan. Congress was, naturally, not ready to give support to such a
+policy unless it could be made clear that it was satisfactory to the
+people most concerned. The result of the unwise stubbornness in this
+matter of the loyal citizens of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
+Maryland was that they were finally obliged to surrender without
+compensation the property control in their slaves. When the plan for
+compensated <a name="Page_115"></a>emancipation had failed, Lincoln
+decided that the time had
+come for unconditional emancipation. In July, 1862, he prepares the
+first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was his judgment,
+which
+was shared by the majority of his Cabinet, that the issue of the
+proclamation should, however, be deferred until after some substantial
+victory by the armies of the North. It was undesirable to give to such
+a
+step the character of an utterance of despair or even of
+discouragement.
+It seemed evident, however, that the War had brought the country to the
+point at which slavery, the essential cause of the cleavage between the
+States, must be removed. The bringing to an end of the national
+responsibility for slavery would consolidate national opinion
+throughout
+the States of the North and would also strengthen the hands of the
+friends of the Union in England where the charge had repeatedly been
+made that the North was fighting, not against slavery or for freedom of
+any kind, but for domination. The proclamation was held until after the
+battle of Antietam in September, 1862, and was then issued to take
+effect on the first of January, 1863. It did produce the hoped-for
+results. The cause of the North was now placed on a <a name="Page_116"></a>consistent
+foundation. It was made clear that when the fight for nationality had
+reached a successful termination, there was to be no further national
+responsibility for the great crime against civilisation. The management
+of the contrabands, who were from week to week making their way into
+the
+lines of the Northern armies, was simplified. There was no further
+question of holding coloured men subject to the possible claim of a
+possibly loyal master. The work of organising coloured troops, which
+had
+begun in Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, was now pressed
+forward with some measure of efficiency. Boston sent to the front the
+54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of coloured troops and
+led by such men as Shaw and Hallowell. The first South Carolina
+coloured
+regiment was raised and placed under the command of Colonel Higginson.</p>
+<p>I had myself some experience in Louisiana with the work of moulding
+plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the
+promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into
+the
+camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to
+secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out
+of which to <a name="Page_117"></a>make a soldier. He did not know how
+to hold himself upright
+or to look the other man in the face. His gait was shambly, his
+perceptions dull. It was difficult for him either to hear clearly, or
+to
+understand when heard, the word of instruction or command. When,
+however, the plantation rags had been disposed of and (possibly after a
+souse in the Mississippi) the contraband had been put into the blue
+uniform and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, he developed at
+once
+from a "chattel" to a man. He was still, for a time at least, clumsy
+and
+shambly. The understanding of the word of command did not come at once
+and his individual action, if by any chance he should be left to act
+alone, was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended upon, than
+that of the white man. But he stood up straight in the garb of manhood,
+looked you fairly in the face, showed by his expression that he was
+anxious for the privilege of fighting for freedom and for citizenship,
+and in Louisiana, and throughout the whole territory of the War, every
+black regiment that came into engagement showed that it could be
+depended upon. Before the War was closed, some two hundred thousand
+negroes had been brought into the ranks of the Federal army and their
+service constituted a very <a name="Page_118"></a>valuable factor in
+the final outcome of the
+campaigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend, Mississippi,
+inconsiderable in regard to the numbers engaged, was of distinctive
+importance in showing what the black man was able and willing to do
+when
+brought under fire for the first time. A coloured regiment made up of
+men who only a few weeks before had been plantation hands, had been
+left
+on a point of the river to be picked up by an expected transport. The
+regiment was attacked by a Confederate force of double or treble the
+number, the Southerners believing that there would be no difficulty in
+driving into the river this group of recent slaves. On the first
+volley,
+practically all of the officers (who were white) were struck down and
+the loss with the troops was also very heavy. The negroes, who had but
+made a beginning with their education as soldiers, appeared, however,
+not to have learned anything about the conditions for surrender and
+they
+simply fought on until no one was left standing. The percentage of loss
+to the numbers engaged was the heaviest of any action in the War. The
+Southerners, in their contempt for the possibility of negroes doing any
+real fighting, had in their rushing attack exposed themselves much and
+had themselves suffered <a name="Page_119"></a>seriously. When, in
+April, 1865, after the
+forcing back of Lee's lines, the hour came, so long waited for and so
+fiercely fought for, to take possession of Richmond, there was a
+certain
+poetic justice in allowing the negro division, commanded by General
+Weitzel, to head the column of advance.</p>
+<p>Through 1862, and later, we find much correspondence from Lincoln in
+regard to the punishment of deserters. The army penalty for desertion
+when the lines were in front of the enemy, was death. Lincoln found it
+very difficult, however, to approve of a sentence of death for any
+soldier. Again and again he writes, instructing the general in the
+field
+to withhold the execution until he, Lincoln, had had an opportunity of
+passing upon the case. There is a long series of instances in which,
+sometimes upon application from the mother, but more frequently through
+the personal impression gained by himself of the character of the
+delinquent, Lincoln decided to pardon youngsters who had, in his
+judgment, simply failed to realise their full responsibility as
+soldiers. Not a few of these men, permitted to resume their arms,
+gained
+distinction later for loyal service.</p>
+<p>In December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued an order which naturally
+attracted some attention, <a name="Page_120"></a>directing that
+General Benjamin F. Butler,
+when captured, should be "reserved for execution." Butler never fell
+into the hands of the Confederates and it is probable that if he had
+been taken prisoner, the order would have remained an empty threat.
+From
+Lincoln came the necessary rejoinder that a Confederate officer of
+equal
+rank would be held as hostage for the safety of any Northern general
+who, as prisoner, might not be protected under the rules of war.</p>
+<p>Lincoln's correspondence during 1862, a year which was in many ways
+the
+most discouraging of the sad years of the war, shows how much he had to
+endure in the matter of pressure of unrequested advice and of undesired
+counsel from all kinds of voluntary advisers and active-minded
+citizens,
+all of whom believed that their views were important, if not essential,
+for the salvation of the state. In September, 1862, Lincoln writes to a
+friend:</p>
+<p>"I am approached with the most opposite opinions expressed on the
+part
+of religious men, each of whom is equally certain that he represents
+the
+divine will."</p>
+<p>To one of these delegations of ministers, Lincoln gave a response
+which
+while homely in its language must have presented to his callers a vivid
+picture <a name="Page_121"></a>of the burdens that were being carried
+by the leader of the
+state:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"Gentlemen," he said, "suppose all the property you possess were in
+gold, and you had placed it in the hands of Blondin to carry across
+the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps he
+walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep
+shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter! Blondin,
+stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the south! Now
+lean a little more to north! Would that be your behaviour in such an
+emergency? No, you would hold your breath, every one of you, as well
+as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on
+the other side."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Another delegation, which had been urging some months in advance of
+what
+Lincoln believed to be the fitting time for the issuing of the
+Proclamation of Emancipation, called asking that there should be no
+further delay in the action. One of the ministers, as he was retiring,
+turned and said to Lincoln: "What you have said to us, Mr. President,
+compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message to you from our
+Divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of
+bondage, that the slave may go free!" Lincoln replied: "That may be,
+sir, <a name="Page_122"></a>for I have studied this question by night
+and by day, for weeks
+and for months, but if it is, as you say, a message from your Divine
+Master, is it not odd that the only channel He could send it by was
+that
+roundabout route through the wicked city of Chicago?"</p>
+<p>Another version of the story omits the reference to Chicago, and
+makes
+Lincoln's words:</p>
+<p>"I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is
+probable
+that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with
+my
+duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me....
+Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do."</p>
+<p>In September, 1862, General Lee carried his army into Maryland,
+threatening Baltimore and Washington. It is probable that the purpose
+of
+this invasion was more political than military. The Confederate
+correspondence shows that Davis was at the time hopeful of securing the
+intervention of Great Britain and France, and it was natural to assume
+that the prospects of such intervention would be furthered if it could
+be shown that the Southern army, instead of being engaged in the
+defence
+of its own capital, was actually threatening Washington and was
+possibly
+strong enough to advance farther north.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_123"></a>General Pope had, as a result of his defeat
+at the second Bull Run, in
+July, 1862, lost the confidence of the President and of the country.
+The
+defeat alone would not necessarily have undermined his reputation,
+which
+had been that of an effective soldier. He had, however, the fatal
+quality, too common with active Americans, of talking too much, whether
+in speech or in the written word, of promising things that did not come
+off, and of emphasising his high opinion of his own capacity. Under the
+pressure of the new peril indicated by the presence of Lee's troops
+within a few miles of the capital, Lincoln put to one side his own
+grave
+doubts in regard to the effectiveness and trustworthiness of McClellan
+and gave McClellan one further opportunity to prove his ability as a
+soldier. The personal reflections and aspersions against his
+Commander-in-chief of which McClellan had been guilty, weighed with
+Lincoln not at all; the President's sole thought was at this time, as
+always, how with the material available could the country best be
+served.</p>
+<p>McClellan had his chance (and to few men is it given to have more
+than
+one great opportunity) and again he threw it away. His army was
+stronger
+than that of Lee and he had the advan<a name="Page_124"></a>tage of
+position and (for the
+first time against this particular antagonist) of nearness to his base
+of supplies. Lee had been compelled to divide his army in order to get
+it promptly into position on the north side of the Potomac. McClellan's
+tardiness sacrificed Harper's Ferry (which, on September 15th, was
+actually surrounded by Lee's advance) with the loss of twelve thousand
+prisoners. Through an exceptional piece of good fortune, there came
+into
+McClellan's hands a despatch showing the actual position of the
+different divisions of Lee's army and giving evidence that the two
+wings
+were so far separated that they could not be brought together within
+twenty-four hours. The history now makes clear that for twenty-four
+hours McClellan had the safety of Lee's army in his hands, but those
+precious hours were spent by McClellan in "getting ready," that is to
+say, in vacillating.</p>
+<p>Finally, there came the trifling success at South Mountain and the
+drawn
+battle of Antietam. Lee's army was permitted to recross the Potomac
+with
+all its trains and even with the captured prisoners, and McClellan lay
+waiting through the weeks for something to turn up.</p>
+<p>A letter written by Lincoln on the 13th of October shows a
+wonderfully
+accurate under<a name="Page_125"></a>standing of military conditions,
+and throws light also
+upon the character and the methods of thought of the two men:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"Are you not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what
+the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least
+his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you
+telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at
+Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be
+put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at
+Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great as you would have to
+do, without the railroad last named. He now waggons from Culpeper
+Court House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to
+do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well
+provided with waggons as you are.... Again, one of the standard
+maxims of war, as you know, is to 'operate upon the enemy's
+communications without exposing your own.' You seem to act as if
+this applies against you, but cannot apply it in your favour. Change
+positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your
+communication with Richmond in twenty-four hours?... You are now
+nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route you can and he must
+take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that
+he is more than your equal on a march? His <a name="Page_126"></a>route
+is the arc of a
+circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on your side
+as on his ... If he should move northward, I would follow him
+closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our
+seizing his communications and move towards Richmond, I would press
+closely to him, fight him, if a favourable opportunity should
+present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside
+track. I say 'Try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.... If
+we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we
+never can when we bear the wastage of going to him.... As we must
+beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier
+near to us than far away.... It is all easy if our troops march as
+well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say that they cannot do it."</p>
+</div>
+<p>The patience of Lincoln and that of the country behind Lincoln were
+at
+last exhausted. McClellan was ordered to report to his home in New
+Jersey and the General who had come to the front with such flourish of
+trumpets and had undertaken to dictate a national policy at a time when
+he was not able to keep his own army in position, retires from the
+history of the War.</p>
+<p>The responsibility again comes to the weary Commander-in-chief of
+finding a leader who <a name="Page_127"></a>could lead, in whom the
+troops and the country
+would have confidence, and who could be trusted to do his simple duty
+as
+a general in the field without confusing his military responsibilities
+with political scheming. The choice first fell upon Burnside. Burnside
+was neither ambitious nor self-confident. He was a good division
+general, but he doubted his ability for the general command. Burnside
+loyally accepts the task, does the best that was within his power and,
+pitted against a commander who was very much his superior in general
+capacity as well as in military skill, he fails. Once more has the
+President on his hands the serious problem of finding the right man.
+This time the commission was given to General Joseph Hooker. With the
+later records before us, it is easy to point out that this selection
+also was a blunder. There were better men in the group of
+major-generals. Reynolds, Meade, or Hancock would doubtless have made
+more effective use of the power of the army of the Potomac, but in
+January, 1863, the relative characters and abilities of these generals
+were not so easily to be determined. Lincoln's letter to Hooker was
+noteworthy, not only in the indication that it gives of Hooker's
+character but as an example of the President's width of view and <a
+ name="Page_128"></a>of his
+method of coming into the right relation with men. He writes:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an
+indispensable quality.... I think, however, that during General
+Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your
+ambition and have thwarted him as much as you could, in which you
+did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and
+honourable brother officer. I have heard 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 the
+command. Only those generals who gain success can set up as
+dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk
+the dictatorship. The government will support you to the best of its
+ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do
+for all its commanders.... Beware of rashness, but with energy and
+sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Hooker, like Burnside, undoubtedly did the best that he could. He
+was a
+loyal patriot and had shown himself a good division commander. It is
+probable, however, that the limit of his ability as a general in the
+field was the management of an army corps; he seems to have been
+confused in <a name="Page_129"></a>the attempt to direct the movements
+of the larger body. At
+Chancellorsville, he was clearly outwitted by his opponents, Lee and
+Jackson. The men of the army of the Potomac fought steadily as always
+but with the discouraging feeling that the soldiers on the other side
+of
+the line had the advantage of better brain power behind them. It is
+humiliating to read in the life of Jackson the reply given by him to
+Lee
+when Lee questioned the safety of the famous march planned by Jackson
+across the front of the Federal line. Said Lee: "There are several
+points along the line of your proposed march at which your column could
+be taken in flank with disastrous results." "But, General Lee," replies
+Jackson, "we must surely in planning any military movements take into
+account the personality of the leaders to whom we are opposed."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="VII"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_130"></a>VII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR</p>
+<br>
+<p>Chancellorsville was fought and lost, and again, under political
+pressure from Richmond rather than with any hope of advantage on simple
+military lines, Lee leads his army to an invasion of the North. For
+this
+there were at the time several apparent advantages; the army of the
+Potomac had been twice beaten and, while by no means demoralised, was
+discouraged and no longer had faith in its commander. There was much
+inevitable disappointment throughout the North that, so far from making
+progress in the attempt to restore the authority of the government, the
+national troops were on the defensive but a few miles from the national
+capital. The Confederate correspondence from London and from Paris gave
+fresh hopes for the long expected intervention.</p>
+<p>Lee's army was cleverly withdrawn from Hooker's front and was
+carried
+through western Maryland into Pennsylvania by the old line of <a
+ name="Page_131"></a>the
+Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac at Falling Waters. Hooker
+reports to Lincoln under date of June 4th that the army or an army is
+still in his front on the line of the Rappahannock, Lincoln writes to
+Hooker under date of June 5th, "We have report that Lee's army is
+moving
+westward and that a large portion of it is already to the west of the
+Blue Ridge. The 'bull' [Lee's army] is across the fence and it surely
+ought to be possible to worry him." On June 14th, Lincoln writes again,
+reporting to Hooker that Lee with the body of his troops is approaching
+the Potomac at a point forty miles away from the line of the
+entrenchments on the Rappahannock. "The animal [Lee's army] is extended
+over a line of forty miles. It must be very slim somewhere. Can you not
+cut it?" The phrases are not in military form but they give evidence of
+sound military judgment. Hooker was unable to grasp the opportunity,
+and
+realising this himself, he asked to be relieved. The troublesome and
+anxious honour of the command of the army now falls upon General Meade.
+He takes over the responsibility at a time when Lee's army is already
+safely across the Potomac and advancing northward, apparently towards
+Philadelphia. His troops <a name="Page_132"></a>are more or less
+scattered and no definite
+plan of campaign appears to have been formulated. The events of the
+next
+three weeks constitute possibly the best known portion of the War.
+Meade
+shows good energy in breaking up his encampment along the Rappahannock
+and getting his column on to the road northward. Fortunately, the army
+of the Potomac for once has the advantage of the interior line so that
+Meade is able to place his army in a position that protects at once
+Washington on the south-west, Baltimore on the east, and Philadelphia
+on
+the north-east. We can, however, picture to ourselves the anxiety that
+must have rested upon the Commander-in-chief in Washington during the
+weeks of the campaign and during the three days of the great battle
+which was fought on Northern soil and miles to the north of the
+Northern
+capital. If, on that critical third day of July, the Federal lines had
+been broken and the army disorganised, there was nothing that could
+prevent the national capital from coming into the control of Lee's
+army.
+The surrender of Washington meant the intervention of France and
+England, meant the failure of the attempt to preserve the nation's
+existence, meant that Abraham Lincoln would go down to history as the
+last President of the <a name="Page_133"></a>United States, the
+President under whose
+leadership the national history had come to a close. But the Federal
+lines were not broken. The third day of Gettysburg made clear that with
+equality of position and with substantial equality in numbers there was
+no better fighting material in the army of the grey than in the army of
+the blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the crest of Cemetery
+Ridge marked the high tide of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men
+were not able to prevail against the sturdy defence of Hancock's second
+corps and when, on the Fourth of July, Lee's army took up its line of
+retreat to the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead and
+wounded,
+the calm judgment of Lee and his associates must have made clear to
+them
+that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army of Northern
+Virginia had shattered itself against the defences of the North, and
+there was for Lee no reserve line. For a long series of months to come,
+Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he was, and with a sturdy
+persistency which withstood all disaster, was able to maintain
+defensive
+lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in front of Petersburg,
+but
+as his brigades crumbled away under the persistent and unceasing
+attacks
+of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised <a name="Page_134"></a>long
+before the day
+of Appomattox that his task was impossible. What Gettysburg decided in
+the East was confirmed with equal emphasis by the fall of Vicksburg in
+the West. On the Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, defeated
+and discouraged, was taking his shattered army out of Pennsylvania,
+General Grant was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earthworks of
+Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now under the control of the Federalists
+from its source to the mouth, and that portion of the Confederacy lying
+to the west of the river was cut off so that from this territory no
+further co-operation of importance could be rendered to the armies
+either of Johnston or of Lee.</p>
+<p>Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg giving, with his
+word of congratulation, the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted the
+wisdom or the practicability of Grant's movement to the south of
+Vicksburg and inland to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, "and I
+was wrong."</p>
+<p>On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so
+eloquent
+in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history
+ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such
+suggestive thought, and such <a name="Page_135"></a>high idealism. The
+speech is one that
+children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.</p>
+<center><img src="images/gbaa.png" alt="FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS">
+<img src="images/gbab.png" alt="FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS"></center>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p><b>FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.</b></p>
+<p>Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.</p>
+<p>Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
+continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
+proposition that all men are created equal.</p>
+<p>Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
+nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
+endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come
+to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
+those who here gave their lives that their nation might live. It is
+altogether fitting and proper that we should this.</p>
+<p>But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
+cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who
+struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
+or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say
+here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
+living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
+who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
+to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us&mdash;that
+from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
+which they gave the last full measure of devotion&mdash;that we here
+highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
+this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
+government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
+perish from the earth.</p>
+<p>Abraham Lincoln</p>
+<p>November 19, 1863</p>
+</div>
+<p>There was disappointment that Meade had not shown more energy after
+Gettysburg in the pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, at
+least,
+had not been made to interfere with the retreat across the Potomac.
+Military critics have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid himself
+open to criticism in the management of the battle itself. At the time
+of
+the repulse of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the left and in
+rear of his centre the sixth corps which had hardly been engaged on the
+previous two days, and which included some of the best fighting
+material
+in the army. It has been pointed out more than once that if that corps
+had been thrown in at once with a countercharge upon the heels of the
+retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's right must have been curled
+up
+and overwhelmed. If this had happened, Lee's army would have been so
+seriously shattered that its power for future service would have been
+inconsiderable. Meade was accepted as a good working general but the
+occasion demanded something more forcible in the way of leadership and,
+early in 1864, Lincoln sends for the man who by his success in the West
+had <a name="Page_136"></a>won the hopeful confidence of the President
+and the people.</p>
+<p>Before this appointment of General-in-chief was given to General
+Grant,
+and he came to the East to take charge of the armies in Virginia, he
+had
+brought to a successful conclusion a dramatic campaign, of which
+Chattanooga was the centre. In September, 1863, General Rosecrans, who
+had occupied Chattanooga, was defeated some twenty miles to the south
+on
+the field of Chickamauga, a defeat which was the result of too much
+confidence on the part of the Federal commander, who in pressing his
+advance had unwisely separated the great divisions of his army, and of
+excellent skill and enterprise on the part of the Confederate
+commander,
+General Bragg. If the troops of Rosecrans had not been veterans, and if
+the right wing had not been under the immediate command of so sturdy
+and
+unconquered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat might have become a
+rout. As it was, the army retreated with some discouragement but in
+good
+fighting force, to the lines of Chattanooga. By skilful disposition of
+his forces across the lines of connection between Chattanooga and the
+base of supplies, General Bragg brought the Federals almost to the
+point
+of starvation, and <a name="Page_137"></a>there was grave risk that
+through the necessary
+falling back of the army to secure supplies, the whole advantage of the
+previous year's campaign might be lost. Grant was placed in charge of
+the forces in Chattanooga, and by a good management of the resources
+available, he succeeded in reopening the river and what became known as
+"the cracker line," and in November, 1863, in the dramatic battles of
+Lookout Mountain, fought more immediately by General Hooker, and of
+Missionary Ridge, the troops of which were under the direct command of
+General Sherman, overwhelmed the lines of Bragg, and pressed his forces
+back into a more or less disorderly retreat. An important factor in the
+defeat of Bragg was the detaching from his army of the corps under
+Longstreet which had been sent to Knoxville in a futile attempt to
+crush
+Burnside and to reconquer East Tennessee for the Confederacy. This
+plan,
+chiefly political in purpose, was said to have originated with
+President
+Davis. The armies of the West were now placed under the command of
+General Sherman, and early in 1864, Grant was brought to Virginia to
+take up the perplexing problem of overcoming the sturdy veterans of
+General Lee.</p>
+<p>The first action of Grant as commander of all <a name="Page_138"></a>the
+armies in the field
+was to concentrate all the available forces against the two chief
+armies
+of the Confederacy. The old policy of occupying outlying territory for
+the sake of making a show of political authority was given up. If
+Johnston in the West and Lee in the East could be crushed, the national
+authority would be restored in due season, and that was the only way in
+which it could be restored. Troops were gathered in from Missouri and
+Arkansas and Louisiana and were placed under the command of Sherman for
+use in the final effort of breaking through the centre of the
+Confederacy, while in the East nothing was neglected on the part of the
+new administration to secure for the direction of the new commander all
+resources available of men and of supplies.</p>
+<p>Grant now finds himself pitted against the first soldier of the
+continent, the leader who is to go down to history as probably the
+greatest soldier that America has ever produced. Lee's military career
+is a wonderful example of a combination of brilliancy, daring ingenuity
+of plan, promptness of action, and patient persistence under all kinds
+of discouragement, but it was not only through these qualities that it
+was possible for him to retain control, through three <a
+ name="Page_139"></a>years of heavy
+fighting, of the territory of Virginia, which came to be the chief
+bulwark of the Confederacy. Lee's high character, sweetness of nature,
+and unselfish integrity of purpose had impressed themselves not only
+upon the Confederate administration which had given him the command but
+upon every soldier in that command. For the army of Northern Virginia
+Lee was the man behind the guns just as Lincoln came to be for all the
+men in blue. There never was a more devoted army and there probably
+never was a better handled army than that with which Lee defended for
+three years the lines across Northern Virginia and the remnants of
+which
+were finally surrendered at Appomattox.</p>
+<p>Grant might well have felt concerned with such an opponent in front
+of
+him. He had on his hands (as had been the almost uniform condition for
+the army of the Potomac) the disadvantage of position. His advance must
+be made from exterior lines and nearly every attack was to be against
+well entrenched positions that had been first selected years back and
+had been strengthened from season to season. On the other hand, Grant
+was able to depend upon the loyal support of the administration through
+which came to his army the full advantage of the great resources <a
+ name="Page_140"></a>of the
+North. His ranks as depleted were filled up, his commissary trains need
+never be long unsupplied, his ammunition waggons were always equipped.
+For Lee, during the years following the Gettysburg battle, the problem
+was unending and increasing: How should the troops be fed and whence
+should they secure the fresh supplies of ammunition?</p>
+<p>Between Grant and Lincoln there came to be perfect sympathy of
+thought
+and action. The men had in their nature (though not in their mental
+equipment) much in common. Grant carries his army through the spring of
+1864, across the much fought over territory, marching and fighting from
+day to day towards the south-west. The effort is always to outflank
+Lee's right, getting in between him and his base at Richmond, but after
+each fight, Lee's army always bars the way. Marching out of the
+Wilderness after seven days' fierce struggle, Grant still finds the
+line
+of grey blocking his path to Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been
+marching and fighting without break for weeks. There had been but
+little
+sleep, and the food in the trains was often far out of the reach of the
+men in the fighting line. Men and officers were alike exhausted. While
+advantages had been <a name="Page_141"></a>gained at one point or
+another along the line, and
+while it was certain that the opposing army had also suffered severely,
+there had been no conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with the
+feeling that they were to seize victory out of the campaign.</p>
+<p>In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of the column reached the
+cross-roads the left fork of which led back to the Potomac and the
+right
+fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the previous campaigns, the army
+of the Potomac, after doing its share of plucky fighting and taking
+more
+than its share of discouragement, had at such a point been withdrawn
+for
+rest and recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation that this
+course would be taken in the present campaign. The road to the right
+meant further fatigue and further continuous fighting for men who were
+already exhausted. In the leading brigade it was only the brigade
+commander and the adjutant who had knowledge of the instructions for
+the
+line of march. When, with a wave of the hand of the adjutant, the
+guidon
+flag of the brigade was carried to the right and the head of the column
+was set towards Richmond, a shout went up from the men marching behind
+the guidon. It was an utterance not of dis<a name="Page_142"></a>couragement
+but of
+enthusiasm. Exhausting as the campaign had been, the men in the ranks
+preferred to fight it out then and to get through with it. Old soldiers
+as they were, they were able to understand the actual issue of the
+contest. Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as themselves and
+possibly even more exhausted. It was only through the hammering of
+Lee's
+diminishing army out of existence that the War could be brought to a
+close. The enthusiastic shout of satisfaction rolled through the long
+column reaching twenty miles back, as the news passed from brigade to
+brigade that the army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's
+report
+to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out on this line if it took all
+summer." When this report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection
+of
+Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. He said: "We need this
+man. He fights."</p>
+<p>In July, 1864, Washington is once more within reach if not of the
+invader at least of the raider. The Federal forces had been
+concentrated
+in Grant's lines along the James, and General Jubal Early, one of the
+most energetic fighters of the Southern army, tempted by the apparently
+unprotected condition of the capital, dashed across the Potomac on a
+raid that became famous. <a name="Page_143"></a>It is probable that in
+this undertaking, as in
+some of the other movements that have been referred to on the part of
+the Southern leaders, the purpose was as much political as military.
+Early's force of from fifteen to sixteen thousand men was, of course,
+in
+no way strong enough to be an army of invasion. The best success for
+which he could hope would be, in breaking through the defences of
+Washington, to hold the capital for a day or even a few hours. The
+capture of Washington in 1864, as in 1863 or in 1862, would in all
+probability have brought about the long-hoped-for intervention of
+France
+and England. General Lew Wallace, whose name became known in the years
+after the War through some noteworthy romances, <i>Ben Hur</i> and <i>The
+Fair
+God</i>, and who was in command of a division of troops stationed west
+of
+Washington, and composed in part of loyal Marylanders and in part of
+convalescents who were about to be returned to the front, fell back
+before Early's advance to Monocacy Creek. He disposed his thin line
+cleverly in the thickets on the east side of the creek in such fashion
+as to give the impression of a force of some size with an advance line
+of skirmishers. Early's advance was checked for some hours before he
+realised that there was nothing of importance <a name="Page_144"></a>in
+front of him; when
+Wallace's division was promptly overwhelmed and scattered. The few
+hours
+that had thus been saved were, however, of first importance for the
+safety of Washington. Early reached the outer lines of the
+fortifications of the capital some time after sunset. His immediate
+problem was to discover whether the troops which were, as he knew,
+being
+hurried up from the army of the James, had reached Washington or
+whether
+the capital was still under the protection only of its so-called
+home-guard of veteran reserves. These reserves were made up of men more
+or less crippled and unfit for work in the field but who were still
+able
+to do service on fortifications. They comprised in all about six
+thousand men and were under the command of Colonel Wisewell. The force
+was strengthened somewhat that night by the addition of all of the male
+nurses from the hospitals (themselves convalescents) who were able to
+bear arms. That night the women nurses, who had already been in
+attendance during the hours of the day, had to render double service.
+Lincoln had himself in the afternoon stood on the works watching the
+dust of the Confederate advance. Once more there came to the President
+who had in his hands the responsibility for the direction <a
+ name="Page_145"></a>of the War
+the bitterness of the feeling, if not of possible failure, at least of
+immediate mortification. He knew that within twenty-four or thirty-six
+hours Washington could depend upon receiving the troops that were being
+hurried up from Grant's army, but he also realised what enormous
+mischief might be brought about by even a momentary occupation of the
+national capital by Confederate troops. I had some personal interest in
+this side campaign. The 19th army corps, to which my own regiment
+belonged, had been brought from Louisiana to Virginia and had been
+landed on the James River to strengthen the ranks of General Butler.
+There had not been time to assign to us posts in the trenches and we
+had, in fact, not even been placed in position. We were more nearly in
+marching order than any other troops available and it was therefore the
+divisions of the 19th army corps that were selected to be hurried up to
+Washington. To these were added two divisions of the 6th corps.</p>
+<p>Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences of the city, realised the
+nature of his problem. He had got to hold the lines of Washington, cost
+what it might, until the arrival of the troops from Grant. He took the
+bold step of placing on the picket line that night every man within
+<a name="Page_146"></a>reach, or at least every loyal man within reach
+(for plenty of the men
+in Washington were looking and hoping for the success of the South).
+The
+instructions usually given to pickets were in this instance reversed.
+The men were ordered, in place of keeping their positions hidden and of
+maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post to post along the whole
+line, and they were also ordered, without any reference to the saving
+of
+ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the least possible pretext
+and without pretext. The armories were then beginning to send to the
+front Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of breech-loading
+rifles
+came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but
+during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed
+with Sharp's breech-loaders. The infantry weapon used through the War
+by
+the armies of the North as by those of the South was the muzzle-loading
+rifle which bore the name on our side of the Springfield and on the
+Confederate side of the Enfield. The larger portion of the Northern
+rifles were manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts, while the
+Southern rifles, in great part imported from England, took their name
+from the English factory. It was of convenience for both sides that the
+two rifles <a name="Page_147"></a>were practically identical so that
+captured pieces and
+captured ammunition could be interchanged without difficulty.</p>
+<p>Early's skirmish line was instructed early in the night to "feel"
+the
+Federal pickets, an instruction which resulted in a perfect blaze of
+carbine fire from Wisewell's men. The report that went to Early was
+that
+the picket line must be about six thousand strong. The conclusion on
+the
+part of the old Confederate commander was that the troops from the army
+of the Potomac must have reached the city. If that were true, there
+was,
+of course, no chance that on the following day he could break through
+the entrenchments, while there was considerable risk that his retreat
+to
+the Shenandoah might be cut off. Early the next morning, therefore, the
+disappointed Early led his men back to Falling Waters.</p>
+<p>I happened during the following winter, when in prison in Danville,
+to
+meet a Confederate lieutenant who had been on Early's staff and who had
+lost an arm in this little campaign. He reported that when Early, on
+recrossing the Potomac, learned that he had had Washington in his grasp
+and that the divisions marching to its relief did not arrive and could
+not have arrived for another twenty-four hours, he was about the
+<a name="Page_148"></a>maddest Early that the lieutenant had ever seen.
+"And," added the
+lieutenant, "when Early was angry, the atmosphere became blue."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="VIII"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_149"></a>VIII</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">THE FINAL CAMPAIGN</p>
+<br>
+<p>After this close escape, it was clear to Grant as it had been clear
+to
+Lincoln that whatever forces were concentrated before Petersburg, the
+line of advance for Confederate invaders through the Shenandoah must be
+blocked. General Sheridan was placed in charge of the army of the
+Shenandoah and the 19th corps, instead of returning to the trenches of
+the James, marched on from Washington to Martinsburg and Winchester.</p>
+<p>In September, the commander in Washington had the satisfaction of
+hearing that his old assailant Early had been sent "whirling through
+Winchester" by the fierce advance of Sheridan. Lincoln recognised the
+possibility that Early might refuse to stay defeated and might make
+use,
+as had so often before been done by Confederate commanders in the
+Valley, of the short interior line to secure reinforcements from
+Richmond and to make a fresh attack. On the 29th of September, twenty
+days before this <a name="Page_150"></a>attack came off, Lincoln
+writes to Grant: "Lee may be
+planning to reinforce Early. Care should be taken to trace any movement
+of troops westward." On the 19th of October, the persistent old fighter
+Early, not willing to acknowledge himself beaten and understanding that
+he had to do with an army that for the moment did not have the
+advantage
+of Sheridan's leadership, made his plucky, and for the time successful,
+fight at Cedar Creek. The arrival of Sheridan at the critical hour in
+the afternoon of the 19th of October did not, as has sometimes been
+stated, check the retreat of a demoralised army. Sheridan found his
+army
+driven back, to be sure, from its first position, but in occupation of
+a
+well supported line across the pike from which had just been thrown
+back
+the last attack made by Early's advance. It was Sheridan however who
+decided not only that the battle which had been lost could be regained,
+but that the work could be done to best advantage right away on that
+day, and it was Sheridan who led his troops through the too short hours
+of the October afternoon back to their original position from which
+before dark they were able to push Early's fatigued fighters across
+Cedar Creek southward. Lincoln had found another man who could fight.
+He
+<a name="Page_151"></a>was beginning to be able to put trust in leaders
+who, instead of having
+to be replaced, were with each campaign gathering fresh experience and
+more effective capacity.</p>
+<p>From the West also came reports, in this autumn of 1864, from a
+fighting
+general. Sherman had carried the army, after its success at
+Chattanooga,
+through the long line of advance to Atlanta, by outflanking movements
+against Joe Johnston, the Fabius of the Confederacy, and when Johnston
+had been replaced by the headstrong Hood, had promptly taken advantage
+of Hood's rashness to shatter the organisation of the army of Georgia.
+The capture of Atlanta in September, 1864, brought to Lincoln in
+Washington and to the North the feeling of certainty that the days of
+the Confederacy were numbered.</p>
+<p>The second invasion of Tennessee by the army of Hood, rendered
+possible
+by the march of Sherman to the sea, appeared for the moment to threaten
+the control that had been secured of the all-important region of which
+Nashville was the centre, but Hood's march could only be described as
+daring but futile. He had no base and no supplies. His advance did some
+desperate fighting at the battle of Franklin and succeeded in driving
+back the rear-guard of Thomas's army, <a name="Page_152"></a>ably
+commanded by General
+Schofield, but the Confederate ranks were so seriously shattered that
+when they took position in front of Nashville they no longer had
+adequate strength to make the siege of the city serious even as a
+threat. Thomas had only to wait until his own preparations were
+completed and then, on the same day in December on which Sherman was
+entering Savannah, Thomas, so to speak, "took possession" of Hood's
+army. After the fight at Nashville, there were left of the Confederate
+invaders only a few scattered divisions.</p>
+<p>It was just before the news of the victory at Nashville that Lincoln
+made time to write the letter to Mrs. Bixby whose name comes into
+history as an illustration of the thoughtful sympathy of the great
+captain:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of
+the adjutant-general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of
+five sons who died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how
+weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to
+beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot
+refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in
+the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our
+Heavenly Father may assuage the <a name="Page_153"></a>anguish of your
+bereavement and
+leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the
+pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the
+altar of freedom."</p>
+</div>
+<p>In March, 1864, Lincoln writes to Grant: "New York votes to give
+votes
+to the soldiers. Tell the soldiers." The decision of New York in regard
+to the collection from the soldiers in each field of the votes for the
+coming Presidential election was in line with that arrived at by all of
+the States. The plan presented difficulties and, in connection with the
+work of special commissioners, it involved also expense. It was,
+however, on every ground desirable that the men who were risking their
+lives in defence of the nation should be given the opportunity of
+taking
+part in the selection of the nation's leader, who was also under the
+Constitution the commander-in-chief of the armies in the field. The
+votes of some four hundred thousand men constituted also an important
+factor in the election itself. I am not sure that the attempt was ever
+made to separate and classify the soldiers' vote but it is probable
+that
+although the Democratic candidate was McClellan, a soldier who had won
+the affection of the men serving under him, and the opposing candidate
+was a civilian, a substantial majority <a name="Page_154"></a>of the
+vote of the soldiers was
+given to Lincoln.</p>
+<p>Secretary Chase had fallen into the habit of emphasising what he
+believed to be his indispensability in the Cabinet by threatening to
+resign, or even by submitting a resignation, whenever his suggestions
+or
+conclusions met with opposition. These threats had been received with
+patience up to the point when patience seemed to be no longer a virtue;
+but finally, when (in May, 1864) such a resignation was tendered under
+some aggravation of opposition or of criticism, very much to Chase's
+surprise the resignation was accepted.</p>
+<p>The Secretary had had in train for some months active plans for
+becoming
+the Republican candidate for the Presidential campaign of 1864.
+Evidence
+had from time to time during the preceding year been brought to Lincoln
+of Chase's antagonism and of his hopes of securing the leadership of
+the
+party. Chase's opposition to certain of Lincoln's policies was
+doubtless
+honest enough. He had brought himself to believe that Lincoln did not
+possess the force and the qualities required to bring the War to a
+close. He had also convinced himself that he, Chase, was the man, and
+possibly was the only man, who was fitted to meet the special
+requirements of the task. <a name="Page_155"></a>Mr. Chase did possess
+the confidence of the
+more extreme of the anti-slavery groups throughout the country. His
+administration of the Treasury had been able and valuable, but the
+increasing difficulty that had been found in keeping the Secretary of
+the Treasury in harmonious relations with the other members of the
+administration caused his retirement to be on the whole a relief.
+Lincoln came to the conclusion that more effective service could be
+secured from some other man, even if possessing less ability, whose
+temperament made it possible for him to work in co-operation. The
+unexpected acceptance of the resignation caused to Chase and to Chase's
+friends no little bitterness, which found vent in sharp criticisms of
+the President. Neither bitterness nor criticisms could, however,
+prevent
+Lincoln from retaining a cordial appreciation for the abilities and the
+patriotism of the man, and, later in the year, Lincoln sent in his
+nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Chase himself, in his
+lack of capacity to appreciate the self-forgetfulness of Lincoln's
+nature, was probably more surprised by his nomination as Chief Justice
+than he had been by the acceptance of his resignation as Secretary of
+the Treasury.</p>
+<p>In July, 1864, comes a fresh risk of international <a
+ name="Page_156"></a>complications
+through the invasion of Mexico by a French army commanded by Bazaine,
+seven years later to be known as the (more or less) hero of Metz. Lotus
+Napoleon had been unwilling to give up his dream of a French empire, or
+of an empire instituted under French influence, in the Western
+Hemisphere. He was still hopeful, if not confident, that the United
+States would not be able to maintain its existence; and he felt assured
+that if the Southern Confederacy should finally be established with the
+friendly co-operation of France, he would be left unmolested to carry
+out his own schemes in Mexico. He had induced an honest-minded but not
+very clearheaded Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of
+Austria, to accept a throne in Mexico to be established by French
+bayonets, and which, as the result showed, could sustain itself only
+while those bayonets were available. The presence of French troops on
+American soil brought fresh anxieties to the administration; but it was
+recognised that nothing could be done for the moment, and Lincoln and
+his advisers were hopeful that the Mexicans, before their capital had
+been taken possession of by the invader, would be able to maintain some
+national government until, with the successful close of <a
+ name="Page_157"></a>its own War,
+the United States could come to the defence of the sister republic.</p>
+<p>The extreme anti-slavery group of the Republican party had, as
+indicated, never been fully satisfied with the thoroughness of the
+anti-slavery policy of the administration and Mr. Chase retained until
+the action of the convention in June the hope that he might through the
+influence of this group secure the Presidency. Lincoln remarks in
+connection with this candidacy: "If Chase becomes President, all right.
+I hope we may never have a worse man." From the more conservative wing
+of the Republican party came suggestions as to the nomination of Grant
+and this plan brought from Lincoln the remark: "If Grant takes
+Richmond,
+by all means let him have the nomination." When the delegates came
+together, however, in Baltimore, it was evident that, representing as
+they did the sober and well-thought-out convictions of the people, no
+candidacy but that of Lincoln could secure consideration and his
+nomination was practically unanimous.</p>
+<p>The election in November gave evidence that, even in the midst of
+civil
+war, a people's government can sustain the responsibility of a national
+election. The large popular majorities in nearly <a name="Page_158"></a>all
+of the voting
+States constituted not only a cordial recognition of the service that
+was being rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's administration, but a
+substantial assurance that the cause of nationality was to be sustained
+with all the resources of the nation. The Presidential election of this
+year gave the final blow to the hopes of the Confederacy.</p>
+<p>I had myself a part in a very small division of this election, a
+division which could have no effect in the final gathering of the
+votes,
+but which was in a way typical of the spirit of the army. On the 6th of
+November, 1864, I was in Libby Prison, having been captured at the
+battle of Cedar Creek in October. It was decided to hold a Presidential
+election in the prison, although some of us were rather doubtful as to
+the policy and anxious in regard to the result. The exchange of
+prisoners had been blocked for nearly a year on the ground of the
+refusal on the part of the South to exchange the coloured troops or
+white officers who held commissions in coloured regiments. Lincoln took
+the ground, very properly, that all of the nation's soldiers must be
+treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. Until the
+coloured troops should be included in the exchange, "there can," said
+Lincoln, "be no <a name="Page_159"></a>exchanging of prisoners." This
+decision, while sound,
+just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction
+to the men in prison and to their friends at home. When I reached Libby
+in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven
+months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners
+for five months more. Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and
+mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very
+severe. It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the
+Confederate
+authorities to keep any prisoners in Richmond during that last winter
+of
+the War. It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of
+which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for
+Lee's army. It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south,
+in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the
+inhabitants of the town. It was inevitable under the circumstances that
+the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths
+from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken
+from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there
+should be further deaths from starvation.</p>
+<p>It was not unnatural that under such conditions <a name="Page_160"></a>the
+prisoners should
+have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison
+authorities,
+but for discontent with their own administration. One may in fact be
+surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured
+spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we
+found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The
+soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison
+votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual
+ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but
+twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, that this vote of the
+prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so
+recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.</p>
+<p>In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the
+part
+of certain members of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear upon
+Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's reply made clear that he
+proposed to remain President. He says to the member reporting for
+himself and his associates the protest against Seward: "I propose to be
+the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my
+Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once <a name="Page_161"></a>have
+secured peace within the
+Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he
+had
+been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had
+associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens,
+who would have been competent to carry on the routine responsibilities
+of their posts. The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion or
+any working action between men differing from each other as widely as
+did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and
+in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an
+attempt that brought upon the chief daily burdens and many keen
+anxieties. Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important for the
+proper carrying on of the contest that the Cabinet should contain
+representatives of the several loyal sections of the country and of the
+various phases of opinion. The extreme anti-slavery men were entitled
+to
+be heard even though their spokesman Chase was often intemperate,
+ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States men had a right to be
+represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they
+had
+a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might
+show himself, as he often did show himself, quite incapable of
+understanding, <a name="Page_162"></a>much less of sympathising with,
+the real spirit of the
+North. Stanton might be truculent and even brutal, but he was willing
+to
+work, he knew how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, scholar
+and statesman as he was, had been ready to give needless provocation to
+Europe and was often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the
+conservative Border States on the one hand and of the New England
+abolitionists on the other, but Seward was a patriot as well as a
+scholar and was a representative not only of New York but of the best
+of
+the Whig Republican sentiment of the entire North, and Seward could not
+be spared. It is difficult to recall in history a government made up of
+such discordant elements which through the patience, tact, and genius
+of
+one man was made to do effective work.</p>
+<p>In February, 1865, in response to suggestions from the South which
+indicated the possibility of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with
+Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners to talk over measures
+for bringing the War to a close. The meeting was held on a gun-boat on
+the James River. It seems probable from the later history that Stephens
+had convinced himself that the Confederacy could not conquer its
+independence and that it only remained to secure <a name="Page_163"></a>the
+best terms
+possible for a surrender. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis was not
+yet
+prepared to consider any terms short of a recognition of the
+independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens could act only under the
+instructions received from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention that
+the government of the United States could not treat with rebels (or,
+dropping the word "rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The first
+step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, "be the laying down of arms.
+There is no precedent in history for a government entering into
+negotiations with its own armed citizens."</p>
+<p>"But there is a precedent, Mr. Lincoln," said Stephens, "King
+Charles of
+England treated with the Cromwellians."</p>
+<p>"Yes," said Lincoln, "I believe that is so. I usually leave
+historical
+details to Mr. Seward, who is a student. It is, however, my memory that
+King Charles lost his head."</p>
+<p>It soon became evident that there was no real basis for
+negotiations,
+and Stephens and his associates had to return to Richmond disappointed.
+In the same month, was adopted by both Houses of Congress the
+Thirteenth
+Amendment, which prohibited slavery throughout the whole dominion of
+the
+United States. By the close of 1865, this <a name="Page_164"></a>amendment
+had been confirmed
+by thirty-three States. It is probable that among these thirty-three
+there were several States the names of which were hardly familiar to
+some of the older citizens of the South, the men who had accepted the
+responsibility for the rebellion. The state of mind of these older
+Southerners in regard more particularly to the resources of the
+North-west was recalled to me years after the War by an incident
+related
+by General Sherman at a dinner of the New England Society. Sherman said
+that during the march through Georgia he had found himself one day at
+noon, when near the head of his column, passing below the piazza of a
+comfortable-looking old plantation house. He stopped to rest on the
+piazza with one or two of his staff and was received by the old planter
+with all the courtliness that a Southern gentleman could show, even to
+an invader, when doing the honours of his own house. The General and
+the
+planter sat on the piazza, looking at the troops below and discussing,
+as it was inevitable under the circumstances that they must discuss,
+the
+causes of the War.</p>
+<p>"General," said the planter, "what troops are those passing below?"
+The
+General leans over the piazza, and calls to the standard bearers,
+"<a name="Page_165"></a>Throw out your flag, boys," and as the flag was
+thrown out, he reports
+to his host, "The 30th Wisconsin."</p>
+<p>"Wisconsin?" said the planter, "Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin?"</p>
+<p>"It is one of the States of the North-west," said Sherman.</p>
+<p>"When I was studying geography," said the planter, "I knew of
+Wisconsin
+simply as the name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are there in a
+regiment?"</p>
+<p>"Well, there were a thousand when they started," said Sherman.</p>
+<p>"Do you mean to say," said the planter, "that there is a State
+called
+Wisconsin that has sent thirty thousand men into your armies?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, probably forty thousand," answered Sherman.</p>
+<p>With the next battalion the questions and the answers are repeated.
+The
+flag was that of a Minnesota regiment, say the 32d. The old planter had
+never heard that there was such a State.</p>
+<p>"My God!" he said when he had figured out the thousands of men who
+had
+come to the front, from these so-called Indian territories, to maintain
+the existence of the nation, "If we in <a name="Page_166"></a>the
+South had known that you had
+turned those Indian territories into great States, we never should have
+gone into this war." The incident throws a light upon the state of mind
+of men in the South, even of well educated men in the South, at the
+outbreak of the War. They might, of course, have known by statistics
+that great States had grown up in the North-west, representing a
+population of millions and able themselves to put into the field armies
+to be counted by the thousand. They might have realised that these
+great
+States of the North-west were vitally concerned with the necessity of
+keeping the Mississippi open for their trade from its source to the
+Gulf
+of Mexico. They might have known that those States, largely settled
+from
+New England, were absolutely opposed to slavery. This knowledge was
+within their reach but they had not realised the facts of the case. It
+was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to do only
+with New England and the Middle States and they felt that they were
+strong enough to hold their own against this group of opponents. That
+feeling would have been justified. The South could never have been
+overcome and the existence of the nation could never have been
+maintained if it had not been for the loyal co-<a name="Page_167"></a>operation
+and the
+magnificent resources of men and of national wealth that were
+contributed to the cause by the States of the North-west. In 1880, I
+had
+occasion, in talking to the two thousand students of the University of
+Minnesota, to recall the utterance of the old planter. The students of
+that magnificent University, placed in a beautiful city of two hundred
+and fifty thousand inhabitants, found it difficult on their part to
+realise, amidst their laughter at the ignorance of the old planter,
+just
+what the relations of the South had been before the War to the new free
+communities of the North-west.</p>
+<p>In February, 1865, with the fall of Fort Fisher and the capture of
+Wilmington, the control of the coast of the Confederacy became
+complete.
+The Southerners and their friends in Great Britain and the Bahamas (a
+group of friends whose sympathies for the cause were very much enhanced
+by the opportunity of making large profits out of their friendly
+relations) had shown during the years of the War exceptional ingenuity,
+daring, and persistence in carrying on the blockade-running. The ports
+of the British West Indies were very handy, and, particularly during
+the
+stormy months of the winter, it was hardly practicable to maintain an
+absolutely assured <a name="Page_168"></a>barrier of blockades along a
+line of coast
+aggregating about two thousand miles. The profits on a single voyage on
+the cotton taken out and on the stores brought back were sufficient to
+make good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three disastrous trips.
+The blockade-runners, Southerners and Englishmen, took their lives in
+their hands and they fairly earned all the returns that came to them. I
+happened to have early experience of the result of the fall of Fort
+Fisher and of the final closing of the last inlet for British goods. I
+was at the time in prison in Danville, Virginia. I was one of the few
+men in the prison (the group comprised about a dozen) who had been
+fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. We wore our tooth-brushes
+fastened into the front button-holes of our blouses, partly possibly
+from ostentation, but chiefly for the purpose of keeping them from
+being
+stolen. I was struck by receiving an offer one morning from the
+lieutenant of the prison guard of $300 for my tooth-brush. The
+"dollars"
+meant of course Confederate dollars and I doubtless hardly realised
+from
+the scanty information that leaked into the prison how low down in
+February, 1865, Confederate currency had depreciated. But still it was
+a
+large sum and the tooth-brush had been in use <a name="Page_169"></a>for
+a number of months.
+It then leaked out from a word dropped by the lieutenant that no more
+English tooth-brushes could get into the Confederacy and those of us
+who
+had been studying possibilities on the coast realised that Fort Fisher
+must have fallen.</p>
+<p>In this same month of February, into which were crowded some of the
+most
+noteworthy of the closing events of the War, Charleston was evacuated
+as
+Sherman's army on its sweep northward passed back of the city. I am not
+sure whether the fiercer of the old Charlestonians were not more
+annoyed
+at the lack of attention paid by Sherman to the fire-eating little city
+in which four years back had been fired the gun that opened the War,
+than they would have been by an immediate and strenuous occupation.
+Sherman had more important matters on hand than the business of looking
+after the original fire-eaters. He was hurrying northward, close on the
+heels of Johnston, to prevent if possible the combination of Johnston's
+troops with Lee's army which was supposed to be retreating from
+Virginia.</p>
+<p>On the 4th of March comes the second inaugural, in which Lincoln
+speaks
+almost in the language of a Hebrew prophet. The feeling is strong upon
+<a name="Page_170"></a>him that the clouds of war are about to roll
+away but he cannot free
+himself from the oppression that the burdens of the War have produced.
+The emphasis is placed on the all-important task of bringing the
+enmities to a close with the end of the actual fighting. He points out
+that responsibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the South and
+he invokes from those who under his leadership are bringing the contest
+to a triumphant close, their sympathy and their help for their
+fellow-men who have been overcome. The address is possibly the most
+impressive utterance ever made by a national leader and it is most
+characteristic of the fineness and largeness of nature of the man. I
+cite the closing paragraph:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>"If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in
+the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued
+through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He
+gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those
+by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure
+from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God
+always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
+this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills
+that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen
+in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
+until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by
+another <a name="Page_171"></a>drop of blood drawn by the War, as was
+said two thousand
+years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord
+are true, and righteous altogether.... With malice towards none,
+with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
+see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind
+up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the
+battle and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may
+achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and
+with all nations."</p>
+</div>
+<p>After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had been "a common cause,
+a
+common interest, and a common country." The invocation in this last
+inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common
+country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in
+the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the
+men of the grey and those of the blue.</p>
+<p>At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines
+cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of
+adjustment.
+Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no
+authority to discuss any political relations. On the first of April,
+the
+right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at
+Five Forks, and on <a name="Page_172"></a>the day following Richmond
+is evacuated by the
+rear-guard of Lee's army. The defence of Richmond during the long years
+of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the
+entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the
+patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always
+take
+a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of
+positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction
+of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic
+distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever
+disposition
+of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from
+month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact
+there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these
+things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the
+resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and
+character of Lee and his associates would however of course have been
+in
+vain and the lines would have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or
+in
+1862, if it had not been for the magnificent patience and heroism of
+the
+rank and file that fought in the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars
+and whose fighting during the last of those months <a name="Page_173"></a>was
+done in tattered
+uniforms and with a ration less by from one quarter to one half than
+that which had been accepted as normal.</p>
+<p>On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes are borne into
+Richmond by
+the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command
+of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision
+that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should
+be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the
+rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The
+Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping
+to
+be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified,
+for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as
+remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had
+left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and
+negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all
+authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the
+city
+was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored
+order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and
+consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, <a
+ name="Page_174"></a>when
+necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but
+not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been
+brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves
+into
+their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own
+street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate
+safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that
+the
+first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.</p>
+<p>Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and in spite of the
+apprehensions of nearly all his advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming
+down the river from Washington and making his way into the Rebel
+capital. There was no thought of vaingloriousness or of posing as the
+victor. He came under the impression that some civil authorities would
+probably have remained in Richmond with whom immediate measures might
+be
+taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to secure for the city and for
+the State a return of peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while not a
+great artist was inspired to produce during the War some of the most
+graphic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events,
+made a drawing which was purchased later by <a name="Page_175"></a>the
+New York Union League
+Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured
+folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowding about the man
+whom they hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic
+adoration
+trying to touch so much as the hem of his garment. The picture is
+history in showing what actually happened and it is pathetic history in
+recalling how great were the hopes that came to the coloured people
+from
+the success of the North and from the certainty of the end of slavery.
+It is sad to recall the many disappointments that during the forty
+years
+since the occupation of Richmond have hampered the uplifting of the
+race. Lincoln's hope that some representative of the Confederacy might
+have remained in Richmond, if only for the purpose of helping to bring
+to a close as rapidly as possible the waste and burdens of continued
+war, was not realised. The members of the Confederate government seem
+to
+have been interested only in getting away from Richmond and to have
+given no thought to the duty they owed to their own people to cooperate
+with the victors in securing a prompt return of law and order.</p>
+<p>On the 9th of April, came the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, four
+years, less three days, <a name="Page_176"></a>from the date of the
+firing of the first gun of
+the War at Charleston. The muskets turned in by the ragged and starving
+files of the remnants of Lee's army represented only a small portion of
+those which a few days earlier had been holding the entrenchments at
+Petersburg. As soon as it became evident that the army was not going to
+be able to break through the Federal lines and begin a fresh campaign
+in
+North Carolina, the men scattered from the retreating columns right and
+left, in many cases carrying their muskets to their own homes as a
+memorial fairly earned by plucky and persistent service. There never
+was
+an army that did better fighting or that was better deserving of the
+recognition, not only of the States in behalf of whose so-called
+"independence" the War had been waged, but on the part of opponents who
+were able to realise the character and the effectiveness of the
+fighting.</p>
+<p>The scene in the little farm-house where the two commanders met to
+arrange the terms of surrender was dramatic in more ways than one.
+General Lee had promptly given up his own baggage waggon for use in
+carrying food for the advance brigade and as he could save but one suit
+of clothes, he had naturally taken his best. He was, therefore,
+notwithstanding the fatigues <a name="Page_177"></a>and the privations
+of the past week, in
+full dress uniform. He was one of the handsomest men of his generation,
+and his beauty was not only of feature but of expression of character.
+Grant, who never gave much thought to his personal appearance, had for
+days been away from his baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping
+as near as possible to the front line with reference to the probability
+of being called to arrange terms for surrender, he had not found the
+opportunity of securing a proper coat in place of his fatigue blouse. I
+believe that even his sword had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow
+one for the occasion from a staff officer. When the main details of the
+surrender had been talked over, Grant looked about the group in the
+room, which included, in addition to two staff officers who had come
+with Lee, a group of five or six of his own assistants, who had managed
+to keep up with the advance, to select the aid who should write out the
+paper. His eye fell upon Colonel Ely Parker, a brigade commander who
+had
+during the past few months served on Grant's staff. "Colonel Parker, I
+will ask you," said Grant, "as the only real American in the room, to
+draft this paper." Parker was a full-blooded Indian, belonging to one
+of
+the Iroquois tribes of New York.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_178"></a>Grant's suggestion that the United States had
+no requirement for the
+horses of Lee's army and that the men might find these convenient for
+"spring ploughing" was received by Lee with full appreciation. The
+first
+matter in order after the completion of the surrender was the issue of
+rations to the starving Southern troops. "General Grant," said Lee, "a
+train was ordered by way of Danville to bring rations to meet my army
+and it ought to be now at such a point," naming a village eight or nine
+miles to the south-west. General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye,
+now put in a word: "The train from the south is there, General Lee, or
+at least it was there yesterday. My men captured it and the rations
+will
+be available." General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, a
+valued comrade, and rides slowly through the ranks first of the blue
+and
+then of the grey. Every hat came off from the men in blue as an
+expression of respect to a great soldier and a true gentleman, while
+from the ranks in grey there was one great sob of passionate grief and
+finally, almost for the first time in Lee's army, a breaking of
+discipline as the men crowded forward to get a closer look at, or
+possibly a grasp of the hand of, the great leader who had fought and
+failed but whose fighting and whose failure had been so magnificent.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="IX"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_179"></a>IX</h2>
+<p style="text-align: center;">LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED</p>
+<br>
+<p>On the 11th of April, Lincoln makes his last public utterance. In a
+brief address to some gathering in Washington, he says, "There will
+shortly be announcement of a new policy." It is hardly to be doubted
+that the announcement which he had in mind was to be concerned with the
+problem of reconstruction. He had already outlined in his mind the
+essential principles on which the readjustment must be made. In this
+same address, he points out that "whether or not the seceded States be
+out of the Union, they are out of their proper relations to the Union."
+We may feel sure that he would not have permitted the essential matters
+of readjustment to be delayed while political lawyers were arguing over
+the constitutional issue. On one side was the group which maintained
+that in instituting the Rebellion and in doing what was in their power
+to destroy the national existence, the people of the seceding States
+had
+forfeited all claims <a name="Page_180"></a>to the political liberty
+of their communities.
+According to this contention, the Slave States were to be treated as
+conquered territory, and it simply remained for the government of the
+United States to reshape this territory as might be found convenient or
+expedient. According to the other view, as secession was itself
+something which was not to be admitted, being, from the constitutional
+point of view, impossible, there never had in the legal sense of the
+term been any secession. The instant the armed rebellion had been
+brought to an end, the rebelling States were to be considered as having
+resumed their old-time relations with the States of the North and with
+the central government. They were under the same obligations as before
+for taxation, for subordination in foreign relations, and for the
+acceptance of the control of the Federal government on all matters
+classed as Federal. On the other hand, they were entitled to the
+privileges that had from the beginning been exercised by independent
+States: namely, the control of their local affairs on matters not
+classed as Federal, and they had a right to their proportionate
+representation in Congress and to their proportion of the electoral
+vote
+for President. It has been very generally recognised in the South <a
+ name="Page_181"></a>as in
+the North that if Lincoln could have lived, some of the most serious of
+the difficulties that arose during the reconstruction period through
+the
+friction between these conflicting theories would have been avoided.
+The
+Southerners would have realised that the head of the government had a
+cordial and sympathetic interest in doing what might be practicable not
+only to re-establish their relations as citizens of the United States,
+but to further in every way the return of their communities to
+prosperity, a prosperity which, after the loss of the property in their
+slaves and the enormous destruction of their general resources, seemed
+to be sadly distant.</p>
+<p>On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic tragedy ending on the day
+following in the death of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this
+instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation mourned for the loss
+of
+its leader, while the soldiers were stricken with grief that their
+great
+captain should have been struck down, while the South might well be
+troubled that the control and adjustment of the great interstate
+perplexities was not to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and
+patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after the four years of
+continuous toil and fearful burdens and anxieties might well have been
+grateful. <a name="Page_182"></a>The great task had been accomplished
+and the responsibilities
+accepted in the first inaugural had been fulfilled.</p>
+<p>In March, 1861, Lincoln had accepted the task of steering the nation
+through the storm of rebellion, the divided opinions and counsels of
+friends, and the fierce onslaught of foes at home and abroad. In April,
+1865, the national existence was assured, the nation's credit was
+established, the troops were prepared to return to their homes and
+resume their work as citizens. At no time in history had any people
+been
+able against such apparently overwhelming perils and difficulties to
+maintain a national existence. There was, therefore, notwithstanding
+the
+great misfortune, for the people South and North, in the loss of the
+wise ruler at a time when so many difficulties remained to be adjusted,
+a dramatic fitness in having the life of the leader close just as the
+last army of antagonists was laying down its arms. The first problem of
+the War that came to the administration of 1861 was that of restoring
+the flag over Fort Sumter. On the 14th of April, the day when Booth's
+pistol was laying low the President, General Anderson, who four years
+earlier had so sturdily defended Sumter, was fulfilling the duty of
+restoring the Stars and Stripes.</p>
+<p><a name="Page_183"></a>The news of the death of Lincoln came to the
+army of Sherman, with
+which my own regiment happened at the time to be associated, on the
+17th
+of April. On leaving Savannah, Sherman had sent word to the north to
+have all the troops who were holding posts along the coasts of North
+Carolina concentrated on a line north of Goldsborough. It was his dread
+that General Johnston might be able to effect a junction with the
+retreating forces of Lee and it was important to do whatever was
+practicable, either with forces or with a show of forces, to delay
+Johnston and to make such combination impossible. A thin line of
+Federal
+troops was brought into position to the north of Johnston's advance,
+but
+Sherman himself kept so closely on the heels of his plucky and
+persistent antagonist that, irrespective of any opposing line to the
+north, Johnston would have found it impossible to continue his progress
+towards Virginia. He was checked at Goldsborough after the battle of
+Bentonville and it was at Goldsborough that the last important force of
+the Confederacy was surrendered.</p>
+<p>We soldiers learned only later some of the complications that
+preceded
+that surrender. President Davis and his associates in the Confederate
+government had, with one exception, <a name="Page_184"></a>made their
+way south, passing to
+the west of Sherman's advance. The exception was Post-master-General
+Reagan, who had decided to remain with General Johnston. He appears to
+have made good with Johnston the claim that he, Reagan, represented all
+that was left of the Confederate government. He persuaded Johnston to
+permit him to undertake the negotiations with Sherman, and he had, it
+seems, the ambition of completing with his own authority the
+arrangements that were to terminate the War. Sherman, simple-hearted
+man
+that he was, permitted himself, for the time, to be confused by
+Reagan's
+semblance of authority. He executed with Reagan a convention which
+covered not merely the surrender of Johnston's army but the
+preliminaries of a final peace. This convention was of course made
+subject to the approval of the authorities in Washington. When it came
+into the hands of President Johnson, it was, under the counsel of
+Seward
+and Stanton, promptly disavowed. Johnson instructed Grant, who had
+reported to Washington from Appomattox, to make his way at once to
+Goldsborough and, relieving Sherman, to arrange for the surrender of
+Johnston's army on the terms of Appomattox. Grant's response was
+characteristic. He said in <a name="Page_185"></a>substance: "I am
+here, Mr. President, to
+obey orders and under the decision of the Commander-in-chief I will go
+to Goldsborough and will carry out your instructions. I prefer,
+however,
+to act as a messenger simply. I am entirely unwilling to take out of
+General Sherman's hands the command of the army that is so properly
+Sherman's army and that he has led with such distinctive success.
+General Sherman has rendered too great a service to the country to make
+it proper to have him now humiliated on the ground of a political
+blunder, and I at least am unwilling to be in any way a party to his
+humiliation."</p>
+<p>Stanton was disposed to approve of Johnson's first instruction and
+to
+have Sherman at once relieved, but the man who had just come from
+Appomattox was too strong with the people to make it easy to disregard
+his judgment on a matter which was in part at least military. The
+President was still new to his office and he was still prepared to
+accept counsel. The matter was, therefore, arranged as Grant desired.
+Grant took the instructions and had his personal word with Sherman, but
+this word was so quietly given that none of the men in Sherman's army,
+possibly no one but Sherman himself, knew of Grant's visit. Grant took
+pains so to arrange the last stage of <a name="Page_186"></a>his
+journey that he came into the
+camp at Goldsborough well after dark, and, after an hour's interview
+with Sherman, he made his way at once northward outside of our lines
+and
+of our knowledge.</p>
+<p>On Grant's arrival, Sherman at once assumed that he was to be
+superseded. "No, no," said Grant; "do you not see that I have come
+without even a sword? There is here no question of superseding the
+commander of this army, but simply of correcting an error and of
+putting
+things as they were. This convention must be cancelled. You will have
+no
+further negotiation with Mr. Reagan or with any civilian claiming to
+represent the Confederacy. Your transactions will be made with the
+commander of the Confederate army, and you will accept the surrender of
+that army on the terms that were formulated at Appomattox." Sherman was
+keen enough to understand what must have passed in Washington, and was
+able to appreciate the loyal consideration shown by General Grant in
+the
+successful effort to protect the honour and the prestige of his old
+comrade. The surrender was carried out on the 26th of April, eleven
+days
+after the death of Lincoln. Johnston's troops, like those of Lee, were
+distributed to their homes. The officers retained <a name="Page_187"></a>their
+side-arms, and
+the men, leaving their rifles, took with them not only such horses and
+mules as they still had with them connected with the cavalry or
+artillery, but also a number of horses and mules which had been
+captured
+by Sherman's army and which had not yet been placed on the United
+States
+army roster. Sherman understood, as did Grant, the importance of giving
+to these poor farmers whatever facilities might be available to enable
+them again to begin their home work. Word was at once sent to General
+Johnston after Grant's departure that the, only terms that could be
+considered was a surrender of the army, and that the details of such
+surrender Sherman would himself arrange with Johnston. Reagan slipped
+away southward and is not further heard of in history.</p>
+<p>The record of Lincoln's relations to the events of the War would not
+be
+complete without a reference to the capture of Jefferson Davis. On
+returning to Washington after his visit to Richmond, Lincoln had been
+asked what should be done with Davis when he was captured. The answer
+was characteristic: "I do not see," said Lincoln, "that we have any use
+for a white elephant." Lincoln's clear judgment had at once recognised
+the difficulties that would arise in <a name="Page_188"></a>case Davis
+should become a
+prisoner. The question as to the treatment of the ruler of the late
+Confederacy was very different from, and much more complicated than,
+the
+fixing of terms of surrender for the Confederate armies. If Davis had
+succeeded in getting out of the country, it is probable that the South,
+or at least a large portion of the South, would have used him as a kind
+of a scapegoat. Many of the Confederate soldiers were indignant with
+Davis for his bitter animosities to some of their best leaders. Davis
+was a capable man and had in him the elements of statesmanship. He was,
+however, vain and, like some other vain men, placed the most importance
+upon the capacities in which he was the least effective. He had had a
+brief and creditable military experience, serving as a lieutenant with
+Scott's army in Mexico, and he had impressed himself with the belief
+that he was a great commander. Partly on this ground, and partly
+apparently as a result of general "incompatibility of temper," Davis
+managed to quarrel at different times during the War with some of the
+generals who had shown themselves the most capable and the most
+serviceable. He would probably have quarrelled with Lee, if it had been
+possible for any one to make quarrel relations with that fine-<a
+ name="Page_189"></a>natured
+gentleman, and if Lee had not been too strongly entrenched in the
+hearts
+of his countrymen to make any interference with him unwise, even for
+the
+President. Davis had, however, managed to interfere very seriously with
+the operations of men like Beauregard, Sidney Johnson, Joseph Johnston,
+and other commanders whose continued leadership was most important for
+the Confederacy. It was the obstinacy of Davis that had protracted the
+War through the winter and spring of 1865, long after it was evident
+from the reports of Lee and of the other commanders that the resources
+of the Confederacy were exhausted and that any further struggle simply
+meant an inexcusable loss of life on both sides. As a Northern soldier
+who has had experience in Southern prisons, I may be excused also from
+bearing in mind the fearful responsibility that rests upon Davis for
+the
+mismanagement of those prisons, a mismanagement which caused the death
+of thousands of brave men on the frozen slopes of Belle Isle, on the
+foul floors of Libby and Danville, and on the rotten ground used for
+three years as a living place and as a dying place within the stockade
+at Andersonville. Davis received from month to month the reports of the
+conditions in these and in the other prisons of the Con<a
+ name="Page_190"></a>federacy. Davis
+could not have been unaware of the stupidity and the brutality of
+keeping prisoners in Richmond during the last winter of the War when
+the
+lines of road still open were absolutely inadequate to supply the
+troops
+in the trenches or the people of the town. Reports were brought to
+Davis
+more than once from Andersonville showing that a large portion of the
+deaths that were there occurring were due to the vile and rotten
+condition of the hollow in which for years prisoners had been huddled
+together; but the appeal made to Richmond for permission to move the
+stockade to a clean and dry slope was put to one side as a matter of no
+importance. The entire authority in the matter was in the hands of
+Davis
+and a word from him would have remedied some of the worst conditions.
+He
+must share with General Winder, the immediate superintendent of the
+prisons, the responsibility for the heedless and brutal
+mismanagement,&#8212;a mismanagement which brought death to thousands and
+which left thousands of others cripples for life.</p>
+<p>As a result of the informal word given by Lincoln, it was generally
+understood, by all the officers, at least, in charge of posts and
+picket
+lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured.
+Unfortunately it had not proved <a name="Page_191"></a>possible to get
+this informal
+expression of a very important piece of policy conveyed throughout the
+lines farther west. An enterprising and over-zealous captain of
+cavalry,
+riding across from the Mississippi to the coast, heard of Davis's party
+in Florida and, "butting in," captured, on May 10th, "the white
+elephant."</p>
+<p>The last commands of the Confederate army were surrendered with
+General
+Taylor in Louisiana on the 4th of May and with Kirby Smith in Texas on
+the 26th of May. As Lincoln had foreshadowed, not a few complications
+resulted from this unfortunate capture of Davis, complications that
+were
+needlessly added to by the lack of clear-headedness or of definite
+policy on the part of a confused and vacillating President. During the
+months in which Davis was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, and while the
+question of his trial for treason was being fiercely debated in
+Washington, the sentiment of the Confederacy naturally concentrated
+upon
+its late President. He was, as the single prisoner, the surviving
+emblem
+of the contest. His vanities, irritability, and blunders were
+forgotten.
+It was natural that, under the circumstances, his people, the people of
+the South, should hold in memory only the fact that he had been their
+leader and that <a name="Page_192"></a>he had through four strenuous
+years borne the burdens
+of leadership with unflagging zeal, with persistent courage, and with
+an
+almost foolhardy hopefulness. He had given to the Confederacy the best
+of his life, and he was entitled to the adoration that the survivors of
+the Confederacy gave to him as representing the ideal of the lost cause.</p>
+<p>The feeling with which Lincoln was regarded by the men in the front,
+for
+whom through the early years of their campaigning he had been not only
+the leader but the inspiration, was indicated by the manner in which
+the
+news of his death was received. I happened myself on the day of those
+sad tidings to be with my division in a little village just outside of
+Goldsborough, North Carolina. We had no telegraphic communication with
+the North, but were accustomed to receive despatches about noon each
+day, carried across the swamps from a station through which connection
+was made with Wilmington and the North. In the course of the morning, I
+had gone to the shanty of an old darky whom I had come to know during
+the days of our sojourn, for the purpose of getting a shave. The old
+fellow took up his razor, put it down again and then again lifted it
+up,
+but his arm was shaking and I saw that he was <a name="Page_193"></a>so
+agitated that he was
+not fitted for the task. "Massa," he said, "I can't shave yer this
+mornin'." "What is the matter?" I inquired. "Well," he replied,
+"somethin's happened to Massa Linkum." "Why!" said I, "nothing has
+happened to Lincoln. I know what there is to be known. What are you
+talking about?" "Well!" the old man replied with a half sob, "we
+coloured folks&#8212;we get news or we get half news sooner than you-uns. I
+dun know jes' what it is, but somethin' has gone wrong with Massa
+Linkum." I could get nothing more out of the old man, but I was
+sufficiently anxious to make my way to Division headquarters to see if
+there was any news in advance of the arrival of the regular courier.
+The
+coloured folks were standing in little groups along the village street,
+murmuring to each other or waiting with anxious faces for the bad news
+that they were sure was coming. I found the brigade adjutant and those
+with him were puzzled like myself at the troubled minds of the darkies,
+but still sceptical as to the possibility of any information having
+reached them which was not known through the regular channels.</p>
+<p>At noon, the courier made his appearance riding by the wood lane
+across
+the fields; and the instant he was seen we all realised that there was
+<a name="Page_194"></a>bad news. The man was hurrying his pony and yet
+seemed to be very
+unwilling to reach the lines where his report must be made. In this
+instance (as was, of course, not usually the case) the courier knew
+what
+was in his despatches. The Division Adjutant stepped out on the porch
+of
+the headquarters with the paper in his hand, but he broke down before
+he
+could begin to read. The Division Commander took the word and was able
+simply to announce: "Lincoln is dead." The word "President" was not
+necessary and he sought in fact for the shortest word. I never before
+had found myself in a mass of men overcome by emotion. Ten thousand
+soldiers were sobbing together. No survivor of the group can recall the
+sadness of that morning without again being touched by the wave of
+emotion which broke down the reserve and control of these war-worn
+veterans on learning that their great captain was dead.</p>
+<p>The whole people had come to have with the President a relation
+similar
+to that which had grown up between the soldiers and their
+Commander-in-chief. With the sympathy and love of the people to sustain
+him, Lincoln had over them an almost unlimited influence. His capacity
+for toil, his sublime patience, his wonderful endur<a name="Page_195"></a>ance,
+his great mind
+and heart, his out-reaching sympathies, his thoughtfulness for the
+needs
+and requirements of all, had bound him to his fellow-citizens by an
+attachment of genuine sentiment. His appellation throughout the country
+had during the last year of the war become "Father Abraham." We may
+recall in the thought of this relation to the people the record of
+Washington. The first President has come into history as the "Father of
+his Country," but for Washington this r&ocirc;le of father is something
+of
+historic development. During Washington's lifetime, or certainly at
+least during the years of his responsibilities as General and as
+President, there was no such general recognition of the leader and
+ruler
+as the father of his country. He was dear to a small circle of
+intimates; he was held in respectful regard by a larger number of those
+with whom were carried on his responsibilities in the army, and later
+in
+the nation's government. To many good Americans, however, Washington
+represented for years an antagonistic principle of government. He was
+regarded as an aristocrat and there were not a few political leaders,
+with groups of voters behind them, who dreaded, and doubtless honestly
+dreaded, that the influence of Washington might be utilised to build up
+in this country <a name="Page_196"></a>some fresh form of the monarchy
+that had been
+overthrown. The years of the Presidency had to be completed and the
+bitter antagonisms of the seven years' fighting and of the issues of
+the
+Constitution-building had to be outgrown, before the people were able
+to
+recognise as a whole the perfect integrity of purpose and consistency
+of
+action of their great leader, the first President. Even then when the
+animosities and suspicions had died away, while the people were ready
+to
+honour the high character and the accomplishments of Washington, the
+feeling was one of reverence rather than of affection. This sentiment
+gave rise later to the title of the "Father of his Country"; but there
+was no such personal feeling towards Washington as warranted, at least
+during his life, the term father of the people. Thirty years later, the
+ruler of the nation is Andrew Jackson, a man who was, like Lincoln,
+eminently a representative of the common people. His fellow-citizens
+knew that Jackson understood their feelings and their methods and were
+ready to have full confidence in Jackson's patriotism and honesty of
+purpose. His nature lacked, however, the sweet sympathetic qualities
+that characterised Lincoln; and while to a large body of his
+fellow-citizens he commended himself <a name="Page_197"></a>for
+sturdiness, courage, and
+devotion to the interests of the state, he was never able for himself
+to
+overcome the feeling that a man who failed to agree with a Jackson
+policy must be either a knave or a fool. He could not place himself in
+the position from which the other fellow was thinking or acting. He
+believed that it was his duty to maintain what he held to be the
+popular
+cause against the "schemes of the aristocrats," the bugbear of that
+day.
+He was a fighter from his youth up and his theory of government was
+that
+of enforcing the control of the side for which he was the partisan.
+Such
+a man could never be accepted as the father of the people.</p>
+<p>Lincoln, coming from those whom he called the common people, feeling
+with their feelings, sympathetic with their needs and ideals, was able
+in the development of his powers to be accepted as the peer of the
+largest intellects in the land. While knowing what was needed by the
+poor whites of Kentucky, he could understand also the point of view of
+Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. In place of emphasising antagonisms,
+he held consistently that the highest interest of one section of the
+country must be the real interest of the whole people, and that the
+ruler of the nation had upon him the responsibility of so shaping the
+<a name="Page_198"></a>national policy that all the people should
+recognise the government as
+their government. It was this large understanding and width of sympathy
+that made Lincoln in a sense which could be applied to no other ruler
+of
+this country, the people's President, and no other ruler in the world
+has ever been so sympathetically, so effectively in touch with all of
+the fellow-citizens for whose welfare he made himself responsible. The
+Latin writer, Aulus Gellius, uses for one of his heroes the term "a
+classic character." These words seem to me fairly to apply to Abraham
+Lincoln.</p>
+<p>An appreciative Englishman, writing in the London <i>Nation</i> at
+the time
+of the Centennial commemoration, says of Lincoln:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>The greatness of Lincoln was that of a common man raised to a high
+dimension. The possibility, still more the existence, of such a man
+is itself a justification of democracy. We do not say that so
+independent, so natural, so complete a man cannot in older societies
+come to wield so large a power over the affairs and the minds of
+men; we can only say that amid all the stirring movements of the
+nineteenth century he has not so done. The existence of what may be
+called a widespread commonalty explains the rarity of personal
+eminence in America. <a name="Page_199"></a>There has been and still
+remains a higher
+general level of personality than in any European country, and the
+degree of eminence is correspondingly reduced. It is just because
+America has stood for opportunity that conspicuous individuals have
+been comparatively rare. Strong personality, however, has not been
+rare; it is the abundance of such personality that has built up
+silently into the rising fabric of the American Commonwealth,
+pioneers, roadmakers, traders, lawyers, soldiers, teachers, toiling
+terribly over the material and moral foundation of the country, few
+of whose names have emerged or survived. Lincoln was of this stock,
+was reared among these rude energetic folk, had lived all those
+sorts of lives. He was no "sport"; his career is a triumphant
+refutation of the traditional views of genius. He had no special
+gift or quality to distinguish him; he was simply the best type of
+American at a historic juncture when the national safety wanted such
+a man. The confidence which all Americans express that their country
+will be equal to any emergency which may threaten it, is not so
+entirely superstitious as it seems at first sight. For the career of
+Lincoln shows how it has been done in a country where the "necessary
+man" can be drawn not from a few leading families, or an educated
+class, but from the millions.</p>
+</div>
+<p>Rabbi Schechter, in an eloquent address de<a name="Page_200"></a>livered
+at the Centennial
+celebration, speaks of Lincoln's personality as follows:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>The half century that has elapsed since Lincoln's death has
+dispelled the mists that encompassed him on earth. Men now not only
+recognise the right which he championed, but behold in him the
+standard of righteousness, of liberty, of conciliation, and truth.
+In him, as it were personified, stands the Union, all that is best
+and noblest and enduring in its principles in which he devoutly
+believed and served mightily to save. When to-day, the world
+celebrates the century of his existence, he has become the ideal of
+both North and South, of a common country, composed not only of the
+factions that once confronted each other in war's dreadful array,
+but of the myriad thousands that have since found in the American
+nation the hope of the future and the refuge from age-entrenched
+wrong and absolutism. To them, Lincoln, his life, his history, his
+character, his entire personality, with all its wondrous charm and
+grace, its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweetness, has
+come to be the very prototype of a rising humanity.</p>
+</div>
+<p>Carl Schurz, himself a man of large nature and wide and sympathetic
+comprehension, says of Lincoln:</p>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>In the most conspicuous position of the period, Lincoln drew upon<a
+ name="Page_201"></a>
+himself the scoffs of polite society; but even then he filled the
+souls of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur.
+It was distinctly the weird mixture in him of qualities and forces,
+of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that
+which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that
+made him so fascinating a character among his fellow-men, that gave
+him his singular power over minds and hearts, that fitted him to be
+the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national life.</p>
+<p>He possessed the courage to stand alone&#8212;that courage which is the
+first requisite of leadership in a great cause. The charm of
+Lincoln's oratory flooded all the rare depth and genuineness of his
+convictions and his sympathetic feelings were the strongest element
+in his nature. He was one of the greatest Americans and the best of
+men.</p>
+</div>
+<p>The poet Whittier writes:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>The weary form that rested not</p>
+<p>Save in a martyr's grave;</p>
+<p>The care-worn face that none forgot,</p>
+<p>Turned to the kneeling slave.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>We rest in peace where his sad eyes</p>
+<p>Saw peril, strife, and pain;</p>
+<p>His was the awful sacrifice,</p>
+<p>And ours the priceless gain.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><a name="Page_202"></a>Says Bryant:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>That task is done, the bound are free,</p>
+<p>We bear thee to an honoured grave,</p>
+<p>Whose noblest monument shall be</p>
+<p>The broken fetters of the slave.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Pure was thy life; its bloody close</p>
+<p>Hath blessed thee with the sons of light,</p>
+<p>Among the noble host of those</p>
+<p>Who perished in the cause of right.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>Says Lowell:</p>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>Our children shall behold his fame,</p>
+<p>The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,</p>
+<p>Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame;</p>
+<p>New birth of our new soil, the first American.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p>Ordinary men die when their physical life is brought to a close, if
+perhaps not at once, yet in a brief space, with the passing of the
+little circle of those to whom they were dear.</p>
+<p>The man of distinction lives for a time after death. His
+achievements
+and his character are held in appreciative remembrance by the community
+and the generation he has served. The waves of his influence ripple out
+in a somewhat wider circle before being lost in the ocean of time. We
+call that man great to whom it is given so to <a name="Page_203"></a>impress
+himself upon his
+fellow-men by deed, by creation, by service to the community, by
+character, by the inspiration from on high that has been breathed
+through his soul, that he is not permitted to die. Such a man secures
+immortality in this world. The knowledge and the influence of his life
+are extended throughout mankind and his memory gathers increasing fame
+from generation to generation.</p>
+<p>It is thus that men are to-day honouring the memory of Abraham
+Lincoln.
+To-day, one hundred years after his birth, and nearly half a century
+since the dramatic close of his life's work, Lincoln stands enshrined
+in
+the thought and in the hearts of his countrymen. He is our "Father
+Abraham," belonging to us, his fellow-citizens, for ideals, for
+inspiration, and for affectionate regard; but he belongs now also to
+all
+mankind, for he has been canonised among the noblest of the world's
+heroes.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_204"></a>
+<a name="APPENDIX"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_205"></a>APPENDIX</h2>
+<a name="THE_ADDRESS_OF_ABRAHAM_LINCOLN"></a>
+<h2>THE ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN</h2>
+<p>Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York,</p>
+<p>February 27, 1860.</p>
+<br>
+<p>With Introduction by Charles C. Nott; Historical and Analytical
+Notes by
+Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, and with the Correspondence
+between
+Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott as Representative of the Committee of the
+Young
+Men's Republican Union.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_206"></a>
+<a name="INTRODUCTORY_NOTE"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_207"></a>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</h2>
+<br>
+<p>The address delivered by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in
+February,
+1860 in response to the invitation of certain representative New
+Yorkers, was, as well in its character as in its results, the most
+important of all of his utterances.</p>
+<p>The conscientious study of the historical and constitutional record,
+and
+the arguments and conclusions based upon the analysis of this record,
+were accepted by the Republican leaders as constituting the principles
+and the policy to be maintained during the Presidential campaign of
+1860, a campaign in which was involved not merely the election of a
+President, but the continued existence of the republic.</p>
+<p>Under the wise counsels represented by the words of Lincoln, the
+election was fought out substantially on two contentions:</p>
+<p>First, that the compact entered into by the Fathers and by their
+immediate successors should be loyally carried out, and that slavery
+should not be interfered with in the original slave States, or in the
+additional territory that had been conceded to it under the Missouri
+Compromise; and, secondly, that not a single further square mile of
+soil, that was still free, should <a name="Page_208"></a>be left
+available, or should be made
+available, for the incursion of slavery.</p>
+<p>It was the conviction of Lincoln and of his associates, as it had
+been
+the conviction of the Fathers, that under such a restriction slavery
+must certainly in the near future come to an end. It was because these
+convictions, both in the debates with Douglas and in the Cooper
+Institute speech, were presented by Lincoln more forcibly and more
+conclusively than had been done by any other political leader, that
+Lincoln secured the nomination and the presidency. The February address
+was assuredly a deciding factor in the great issue of the time, and it
+certainly belongs, therefore, with the historic documents of the
+republic.</p>
+<p>G.H.P.</p>
+<p>NEW YORK, September 1, 1909.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="CORRESPONDENCE_WITH_LINCOLN_NOTT_AND_BRAINERD"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_209"></a>CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, AND
+BRAINERD</h2>
+<p>(<i>From Robert Lincoln</i>)</p>
+<div class="blkquot">MANCHESTER, VERMONT,
+<p>July 27, 1909.</p>
+<p>DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:</p>
+<p>Your letter of July 23rd reaches me here, and I beg to express my
+thanks for your kind remembrances of me in London.... I am much
+interested in learning that you were present at the time my father
+made his speech at Cooper Institute. I, of course, remember the
+occasion very well, although I was not present. I was at that time
+in the middle of my year at Phillips Exeter Academy, preparing for
+the Harvard entrance examination of the summer of 1860.... After the
+Cooper Institute address, my father came to Exeter to see how I was
+getting along, and this visit resulted in his making a number of
+speeches in New England on his way and on his return, and at Exeter
+he wrote to my mother a letter which was mainly concerned with me,
+but which did make reference to these speeches.... He said that he
+had had some embarrassment with these New England speeches, because
+in coming East he had <a name="Page_210"></a>anticipated making no
+speech excepting the
+one at the Cooper Institute, and he had not prepared himself for
+anything else.... In the later speeches, he was addressing reading
+audiences who had, as he thought probable, seen the report of his
+Cooper Institute speech, and he was obliged, therefore, from day to
+day (he made about a dozen speeches in New England in all) to bear
+that fact in mind.</p>
+<p>Sincerely yours,</p>
+<p>ROBERT LINCOLN.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<p>(<i>From Judge Nott</i>)</p>
+<div class="blkquot">WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.,
+<p>July 26, 1909.</p>
+<p>DEAR PUTNAM:</p>
+<p>I consider it very desirable that the report of Mr. Lincoln's
+speech, embodying the final revision, should be preserved in book
+form.... The text in the pamphlet now in your hands is authentic and
+conclusive. Mr. Lincoln read the proof both of the address and of
+the notes. I am glad that you are to include in your reprint the
+letters from Mr. Lincoln, as these letters authenticate this copy of
+the address as the copy which was corrected by him with his own
+hand....</p>
+<p>The preface to the address, written in September, 1860, has interest
+because it shows what we thought of the address at that time....
+Your worthy <a name="Page_211"></a>father was, if I remember rightly,
+one of the
+vice-presidents of the meeting....</p>
+<p>Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p>CHARLES C. NOTT.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<p><i>(From Cephas Brainerd)</i></p>
+<div class="blkquot">NEW YORK, August 18, 1909.
+<p>DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:</p>
+<p>I am very glad to learn that there is good prospect that the real
+Lincoln Cooper Institute address, with the evidence in regard to it,
+will now be available for the public.... I am glad also that with
+the address you are proposing to print the letters received by Judge
+Nott from Mr. Lincoln. One or two of these have, unfortunately, not
+been preserved. I recall in one an observation made by Lincoln to
+the effect that he "was not much of a literary man."</p>
+<p>I did not see much of Mr. Lincoln when he was in New York, as my
+most active responsibility in regard to the meeting was in getting
+up an audience.... I remember in handing some weeks earlier to John
+Sherman, who, like Lincoln, had never before spoken in New York,
+five ten-dollar gold pieces, that he said he "had not expected his
+expenses to be paid." At a lunch that was given to Sherman a long
+time afterward, I referred to that meeting. Sherman cocked his eye
+at me and said: "Yes, I remember it very well; I never was so scar't
+in all my life." ...</p>
+<a name="Page_212"></a>
+<p>The observations of Judge Nott in regard to the meeting are about
+as just as anything that has ever been put into print, and as I
+concur fully in the accuracy of these recollections, I do not
+undertake to give my own impressions at any length. I was expecting
+to hear some specimen of Western stump-speaking as it was then
+understood. You will, of course, observe that the speech contains
+nothing of the kind. I do remember, however, that Lincoln spoke of
+the condition of feeling between the North and the South.... He
+refers to the treatment which Northern men received in the South,
+and he remarked, parenthetically, that he had never known of a man
+who had been able "to whip his wife into loving him," an observation
+that produced laughter.</p>
+<p>In making up the notes, we ransacked, as you may be sure, all the
+material available in the libraries in New York, and I also had
+interviews as to one special point with Mr. Bancroft, with Mr.
+Hildreth, and with Dr. William Goodell, who was in those times a
+famous anti-slavery man.</p>
+<p>Your father<a name="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a>
+and William Curtis Noyes were possibly more
+completely in sympathy than any other two men in New York, with the
+efforts of these younger men; they impressed me as standing in that
+respect on the same plane. The next man to them was Charles Wyllis
+Elliott, the author of a <i>History of New England</i>. We never went
+to
+your father <a name="Page_213"></a>for advice or assistance when he
+failed to help us, and
+he was always so kindly and gentle in what he did and said that
+every one of us youngsters acquired for him a very great affection.
+He always had time to see us and was always on hand when he was
+wanted, and if we desired to have anything, we got it if he had it.
+Neither your father, nor Mr. Noyes, nor for that matter Mr. Elliott,
+ever suggested that we were "young" or "fresh" or anything of that
+sort. The enthusiasm which young fellows have was always recognised
+by these men as an exceedingly valuable asset in the cause....
+Pardon all this from a "veteran," and believe me,</p>
+<p>Sincerely yours,</p>
+<p>CEPHAS BRAINERD.</p>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_214"></a>
+<a name="INTRODUCTION"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_215"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+<p>BY CHARLES C. NOTT</p>
+<br>
+<p>The Cooper Institute address is one of the most important addresses
+ever
+delivered in the life of this nation, for at an eventful time it
+changed
+the course of history. When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the evening of
+February 27, 1860, he had held no administrative office; he had
+endeavoured to be appointed Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he
+had sought to be elected United States Senator, and had been defeated;
+he had been a member of Congress, yet it was not even remembered; he
+was
+a lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, but had not
+reached the front rank of the Illinois Bar. The record which Mr.
+Lincoln
+himself placed in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still be
+taken as the record of his public and official life: "Born February
+12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective. Profession
+a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.
+Postmaster in a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois
+Legislature and a member of the lower house of Congress." Was this the
+record of a man who should be made the head of a <a name="Page_216"></a>nation
+in troubled
+times? In the estimation of thoughtful Americans east of the
+Alleghanies
+all that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in regarding him as
+only "a Western stump orator"&#8212;successful, distinguished, but nothing
+higher than that&#8212;a Western stump orator, who had dared to brave one of
+the strongest men in the Western States, and who had done so with
+wonderful ability and moral success. When Mr. Lincoln closed his
+address
+he had risen to the rank of statesman, and had stamped himself a
+statesman peculiarly fitted for the exigency of the hour.</p>
+<p>Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided at the meeting; and a number of
+the
+first and ablest citizens of New York were present, among them Horace
+Greeley. Mr. Greeley was pronounced in his appreciation of the address;
+it was the ablest, the greatest, the wisest speech that had yet been
+made; it would reassure the conservative Northerner; it was just what
+was wanted to conciliate the excited Southerner; it was conclusive in
+its argument, and would assure the overthrow of Douglas. Mr. Horace
+White has recently written: "I chanced to open the other day his Cooper
+Institute speech. This is one of the few printed speeches that I did
+not
+hear him deliver in person. As I read the concluding pages of that
+speech, the conflict of opinion that preceded the conflict of arms then
+sweeping upon the country like an approaching solar eclipse seemed
+prefigured <a name="Page_217"></a>like a chapter of the Book of Fate.
+Here again he was the
+Old Testament prophet, before whom Horace Greeley bowed his head,
+saying
+that he had never listened to a greater speech, although he had heard
+several of Webster's best." Later, Mr. Greeley became the leader of the
+Republican forces opposed to the nomination of Mr. Seward and was
+instrumental in concentrating those forces upon Mr. Lincoln.
+Furthermore, the great New York press on the following morning carried
+the address to the country, and before Mr. Lincoln left New York he was
+telegraphed from Connecticut to come and aid in the campaign of the
+approaching spring election. He went, and when the fateful moment came
+in the Convention, Connecticut was one of the Eastern States which
+first
+broke away from the Seward column and went over to Mr. Lincoln. When
+Connecticut did this, the die was cast.</p>
+<p>It is difficult for younger generations of Americans to believe that
+three months before Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency he was
+neither appreciated nor known in New York. That fact can be better
+established by a single incident than by the opinions and assurances of
+a dozen men.</p>
+<p>After the address had been delivered, Mr. Lincoln was taken by two
+members of the Young Men's Central Republican Union&#8212;Mr. Hiram Barney,
+afterward Collector of the Port of New York, and Mr. Nott, one of the
+subsequent editors of the ad<a name="Page_218"></a>dress&#8212;to their club,
+The Athen&aelig;um, where
+a very simple supper was ordered, and five or six Republican members of
+the club who chanced to be in the building were invited in. The supper
+was informal&#8212;as informal as anything could be; the conversation was
+easy and familiar; the prospects of the Republican party in the coming
+struggle were talked over, and so little was it supposed by the
+gentlemen who had not heard the address that Mr. Lincoln could possibly
+be the candidate that one of them, Mr. Charles W. Elliott, asked,
+artlessly: "Mr. Lincoln, what candidate do you really think would be
+most likely to carry Illinois?" Mr. Lincoln answered by illustration:
+"Illinois is a peculiar State, in three parts. In northern Illinois,
+Mr.
+Seward would have a larger majority than I could get. In middle
+Illinois, I think I could call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. In
+southern Illinois, it would make no difference who was the candidate."
+This answer was taken to be merely illustrative by everybody except,
+perhaps, Mr. Barney and Mr. Nott, each of whom, it subsequently
+appeared, had particularly noted Mr. Lincoln's reply.</p>
+<p>The little party broke up. Mr. Lincoln had been cordially received,
+but
+certainly had not been flattered. The others shook him by the hand and,
+as they put on their overcoats, said: "Mr. Nott is going down town and
+he will show you the way to the Astor House." Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott
+started on foot, but the <a name="Page_219"></a>latter observing that
+Mr. Lincoln was
+apparently Walking with some difficulty said, "Are you lame, Mr.
+Lincoln?" He replied that he had on new boots and they hurt him. The
+two
+gentlemen then boarded a street car. When they reached the place where
+Mr. Nott would leave the car on his way home, he shook Mr. Lincoln by
+the hand and, bidding him good-bye, told him that this car would carry
+him to the side door of the Astor House. Mr. Lincoln went on alone, the
+only occupant of the car. The next time he came to New York, he rode
+down Broadway to the Astor House standing erect in an open barouche
+drawn by four white horses. He bowed to the patriotic thousands in the
+street, on the sidewalks, in the windows, on the house-tops, and they
+cheered him as the lawfully elected President of the United States and
+bade him go on and, with God's help, save the Union.</p>
+<p>His companion in the street car has often wondered since then what
+Mr.
+Lincoln thought about during the remainder of his ride that night to
+the
+Astor House. The Cooper Institute had, owing to a snowstorm, not been
+full, and its intelligent, respectable, non-partisan audience had not
+rung out enthusiastic applause like a concourse of Western auditors
+magnetised by their own enthusiasm. Had the address&#8212;the most carefully
+prepared, the most elaborately investigated and demonstrated and
+verified of all the work of his life&#8212;been a failure? <a name="Page_220"></a>But
+in the matter
+of quality and ability, if not of quantity and enthusiasm, he had never
+addressed such an audience; and some of the ablest men in the Northern
+States had expressed their opinion of the address in terms which left
+no
+doubt of the highest appreciation. Did Mr. Lincoln regard the address
+which he had just delivered to a small and critical audience as a
+success? Did he have the faintest glimmer of the brilliant effect which
+was to follow? Did he feel the loneliness of the situation&#8212;the want of
+his loyal Illinois adherents? Did his sinking heart infer that he was
+but a speck of humanity to which the great city would never again give
+a
+thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; unadorned, apparently
+uncultivated, showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His
+dress that night before a New York audience was the most unbecoming
+that
+a fiend's ingenuity could have devised for a tall, gaunt man&#8212;a black
+frock coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and
+arms&#8212;a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled
+throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that
+night
+more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more
+conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know
+that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition,
+sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze
+upon the very pinnacle of <a name="Page_221"></a>American fame and
+aspire to it in a time so
+troubled that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. What
+were
+this man's thoughts when he was left alone? Did a faint shadow of the
+future rest upon his soul? Did he feel in some mysterious way that on
+that night he had crossed the Rubicon of his life-march&#8212;that care and
+trouble and political discord, and slander and misrepresentation and
+ridicule and public responsibilities, such as hardly ever before
+burdened a conscientious soul, coupled with war and defeat and
+disaster,
+were to be thenceforth his portion nearly to his life's end, and that
+his end was to be a bloody act which would appall the world and send a
+thrill of horror through the hearts of friends and enemies alike, so
+that when the woeful tidings came the bravest of the Southern brave
+should burst into tears and cry aloud, "Oh! the unhappy South, the
+unhappy South!"</p>
+<p>The impression left on his companion's mind as he gave a last glance
+at
+him in the street car was that he seemed sad and lonely; and when it
+was
+too late, when the car was beyond call, he blamed himself for not
+accompanying Mr. Lincoln to the Astor House&#8212;not because he was a
+distinguished stranger, but because he seemed a sad and lonely man.</p>
+<p><i>February 12, 1908</i>.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="Page_222"></a>
+<a name="CORRESPONDENCE_WITH_MR_LINCOLN"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_223"></a>CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. LINCOLN</h2>
+<div class="blkquot">69 Wall St., New York,
+<p>February 9, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>The "Young Men's Central Republican Union" of this city very
+cordially desire that you should deliver during the ensuing
+month&#8212;what I may term&#8212;<i>a political lecture</i>. The peculiarities of
+the case are these&#8212;A series of lectures has been determined
+upon&#8212;The first was delivered by Mr. Blair of St. Louis a short time
+ago&#8212;the second will be in a few days by Mr. C.M. Clay, and the
+third we would prefer to have from you, rather than from any other
+person. Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an
+ordinary political meeting. These lectures have been <i>contrived</i>
+to
+call out our better, but busier citizens, who never attend political
+meetings. A large part of the audience would also consist of ladies.
+The time we should prefer, would be about the middle of March, but
+if any earlier or later day will be more convenient for you we would
+alter our arrangements.</p>
+<p>Allow me to hope that we shall have the pleasure of welcoming you to
+New York. You are, I believe, <a name="Page_224"></a>an entire
+stranger to your Republican
+brethren here; but they have, for you, the highest esteem, and your
+celebrated contest with Judge Douglas awoke their warmest sympathy
+and admiration. Those of us who are "in the ranks" would regard your
+presence as very material aid, and as an honor and pleasure which I
+cannot sufficiently express.</p>
+<p>Respectfully,</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">To Hon. Abram Lincoln.
+<p>69 Wall St., New York,</p>
+<p>May 23, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>I enclose a copy of your address in New York.</p>
+<p>We (the Young Men's Rep. Union) design to publish a new edition in
+larger type and better form, with such notes and references as will
+best attract readers seeking information. Have you any memoranda of
+your investigations which you would approve of inserting?</p>
+<p>You and your Western friends, I think, underrate this speech. It has
+produced a greater effect here than any other single speech. It is
+the real platform in the Eastern States, and must carry the
+conservative element in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.</p>
+<p>Therefore I desire that it should be as nearly perfect as may be.
+Most of the emendations are trivial and do not affect the
+substance&#8212;all are merely suggested for your judgment.</p>
+<a name="Page_225"></a>
+<p>I cannot help adding that this speech is an extraordinary example
+of condensed English. After some experience in criticising for
+Reviews, I find hardly anything to touch and nothing to omit. It is
+the only one I know of which I cannot <i>shorten</i>, and&#8212;like a good
+arch&#8212;moving one word tumbles a whole sentence down.</p>
+<p>Finally&#8212;it being a bad and foolish thing for a candidate to write
+letters, and you having doubtless more to do of that than is
+pleasant or profitable, we will not add to your burden in that
+regard, but if you will let any friend who has nothing to do, advise
+us as to your wishes, in this or any other matter, we will try to
+carry them out.</p>
+<p>Respectfully,</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+<p>Springfield, Ills., May 31, 1860.</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott, Esq.</p>
+<p><i>My Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>Yours of the 23rd, accompanied by a copy of the speech delivered by
+me at the Cooper Institute, and upon which you have made some notes
+for emendations, was received some days ago&#8212;Of course I would not
+object to, but would be pleased rather, with a more perfect edition
+of that speech.</p>
+<p>I did not preserve memoranda of my investigations; and I could not
+now re-examine, and make <a name="Page_226"></a>notes, without an
+expenditure of time
+which I can not bestow upon it&#8212;Some of your notes I do not
+understand.</p>
+<p>So far as it is intended merely to improve in grammar, and elegance
+of composition, I am quite agreed; but I do not wish the sense
+changed, or modified, to a hair's breadth&#8212;And you, not having
+studied the particular points so closely as I have, can not be quite
+sure that you do not change the sense when you do not intend it&#8212;For
+instance, in a note at bottom of first page, you propose to
+substitute "Democrats" for "Douglas"&#8212;But what I am saying there is
+<i>true</i> of Douglas, and is not true of "Democrats" generally; so
+that
+the proposed substitution would be a very considerable blunder&#8212;Your
+proposed insertion of "residences" though it would do little or no
+harm, is not at all necessary to the sense I was trying to
+convey&#8212;On page 5 your proposed grammatical change would certainly
+do no harm&#8212;The "<i>impudently absurd"</i> I stick to&#8212;The striking out
+"<i>he"</i> and inserting "<i>we"</i> turns the sense exactly wrong&#8212;The
+striking out "<i>upon it</i>" leaves the sense too general and
+incomplete&#8212;The sense is "act as they acted <i>upon that question</i>
+"&#8212;not as they acted generally.</p>
+<p>After considering your proposed changes on page 7, I do not think
+them material, but I am willing to defer to you in relation to them.</p>
+<p>On page 9, striking out "<i>to us</i>" is probably right&#8212;The word
+"<i>lawyer's"</i> I wish retained. The word "<a name="Page_227"></a><i>Courts"</i>
+struck out twice,
+I wish reduced to "Court" and retained&#8212;"Court" as a collection more
+properly governs the plural "have" as I understand&#8212;"The" preceding
+"Court," in the latter case, must also be retained&#8212;The words
+"quite," "as," and "or" on the same page, I wish retained. The
+italicising, and quotation marking, I have no objection to.</p>
+<p>As to the note at bottom, I do not think any too much is
+admitted&#8212;What you propose on page 11 is right&#8212;I return your copy
+of the speech, together with one printed here, under my own hasty
+supervising. That at New York was printed without any supervision by
+me&#8212;If you conclude to publish a new edition, allow me to see the
+proof-sheets.</p>
+<p>And now thanking you for your very complimentary letter, and your
+interest for me generally, I subscribe myself.</p>
+<p>Your friend and servant,</p>
+<p>A. Lincoln.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">69 Wall Street, New York.
+<p>August 28, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>Mr. Judd insists on our printing the revised edition of your Cooper
+Ins. speech <i>without waiting to send you the</i> proofs.</p>
+<p>If this is so determined, I wish you to know, that <a
+ name="Page_228"></a>I have made no
+alterations other than those you sanctioned, except&#8212;</p>
+<p>1. I do not find that Abraham Baldwin voted on the Ordinance of '87.
+On the contrary he appears <i>not</i> to have acted with Congress
+during
+the sitting of the Convention. Wm. Pierce seems to have taken his
+place then; and his name is recorded as voting for the Ordinance.
+This makes no difference in the result, but I presume you will not
+wish the historical inaccuracy (if it is such) to stand. I will
+therefore (unless you write to the contrary) strike out his name in
+that place and reduce the number from "four" to "three" where you
+sum up the number of times he voted.</p>
+<p>2. In the quotations from the Constitution I have given its exact
+language; as "delegated" instead of "granted," etc. As it is given
+in <i>quo</i>. marks, I presume the exact letter of the text should be
+followed.</p>
+<p><i>If these are not correct please write immediately</i>.</p>
+<p><i>Our</i> apology for the delay is that we have been weighed down
+by
+other matters; <i>mine</i> that I have but to-day returned to town.</p>
+<p>Respectfully,</p>
+<p>Charles C. Nott.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<div class="blkquot">To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+<a name="Page_229"></a>
+<p>69 WALL STREET, N.Y.</p>
+<p>Sept. 17, 1860.</p>
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>We forward you by this day's express 250 copies, with the last
+corrections. I delayed sending, thinking that you would prefer these
+to those first printed.</p>
+<p>The "Abraham Baldwin letter" referred to in your last I regret to
+say has <i>not</i> arrived. From your not touching the proofs in that
+regard, I inferred (and hope) that the correction was not itself an
+error.</p>
+<p>Should you wish a larger number of copies do not hesitate to let us
+know; it will afford us much pleasure to furnish them and no
+inconvenience whatever.</p>
+<p>Respectfully, etc.,</p>
+<p>CHARLES C. NOTT.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="blkquot">Hon. A. Lincoln.
+<br>
+<hr>
+<p>SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., Sept. 22, 1860.</p>
+<p>CHARLES C. NOTT, Esq.,</p>
+<p><i>My Dear Sir</i>:</p>
+<p>Yours of the 17th was duly received&#8212;The 250 copies have not yet
+arrived&#8212;I am greatly obliged to you for what you have done, and
+what you propose to do.</p>
+<p>The "Abraham Baldwin letter" in substance was that I could not find
+the Journal of the Confederation Congress for the session at which
+was passed the <a name="Page_230"></a>Ordinance of 1787&#8212;and that in
+stating Mr. Baldwin
+had voted for its passage, I had relied on a communication of Mr.
+Greeley, over his own signature, published in the New York <i>Weekly
+Tribune</i> of October 15, 1859. If you will turn to that paper, you
+will there see that Mr. Greeley apparently copies from the Journal,
+and places the name of Mr. Baldwin among those of the men who voted
+for the measure.</p>
+<p>Still; if the Journal itself shows differently, of course it is
+right.</p>
+<p>Yours very truly,</p>
+<p>A. LINCOLN.</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<center><a name="Page_231"></a>
+The Address of<br>
+<br>
+<b>THE HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,</b><br>
+<br>
+<p style="text-align: center;">In Vindication of the Policy of the
+Framers of the
+Constitution<br>
+and the Principles of the
+Republican Party.</p>
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860.<br>
+Issued by the Young Men's Republican Union.<br>
+<br>
+With Notes by<br>
+CHARLES C. NOTT and CEPHAS BRAINERD,<br>
+Members of the Board of Control.<br>
+<br>
+<b>OFFICERS OF THE UNION</b><br>
+<a name="Page_232"></a><br>
+CHARLES T. RODGERS, <i>President</i>.<br>
+DEXTER A. HAWKINS, <i>Vice-President</i>.<br>
+ERASMUS STERLING, <i>Secretary</i>.<br>
+WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, <i>Treasurer</i>.<br>
+<br>
+<b>EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE</b><br>
+<br>
+CEPHAS BRAINERD, <i>Chairman</i>.<br>
+BENJAMIN P. MANIERRE,<br>
+RICHARD C. McCORMICK,<br>
+CHARLES C. NOTT,<br>
+CHARLES H. COOPER,<br>
+P.G. DEGRAW,<br>
+JAMES H. WELSH,<br>
+E.C. JOHNSON,<br>
+LEWIS M. PECK.<br>
+<br>
+<b>ADVISORY BOARD</b><br>
+<br>
+WM. CULLEN BRYANT,<br>
+DANIEL DREW,<br>
+HIRAM BARNEY,<br>
+WILLIAM V. BRADY,<br>
+JOHN JAY,<br>
+GEORGE W. BLUNT,<br>
+HENRY A. HURLBUT,<br>
+ABIJAH MANN, JR.,<br>
+HAMILTON FISH,<br>
+FRANCIS HALL,<br>
+HORACE GREELEY,<br>
+CHARLES A. PEABODY,<br>
+EDGAR KETCHUM,<br>
+JAMES KELLY,<br>
+GEORGE FOLSOM,<br>
+WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES,<br>
+BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE.<br>
+</center>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="PREFACE"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_233"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+<br>
+<p>This edition of Mr. Lincoln's address has been prepared and
+published by
+the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, to exemplify its wisdom,
+truthfulness, and learning. No one who has not actually attempted to
+verify its details can understand the patient research and historical
+labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is
+scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters;
+and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and
+in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not
+travelled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every
+trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln
+has turned from the testimony of "the Fathers," on the general question
+of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the
+first line to the last&#8212;from his premises to his conclusion, he travels
+with swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled&#8212;an
+argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and
+without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A
+single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon <a name="Page_234"></a>words
+contains a
+chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to
+verify and which must have cost the author months of investigation to
+acquire. And, though the public should justly estimate the labor
+bestowed on the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the
+greater
+labor involved on those which are omitted&#8212;how many pages have been
+read&#8212;how many works examined&#8212;what numerous statutes, resolutions,
+speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked through. Commencing
+with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as
+an historical work&#8212;brief, complete, profound, impartial,
+truthful&#8212;which will survive the time and the occasion that called it
+forth, and be esteemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth than
+its unpretending modesty.</p>
+<p>NEW YORK, <i>September</i>, 1860.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="ADDRESS"></a>
+<h2><a name="Page_235"></a>ADDRESS</h2>
+<div class="blkquot">
+<p>MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:&#8212;The facts with which
+I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall
+be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and
+the inferences and observations following that presentation.</p>
+<p>In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New
+York <i>Times</i>, Senator Douglas said:</p>
+<p>"<i>Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we
+live,
+understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
+now</i>."</p>
+<p>I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I
+so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed
+starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of
+the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the
+inquiry: "<i>What was the understanding those fathers had of the
+question mentioned</i>?"</p>
+<p>What is the frame of Government under which we live?</p>
+<p>The answer must be: "The Constitution of the United States." That
+Constitution consists of the <a name="Page_236"></a>original, framed
+in 1787, (and under
+which the present Government first went into operation,) and twelve
+subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed
+in 1789.<a name="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
+"thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly
+called our fathers who framed that part of the present Government.
+It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is
+altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and
+sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being
+familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be
+repeated.<a name="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+<p>I take these "thirty-nine" for the present, as being "our fathers
+who framed the Government under which we live."</p>
+<p>What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?</p>
+<p>It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal
+authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid <i>our Federal
+Government</i> to control as to slavery in <i>our Federal Territories</i>?</p>
+<p>Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans
+the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this
+issue&#8212;this question&#8212;is precisely what the text declares our
+fathers understood "better than we."</p>
+<a name="Page_237"></a>
+<p>Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever
+acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon
+it&#8212;how they expressed that better understanding.</p>
+<p>In 1784, three years before the Constitution&#8212;the United States then
+owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other,<a name="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_6_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> the Congress of
+the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting
+slavery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who
+afterward framed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh
+Williamson voted for the prohibition,<a name="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_7_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> thus showing that, in their
+understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+to slavery in federal territory. The other of the four&#8212;James
+M'Henry&#8212;voted against the prohibition, showing that, for some
+cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.<a name="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_8_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+<p>In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the Convention was
+in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still
+was the only territory owned by the United States, the same question
+of prohibiting Slavery in the Territories again came before the
+Congress of the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who
+afterward signed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+on the question. They were William Blount and William Few<a
+ name="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9"><sup>[9]</sup></a>; <a
+ name="Page_238"></a>and
+they both voted for the prohibition&#8212;thus showing that, in their
+understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+to slavery in federal territory. This time, the prohibition became a
+law, being part of what is now well known as the Ordinance of
+'87.<a name="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The question of federal control of slavery in the territories, seems
+not to have been directly before the Convention which framed the
+original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
+"thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
+expressed any opinion on that precise question.<a name="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_11_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a></p>
+<p>In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an
+act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the
+prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for
+this act was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas
+Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
+Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of
+opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
+which is equivalent to an unanimous passage.<a name="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_12_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> In this Congress,
+there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
+original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm.
+S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William <a name="Page_239"></a>Paterson,
+George Clymer,
+Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+Madison.<a name="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+<p>This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly
+forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory; else
+both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support
+the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the
+prohibition.</p>
+<p>Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then
+President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed
+the bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing
+that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from federal
+authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.</p>
+<p>No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution,
+North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now
+constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia
+ceded that which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and
+Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the
+ceding States that the Federal Government should not prohibit
+slavery in the ceded country.<a name="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_14_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> Besides this, slavery was
+then
+actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress,
+on taking charge of these countries, did not <a name="Page_240"></a>absolutely
+prohibit
+slavery within them. But they did interfere with it&#8212;take control of
+it&#8212;even there to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized the
+Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization, they
+prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory, from any place
+without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so
+brought.<a name="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a>
+This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas
+and nays. In that Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who
+framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George
+Read and Abraham Baldwin.<a name="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_16_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> They all, probably, voted
+for it.
+Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record,
+if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from federal
+authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.</p>
+<p>In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
+former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
+but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In
+1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
+which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying
+within that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There
+were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
+extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people. Congress
+did not, in the Territorial <a name="Page_241"></a>Act, prohibit
+slavery; but they did
+interfere with it&#8212;take control of it&#8212;in a more marked and
+extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi. The
+substance of the provision therein made, in relation to slaves, was:</p>
+<p><i>First</i>. That no slave should be imported into the territory
+from
+foreign parts.</p>
+<p><i>Second</i>. That no slave should be carried into it who had been
+imported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.</p>
+<p><i>Third</i>. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the
+owner, and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the
+cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the
+slave.<a name="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
+<p>This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress
+which passed it, there were two of the "thirty-nine." They were
+Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton.<a name="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_18_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> As stated in the case of
+Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. They would not
+have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition to it,
+if, in their understanding, it violated either the line properly
+dividing local from federal authority, or any provision of the
+Constitution.</p>
+<p>In 1819-20, came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes were
+taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the
+various phases of the general question. Two of the
+"thirty-nine"&#8212;Rufus King and Charles Pinckney&#8212;were members <a
+ name="Page_242"></a>of
+that Congress.<a name="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a>
+Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition
+and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted
+against slavery prohibition and against all compromises. By this,
+Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing local
+from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was
+violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in federal territory; while
+Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed that, in his understanding, there
+was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that
+case.<a name="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine,"
+or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
+discover.</p>
+<p>To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
+in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+1819-20&#8212;there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting
+John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
+Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of
+those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the
+question, which, by the text, they understood better than we, is
+twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in
+anyway.<a name="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
+official respon<a name="Page_243"></a>sibility and their corporal
+oaths, acted upon the
+very question which the text affirms they "understood just as well,
+and even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them&#8212;a clear
+majority of the whole "thirty-nine"&#8212;so acting upon it as to make
+them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if,
+in their understanding, any proper division between local and
+federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made
+themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to
+control as to slavery in the federal territories. Thus the
+twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
+actions under such responsibility speak still louder.</p>
+<p>Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+slavery in the federal territories, in the instances in which they
+acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
+known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division
+of local from federal authority, or some provision or principle of
+the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
+question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to
+them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to
+support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he
+understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he
+may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which
+he deems constitutional, if, at the <a name="Page_244"></a>same time,
+he deems it
+inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two
+who voted against the prohibition, as having done so because, in
+their understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.<a
+ name="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have
+discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
+direct question of federal control of slavery in the federal
+territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
+understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
+from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
+all.<a name="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a></p>
+<p>For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
+omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers
+who framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I
+have also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by
+any of the "thirty-nine" even, on any other phase of the general
+question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and
+declarations on those other phases, as the foreign slave trade, and
+the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would appear to us
+that on the direct question of federal control of slavery in federal
+territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would <a
+ name="Page_245"></a>probably
+have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were
+several of the most noted anti-slavery men of those times&#8212;as Dr.
+Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris&#8212;while there was
+not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John
+Rutledge, of South Carolina.<a name="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_24_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed
+the original Constitution, twenty-one&#8212;a clear majority of the
+whole&#8212;certainly understood that no proper division of local from
+federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the
+Federal Government to control slavery in the federal territories;
+while all the rest probably had the same understanding. Such,
+unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the
+original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the
+question "better than we."</p>
+<p>But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
+question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In
+and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it;
+and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government
+under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve
+amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist
+that federal control of slavery in federal territories violates the
+Constitution, point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus
+violates; and, as I understand, they <a name="Page_246"></a>all fix
+upon provisions in
+these amendatory articles and not in the original instrument. The
+Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the
+fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of
+"life, liberty or property without due process of law"; while
+Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the
+tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the
+United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States
+respectively, or to the people."<a name="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_25_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+Congress which sat under the Constitution&#8212;the identical Congress
+which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of
+slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the same
+Congress, but they were the identical same individual men who, at
+the same session, and at the same time within the session had under
+consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional
+amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory
+the nation then owned. The Constitutional amendments were introduced
+before, and passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so
+that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance,
+the Constitutional amendments were also pending.<a name="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_26_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a></p>
+<p>The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+framers of the original Constitu<a name="Page_247"></a>tion, as before
+stated, were
+pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government
+under which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal
+Government to control slavery in the federal territories.</p>
+<p>Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm
+that the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and
+carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent
+with each other? And does not such affirmation become impudently
+absurd when coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth,
+that those who did the two things, alleged to be inconsistent,
+understood whether they really were inconsistent better than
+we&#8212;better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent?</p>
+<p>It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the
+original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
+which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
+include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
+Government under which we live."<a name="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_27_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> And so assuming, I defy any
+man
+to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that,
+in his understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. I go
+a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the
+whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of <a name="Page_248"></a>the
+present
+century, (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last
+half of the present century,) declare that, in his understanding,
+any proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of
+the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+slavery in the federal territories. To those who now so declare, I
+give, not only "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live," but with them all other living men within the century in
+which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be
+able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.</p>
+<p>Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I
+do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
+fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current
+experience&#8212;to reject all progress&#8212;all improvement. What I do say
+is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers
+in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and
+argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly
+considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case
+whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better
+than we.</p>
+<p>If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of
+local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
+forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
+federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
+position by all <a name="Page_249"></a>truthful evidence and fair
+argument which he can.
+But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to
+history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
+"our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," were
+of the same opinion&#8212;thus substituting falsehood and deception for
+truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day
+sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the Government under
+which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which
+ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local
+from federal authority or some part of the Constitution, forbids the
+Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal
+territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time,
+brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
+understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
+especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that
+they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we
+do now."</p>
+<p>But enough! <i>Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed
+the
+Government under which we live, understood this question just as
+well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act
+as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask&#8212;all Republicans
+desire&#8212;in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let
+it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
+tolerated and protected only <a name="Page_250"></a>because of and so
+far as its actual
+presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
+Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly,
+but fully and fairly maintained</i>. For this Republicans contend, and
+with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.</p>
+<p>And now, if they would listen&#8212;as I suppose they will not&#8212;I would
+address a few words to the Southern people.</p>
+<p>I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you
+speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
+or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing
+to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
+In all your contentions with one another each of you deems an
+unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first
+thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be
+an indispensable prerequisite&#8212;licence, so to speak&#8212;among you to be
+admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be
+prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just
+to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and
+specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
+justify.</p>
+<p>You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the
+burden of proof is upon you. <a name="Page_251"></a>You produce your
+proof; and what is
+it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section&#8212;gets no
+votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it
+prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change
+of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the
+truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact
+that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and
+not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
+primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by
+some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong
+principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to
+where you ought to have started&#8212;to a discussion of the right or
+wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would
+wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object,
+then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly
+opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of
+whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section;
+and so meet us as if it were possible that something may be said on
+our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe
+<a name="Page_252"></a>that the principle which "our fathers who framed
+the Government
+under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and
+indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so
+clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's
+consideration.</p>
+<p>Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
+sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less
+than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as
+President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
+Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
+Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that
+subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and
+about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he
+considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same
+connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy
+of free States.<a name="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a></p>
+<br>
+<p>Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself
+speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that
+warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+example pointing to the right application of it.</p>
+<a name="Page_253"></a>
+<p>But you say you are conservative&#8212;eminently conservative&#8212;while we
+are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is
+conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the
+new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who
+framed the Government under which we live"; while you with one
+accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist
+upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves
+as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new
+propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and
+denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for
+reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional
+Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the
+Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for
+maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some
+for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave
+another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular
+Sovereignty"; but never a man among you in favor of federal
+prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the
+practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+advocate in the century within which our Government originated.
+Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism <a name="Page_254"></a>for
+yourselves,
+and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most
+clear and stable foundations.</p>
+<p>Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than
+it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but
+we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded
+the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your
+innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question.
+Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go
+back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same
+conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt
+the precepts and policy of the old times.</p>
+<p>You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny
+it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown
+was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
+Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our
+party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it.
+If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man
+and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for
+asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after
+you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told
+that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is
+simply malicious slander.<a name="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_29_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
+<a name="Page_255"></a>
+<p>Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
+the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and
+declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it.
+We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which was
+not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under
+which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
+affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near
+at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
+charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in
+those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not
+quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at
+least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it
+to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and
+declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any
+interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your
+slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do,
+in common with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which
+we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves
+do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the
+slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe
+they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your
+misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political
+contests among yourselves, each faction <a name="Page_256"></a>charges
+the other with
+sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the
+charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood
+and thunder among the slaves.</p>
+<p>Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
+insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three
+times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry?<a
+ name="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a>
+You can
+scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that
+Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present
+state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or
+even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The
+indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have
+no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black
+or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in
+parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the
+indispensable connecting trains.</p>
+<p>Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for
+their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A
+plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to
+twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a
+favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and
+the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case
+occurring under peculiar circumstances,<a name="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_31_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> The gunpowder plot of
+<a name="Page_257"></a>British history, though not connected with
+slaves, was more in
+point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret;
+and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the
+plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.
+Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy
+assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score
+or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but
+no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this
+country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such
+an event, will be alike disappointed.</p>
+<p>In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is
+still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and
+deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil
+will wear off insensibly; and their places be, <i>pari passu</i>,
+filled
+up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force
+itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."<a
+ name="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a></p>
+<p>Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia;
+and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding
+States only. The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the
+power of restraining the extension of the institution&#8212;the power to
+insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American
+soil which is now free from slavery.</p>
+<a name="Page_258"></a>
+<p>John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.
+It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
+which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd
+that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
+could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
+the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings
+and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
+till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He
+ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
+execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's
+attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the
+same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case,
+and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of
+the two things.</p>
+<p>And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
+Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
+organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
+nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against
+slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
+votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling&#8212;that
+sentiment&#8212;by breaking up the political organization which rallies
+around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has
+been formed into order in the face of <a name="Page_259"></a>your
+heaviest fire; but if
+you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which
+created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some
+other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the
+number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?</p>
+<p>But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
+your Constitutional rights.<a name="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_33_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a></p>
+<p>That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if
+not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of
+numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the
+Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.</p>
+<p>When you make these declarations, you have a specific and
+well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of
+yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them
+there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the
+Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such
+right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
+in the Constitution, even by implication.</p>
+<p>Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the
+Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
+Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and
+us. You will rule or ruin in all events.</p>
+<p>This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the
+Supreme Court has decided the <a name="Page_260"></a>disputed
+Constitutional question in
+your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction
+between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for
+you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your
+Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories,
+and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made
+in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare
+majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another
+in the reasons for making it;<a name="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_34_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> that it is so made as that
+its
+avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and
+that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact&#8212;the
+statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is
+distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."<a
+ name="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a></p>
+<p>An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
+property in a slave is not "<i>distinctly</i> and <i>expressly</i>
+affirmed"
+in it. Bear in mind, the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion
+that such right is <i>impliedly</i> affirmed in the Constitution; but
+they pledge their veracity that it is "<i>distinctly</i> and <i>expressly</i>"
+affirmed there&#8212;"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything
+else&#8212;"expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the
+aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.</p>
+<p>If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to
+others to show that neither <a name="Page_261"></a>the word "slave"
+nor "slavery" is to be
+found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any
+connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery,
+and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is
+called a "person";&#8212;and wherever his master's legal right in
+relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor
+which may be due,"&#8212;as a debt payable in service or labor.<a
+ name="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a>
+Also,
+it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode
+of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was
+employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that
+there could be property in man.</p>
+<p>To show all this, is easy and certain.<a name="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_37_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a></p>
+<p>When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their
+notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
+mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?</p>
+<p>And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the
+Government under which we live"&#8212;the men who made the
+Constitution&#8212;decided this same Constitutional question in our
+favor, long ago&#8212;decided it without division among themselves, when
+making the decision; without division among themselves about the
+meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is
+left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.</p>
+<p>Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
+justified to break up this Government, <a name="Page_262"></a>unless
+such a court decision
+as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final
+rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a
+Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will
+destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having
+destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a
+pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver
+or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"</p>
+<p>To be sure, what the robber demanded of me&#8212;my money&#8212;was my own;
+and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than
+my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my
+money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my
+vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.</p>
+<p>A few words now to Republicans. <i>It is exceedingly desirable that
+all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in
+harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it
+so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and
+ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as
+listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to
+them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can</i>.<a
+ name="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a>
+Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of
+their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will
+satisfy them.</p>
+<p>Will they be satisfied if the Territories be uncondi<a
+ name="Page_263"></a>tionally
+surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present
+complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them,
+if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and
+insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we
+never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+denunciation.</p>
+<p>The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must
+not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we
+do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We
+have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our
+organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches
+we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this
+has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince
+them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any
+attempt to disturb them.</p>
+<p>These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery <i>wrong</i>,
+and join them in calling it <i>right</i>. And this must be done
+thoroughly&#8212;done in <i>acts</i> as well as in <i>words</i>. Silence
+will not
+be tolerated&#8212;we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator
+Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing
+all declarations <a name="Page_264"></a>that slavery is wrong, whether
+made in politics,
+in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return
+their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our
+Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected
+from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to
+believe that all their troubles proceed from us.</p>
+<p>I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, <i>do</i>
+nothing
+to us, and <i>say</i> what you please about slavery." But we do let
+them
+alone&#8212;have never disturbed them&#8212;so that, after all, it is what we
+say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of
+doing, until we cease saying.</p>
+<p>I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the
+overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions.<a name="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a
+ href="#Footnote_39_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> Yet those
+Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn
+emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these
+other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these
+Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the
+demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the
+whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason
+they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this
+consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right,
+and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national
+recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.<a
+ name="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a></p>
+<a name="Page_265"></a>
+<p>Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
+acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and
+should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly
+object to its nationality&#8212;its universality; if it is wrong, they
+cannot justly insist upon its extension&#8212;its enlargement. All they
+ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
+ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.<a
+ name="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a>
+Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise
+fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
+they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as
+being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
+Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view
+of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do
+this?</p>
+<p>Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
+where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
+its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
+prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to
+overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids
+this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let
+us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith
+we are so industriously plied and belabored&#8212;contrivances such as
+groping for some middle ground between the right <a name="Page_266"></a>and
+the wrong,
+vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor
+a dead man&#8212;such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about
+which all true men do care&#8212;such as Union appeals beseeching true
+Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and
+calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance&#8212;such as
+invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington
+said, and undo what Washington did.</p>
+<p>Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT
+RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO
+OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Page_267"></a>
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><a name="INDEX"></a>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+<b>A</b><br>
+<br>
+Andersonville, responsibility for, <a href="#Page_190">190</a><br>
+Andrew, John. A., <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br>
+Antietam, battle of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br>
+Appomattox, the surrender at, <a href="#Page_177">177 ff.</a><br>
+Atlanta, capture of, <a href="#Page_151">151</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>B</b><br>
+<br>
+Bahamas, trade of the, with the Confederacy, <a href="#Page_167">167
+ff.</a><br>
+Banks, General N.P., <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br>
+Bazaine, General, in command of French army in Mexico, <a
+ href="#Page_156">156</a><br>
+Belle Isle, the prison of, <a href="#Page_189">189</a><br>
+Bentonville, battle of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br>
+Bixby, Mrs., letter to, from Lincoln, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br>
+"Black Republicans," the, <a href="#Page_250">250</a><br>
+Blair, Prank P., difficulties with, <a href="#Page_161">161</a><br>
+Blount, William, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Border States, the, and emancipation, <a href="#Page_114">114 ff.</a><br>
+Bragg, Gen. Braxton, <a href="#Page_136">136 ff.</a><br>
+Brainerd, Cephas, on the Cooper Union address, <a href="#Page_211">211</a><br>
+Brown, John, raid of, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br>
+Bryant on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_202">202</a><br>
+Buckner, Gen. S.B., <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br>
+Bull Run, second battle of, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br>
+Burnside, Gen. Ambrose F.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Army of the Potomac, <a
+ href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the defence of Knoxville, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137</a></span><br>
+Butler, Benjamin F., <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>C</b><br>
+<br>
+Cabinet, cabals in the, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br>
+Cedar Creek, the battle of, <a href="#Page_150">150 ff.</a><br>
+Chancellorsville, battle of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a><br>
+Charleston, evacuation of, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br>
+Chase, Salmon P.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Presidential election of 1864, <a
+ href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resignation of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appointed chief justice, <a
+ href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">efforts of, for the Presidency, <a
+ href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">difficulties with, in the Cabinet, <a
+ href="#Page_161">161</a></span><br>
+Chickamauga, battle of, <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br>
+Clay, Cassius M., <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br>
+Congress and slavery in the Territories, <a href="#Page_246">246 ff.</a><br>
+Constitution,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the 13th amendment to, <a
+ href="#Page_163">163 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defined by Lincoln, <a href="#Page_236">236
+ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and property in slaves, <a
+ href="#Page_260">260 ff.</a></span><br>
+"Crocker, Master", <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br>
+Curtin, Gov. A.G., <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br>
+Curtis, Gen. S.R., <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>D</b><br>
+<br>
+Danville, the prison of, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_189">189 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mortality in, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></span><br>
+Davis, Jefferson, and Benj. F. Butler, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865,
+<a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">capture of, <a href="#Page_"></a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the other leaders of the South, <a
+ href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the management of the Southern</span><br>
+prisons, <a href="#Page_190">190 ff;</a><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as a prisoner and martyr, <a
+ href="#Page_191">191</a></span><br>
+Douglas, Stephen A., and the debate with Lincoln, cited, <a
+ href="#Page_235">235</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the sedition act, <a
+ href="#Page_263">263</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Dred Scott decision, <a
+ href="#Page_246">246</a></span><br>
+Dred Scott case, the, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>E</b><br>
+<br>
+Early, Jubal A., raid of on Washington, <a href="#Page_142">142 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the battle of Winchester, <a
+ href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the battle of Cedar Creek, <a
+ href="#Page_150">150</a></span><br>
+Elliott, Charles W., <a href="#Page_213">213</a><br>
+Emancipation Proclamation, the, <a href="#Page_115">115 ff.</a><br>
+Enfield rifles, use of, by Confederates, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>F</b><br>
+<br>
+Farragut, Admiral D.G., <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br>
+Few, William, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Fisher, Fort, capture of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a><br>
+Fitzsimmons, Thomas, <a href="#Page_238">238</a><br>
+Floyd, General John B., <a href="#Page_99">99</a><br>
+Franklin, battle of, <a href="#Page_151">151 ff.</a><br>
+Franklin, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>G</b><br>
+<br>
+Georgia, cession of territory by, <a href="#Page_239">239</a><br>
+Gettysburg, campaign of, <a href="#Page_132">132 ff.</a><br>
+Goldsborough, surrender of Johnston's army at, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br>
+Goodell, Dr. Wm., <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br>
+Grant, Gen. U.S., captures Fort Donelson, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Vicksburg campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Chattanooga campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_136">136</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commander of the armies, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggested for the Presidency, <a
+ href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">declines to consider terms of peace, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Appomattox, <a href="#Page_177">177
+ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_184">184
+ff.</a></span><br>
+Greeley, Horace, <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br>
+Greene, Frank V., on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_106">106</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>H</b><br>
+<br>
+Halleck, Gen. H.W., <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br>
+Hallowell, Col. Norwood, <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br>
+Hamilton, Alexander, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+Hancock, Gen. W.S., <a href="#Page_127">127</a><br>
+Harper's Ferry, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">John Brown's raid at, <a
+ href="#Page_254">254</a></span><br>
+Helper, H.R., the "Impending Crisis" of, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br>
+Hewitt, Abram S., <a href="#Page_99">99 ff.</a><br>
+Higginson, Col. T.W., <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br>
+Hood, Gen. John B., <a href="#Page_151">151 ff.</a><br>
+Hooker, Gen. Joseph, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>,
+<a href="#Page_130">130 ff.</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>I</b><br>
+<br>
+Intervention of France and England threatened, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>J</b><br>
+<br>
+Jefferson, Thomas, on emancipation, <a href="#Page_257">257</a><br>
+Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_183">183</a> ft.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>K</b><br>
+<br>
+King, Rufus, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br>
+Knoxville, siege of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>L</b><br>
+<br>
+Lee, Gen. Robert E. and the Antietam campaign, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the campaign of Gettysburg, <a
+ href="#Page_130">130 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the defence of Virginia, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposes treaty of peace, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">defeated at Five Forks, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Appomattox, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></span><br>
+Libby prison, Presidential election in, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mortality in, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">record of, <a href="#Page_189">189 ff.</a></span><br>
+Lincoln, Abraham, and Hewitt, A.S., <a href="#Page_100">100 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes to "Master Crocker", <a
+ href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as commander-in-chief, <a
+ href="#Page_103">103 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the death penalty for soldiers, <a
+ href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">campaign methods of McClellan, <a
+ href="#Page_125">125 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, appointing Hooker, <a
+ href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to Grant on the fall of Vicksburg, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address of, at Gettysburg, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, to Mrs. Bixby, <a
+ href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">re-election of, as President, <a
+ href="#Page_157">157</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the exchange of prisoners, <a
+ href="#Page_158">158 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the control of the administration, <a
+ href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865,
+<a href="#Page_162">162 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second inaugural of, <a
+ href="#Page_169">169 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last public address of, <a
+ href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the proposed capture of Jefferson
+Davis, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, reported to the army at
+Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">comparison of, with Washington and
+Jackson, <a href="#Page_195">195 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cooper Union address of, <a
+ href="#Page_205">205 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes to Nott, <a href="#Page_225">225
+ff.</a></span><br>
+Lincoln, Robert, on the Cooper Union address, <a href="#Page_209">209</a><br>
+Longstreet, Gen. James, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+Lookout Mountain, battle of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+Louisiana, purchase of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br>
+Lowell on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_202">202</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>M</b><br>
+<br>
+Maximilian, Prince, and the invasion of Mexico, <a href="#Page_156">156</a><br>
+McClellan, Gen. George B. <a href="#Page_102">102 ff.</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Antietam campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_122">122 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ordered to report to New Jersey, <a
+ href="#Page_126">126</a></span><br>
+Meade, Gen. Geo. G., <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a><br>
+Mifflin, Thomas, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Milliken's Bend, battle of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a><br>
+Minnesota, troops from, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">university of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></span><br>
+Missionary Ridge, battle of, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br>
+Mississippi, organisation of the Territory of, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br>
+Missouri, admission of, <a href="#Page_241">241</a><br>
+Missouri Compromise, the, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_38">38</a><br>
+Monocacy Creek, battle of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br>
+Morgan, Gen. John, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br>
+Morris, Gouverneur, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>N</b><br>
+<br>
+Napoleon, Louis, and the invasion of Mexico, <a href="#Page_156">156</a><br>
+Nashville, battle of, <a href="#Page_151">151 ff.</a><br>
+<i>Nation</i>, the London, on the character of Lincoln, <a
+ href="#Page_198">198 ff.</a><br>
+New Orleans, capture of, <a href="#Page_111">111 ff.</a><br>
+Nineteenth Army Corps and Early's raid, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br>
+North Carolina, cession of territory by, <a href="#Page_239">239</a><br>
+Northwestern Territory, the, of the U.S., <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Nott, Chas. C.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction to the Cooper Union
+address, <a href="#Page_215">215 ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter of, to Lincoln, <a
+ href="#Page_224">224 ff.</a></span><br>
+Noyes, Wm. Curtis, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>O</b><br>
+<br>
+Ordinance of 1787, <a href="#Page_238">238 ff.</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>P</b><br>
+<br>
+Pea Ridge, battle of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br>
+Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, <a href="#Page_162">162</a><br>
+Pickett, Gen. G.E., <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br>
+Pinckney, Charles, <a href="#Page_241">241 ff.</a><br>
+Pope, Gen. John, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a><br>
+Port Hudson, surrender of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br>
+Presidential election in Libby prison, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br>
+Prisoners, the exchange of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br>
+Putnam, George Palmer, and the Cooper Union address, <a
+ href="#Page_212">212</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>R</b><br>
+<br>
+Reagan, Postmaster-general, at Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br>
+Reconstruction, Lincoln's views on, <a href="#Page_180">180 ff.</a><br>
+Republican party, the, and slavery in the Territories, <a
+ href="#Page_249">249 ff.</a><br>
+Republican Union, the Young Men's, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_232">232</a><br>
+Reynolds, Gen. J.T., <a href="#Page_127">127</a><br>
+Rosecrans, Gen. Wm. S., and the Chattanooga campaign, <a
+ href="#Page_136">136</a><br>
+Rutledge, John, <a href="#Page_245">245</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>S</b><br>
+<br>
+Schechter, Rabbi, on the character of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br>
+Schofield, Gen. Geo. W., <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br>
+Schurz, Carl, on the character of Lincoln, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br>
+Seward, W.H., <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br>
+Sharp's breech-loaders introduced in 1864, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br>
+Shaw, Col. R.G., <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br>
+Shenandoah, campaign in the valley of the, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br>
+Sheridan, Gen. Philip,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in the Shenandoah, <a href="#Page_149">149
+ff.</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wins battle of Five Forks, <a
+ href="#Page_171">171</a></span><br>
+Sherman, Roger, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Sherman, Gen. Wm. T.,<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Missionary Ridge, <a
+ href="#Page_137">137</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">captures Atlanta, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and the Georgia planter, <a
+ href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">passes by Charleston, <a
+ href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Goldsborough, <a href="#Page_183">183
+ff.</a></span><br>
+Sigel, Gen. Franz, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br>
+Smith, Gen. Kirby, surrender of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a><br>
+Soldiers authorised to vote in presidential election, <a
+ href="#Page_152">152</a><br>
+Southampton, insurrection at, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br>
+South Mountain, battle of the, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br>
+Stanton, Edwin, M., <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101
+ff.</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a><br>
+Stephens, Alexander H., and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, <a
+ href="#Page_162">162 ff.</a><br>
+Sumter, Fort, restoration of the flag on, <a href="#Page_182">182</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>T</b><br>
+<br>
+Taylor, Gen. Richard, surrender of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a><br>
+Thomas. Gen. Geo. H., <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>V</b><br>
+<br>
+Vicksburg, surrender of, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a
+ href="#Page_134">134</a><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<b>W</b><br>
+<br>
+Wallace, Gen. Lew, <a href="#Page_143">143</a><br>
+Washington assailed by Early, <a href="#Page_142">142 ff.</a><br>
+Washington, George, and the<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ordinance of 1787, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Farewell Address of, <a
+ href="#Page_252">252</a>;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the example of, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></span><br>
+Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br>
+Whittier on Lincoln, <a href="#Page_201">201</a><br>
+Wilderness, battle of the, <a href="#Page_140">140 ff.</a><br>
+Williamson, Hugh, <a href="#Page_237">237</a><br>
+Wilmington, capture of, <a href="#Page_167">167</a><br>
+Winchester, third battle of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br>
+Winder, Gen., and the management of the Southern prisons, <a
+ href="#Page_190">190</a><br>
+Wisconsin, troops from, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br>
+Wisewell, Col. F.H., <a href="#Page_144">144 ff.</a><br>
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="FOOTNOTES"></a>
+<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+<a name="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">[1]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p> This letter has not been published. It is cited here
+through the courtesy of Mr. Robert Lincoln and Mr. R.W. Gilder.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">[2]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p> The text of the speech, as revised by Lincoln and with the
+introduction and notes by Nott and Brainerd, is given as an appendix to
+this volume.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3">[3]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p> The late George Palmer Putnam.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4">[4]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Constitution is attested September 17, 1787. It was
+ratified by all of the States, excepting North Carolina and Rhode
+Island, in 1788, and went into operation on the first Wednesday in
+January, 1789. The first Congress proposed, in 1789, ten articles of
+amendments, all of which were ratified. Article XI. of the amendments
+was prepared by the Third Congress, in 1794, and Article XII. by the
+Eighth Congress, in 1803. Another Article was proposed by the Eleventh
+Congress, prohibiting <i>citizens</i> from receiving titles of
+nobility,
+presents or offices, from foreign nations. Although this has been
+printed as one of the amendments, it was in fact never ratified, being
+approved by but twelve States. <i>Vide</i> Message of President
+Monroe, Feb.
+4, 1818.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5">[5]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Convention consisted of <i>sixty-five</i> members. Of
+these, <i>ten</i> did not attend the Convention, and <i>sixteen</i>
+did not sign
+the Constitution. Of these sixteen, six refused to sign, and published
+their reasons for so refusing, <i>viz.</i>: Robert Yates and John
+Lansing, of
+New-York; Edmund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia; Luther Martin,
+of Maryland, and Elbridge Gerry, of Mass. Alexander Hamilton alone
+subscribed for New-York, and Rhode Island was not represented in the
+Convention. The names of the "thirty-nine," and the States which they
+represented are subsequently given.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6">[6]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The cession of Territory was authorized by New-York, Feb.
+19, 1780; by Virginia, January 2, 1781, and again, (without certain
+conditions at first imposed,) "at their sessions, begun on the 20th day
+of October, 1783;" by Mass., Nov. 13, 1784; by Conn., May&mdash;&mdash;, 1786; by
+S. Carolina, March 8, 1787; by N. Carolina, Dec.&mdash;&mdash;, 1789; and by
+Georgia at some time prior to April, 1802.
+</p>
+<p>The deeds of cession were executed by New-York, March 1, 1781; by
+Virginia, March 1, 1784; by Mass., April 19, 1785; by Conn., Sept. 13,
+1786; by S. Carolina, August 9, 1787; by N. Carolina, Feb. 25, 1790;
+and
+by Georgia, April 24, 1802. Five of these grants were therefore made
+before the adoption of the Constitution, and one afterward; while the
+sixth (North Carolina) was authorized before, and consummated
+afterward.
+The cession of this State contains the express proviso "that no
+regulations made, or to be made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate
+slaves." The cession of Georgia conveys the Territory subject to the
+Ordinance of '87, except the provision prohibiting slavery.
+</p>
+<p>These dates are also interesting in connection with the
+extraordinary
+assertions of Chief Justice Taney, (19 How., page 434,) that "the
+example of Virginia was soon afterwards followed by other States," and
+that (p. 436) the power in the Constitution "to dispose of and make all
+needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other
+property
+belonging to the United States," was intended only "to transfer to the
+new Government the property then held in common," "and has no reference
+whatever to any Territory or other property which the new sovereignty
+might afterwards itself acquire." On this subject, <i>vide Federalist</i>,
+No. 43, sub. 4 and 5.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7">[7]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Sherman was from Connecticut; Mifflin from Penn.;
+Williamson from North Carolina, and M'Henry from Maryland.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8">[8]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;What Mr. M'Henry's views were, it seems impossible to
+ascertain. When the Ordinance of '87 was passed he was sitting in the
+Convention. He was afterwards appointed Secretary of War; yet no record
+has thus far been discovered of his opinion. Mr. M'Henry also wrote a
+biography of La Fayette, which, however, cannot be found in any of the
+public libraries, among which may be mentioned the State Library at
+Albany, and the Astor, Society, and Historical Society Libraries, at
+New
+York.
+</p>
+<p>Hamilton says of him, in a letter to Washington <i>(Works</i>, vol.
+vi., p.
+65): "M'Henry you know. He would give no strength to the
+Administration,
+but he would not disgrace the office; his views are good."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9">[9]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;William Blount was from North Carolina, and William Few
+from Georgia&#8212;the two States which afterward ceded their Territory to
+the United States. In addition to these facts the following extract
+from
+the speech of Rufus King in the Senate, on the Missouri Bill, shows the
+entire unanimity with which the Southern States approved the
+prohibition:
+</p>
+<p>"The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United States her claims
+to
+this Territory, consented, by her delegates in the Old Congress, to
+this
+Ordinance. Not only Virginia, but North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, by the unanimous votes of their delegates in the Old Congress,
+approved of the Ordinance of 1787, by which Slavery is forever
+abolished
+in the Territory northwest of the river Ohio. Without the votes of
+these
+States, the Ordinance could not have been passed; and there is no
+recollection of an opposition from any of these States to the act of
+confirmation passed under the actual Constitution."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10">[10]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"The famous Ordinance of Congress of the 13th July, 1787,
+which has ever since constituted, in most respects, the model of all
+our
+territorial governments, and is equally remarkable for the brevity and
+exactness of its text, and for its masterly display of the fundamental
+principles of civil and religious liberty."&#8212;<i>Justice Story, 1
+Commentaries</i>: &sect;1312.
+</p>
+<p>"It is well known that the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn by the Hon.
+Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, and adopted with scarcely a verbal
+alteration by Congress. It is a noble and imperishable monument to his
+fame."&#8212;<i>Id.</i> note.
+</p>
+<p>The ordinance was reported by a committee, of which Wm. S. Johnson
+and
+Charles Pinckney were members. It recites that, "for extending the
+fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the
+basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are
+erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all
+laws,
+constitutions, and governments which forever hereafter shall be formed
+in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment of States
+and permanent government, and for their admission to a share in the
+federal councils, on an equal footing with the original States, at as
+early periods as may be consistent with the general interest&#8212;
+</p>
+<p>"It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority aforesaid,
+that
+the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact
+between the original States and the people and States in the said
+Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to
+wit:"
+</p>
+<p>"<i>Art.</i> 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude in
+the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof
+the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any
+person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully
+claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be
+lawfully
+reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
+service."
+</p>
+<p>On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required by Judge
+Yates, of New York, when it appeared <i>that his was the only vote in
+the
+negative</i>.
+</p>
+<p>The ordinance of April 23, 1784, was a brief outline of that of '87.
+It
+was reported by a Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was chairman, and
+the report contained a slavery prohibition intended to take effect in
+1800. This was stricken out of the report, six States voting to retain
+it&#8212;three voting to strike out&#8212;one being divided (N.C.), and the others
+not being represented. (The assent of nine States was necessary to
+retain any provision.) And this is the vote alluded to by Mr. Lincoln.
+But subsequently, March 16, 1785, a motion was made by Rufus King to
+commit a proposition "that there be neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude" in any of the Territories; which was carried by the vote of
+eight States, including Maryland.&#8212;<i>Journal Am. Congress,</i> vol. 4,
+pp.
+373, 380, 481, 752.
+</p>
+<p>When, therefore, the ordinance of '87 came before Congress, on its
+final
+passage, the subject of slavery prohibition had been "<i>agitated</i>"
+for
+nearly three years; and the deliberate and almost unanimous vote of
+that
+body upon that question leaves no room to doubt what the fathers
+believed, and how, in that belief, they acted.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11">[11]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;It singularly and fortunately happens that one of the
+"thirty-nine," "while engaged on that instrument," viz., while
+advocating its ratification before the Pennsylvania Convention, did
+express an opinion upon this "precise question," which opinion was
+<i>never</i> disputed or doubted, in that or any other Convention, and
+was
+accepted by the opponents of the Constitution, as an indisputable fact.
+This was the celebrated James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. The opinion is
+as
+follows:&#8212;
+</p>
+<p>MONDAY, <i>Dec.</i> 3, 1787.
+</p>
+<p>"With respect to the clause restricting Congress from prohibiting
+the
+migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, prior to the year 1808: The Hon.
+gentleman says that this clause is not only dark, but intended to grant
+to Congress, for that time, the power to admit the importation of
+slaves. No such thing was intended; but I will tell you what was done,
+and it gives me high pleasure that so much was done. Under the present
+Confederation, the States may admit the importation of slaves as long
+as
+they please; but by this article, after the year 1808, the Congress
+will
+have power to prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the
+disposition
+of any State to the contrary. I consider this as laying the foundation
+for banishing slavery out of this country; and though the period is
+more
+distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual
+change which was pursued in Pennsylvania. It is with much satisfaction
+that I view this power in the general government, whereby they may lay
+an interdiction on this reproachful trade. But an immediate advantage
+is
+also obtained; for a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation,
+not
+exceeding $10 for each person; and this, sir, operates as a partial
+prohibition; it was all that could be obtained. I am sorry it was no
+more; but from this I think there is reason to hope that yet a few
+years, and it will be prohibited altogether. <i>And in the meantime,
+the
+new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
+in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced amongst
+them</i>."&#8212;2 <i>Elliott's Debates</i>, 423.
+</p>
+<p>It was argued by Patrick Henry in the Convention in Virginia, as
+follows:
+</p>
+<p>"May not Congress enact that every black man must fight? Did we not
+see
+a little of this in the last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make
+emancipation general. But acts of Assembly passed, that every slave who
+would go to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to
+bring this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects.
+We deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let all these
+considerations press with full force on the minds of Congress. Let that
+urbanity which, I trust, will distinguish America, and the necessity of
+national defence&#8212;let all these things operate on their minds, they will
+search that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. And have
+they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence
+and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of
+slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be
+warranted by that power? There is no ambiguous implication, no logical
+deduction. The paper speaks to the point; they have the power in clear,
+unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."&#8212;3
+<i>Elliott's Debates</i>, 534.
+</p>
+<p>Edmund Randolph, one of the framers of the Constitution, replied to
+Mr.
+Henry, admitting the general force of the argument, but claiming that,
+because of other provisions, it had no application to the <i>States</i>
+where
+slavery <i>then</i> existed; thus conceding that power to exist in
+Congress
+as to all territory belonging to the United States.
+</p>
+<p>Dr. Ramsay, a member of the Convention of South Carolina, in his
+history
+of the United States, vol. 3, pages 36, 37, says: "Under these liberal
+principles, Congress, in organizing <i>colonies</i>, bound themselves
+to
+impart to their inhabitants all the privileges of coequal States, as
+soon as they were capable of enjoying them. In their infancy,
+<i>government was administered for them</i> without any expense. As
+soon as
+they should have 60,000 inhabitants, they were authorized to call a
+convention, and, by common consent, to form their own constitution.
+This
+being done, they were entitled to representation in Congress, and every
+right attached to the original States. These privileges are not
+confined
+to any particular country or <i>complexion</i>. They are communicable
+to the
+emancipated slave (for in the new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether
+prohibited), to the copper-colored native, and all other human beings
+who, after a competent residence and degree of civilization, are
+capable
+of enjoying the blessings of regular government."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12">[12]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Act of 1789, as reported by the Committee, was
+received and read Thursday, July 16th. The second reading was on
+Friday,
+the 17th, when it was committed to the Committee of the whole house,
+"on
+Monday next." On Monday, July 20th, it was considered in Committee of
+the whole, and ordered to a third reading on the following day; on the
+21st, it passed the House, and was sent to the Senate. In the Senate it
+had its first reading on the same day, and was ordered to a second
+reading on the following day (July 22d), and on the 4th of August it
+passed, and on the 7th was approved by the President.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13">[13]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The "sixteen" represented these States: Langdon and
+Oilman, New Hampshire; Sherman and Johnson, Connecticut; Morris,
+Fitzsimmons, and Clymer, Pennsylvania; King, Massachusetts; Paterson,
+New Jersey; Few and Baldwin, Georgia; Bassett and Read, Delaware;
+Butler, South Carolina; Carroll, Maryland; and Madison, Virginia</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14">[14]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;<i>Vide</i> note 3, <i>ante</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15">[15]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Chap. 28, &sect; 7, U.S. Statutes, 5th Congress, 2d Session.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16">[16]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Langdon was from New Hampshire, Read from Delaware, and
+Baldwin from Georgia.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17">[17]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Chap. 38, &sect; 10, U.S. Statutes, 8th Congress, 1st
+Session.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18">[18]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Baldwin was from Georgia, and Dayton from New Jersey.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19">[19]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Rufus King, who sat in the old Congress, and also in the
+Convention, as the representative of Massachusetts, removed to New York
+and was sent by that State to the U.S. Senate of the first Congress.
+Charles Pinckney was hi the House, as a representative of South
+Carolina.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20">[20]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Although Mr. Pinckney opposed "slavery prohibition" in
+1820, yet his views, with regard to the <i>powers</i> of the general
+government, may be better judged by his actions in the Convention:
+</p>
+<p>FRIDAY, <i>June 8th,</i> 1787.&#8212;"Mr. Pinckney moved 'that the
+National
+Legislature shall have the power of negativing all laws to be passed by
+the State Legislatures, which they may judge improper,' in the room of
+the clause as it stood reported.
+</p>
+<p>"He grounds his motion on the necessity of one supreme controlling
+power, and he considers this as the <i>corner-stone</i> of the present
+system; and hence the necessity of retrenching the State authorities,
+in
+order to preserve the good government of the national council."&#8212;T. 400,
+<i>Elliott's Debates</i>.
+</p>
+<p>And again, THURSDAY, <i>August 23d,</i> 1787, Mr. Pinckney renewed
+the motion
+with some modifications.&#8212;T. 1409. <i>Madison Papers</i>.
+</p>
+<p>And although Mr. Pinckney, as correctly stated by Mr. Lincoln,
+"steadily
+voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises," he
+still regarded the passage of the Missouri Compromise as a great
+triumph
+of the South, which is apparent from the following letter:
+</p>
+<p>CONGRESS HALL, <i>March 2d</i>, 1820, 3 <i>o'clock at night</i>.
+</p>
+<p>DEAR SIR:&mdash;&mdash;I hasten to inform you, that this moment we have carried
+the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of
+36&deg; 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South,
+in a
+short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of
+the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States as
+a
+great triumph.
+</p>
+<p>The votes were close&#8212;ninety to eighty-six&#8212;produced by the seceding
+and
+absence of a few moderate men from the North. To the north of 36&deg;
+30,'
+there is to be, by the present law, restriction; which you will see by
+the votes, I voted against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a
+vast tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in which not
+a
+foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, and in which,
+according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened for a
+great length of time.
+</p>
+<p>With respect, your obedient servant,
+</p>
+<p>CHARLES PINCKNEY.
+</p>
+<p>But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney's views is furnished in the
+fact
+that <i>he was himself a member of the Committee which reported the
+Ordinance of</i> '87, and that <i>on every occasion, when it was under
+the
+consideration of Congress, he voted against all amendments</i>.&#8212;<i>Jour.
+Am.
+Congress</i>, Sept. 29th, 1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up
+for
+its final passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and did
+not take any part in the proceedings of Congress.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21">[21]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;By reference to notes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, and 16 it will be
+seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon the question of
+prohibition, twelve were from the present slaveholding States.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22">[22]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;<i>Vide</i> notes 5 and 17, <i>ante</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23">[23]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gorham,
+Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William Livingston and David
+Brearly, New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson,
+and Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson,
+and Jacob Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland;
+John Blair, Virginia; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina; and John
+Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South Carolina.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24">[24]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"The only distinction between freedom and slavery
+consists in this: in the former state, a man is governed by the laws to
+which he has given his consent, either in person or by his
+representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another.
+In
+the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they
+depend upon the pleasure of a master. It is easy to discern which of
+the
+two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing
+to be free rather than slave.... Were not the disadvantages of slavery
+too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the
+tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it
+is
+fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and
+corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the
+sinews of industry and clips the wings of commerce, and works misery
+and
+indigence in every shape."&#8212;HAMILTON, <i>Works</i>, vol. 2, pp. 3, 9.
+</p>
+<p>"That you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of <i>liberty</i>
+to
+those unhappy <i>men</i>, who, alone in this land of freedom, are
+degraded
+into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding
+freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means
+for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American
+people; that you will promote mercy and <i>justice</i> toward this
+distressed
+race; and that you will step to the <i>very verge</i> of the power
+vested in
+you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
+fellow-men."&#8212;Philadelphia, Feb. 3rd, 1790. <i>Franklin's Petition to
+Congress for the Abolition of Slavery.</i>
+</p>
+<p>Mr. Gouverneur Morris said: "He never would concur in upholding
+domestic
+slavery. It was a notorious institution. It was the curse of heaven on
+the States where it prevailed.... The admission of slavery into the
+representation, when fairly explained, comes to this&#8212;that the
+inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the coast of
+Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears
+away
+his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to
+the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes, in a government
+instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the
+citizen
+of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so
+notorious a practice.... He would sooner submit himself to a tax for
+paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity
+with such a constitution."&#8212;<i>Debate on Slave Representation in the
+Convention. Madison Papers</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25">[25]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has said that
+"The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments, as adopted by
+Congress, is important to show in what light that body considered
+them."
+(8 <i>Wend. R.,</i> p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State
+Conventions "having at the time of their adopting the Constitution
+<i>expressed</i> a <i>desire</i>, in order to prevent <i>misconstruction
+or abuse of
+its powers</i>, that further <i>declaratory</i> and restrictive
+clauses should
+be added," resolved, etc.
+</p>
+<p>This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the
+"Conciliatory
+Resolutions" of Massachusetts, which were drawn by Chief Justice
+Parsons, and offered in the Convention as a compromise by John Hancock.
+(<i>Life Ch. J. Parsons,</i> p. 67.) They were afterward copied and
+adopted
+with some additions by New Hampshire.
+</p>
+<p>The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, is taken
+almost
+literally from the declaration of rights put forth by the Convention of
+New York, and the clause referred to forms the ninth paragraph of the
+declaration. The tenth amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is
+taken from the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those
+resolutions somewhat modified. Thus, these two amendments, sought to be
+used for slavery, originated in the two great anti-slavery States, New
+York and Massachusetts.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26">[26]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison in the House
+of Representatives, June 8, 1789. They were adopted by the House,
+August
+24, and some further amendments seem to have been transmitted by the
+Senate, September 9. The printed journals of the Senate do not state
+the
+time of the final passage, and the message transmitting them to the
+State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted at the first session,
+begun
+on the fourth day of March, 1789. The date of the introduction and
+passage of the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 will be found at note
+9, <i>ante</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27">[27]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;It is singular that while two of the "thirty-nine" were
+in that Congress of 1819, there was but one (besides Mr. King) of the
+"seventy-six." The one was William Smith, of South Carolina. He was
+then
+a Senator, and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28">[28]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The following is an extract from the letter referred to:
+</p>
+<p>"I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro
+slavery. I
+have long considered it a most serious evil, both socially and
+politically, and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our
+States of such a burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance
+which
+prohibits the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern
+Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It meets with the
+approval and assent of nearly every member from the States more
+immediately interested in slave labor. The prevailing opinion in
+Virginia is against the spread of slavery in our new Territories, and I
+trust we shall have a confederation of free States."
+</p>
+<p>The following extract from a letter of Washington to Robert Morris,
+April, 12th, 1786, shows how strong were his views, and how clearly he
+deemed emancipation a subject for legislative enactment: "I can only
+say
+that there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see
+a
+plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but one proper and
+effective mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, BY
+LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY, and that, as far as <i>my suffrage will go,
+shall
+never be wanting</i>."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29">[29]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;A Committee of five, consisting of Messrs. Mason, Davis,
+and Fitch (Democrats), and Collamer and Doolittle (Republicans), was
+appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by the U.S. Senate, to investigate the
+Harper's
+Ferry affair. That Committee was directed, among other things, to
+inquire: (1) "Whether such invasion and seizure was made under color of
+any organization intended to subvert the government of any of the
+States
+of the Union." (2) "What was the character and extent of such
+organisation." (3) "And whether any citizens of the United States, not
+present, were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by
+contributions
+of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise."
+</p>
+<p>The majority of the Committee, Messrs. Mason, Davis, and Fitch,
+reply to
+the inquiries as follows:
+</p>
+<p>1. "There will be found in the Appendix a copy of the proceedings of
+a
+Convention held at Chatham, Canada, of the Provisional Form of
+Government there pretended to have been instituted, the object of which
+clearly was to subvert the government of one or more States, and of
+course, to that extent, the government of the United States." By
+reference to the copy of Proceedings it appears that <i>nineteen</i>
+persons
+were present at that Convention, <i>eight</i> of whom were either
+killed or
+executed at Charlestown, and one examined before the Committee.
+</p>
+<p>2. "The character of the military organization appears, by the
+commissions issued to certain of the armed party as captains,
+lieutenants, etc., a specimen of which will be found in the Appendix."
+</p>
+<p>(These Commissions are signed by John Brown as Commander-in-Chief,
+under
+the Provisional Government, and by J.H. Kagi as Secretary.)
+</p>
+<p>"It clearly appeared that the scheme of Brown was to take with him
+comparatively but few men; but those had been carefully trained by
+military instruction previously, and were to act as officers. For his
+military force he relied, very clearly, on inciting insurrection
+amongst
+the Slaves."
+</p>
+<p>3. "It does not appear that the contributions were made with actual
+knowledge of the use for which they were designed by Brown, although it
+does appear that money was freely contributed by those styling
+themselves the friends of this man Brown, and friends alike of what
+they
+styled the cause of freedom (of which they claimed him to be an
+especial
+apostle), without inquiring as to the way in which the money would be
+used by him to advance such pretended cause."
+</p>
+<p>In concluding the report the majority of the Committee thus
+characterize
+the "invasion": "It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the
+sanction of no public or political authority&#8212;distinguishable only from
+ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them," etc.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30">[30]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Southampton insurrection, August, 1831, was induced
+by the remarkable ability of a slave calling himself General Nat
+Turner.
+He led his fellow bondsmen to believe that he was acting under the
+order
+of Heaven. In proof of this he alleged that the singular appearance of
+the sun at that time was a divine signal for the commencement of the
+struggle which would result in the recovery of their freedom. This
+insurrection resulted in the death of sixty-four white persons, and
+more
+than one hundred slaves. The Southampton was the eleventh large
+insurrection in the Southern States, besides numerous attempts and
+revolts.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31">[31]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;In March, 1790, the General Assembly of France, on the
+petition of the <i>free</i> people of color in St. Domingo, many of
+whom were
+intelligent and wealthy, passed a decree intended to be in their favor,
+but so ambiguous as to be construed in favor of both the whites and the
+blacks. The differences growing out of the decree created two
+parties&#8212;the <i>whites</i> and the people of color; and some blood was
+shed.
+In 1791, the blacks again petitioned, and a decree was passed declaring
+the colored people citizens, who were born of free parents on both
+sides. This produced great excitement among the whites, and the two
+parties armed against each other, and horrible massacres and
+conflagrations followed. Then the Assembly rescinded this last decree,
+and like results followed, the blacks being the exasperated parties and
+the aggressors. Then the decree giving citizenship to the blacks was
+restored, and commissioners were sent out to keep the peace. The
+commissioners, unable to sustain themselves, between the two parties,
+with the troops they had, issued a proclamation that all blacks who
+were
+willing to range themselves under the banner of the Republic should be
+free. As a result a very large proportion of the blacks became in fact
+free. In 1794, the Conventional Assembly <i>abolished slavery</i>
+throughout
+the French Colonies. Some years afterward, the French Government
+sought,
+with an army of 60,000 men, to reinstate slavery, but were
+unsuccessful,
+and then the white planters were driven from the Island.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32">[32]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;<i>Vide</i> Jefferson's Autobiography, commenced January 6th,
+1821. JEFFERSON'S <i>Works</i>, vol. 1, p. 49.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33">[33]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"I am not ashamed or afraid publicly to avow that the
+election of William H. Seward or Salmon P. Chase, or any such
+representative of the Republican party, upon a sectional platform,
+ought
+to be resisted to the disruption of every tie that binds this
+Confederacy together. (Applause on the Democratic side of the House.)"
+<i>Mr. Curry, of Alabama, in the House of Representatives</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing a
+sectional
+man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, breathing destruction
+and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the
+time will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable
+and decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and he who
+doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I
+think I may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia&#8212;that
+when that event happens, they, in my judgment, will consider it an
+overt
+act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, to take
+into consideration the mode and measure of redress. That is my
+position;
+and if that be treason to the Government, make the most of it."&#8212;<i>Mr.
+Gartell, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital of my
+State, on my way here, if such an event did occur," [<i>i.e.</i>, the
+election of a Republican President, upon a Republican platform], "while
+it would be their duty to determine the course which the State would
+pursue, it would be my privilege to counsel with them as to what I
+believed to be the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now,
+and what I will always say in such an event, that my counsel would be
+to
+take independence out of the Union in preference to the loss of
+constitutional rights, and consequent degradation and dishonor, in it.
+That is my position, and it is the position which I know the Democratic
+party of the State of Mississippi will maintain."&#8212;<i>Gov. McRae, of
+Mississippi.</i>
+</p>
+<p>"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the present
+temper of the Southern people, it" [<i>i.e.</i>, the election of a
+Republican
+President] "cannot be, and will not be, submitted to. The
+'irrepressible
+conflict' doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most
+distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of
+war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; and I would
+be disloyal to Virginia and the South, if I did not declare that the
+election of such a man, entertaining such sentiment, and advocating
+such
+doctrines, <i>ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States</i>. The
+idea
+of permitting such a man to have the control and direction of the army
+and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high judicial and
+executive officers, POSTMASTERS INCLUDED, <i>cannot</i> be entertained
+by the
+South for a moment."&#8212;<i>Gov. Letcher, of Virginia</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Slavery <i>must</i> be maintained&#8212;in the Union, if possible; out
+of it, if
+necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if we must."&#8212;<i>Senator
+Iverson,
+of Georgia</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected
+in
+November next, and the South will then decide the great question
+whether
+they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule&#8212;the
+fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised,
+and declared war upon our social institutions. I believe that the honor
+and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt
+secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then
+to
+obtain from the free States additional and higher guaranties for the
+protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should
+proceed to establish a new government. But while I think such would be
+the imperative duty of the South, I should emphatically reprobate and
+repudiate any scheme having for its object the separate secession of
+South Carolina. If Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone&#8212;giving us a
+portion of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts&#8212;would unite with this State in
+a common secession upon the election of a Black Republican, I would
+give
+my consent to the policy."&#8212;<i>Letter of Hon. James L. Orr, of S.C., to
+John Martin and others, July</i> 23, 1860.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34">[34]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, made the
+following analysis of the Dred Scott case in the Massachusetts
+Legislature. Hon. Caleb Cushing was then a member of that body, but did
+not question its correctness.
+</p>
+<p>"On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of the Dred
+Scott
+color, extraction, and origin, three Justices, viz., Taney, Wayne, and
+Daniels, held the negative. Nelson and Campbell passed over the plea by
+which the question was raised. Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said
+the
+question was not open. McLean agreed with Catron, but thought the plea
+bad. Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea,
+met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native
+to any State, is a citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen
+of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.
+</p>
+<p>"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in
+abatement,
+and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appealed from, then
+all
+else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a
+cause not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of
+such a majority, one step more was to be taken. And the next step
+reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the
+cause, and putting an end to all the functions of the court.
+</p>
+<p>"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in the State of
+Illinois, where he remained about two years, before going with his
+master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory of Wisconsin. His claim to
+freedom was rested on the alleged effect of his translation from a
+slave
+State, and again into a free territory. If, by his removal to Illinois,
+he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent continuance of
+his
+pilgrimage into the Louisiana purchase could not add to his freedom,
+nor
+alter the fact. If, by reason of any want or infirmity in the laws of
+Illinois, or of conformity on his part to their behests, Dred Scott
+remained a slave while he remained in that State, then&#8212;for the sake of
+learning the effect on him of his territorial residence beyond the
+Mississippi, and of his marriage and other proceedings there, and the
+effect of the sojournment and marriage of Harriet, in the same
+territory, upon herself and her children&#8212;it might become needful to
+advance one other step into the investigation of the law; to inspect
+the
+Missouri Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of the line of
+36&deg;
+30' in the Louisiana purchase.
+</p>
+<p>"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified that
+advance;
+for six of the Justices, including the Chief Justice himself, decided
+that the <i>status</i> of the plaintiff, as free or slave, was
+dependent, not
+upon the laws of the State in which he had been, but of the State of
+Missouri, in which he was at the commencement of the suit. The Chief
+Justice asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the
+highest court in the State, that Scott and his family, on their return
+were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the
+defendant.' This was the burden of the opinion of Nelson, who declares
+'the question is one solely depending upon the law of Missouri, and
+that
+the Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case before us,
+was bound to follow it.' It received the emphatic endorsement of Wayne,
+whose general concurrence was with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred
+in
+set terms with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.' Campbell
+says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect to
+be given to his absence from Missouri, in company with his master in
+Illinois and Minnesota, <i>and this effect is to be ascertained by
+reference to the laws of Missouri</i>.' Five of the Justices, then (if
+no
+more of them), regard the law of Missouri as decisive of the
+plaintiff's
+rights."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35">[35]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this
+opinion upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is
+distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to
+traffic in it, <i>like an ordinary article of merchandise and property</i>,
+was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States in every State that
+might desire it, for twenty years."&#8212;<i>Ch. J. Taney</i>, 19 <i>How.
+U.S.R</i>.,
+p. 451. <i>Vide</i> language of Mr. Madison, note 34, as to "<i>merchandise</i>."</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36">[36]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Not only was the right of property <i>not</i> intended to be
+"distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution"; but the
+following extract from Mr. Madison demonstrates that the utmost care
+was
+taken to avoid so doing:</p>
+<p>"The clause as originally offered [respecting fugitive slaves] read,
+'If
+any person LEGALLY bound to service or labor in any of the United
+States
+shall escape into another State," etc., etc. (Vol. 3, p. 1456.) In
+regard to this, Mr. Madison says, "The term '<i>legally'</i> was struck
+out,
+and the words 'under the laws thereof,' inserted after the word State,
+in compliance with the wish of some who thought the term 'legally'
+equivocal and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a moral point
+of view."&#8212;<i>Ib</i>., p. 1589.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37">[37]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;We subjoin a portion of the history alluded to by Mr.
+Lincoln. The following extract relates to the provision of the
+Constitution relative to the slave trade. (Article I, Sec. 9.)</p>
+<p><i>25th August</i>, 1787.&#8212;The report of the Committee of eleven
+being taken
+up, Gen. [Charles Cotesworth] Pinckney moved to strike out the words
+"the year 1800," and insert the words "the year 1808."</p>
+<p>Mr. Gorham seconded the motion.</p>
+<p>Mr. Madison&#8212;Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be
+apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be
+more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about
+it
+in the Constitution.</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>Mr. Gouverneur Morris was for making the clause read at once&#8212;</p>
+<p>"The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, shall not be prohibited," etc. This, he said, would be most
+fair, and would avoid <i>the </i> ambiguity by which, under the power
+with
+regard to naturalization, the liberty reserved to the States might be
+defeated. He wished it to be known, also, that this part of the
+Constitution was a compliance with those States. If the change of
+language, however, should be objected to by the members from those
+States, he should not urge it.</p>
+<p>Col. Mason (of Virginia) was not against using the term "slaves,"
+but
+against naming North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, lest it
+should give offence to the people of those States.</p>
+<p>Mr. Sherman liked a description better than the terms proposed,
+which
+had been declined by the old Congress and were not pleasing to some
+people.</p>
+<p>Mr. Clymer concurred with Mr. Sherman.</p>
+<p>Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, said that <i>both in opinion and
+practice he was against slavery; but thought it more in favor of
+humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina
+and
+Georgia, on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union</i>.</p>
+<p>Mr. Morris withdrew his motion.</p>
+<p>Mr. Dickinson wished the clause to be confined to the States which
+had
+not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves, and for that
+purpose moved to amend the clause so as to read&#8212;</p>
+<p>"The importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit
+the
+same, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the United States,
+until the year 1808," which was disagreed to, <i>nem. con</i>.
+</p>
+<p>The first part of the report was then agreed to as follows:
+</p>
+<p>"The migration or importation of such persons as the several States
+now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Legislature prior to the year 1808."
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>Mr. Sherman was against the second part ["but a tax or duty may be
+imposed on such migration or importation at a rate not exceeding <i>the
+average of the duties laid on imports</i>"], as acknowledging men to be
+property by taxing them as such under the <i>character</i> of slaves.
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>Mr. Madison <i>thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the
+like idea
+that there could be property in men</i>. The reason of duties did not
+hold,
+as slaves <i>are not, like merchandise</i>, consumed.
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 45%;">
+<p>It was finally agreed, <i>nem. con</i>., to make the clause read&#8212;
+</p>
+<p>"But a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding
+<i>ten dollars</i> for each PERSON."&#8212;<i>Madison Papers, Aug</i>. 25,
+1787.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38">[38]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;Compare this noble passage and that at page 18, with the
+twaddle of Mr. Orr (note 30), and the slang of Mr. Douglas (note 37).</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39">[39]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;That demand has since been made. Says MR. O'CONOR,
+counsel for the State of Virginia in the <i>Lemon Case</i>, page 44:
+"We
+claim that under these various provisions of the Federal Constitution,
+a
+citizen of Virginia has an immunity against the operation of any law
+which the State of New York can enact, whilst he is a stranger and
+wayfarer, or whilst passing through our territory; and that he has
+absolute protection for all his domestic rights, and for all his rights
+of property, which under the laws of the United States, and the laws of
+his own State, he was entitled to, whilst in his own State. We claim
+this, and neither more NOR LESS."
+</p>
+<p>Throughout the whole of that case, in which the right to pass
+through
+New York with slaves at the pleasure of the slave owners is maintained,
+it is nowhere contended that the statute is contrary to the
+Constitution
+of New York; but that the statute and the Constitution of the State are
+both contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
+</p>
+<p>The State of Virginia, not content with the decision of our own
+courts
+upon the right claimed by them, is now engaged in carrying this, the
+Lemon case, to the Supreme Court of the United States, hoping by a
+decision there, in accordance with the intimations in the Dred Scott
+case, to overthrow the Constitution of New York.
+</p>
+<p>Senator Toombs, of Georgia, has claimed, in the Senate, that laws of
+Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode
+Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, for the exclusion of slavery, conceded
+to be warranted by the State Constitutions, are contrary to the
+Constitution of the United States, and has asked for the enactment of
+laws by the General Government which shall override the laws of those
+States and the Constitutions which authorize them.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40">[40]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;"Policy, humanity, and Christianity, alike forbid the
+extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming
+generations."&#8212;<i>Richmond Enquirer, Jan</i>. 22, 1856.
+</p>
+<p>"I am satisfied that the mind of the South has undergone a change to
+this great extent, that it is now the <i>almost universal belief</i>
+in the
+South, not only that the condition of African slavery in their midst,
+is
+the best condition to which the African race has ever been subjected,
+but that <i>it has the effect of ennobling both races, the white and
+the
+black</i>."&#8212;<i>Senator Mason, of Virginia</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"I declare again, as I did in reply to the Senator from Wisconsin
+(Mr.
+Doolittle), that, in my opinion, slavery is a great moral, social, and
+political blessing&#8212;a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the
+master."&#8212;<i>Mr. Brown, in the Senate, March</i> 6, 1860.
+</p>
+<p>"I am a Southern States' Rights man; I am an African slave-trader. I
+am
+one of those Southern men who believe that slavery is right&#8212;morally,
+religiously, socially, and politically." (Applause.) ... "I represent
+the African Slave-trade interests of that section. (Applause.) I am
+proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe the African
+Slave-trader is a true missionary and a true Christian."
+(Applause.)&#8212;<i>Mr. Gaulden, a delegate from First Congressional
+District
+of Georgia, in the Charleston Convention, now a supporter of Mr.
+Douglas</i>.
+</p>
+<p>"Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly speak again, but you see from
+the
+tones of my voice that I am unable to. This has been a happy, a
+glorious
+day. I shall never forget it. There is a charm about this beautiful
+day,
+about this sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of
+yours&#8212;a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, in that respect, of
+Southerners. For my own part, I have much more fondness for your clams
+than I have for their niggers. But every man to his taste."&#8212;<i>Hon</i>
+<i>Stephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky Point, R.I., Aug.</i> 2, 1860.</p>
+</div>
+<a name="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41">[41]</a>
+<div class="note">
+<p>&#8212;It is interesting to observe how two profoundly logical
+minds, though holding extreme, opposite views, have deduced this common
+conclusion. Says Mr. O'Conor, the eminent leader of the New York Bar,
+and the counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon case, in his
+speech at Cooper Institute, December 19th, 1859:</p>
+<p>"That is the point to which this great argument must come&#8212;Is negro
+slavery unjust? If it is unjust, it violates that first rule of human
+conduct&#8212;'Render to every man his due.' If it is unjust, it violates the
+law of God which says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' for that
+requires
+that we should perpetrate no injustice. Gentlemen, if it could be
+maintained that negro slavery was unjust, perhaps I might be
+prepared&#8212;perhaps we all ought to be prepared&#8212;to go with that
+distinguished man to whom allusion is frequently made, and say, 'There
+is a higher law which compels us to trample beneath our feet the
+Constitution established by our fathers, with all the blessings it
+secures to their children.' But I insist&#8212;and that is the argument which
+we must meet, and on which we must come to a conclusion that shall
+govern our actions in the future selection of representatives in the
+Congress of the United States&#8212;insist that negro slavery is not unjust."</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 11728-h.txt or 11728-h.zip *******</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Abraham Lincoln, by George Haven Putnam
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Abraham Lincoln
+
+Author: George Haven Putnam
+
+Release Date: March 27, 2004  [eBook #11728]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Steve Schulze and Project Gutenberg Distributed
+Proofreaders
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 11728-h.htm or 11728-h.zip:
+      (http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/1/1/7/2/11728/11728-h/11728-h.htm)
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+
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+The People's Leader in the Struggle for National Existence
+
+By
+
+GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM, LITT. D.
+
+Author of
+"Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages,"
+"The Censorship of the Church," etc.
+
+With the above is included the speech delivered by Lincoln in New York,
+February 27, 1860; with an introduction by Charles C. Nott, late Chief
+Justice of the Court of Claims, and annotations by Judge Nott and by
+Cephas Brainerd of New York Bar.
+
+1909
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+
+The twelfth of February, 1909, was the hundredth anniversary of the
+birth of Abraham Lincoln. In New York, as in other cities and towns
+throughout the Union, the day was devoted to commemoration exercises,
+and even in the South, in centres like Atlanta (the capture of which in
+1864 had indicated the collapse of the cause of the Confederacy),
+representative Southerners gave their testimony to the life and
+character of the great American.
+
+The Committee in charge of the commemoration in New York arranged for a
+series of addresses to be given to the people of the city and it was my
+privilege to be selected as one of the speakers. It was an indication of
+the rapid passing away of the generation which had had to do with the
+events of the War, that the list of orators, forty-six in all, included
+only four men who had ever seen the hero whose life and character they
+were describing.
+
+In writing out later, primarily for the information of children and
+grandchildren, my own address (which had been delivered without notes),
+I found myself so far absorbed in the interest of the subject and in the
+recollections of the War period, that I was impelled to expand the paper
+so that it should present a more comprehensive study of the career and
+character of Lincoln than it had been possible to attempt within the
+compass of an hour's talk, and should include also references, in
+outline, to the constitutional struggle that had preceded the contest
+and to the chief events of the War itself with which the great War
+President had been most directly concerned. The monograph, therefore,
+while in the form of an essay or historical sketch, retains in certain
+portions the character of the spoken address with which it originated.
+
+It is now brought into print in the hope that it may be found of
+interest for certain readers of the younger generation and may serve as
+an incentive to the reading of the fuller histories of the War period,
+and particularly of the best of the biographies of the great American
+whom we honour as the People's leader.
+
+I have been fortunate enough to secure (only, however, after this
+monograph had been put into type) a copy of the pamphlet printed in
+September, 1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, in
+which is presented the text, as revised by the speaker, of the address
+given by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,--the address which
+made him President.
+
+This edition of the speech, prepared for use in the Presidential
+campaign, contains a series of historical annotations by Cephas Brainerd
+of the New York Bar and Charles C. Nott, who later rendered further
+distinguished service to his country as Colonel of the 176th Regiment,
+N.Y.S. Volunteers, and (after the close of the War) as chief justice of
+the Court of Claims.
+
+These young lawyers (not yet leaders of the Bar) appear to have realised
+at once that the speech was to constitute the platform upon which the
+issues of the Presidential election were to be contested. Not being
+prophets, they were, of course, not in a position to know that the same
+statements were to represent the contentions of the North upon which the
+Civil War was fought out.
+
+I am able to include, with the scholarly notes of the two lawyers, a
+valuable introduction to the speech, written (as late as February, 1908)
+by Judge Nott; together with certain letters which in February, 1860,
+passed between him (as the representative of the Committee) and Mr.
+Lincoln.
+
+The introduction and the letters have never before been published, and
+(as is the case also with the material of the notes) are now in print
+only in the present volume.
+
+I judge, therefore, that I may be doing a service to the survivors of
+the generation of 1860 and also to the generations that have grown up
+since the War, by utilising the occasion of the publication of my own
+little monograph for the reprinting of these notes in a form for
+permanent preservation and for reference on the part of students of the
+history of the Republic.
+
+G.H.P.
+
+NEW YORK, April 2, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+   I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN
+
+  II. WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS
+
+ III. THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY
+
+  IV. LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+      NATIONAL EXISTENCE
+
+   V. THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+  VI. THE DARK. DAYS OF 1862
+
+ VII. THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR
+
+VIII. THE FINAL CAMPAIGN
+
+  IX. LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED
+
+      APPENDIX--LINCOLN'S COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS:
+
+      INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+      CORRESPONDENCE WITH ROBERT LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD
+
+      INTRODUCTION
+
+      CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN
+
+      TITLE PAGE OF ORIGINAL ISSUE
+
+      OFFICERS OF THE REPUBLICAN UNION
+
+      PREFACE TO THE LINCOLN ADDRESS
+
+      THE COOPER INSTITUTE ADDRESS
+
+      INDEX
+
+      FOOTNOTES
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAN
+
+
+On the twelfth of February, 1909, the hundredth anniversary of the birth
+of Abraham Lincoln, Americans gathered together, throughout the entire
+country, to honour the memory of a great American, one who may come to
+be accepted as the greatest of Americans. It was in every way fitting
+that this honour should be rendered to Abraham Lincoln and that, on such
+commemoration day, his fellow-citizens should not fail to bear also in
+honoured memory the thousands of other good Americans who like Lincoln
+gave their lives for their country and without whose loyal devotion
+Lincoln's leadership would have been in vain.
+
+The chief purpose, however, as I understand, of a memorial service is
+not so much to glorify the dead as to enlighten and inspire the living.
+We borrow the thought of his own Gettysburg address (so eloquent in its
+exquisite simplicity) when we say that no words of ours can add any
+glory to the name of Abraham Lincoln. His work is accomplished. His fame
+is secure. It is for us, his fellow-citizens, for the older men who had
+personal touch with the great struggle in which Lincoln was the nation's
+leader, for the younger men who have grown up in the generation since
+the War, and for the children by whom are to be handed down through the
+new century the great traditions of the Republic, to secure from the
+life and character of our great leader incentive, illumination, and
+inspiration to good citizenship, in order that Lincoln and his
+fellow-martyrs shall not have died in vain.
+
+It is possible within the limits of this paper simply to touch upon the
+chief events and experiences in Lincoln's life. It has been my endeavour
+to select those that were the most important in the forming or in the
+expression of his character. The term "forming" is, however, not
+adequate to indicate the development of a personality like Lincoln's. We
+rather think of his sturdy character as having been _forged_ into its
+final form through the fiery furnace of fierce struggle, as hammered
+out under the blows of difficulties and disasters, and as pressed
+beneath the weight of the nation's burdens, until was at last produced
+the finely tempered nature of the man we know, the Lincoln of history,
+that exquisite combination of sweetness of nature and strength of
+character. The type is described in Schiller's Song of the Founding of
+the Bell:
+
+    Denn, wo das strenge mit dem zarten,
+    Wo mildes sich und starkes paarten,
+    Da giebt es einen guten Klang.
+
+There is a tendency to apply the term "miraculous" to the career of
+every hero, and in a sense such description is, of course, true. The
+life of every man, however restricted its range, is something of a
+miracle; but the course of a single life, like that of humanity, is
+assuredly based on a development that proceeds from a series of
+causations. Holmes says that the education of a man begins two centuries
+before his birth. We may recall in this connection that Lincoln came of
+good stock. It is true that his parents belonged to the class of poor
+whites; but the Lincoln family can be traced from an eastern county of
+England (we might hope for the purpose of genealogical harmony that the
+county was Lincolnshire) to Hingham in Massachusetts, and by way of
+Pennsylvania and Virginia to Kentucky. The grandfather of our Abraham
+was killed, while working in his field on the Kentucky farm, by
+predatory Indians shooting from the cover of the dense forest. Abraham's
+father, Thomas, at that time a boy, was working in the field where his
+father was murdered. Such an incident in Kentucky simply repeated what
+had been going on just a century before in Massachusetts, at Deerfield
+and at dozens of other settlements on the edge of the great forest which
+was the home of the Indians. During the hundred years, the frontier of
+the white man's domain had been moved a thousand miles to the south-west
+and, as ever, there was still friction at the point of contact.
+
+The record of the boyhood of our Lincoln has been told in dozens of
+forms and in hundreds of monographs. We know of the simplicity, of the
+penury, of the family life in the little one-roomed log hut that formed
+the home for the first ten years of Abraham's life. We know of his
+little group of books collected with toil and self-sacrifice. The
+series, after some years of strenuous labour, comprised the Bible,
+_Aesop's Fables_, a tattered copy of Euclid's _Geometry_, and Weems's
+_Life of Washington_. The _Euclid_ he had secured as a great prize from
+the son of a neighbouring farmer. Abraham had asked the boy the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." His friend said that he did not himself know,
+but that he knew the word was in a book which he had at school, and he
+hunted up the _Euclid_. After some bargaining, the _Euclid_ came into
+Abraham's possession. In accordance with his practice, the whole
+contents were learned by heart. Abraham's later opponents at the Bar or
+in political discussion came to realise that he understood the meaning
+of the word "demonstrate." In fact, references to specific problems of
+Euclid occurred in some of his earlier speeches at the Bar.
+
+A year or more later, when the Lincoln family had crossed the river to
+Indiana, there was added to the "library" a copy of the revised Statutes
+of the State. The Weems's _Washington_ had been borrowed by Lincoln from
+a neighbouring farmer. The boy kept it at night under his pillow, and on
+the occasion of a storm, the water blew in through the chinks of the
+logs that formed the wall of the cabin, drenching the pillow and the
+head of the boy (a small matter in itself) and wetting and almost
+spoiling the book. This was a grave misfortune. Lincoln took his
+damaged volume to the owner and asked how he could make payment for the
+loss. It was arranged that the boy should put in three days' work
+shucking corn on the farm. "Will that work pay for the book or only for
+the damage?" asked the boy. It was agreed that the labour of three days
+should be considered sufficient for the purchase of the book.
+
+The text of this biography and the words of each valued volume in the
+little "library" were absorbed into the memory of the reader. It was his
+practice when going into the field for work, to take with him
+written-out paragraphs from the book that he had at the moment in mind
+and to repeat these paragraphs between the various chores or between the
+wood-chopping until every page was committed by heart. Paper was scarce
+and dear and for the boy unattainable. He used for his copying bits of
+board shaved smooth with his jack-knife. This material had the advantage
+that when the task of one day had been mastered, a little labour with
+the jack-knife prepared the surface of the board for the work of the
+next day. As I read this incident in Lincoln's boyhood, I was reminded
+of an experience of my own in Louisiana. It happened frequently during
+the campaign of 1863 that our supplies were cut off through the capture
+of our waggon trains by that active Confederate commander, General
+Taylor. More than once, we were short of provisions, and, in one
+instance, a supply of stationery for which the adjutants of the brigade
+had been waiting, was carried off to serve the needs of our opponents.
+We tore down a convenient and unnecessary shed and utilised from the
+roof the shingles, the clean portions of which made an admirable
+substitute for paper. For some days, the morning reports of the brigade
+were filed on shingles.
+
+Lincoln's work as a farm-hand was varied by two trips down the river to
+New Orleans. The opportunity had been offered to the young man by the
+neighbouring store-keeper, Gentry, to take part in the trip of a
+flat-boat which carried the produce of the county to New Orleans, to be
+there sold in exchange for sugar or rum. Lincoln was, at the time of
+these trips, already familiar with certain of the aspects and conditions
+of slavery, but the inspection of the slave-market in New Orleans
+stamped upon his sensitive imagination a fresh and more sombre picture,
+and made a lasting impression of the iniquity and horror of the
+institution. From the time of his early manhood, Lincoln hated slavery.
+What was exceptional, however, in his state of mind was that, while
+abominating the institution, he was able to give a sympathetic
+understanding to the opinions and to the prejudices of the slave-owners.
+In all his long fight against slavery as the curse both of the white and
+of the black, and as the great obstacle to the natural and wholesome
+development of the nation, we do not at any time find a trace of
+bitterness against the men of the South who were endeavouring to
+maintain and to extend the system.
+
+It was of essential importance for the development of Lincoln as a
+political leader, first for his State, and later in the contest that
+became national, that he should have possessed an understanding, which
+was denied to many of the anti-slavery leaders, of the actual nature,
+character, and purpose of the men against whom he was contending. It
+became of larger importance when Lincoln was directing from Washington
+the policy of the national administration that he should have a
+sympathetic knowledge of the problems of the men of the Border States
+who with the outbreak of the War had been placed in a position of
+exceptional difficulty, and that he should have secured and retained the
+confidence of these men. It seems probable that if the War President
+had been a man of Northern birth and Northern prejudices, if he had been
+one to whom the wider, the more patient and sympathetic view of these
+problems had been impossible or difficult, the Border States could not
+have been saved to the Union. It is probable that the support given to
+the cause of the North by the sixty thousand or seventy thousand loyal
+recruits from Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Virginia, may
+even have proved the deciding factor in turning the tide of events. The
+nation's leader for the struggle seems to have been secured through a
+process of natural selection as had been the case a century earlier with
+Washington. We may recall that Washington died but ten years before
+Lincoln was born; and from the fact that each leader was at hand when
+the demand came for his service, and when without such service the
+nation might have been pressed to destruction, we may grasp the hope
+that in time of need the nation will always be provided with the leader
+who can meet the requirement.
+
+After Lincoln returned from New Orleans, he secured employment for a
+time in the grocery or general store of Gentry, and when he was
+twenty-two years of age, he went into business with a partner, some
+twenty years older than himself, in carrying on such a store. He had so
+impressed himself upon the confidence of his neighbours that, while he
+was absolutely without resources, there was no difficulty in his
+borrowing the money required for his share of the capital. The
+undertaking did not prove a success. Lincoln had no business experience
+and no particular business capacity, while his partner proved to be
+untrustworthy. The partner decamped, leaving Lincoln to close up the
+business and to take the responsibility for the joint indebtedness. It
+was seventeen years before Lincoln was able, from his modest earnings as
+a lawyer, to clear off this indebtedness. The debt became outlawed in
+six years' time but this could not affect Lincoln's sense of the
+obligation. After the failure of the business, Lincoln secured work as
+county surveyor. In this, he was following the example of his
+predecessor Washington, with whose career as a surveyor the youngster
+who knew Weems's biography by heart, was of course familiar. His new
+occupation took him through the county and brought him into personal
+relations with a much wider circle than he had known in the village of
+New Salem, and in his case, the personal relation counted for much; the
+history shows that no one who knew Lincoln failed to be attracted by
+him or to be impressed with the fullest confidence in the man's
+integrity of purpose and of action.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WORK AT THE BAR AND ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS
+
+
+In 1834, when he was twenty-five years old, Lincoln made his first
+entrance into politics, presenting himself as candidate for the
+Assembly. His defeat was not without compensations; he secured in his
+own village or township, New Salem, no less than 208 out of the 211
+votes cast. This prophet had honour with those who knew him. Two years
+later, he tried again and this time with success. His journeys as a
+surveyor had brought him into touch with, and into the confidence of,
+enough voters throughout the county to secure the needed majority.
+
+Lincoln's active work as a lawyer lasted from 1834 to 1860, or for about
+twenty-six years. He secured in the cases undertaken by him a very large
+proportion of successful decisions. Such a result is not entirely to be
+credited to his effectiveness as an advocate. The first reason was that
+in his individual work, that is to say, in the matters that were taken
+up by himself rather than by his partner, he accepted no case in the
+justice of which he did not himself have full confidence. As his fame as
+an advocate increased, he was approached by an increasing number of
+clients who wanted the advantage of the effective service of the young
+lawyer and also of his assured reputation for honesty of statement and
+of management. Unless, however, he believed in the case, he put such
+suggestions to one side even at the time when the income was meagre and
+when every dollar was of importance.
+
+Lincoln's record at the Bar has been somewhat obscured by the value of
+his public service, but as it comes to be studied, it is shown to have
+been both distinctive and important. His law-books were, like those of
+his original library, few, but whatever volumes he had of his own and
+whatever he was able to place his hands upon from the shelves of his
+friends, he mastered thoroughly. His work at the Bar gave evidence of
+his exceptional powers of reasoning while it was itself also a large
+influence in the development of such powers. The counsel who practised
+with and against him, the judges before whom his arguments were
+presented, and the members of the juries, the hard-headed working
+citizens of the State, seem to have all been equally impressed with the
+exceptional fairness with which the young lawyer presented not only his
+own case but that of his opponent. He had great tact in holding his
+friends, in convincing those who did not agree with him, and in winning
+over opponents; but he gave no futile effort to tasks which his judgment
+convinced him would prove impossible. He never, says Horace Porter,
+citing Lincoln's words, "wasted any time in trying to massage the back
+of a political porcupine." "A man might as well," says Lincoln,
+"undertake to throw fleas across the barnyard with a shovel."
+
+He had as a youngster won repute as a teller of dramatic stories, and
+those who listened to his arguments in court were expecting to have his
+words to the jury brightened and rendered for the moment more effective
+by such stories. The hearers were often disappointed in such
+expectation. Neither at the Bar, nor, it may be said here, in his later
+work as a political leader, did Lincoln indulge himself in the telling a
+story for the sake of the story, nor for the sake of the laugh to be
+raised by the story, nor for the momentary pleasure or possible
+temporary advantage of the discomfiture of the opponent. The story was
+used, whether in law or in politics, only when it happened to be the
+shortest and most effective method of making clear an issue or of
+illustrating a statement. In later years, when he had upon him the
+terrible burdens of the great struggle, Lincoln used stories from time
+to time as a vent to his feelings. The impression given was that by an
+effort of will and in order to keep his mind from dwelling too
+continuously upon the tremendous problems upon which he was engaged, he
+would, by the use of some humorous reminiscence, set his thoughts in a
+direction as different as possible from that of his cares. A third and
+very valuable use of the story which grew up in his Washington days was
+to turn aside some persistent but impossible application; and to give to
+the applicant, with the least risk of unnecessary annoyance to his
+feelings, the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless also the case
+that, as has happened to other men gifted with humour, Lincoln's
+reputation as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a great series
+of anecdotes and incidents of one kind or another, some of which would
+have been entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his own standard
+and his own method. There is the further and final word to be said about
+Lincoln's stories, that they were entitled to the geometrical
+commendation of "being neither too long nor too broad."
+
+In 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress as a Whig. The circle of
+acquaintances whom he had made in the county as surveyor had widened out
+with his work as a lawyer; he secured a unanimous nomination and was
+elected without difficulty in a constituency comprising six counties. I
+find in the record of the campaign the detail that Lincoln returned to
+certain of his friends who had undertaken to find the funds for election
+expenses, $199.90 out of the $200 subscribed.
+
+In 1847, Lincoln was one of the group of Whigs in Congress who opposed
+the Mexican War. These men took the ground that the war was one of
+aggression and spoliation. Their views, which were quite prevalent
+throughout New England, are effectively presented in Lowell's _Biglow
+Papers._ When the army was once in the field, Lincoln was, however,
+ready to give his Congressional vote for the fullest and most energetic
+support. A year or more later, he worked actively for the election of
+General Taylor. He took the ground that the responsibility for the war
+rested not with the soldiers who had fought it to a successful
+conclusion, but with the politicians who had devised the original
+land-grabbing scheme.
+
+In 1849, we find Lincoln's name connected with an invention for lifting
+vessels over shoals. His sojourn on the Sangamon River and his memory of
+the attempt, successful for the moment but ending in failure, to make
+the river available for steamboats, had attracted his attention to the
+problem of steering river vessels over shoals.
+
+In 1864, when I was campaigning on the Red River in Louisiana, I noticed
+with interest a device that had been put into shape for the purpose of
+lifting river steamers over shoals. This device took the form of stilts
+which for the smaller vessels (and only the smaller steamers could as a
+rule be managed in this way) were fastened on pivots from the upper deck
+on the outside of the hull and were worked from the deck with a force of
+two or three men at each stilt. The difficulty on the Red River was that
+the Rebel sharp-shooters from the banks made the management of the
+stilts irregular.
+
+In 1854, Douglas carried through Congress the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. This
+bill repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and cancelled also the
+provisions of the series of compromises of 1850. Its purpose was to
+throw open for settlement and for later organisation as Slave States the
+whole territory of the North-west from which, under the Missouri
+Compromise, slavery had been excluded. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill not only
+threw open a great territory to slavery but re-opened the whole slavery
+discussion. The issues that were brought to the front in the discussions
+about this bill, and in the still more bitter contests after the passage
+of the bill in regard to the admission of Kansas as a Slave State, were
+the immediate precursors of the Civil War. The larger causes lay further
+back, but the War would have been postponed for an indefinite period if
+it had not been for the pressing on the part of the South for the right
+to make Slave States throughout the entire territory of the country, and
+for the readiness on the part of certain Democratic leaders of the
+North, of whom Douglas was the chief, to accept this contention, and
+through such expedients to gain, or to retain, political control for the
+Democratic party.
+
+In one of the long series of debates in Congress on the question of the
+right to take slaves into free territory, a planter from South Carolina
+drew an affecting picture of his relations with his old coloured
+foster-mother, the "mammy" of the plantation. "Do you tell me," he said,
+addressing himself to a Free-soil opponent, "that I, a free American
+citizen, am not to be permitted, if I want to go across the Missouri
+River, to take with me my whole home circle? Do you say that I must
+leave my old 'Mammy' behind in South Carolina?" "Oh!" replied the
+Westerner, "the trouble with you is not that you cannot take your
+'Mammy' into this free territory, but that you are not to be at liberty
+to sell her when you get her there."
+
+Lincoln threw himself with full earnestness of conviction and ardour
+into the fight to preserve for freedom the territory belonging to the
+nation. In common with the majority of the Whig party, he held the
+opinion that if slavery could be restricted to the States in which it
+was already in existence, if no further States should be admitted into
+the Union with the burden of slavery, the institution must, in the
+course of a generation or two, die out. He was clear in his mind that
+slavery was an enormous evil for the whites as well as for the blacks,
+for the individual as for the nation. He had himself, as a young man,
+been brought up to do toilsome manual labour. He would not admit that
+there was anything in manual labour that ought to impair the respect of
+the community for the labourer or the worker's respect for himself. Not
+the least of the evils of slavery was, in his judgment, its inevitable
+influence in bringing degradation upon labour and the labourer.
+
+The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act made clear to the North that the
+South would accept no limitations for slavery. The position of the
+Southern leaders, in which they had the substantial backing of their
+constituents, was that slaves were property and that the Constitution,
+having guaranteed the protection of property to all the citizens of the
+commonwealth, a slaveholder was deprived of his constitutional rights as
+a citizen if his control of this portion of his property was in any way
+interfered with or restricted. The argument in behalf of this extreme
+Southern claim had been shaped most eloquently and most forcibly by John
+C. Calhoun during the years between 1830 and 1850. The Calhoun opinion
+was represented a few years later in the Presidential candidacy of John
+C. Breckinridge. The contention of the more extreme of the Northern
+opponents of slavery voters, whose spokesmen were William Lloyd
+Garrison, Wendell Phillips, James G. Birney, Owen Lovejoy, and others,
+was that the Constitution in so far as it recognised slavery (which it
+did only by implication) was a compact with evil. They held that the
+Fathers had been led into this compact unwittingly and without full
+realisation of the responsibilities that they were assuming for the
+perpetuation of a great wrong. They refused to accept the view that
+later generations of American citizens were to be bound for an
+indefinite period by this error of judgment on the part of the Fathers.
+They proposed to get rid of slavery, as an institution incompatible with
+the principles on which the Republic was founded. They pointed out that
+under the Declaration of Independence all men had an equal right to
+"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and that there was no
+limitation of this claim to men of white race. If it was not going to be
+possible to argue slavery out of existence, these men preferred to have
+the Union dissolved rather than to bring upon States like Massachusetts
+a share of the responsibility for the wrong done to mankind and to
+justice under the laws of South Carolina.
+
+The Whig party, whose great leader, Henry Clay, had closed his life in
+1852, just at the time when Lincoln was becoming prominent in politics,
+held that all citizens were bound by the compact entered into by their
+ancestors, first under the Articles of Confederation of 1783, and later
+under the Constitution of 1789. Our ancestors had, for the purpose of
+bringing about the organisation of the Union, agreed to respect the
+institution of slavery in the States in which it existed. The Whigs of
+1850, held, therefore, that in such of the Slave States as had been part
+of the original thirteen, slavery was an institution to be recognised
+and protected under the law of the land. They admitted, further, that
+what their grandfathers had done in 1789, had been in a measure
+confirmed by the action of their fathers in 1820. The Missouri
+Compromise of 1820, in making clear that all States thereafter organised
+north of the line thirty-six thirty were to be Free States, made clear
+also that States south of that line had the privilege of coming into the
+Union with the institution of slavery and that the citizens in these
+newer Slave States should be assured of the same recognition and rights
+as had been accorded to those of the original thirteen.
+
+The Missouri Compromise permitted also the introduction of Missouri
+itself into the Union as a Slave State (as a counterpoise to the State
+of Maine admitted the same year), although almost the entire territory
+of the State of Missouri was north of the latitude 36 deg. 30'.
+
+We may recall that, under the Constitution, the States of the South,
+while denying the suffrage to the negro, had secured the right to
+include the negro population as a basis for their representation in the
+lower House. In apportioning the representatives to the population, five
+negroes were to be counted as the equivalent of three white men. The
+passage, in 1854, of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the purpose of which was
+to confirm the existence of slavery and to extend the institution
+throughout the country, was carried in the House by thirteen votes. The
+House contained at that time no less than twenty members representing
+the negro population. The negroes were, therefore, in this instance
+involuntarily made the instruments for strengthening the chains of their
+own serfdom.
+
+It was in 1854 that Lincoln first propounded the famous question, "Can
+the nation endure half slave and half free?" This question, slightly
+modified, became the keynote four years later of Lincoln's contention
+against the Douglas theory of "squatter sovereignty." The organisation
+of the Republican party dates from 1856. Various claims have been made
+concerning the precise date and place at which were first presented the
+statement of principles that constituted the final platform of the
+party, and in regard to the men who were responsible for such statement.
+At a meeting held as far back as July, 1854, at Jackson, Michigan, a
+platform was adopted by a convention which had been brought together to
+formulate opposition to any extension of slavery, and this Jackson
+platform did contain the substance of the conclusions and certain of the
+phrases which later were included in the Republican platform. In
+January, 1856, Parke Godwin published in _Putnam's Monthly_, of which he
+was political editor, an article outlining the necessary constitution of
+the new party. This article gave a fuller expression than had thus far
+been made of the views of the men who were later accepted as the leaders
+of the Republican party. In May, 1856, Lincoln made a speech at
+Bloomington, Illinois, setting forth the principles for the anti-slavery
+campaign as they were understood by his group of Whigs. In this speech,
+Lincoln speaks of "that perfect liberty for which our Southern
+fellow-citizens are sighing, the liberty of making slaves of other
+people"; and again, "It is the contention of Mr. Douglas, in his claim
+for the rights of American citizens, that if _A_ sees fit to enslave
+_B_, no other man shall have the right to object." Of this Bloomington
+speech, Herndon says: "It was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm;
+it was justice, integrity, truth, and right. The words seemed to be set
+ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by a great wrong. The
+utterance was hard, knotty, gnarly, backed with wrath."
+
+From this time on, Lincoln was becoming known throughout the country as
+one of the leaders in the new issues, able and ready to give time and
+service to the anti-slavery fight and to the campaign work of the
+Republican organisation. This political service interfered to some
+extent with his work at the Bar, but he did not permit political
+interests to stand in the way of any obligations that had been assumed
+to his clients. He simply accepted fewer cases, and to this extent
+reduced his very moderate earnings. In his work as a lawyer, he never
+showed any particular capacity for increasing income or for looking
+after his own business interests. It was his principle and his practice
+to discourage litigation. He appears, during the twenty-five years in
+which he was in active practice, to have made absolutely no enemies
+among his professional opponents. He enjoyed an exceptional reputation
+for the frankness with which he would accept the legitimate contentions
+of his opponents or would even himself state their case. Judge David
+Davis, before whom Lincoln had occasion during these years to practise,
+says that the Court was always prepared to accept as absolutely fair and
+substantially complete Lincoln's statement of the matters at issue.
+Davis says it occasionally happened that Lincoln would supply some
+consideration of importance on his opponent's side of the case that the
+other counsel had overlooked. It was Lincoln's principle to impress upon
+himself at the outset the full strength of the other man's position. It
+was also his principle to accept no case in the justice of which he had
+not been able himself to believe. He possessed also by nature an
+exceptional capacity for the detection of faulty reasoning; and his
+exercise of the power of analysis in his work at the Bar proved of great
+service later in widening his influence as a political leader. The power
+that he possessed, when he was assured of the justice of his cause, of
+convincing court and jury became the power of impressing his convictions
+upon great bodies of voters. Later, when he had upon his shoulders the
+leadership of the nation, he took the people into his confidence; he
+reasoned with them as if they were sitting as a great jury for the
+determination of the national policy, and he was able to impress upon
+them his perfect integrity of purpose and the soundness of his
+conclusions,--conclusions which thus became the policy of the nation.
+
+He calls himself a "mast-fed lawyer" and it is true that his
+opportunities for reading continued to be most restricted. Davis said in
+regard to Lincoln's work as a lawyer: "He had a magnificent equipoise of
+head, conscience, and heart. In non-essentials he was pliable; but on
+the underlying principles of truth and justice, his will was as firm as
+steel." We find from the record of Lincoln's work in the Assembly and
+later in Congress that he would never do as a Representative what he was
+unwilling to do as an individual. His capacity for seeing the humorous
+side of things was of course but a phase of a general clearness of
+perception. The man who sees things clearly, who is able to recognise
+both sides of a matter, the man who can see all round a position, the
+opposite of the man in blinders, that man necessarily has a sense of
+humour. He is able, if occasion presents, to laugh at himself. Lincoln's
+capacity for absorbing and for retaining information and for having this
+in readiness for use at the proper time was, as we have seen, something
+that went back to his boyhood. He says of himself: "My mind is something
+like a piece of steel; it is very hard to scratch anything on it and
+almost impossible after you have got it there to rub it out."
+
+Lincoln's correspondence has been preserved with what is probably
+substantial completeness. The letters written by him to friends,
+acquaintances, political correspondents, individual men of one kind or
+another, have been gathered together and have been brought into print
+not, as is most frequently the case, under the discretion or judgment of
+a friendly biographer, but by a great variety of more or less
+sympathetic people. It would seem as if but very few of Lincoln's
+letters could have been mislaid or destroyed. One can but be impressed,
+in reading these letters, with the absolute honesty of purpose and of
+statement that characterises them. There are very few men, particularly
+those whose active lives have been passed in a period of political
+struggle and civil war, whose correspondence could stand such a test.
+There never came to Lincoln requirement to say to his correspondent,
+"Burn this letter."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE FIGHT AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY
+
+
+In 1856, the Supreme Court, under the headship of Judge Taney, gave out
+the decision of the Dred Scott case. The purport of this decision was
+that a negro was not to be considered as a person but as a chattel; and
+that the taking of such negro chattel into free territory did not cancel
+or impair the property rights of the master. It appeared to the men of
+the North as if under this decision the entire country, including in
+addition to the national territories the independent States which had
+excluded slavery, was to be thrown open to the invasion of the
+institution. The Dred Scott decision, taken in connection with the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise (and the two acts were doubtless a
+part of one thoroughly considered policy), foreshadowed as their logical
+and almost inevitable consequence the bringing of the entire nation
+under the control of slavery. The men of the future State of Kansas made
+during 1856-57 a plucky fight to keep slavery out of their borders. The
+so-called Lecompton Constitution undertook to force slavery upon Kansas.
+This constitution was declared by the administration (that of President
+Buchanan) to have been adopted, but the fraudulent character of the
+voting was so evident that Walker, the Democratic Governor, although a
+sympathiser with slavery, felt compelled to repudiate it. This
+constitution was repudiated also by Douglas, although Douglas had
+declared that the State ought to be thrown open to slavery. Jefferson
+Davis, at that time Secretary of War, declared that "Kansas was in a
+state of rebellion and that the rebellion must be crushed." Armed bands
+from Missouri crossed the river to Kansas for the purpose of casting
+fraudulent votes and for the further purpose of keeping the Free-soil
+settlers away from the polls.
+
+This fight for freedom in Kansas gave a further basis for Lincoln's
+statement "that a house divided against itself cannot stand; this
+government cannot endure half slave and half free." It was with this
+statement as his starting-point that Lincoln entered into his famous
+Senatorial campaign with Douglas. Douglas had already represented
+Illinois in the Senate for two terms and had, therefore, the advantage
+of possession and of a substantial control of the machinery of the
+State. He had the repute at the time of being the leading political
+debater in the country. He was shrewd, forcible, courageous, and, in the
+matter of convictions, unprincipled. He knew admirably how to cater to
+the prejudices of the masses. His career thus far had been one of
+unbroken success. His Senatorial fight was, in his hope and expectation,
+to be but a step towards the Presidency. The Democratic party, with an
+absolute control south of Mason and Dixon's Line and with a very
+substantial support in the Northern States, was in a position, if
+unbroken, to control with practical certainty the Presidential election
+of 1860. Douglas seemed to be the natural leader of the party. It was
+necessary for him, however, while retaining the support of the Democrats
+of the North, to make clear to those of the South that his influence
+would work for the maintenance and for the extension of slavery.
+
+The South was well pleased with the purpose and with the result of the
+Dred Scott decision and with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It
+is probable, however, that if the Dred Scott decision had not given to
+the South so full a measure of satisfaction, the South would have been
+more ready to accept the leadership of a Northern Democrat like Douglas.
+Up to a certain point in the conflict, they had felt the need of Douglas
+and had realised the importance of the support that he was in a position
+to bring from the North. When, however, the Missouri Compromise had been
+repealed and the Supreme Court had declared that slaves must be
+recognised as property throughout the entire country, the Southern
+claims were increased to a point to which certain of the followers of
+Douglas were not willing to go. It was a large compliment to the young
+lawyer of Illinois to have placed upon him the responsibility of
+leading, against such a competitor as Douglas, the contest of the Whigs,
+and of the Free-soilers back of the Whigs, against any further extension
+of slavery, a contest which was really a fight for the continued
+existence of the nation.
+
+Lincoln seems to have gone into the fight with full courage, the courage
+of his convictions. He felt that Douglas was a trimmer, and he believed
+that the issue had now been brought to a point at which the trimmer
+could not hold support on both sides of Mason and Dixon's Line. He
+formulated at the outset of the debate a question which was pressed
+persistently upon Douglas during the succeeding three weeks. This
+question was worded as follows: "Can the people of a United States
+territory, prior to the formation of a State constitution or against the
+protest of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery?" Lincoln's
+campaign advisers were of opinion that this question was inadvisable.
+They took the ground that Douglas would answer the question in such way
+as to secure the approval of the voters of Illinois and that in so doing
+he would win the Senatorship. Lincoln's response was in substance: "That
+may be. I hold, however, that if Douglas answers this question in a way
+to satisfy the Democrats of the North, he will inevitably lose the
+support of the more extreme, at least, of the Democrats of the South. We
+may lose the Senatorship as far as my personal candidacy is concerned.
+If, however, Douglas fails to retain the support of the South, he cannot
+become President in 1860. The line will be drawn directly between those
+who are willing to accept the extreme claims of the South and those who
+resist these claims. A right decision is the essential thing for the
+safety of the nation." The question gave no little perplexity to
+Douglas. He finally, however, replied that in his judgment the people of
+a United States territory had the right to exclude slavery. When asked
+again by Lincoln how he brought this decision into accord with the Dred
+Scott decision, he replied in substance: "Well, they have not the right
+to take constitutional measures to exclude slavery but they can by local
+legislation render slavery practically impossible." The Dred Scott
+decision had in fact itself overturned the Douglas theory of popular
+sovereignty or "squatter sovereignty." Douglas was only able to say that
+his sovereignty contention made provision for such control of domestic
+or local regulations as would make slavery impossible.
+
+The South, rendered autocratic by the authority of the Supreme Court,
+was not willing to accept the possibility of slavery being thus
+restricted out of existence in any part of the country. The Southerners
+repudiated Douglas as Lincoln had prophesied they would do. Douglas had
+been trying the impossible task of carrying water on both shoulders. He
+gained the Senatorship by a narrow margin; he secured in the vote in the
+Legislature a majority of eight, but Lincoln had even in this fight won
+the support of the people. His majority on the popular vote was four
+thousand.
+
+The series of debates between these two leaders came to be of national
+importance. It was not merely a question of the representation in the
+Senate from the State of Illinois, but of the presentation of arguments,
+not only to the voters of Illinois but to citizens throughout the entire
+country, in behalf of the restriction of slavery on the one hand or of
+its indefinite expansion and protection on the other. The debate was
+educational not merely for the voters who listened, but for the
+thousands of other voters who read the reports. It would be an enormous
+advantage for the political education of candidates and for the
+education of voters if such debates could become the routine in
+Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Under the present routine, we
+have, in place of an assembly of voters representing the conflicting
+views of the two parties or of the several political groups, a
+homogeneous audience of one way of thinking, and speakers who have no
+opponent present to check the temptation to launch forth into wild
+statements, personal abuse, and irresponsible conclusions. An
+interruption of the speaker is considered to be a disturbance of order,
+and the man who is not fully in sympathy with the views of the audience
+is likely to be put out as an interloper. With a system of joint
+debates, the speakers would be under an educational repression. False
+or exaggerated statements would not be made, or would not be made
+consciously, because they would be promptly corrected by the other
+fellow. There would of necessity come to be a better understanding and a
+larger respect for the positions of the opponent. The men who would be
+selected as leaders or speakers to enforce the contentions of the party,
+would have to possess some reasoning faculty as well as oratorical
+fluency. The voters, instead of being shut in with one group of
+arguments more or less reasonable, would be brought into touch with the
+arguments of other groups of citizens. I can conceive of no better
+method for bringing representative government on to a higher plane and
+for making an election what it ought to be, a reasonable decision by
+reasoning voters, than the institution of joint debates.
+
+I cite certain of the incisive statements that came into Lincoln's seven
+debates. "A slave, says Judge Douglas (on the authority of Judge Taney),
+is a human being who is legally not a person but a thing." "I contend
+[says Lincoln] that slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's
+nature. Slavery is a violation of the eternal right, and as long as God
+reigns and as school-children read, that black evil can never be
+consecrated into God's truth." "A man does not lose his right to a piece
+of property which has been stolen. Can a man lose a right to himself if
+he himself has been stolen?" The following words present a summary of
+Lincoln's statements:
+
+Judge Douglas contends that if any one man chooses to enslave another,
+no third man has a right to object. Our Fathers, in accepting slavery
+under the Constitution as a legal institution, were of opinion, as is
+clearly indicated by the recorded utterances, that slavery would in the
+course of a few years die out. They were quite clear in their minds that
+the slave-trade must be abolished and for ever forbidden and this
+decision was arrived at under the leadership of men like Jefferson and
+without a protest from the South. Jefferson was himself the author of
+the Ordinance of 1787, which in prohibiting the introduction of slavery,
+consecrated to freedom the great territory of the North-west, and this
+measure was fully approved by Washington and by the other great leaders
+from the South. Where slavery exists, full liberty refuses to enter. It
+was only through this wise action of the Fathers that it was possible to
+bring into existence, through colonisation, the great territories and
+great States of the North-west. It is this settlement, and the later
+adjustment of 1820, that Douglas and his friends in the South are
+undertaking to overthrow. Slavery is not, as Judge Douglas contends, a
+local issue; it is a national responsibility. The repeal of the Missouri
+Compromise throws open not only a great new territory to the curse of
+slavery; it throws open the whole slavery question for the embroiling of
+the present generation of Americans. Taking slaves into free territory
+is the same thing as reviving the slave-trade. It perpetuates and
+develops interstate slave-trade. Government derives its just powers from
+the consent of the governed. The Fathers did not claim that "the right
+of the people to govern negroes was the right of the people to govern
+themselves."
+
+The policy of Judge Douglas was based on the theory that the people did
+not care, but the people did care, as was evinced two years later by the
+popular vote for President throughout the North. One of those who heard
+these debates says: "Lincoln loved truth for its own sake. He had a
+deep, true, living conscience; honesty was his polar star. He never
+acted for stage effect. He was cool, spirited, reflective,
+self-possessed, and self-reliant. His style was clear, terse, compact
+... He became tremendous in the directness of his utterance when, as his
+soul was inspired with the thought of human right and Divine justice,
+he rose to impassioned eloquence, and at such times he was, in my
+judgment, unsurpassed by Clay or by Mirabeau."
+
+As the debates progressed, it was increasingly evident that Douglas
+found himself hard pushed. Lincoln would not allow himself to be swerved
+from the main issue by any tergiversation or personal attacks. He
+insisted from day to day in bringing Douglas back to this issue: "What
+do you, Douglas, propose to do about slavery in the territories? Is it
+your final judgment that there is to be no further reservation of free
+territory in this country? Do you believe that it is for the advantage
+of this country to put no restriction to the extension of slavery?"
+Douglas wriggled and squirmed under this direct questioning and his
+final replies gave satisfaction neither to the Northern Democrats nor to
+those of the South. The issue upon which the Presidential contest of
+1860 was to be fought out had been fairly stated. It was the same issue
+under which, in 1861, the fighting took the form of civil war. It was
+the issue that took four years to fight out and that was finally decided
+in favour of the continued existence of the nation as a free state. In
+this fight, Lincoln was not only, as the contest was finally shaped, the
+original leader; he was the final leader; and at the time of his death
+the great question had been decided for ever.
+
+Horace White, in summing up the issues that were fought out in debate
+between Lincoln and Douglas, says:
+
+"Forty-four years have passed away since the Civil War came to an end
+and we are now able to take a dispassionate view of the question in
+dispute. The people of the South are now generally agreed that the
+institution of slavery was a direful curse to both races. We of the
+North must confess that there was considerable foundation for the
+asserted right of States to secede. Although the Constitution did in
+distinct terms make the Federal Government supreme, it was not so
+understood at first by the people either North or South. Particularism
+prevailed everywhere at the beginning. Nationalism was an aftergrowth
+and a slow growth proceeding mainly from the habit into which people
+fell of finding their common centre of gravity at Washington City and of
+viewing it as the place whence the American name and fame were blazoned
+to the world. During the first half century of the Republic, the North
+and South were changing coats from time to time, on the subject of State
+Rights and the right to secede, but meanwhile the Constitution itself
+was working silently in the North to undermine the particularism of
+Jefferson and to strengthen the nationalism of Hamilton. It had
+accomplished its work in the early thirties, when it found its perfect
+expression in Webster's reply to Hayne. But the Southern people were
+just as firmly convinced that Hayne was the victor in that contest as
+the Northern people were that Webster was. The vast material interests
+bottomed on slavery offset and neutralised the unifying process in the
+South, while it continued its wholesome work in the North, and thus the
+clashing of ideas paved the way for the clash of arms. That the
+behaviour of the slaveholders resulted from the circumstances in which
+they were placed and not from any innate deviltry is a fact now conceded
+by all impartial men. It was conceded by Lincoln both before the War and
+during the War, and this fact accounts for the affection bestowed upon
+him by Southern hearts to-day."
+
+Lincoln carried into politics the same standard of consistency of action
+that had characterised his work at the Bar. He writes, in 1859, to a
+correspondent whom he was directing to further the organisation of the
+new party: "Do not, in order to secure recruits, lower the standard of
+the Republican party. The true problem for 1860, is to fight to prevent
+slavery from becoming national. We must, however, recognise its
+constitutional right to exist in the States in which its existence was
+recognised under the original Constitution." This position was
+unsatisfactory to the Whigs of the Border States who favoured a
+continuing division between Slave States and Free States of the
+territory yet to be organised into States. It was also unsatisfactory to
+the extreme anti-slavery Whigs of the new organisation who insisted upon
+throttling slavery where-ever it existed. It is probable that the raid
+made by John Brown, in 1859, into Virginia for the purpose of rousing
+the slaves to fight for their own liberty, had some immediate influence
+in checking the activity of the more extreme anti-slavery group and in
+strengthening the conservative side of the new organisation. Lincoln
+disapproved entirely of the purpose of Brown and his associates, while
+ready to give due respect to the idealistic courage of the man.
+
+In February, 1860, Lincoln was invited by certain of the Republican
+leaders in New York to deliver one of a series of addresses which had
+been planned to make clear to the voters the purposes and the
+foundations of the new party. His name had become known to the
+Republicans of the East through the debates with Douglas. It was
+recognised that Lincoln had taken the highest ground in regard to the
+principles of the new party, and that his counsels should prove of
+practical service in the shaping of the policy of the Presidential
+campaign. It was believed also that his influence would be of value in
+securing voters in the Middle West. The Committee of Invitation
+included, in addition to a group of the old Whigs (of whom my father was
+one), representative Free-soil Democrats like William C. Bryant and John
+King. Lincoln's methods as a political leader and orator were known to
+one or two men on the committee, but his name was still unfamiliar to an
+Eastern audience. It was understood that the new leader from the West
+was going to talk to New York about the fight against slavery. It is
+probable that at least the larger part of the audience expected
+something "wild and woolly." The West at that time seemed very far off
+from New York and was still but little understood by the Eastern
+communities. New Yorkers found it difficult to believe that a man who
+could influence Western audiences could have anything to say that would
+count with the cultivated citizens of the East. The more optimistic of
+the hearers were hoping, however, that perhaps a new Henry Clay had
+arisen and were looking for utterances of the ornate and grandiloquent
+kind such as they had heard frequently from Clay and from other
+statesmen of the South.
+
+The first impression of the man from the West did nothing to contradict
+the expectation of something weird, rough, and uncultivated. The long,
+ungainly figure upon which hung clothes that, while new for this trip,
+were evidently the work of an unskilful tailor; the large feet, the
+clumsy hands of which, at the outset, at least, the orator seemed to be
+unduly conscious; the long, gaunt head capped by a shock of hair that
+seemed not to have been thoroughly brushed out, made a picture which did
+not fit in with New York's conception of a finished statesman. The first
+utterance of the voice was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being harsh
+and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker
+seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and
+impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and
+the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the
+deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of devotion
+to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the speaker.
+In place of a "wild and woolly" talk, illumined by more or less
+incongruous anecdotes; in place of a high-strung exhortation of general
+principles or of a fierce protest against Southern arrogance, the New
+Yorkers had presented to them a calm but forcible series of
+well-reasoned considerations upon which their action as citizens was to
+be based. It was evident that the man from the West understood
+thoroughly the constitutional history of the country; he had mastered
+the issues that had grown up about the slavery question; he knew
+thoroughly, and was prepared to respect, the rights of his political
+opponents; he knew with equal thoroughness the rights of the men whose
+views he was helping to shape and he insisted that there should be no
+wavering or weakening in regard to the enforcement of those rights; he
+made it clear that the continued existence of the nation depended upon
+having these issues equitably adjusted and he held that the equitable
+adjustment meant the restriction of slavery within its present
+boundaries. He maintained that such restrictions were just and necessary
+as well for the sake of fairness to the blacks as for the final welfare
+of the whites. He insisted that the voters in the present States in the
+Union had upon them the largest possible measure of responsibility in so
+controlling the great domain of the Republic that the States of the
+future, the States in which their children and their grandchildren were
+to grow up as citizens, must be preserved in full liberty, must be
+protected against any invasion of an institution which represented
+barbarity. He maintained that such a contention could interfere in no
+way with the due recognition of the legitimate property rights of the
+present owners of slaves. He pointed out to the New Englander of the
+anti-slavery group that the restriction of slavery meant its early
+extermination. He insisted that war for the purpose of exterminating
+slavery from existing slave territory could not be justified. He was
+prepared, for the purpose of defending against slavery the national
+territory that was still free, to take the risk of the war which the
+South threatened because he believed that only through such defence
+could the existence of the nation be maintained; and he believed,
+further, that the maintenance of the great Republic was essential, not
+only for the interests of its own citizens, but for the interests of
+free government throughout the world. He spoke with full sympathy of the
+difficulties and problems resting upon the South, and he insisted that
+the matters at issue could be adjusted only with a fair recognition of
+these difficulties. Aggression from either side of Mason and Dixon's
+Line must be withstood.
+
+I was but a boy when I first looked upon the gaunt figure of the man who
+was to become the people's leader, and listened to his calm but forcible
+arguments in behalf of the principles of the Republican party. It is not
+likely that at the time I took in, with any adequate appreciation, the
+weight of the speaker's reasoning. I have read the address more than
+once since and it is, of course, impossible to separate my first
+impressions from my later direct knowledge. I do remember that I was at
+once impressed with the feeling that here was a political leader whose
+methods differed from those of any politician to whom I had listened.
+His contentions were based not upon invective or abuse of "the other
+fellow," but purely on considerations of justice, on that everlasting
+principle that what is just, and only what is just, represents the
+largest and highest interests of the nation as a whole. I doubt whether
+there occurred in the whole speech a single example of the stories which
+had been associated with Lincoln's name. The speaker was evidently
+himself impressed with the greatness of the opportunity and with the
+dignity and importance of his responsibility. The speech in fact gave
+the keynote to the coming campaign.
+
+It is hardly necessary to add that it also decided the selection of the
+national leader not only for the political campaign, but through the
+coming struggle. If it had not been for the impression made upon New
+York and the East generally by Lincoln's speech and by the man himself,
+the vote of New York could not have been secured in the May convention
+for the nomination of the man from Illinois.
+
+Robert Lincoln (writing to me in July, 1908) says:
+
+    "After my father's address in New York in February, 1860, he made a
+    trip to New England in order to visit me at Exeter, N.H., where I
+    was then a student in the Phillips Academy. It had not been his plan
+    to do any speaking in New England, but, as a result of the address
+    in New York, he received several requests from New England friends
+    for speeches, and I find that before returning to the West, he spoke
+    at the following places: Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., Exeter,
+    N.H., Dover, N.H., Concord, N.H., Hartford, Conn., Meriden, Conn.,
+    New Haven, Conn., Woonsocket, R.I., Norwalk, Conn., and Bridgeport,
+    Conn. I am quite sure that coming and going he passed through
+    Boston merely as an unknown traveller."
+
+Mr. Lincoln writes to his wife from Exeter, N.H., March 4, 1860, as
+follows:
+
+    "I have been unable to escape this toil. If I had foreseen it, I
+    think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New York,
+    being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well
+    and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine
+    others, before reading audiences who had already seen all my ideas
+    in print."[1]
+
+An edition of Mr. Lincoln's address was brought into print in September,
+1860, by the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, with notes by
+Charles C. Nott (later Colonel, and after the war Judge of the Court of
+Claims in Washington) and Cephas Brainerd. The publication of this
+pamphlet shows that as early as September, 1860, the historic importance
+and permanent value of this speech were fairly realised by the national
+leaders of the day. In the preface to the reprint, the editors say:
+
+    "The address is characterised by wisdom, truthfulness and learning
+    ...From the first line to the last--from his premises to his
+    conclusion, the speaker travels with a swift, unerring directness
+    that no logician has ever excelled. His argument is complete and is
+    presented without the affectation of learning, and without the
+    stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details ...A single
+    simple sentence contains a chapter of history that has taken days of
+    labour to verify, and that must have cost the author months of
+    investigation to acquire. The reader may take up this address as a
+    political pamphlet, but he will leave it as an historical
+    treatise--brief, complete, perfect, sound, impartial truth--which
+    will serve the time and the occasion that called it forth, and which
+    will be esteemed hereafter no less for its unpretending modesty than
+    for its intrinsic worth."[2]
+
+Horace White, who was himself present at the Chicago Convention, writes
+(in 1909) as follows:
+
+    "To anybody looking back at the Republican National Convention of
+    1860, it must be plain that there were only two men who had any
+    chance of being nominated for President.
+
+    "These were Lincoln and Seward. I was present at the Convention as a
+    spectator and I knew this fact at the time, but it seemed to me at
+    the beginning that Seward's chances were the better. One third of
+    the delegates of Illinois preferred Seward and expected to vote for
+    him after a few complimentary ballots for Lincoln. If there had been
+    no Lincoln in the field, Seward would certainly have been nominated
+    and then the course of history would have been very different from
+    what it was, for if Seward had been nominated and elected there
+    would have been no forcible opposition to the withdrawal of such
+    States as then desired to secede. And as a consequence the
+    Republican party would have been rent in twain and disabled from
+    making effectual resistance to other demands of the South.
+
+    "It was Seward's conviction that the policy of non-coercion would
+    have quieted the secession movement in the Border States and that
+    the Gulf States would, after a while, have returned to the Union
+    like repentant prodigal sons. His proposal to Lincoln to seek a
+    quarrel with four European nations, who had done us no harm, in
+    order to arouse a feeling of Americanism in the Confederate States,
+    was an outgrowth of this conviction. It was an indefensible
+    proposition, akin to that which prompted Bismarck to make use of
+    France as an anvil on which to hammer and weld Germany together, but
+    it was not an unpatriotic one, since it was bottomed on a desire to
+    preserve the Union without civil war."
+
+Never was a political leadership more fairly, more nobly, and more
+reasonably won. When the ballot boxes were opened on the first Tuesday
+in November, Lincoln was found to have secured the electoral vote of
+every Northern State except New Jersey, and in New Jersey four electors
+out of seven. Breckinridge, the leader of the extreme Southern
+Democrats, had back of him only the votes of the Southern States outside
+of the Border States, these latter being divided between Bell and
+Douglas. Douglas and his shallow theories of "squatter sovereignty" had
+been buried beneath the good sense of the voters of the North.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT ORGANISES THE PEOPLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF
+NATIONAL EXISTENCE
+
+
+After the election of November, 1860, events moved swiftly. On the 20th
+of December, comes the first act of the Civil War, the secession of
+South Carolina. The secession of Georgia had for a time been delayed by
+the influence of Alexander H. Stephens who, on the 14th of November, had
+made a great argument for the maintenance of the Union. His chief local
+opponent at the time was Robert Toombs, the Southern leader who proposed
+in the near future to "call the roll-call of his slaves on Bunker Hill."
+Lincoln was still hopeful of saving to the cause of the Union the Border
+States and the more conservative divisions of States, like North
+Carolina, which had supported the Whig party.
+
+In December, we find correspondence between Lincoln and Gilmer of North
+Carolina, whom he had known in Washington. "The essential difference,"
+says Lincoln, "between your group and mine is that you hold slavery to
+be in itself desirable and as something to be extended. I hold it to be
+an essential evil which, with due regard to existing rights, must be
+restricted and in the near future exterminated."
+
+On the 23d of February, 1861, Lincoln reaches Washington where he is to
+spend a weary and anxious two weeks of waiting for the burden of his new
+responsibilities. He is at this time fifty-two years of age. In one of
+his brief addresses on the way to Washington he says:
+
+    "It is but little to a man of my age, but a great deal to thirty
+    millions of the citizens of the United States, and to posterity in
+    all coming time, if the Union of the States and the liberties of the
+    people are to be lost. If the majority is not to rule, who would be
+    the judge of the issue or where is such judge to be found?"
+
+It is difficult to imagine a more exasperating condition of affairs than
+obtained in Washington while Lincoln was awaiting the day of
+inauguration. The government appeared to be crumbling away under the
+nerveless direction, or lack of direction, of President Buchanan and his
+associates. In his last message to Congress, Buchanan had taken the
+ground that the Constitution made no provision for the secession of
+States or for the breaking up of the Union; but that it also failed to
+contain any provision for measures that could prevent such secession and
+the consequent destruction of the nation. The old gentleman appeared to
+be entirely unnerved by the pressure of events. He could not see any
+duty before him. He certainly failed to realise that the more immediate
+cause of the storm was the breaking down, through the repeal of the
+Missouri Compromise, of the barriers that had in 1820, and in 1850, been
+placed against the extension of slavery. He evidently failed to
+understand that it was his own action in backing up the infamous
+Lecompton Constitution, and the invasion of Kansas by the slave-owners,
+which had finally aroused the spirit of the North, and further that it
+was the influence of his administration which had given to the South the
+belief that it was now in a position to control for slavery the whole
+territory of the Republic.
+
+It has before now been pointed out that, under certain contingencies,
+the long interval between the national election and the inaugural of the
+new President from the first Tuesday in November until the fourth day of
+March must, in not a few instances, bring inconvenience, disadvantage,
+and difficulty not only to the new administration but to the nation.
+These months in which the members of an administration which had
+practically committed itself to the cause of disintegration, were left
+in charge of the resources of the nation gave a most serious example and
+evidence of such disadvantage. This historic instance ought to have been
+utilised immediately after the War as an influence for bringing about a
+change in the date for bringing into power the administration that has
+been chosen in November.
+
+By the time when Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet had placed in
+their hands the responsibilities of administration, the resources at the
+disposal of the government had, as far as practicable, been scattered or
+rendered unavailable. The Secretary of the Navy, a Southerner, had taken
+pains to send to the farthest waters of the Pacific as many as possible
+of the vessels of the American fleet; the Secretary of War, also a
+Southerner, had for months been busy in transferring to the arsenals of
+the South the guns and ammunition that had been stored in the Federal
+arsenals of the North; the Secretary of the Treasury had had no
+difficulty in disposing of government funds in one direction or another
+so that there was practically no balance to hand over to his successor
+available for the most immediate necessities of the new administration.
+
+One of the sayings quoted from Washington during these weeks was the
+answer given by Count Gurowski to the inquiry, "Is there anything in
+addition this morning?" "No," said Gurowski, "it is all in subtraction."
+
+By the day of the inaugural, the secession of seven States was an
+accomplished fact and the government of the Confederacy had already been
+organised in Montgomery. Alexander H. Stephens had so far modified his
+original position that he had accepted the post of Vice-President and in
+his own inaugural address had used the phrase, "Slavery is the
+corner-stone of our new nation," a phrase that was to make much mischief
+in Europe for the hopes of the new Confederacy.
+
+In the first inaugural, one of the great addresses in a noteworthy
+series, Lincoln presented to the attention of the leaders of the South
+certain very trenchant arguments against the wisdom of their course. He
+says of secession for the purpose of preserving the institution of
+slavery:
+
+    "You complain that under the government of the United States your
+    slaves have from time to time escaped across your borders and have
+    not been returned to you. Their value as property has been lessened
+    by the fact that adjoining your Slave States were certain States
+    inhabited by people who did not believe in your institution. How is
+    this condition going to be changed by war even under the assumption
+    that the war may be successful in securing your independence? Your
+    slave territory will still adjoin territory inhabited by free men
+    who are inimical to your institution; but these men will no longer
+    be bound by any of the restrictions which have obtained under the
+    Constitution. They will not have to give consideration to the rights
+    of slave-owners who are fellow-citizens. Your slaves will escape as
+    before and you will have no measure of redress. Your indignation may
+    produce further wars, but the wars can but have the same result
+    until finally, after indefinite loss of life and of resources, the
+    institution will have been hammered out of existence by the
+    inevitable conditions of existing civilisation."
+
+Lincoln points out further in this same address the difference between
+his responsibilities and those of the Southern leaders who are
+organising for war. "You," he says, "have no oath registered in Heaven
+to destroy this government, while I have the most solemn oath to
+preserve, direct, and defend it."
+
+    "It was not necessary," says Lincoln, "for the Constitution to
+    contain any provision expressly forbidding the disintegration of the
+    state; perpetuity and the right to maintain self-existence will be
+    considered as a fundamental law of all national government. If the
+    theory be accepted that the United States was an association or
+    federation of communities, the creation or continued existence of
+    such federation must rest upon contract; and before such contract
+    can be rescinded, the consent is required of both or of all of the
+    parties assenting to it."
+
+He closes with the famous invocation to the fellow Americans of the
+South against whom throughout the whole message there had not been one
+word of bitterness or rancour: "We are not enemies but friends. We must
+not be enemies. Though passion may have strained our relations, it must
+not break our bonds of affection."
+
+It was, however, too late for argument, and too late for invocations of
+friendship. The issue had been forced by the South and the war for which
+the leaders of the South had for months, if not for years, been making
+preparation was now to be begun by Southern action. It remained to make
+clear to the North, where the people up to the last moment had been
+unwilling to believe in the possibility of civil war, that the nation
+could be preserved only by fighting for its existence. It remained to
+organise the men of the North into armies which should be competent to
+carry out this tremendous task of maintaining the nation's existence.
+
+It was just after the great inaugural and when his head must have been
+full of cares and his hands of work, that Lincoln took time to write a
+touching little note that I find in his correspondence. It was addressed
+to a boy who had evidently spoken with natural pride of having met the
+President and whose word had been questioned:
+
+    "The White House, March 18, 1861.
+
+    "I did see and talk in May last at Springfield, Illinois, with
+    Master George Edward Patten."
+
+With the beginning of the work of the administration, came trouble with
+the members of the Cabinet. The several secretaries were, in form at
+least, the choice of the President, but as must always be the case in
+the shaping of a Cabinet, and as was particularly necessary at a time
+when it was of first importance to bring into harmonious relations all
+of the political groups of the North which were prepared to be loyal to
+the government, the men who took office in the first Cabinet of Lincoln
+represented not any personal preference of the President, but political
+or national requirements. The Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, had, as we
+know, been Lincoln's leading opponent for the Presidential nomination
+and had expressed with some freedom of criticism his disappointment that
+he, the natural leader of the party, should be put to one side for an
+uncultivated, inexperienced Westerner. Mr. Seward possessed both
+experience and culture; more than this, he was a scholar, and came of a
+long line of gentlefolk. He had public spirit, courage, legitimate
+political ambition, and some of the qualities of leadership. His nature
+was, however, not quite large enough to stand the pressure of political
+disappointment nor quite elastic enough to develop rapidly under the
+tremendous urgency of absolutely new requirements. It is in evidence
+that more than once in the management of the complex and serious
+difficulties of the State Department during the years of war, Seward
+lost his head. It is also on record that the wise-minded and fair-minded
+President was able to supply certain serious gaps and deficiencies in
+the direction of the work of the Department, and further that his
+service was so rendered as to save the dignity and the repute of the
+Secretary. Seward's subjectivity, not to say vanity, was great, and it
+took some little time before he was able to realise that his was not the
+first mind or the strongest will-power in the new administration. On the
+first of April, 1861, less than thirty days after the organisation of
+the Cabinet, Seward writes to Lincoln complaining that the "government
+had as yet no policy; that its action seemed to be simply drifting";
+that there was a lack of any clear-minded control in the direction of
+affairs within the Cabinet, in the presentation to the people of the
+purposes of the government, and in the shaping of the all-important
+relations with foreign states. "Who," said Seward, "is to control the
+national policy?" The letter goes on to suggest that Mr. Seward is
+willing to take the responsibility, leaving, if needs be, the credit to
+the nominal chief. The letter was a curious example of the weakness and
+of the bumptiousness of the man, while it gave evidence also, it is fair
+to say, of a real public-spirited desire that things should go right and
+that the nation should be saved. It was evident that he had as yet no
+adequate faith in the capacity of the President.
+
+Lincoln's answer was characteristic of the man. There was no irritation
+with the bumptiousness, no annoyance at the lack of confidence on the
+part of his associate. He states simply: "There must, of course, be
+control and the responsibility for this control must rest with me." He
+points out further that the general policy of the administration had
+been outlined in the inaugural, that no action since taken had been
+inconsistent with this. The necessary preparations for the defence of
+the government were in train and, as the President trusted, were being
+energetically pushed forward by the several department heads. "I have a
+right," said Lincoln, "to expect loyal co-operation from my associates
+in the Cabinet. I need their counsel and the nation needs the best
+service that can be secured from our united wisdom." The letter of
+Seward was put away and appears never to have been referred to between
+the two men. It saw the light only after the President's death. If he
+had lived it might possibly have been suppressed altogether. A month
+later, Seward said to a friend, "There is in the Cabinet but one vote
+and that is cast by the President."
+
+The post next in importance under the existing war conditions was that
+of Secretary of War. The first man to hold this post was Simon Cameron
+of Pennsylvania. Cameron was very far from being a friend of Lincoln's.
+The two men had had no personal relations and what Lincoln knew of him
+he liked not at all. The appointment had been made under the pressure of
+the Republicans of Pennsylvania, a State whose support was, of course,
+all important for the administration. It was not the first nor the last
+time that the Republicans of this great State, whose Republicanism seems
+to be much safer than its judgment, have committed themselves to
+unworthy and undesirable representatives, men who were not fitted to
+stand for Pennsylvania and who were neither willing nor able to be of
+any service to the country. The appointment of Cameron had, as appears
+from the later history, been promised to Pennsylvania by Judge Davis in
+return for the support of the Pennsylvania delegation for the nomination
+of Lincoln. Lincoln knew nothing of the promise and was able to say with
+truth, and to prove, that he had authorised no promises and no
+engagements whatsoever. He had, in fact, absolutely prohibited Davis and
+the one or two other men who were supposed to have some right to speak
+for him in the convention, from the acceptance of any engagements or
+obligations whatsoever. Davis made the promise to Pennsylvania on his
+own responsibility and at his own risk; Lincoln felt under too much
+obligation to Davis for personal service and for friendly loyalty to be
+willing, when the claim was finally pressed, to put it to one side as
+unwarranted. The appointment of Cameron was made and proved to be
+expensive for the efficiency of the War Department and for the repute of
+the administration. It became necessary within a comparatively short
+period to secure his resignation. It was in evidence that he was
+trafficking in appointments and in contracts. He was replaced by Edwin
+M. Stanton, who was known later as "the Carnot of the War." Stanton's
+career as a lawyer had given him no direct experience of army affairs.
+He showed, however, exceptional ability, great will power, and an
+enormous capacity for work. He was ambitious, self-willed, and most
+arbitrary in deed and in speech. The difficulty with Stanton was that he
+was as likely to insult and to browbeat some loyal supporter of the
+government as to bring to book, and, when necessary, to crush, greedy
+speculators and disloyal tricksters. His judgment in regard to men was
+in fact very often at fault. He came into early and unnecessary conflict
+with his chief and he found there a will stronger than his own. The
+respect of the two men for each other grew into a cordial regard. Each
+recognised the loyalty of purpose and the patriotism by which the
+actions of both were influenced. Lincoln was able to some extent to
+soften and to modify the needless truculency of the great War Secretary,
+and notwithstanding a good deal of troublesome friction, armies were
+organised and the troops were sent to the front.
+
+The management of the Treasury, a responsibility hardly less in
+importance under the war conditions than that of the organisation of the
+armies, was placed in the hands of Senator Chase. He received from his
+precursor an empty treasury while from the administration came demands
+for immediate and rapidly increasing weekly supplies of funds. The task
+came upon him first of establishing a national credit and secondly of
+utilising this credit for loans such as the civilised world had not
+before known. The expenditures extended by leaps and bounds until by the
+middle of 1864 they had reached the sum of $2,000,000 a day. Blunders
+were made in large matters and in small, but, under the circumstances,
+blunders were not to be avoided and the chief purpose was carried out. A
+sufficient credit was established, first with the citizens at home and
+later with investors abroad, to make a market for the millions of bonds
+in the two great issues, the so-called seven-thirties and
+five-twenties. The sales of these bonds, together with a wide-reaching
+and, in fact, unduly complex system of taxation, secured the funds
+necessary for the support of the army and the navy. At the close of the
+War, the government, after meeting this expenditure, had a national war
+debt of something over four thousand millions of dollars. The gross
+indebtedness resulting from the War was of course, however, much larger
+because each State had incurred war expenditures and counties as well as
+States had issued bonds for the payment of bounties, etc. The criticism
+was made at the time by the opponents of the financial system which was
+shaped by the Committee of Ways and Means in co-operation with the
+Secretary, a criticism that has often been repeated since, that the War
+expenditure would have been much less if the amounts needed beyond what
+could be secured by present taxation had been supplied entirely by the
+proceeds of bonds. In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the
+government issued currency to a large amount, which was made legal
+tender and which on the face of it was not made subject to redemption.
+
+In addition to the bills ranging in denomination from one dollar to one
+thousand, the government brought into distribution what was called
+"postal currency." I landed in New York in August, 1862, having returned
+from a University in Germany for the purpose of enlisting in the army. I
+was amused to see my father make payment in the restaurant for my first
+lunch in postage stamps. He picked the requisite number, or the number
+that he believed would be requisite, from a ball of stamps which had,
+under the influence of the summer heat, stuck together so closely as to
+be very difficult to handle. Many of the stamps were in fact practically
+destroyed and were unavailable. Some question arose between the
+restaurant keeper and my father as to the availability of one or two of
+the stamps that had been handed over. My father explained to me that
+immediately after the outbreak of the War, specie, including even the
+nickels and copper pennies, had disappeared from circulation, and the
+people had been utilising for the small change necessary for current
+operations the postage stamps, a use which, in connection with the large
+percentage of destruction, was profitable to the government, but
+extravagant for the community. A little later, the postal department was
+considerate enough to bring into print a series of postage stamps
+without any gum on the back. These could, of course, be handled more
+easily, but were still seriously perishable. Towards the close of the
+year, the Treasury department printed from artistically engraved plates
+a baby currency in notes of about two and a half inches long by one and
+a half inches wide. The denominations comprised ten cents, fifteen
+cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and seventy-five cents. The
+fifteen cents and the seventy-five cents were not much called for, and
+were probably not printed more than once. They would now be scarce as
+curiosities. The postal currency was well printed on substantial paper,
+but in connection with the large requirement for handling that is always
+placed upon small currency, these little paper notes became very dirty
+and were easily used up. The government must have made a large profit
+from the percentage that was destroyed. The necessary effect of this
+distribution of government "I.O.U.'s," based not upon any redemption
+fund of gold but merely upon the general credit of the government, was
+to appreciate the value of gold. In June, 1863, just before the battle
+of Gettysburg, the depreciation of this paper currency, which
+represented of course the appreciation of gold, was in the ratio of 100
+to 290. It happened that the number 290, which marked the highest price
+reached by gold during the War, was the number that had been given in
+Laird's ship-yard (on the Mersey) to the Confederate cruiser _Alabama_.
+
+Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary of the Treasury but an
+ambitious, active-minded, and intriguing politician. He represented in
+the administration the more extreme anti-slavery group. He was one of
+those who favoured from the beginning immediate action on the part of
+the government in regard to the slaves in the territory that was still
+controlled by the government. It is doubtless the case that he held
+these anti-slavery views as a matter of honest conviction. It is in
+evidence also from his correspondence that he connected with these views
+the hope and the expectation of becoming President. His scheming for the
+nomination for 1864 was carried on with the machinery that he had at his
+disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The issues between Chase and
+Seward and between Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The pressure
+on the part of the conservative Republicans to get Chase out of the
+Cabinet was considerable. Lincoln, believing that his service was
+valuable, refused to be influenced by any feeling of personal antagonism
+or personal rivalry. He held on to the Secretary until the last year of
+the War, when deciding that the Cabinet could then work more smoothly
+without him, he accepted his resignation. Even then, however, although
+he had had placed in his hands a note indicating a measure of what might
+be called personal disloyalty on the part of Chase, Lincoln was
+unwilling to lose his service for the country and appointed him as Chief
+Justice.
+
+Montgomery Blair was put into the Cabinet as Postmaster-General more
+particularly as the representative of the loyalists of the Border
+States. His father was a leader in politics in Missouri, in which the
+family had long been of importance. His brother, Frank P. Blair, served
+with credit in the army, reaching the rank of Major-General. The Blair
+family was quite ready to fight for the Union, but was very unwilling to
+do any fighting for the black man. They wanted the Union restored as it
+had been, Missouri Compromise and all. It was Blair who had occasion
+from time to time to point out, and with perfect truth, that if, through
+the influence of Chase and of the men back of Chase in Massachusetts and
+northern Ohio, immediate action should be taken to abolish slavery in
+the Border States, fifty thousand men who had marched out of those
+States to the support of the Union might be and probably would be
+recalled. "By a stroke of the pen," said Blair, "Missouri, eastern
+Tennessee, western Maryland, loyal Kentucky, now loyally supporting the
+cause of the nation, will be thrown into the arms of the Confederacy."
+During the first two years of the War, and in fact up to September,
+1863, the views of Blair and his associates prevailed, and with the
+fuller history before us, we may conclude that it was best that they
+should have prevailed. This was, at least, the conclusion of Lincoln,
+the one man who knew no sectional prejudices, who had before him all the
+information and all the arguments, and who had upon him the pressure
+from all quarters. It was not easy under the circumstances to keep peace
+between Blair and Chase. Probably no man but Lincoln could have met the
+requirement.
+
+The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, while not a
+man of brilliancy or of great initiative, appears to have done his part
+quietly and effectively in the great work of the building and organising
+of a new fleet. He contributed nothing to the friction of the Cabinet
+and he was from the beginning a loyal supporter of the President. What
+we know now about the issues that arose between the different members
+of the Cabinet family comes to us chiefly through the Diary of Welles,
+who has described with apparent impartiality the idiosyncrasies of each
+of the secretaries and whose references to the tact, patience, and
+gracefully exercised will-power of the President are fully in line with
+the best estimates of Lincoln's character.
+
+One of the first and most difficult tasks confronting the President and
+his secretaries in the organisation of the army and of the navy was in
+the matter of the higher appointments. The army had always been a
+favourite provision for the men from the South. The representatives of
+Southern families were, as a rule, averse to trade and there were, in
+fact, under the more restricted conditions of business in the Southern
+States, comparatively few openings for trading on the larger or
+mercantile scale. As a result of this preference, the cadetships in West
+Point and the commissions in the army had been held in much larger
+proportion (according to the population) by men of Southern birth. This
+was less the case in the navy because the marine interests of New
+England and of the Middle States had educated a larger number of
+Northern men for naval interests. When the war began, a very
+considerable number of the best trained and most valuable officers in
+the army resigned to take part with their States. The army lost the
+service of men like Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, and many others. A few
+good Southerners, such as Thomas of Virginia and Anderson of Kentucky,
+took the ground that their duty to the Union and to the flag was greater
+than their obligation to their State. In the navy, Maury, Semmes,
+Buchanan, and other men of ability resigned their commissions and
+devoted themselves to the (by no means easy) task of building up a navy
+for the South; but Farragut of Tennessee remained with the navy to carry
+the flag of his country to New Orleans and to Mobile.
+
+It was easy and natural during the heat of 1861 to characterise as
+traitors the men who went with their States to fight against the flag of
+their country. Looking at the matter now, forty-seven years later, we
+are better able to estimate the character and the integrity of the
+motives by which they were actuated. We do not need to-day to use the
+term traitors for men like Lee and Johnston. It was not at all unnatural
+that with their understanding of the government of the States in which
+they had been born, and with their belief that these States had a right
+to take action for themselves, they should have decided that their
+obligation lay to the State rather than to what they had persisted in
+thinking of not as a nation but as a mere confederation. We may rather
+believe that Lee was as honest in his way as Thomas and Farragut in
+theirs, but the view that the United States is a nation has been
+maintained through the loyal services of the men who held with Thomas
+and with Farragut.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR
+
+
+On April 12, 1861, came with the bombardment of Fort Sumter the actual
+beginning of the War. The foreseeing shrewdness of Lincoln had resisted
+all suggestions for any such immediate action on the part of the
+government as would place upon the North the responsibility for the
+opening of hostilities. Shortly after the fall of Sumter, a despatch was
+drafted by Seward for the guidance of American ministers abroad. The
+first reports in regard to the probable action of European governments
+gave the impression that the sympathy of these governments was largely
+with the South. In France and England, expressions had been used by
+leading officials which appeared to foreshadow an early recognition of
+the Confederacy. Seward's despatch as first drafted was unwisely angry
+and truculent in tone. If brought into publication, it would probably
+have increased the antagonism of the men who were ruling England. It
+appeared in fact to foreshadow war with England. Seward had assumed that
+England was going to take active part with the South and was at once
+throwing down the gauntlet of defiance. It was Lincoln who insisted that
+this was no time, whatever might be the provocation, for the United
+States to be shaking its fist at Europe. The despatch was reworded and
+the harsh and angry expressions were eliminated. The right claimed by
+the United States, in common with all nations, to maintain its own
+existence was set forth with full force, while it was also made clear
+that the nation was strong enough to maintain its rights against all
+foes whether within or without its boundaries. It is rather strange to
+recall that throughout the relations of the two men, it was the trained
+and scholarly statesman of the East who had to be repressed for unwise
+truculency and that the repression was done under the direction of the
+comparatively inexperienced representative of the West, the man who had
+been dreaded by the conservative Republicans of New York as likely to
+introduce into the national policy "wild and woolly" notions.
+
+In Lincoln's first message to Congress, he asks the following question:
+"Must a government be of necessity too strong for the liberties of its
+own people or too weak to maintain its own existence? Is there in all
+republics this inherent weakness?" The people of the United States were
+able under the wise leadership of Lincoln to answer this question "no."
+Lincoln begins at once with the public utterances of the first year of
+the War to take the people of the United States into his confidence. He
+is their representative, their servant. He reasons out before the
+people, as if it constituted a great jury, the analysis of their
+position, of their responsibilities, and the grounds on which as their
+representative this or that decision is arrived at. Says Schurz:
+"Lincoln wielded the powers of government when stern resolution and
+relentless force were the order of the day, and, won and ruled the
+popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature."
+
+The attack on Sumter placed upon the administration the duty of
+organising at once for the contest now inevitable the forces of the
+country. This work of organisation came at best but late because those
+who were fighting to break up the nation had their preparations well
+advanced. The first call for troops directed the governors of the loyal
+States to supply seventy-five thousand men for the restoration of the
+authority of the government. Massachusetts was the first State to
+respond by despatching to the front, within twenty-four hours of the
+publication of the call, its Sixth Regiment of Militia; the Seventh of
+New York started twenty-four hours later. The history of the passage of
+the Sixth through Baltimore, of the attack upon the columns, and of the
+deaths, in the resulting affray, of soldiers and of citizens has often
+been told. When word came to Washington that Baltimore was obstructing
+the passage of troops bound southward, troops called for the defence of
+the capital, the isolation of the government became sadly apparent. For
+a weary and anxious ten days, Lincoln and his associates were dreading
+from morning to morning the approach over the long bridge of the troops
+from Virginia whose camp-fires could be seen from the southern windows
+of the White House, and were looking anxiously northward for the arrival
+of the men on whose prompt service the safety of the capital was to
+depend. I have myself stood in Lincoln's old study, the windows of which
+overlook the Potomac, and have recalled to mind the fearful pressure of
+anxiety that must have weighed upon the President during those long
+days; as looking across the river, he could trace by the smoke the
+picket lines of the Virginia troops. He must have thought of the
+possibility that he was to be the last President of the United States,
+that the torch handed over to him by the faltering hands of his
+predecessor was to expire while he was responsible for the flame. The
+immediate tension was finally broken by the appearance of the weary and
+battered companies of the Massachusetts troops and the arrival two days
+later, by the way of Annapolis, of the New York Seventh with an
+additional battalion from Boston.
+
+It was, however, not only in April, 1861, that the capital was in peril.
+The anxiety of the President (never for himself but only for his
+responsibilities) was to be repeated in July, 1863, when Lee was in
+Maryland, and in July, 1864, at the time of Early's raid.
+
+We may remember the peculiar burdens that come upon the
+commander-in-chief through his position at the rear of the armies he is
+directing. The rear of a battle is, even in the time of victory, a place
+of demoralising influence. It takes a man of strong nerve not to lose
+heart when the only people with whom he is in immediate contact are
+those who through disability or discouragement are making their way to
+the rear. The sutlers, the teamsters, the wounded men, the panic-struck
+(and with the best of soldiers certain groups do lose heart from time to
+time, men who in another action when started right are ready to take
+their full share of the fighting)--these are the groups that in any
+action are streaming to the rear. It is impossible not to be affected by
+the undermining of their spirits and of their hopefulness. If the battle
+is going wrongly, if in addition to those who are properly making their
+way to the rear, there come also bodies of troops pushed out of their
+position who have lost heart and who have lost faith in their
+commanders, the pressure towards demoralisation is almost irresistible.
+
+We may recall that during the entire four years of War, Lincoln, the
+commander-in-chief, was always in the rear. Difficult as was the task of
+the men who led columns into action, of the generals in the field who
+had the immediate responsibility for the direction of those columns and
+of the fighting line, it was in no way to be compared with the pressure
+and sadness of the burden of the man who stood back of all the lines,
+and to whom came all the discouragements, the complaints, the growls,
+the criticisms, the requisitions or demands for resources that were not
+available, the reports of disasters, sometimes exaggerated and
+sometimes unduly smoothed over, the futile suggestions, the conflicting
+counsels, the indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the self-seeking
+applications, that poured into the White House from all points of the
+field of action and from all parts of the Border States and of the
+North. The man who during four years could stand that kind of battering
+and pressure and who, instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of
+him, instead of losing heart or power of direction or the full control
+of his responsibilities, steadily developed in patience, in strength, in
+width of nature, and in the wisdom of experience, so that he was able
+not only to keep heart firm and mind clear but to give to the soldiers
+in the front and to the nation behind the soldiers the influence of his
+great heart and clear mind and of his firm purpose, that man had within
+him the nature of the hero. Selected in time of need to bear the burdens
+of the nation, he was able so to fulfil his responsibilities that he
+takes place in the world's history as a leader of men.
+
+In July, 1861, one of the special problems to be adjusted was the
+attitude of the Border States. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West
+Virginia had not been willing at the outset to cast in their lot with
+the South, but they were not prepared to give any assured or active
+support to the authority of the national government. The Governor and
+the Legislature of Kentucky issued a proclamation of neutrality; they
+demanded that the soil of the State should be respected and that it
+should not be traversed by armed forces from either side. The Governor
+of Missouri, while not able to commit the State to secession, did have
+behind him what was possibly a majority of the citizens in the policy of
+attempting to prevent the Federal troops from entering the State.
+Maryland, or at least eastern Maryland, was sullen and antagonistic.
+Thousands of the Marylanders had in fact already made their way into
+Virginia for service with the Confederacy. On the other hand, there were
+also thousands of loyal citizens in these States who were prepared,
+under proper guidance and conservative management, to give their own
+direct aid to the cause of nationality. In the course of the succeeding
+two years, the Border States sent into the field in the Union ranks some
+fifty thousand men. At certain points of the conflict, the presence of
+these Union men of Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri was the
+deciding factor. While these men were willing to fight for the Union,
+they were strongly opposed to being used for the destruction of slavery
+and for the freeing of the blacks. The acceptance, therefore, of the
+policy that was pressed by the extreme anti-slavery group, for immediate
+action in regard to the freeing of the slaves, would have meant at once
+the dissatisfaction of this great body of loyalists important in number
+and particularly important on account of their geographical position.
+Lincoln was able, although with no little difficulty, to hold back the
+pressure of Northern sentiment in regard to anti-slavery action until
+the course of the War had finally committed the loyalists of the Border
+States to the support of the Union. For the support of this policy, it
+became necessary to restrain certain of the leaders in the field who
+were mixing up civil and constitutional matters with their military
+responsibilities. Proclamations issued by Fremont in Missouri and later
+by Hunter in South Carolina, giving freedom to the slaves within the
+territory of their departments, were promptly and properly disavowed.
+Said Lincoln: "A general cannot be permitted to make laws for the
+district in which he happens to have an army."
+
+The difficulties in regard to the matter of slavery during the war
+brought Lincoln into active correspondence with men like Beecher and
+Greeley, anti-slavery leaders who enjoyed a large share of popular
+confidence and support. In November, 1861, Lincoln says of Greeley: "His
+backing is as good as that of an army of one hundred thousand men."
+There could be no question of the earnest loyalty of Horace Greeley.
+Under his management, the New York _Tribune_ had become a great force in
+the community. The paper represented perhaps more nearly than any paper
+in the country the purpose and the policy of the new Republican party.
+Unfortunately, Mr. Greeley's judgment and width of view did not develop
+with his years and with the increasing influence of his journal. He
+became unduly self-sufficient; he undertook not only to lay down a
+policy for the guidance of the constitutional responsibilities of the
+government, but to dictate methods for the campaigns. The _Tribune_
+articles headed "On to Richmond!" while causing irritation to commanders
+in the field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens at home, were
+finally classed with the things to be laughed at. In the later years of
+the War, the influence of the _Tribune_ declined very considerably.
+Henry J. Raymond with his newly founded _Times_ succeeded to some of the
+power as a journalist that had been wielded by Greeley.
+
+In November, 1861, occurred an incident which for a time threatened a
+very grave international complication, a complication that would, if
+unwisely handled, have determined the fate of the Republic. Early in the
+year, the Confederate government had sent certain representatives across
+the Atlantic to do what might be practicable to enlist the sympathies of
+European governments, or of individuals in these governments, to make a
+market for the Confederate cotton bonds, to arrange for the purchase of
+supplies for the army and navy, and to secure the circulation of
+documents presenting the case of the South. Mr. Yancey of Mississippi
+was the best-known of this first group of emissaries. With him was
+associated Judge Mann of Virginia and it was Mann who in November, 1861,
+was in charge of the London office of the Confederacy. In this month,
+Mr. Davis appointed as successor to Mann, Mr. Mason of Virginia, to whom
+was given a more formal authorisation of action. At the same time, Judge
+Slidell of Louisiana was appointed as the representative to France.
+Mason and Slidell made their way to Jamaica and sailed from Jamaica to
+Liverpool in the British mail steamer _Trent_. Captain Charles Wilkes,
+in the United States frigate _San Jacinto_, had been watching the West
+Indies waters with reference to blockade runners and to Wilkes came
+knowledge of the voyage of the two emissaries. Wilkes took the
+responsibility of stopping the _Trent_ when she was a hundred miles or
+more out of Kingston and of taking from her as prisoners the two
+commissioners. The commissioners were brought to Boston and were there
+kept under arrest awaiting the decision from Washington as to their
+status. This stopping on the high seas of a British steamer brought out
+a great flood of indignation in Great Britain. It gave to Palmerston and
+Russell, who were at that time in charge of the government, the
+opportunity for which they had been looking to place on the side of the
+Confederacy the weight of the influence of Great Britain. It
+strengthened the hopes of Louis Napoleon for carrying out, in
+conjunction with Great Britain, a scheme that he had formulated under
+which France was to secure a western empire in Mexico, leaving England
+to do what she might find convenient in the adjustment of the affairs of
+the so-called United States.
+
+The first report secured from the law officers of the Crown took the
+ground that the capture was legal under international law and under the
+practice of Great Britain itself. This report was, however, pushed to
+one side, and Palmerston drafted a demand for the immediate surrender of
+the commissioners. This demand was so worded that a self-respecting
+government would have had great difficulty in assenting to it without
+risk of forfeiting support with its own citizens. It was in fact
+intended to bring about a state of war. Under the wise influence of
+Prince Albert, Queen Victoria refused to give her approval to the
+document. It was reworded by Albert in such fashion as to give to the
+government of the United States an opportunity for adjustment without
+loss of dignity. Albert was clear in his mind that Great Britain ought
+not to be committed to war for the destruction of the great Republic of
+the West and for the establishment of a state of which the corner-stone
+was slavery. Fortunately, Victoria was quite prepared to accept in this
+matter Albert's judgment. Palmerston protested and threatened
+resignation, but finally submitted.
+
+When the news of the capture of the commissioners came to Washington,
+Seward for once was in favour of a conservative rather than a truculent
+course of action. He advised that the commissioners should be
+surrendered at once rather than to leave to Great Britain the
+opportunity for making a dictatorial demand. Lincoln admitted the risk
+of such demand and the disadvantage of making the surrender under
+pressure, but he took the ground that if the United States waited for
+the British contention, a certain diplomatic advantage could be gained.
+When the demand came, Lincoln was able, with a rewording (not for the
+first time) of Seward's despatch, to take the ground that the government
+of the United States was "well pleased that Her Majesty's government
+should have finally accepted the old-time American contention that
+vessels of peace should not be searched on the high seas by vessels of
+war." It may be recalled that the exercise of the right of search had
+been one of the most important of the grievances which had brought about
+the War of 1812-1814. In the discussion of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814,
+the English and American commissioners, while agreeing that this right
+of search must be given up, had not been able to arrive at a form of
+words, satisfactory to both parties, for its revocation. Both sets of
+commissioners were very eager to bring their proceedings to a close. The
+Americans could of course not realise that if they had waited a few
+weeks the news of the battle of New Orleans, fought in January, 1815,
+would have greatly strengthened their position. It was finally agreed
+"as between gentlemen" that the right of search should be no longer
+exercised by Great Britain. This right was, however, not formally
+abrogated until December, 1861, nearly half a century later. This little
+diplomatic triumph smoothed over for the public of the North the
+annoyance of having to accept the British demand. It helped to
+strengthen the administration, which in this first year of the War was
+by no means sure of its foundations. It strengthened also the opinion of
+citizens generally in their estimate of the wise management and
+tactfulness of the President.
+
+Some of the most serious of the perplexities that came upon Lincoln
+during the first two years of the War were the result of the peculiar
+combination of abilities and disabilities that characterised General
+McClellan. McClellan's work prior to the War had been that of an
+engineer. He had taken high rank at West Point and later, resigning from
+the army, had rendered distinguished service in civil engineering. At
+the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, McClellan was president of the
+Illinois Central Railroad. He was a close friend and backer of Douglas
+and he had done what was practicable with the all-important machinery
+of the railroad company to render comfortable the travelling of his
+candidate and to insure his success. Returning to the army with the
+opening of the War, he had won success in a brief campaign in Virginia
+in which he was opposed by a comparatively inexperienced officer and by
+a smaller force than his own. Placed in command of the army of the
+Potomac shortly after the Bull Run campaign, he had shown exceptional
+ability in bringing the troops into a state of organisation. He was
+probably the best man in the United States to fit an army for action.
+There were few engineer officers in the army who could have rendered
+better service in the shaping of fortifications or in the construction
+of an entrenched position. He showed later that he was not a bad leader
+for a defeated army in the supervision of the retreat. He had, however,
+no real capacity for leadership in an aggressive campaign. His
+disposition led him to be full of apprehension of what the other fellow
+was doing. He suffered literally from nightmares in which he exaggerated
+enormously the perils in his paths, making obstacles where none existed,
+multiplying by two or by three the troops against him, insisting upon
+the necessity of providing not only for probable contingencies but for
+very impossible contingencies. He was never ready for an advance and he
+always felt proudly triumphant, after having come into touch with the
+enemy, that he had accomplished the task of saving his army.
+
+The only thing about which he was neither apprehensive nor doubtful was
+his ability as a leader, whether military or political. While he found
+it difficult to impress his will upon an opponent in the field,
+he was very sturdy with his pen in laying down the law to the
+Commander-in-chief (the President) and in emphasising the importance of
+his own views not only in things military but in regard to the whole
+policy of the government. The peculiarity about the nightmares and
+miscalculations of McClellan was that they persisted long after the data
+for their correction were available. In a book brought into print years
+after the War, when the Confederate rosters were easily accessible in
+Washington, McClellan did not hesitate to make the same statements in
+regard to the numbers of the Confederate forces opposed to him that he
+had brought into the long series of complaining letters to Lincoln in
+which he demanded reinforcements that did not exist.
+
+The records now show that at the time of the slow advance of
+McClellan's army by the Williamsburg Peninsula, General Magruder had
+been able, with a few thousand men and with dummy guns made of logs, to
+give the impression that a substantial army was blocking the way to
+Richmond. McClellan's advance was, therefore, made with the utmost
+"conservatism," enabling General Johnston to collect back of Magruder
+the army that was finally to drive McClellan back to his base. It is
+further in evidence from the later records that when some weeks later
+General Johnston concentrated his army at Gaines's Mill upon Porter, who
+was separated from McClellan by the Chickahominy, there was but an
+inconsiderable force between McClellan and Richmond.
+
+At the close of the seven days' retreat, McClellan, who had with a
+magnificent army thrown away a series of positions, writes to Lincoln
+that he (Lincoln) "had sacrificed the army." In another letter,
+McClellan lays down the laws of a national policy with a completeness
+and a dictatorial utterance such as would hardly have been justified if
+he had succeeded through his own military genius in bringing the War to
+a close, but which, coming from a defeated general, was ridiculous
+enough. Lincoln's correspondence with McClellan brings out the infinite
+patience of the President, and his desire to make sure that before
+putting the General to one side as a vainglorious incompetent, he had
+been allowed the fullest possible test. Lincoln passes over without
+reference and apparently without thought the long series of impertinent
+impersonalities of McClellan. In this correspondence, as in all his
+correspondence, the great captain showed himself absolutely devoted to
+the cause he had in mind. Early in the year, months before the
+Peninsular campaign, when McClellan had had the army in camp for a
+series of months without expressing the least intention of action,
+Lincoln had in talking with the Secretary of War used the expression:
+"If General McClellan does not want to use the army just now, I
+would like to borrow it for a while." That was as far as the
+Commander-in-chief ever went in criticism of the General in the field.
+While operations in Virginia, conducted by a vacillating and
+vainglorious engineer officer, gave little encouragement, something was
+being done to advance the cause of the Union in the West. In 1862, a
+young man named Grant, who had returned to the army and who had been
+trusted with the command of a few brigades, captured Fort Donelson and
+thus opened the Tennessee River to the advance of the army southward.
+The capture of Fort Donelson was rendered possible by the use of mortars
+and was the first occasion in the war in which mortars had been brought
+to bear. I chanced to come into touch with the record of the preparation
+of the mortars that were supplied to Grant's army at Cairo. Sometime in
+the nineties I was sojourning with the late Abram S. Hewitt at his home
+in Ringwood, New Jersey. I noticed, in looking out from the piazza, a
+mortar, properly mounted on a mortar-bed and encompassed by some yards
+of a great chain, placed on the slope overlooking the little valley
+below, as if to protect the house. I asked my host what was the history
+of this piece of ordnance. "Well," he said, "the chain you might have
+some personal interest in. It is a part of the chain your great-uncle
+Israel placed across the river at West Point for the purpose of blocking
+or at least of checking the passage of the British vessels. The chain
+was forged here in the Ringwood foundry and I have secured a part of it
+as a memento. The mortar was given to me by President Lincoln, as also
+was the mortar-bed." This report naturally brought out the further
+question as to the grounds for the gift. "I made this mortar-bed," said
+Hewitt, "together with some others, and Lincoln was good enough to say
+that I had in this work rendered a service to the State. It was in
+December, 1861, when the expedition against Fort Donelson and Fort Henry
+was being organised at Fort Cairo under the leadership of General Grant.
+Grant reported that the field-pieces at his command would not be
+effective against the earthworks that were to be shelled and made
+requisition for mortars." The mortar I may explain to my unmilitary
+readers is a short carronade of large bore and with a comparatively
+short range. The mortar with a heavy charge throws its missile at a
+sharp angle upwards, so that, instead of attempting to go through an
+earthwork, it is thrown into the enclosure. The recoil from a mortar is
+very heavy, necessitating the construction of a foundation called a
+mortar-bed which is not only solid but which possesses a certain amount
+of elasticity through which the shock of the recoil is absorbed. It is
+only through the use of such a bed that a mortar can be fired from the
+deck of a vessel. Without such, protection, the shock would smash
+through the deck and might send the craft to the bottom.
+
+The Ordnance Department reported to the Secretary of War and the
+Secretary to Lincoln that mortars were on hand but that no mortar-beds
+were available. It was one of the many cases in which the unpreparedness
+of the government had left a serious gap in the equipment. The further
+report was given to Lincoln that two or three months' time would be
+required to manufacture the thirty mortar-beds that were needed. A delay
+of any such period would have blocked the entire purpose of Grant's
+expedition. In his perplexity, Lincoln remembered that in his famous
+visit to New York two years before, he had been introduced to Mr.
+Hewitt, "a well-known iron merchant," as "a man who does things."
+Lincoln telegraphed to Hewitt asking if Hewitt could make thirty
+mortar-beds and how long it would take. Hewitt told me that the message
+reached him on a Saturday evening at the house of a friend. He wired an
+acknowledgment with the word that he would send a report on the
+following day. Sunday morning he looked up the ordnance officer of New
+York for the purpose of ascertaining where the pattern mortar-bed was
+kept. "It was rather important, Major," said Hewitt to me, "that I
+should have an opportunity of examining this pattern for I had never
+seen a mortar-bed in my life, but this of course I did not admit to the
+ordnance officer." The pattern required was, it seemed, in the armory
+at Springfield. Hewitt wired to Lincoln asking that the bed should be
+forwarded by the night boat to him in New York. Hewitt and his men met
+the boat, secured the pattern bed, and gave some hours to puzzling over
+the construction. At noon on Monday, Hewitt wired to Lincoln that he
+could make thirty mortar-beds in thirty days. In another hour he
+received by wire instructions from Lincoln to go ahead. In twenty-eight
+days he had the thirty mortar-beds in readiness; and Tom Scott, who had
+at the time, very fortunately for the country, taken charge of the
+military transportation, had provided thirty flat-cars for the transit
+of the mortar-beds to Cairo. The train was addressed to "U.S. Grant,
+Cairo," and each car contained a notification, painted in white on a
+black ground, "not to be switched on the penalty of death." That train
+got through and as other portions of the equipment had also been
+delayed, the mortars were not so very late. Six schooners, each equipped
+with a mortar, were hurried up the river to support the attack of the
+army on Fort Donelson. A first assault had been made and had failed. The
+field artillery was, as Grant had anticipated, ineffective against the
+earthworks, while the fire of the Confederate infantry, protected by
+their works, had proved most severe. The instant, however, that from
+behind a point on the river below the fort shells were thrown from the
+schooners into the inner circle of the fortifications, the Confederate
+commander, Floyd, recognised that the fort was untenable. He slipped
+away that night leaving his junior, General Buckner, to make terms with
+Grant, and those terms were "unconditional surrender," which were later
+so frequently connected with the initials of U.S.G.
+
+Buckner's name comes again into history in a pleasant fashion. Years
+after the War, when General Grant had, through the rascality of a Wall
+Street "pirate," lost his entire savings, Buckner, himself a poor man,
+wrote begging Grant to accept as a loan, "to be repaid at his
+convenience," a check enclosed for one thousand dollars. Other friends
+came to the rescue of Grant, and through the earnings of his own pen, he
+was before his death able to make good all indebtedness and to leave a
+competency to his widow. The check sent by Buckner was not used, but the
+prompt friendliness was something not to be forgotten.
+
+Hewitt's mortar-beds were used again a few weeks later for the capture
+of Island Number Ten and they also proved serviceable, used in the same
+fashion from the decks of schooners, in the capture of Forts Jackson and
+St. Philip which blocked the river below New Orleans. It was only
+through the fire from these schooners, which were moored behind a point
+on the river below the forts, that it was possible to reach the inner
+circle of the works.
+
+I asked Hewitt whether he had seen Lincoln after this matter of the
+mortar-beds. "Yes," said Hewitt, "I saw him a year later and Lincoln's
+action was characteristic. I was in Washington and thought it was proper
+to call and pay my respects. I was told on reaching the White House that
+it was late in the day and that the waiting-room was very full and that
+I probably should not be reached. 'Well,' I said, 'in that case, I will
+simply ask you to take in my card.' No sooner had the card been
+delivered than the door of the study opened and Lincoln appeared
+reaching out both hands. 'Where is Mr. Hewitt?' he said; 'I want to see,
+I want to thank, the man who does things.' I sat with him for a time, a
+little nervous in connection with the number of people who were waiting
+outside, but Lincoln would not let me go. Finally he asked, 'What are
+you in Washington for?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said I, 'I have some
+business here. I want to get paid for those mortar-beds.' 'What?' said
+Lincoln, 'you have not yet got what the nation owes you? That is
+disgraceful.' He rang the bell violently and sent an aid for Secretary
+Stanton and when the Secretary appeared, he was questioned rather
+sharply. 'How about Mr. Hewitt's bill against the War Department? Why
+does he have to wait for his money?' 'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said Stanton,
+'the order for those mortar-beds was given rather irregularly. It never
+passed through the War Department and consequently the account when
+rendered could not receive the approval of any ordnance officer, and
+until so approved could not be paid by the Treasury.' 'If,' said
+Lincoln, 'I should write on that account an order to have it paid, do
+you suppose the Secretary of the Treasury would pay it?' 'I suppose that
+he would,' said Stanton. The account was sent for and Lincoln wrote at
+the bottom: 'Pay this bill now. A. Lincoln.' 'Now, Mr. Stanton,' said
+Lincoln, 'Mr. Hewitt has been very badly treated in this matter and I
+want you to take a little pains to see that he gets his money. I am
+going to ask you to go over to the Treasury with Mr. Hewitt and to get
+the proper signatures on this account so that Mr. Hewitt can carry a
+draft with him back to New York.' Stanton, rather reluctantly, accepted
+the instruction and," said Hewitt, "he walked with me through the
+various departments of the Treasury until the final signature had been
+placed on the bill and I was able to exchange this for a Treasury
+warrant. I should," said Hewitt, "have been much pleased to retain the
+bill with that signature of Lincoln beneath the words, 'Pay this now.'
+
+"Towards the end of the War," he continued, "when there was no further
+requirement for mortars, I wrote to Mr. Lincoln and asked whether I
+might buy a mortar with its bed. Lincoln replied promptly that he had
+directed the Ordnance Department to send me mortar and bed with 'the
+compliments of the administration.' I am puzzled to think," said Hewitt,
+"how that particular item in the accounts of the Ordnance Department was
+ever adjusted, but I am very glad to have this reminiscence of the War
+and of the President."
+
+Lincoln's relations with McClellan have already been touched upon. There
+would not be space in this paper to refer in detail to the action taken
+by Lincoln with other army commanders East and West. The problem that
+confronted the Commander-in-chief of selecting the right leaders for
+this or that undertaking, and of promoting the men who gave evidence of
+the greater capacity that was required for the larger armies that were
+being placed in the field, was one of no little difficulty. The reader
+of history, looking back to-day, with the advantage of the full record
+of the careers of the various generals, is tempted to indulge in easy
+criticism of the blunders made by the President. Why did the President
+put up so long with the vaingloriousness and ineffectiveness of
+McClellan? Why should he have accepted even for one brief and
+unfortunate campaign the service of an incompetent like Pope? Why was a
+slow-minded closet-student like Halleck permitted to fritter away in the
+long-drawn-out operations against Corinth the advantage of position and
+of force that had been secured by the army of the West? Why was a
+political trickster like Butler, with no army experience, or a
+well-meaning politician like Banks with still less capacity for the
+management of troops, permitted to retain responsibilities in the field,
+making blunders that involved waste of life and of resources and the
+loss of campaigns? Why were not the real men like Sherman, Grant,
+Thomas, McPherson, Sheridan, and others brought more promptly into the
+important positions? Why was the army of the South permitted during the
+first two years of the War to have so large an advantage in skilled and
+enterprising leadership? A little reflection will show how unjust is the
+criticism implied through such questions. We know of the incapacity of
+the generals who failed and of the effectiveness of those who succeeded,
+only through the results of the campaigns themselves. Lincoln could only
+study the men as he came to know about them and he experimented first
+with one and then with another, doing what seemed to be practicable to
+secure a natural selection and the survival of the fittest. Such
+watchful supervision and painstaking experimenting was carried out with
+infinite patience and with an increasing knowledge both of the
+requirements and of the men fitted to fill the requirements.
+
+We must also recall that, Commander-in-chief as he was, Lincoln was not
+free to exercise without restriction his own increasingly valuable
+judgment in the appointment of the generals. It was necessary to give
+consideration to the opinion of the country, that is to say, to the
+individual judgments of the citizens whose loyal co-operation was
+absolutely essential for the support of the nation's cause. These
+opinions of the citizens were expressed sometimes through the appeals of
+earnestly loyal governors like Andrew of Massachusetts, or Curtin of
+Pennsylvania, and sometimes through the articles of a strenuous editor
+like Greeley, whose influence and support it was, of course, all
+important to retain. Greeley's absolute ignorance of military conditions
+did not prevent him from emphasising with the President and the public
+his very decided conclusions in regard to the selection of men and the
+conduct of campaigns. In this all-perplexing problem of the shaping of
+campaigns, Lincoln had to consider the responsibilities of
+representative government. The task would, of course, have been much
+easier if he had had power as an autocrat to act on his own decisions
+simply. The appointment of Butler and Banks was thought to be necessary
+for the purpose of meeting the views of the loyal citizens of so
+important a State as Massachusetts, and other appointments, the results
+of which were more or less unfortunate, may in like manner be traced to
+causes or influences outside of a military or army policy.
+
+General Frank V. Greene, in a paper on Lincoln as Commander-in-chief,
+writes in regard to his capacity as a leader as follows:
+
+"As time goes on, Lincoln's fame looms ever larger and larger. Great
+statesman, astute politician, clear thinker, classic writer, master of
+men, kindly, lovable man,--these are his titles. To these must be
+added--military leader. Had he failed in that quality, the others would
+have been forgotten. Had peace been made on any terms but those of the
+surrender of the insurgent forces and the restoration of the Union,
+Lincoln's career would have been a colossal failure and the Emancipation
+Proclamation a subject of ridicule. The prime essential was military
+success. Lincoln gained it. Judged in the retrospect of nearly half a
+century, with his every written word now in print and with all the facts
+of the period brought out and placed in proper perspective by the
+endless studies, discussions, and arguments of the intervening years, it
+becomes clear that, first and last and at all times during his
+Presidency, in military affairs his was not only the guiding but the
+controlling hand."
+
+It is interesting, as the War progressed, to trace the development of
+Lincoln's own military judgment. He was always modest in regard to
+matters in which his experience was limited, and during the first twelve
+months in Washington, he had comparatively little to say in regard to
+the planning or even the supervision of campaigns. His letters, however,
+to McClellan and his later correspondence with Burnside, with Hooker,
+and with other commanders give evidence of a steadily developing
+intelligence in regard to larger military movements. History has shown
+that Lincoln's judgment in regard to the essential purpose of a
+campaign, and the best methods for carrying out such purpose, was in a
+large number of cases decidedly sounder than that of the general in the
+field. When he emphasised with McClellan that the true objective was the
+Confederate army in the field and not the city of Richmond, he laid down
+a principle which seems to us elementary but to which McClellan had been
+persistently blinded. Lincoln writes to Hooker: "We have word that the
+head of Lee's army is near Martinsburg in the Shenandoah Valley while
+you report that you have a substantial force still opposed to you on the
+Rappahannock. It appears, therefore that the line must be forty miles
+long. The animal is evidently very slim somewhere and it ought to be
+possible for you to cut it at some point." Hooker had the same
+information but did not draw the same inference.
+
+Apart from Lincoln's work in selecting, and in large measure in
+directing, the generals, he had a further important relation with the
+army as a whole. We are familiar with the term "the man behind the
+gun." It is a truism to say that the gun has little value whether for
+offence or for defence unless the man behind it possesses the right kind
+of spirit which will infuse and guide his purpose and his action with
+the gun. For the long years of the War, the Commander-in-chief was the
+man behind all the guns in the field. The men in the front came to have
+a realising sense of the infinite patience, the persistent hopefulness,
+the steadiness of spirit, the devoted watchfulness of the great captain
+in Washington. It was through the spirit of Lincoln that the spirit in
+the ranks was preserved during the long months of discouragement and the
+many defeats and retreats. The final advance of Grant which ended at
+Appomattox, and the triumphant march of Sherman which culminated in the
+surrender at Goldsborough of the last of the armies of the Confederacy,
+were the results of the inspiration, given alike to soldier and to
+general, from the patient and devoted soul of the nation's leader.
+
+In March, 1862, Lincoln received the news of the victory won at Pea
+Ridge, in Arkansas, by Curtis and Sigel, a battle which had lasted three
+days. The first day was a defeat and our troops were forced back; the
+fighting of the second resulted in what might be called a drawn battle;
+but on the third, our army broke its way through the enclosing lines,
+bringing the heavier loss to the Confederates, and regained its base.
+This battle was in a sense typical of much of the fighting of the War.
+It was one of a long series of fights which continued for more than one
+day. The history of the War presents many instances of battles that
+lasted two days, three days, four days, and in one case seven days. It
+was difficult to convince the American soldier, on either side of the
+line, that he was beaten. The general might lose his head, but the
+soldiers, in the larger number of cases, went on fighting until, with a
+new leader or with more intelligent dispositions on the part of the
+original leader, a first disaster had been repaired. There is no example
+in modern history of fighting of such stubborn character, or it is
+fairer to say, there was no example until the Russo-Japanese War in
+Manchuria. The record shows that European armies, when outgeneralled or
+outmanoeuvred, had the habit of retiring from the field, sometimes in
+good order, more frequently in a state of demoralisation. The American
+soldier fought the thing out because he thought the thing out. The
+patience and persistence of the soldier in the field was characteristic
+of, and, it may fairly be claimed, was in part due to, the patience and
+persistence of the great leader in Washington.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE DARK DAYS OF 1862
+
+
+The dark days of 1862 were in April brightened by the all-important news
+that Admiral Farragut had succeeded in bringing the Federal fleet, or at
+least the leading vessels in this fleet, past the batteries of Forts St.
+Philip and Jackson on the Mississippi, and had compelled the surrender
+of New Orleans. The opening of the Mississippi River had naturally been
+included among the most essential things to be accomplished in the
+campaign for the restoration of the national authority. It was of first
+importance that the States of the North-west and the enormous contiguous
+territory which depended upon the Mississippi for its water connection
+with the outer world should not be cut off from the Gulf. The prophecy
+was in fact made more than once that in case the States of the South had
+succeeded in establishing their independence, there would have come into
+existence on the continent not two confederacies, but probably four. The
+communities on the Pacific Coast would naturally have been tempted to
+set up for themselves, and a similar course might also naturally have
+been followed by the great States of the North-west whose interests were
+so closely bound up with the waterways running southward. It was
+essential that no effort should be spared to bring the loyal States of
+the West into control of the line of the Mississippi. More than twelve
+months was still required after the capture of New Orleans on the first
+of May, 1862, before the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port
+Hudson to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal control of the
+great river. The occupation of the river by the Federals was of
+importance in more ways than one. The States to the west of the
+river--Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas--were for the first two years of
+the War important sources of supplies for the food of the Confederate
+army. Corn on the cob or in bags was brought across the river by boats,
+while the herds of live cattle were made to swim the stream, and were
+then most frequently marched across country to the commissary depots of
+the several armies. After the fall of Port Hudson, the connection for
+such supplies was practically stopped; although I may recall that even
+as late as 1864, the command to which I was attached had the
+opportunity of stopping the swimming across the Mississippi of a herd of
+cattle that was in transit for the army of General Joe Johnston.
+
+In April, 1862, just after the receipt by Lincoln of the disappointing
+news of the first repulse at Vicksburg, he finds time to write a little
+autograph note to a boy, "Master Crocker," with thanks for a present of
+a white rabbit that the youngster had sent to the President with the
+suggestion that perhaps the President had a boy who would be pleased
+with it.
+
+During the early part of 1862, Lincoln is giving renewed thought to the
+great problem of emancipation. He becomes more and more convinced that
+the success of the War calls for definite action on the part of the
+administration in the matter of slavery. He was, as before pointed out,
+anxious, not only as a matter of justice to loyal citizens, but on the
+ground of the importance of retaining for the national cause the support
+of the Border States, to act in such manner that the loyal citizens of
+these States should be exposed to a minimum loss and to the smallest
+possible risk of disaffection. In July, 1862, Lincoln formulated a
+proposition for compensated emancipation. It was his idea that the
+nation should make payment of an appraised value in freeing the slaves
+that were in the ownership of citizens who had remained loyal to the
+government. It was his belief that the funds required would be more than
+offset by the result in furthering the progress of the War. The daily
+expenditure of the government was at the time averaging about a million
+and a half dollars a day, and in 1864 it reached two million dollars a
+day. If the War could be shortened a few months, a sufficient amount of
+money would be saved to offset a very substantial payment to loyal
+citizens for the property rights in their slaves.
+
+The men of the Border States were, however, still too bound to the
+institution of slavery to be prepared to give their assent to any such
+plan. Congress was, naturally, not ready to give support to such a
+policy unless it could be made clear that it was satisfactory to the
+people most concerned. The result of the unwise stubbornness in this
+matter of the loyal citizens of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
+Maryland was that they were finally obliged to surrender without
+compensation the property control in their slaves. When the plan for
+compensated emancipation had failed, Lincoln decided that the time had
+come for unconditional emancipation. In July, 1862, he prepares the
+first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was his judgment, which
+was shared by the majority of his Cabinet, that the issue of the
+proclamation should, however, be deferred until after some substantial
+victory by the armies of the North. It was undesirable to give to such a
+step the character of an utterance of despair or even of discouragement.
+It seemed evident, however, that the War had brought the country to the
+point at which slavery, the essential cause of the cleavage between the
+States, must be removed. The bringing to an end of the national
+responsibility for slavery would consolidate national opinion throughout
+the States of the North and would also strengthen the hands of the
+friends of the Union in England where the charge had repeatedly been
+made that the North was fighting, not against slavery or for freedom of
+any kind, but for domination. The proclamation was held until after the
+battle of Antietam in September, 1862, and was then issued to take
+effect on the first of January, 1863. It did produce the hoped-for
+results. The cause of the North was now placed on a consistent
+foundation. It was made clear that when the fight for nationality had
+reached a successful termination, there was to be no further national
+responsibility for the great crime against civilisation. The management
+of the contrabands, who were from week to week making their way into the
+lines of the Northern armies, was simplified. There was no further
+question of holding coloured men subject to the possible claim of a
+possibly loyal master. The work of organising coloured troops, which had
+begun in Massachusetts some months earlier in the year, was now pressed
+forward with some measure of efficiency. Boston sent to the front the
+54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments composed of coloured troops and
+led by such men as Shaw and Hallowell. The first South Carolina coloured
+regiment was raised and placed under the command of Colonel Higginson.
+
+I had myself some experience in Louisiana with the work of moulding
+plantation hands into disciplined soldiers and I was surprised at the
+promptness of the transformation. A contraband who made his way into the
+camp from the old plantation with the vague idea that he was going to
+secure freedom was often in appearance but an unpromising specimen out
+of which to make a soldier. He did not know how to hold himself upright
+or to look the other man in the face. His gait was shambly, his
+perceptions dull. It was difficult for him either to hear clearly, or to
+understand when heard, the word of instruction or command. When,
+however, the plantation rags had been disposed of and (possibly after a
+souse in the Mississippi) the contraband had been put into the blue
+uniform and had had the gun placed on his shoulder, he developed at once
+from a "chattel" to a man. He was still, for a time at least, clumsy and
+shambly. The understanding of the word of command did not come at once
+and his individual action, if by any chance he should be left to act
+alone, was, as a rule, less intelligent, less to be depended upon, than
+that of the white man. But he stood up straight in the garb of manhood,
+looked you fairly in the face, showed by his expression that he was
+anxious for the privilege of fighting for freedom and for citizenship,
+and in Louisiana, and throughout the whole territory of the War, every
+black regiment that came into engagement showed that it could be
+depended upon. Before the War was closed, some two hundred thousand
+negroes had been brought into the ranks of the Federal army and their
+service constituted a very valuable factor in the final outcome of the
+campaigns. A battle like that at Milliken's Bend, Mississippi,
+inconsiderable in regard to the numbers engaged, was of distinctive
+importance in showing what the black man was able and willing to do when
+brought under fire for the first time. A coloured regiment made up of
+men who only a few weeks before had been plantation hands, had been left
+on a point of the river to be picked up by an expected transport. The
+regiment was attacked by a Confederate force of double or treble the
+number, the Southerners believing that there would be no difficulty in
+driving into the river this group of recent slaves. On the first volley,
+practically all of the officers (who were white) were struck down and
+the loss with the troops was also very heavy. The negroes, who had but
+made a beginning with their education as soldiers, appeared, however,
+not to have learned anything about the conditions for surrender and they
+simply fought on until no one was left standing. The percentage of loss
+to the numbers engaged was the heaviest of any action in the War. The
+Southerners, in their contempt for the possibility of negroes doing any
+real fighting, had in their rushing attack exposed themselves much and
+had themselves suffered seriously. When, in April, 1865, after the
+forcing back of Lee's lines, the hour came, so long waited for and so
+fiercely fought for, to take possession of Richmond, there was a certain
+poetic justice in allowing the negro division, commanded by General
+Weitzel, to head the column of advance.
+
+Through 1862, and later, we find much correspondence from Lincoln in
+regard to the punishment of deserters. The army penalty for desertion
+when the lines were in front of the enemy, was death. Lincoln found it
+very difficult, however, to approve of a sentence of death for any
+soldier. Again and again he writes, instructing the general in the field
+to withhold the execution until he, Lincoln, had had an opportunity of
+passing upon the case. There is a long series of instances in which,
+sometimes upon application from the mother, but more frequently through
+the personal impression gained by himself of the character of the
+delinquent, Lincoln decided to pardon youngsters who had, in his
+judgment, simply failed to realise their full responsibility as
+soldiers. Not a few of these men, permitted to resume their arms, gained
+distinction later for loyal service.
+
+In December, 1862, Jefferson Davis issued an order which naturally
+attracted some attention, directing that General Benjamin F. Butler,
+when captured, should be "reserved for execution." Butler never fell
+into the hands of the Confederates and it is probable that if he had
+been taken prisoner, the order would have remained an empty threat. From
+Lincoln came the necessary rejoinder that a Confederate officer of equal
+rank would be held as hostage for the safety of any Northern general
+who, as prisoner, might not be protected under the rules of war.
+
+Lincoln's correspondence during 1862, a year which was in many ways the
+most discouraging of the sad years of the war, shows how much he had to
+endure in the matter of pressure of unrequested advice and of undesired
+counsel from all kinds of voluntary advisers and active-minded citizens,
+all of whom believed that their views were important, if not essential,
+for the salvation of the state. In September, 1862, Lincoln writes to a
+friend:
+
+"I am approached with the most opposite opinions expressed on the part
+of religious men, each of whom is equally certain that he represents the
+divine will."
+
+To one of these delegations of ministers, Lincoln gave a response which
+while homely in its language must have presented to his callers a vivid
+picture of the burdens that were being carried by the leader of the
+state:
+
+    "Gentlemen," he said, "suppose all the property you possess were in
+    gold, and you had placed it in the hands of Blondin to carry across
+    the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious, steady steps he
+    walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep
+    shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand up a little straighter! Blondin,
+    stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the south! Now
+    lean a little more to north! Would that be your behaviour in such an
+    emergency? No, you would hold your breath, every one of you, as well
+    as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on
+    the other side."
+
+Another delegation, which had been urging some months in advance of what
+Lincoln believed to be the fitting time for the issuing of the
+Proclamation of Emancipation, called asking that there should be no
+further delay in the action. One of the ministers, as he was retiring,
+turned and said to Lincoln: "What you have said to us, Mr. President,
+compels me to say to you in reply that it is a message to you from our
+Divine Master, through me, commanding you, sir, to open the doors of
+bondage, that the slave may go free!" Lincoln replied: "That may be,
+sir, for I have studied this question by night and by day, for weeks
+and for months, but if it is, as you say, a message from your Divine
+Master, is it not odd that the only channel He could send it by was that
+roundabout route through the wicked city of Chicago?"
+
+Another version of the story omits the reference to Chicago, and makes
+Lincoln's words:
+
+"I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable
+that God would reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my
+duty, it might be supposed He would reveal it directly to me....
+Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do."
+
+In September, 1862, General Lee carried his army into Maryland,
+threatening Baltimore and Washington. It is probable that the purpose of
+this invasion was more political than military. The Confederate
+correspondence shows that Davis was at the time hopeful of securing the
+intervention of Great Britain and France, and it was natural to assume
+that the prospects of such intervention would be furthered if it could
+be shown that the Southern army, instead of being engaged in the defence
+of its own capital, was actually threatening Washington and was possibly
+strong enough to advance farther north.
+
+General Pope had, as a result of his defeat at the second Bull Run, in
+July, 1862, lost the confidence of the President and of the country. The
+defeat alone would not necessarily have undermined his reputation, which
+had been that of an effective soldier. He had, however, the fatal
+quality, too common with active Americans, of talking too much, whether
+in speech or in the written word, of promising things that did not come
+off, and of emphasising his high opinion of his own capacity. Under the
+pressure of the new peril indicated by the presence of Lee's troops
+within a few miles of the capital, Lincoln put to one side his own grave
+doubts in regard to the effectiveness and trustworthiness of McClellan
+and gave McClellan one further opportunity to prove his ability as a
+soldier. The personal reflections and aspersions against his
+Commander-in-chief of which McClellan had been guilty, weighed with
+Lincoln not at all; the President's sole thought was at this time, as
+always, how with the material available could the country best be
+served.
+
+McClellan had his chance (and to few men is it given to have more than
+one great opportunity) and again he threw it away. His army was stronger
+than that of Lee and he had the advantage of position and (for the
+first time against this particular antagonist) of nearness to his base
+of supplies. Lee had been compelled to divide his army in order to get
+it promptly into position on the north side of the Potomac. McClellan's
+tardiness sacrificed Harper's Ferry (which, on September 15th, was
+actually surrounded by Lee's advance) with the loss of twelve thousand
+prisoners. Through an exceptional piece of good fortune, there came into
+McClellan's hands a despatch showing the actual position of the
+different divisions of Lee's army and giving evidence that the two wings
+were so far separated that they could not be brought together within
+twenty-four hours. The history now makes clear that for twenty-four
+hours McClellan had the safety of Lee's army in his hands, but those
+precious hours were spent by McClellan in "getting ready," that is to
+say, in vacillating.
+
+Finally, there came the trifling success at South Mountain and the drawn
+battle of Antietam. Lee's army was permitted to recross the Potomac with
+all its trains and even with the captured prisoners, and McClellan lay
+waiting through the weeks for something to turn up.
+
+A letter written by Lincoln on the 13th of October shows a wonderfully
+accurate understanding of military conditions, and throws light also
+upon the character and the methods of thought of the two men:
+
+    "Are you not overcautious when you assume that you cannot do what
+    the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least
+    his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim? As I understand, you
+    telegraphed General Halleck that you cannot subsist your army at
+    Winchester unless the railroad from Harper's Ferry to that point be
+    put in working order. But the enemy does now subsist his army at
+    Winchester, at a distance nearly twice as great as you would have to
+    do, without the railroad last named. He now waggons from Culpeper
+    Court House, which is just about twice as far as you would have to
+    do from Harper's Ferry. He is certainly not more than half as well
+    provided with waggons as you are.... Again, one of the standard
+    maxims of war, as you know, is to 'operate upon the enemy's
+    communications without exposing your own.' You seem to act as if
+    this applies against you, but cannot apply it in your favour. Change
+    positions with the enemy, and think you not he would break your
+    communication with Richmond in twenty-four hours?... You are now
+    nearer Richmond than the enemy is by the route you can and he must
+    take. Why can you not reach there before him, unless you admit that
+    he is more than your equal on a march? His route is the arc of a
+    circle, while yours is the chord. The roads are as good on your side
+    as on his ... If he should move northward, I would follow him
+    closely, holding his communications. If he should prevent our
+    seizing his communications and move towards Richmond, I would press
+    closely to him, fight him, if a favourable opportunity should
+    present, and at least try to beat him to Richmond on the inside
+    track. I say 'Try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.... If
+    we cannot beat him when he bears the wastage of coming to us, we
+    never can when we bear the wastage of going to him.... As we must
+    beat him somewhere or fail finally, we can do it, if at all, easier
+    near to us than far away.... It is all easy if our troops march as
+    well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say that they cannot do it."
+
+The patience of Lincoln and that of the country behind Lincoln were at
+last exhausted. McClellan was ordered to report to his home in New
+Jersey and the General who had come to the front with such flourish of
+trumpets and had undertaken to dictate a national policy at a time when
+he was not able to keep his own army in position, retires from the
+history of the War.
+
+The responsibility again comes to the weary Commander-in-chief of
+finding a leader who could lead, in whom the troops and the country
+would have confidence, and who could be trusted to do his simple duty as
+a general in the field without confusing his military responsibilities
+with political scheming. The choice first fell upon Burnside. Burnside
+was neither ambitious nor self-confident. He was a good division
+general, but he doubted his ability for the general command. Burnside
+loyally accepts the task, does the best that was within his power and,
+pitted against a commander who was very much his superior in general
+capacity as well as in military skill, he fails. Once more has the
+President on his hands the serious problem of finding the right man.
+This time the commission was given to General Joseph Hooker. With the
+later records before us, it is easy to point out that this selection
+also was a blunder. There were better men in the group of
+major-generals. Reynolds, Meade, or Hancock would doubtless have made
+more effective use of the power of the army of the Potomac, but in
+January, 1863, the relative characters and abilities of these generals
+were not so easily to be determined. Lincoln's letter to Hooker was
+noteworthy, not only in the indication that it gives of Hooker's
+character but as an example of the President's width of view and of his
+method of coming into the right relation with men. He writes:
+
+    "You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an
+    indispensable quality.... I think, however, that during General
+    Burnside's command of the army, you have taken counsel of your
+    ambition and have thwarted him as much as you could, in which you
+    did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and
+    honourable brother officer. I have heard 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 the
+    command. Only those generals who gain success can set up as
+    dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk
+    the dictatorship. The government will support you to the best of its
+    ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do
+    for all its commanders.... Beware of rashness, but with energy and
+    sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."
+
+Hooker, like Burnside, undoubtedly did the best that he could. He was a
+loyal patriot and had shown himself a good division commander. It is
+probable, however, that the limit of his ability as a general in the
+field was the management of an army corps; he seems to have been
+confused in the attempt to direct the movements of the larger body. At
+Chancellorsville, he was clearly outwitted by his opponents, Lee and
+Jackson. The men of the army of the Potomac fought steadily as always
+but with the discouraging feeling that the soldiers on the other side of
+the line had the advantage of better brain power behind them. It is
+humiliating to read in the life of Jackson the reply given by him to Lee
+when Lee questioned the safety of the famous march planned by Jackson
+across the front of the Federal line. Said Lee: "There are several
+points along the line of your proposed march at which your column could
+be taken in flank with disastrous results." "But, General Lee," replies
+Jackson, "we must surely in planning any military movements take into
+account the personality of the leaders to whom we are opposed."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE THIRD AND CRUCIAL YEAR OF THE WAR
+
+
+Chancellorsville was fought and lost, and again, under political
+pressure from Richmond rather than with any hope of advantage on simple
+military lines, Lee leads his army to an invasion of the North. For this
+there were at the time several apparent advantages; the army of the
+Potomac had been twice beaten and, while by no means demoralised, was
+discouraged and no longer had faith in its commander. There was much
+inevitable disappointment throughout the North that, so far from making
+progress in the attempt to restore the authority of the government, the
+national troops were on the defensive but a few miles from the national
+capital. The Confederate correspondence from London and from Paris gave
+fresh hopes for the long expected intervention.
+
+Lee's army was cleverly withdrawn from Hooker's front and was carried
+through western Maryland into Pennsylvania by the old line of the
+Shenandoah Valley and across the Potomac at Falling Waters. Hooker
+reports to Lincoln under date of June 4th that the army or an army is
+still in his front on the line of the Rappahannock, Lincoln writes to
+Hooker under date of June 5th, "We have report that Lee's army is moving
+westward and that a large portion of it is already to the west of the
+Blue Ridge. The 'bull' [Lee's army] is across the fence and it surely
+ought to be possible to worry him." On June 14th, Lincoln writes again,
+reporting to Hooker that Lee with the body of his troops is approaching
+the Potomac at a point forty miles away from the line of the
+entrenchments on the Rappahannock. "The animal [Lee's army] is extended
+over a line of forty miles. It must be very slim somewhere. Can you not
+cut it?" The phrases are not in military form but they give evidence of
+sound military judgment. Hooker was unable to grasp the opportunity, and
+realising this himself, he asked to be relieved. The troublesome and
+anxious honour of the command of the army now falls upon General Meade.
+He takes over the responsibility at a time when Lee's army is already
+safely across the Potomac and advancing northward, apparently towards
+Philadelphia. His troops are more or less scattered and no definite
+plan of campaign appears to have been formulated. The events of the next
+three weeks constitute possibly the best known portion of the War. Meade
+shows good energy in breaking up his encampment along the Rappahannock
+and getting his column on to the road northward. Fortunately, the army
+of the Potomac for once has the advantage of the interior line so that
+Meade is able to place his army in a position that protects at once
+Washington on the south-west, Baltimore on the east, and Philadelphia on
+the north-east. We can, however, picture to ourselves the anxiety that
+must have rested upon the Commander-in-chief in Washington during the
+weeks of the campaign and during the three days of the great battle
+which was fought on Northern soil and miles to the north of the Northern
+capital. If, on that critical third day of July, the Federal lines had
+been broken and the army disorganised, there was nothing that could
+prevent the national capital from coming into the control of Lee's army.
+The surrender of Washington meant the intervention of France and
+England, meant the failure of the attempt to preserve the nation's
+existence, meant that Abraham Lincoln would go down to history as the
+last President of the United States, the President under whose
+leadership the national history had come to a close. But the Federal
+lines were not broken. The third day of Gettysburg made clear that with
+equality of position and with substantial equality in numbers there was
+no better fighting material in the army of the grey than in the army of
+the blue. The advance of Pickett's division to the crest of Cemetery
+Ridge marked the high tide of the Confederate cause. Longstreet's men
+were not able to prevail against the sturdy defence of Hancock's second
+corps and when, on the Fourth of July, Lee's army took up its line of
+retreat to the Potomac, leaving behind it thousands of dead and wounded,
+the calm judgment of Lee and his associates must have made clear to them
+that the cause of the Confederacy was lost. The army of Northern
+Virginia had shattered itself against the defences of the North, and
+there was for Lee no reserve line. For a long series of months to come,
+Lee, magnificent engineer officer that he was, and with a sturdy
+persistency which withstood all disaster, was able to maintain defensive
+lines in the Wilderness, at Cold Harbor, and in front of Petersburg, but
+as his brigades crumbled away under the persistent and unceasing attacks
+of the army of the Potomac, he must have realised long before the day
+of Appomattox that his task was impossible. What Gettysburg decided in
+the East was confirmed with equal emphasis by the fall of Vicksburg in
+the West. On the Fourth of July, 1863, the day on which Lee, defeated
+and discouraged, was taking his shattered army out of Pennsylvania,
+General Grant was placing the Stars and Stripes over the earthworks of
+Vicksburg. The Mississippi was now under the control of the Federalists
+from its source to the mouth, and that portion of the Confederacy lying
+to the west of the river was cut off so that from this territory no
+further co-operation of importance could be rendered to the armies
+either of Johnston or of Lee.
+
+Lincoln writes to Grant after the fall of Vicksburg giving, with his
+word of congratulation, the admission that he (Lincoln) had doubted the
+wisdom or the practicability of Grant's movement to the south of
+Vicksburg and inland to Jackson. "You were right," said Lincoln, "and I
+was wrong."
+
+On the 19th of November, 1863, comes the Gettysburg address, so eloquent
+in its simplicity. It is probable that no speaker in recorded history
+ever succeeded in putting into so few words so much feeling, such
+suggestive thought, and such high idealism. The speech is one that
+children can understand and that the greatest minds must admire.
+
+    [Illustration:
+
+    FACSIMILE OF GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
+
+
+    Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.
+
+    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
+    continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
+    proposition that all men are created equal.
+
+    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
+    nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long
+    endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come
+    to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
+    those who here gave their lives that their nation might live. It is
+    altogether fitting and proper that we should this.
+
+    But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
+    cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who
+    struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add
+    or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say
+    here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
+    living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
+    who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
+    to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that
+    from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for
+    which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here
+    highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that
+    this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
+    government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not
+    perish from the earth.
+
+    Abraham Lincoln
+
+    November 19, 1863]
+
+There was disappointment that Meade had not shown more energy after
+Gettysburg in the pursuit of Lee's army and that some attempt, at least,
+had not been made to interfere with the retreat across the Potomac.
+Military critics have in fact pointed out that Meade had laid himself
+open to criticism in the management of the battle itself. At the time of
+the repulse of Pickett's charge, Meade had available at the left and in
+rear of his centre the sixth corps which had hardly been engaged on the
+previous two days, and which included some of the best fighting material
+in the army. It has been pointed out more than once that if that corps
+had been thrown in at once with a countercharge upon the heels of the
+retreating divisions of Longstreet, Lee's right must have been curled up
+and overwhelmed. If this had happened, Lee's army would have been so
+seriously shattered that its power for future service would have been
+inconsiderable. Meade was accepted as a good working general but the
+occasion demanded something more forcible in the way of leadership and,
+early in 1864, Lincoln sends for the man who by his success in the West
+had won the hopeful confidence of the President and the people.
+
+Before this appointment of General-in-chief was given to General Grant,
+and he came to the East to take charge of the armies in Virginia, he had
+brought to a successful conclusion a dramatic campaign, of which
+Chattanooga was the centre. In September, 1863, General Rosecrans, who
+had occupied Chattanooga, was defeated some twenty miles to the south on
+the field of Chickamauga, a defeat which was the result of too much
+confidence on the part of the Federal commander, who in pressing his
+advance had unwisely separated the great divisions of his army, and of
+excellent skill and enterprise on the part of the Confederate commander,
+General Bragg. If the troops of Rosecrans had not been veterans, and if
+the right wing had not been under the immediate command of so sturdy and
+unconquered a veteran as General Thomas, the defeat might have become a
+rout. As it was, the army retreated with some discouragement but in good
+fighting force, to the lines of Chattanooga. By skilful disposition of
+his forces across the lines of connection between Chattanooga and the
+base of supplies, General Bragg brought the Federals almost to the point
+of starvation, and there was grave risk that through the necessary
+falling back of the army to secure supplies, the whole advantage of the
+previous year's campaign might be lost. Grant was placed in charge of
+the forces in Chattanooga, and by a good management of the resources
+available, he succeeded in reopening the river and what became known as
+"the cracker line," and in November, 1863, in the dramatic battles of
+Lookout Mountain, fought more immediately by General Hooker, and of
+Missionary Ridge, the troops of which were under the direct command of
+General Sherman, overwhelmed the lines of Bragg, and pressed his forces
+back into a more or less disorderly retreat. An important factor in the
+defeat of Bragg was the detaching from his army of the corps under
+Longstreet which had been sent to Knoxville in a futile attempt to crush
+Burnside and to reconquer East Tennessee for the Confederacy. This plan,
+chiefly political in purpose, was said to have originated with President
+Davis. The armies of the West were now placed under the command of
+General Sherman, and early in 1864, Grant was brought to Virginia to
+take up the perplexing problem of overcoming the sturdy veterans of
+General Lee.
+
+The first action of Grant as commander of all the armies in the field
+was to concentrate all the available forces against the two chief armies
+of the Confederacy. The old policy of occupying outlying territory for
+the sake of making a show of political authority was given up. If
+Johnston in the West and Lee in the East could be crushed, the national
+authority would be restored in due season, and that was the only way in
+which it could be restored. Troops were gathered in from Missouri and
+Arkansas and Louisiana and were placed under the command of Sherman for
+use in the final effort of breaking through the centre of the
+Confederacy, while in the East nothing was neglected on the part of the
+new administration to secure for the direction of the new commander all
+resources available of men and of supplies.
+
+Grant now finds himself pitted against the first soldier of the
+continent, the leader who is to go down to history as probably the
+greatest soldier that America has ever produced. Lee's military career
+is a wonderful example of a combination of brilliancy, daring ingenuity
+of plan, promptness of action, and patient persistence under all kinds
+of discouragement, but it was not only through these qualities that it
+was possible for him to retain control, through three years of heavy
+fighting, of the territory of Virginia, which came to be the chief
+bulwark of the Confederacy. Lee's high character, sweetness of nature,
+and unselfish integrity of purpose had impressed themselves not only
+upon the Confederate administration which had given him the command but
+upon every soldier in that command. For the army of Northern Virginia
+Lee was the man behind the guns just as Lincoln came to be for all the
+men in blue. There never was a more devoted army and there probably
+never was a better handled army than that with which Lee defended for
+three years the lines across Northern Virginia and the remnants of which
+were finally surrendered at Appomattox.
+
+Grant might well have felt concerned with such an opponent in front of
+him. He had on his hands (as had been the almost uniform condition for
+the army of the Potomac) the disadvantage of position. His advance must
+be made from exterior lines and nearly every attack was to be against
+well entrenched positions that had been first selected years back and
+had been strengthened from season to season. On the other hand, Grant
+was able to depend upon the loyal support of the administration through
+which came to his army the full advantage of the great resources of the
+North. His ranks as depleted were filled up, his commissary trains need
+never be long unsupplied, his ammunition waggons were always equipped.
+For Lee, during the years following the Gettysburg battle, the problem
+was unending and increasing: How should the troops be fed and whence
+should they secure the fresh supplies of ammunition?
+
+Between Grant and Lincoln there came to be perfect sympathy of thought
+and action. The men had in their nature (though not in their mental
+equipment) much in common. Grant carries his army through the spring of
+1864, across the much fought over territory, marching and fighting from
+day to day towards the south-west. The effort is always to outflank
+Lee's right, getting in between him and his base at Richmond, but after
+each fight, Lee's army always bars the way. Marching out of the
+Wilderness after seven days' fierce struggle, Grant still finds the line
+of grey blocking his path to Richmond. The army of the Potomac had been
+marching and fighting without break for weeks. There had been but little
+sleep, and the food in the trains was often far out of the reach of the
+men in the fighting line. Men and officers were alike exhausted. While
+advantages had been gained at one point or another along the line, and
+while it was certain that the opposing army had also suffered severely,
+there had been no conclusive successes to inspirit the troops with the
+feeling that they were to seize victory out of the campaign.
+
+In emerging from the Wilderness, the head of the column reached the
+cross-roads the left fork of which led back to the Potomac and the right
+fork to Richmond or to Petersburg. In the previous campaigns, the army
+of the Potomac, after doing its share of plucky fighting and taking more
+than its share of discouragement, had at such a point been withdrawn for
+rest and recuperation. It was not an unnatural expectation that this
+course would be taken in the present campaign. The road to the right
+meant further fatigue and further continuous fighting for men who were
+already exhausted. In the leading brigade it was only the brigade
+commander and the adjutant who had knowledge of the instructions for the
+line of march. When, with a wave of the hand of the adjutant, the guidon
+flag of the brigade was carried to the right and the head of the column
+was set towards Richmond, a shout went up from the men marching behind
+the guidon. It was an utterance not of discouragement but of
+enthusiasm. Exhausting as the campaign had been, the men in the ranks
+preferred to fight it out then and to get through with it. Old soldiers
+as they were, they were able to understand the actual issue of the
+contest. Their plucky opponents were as exhausted as themselves and
+possibly even more exhausted. It was only through the hammering of Lee's
+diminishing army out of existence that the War could be brought to a
+close. The enthusiastic shout of satisfaction rolled through the long
+column reaching twenty miles back, as the news passed from brigade to
+brigade that the army was not to be withdrawn but was, as Grant's report
+to Lincoln was worded, "to fight it out on this line if it took all
+summer." When this report reached Lincoln, he felt that the selection of
+Grant as Lieutenant-General had been justified. He said: "We need this
+man. He fights."
+
+In July, 1864, Washington is once more within reach if not of the
+invader at least of the raider. The Federal forces had been concentrated
+in Grant's lines along the James, and General Jubal Early, one of the
+most energetic fighters of the Southern army, tempted by the apparently
+unprotected condition of the capital, dashed across the Potomac on a
+raid that became famous. It is probable that in this undertaking, as in
+some of the other movements that have been referred to on the part of
+the Southern leaders, the purpose was as much political as military.
+Early's force of from fifteen to sixteen thousand men was, of course, in
+no way strong enough to be an army of invasion. The best success for
+which he could hope would be, in breaking through the defences of
+Washington, to hold the capital for a day or even a few hours. The
+capture of Washington in 1864, as in 1863 or in 1862, would in all
+probability have brought about the long-hoped-for intervention of France
+and England. General Lew Wallace, whose name became known in the years
+after the War through some noteworthy romances, _Ben Hur_ and _The Fair
+God_, and who was in command of a division of troops stationed west of
+Washington, and composed in part of loyal Marylanders and in part of
+convalescents who were about to be returned to the front, fell back
+before Early's advance to Monocacy Creek. He disposed his thin line
+cleverly in the thickets on the east side of the creek in such fashion
+as to give the impression of a force of some size with an advance line
+of skirmishers. Early's advance was checked for some hours before he
+realised that there was nothing of importance in front of him; when
+Wallace's division was promptly overwhelmed and scattered. The few hours
+that had thus been saved were, however, of first importance for the
+safety of Washington. Early reached the outer lines of the
+fortifications of the capital some time after sunset. His immediate
+problem was to discover whether the troops which were, as he knew, being
+hurried up from the army of the James, had reached Washington or whether
+the capital was still under the protection only of its so-called
+home-guard of veteran reserves. These reserves were made up of men more
+or less crippled and unfit for work in the field but who were still able
+to do service on fortifications. They comprised in all about six
+thousand men and were under the command of Colonel Wisewell. The force
+was strengthened somewhat that night by the addition of all of the male
+nurses from the hospitals (themselves convalescents) who were able to
+bear arms. That night the women nurses, who had already been in
+attendance during the hours of the day, had to render double service.
+Lincoln had himself in the afternoon stood on the works watching the
+dust of the Confederate advance. Once more there came to the President
+who had in his hands the responsibility for the direction of the War
+the bitterness of the feeling, if not of possible failure, at least of
+immediate mortification. He knew that within twenty-four or thirty-six
+hours Washington could depend upon receiving the troops that were being
+hurried up from Grant's army, but he also realised what enormous
+mischief might be brought about by even a momentary occupation of the
+national capital by Confederate troops. I had some personal interest in
+this side campaign. The 19th army corps, to which my own regiment
+belonged, had been brought from Louisiana to Virginia and had been
+landed on the James River to strengthen the ranks of General Butler.
+There had not been time to assign to us posts in the trenches and we
+had, in fact, not even been placed in position. We were more nearly in
+marching order than any other troops available and it was therefore the
+divisions of the 19th army corps that were selected to be hurried up to
+Washington. To these were added two divisions of the 6th corps.
+
+Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences of the city, realised the
+nature of his problem. He had got to hold the lines of Washington, cost
+what it might, until the arrival of the troops from Grant. He took the
+bold step of placing on the picket line that night every man within
+reach, or at least every loyal man within reach (for plenty of the men
+in Washington were looking and hoping for the success of the South). The
+instructions usually given to pickets were in this instance reversed.
+The men were ordered, in place of keeping their positions hidden and of
+maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post to post along the whole
+line, and they were also ordered, without any reference to the saving of
+ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the least possible pretext
+and without pretext. The armories were then beginning to send to the
+front Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of breech-loading rifles
+came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but
+during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed
+with Sharp's breech-loaders. The infantry weapon used through the War by
+the armies of the North as by those of the South was the muzzle-loading
+rifle which bore the name on our side of the Springfield and on the
+Confederate side of the Enfield. The larger portion of the Northern
+rifles were manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts, while the
+Southern rifles, in great part imported from England, took their name
+from the English factory. It was of convenience for both sides that the
+two rifles were practically identical so that captured pieces and
+captured ammunition could be interchanged without difficulty.
+
+Early's skirmish line was instructed early in the night to "feel" the
+Federal pickets, an instruction which resulted in a perfect blaze of
+carbine fire from Wisewell's men. The report that went to Early was that
+the picket line must be about six thousand strong. The conclusion on the
+part of the old Confederate commander was that the troops from the army
+of the Potomac must have reached the city. If that were true, there was,
+of course, no chance that on the following day he could break through
+the entrenchments, while there was considerable risk that his retreat to
+the Shenandoah might be cut off. Early the next morning, therefore, the
+disappointed Early led his men back to Falling Waters.
+
+I happened during the following winter, when in prison in Danville, to
+meet a Confederate lieutenant who had been on Early's staff and who had
+lost an arm in this little campaign. He reported that when Early, on
+recrossing the Potomac, learned that he had had Washington in his grasp
+and that the divisions marching to its relief did not arrive and could
+not have arrived for another twenty-four hours, he was about the
+maddest Early that the lieutenant had ever seen. "And," added the
+lieutenant, "when Early was angry, the atmosphere became blue."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+THE FINAL CAMPAIGN
+
+
+After this close escape, it was clear to Grant as it had been clear to
+Lincoln that whatever forces were concentrated before Petersburg, the
+line of advance for Confederate invaders through the Shenandoah must be
+blocked. General Sheridan was placed in charge of the army of the
+Shenandoah and the 19th corps, instead of returning to the trenches of
+the James, marched on from Washington to Martinsburg and Winchester.
+
+In September, the commander in Washington had the satisfaction of
+hearing that his old assailant Early had been sent "whirling through
+Winchester" by the fierce advance of Sheridan. Lincoln recognised the
+possibility that Early might refuse to stay defeated and might make use,
+as had so often before been done by Confederate commanders in the
+Valley, of the short interior line to secure reinforcements from
+Richmond and to make a fresh attack. On the 29th of September, twenty
+days before this attack came off, Lincoln writes to Grant: "Lee may be
+planning to reinforce Early. Care should be taken to trace any movement
+of troops westward." On the 19th of October, the persistent old fighter
+Early, not willing to acknowledge himself beaten and understanding that
+he had to do with an army that for the moment did not have the advantage
+of Sheridan's leadership, made his plucky, and for the time successful,
+fight at Cedar Creek. The arrival of Sheridan at the critical hour in
+the afternoon of the 19th of October did not, as has sometimes been
+stated, check the retreat of a demoralised army. Sheridan found his army
+driven back, to be sure, from its first position, but in occupation of a
+well supported line across the pike from which had just been thrown back
+the last attack made by Early's advance. It was Sheridan however who
+decided not only that the battle which had been lost could be regained,
+but that the work could be done to best advantage right away on that
+day, and it was Sheridan who led his troops through the too short hours
+of the October afternoon back to their original position from which
+before dark they were able to push Early's fatigued fighters across
+Cedar Creek southward. Lincoln had found another man who could fight. He
+was beginning to be able to put trust in leaders who, instead of having
+to be replaced, were with each campaign gathering fresh experience and
+more effective capacity.
+
+From the West also came reports, in this autumn of 1864, from a fighting
+general. Sherman had carried the army, after its success at Chattanooga,
+through the long line of advance to Atlanta, by outflanking movements
+against Joe Johnston, the Fabius of the Confederacy, and when Johnston
+had been replaced by the headstrong Hood, had promptly taken advantage
+of Hood's rashness to shatter the organisation of the army of Georgia.
+The capture of Atlanta in September, 1864, brought to Lincoln in
+Washington and to the North the feeling of certainty that the days of
+the Confederacy were numbered.
+
+The second invasion of Tennessee by the army of Hood, rendered possible
+by the march of Sherman to the sea, appeared for the moment to threaten
+the control that had been secured of the all-important region of which
+Nashville was the centre, but Hood's march could only be described as
+daring but futile. He had no base and no supplies. His advance did some
+desperate fighting at the battle of Franklin and succeeded in driving
+back the rear-guard of Thomas's army, ably commanded by General
+Schofield, but the Confederate ranks were so seriously shattered that
+when they took position in front of Nashville they no longer had
+adequate strength to make the siege of the city serious even as a
+threat. Thomas had only to wait until his own preparations were
+completed and then, on the same day in December on which Sherman was
+entering Savannah, Thomas, so to speak, "took possession" of Hood's
+army. After the fight at Nashville, there were left of the Confederate
+invaders only a few scattered divisions.
+
+It was just before the news of the victory at Nashville that Lincoln
+made time to write the letter to Mrs. Bixby whose name comes into
+history as an illustration of the thoughtful sympathy of the great
+captain:
+
+    "I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of
+    the adjutant-general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of
+    five sons who died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how
+    weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to
+    beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot
+    refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in
+    the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our
+    Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and
+    leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the
+    pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the
+    altar of freedom."
+
+In March, 1864, Lincoln writes to Grant: "New York votes to give votes
+to the soldiers. Tell the soldiers." The decision of New York in regard
+to the collection from the soldiers in each field of the votes for the
+coming Presidential election was in line with that arrived at by all of
+the States. The plan presented difficulties and, in connection with the
+work of special commissioners, it involved also expense. It was,
+however, on every ground desirable that the men who were risking their
+lives in defence of the nation should be given the opportunity of taking
+part in the selection of the nation's leader, who was also under the
+Constitution the commander-in-chief of the armies in the field. The
+votes of some four hundred thousand men constituted also an important
+factor in the election itself. I am not sure that the attempt was ever
+made to separate and classify the soldiers' vote but it is probable that
+although the Democratic candidate was McClellan, a soldier who had won
+the affection of the men serving under him, and the opposing candidate
+was a civilian, a substantial majority of the vote of the soldiers was
+given to Lincoln.
+
+Secretary Chase had fallen into the habit of emphasising what he
+believed to be his indispensability in the Cabinet by threatening to
+resign, or even by submitting a resignation, whenever his suggestions or
+conclusions met with opposition. These threats had been received with
+patience up to the point when patience seemed to be no longer a virtue;
+but finally, when (in May, 1864) such a resignation was tendered under
+some aggravation of opposition or of criticism, very much to Chase's
+surprise the resignation was accepted.
+
+The Secretary had had in train for some months active plans for becoming
+the Republican candidate for the Presidential campaign of 1864. Evidence
+had from time to time during the preceding year been brought to Lincoln
+of Chase's antagonism and of his hopes of securing the leadership of the
+party. Chase's opposition to certain of Lincoln's policies was doubtless
+honest enough. He had brought himself to believe that Lincoln did not
+possess the force and the qualities required to bring the War to a
+close. He had also convinced himself that he, Chase, was the man, and
+possibly was the only man, who was fitted to meet the special
+requirements of the task. Mr. Chase did possess the confidence of the
+more extreme of the anti-slavery groups throughout the country. His
+administration of the Treasury had been able and valuable, but the
+increasing difficulty that had been found in keeping the Secretary of
+the Treasury in harmonious relations with the other members of the
+administration caused his retirement to be on the whole a relief.
+Lincoln came to the conclusion that more effective service could be
+secured from some other man, even if possessing less ability, whose
+temperament made it possible for him to work in co-operation. The
+unexpected acceptance of the resignation caused to Chase and to Chase's
+friends no little bitterness, which found vent in sharp criticisms of
+the President. Neither bitterness nor criticisms could, however, prevent
+Lincoln from retaining a cordial appreciation for the abilities and the
+patriotism of the man, and, later in the year, Lincoln sent in his
+nomination as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Chase himself, in his
+lack of capacity to appreciate the self-forgetfulness of Lincoln's
+nature, was probably more surprised by his nomination as Chief Justice
+than he had been by the acceptance of his resignation as Secretary of
+the Treasury.
+
+In July, 1864, comes a fresh risk of international complications
+through the invasion of Mexico by a French army commanded by Bazaine,
+seven years later to be known as the (more or less) hero of Metz. Lotus
+Napoleon had been unwilling to give up his dream of a French empire, or
+of an empire instituted under French influence, in the Western
+Hemisphere. He was still hopeful, if not confident, that the United
+States would not be able to maintain its existence; and he felt assured
+that if the Southern Confederacy should finally be established with the
+friendly co-operation of France, he would be left unmolested to carry
+out his own schemes in Mexico. He had induced an honest-minded but not
+very clearheaded Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of
+Austria, to accept a throne in Mexico to be established by French
+bayonets, and which, as the result showed, could sustain itself only
+while those bayonets were available. The presence of French troops on
+American soil brought fresh anxieties to the administration; but it was
+recognised that nothing could be done for the moment, and Lincoln and
+his advisers were hopeful that the Mexicans, before their capital had
+been taken possession of by the invader, would be able to maintain some
+national government until, with the successful close of its own War,
+the United States could come to the defence of the sister republic.
+
+The extreme anti-slavery group of the Republican party had, as
+indicated, never been fully satisfied with the thoroughness of the
+anti-slavery policy of the administration and Mr. Chase retained until
+the action of the convention in June the hope that he might through the
+influence of this group secure the Presidency. Lincoln remarks in
+connection with this candidacy: "If Chase becomes President, all right.
+I hope we may never have a worse man." From the more conservative wing
+of the Republican party came suggestions as to the nomination of Grant
+and this plan brought from Lincoln the remark: "If Grant takes Richmond,
+by all means let him have the nomination." When the delegates came
+together, however, in Baltimore, it was evident that, representing as
+they did the sober and well-thought-out convictions of the people, no
+candidacy but that of Lincoln could secure consideration and his
+nomination was practically unanimous.
+
+The election in November gave evidence that, even in the midst of civil
+war, a people's government can sustain the responsibility of a national
+election. The large popular majorities in nearly all of the voting
+States constituted not only a cordial recognition of the service that
+was being rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's administration, but a
+substantial assurance that the cause of nationality was to be sustained
+with all the resources of the nation. The Presidential election of this
+year gave the final blow to the hopes of the Confederacy.
+
+I had myself a part in a very small division of this election, a
+division which could have no effect in the final gathering of the votes,
+but which was in a way typical of the spirit of the army. On the 6th of
+November, 1864, I was in Libby Prison, having been captured at the
+battle of Cedar Creek in October. It was decided to hold a Presidential
+election in the prison, although some of us were rather doubtful as to
+the policy and anxious in regard to the result. The exchange of
+prisoners had been blocked for nearly a year on the ground of the
+refusal on the part of the South to exchange the coloured troops or
+white officers who held commissions in coloured regiments. Lincoln took
+the ground, very properly, that all of the nation's soldiers must be
+treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. Until the
+coloured troops should be included in the exchange, "there can," said
+Lincoln, "be no exchanging of prisoners." This decision, while sound,
+just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction
+to the men in prison and to their friends at home. When I reached Libby
+in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven
+months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners
+for five months more. Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and
+mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very
+severe. It was in fact a stupid barbarity on the part of the Confederate
+authorities to keep any prisoners in Richmond during that last winter of
+the War. It was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of
+which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for
+Lee's army. It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south,
+in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the
+inhabitants of the town. It was inevitable under the circumstances that
+the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths
+from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken
+from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there
+should be further deaths from starvation.
+
+It was not unnatural that under such conditions the prisoners should
+have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison authorities,
+but for discontent with their own administration. One may in fact be
+surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured
+spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we
+found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The
+soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison
+votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual
+ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but
+twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, that this vote of the
+prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so
+recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.
+
+In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the part
+of certain members of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear upon
+Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's reply made clear that he
+proposed to remain President. He says to the member reporting for
+himself and his associates the protest against Seward: "I propose to be
+the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my
+Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once have secured peace within the
+Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he had
+been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had
+associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens,
+who would have been competent to carry on the routine responsibilities
+of their posts. The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion or
+any working action between men differing from each other as widely as
+did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and
+in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an
+attempt that brought upon the chief daily burdens and many keen
+anxieties. Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important for the
+proper carrying on of the contest that the Cabinet should contain
+representatives of the several loyal sections of the country and of the
+various phases of opinion. The extreme anti-slavery men were entitled to
+be heard even though their spokesman Chase was often intemperate,
+ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States men had a right to be
+represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they had
+a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might
+show himself, as he often did show himself, quite incapable of
+understanding, much less of sympathising with, the real spirit of the
+North. Stanton might be truculent and even brutal, but he was willing to
+work, he knew how to organise, he was devotedly loyal. Seward, scholar
+and statesman as he was, had been ready to give needless provocation to
+Europe and was often equally ill-judged in his treatment of the
+conservative Border States on the one hand and of the New England
+abolitionists on the other, but Seward was a patriot as well as a
+scholar and was a representative not only of New York but of the best of
+the Whig Republican sentiment of the entire North, and Seward could not
+be spared. It is difficult to recall in history a government made up of
+such discordant elements which through the patience, tact, and genius of
+one man was made to do effective work.
+
+In February, 1865, in response to suggestions from the South which
+indicated the possibility of peace, Lincoln accepted a meeting with
+Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners to talk over measures
+for bringing the War to a close. The meeting was held on a gun-boat on
+the James River. It seems probable from the later history that Stephens
+had convinced himself that the Confederacy could not conquer its
+independence and that it only remained to secure the best terms
+possible for a surrender. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis was not yet
+prepared to consider any terms short of a recognition of the
+independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens could act only under the
+instructions received from Richmond. It was Lincoln's contention that
+the government of the United States could not treat with rebels (or,
+dropping the word "rebels," with its own citizens) in arms. "The first
+step in negotiations, must," said Lincoln, "be the laying down of arms.
+There is no precedent in history for a government entering into
+negotiations with its own armed citizens."
+
+"But there is a precedent, Mr. Lincoln," said Stephens, "King Charles of
+England treated with the Cromwellians."
+
+"Yes," said Lincoln, "I believe that is so. I usually leave historical
+details to Mr. Seward, who is a student. It is, however, my memory that
+King Charles lost his head."
+
+It soon became evident that there was no real basis for negotiations,
+and Stephens and his associates had to return to Richmond disappointed.
+In the same month, was adopted by both Houses of Congress the Thirteenth
+Amendment, which prohibited slavery throughout the whole dominion of the
+United States. By the close of 1865, this amendment had been confirmed
+by thirty-three States. It is probable that among these thirty-three
+there were several States the names of which were hardly familiar to
+some of the older citizens of the South, the men who had accepted the
+responsibility for the rebellion. The state of mind of these older
+Southerners in regard more particularly to the resources of the
+North-west was recalled to me years after the War by an incident related
+by General Sherman at a dinner of the New England Society. Sherman said
+that during the march through Georgia he had found himself one day at
+noon, when near the head of his column, passing below the piazza of a
+comfortable-looking old plantation house. He stopped to rest on the
+piazza with one or two of his staff and was received by the old planter
+with all the courtliness that a Southern gentleman could show, even to
+an invader, when doing the honours of his own house. The General and the
+planter sat on the piazza, looking at the troops below and discussing,
+as it was inevitable under the circumstances that they must discuss, the
+causes of the War.
+
+"General," said the planter, "what troops are those passing below?" The
+General leans over the piazza, and calls to the standard bearers,
+"Throw out your flag, boys," and as the flag was thrown out, he reports
+to his host, "The 30th Wisconsin."
+
+"Wisconsin?" said the planter, "Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin?"
+
+"It is one of the States of the North-west," said Sherman.
+
+"When I was studying geography," said the planter, "I knew of Wisconsin
+simply as the name of a tribe of Indians. How many men are there in a
+regiment?"
+
+"Well, there were a thousand when they started," said Sherman.
+
+"Do you mean to say," said the planter, "that there is a State called
+Wisconsin that has sent thirty thousand men into your armies?"
+
+"Oh, probably forty thousand," answered Sherman.
+
+With the next battalion the questions and the answers are repeated. The
+flag was that of a Minnesota regiment, say the 32d. The old planter had
+never heard that there was such a State.
+
+"My God!" he said when he had figured out the thousands of men who had
+come to the front, from these so-called Indian territories, to maintain
+the existence of the nation, "If we in the South had known that you had
+turned those Indian territories into great States, we never should have
+gone into this war." The incident throws a light upon the state of mind
+of men in the South, even of well educated men in the South, at the
+outbreak of the War. They might, of course, have known by statistics
+that great States had grown up in the North-west, representing a
+population of millions and able themselves to put into the field armies
+to be counted by the thousand. They might have realised that these great
+States of the North-west were vitally concerned with the necessity of
+keeping the Mississippi open for their trade from its source to the Gulf
+of Mexico. They might have known that those States, largely settled from
+New England, were absolutely opposed to slavery. This knowledge was
+within their reach but they had not realised the facts of the case. It
+was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to do only
+with New England and the Middle States and they felt that they were
+strong enough to hold their own against this group of opponents. That
+feeling would have been justified. The South could never have been
+overcome and the existence of the nation could never have been
+maintained if it had not been for the loyal co-operation and the
+magnificent resources of men and of national wealth that were
+contributed to the cause by the States of the North-west. In 1880, I had
+occasion, in talking to the two thousand students of the University of
+Minnesota, to recall the utterance of the old planter. The students of
+that magnificent University, placed in a beautiful city of two hundred
+and fifty thousand inhabitants, found it difficult on their part to
+realise, amidst their laughter at the ignorance of the old planter, just
+what the relations of the South had been before the War to the new free
+communities of the North-west.
+
+In February, 1865, with the fall of Fort Fisher and the capture of
+Wilmington, the control of the coast of the Confederacy became complete.
+The Southerners and their friends in Great Britain and the Bahamas (a
+group of friends whose sympathies for the cause were very much enhanced
+by the opportunity of making large profits out of their friendly
+relations) had shown during the years of the War exceptional ingenuity,
+daring, and persistence in carrying on the blockade-running. The ports
+of the British West Indies were very handy, and, particularly during the
+stormy months of the winter, it was hardly practicable to maintain an
+absolutely assured barrier of blockades along a line of coast
+aggregating about two thousand miles. The profits on a single voyage on
+the cotton taken out and on the stores brought back were sufficient to
+make good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three disastrous trips.
+The blockade-runners, Southerners and Englishmen, took their lives in
+their hands and they fairly earned all the returns that came to them. I
+happened to have early experience of the result of the fall of Fort
+Fisher and of the final closing of the last inlet for British goods. I
+was at the time in prison in Danville, Virginia. I was one of the few
+men in the prison (the group comprised about a dozen) who had been
+fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. We wore our tooth-brushes
+fastened into the front button-holes of our blouses, partly possibly
+from ostentation, but chiefly for the purpose of keeping them from being
+stolen. I was struck by receiving an offer one morning from the
+lieutenant of the prison guard of $300 for my tooth-brush. The "dollars"
+meant of course Confederate dollars and I doubtless hardly realised from
+the scanty information that leaked into the prison how low down in
+February, 1865, Confederate currency had depreciated. But still it was a
+large sum and the tooth-brush had been in use for a number of months.
+It then leaked out from a word dropped by the lieutenant that no more
+English tooth-brushes could get into the Confederacy and those of us who
+had been studying possibilities on the coast realised that Fort Fisher
+must have fallen.
+
+In this same month of February, into which were crowded some of the most
+noteworthy of the closing events of the War, Charleston was evacuated as
+Sherman's army on its sweep northward passed back of the city. I am not
+sure whether the fiercer of the old Charlestonians were not more annoyed
+at the lack of attention paid by Sherman to the fire-eating little city
+in which four years back had been fired the gun that opened the War,
+than they would have been by an immediate and strenuous occupation.
+Sherman had more important matters on hand than the business of looking
+after the original fire-eaters. He was hurrying northward, close on the
+heels of Johnston, to prevent if possible the combination of Johnston's
+troops with Lee's army which was supposed to be retreating from
+Virginia.
+
+On the 4th of March comes the second inaugural, in which Lincoln speaks
+almost in the language of a Hebrew prophet. The feeling is strong upon
+him that the clouds of war are about to roll away but he cannot free
+himself from the oppression that the burdens of the War have produced.
+The emphasis is placed on the all-important task of bringing the
+enmities to a close with the end of the actual fighting. He points out
+that responsibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the South and
+he invokes from those who under his leadership are bringing the contest
+to a triumphant close, their sympathy and their help for their
+fellow-men who have been overcome. The address is possibly the most
+impressive utterance ever made by a national leader and it is most
+characteristic of the fineness and largeness of nature of the man. I
+cite the closing paragraph:
+
+    "If we shall suppose that slavery is one of those offences which in
+    the providence of God needs must come, and which having continued
+    through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He
+    gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe to those
+    by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure
+    from those Divine attributes, which the believers in the Living God
+    always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that
+    this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills
+    that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen
+    in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and
+    until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by
+    another drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said two thousand
+    years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord
+    are true, and righteous altogether.... With malice towards none,
+    with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to
+    see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind
+    up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the
+    battle and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may
+    achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and
+    with all nations."
+
+After the election of 1864, Lincoln's word had been "a common cause, a
+common interest, and a common country." The invocation in this last
+inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common
+country and that in caring for those who have been in the battle and in
+the binding up of the wounds, there is to be no distinction between the
+men of the grey and those of the blue.
+
+At the close of February, Lee, who realises that his weakened lines
+cannot much longer be maintained, proposes to Grant terms of adjustment.
+Grant replies that his duties are purely military and that he has no
+authority to discuss any political relations. On the first of April, the
+right wing of Lee's army is overwhelmed and driven back by Sheridan at
+Five Forks, and on the day following Richmond is evacuated by the
+rear-guard of Lee's army. The defence of Richmond during the long years
+of the War (a defence which was carried on chiefly from the
+entrenchments of Petersburg), by the skill of the engineers and by the
+patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always take
+a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of
+positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction
+of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic
+distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever disposition
+of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from
+month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact
+there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these
+things were evidence of the military skill, the ingenuity, the
+resourcefulness, and the enduring courage of the leaders. The skill and
+character of Lee and his associates would however of course have been in
+vain and the lines would have been broken not in 1865, but in 1863 or in
+1862, if it had not been for the magnificent patience and heroism of the
+rank and file that fought in the grey uniform under the Stars and Bars
+and whose fighting during the last of those months was done in tattered
+uniforms and with a ration less by from one quarter to one half than
+that which had been accepted as normal.
+
+On the second of April, the Stars and Stripes are borne into Richmond by
+the advance brigade of the right wing of Grant's army under the command
+of General Weitzel. There was a certain poetic justice in the decision
+that the responsibility for making first occupation of the city should
+be entrusted to the coloured troops. The city had been left by the
+rear-guard of the Confederate army in a state of serious confusion. The
+Confederate general in charge (Lee had gone out in the advance hoping to
+be able to break his way through to North Carolina) had felt justified,
+for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as
+remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had
+left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and
+negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all
+authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the city
+was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored
+order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and
+consideration. The marauders were arrested, imprisoned, and, when
+necessary, shot. The fires were put out as promptly as practicable, but
+not until a large amount of very unnecessary damage and loss had been
+brought upon the stricken city. The women who had locked themselves into
+their houses, more in dread of the Yankee invader than of their own
+street marauders, were agreeably surprised to find that their immediate
+safety and the peace of the town depended upon the invaders and that the
+first battalions of these were the despised and much hated blacks.
+
+Upon the 4th of April, against the counsel and in spite of the
+apprehensions of nearly all his advisers, Lincoln insisted upon coming
+down the river from Washington and making his way into the Rebel
+capital. There was no thought of vaingloriousness or of posing as the
+victor. He came under the impression that some civil authorities would
+probably have remained in Richmond with whom immediate measures might be
+taken to stop unnecessary fighting and to secure for the city and for
+the State a return of peaceful government. Thomas Nast, who while not a
+great artist was inspired to produce during the War some of the most
+graphic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events,
+made a drawing which was purchased later by the New York Union League
+Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured
+folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowding about the man
+whom they hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic adoration
+trying to touch so much as the hem of his garment. The picture is
+history in showing what actually happened and it is pathetic history in
+recalling how great were the hopes that came to the coloured people from
+the success of the North and from the certainty of the end of slavery.
+It is sad to recall the many disappointments that during the forty years
+since the occupation of Richmond have hampered the uplifting of the
+race. Lincoln's hope that some representative of the Confederacy might
+have remained in Richmond, if only for the purpose of helping to bring
+to a close as rapidly as possible the waste and burdens of continued
+war, was not realised. The members of the Confederate government seem to
+have been interested only in getting away from Richmond and to have
+given no thought to the duty they owed to their own people to cooperate
+with the victors in securing a prompt return of law and order.
+
+On the 9th of April, came the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, four
+years, less three days, from the date of the firing of the first gun of
+the War at Charleston. The muskets turned in by the ragged and starving
+files of the remnants of Lee's army represented only a small portion of
+those which a few days earlier had been holding the entrenchments at
+Petersburg. As soon as it became evident that the army was not going to
+be able to break through the Federal lines and begin a fresh campaign in
+North Carolina, the men scattered from the retreating columns right and
+left, in many cases carrying their muskets to their own homes as a
+memorial fairly earned by plucky and persistent service. There never was
+an army that did better fighting or that was better deserving of the
+recognition, not only of the States in behalf of whose so-called
+"independence" the War had been waged, but on the part of opponents who
+were able to realise the character and the effectiveness of the
+fighting.
+
+The scene in the little farm-house where the two commanders met to
+arrange the terms of surrender was dramatic in more ways than one.
+General Lee had promptly given up his own baggage waggon for use in
+carrying food for the advance brigade and as he could save but one suit
+of clothes, he had naturally taken his best. He was, therefore,
+notwithstanding the fatigues and the privations of the past week, in
+full dress uniform. He was one of the handsomest men of his generation,
+and his beauty was not only of feature but of expression of character.
+Grant, who never gave much thought to his personal appearance, had for
+days been away from his baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping
+as near as possible to the front line with reference to the probability
+of being called to arrange terms for surrender, he had not found the
+opportunity of securing a proper coat in place of his fatigue blouse. I
+believe that even his sword had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow
+one for the occasion from a staff officer. When the main details of the
+surrender had been talked over, Grant looked about the group in the
+room, which included, in addition to two staff officers who had come
+with Lee, a group of five or six of his own assistants, who had managed
+to keep up with the advance, to select the aid who should write out the
+paper. His eye fell upon Colonel Ely Parker, a brigade commander who had
+during the past few months served on Grant's staff. "Colonel Parker, I
+will ask you," said Grant, "as the only real American in the room, to
+draft this paper." Parker was a full-blooded Indian, belonging to one of
+the Iroquois tribes of New York.
+
+Grant's suggestion that the United States had no requirement for the
+horses of Lee's army and that the men might find these convenient for
+"spring ploughing" was received by Lee with full appreciation. The first
+matter in order after the completion of the surrender was the issue of
+rations to the starving Southern troops. "General Grant," said Lee, "a
+train was ordered by way of Danville to bring rations to meet my army
+and it ought to be now at such a point," naming a village eight or nine
+miles to the south-west. General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye,
+now put in a word: "The train from the south is there, General Lee, or
+at least it was there yesterday. My men captured it and the rations will
+be available." General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, a
+valued comrade, and rides slowly through the ranks first of the blue and
+then of the grey. Every hat came off from the men in blue as an
+expression of respect to a great soldier and a true gentleman, while
+from the ranks in grey there was one great sob of passionate grief and
+finally, almost for the first time in Lee's army, a breaking of
+discipline as the men crowded forward to get a closer look at, or
+possibly a grasp of the hand of, the great leader who had fought and
+failed but whose fighting and whose failure had been so magnificent.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+LINCOLN'S TASK ENDED
+
+
+On the 11th of April, Lincoln makes his last public utterance. In a
+brief address to some gathering in Washington, he says, "There will
+shortly be announcement of a new policy." It is hardly to be doubted
+that the announcement which he had in mind was to be concerned with the
+problem of reconstruction. He had already outlined in his mind the
+essential principles on which the readjustment must be made. In this
+same address, he points out that "whether or not the seceded States be
+out of the Union, they are out of their proper relations to the Union."
+We may feel sure that he would not have permitted the essential matters
+of readjustment to be delayed while political lawyers were arguing over
+the constitutional issue. On one side was the group which maintained
+that in instituting the Rebellion and in doing what was in their power
+to destroy the national existence, the people of the seceding States had
+forfeited all claims to the political liberty of their communities.
+According to this contention, the Slave States were to be treated as
+conquered territory, and it simply remained for the government of the
+United States to reshape this territory as might be found convenient or
+expedient. According to the other view, as secession was itself
+something which was not to be admitted, being, from the constitutional
+point of view, impossible, there never had in the legal sense of the
+term been any secession. The instant the armed rebellion had been
+brought to an end, the rebelling States were to be considered as having
+resumed their old-time relations with the States of the North and with
+the central government. They were under the same obligations as before
+for taxation, for subordination in foreign relations, and for the
+acceptance of the control of the Federal government on all matters
+classed as Federal. On the other hand, they were entitled to the
+privileges that had from the beginning been exercised by independent
+States: namely, the control of their local affairs on matters not
+classed as Federal, and they had a right to their proportionate
+representation in Congress and to their proportion of the electoral vote
+for President. It has been very generally recognised in the South as in
+the North that if Lincoln could have lived, some of the most serious of
+the difficulties that arose during the reconstruction period through the
+friction between these conflicting theories would have been avoided. The
+Southerners would have realised that the head of the government had a
+cordial and sympathetic interest in doing what might be practicable not
+only to re-establish their relations as citizens of the United States,
+but to further in every way the return of their communities to
+prosperity, a prosperity which, after the loss of the property in their
+slaves and the enormous destruction of their general resources, seemed
+to be sadly distant.
+
+On the 14th of April, comes the dramatic tragedy ending on the day
+following in the death of Lincoln. The word dramatic applies in this
+instance with peculiar fitness. While the nation mourned for the loss of
+its leader, while the soldiers were stricken with grief that their great
+captain should have been struck down, while the South might well be
+troubled that the control and adjustment of the great interstate
+perplexities was not to be in the hands of the wise, sympathetic, and
+patient ruler, for the worker himself the rest after the four years of
+continuous toil and fearful burdens and anxieties might well have been
+grateful. The great task had been accomplished and the responsibilities
+accepted in the first inaugural had been fulfilled.
+
+In March, 1861, Lincoln had accepted the task of steering the nation
+through the storm of rebellion, the divided opinions and counsels of
+friends, and the fierce onslaught of foes at home and abroad. In April,
+1865, the national existence was assured, the nation's credit was
+established, the troops were prepared to return to their homes and
+resume their work as citizens. At no time in history had any people been
+able against such apparently overwhelming perils and difficulties to
+maintain a national existence. There was, therefore, notwithstanding the
+great misfortune, for the people South and North, in the loss of the
+wise ruler at a time when so many difficulties remained to be adjusted,
+a dramatic fitness in having the life of the leader close just as the
+last army of antagonists was laying down its arms. The first problem of
+the War that came to the administration of 1861 was that of restoring
+the flag over Fort Sumter. On the 14th of April, the day when Booth's
+pistol was laying low the President, General Anderson, who four years
+earlier had so sturdily defended Sumter, was fulfilling the duty of
+restoring the Stars and Stripes.
+
+The news of the death of Lincoln came to the army of Sherman, with
+which my own regiment happened at the time to be associated, on the 17th
+of April. On leaving Savannah, Sherman had sent word to the north to
+have all the troops who were holding posts along the coasts of North
+Carolina concentrated on a line north of Goldsborough. It was his dread
+that General Johnston might be able to effect a junction with the
+retreating forces of Lee and it was important to do whatever was
+practicable, either with forces or with a show of forces, to delay
+Johnston and to make such combination impossible. A thin line of Federal
+troops was brought into position to the north of Johnston's advance, but
+Sherman himself kept so closely on the heels of his plucky and
+persistent antagonist that, irrespective of any opposing line to the
+north, Johnston would have found it impossible to continue his progress
+towards Virginia. He was checked at Goldsborough after the battle of
+Bentonville and it was at Goldsborough that the last important force of
+the Confederacy was surrendered.
+
+We soldiers learned only later some of the complications that preceded
+that surrender. President Davis and his associates in the Confederate
+government had, with one exception, made their way south, passing to
+the west of Sherman's advance. The exception was Post-master-General
+Reagan, who had decided to remain with General Johnston. He appears to
+have made good with Johnston the claim that he, Reagan, represented all
+that was left of the Confederate government. He persuaded Johnston to
+permit him to undertake the negotiations with Sherman, and he had, it
+seems, the ambition of completing with his own authority the
+arrangements that were to terminate the War. Sherman, simple-hearted man
+that he was, permitted himself, for the time, to be confused by Reagan's
+semblance of authority. He executed with Reagan a convention which
+covered not merely the surrender of Johnston's army but the
+preliminaries of a final peace. This convention was of course made
+subject to the approval of the authorities in Washington. When it came
+into the hands of President Johnson, it was, under the counsel of Seward
+and Stanton, promptly disavowed. Johnson instructed Grant, who had
+reported to Washington from Appomattox, to make his way at once to
+Goldsborough and, relieving Sherman, to arrange for the surrender of
+Johnston's army on the terms of Appomattox. Grant's response was
+characteristic. He said in substance: "I am here, Mr. President, to
+obey orders and under the decision of the Commander-in-chief I will go
+to Goldsborough and will carry out your instructions. I prefer, however,
+to act as a messenger simply. I am entirely unwilling to take out of
+General Sherman's hands the command of the army that is so properly
+Sherman's army and that he has led with such distinctive success.
+General Sherman has rendered too great a service to the country to make
+it proper to have him now humiliated on the ground of a political
+blunder, and I at least am unwilling to be in any way a party to his
+humiliation."
+
+Stanton was disposed to approve of Johnson's first instruction and to
+have Sherman at once relieved, but the man who had just come from
+Appomattox was too strong with the people to make it easy to disregard
+his judgment on a matter which was in part at least military. The
+President was still new to his office and he was still prepared to
+accept counsel. The matter was, therefore, arranged as Grant desired.
+Grant took the instructions and had his personal word with Sherman, but
+this word was so quietly given that none of the men in Sherman's army,
+possibly no one but Sherman himself, knew of Grant's visit. Grant took
+pains so to arrange the last stage of his journey that he came into the
+camp at Goldsborough well after dark, and, after an hour's interview
+with Sherman, he made his way at once northward outside of our lines and
+of our knowledge.
+
+On Grant's arrival, Sherman at once assumed that he was to be
+superseded. "No, no," said Grant; "do you not see that I have come
+without even a sword? There is here no question of superseding the
+commander of this army, but simply of correcting an error and of putting
+things as they were. This convention must be cancelled. You will have no
+further negotiation with Mr. Reagan or with any civilian claiming to
+represent the Confederacy. Your transactions will be made with the
+commander of the Confederate army, and you will accept the surrender of
+that army on the terms that were formulated at Appomattox." Sherman was
+keen enough to understand what must have passed in Washington, and was
+able to appreciate the loyal consideration shown by General Grant in the
+successful effort to protect the honour and the prestige of his old
+comrade. The surrender was carried out on the 26th of April, eleven days
+after the death of Lincoln. Johnston's troops, like those of Lee, were
+distributed to their homes. The officers retained their side-arms, and
+the men, leaving their rifles, took with them not only such horses and
+mules as they still had with them connected with the cavalry or
+artillery, but also a number of horses and mules which had been captured
+by Sherman's army and which had not yet been placed on the United States
+army roster. Sherman understood, as did Grant, the importance of giving
+to these poor farmers whatever facilities might be available to enable
+them again to begin their home work. Word was at once sent to General
+Johnston after Grant's departure that the, only terms that could be
+considered was a surrender of the army, and that the details of such
+surrender Sherman would himself arrange with Johnston. Reagan slipped
+away southward and is not further heard of in history.
+
+The record of Lincoln's relations to the events of the War would not be
+complete without a reference to the capture of Jefferson Davis. On
+returning to Washington after his visit to Richmond, Lincoln had been
+asked what should be done with Davis when he was captured. The answer
+was characteristic: "I do not see," said Lincoln, "that we have any use
+for a white elephant." Lincoln's clear judgment had at once recognised
+the difficulties that would arise in case Davis should become a
+prisoner. The question as to the treatment of the ruler of the late
+Confederacy was very different from, and much more complicated than, the
+fixing of terms of surrender for the Confederate armies. If Davis had
+succeeded in getting out of the country, it is probable that the South,
+or at least a large portion of the South, would have used him as a kind
+of a scapegoat. Many of the Confederate soldiers were indignant with
+Davis for his bitter animosities to some of their best leaders. Davis
+was a capable man and had in him the elements of statesmanship. He was,
+however, vain and, like some other vain men, placed the most importance
+upon the capacities in which he was the least effective. He had had a
+brief and creditable military experience, serving as a lieutenant with
+Scott's army in Mexico, and he had impressed himself with the belief
+that he was a great commander. Partly on this ground, and partly
+apparently as a result of general "incompatibility of temper," Davis
+managed to quarrel at different times during the War with some of the
+generals who had shown themselves the most capable and the most
+serviceable. He would probably have quarrelled with Lee, if it had been
+possible for any one to make quarrel relations with that fine-natured
+gentleman, and if Lee had not been too strongly entrenched in the hearts
+of his countrymen to make any interference with him unwise, even for the
+President. Davis had, however, managed to interfere very seriously with
+the operations of men like Beauregard, Sidney Johnson, Joseph Johnston,
+and other commanders whose continued leadership was most important for
+the Confederacy. It was the obstinacy of Davis that had protracted the
+War through the winter and spring of 1865, long after it was evident
+from the reports of Lee and of the other commanders that the resources
+of the Confederacy were exhausted and that any further struggle simply
+meant an inexcusable loss of life on both sides. As a Northern soldier
+who has had experience in Southern prisons, I may be excused also from
+bearing in mind the fearful responsibility that rests upon Davis for the
+mismanagement of those prisons, a mismanagement which caused the death
+of thousands of brave men on the frozen slopes of Belle Isle, on the
+foul floors of Libby and Danville, and on the rotten ground used for
+three years as a living place and as a dying place within the stockade
+at Andersonville. Davis received from month to month the reports of the
+conditions in these and in the other prisons of the Confederacy. Davis
+could not have been unaware of the stupidity and the brutality of
+keeping prisoners in Richmond during the last winter of the War when the
+lines of road still open were absolutely inadequate to supply the troops
+in the trenches or the people of the town. Reports were brought to Davis
+more than once from Andersonville showing that a large portion of the
+deaths that were there occurring were due to the vile and rotten
+condition of the hollow in which for years prisoners had been huddled
+together; but the appeal made to Richmond for permission to move the
+stockade to a clean and dry slope was put to one side as a matter of no
+importance. The entire authority in the matter was in the hands of Davis
+and a word from him would have remedied some of the worst conditions. He
+must share with General Winder, the immediate superintendent of the
+prisons, the responsibility for the heedless and brutal
+mismanagement,--a mismanagement which brought death to thousands and
+which left thousands of others cripples for life.
+
+As a result of the informal word given by Lincoln, it was generally
+understood, by all the officers, at least, in charge of posts and picket
+lines along the eastern slope, that Davis was not to be captured.
+Unfortunately it had not proved possible to get this informal
+expression of a very important piece of policy conveyed throughout the
+lines farther west. An enterprising and over-zealous captain of cavalry,
+riding across from the Mississippi to the coast, heard of Davis's party
+in Florida and, "butting in," captured, on May 10th, "the white
+elephant."
+
+The last commands of the Confederate army were surrendered with General
+Taylor in Louisiana on the 4th of May and with Kirby Smith in Texas on
+the 26th of May. As Lincoln had foreshadowed, not a few complications
+resulted from this unfortunate capture of Davis, complications that were
+needlessly added to by the lack of clear-headedness or of definite
+policy on the part of a confused and vacillating President. During the
+months in which Davis was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, and while the
+question of his trial for treason was being fiercely debated in
+Washington, the sentiment of the Confederacy naturally concentrated upon
+its late President. He was, as the single prisoner, the surviving emblem
+of the contest. His vanities, irritability, and blunders were forgotten.
+It was natural that, under the circumstances, his people, the people of
+the South, should hold in memory only the fact that he had been their
+leader and that he had through four strenuous years borne the burdens
+of leadership with unflagging zeal, with persistent courage, and with an
+almost foolhardy hopefulness. He had given to the Confederacy the best
+of his life, and he was entitled to the adoration that the survivors of
+the Confederacy gave to him as representing the ideal of the lost cause.
+
+The feeling with which Lincoln was regarded by the men in the front, for
+whom through the early years of their campaigning he had been not only
+the leader but the inspiration, was indicated by the manner in which the
+news of his death was received. I happened myself on the day of those
+sad tidings to be with my division in a little village just outside of
+Goldsborough, North Carolina. We had no telegraphic communication with
+the North, but were accustomed to receive despatches about noon each
+day, carried across the swamps from a station through which connection
+was made with Wilmington and the North. In the course of the morning, I
+had gone to the shanty of an old darky whom I had come to know during
+the days of our sojourn, for the purpose of getting a shave. The old
+fellow took up his razor, put it down again and then again lifted it up,
+but his arm was shaking and I saw that he was so agitated that he was
+not fitted for the task. "Massa," he said, "I can't shave yer this
+mornin'." "What is the matter?" I inquired. "Well," he replied,
+"somethin's happened to Massa Linkum." "Why!" said I, "nothing has
+happened to Lincoln. I know what there is to be known. What are you
+talking about?" "Well!" the old man replied with a half sob, "we
+coloured folks--we get news or we get half news sooner than you-uns. I
+dun know jes' what it is, but somethin' has gone wrong with Massa
+Linkum." I could get nothing more out of the old man, but I was
+sufficiently anxious to make my way to Division headquarters to see if
+there was any news in advance of the arrival of the regular courier. The
+coloured folks were standing in little groups along the village street,
+murmuring to each other or waiting with anxious faces for the bad news
+that they were sure was coming. I found the brigade adjutant and those
+with him were puzzled like myself at the troubled minds of the darkies,
+but still sceptical as to the possibility of any information having
+reached them which was not known through the regular channels.
+
+At noon, the courier made his appearance riding by the wood lane across
+the fields; and the instant he was seen we all realised that there was
+bad news. The man was hurrying his pony and yet seemed to be very
+unwilling to reach the lines where his report must be made. In this
+instance (as was, of course, not usually the case) the courier knew what
+was in his despatches. The Division Adjutant stepped out on the porch of
+the headquarters with the paper in his hand, but he broke down before he
+could begin to read. The Division Commander took the word and was able
+simply to announce: "Lincoln is dead." The word "President" was not
+necessary and he sought in fact for the shortest word. I never before
+had found myself in a mass of men overcome by emotion. Ten thousand
+soldiers were sobbing together. No survivor of the group can recall the
+sadness of that morning without again being touched by the wave of
+emotion which broke down the reserve and control of these war-worn
+veterans on learning that their great captain was dead.
+
+The whole people had come to have with the President a relation similar
+to that which had grown up between the soldiers and their
+Commander-in-chief. With the sympathy and love of the people to sustain
+him, Lincoln had over them an almost unlimited influence. His capacity
+for toil, his sublime patience, his wonderful endurance, his great mind
+and heart, his out-reaching sympathies, his thoughtfulness for the needs
+and requirements of all, had bound him to his fellow-citizens by an
+attachment of genuine sentiment. His appellation throughout the country
+had during the last year of the war become "Father Abraham." We may
+recall in the thought of this relation to the people the record of
+Washington. The first President has come into history as the "Father of
+his Country," but for Washington this role of father is something of
+historic development. During Washington's lifetime, or certainly at
+least during the years of his responsibilities as General and as
+President, there was no such general recognition of the leader and ruler
+as the father of his country. He was dear to a small circle of
+intimates; he was held in respectful regard by a larger number of those
+with whom were carried on his responsibilities in the army, and later in
+the nation's government. To many good Americans, however, Washington
+represented for years an antagonistic principle of government. He was
+regarded as an aristocrat and there were not a few political leaders,
+with groups of voters behind them, who dreaded, and doubtless honestly
+dreaded, that the influence of Washington might be utilised to build up
+in this country some fresh form of the monarchy that had been
+overthrown. The years of the Presidency had to be completed and the
+bitter antagonisms of the seven years' fighting and of the issues of the
+Constitution-building had to be outgrown, before the people were able to
+recognise as a whole the perfect integrity of purpose and consistency of
+action of their great leader, the first President. Even then when the
+animosities and suspicions had died away, while the people were ready to
+honour the high character and the accomplishments of Washington, the
+feeling was one of reverence rather than of affection. This sentiment
+gave rise later to the title of the "Father of his Country"; but there
+was no such personal feeling towards Washington as warranted, at least
+during his life, the term father of the people. Thirty years later, the
+ruler of the nation is Andrew Jackson, a man who was, like Lincoln,
+eminently a representative of the common people. His fellow-citizens
+knew that Jackson understood their feelings and their methods and were
+ready to have full confidence in Jackson's patriotism and honesty of
+purpose. His nature lacked, however, the sweet sympathetic qualities
+that characterised Lincoln; and while to a large body of his
+fellow-citizens he commended himself for sturdiness, courage, and
+devotion to the interests of the state, he was never able for himself to
+overcome the feeling that a man who failed to agree with a Jackson
+policy must be either a knave or a fool. He could not place himself in
+the position from which the other fellow was thinking or acting. He
+believed that it was his duty to maintain what he held to be the popular
+cause against the "schemes of the aristocrats," the bugbear of that day.
+He was a fighter from his youth up and his theory of government was that
+of enforcing the control of the side for which he was the partisan. Such
+a man could never be accepted as the father of the people.
+
+Lincoln, coming from those whom he called the common people, feeling
+with their feelings, sympathetic with their needs and ideals, was able
+in the development of his powers to be accepted as the peer of the
+largest intellects in the land. While knowing what was needed by the
+poor whites of Kentucky, he could understand also the point of view of
+Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. In place of emphasising antagonisms,
+he held consistently that the highest interest of one section of the
+country must be the real interest of the whole people, and that the
+ruler of the nation had upon him the responsibility of so shaping the
+national policy that all the people should recognise the government as
+their government. It was this large understanding and width of sympathy
+that made Lincoln in a sense which could be applied to no other ruler of
+this country, the people's President, and no other ruler in the world
+has ever been so sympathetically, so effectively in touch with all of
+the fellow-citizens for whose welfare he made himself responsible. The
+Latin writer, Aulus Gellius, uses for one of his heroes the term "a
+classic character." These words seem to me fairly to apply to Abraham
+Lincoln.
+
+An appreciative Englishman, writing in the London _Nation_ at the time
+of the Centennial commemoration, says of Lincoln:
+
+    The greatness of Lincoln was that of a common man raised to a high
+    dimension. The possibility, still more the existence, of such a man
+    is itself a justification of democracy. We do not say that so
+    independent, so natural, so complete a man cannot in older societies
+    come to wield so large a power over the affairs and the minds of
+    men; we can only say that amid all the stirring movements of the
+    nineteenth century he has not so done. The existence of what may be
+    called a widespread commonalty explains the rarity of personal
+    eminence in America. There has been and still remains a higher
+    general level of personality than in any European country, and the
+    degree of eminence is correspondingly reduced. It is just because
+    America has stood for opportunity that conspicuous individuals have
+    been comparatively rare. Strong personality, however, has not been
+    rare; it is the abundance of such personality that has built up
+    silently into the rising fabric of the American Commonwealth,
+    pioneers, roadmakers, traders, lawyers, soldiers, teachers, toiling
+    terribly over the material and moral foundation of the country, few
+    of whose names have emerged or survived. Lincoln was of this stock,
+    was reared among these rude energetic folk, had lived all those
+    sorts of lives. He was no "sport"; his career is a triumphant
+    refutation of the traditional views of genius. He had no special
+    gift or quality to distinguish him; he was simply the best type of
+    American at a historic juncture when the national safety wanted such
+    a man. The confidence which all Americans express that their country
+    will be equal to any emergency which may threaten it, is not so
+    entirely superstitious as it seems at first sight. For the career of
+    Lincoln shows how it has been done in a country where the "necessary
+    man" can be drawn not from a few leading families, or an educated
+    class, but from the millions.
+
+Rabbi Schechter, in an eloquent address delivered at the Centennial
+celebration, speaks of Lincoln's personality as follows:
+
+    The half century that has elapsed since Lincoln's death has
+    dispelled the mists that encompassed him on earth. Men now not only
+    recognise the right which he championed, but behold in him the
+    standard of righteousness, of liberty, of conciliation, and truth.
+    In him, as it were personified, stands the Union, all that is best
+    and noblest and enduring in its principles in which he devoutly
+    believed and served mightily to save. When to-day, the world
+    celebrates the century of his existence, he has become the ideal of
+    both North and South, of a common country, composed not only of the
+    factions that once confronted each other in war's dreadful array,
+    but of the myriad thousands that have since found in the American
+    nation the hope of the future and the refuge from age-entrenched
+    wrong and absolutism. To them, Lincoln, his life, his history, his
+    character, his entire personality, with all its wondrous charm and
+    grace, its sobriety, patience, self-abnegation, and sweetness, has
+    come to be the very prototype of a rising humanity.
+
+Carl Schurz, himself a man of large nature and wide and sympathetic
+comprehension, says of Lincoln:
+
+    In the most conspicuous position of the period, Lincoln drew upon
+    himself the scoffs of polite society; but even then he filled the
+    souls of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur.
+    It was distinctly the weird mixture in him of qualities and forces,
+    of the lofty with the common, the ideal with the uncouth, of that
+    which he had become with that which he had not ceased to be, that
+    made him so fascinating a character among his fellow-men, that gave
+    him his singular power over minds and hearts, that fitted him to be
+    the greatest leader in the greatest crisis of our national life.
+
+    He possessed the courage to stand alone--that courage which is the
+    first requisite of leadership in a great cause. The charm of
+    Lincoln's oratory flooded all the rare depth and genuineness of his
+    convictions and his sympathetic feelings were the strongest element
+    in his nature. He was one of the greatest Americans and the best of
+    men.
+
+The poet Whittier writes:
+
+    The weary form that rested not
+    Save in a martyr's grave;
+    The care-worn face that none forgot,
+    Turned to the kneeling slave.
+
+    We rest in peace where his sad eyes
+    Saw peril, strife, and pain;
+    His was the awful sacrifice,
+    And ours the priceless gain.
+
+Says Bryant:
+
+    That task is done, the bound are free,
+    We bear thee to an honoured grave,
+    Whose noblest monument shall be
+    The broken fetters of the slave.
+
+    Pure was thy life; its bloody close
+    Hath blessed thee with the sons of light,
+    Among the noble host of those
+    Who perished in the cause of right.
+
+Says Lowell:
+
+    Our children shall behold his fame,
+    The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
+    Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame;
+    New birth of our new soil, the first American.
+
+Ordinary men die when their physical life is brought to a close, if
+perhaps not at once, yet in a brief space, with the passing of the
+little circle of those to whom they were dear.
+
+The man of distinction lives for a time after death. His achievements
+and his character are held in appreciative remembrance by the community
+and the generation he has served. The waves of his influence ripple out
+in a somewhat wider circle before being lost in the ocean of time. We
+call that man great to whom it is given so to impress himself upon his
+fellow-men by deed, by creation, by service to the community, by
+character, by the inspiration from on high that has been breathed
+through his soul, that he is not permitted to die. Such a man secures
+immortality in this world. The knowledge and the influence of his life
+are extended throughout mankind and his memory gathers increasing fame
+from generation to generation.
+
+It is thus that men are to-day honouring the memory of Abraham Lincoln.
+To-day, one hundred years after his birth, and nearly half a century
+since the dramatic close of his life's work, Lincoln stands enshrined in
+the thought and in the hearts of his countrymen. He is our "Father
+Abraham," belonging to us, his fellow-citizens, for ideals, for
+inspiration, and for affectionate regard; but he belongs now also to all
+mankind, for he has been canonised among the noblest of the world's
+heroes.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+
+
+THE ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, New York,
+
+February 27, 1860.
+
+
+With Introduction by Charles C. Nott; Historical and Analytical Notes by
+Charles C. Nott and Cephas Brainerd, and with the Correspondence between
+Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott as Representative of the Committee of the Young
+Men's Republican Union.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+
+The address delivered by Lincoln at the Cooper Institute in February,
+1860 in response to the invitation of certain representative New
+Yorkers, was, as well in its character as in its results, the most
+important of all of his utterances.
+
+The conscientious study of the historical and constitutional record, and
+the arguments and conclusions based upon the analysis of this record,
+were accepted by the Republican leaders as constituting the principles
+and the policy to be maintained during the Presidential campaign of
+1860, a campaign in which was involved not merely the election of a
+President, but the continued existence of the republic.
+
+Under the wise counsels represented by the words of Lincoln, the
+election was fought out substantially on two contentions:
+
+First, that the compact entered into by the Fathers and by their
+immediate successors should be loyally carried out, and that slavery
+should not be interfered with in the original slave States, or in the
+additional territory that had been conceded to it under the Missouri
+Compromise; and, secondly, that not a single further square mile of
+soil, that was still free, should be left available, or should be made
+available, for the incursion of slavery.
+
+It was the conviction of Lincoln and of his associates, as it had been
+the conviction of the Fathers, that under such a restriction slavery
+must certainly in the near future come to an end. It was because these
+convictions, both in the debates with Douglas and in the Cooper
+Institute speech, were presented by Lincoln more forcibly and more
+conclusively than had been done by any other political leader, that
+Lincoln secured the nomination and the presidency. The February address
+was assuredly a deciding factor in the great issue of the time, and it
+certainly belongs, therefore, with the historic documents of the
+republic.
+
+G.H.P.
+
+NEW YORK, September 1, 1909.
+
+
+
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH LINCOLN, NOTT, AND BRAINERD
+
+(_From Robert Lincoln_)
+
+    MANCHESTER, VERMONT,
+
+    July 27, 1909.
+
+    DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:
+
+    Your letter of July 23rd reaches me here, and I beg to express my
+    thanks for your kind remembrances of me in London.... I am much
+    interested in learning that you were present at the time my father
+    made his speech at Cooper Institute. I, of course, remember the
+    occasion very well, although I was not present. I was at that time
+    in the middle of my year at Phillips Exeter Academy, preparing for
+    the Harvard entrance examination of the summer of 1860.... After the
+    Cooper Institute address, my father came to Exeter to see how I was
+    getting along, and this visit resulted in his making a number of
+    speeches in New England on his way and on his return, and at Exeter
+    he wrote to my mother a letter which was mainly concerned with me,
+    but which did make reference to these speeches.... He said that he
+    had had some embarrassment with these New England speeches, because
+    in coming East he had anticipated making no speech excepting the
+    one at the Cooper Institute, and he had not prepared himself for
+    anything else.... In the later speeches, he was addressing reading
+    audiences who had, as he thought probable, seen the report of his
+    Cooper Institute speech, and he was obliged, therefore, from day to
+    day (he made about a dozen speeches in New England in all) to bear
+    that fact in mind.
+
+    Sincerely yours,
+
+    ROBERT LINCOLN.
+
+
+(_From Judge Nott_)
+
+    WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.,
+
+    July 26, 1909.
+
+    DEAR PUTNAM:
+
+    I consider it very desirable that the report of Mr. Lincoln's
+    speech, embodying the final revision, should be preserved in book
+    form.... The text in the pamphlet now in your hands is authentic and
+    conclusive. Mr. Lincoln read the proof both of the address and of
+    the notes. I am glad that you are to include in your reprint the
+    letters from Mr. Lincoln, as these letters authenticate this copy of
+    the address as the copy which was corrected by him with his own
+    hand....
+
+    The preface to the address, written in September, 1860, has interest
+    because it shows what we thought of the address at that time....
+    Your worthy father was, if I remember rightly, one of the
+    vice-presidents of the meeting....
+
+    Yours faithfully,
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT.
+
+
+_(From Cephas Brainerd)_
+
+    NEW YORK, August 18, 1909.
+
+    DEAR MAJOR PUTNAM:
+
+    I am very glad to learn that there is good prospect that the real
+    Lincoln Cooper Institute address, with the evidence in regard to it,
+    will now be available for the public.... I am glad also that with
+    the address you are proposing to print the letters received by Judge
+    Nott from Mr. Lincoln. One or two of these have, unfortunately, not
+    been preserved. I recall in one an observation made by Lincoln to
+    the effect that he "was not much of a literary man."
+
+    I did not see much of Mr. Lincoln when he was in New York, as my
+    most active responsibility in regard to the meeting was in getting
+    up an audience.... I remember in handing some weeks earlier to John
+    Sherman, who, like Lincoln, had never before spoken in New York,
+    five ten-dollar gold pieces, that he said he "had not expected his
+    expenses to be paid." At a lunch that was given to Sherman a long
+    time afterward, I referred to that meeting. Sherman cocked his eye
+    at me and said: "Yes, I remember it very well; I never was so scar't
+    in all my life." ...
+
+    The observations of Judge Nott in regard to the meeting are about
+    as just as anything that has ever been put into print, and as I
+    concur fully in the accuracy of these recollections, I do not
+    undertake to give my own impressions at any length. I was expecting
+    to hear some specimen of Western stump-speaking as it was then
+    understood. You will, of course, observe that the speech contains
+    nothing of the kind. I do remember, however, that Lincoln spoke of
+    the condition of feeling between the North and the South.... He
+    refers to the treatment which Northern men received in the South,
+    and he remarked, parenthetically, that he had never known of a man
+    who had been able "to whip his wife into loving him," an observation
+    that produced laughter.
+
+    In making up the notes, we ransacked, as you may be sure, all the
+    material available in the libraries in New York, and I also had
+    interviews as to one special point with Mr. Bancroft, with Mr.
+    Hildreth, and with Dr. William Goodell, who was in those times a
+    famous anti-slavery man.
+
+    Your father[3] and William Curtis Noyes were possibly more
+    completely in sympathy than any other two men in New York, with the
+    efforts of these younger men; they impressed me as standing in that
+    respect on the same plane. The next man to them was Charles Wyllis
+    Elliott, the author of a _History of New England_. We never went to
+    your father for advice or assistance when he failed to help us, and
+    he was always so kindly and gentle in what he did and said that
+    every one of us youngsters acquired for him a very great affection.
+    He always had time to see us and was always on hand when he was
+    wanted, and if we desired to have anything, we got it if he had it.
+    Neither your father, nor Mr. Noyes, nor for that matter Mr. Elliott,
+    ever suggested that we were "young" or "fresh" or anything of that
+    sort. The enthusiasm which young fellows have was always recognised
+    by these men as an exceedingly valuable asset in the cause....
+    Pardon all this from a "veteran," and believe me,
+
+    Sincerely yours,
+
+    CEPHAS BRAINERD.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+BY CHARLES C. NOTT
+
+
+The Cooper Institute address is one of the most important addresses ever
+delivered in the life of this nation, for at an eventful time it changed
+the course of history. When Mr. Lincoln rose to speak on the evening of
+February 27, 1860, he had held no administrative office; he had
+endeavoured to be appointed Commissioner of Patents, and had failed; he
+had sought to be elected United States Senator, and had been defeated;
+he had been a member of Congress, yet it was not even remembered; he was
+a lawyer in humble circumstances, persuasive of juries, but had not
+reached the front rank of the Illinois Bar. The record which Mr. Lincoln
+himself placed in the Congressional Directory in 1847 might still be
+taken as the record of his public and official life: "Born February
+12th, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective. Profession
+a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.
+Postmaster in a very small office. Four times a member of the Illinois
+Legislature and a member of the lower house of Congress." Was this the
+record of a man who should be made the head of a nation in troubled
+times? In the estimation of thoughtful Americans east of the Alleghanies
+all that they knew of Mr. Lincoln justified them in regarding him as
+only "a Western stump orator"--successful, distinguished, but nothing
+higher than that--a Western stump orator, who had dared to brave one of
+the strongest men in the Western States, and who had done so with
+wonderful ability and moral success. When Mr. Lincoln closed his address
+he had risen to the rank of statesman, and had stamped himself a
+statesman peculiarly fitted for the exigency of the hour.
+
+Mr. William Cullen Bryant presided at the meeting; and a number of the
+first and ablest citizens of New York were present, among them Horace
+Greeley. Mr. Greeley was pronounced in his appreciation of the address;
+it was the ablest, the greatest, the wisest speech that had yet been
+made; it would reassure the conservative Northerner; it was just what
+was wanted to conciliate the excited Southerner; it was conclusive in
+its argument, and would assure the overthrow of Douglas. Mr. Horace
+White has recently written: "I chanced to open the other day his Cooper
+Institute speech. This is one of the few printed speeches that I did not
+hear him deliver in person. As I read the concluding pages of that
+speech, the conflict of opinion that preceded the conflict of arms then
+sweeping upon the country like an approaching solar eclipse seemed
+prefigured like a chapter of the Book of Fate. Here again he was the
+Old Testament prophet, before whom Horace Greeley bowed his head, saying
+that he had never listened to a greater speech, although he had heard
+several of Webster's best." Later, Mr. Greeley became the leader of the
+Republican forces opposed to the nomination of Mr. Seward and was
+instrumental in concentrating those forces upon Mr. Lincoln.
+Furthermore, the great New York press on the following morning carried
+the address to the country, and before Mr. Lincoln left New York he was
+telegraphed from Connecticut to come and aid in the campaign of the
+approaching spring election. He went, and when the fateful moment came
+in the Convention, Connecticut was one of the Eastern States which first
+broke away from the Seward column and went over to Mr. Lincoln. When
+Connecticut did this, the die was cast.
+
+It is difficult for younger generations of Americans to believe that
+three months before Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency he was
+neither appreciated nor known in New York. That fact can be better
+established by a single incident than by the opinions and assurances of
+a dozen men.
+
+After the address had been delivered, Mr. Lincoln was taken by two
+members of the Young Men's Central Republican Union--Mr. Hiram Barney,
+afterward Collector of the Port of New York, and Mr. Nott, one of the
+subsequent editors of the address--to their club, The Athenaeum, where
+a very simple supper was ordered, and five or six Republican members of
+the club who chanced to be in the building were invited in. The supper
+was informal--as informal as anything could be; the conversation was
+easy and familiar; the prospects of the Republican party in the coming
+struggle were talked over, and so little was it supposed by the
+gentlemen who had not heard the address that Mr. Lincoln could possibly
+be the candidate that one of them, Mr. Charles W. Elliott, asked,
+artlessly: "Mr. Lincoln, what candidate do you really think would be
+most likely to carry Illinois?" Mr. Lincoln answered by illustration:
+"Illinois is a peculiar State, in three parts. In northern Illinois, Mr.
+Seward would have a larger majority than I could get. In middle
+Illinois, I think I could call out a larger vote than Mr. Seward. In
+southern Illinois, it would make no difference who was the candidate."
+This answer was taken to be merely illustrative by everybody except,
+perhaps, Mr. Barney and Mr. Nott, each of whom, it subsequently
+appeared, had particularly noted Mr. Lincoln's reply.
+
+The little party broke up. Mr. Lincoln had been cordially received, but
+certainly had not been flattered. The others shook him by the hand and,
+as they put on their overcoats, said: "Mr. Nott is going down town and
+he will show you the way to the Astor House." Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Nott
+started on foot, but the latter observing that Mr. Lincoln was
+apparently Walking with some difficulty said, "Are you lame, Mr.
+Lincoln?" He replied that he had on new boots and they hurt him. The two
+gentlemen then boarded a street car. When they reached the place where
+Mr. Nott would leave the car on his way home, he shook Mr. Lincoln by
+the hand and, bidding him good-bye, told him that this car would carry
+him to the side door of the Astor House. Mr. Lincoln went on alone, the
+only occupant of the car. The next time he came to New York, he rode
+down Broadway to the Astor House standing erect in an open barouche
+drawn by four white horses. He bowed to the patriotic thousands in the
+street, on the sidewalks, in the windows, on the house-tops, and they
+cheered him as the lawfully elected President of the United States and
+bade him go on and, with God's help, save the Union.
+
+His companion in the street car has often wondered since then what Mr.
+Lincoln thought about during the remainder of his ride that night to the
+Astor House. The Cooper Institute had, owing to a snowstorm, not been
+full, and its intelligent, respectable, non-partisan audience had not
+rung out enthusiastic applause like a concourse of Western auditors
+magnetised by their own enthusiasm. Had the address--the most carefully
+prepared, the most elaborately investigated and demonstrated and
+verified of all the work of his life--been a failure? But in the matter
+of quality and ability, if not of quantity and enthusiasm, he had never
+addressed such an audience; and some of the ablest men in the Northern
+States had expressed their opinion of the address in terms which left no
+doubt of the highest appreciation. Did Mr. Lincoln regard the address
+which he had just delivered to a small and critical audience as a
+success? Did he have the faintest glimmer of the brilliant effect which
+was to follow? Did he feel the loneliness of the situation--the want of
+his loyal Illinois adherents? Did his sinking heart infer that he was
+but a speck of humanity to which the great city would never again give a
+thought? He was a plain man, an ungainly man; unadorned, apparently
+uncultivated, showing the awkwardness of self-conscious rusticity. His
+dress that night before a New York audience was the most unbecoming that
+a fiend's ingenuity could have devised for a tall, gaunt man--a black
+frock coat, ill-setting and too short for him in the body, skirt, and
+arms--a rolling collar, low-down, disclosing his long thin, shrivelled
+throat uncovered and exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night
+more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more
+conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know
+that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition,
+sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze
+upon the very pinnacle of American fame and aspire to it in a time so
+troubled that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. What were
+this man's thoughts when he was left alone? Did a faint shadow of the
+future rest upon his soul? Did he feel in some mysterious way that on
+that night he had crossed the Rubicon of his life-march--that care and
+trouble and political discord, and slander and misrepresentation and
+ridicule and public responsibilities, such as hardly ever before
+burdened a conscientious soul, coupled with war and defeat and disaster,
+were to be thenceforth his portion nearly to his life's end, and that
+his end was to be a bloody act which would appall the world and send a
+thrill of horror through the hearts of friends and enemies alike, so
+that when the woeful tidings came the bravest of the Southern brave
+should burst into tears and cry aloud, "Oh! the unhappy South, the
+unhappy South!"
+
+The impression left on his companion's mind as he gave a last glance at
+him in the street car was that he seemed sad and lonely; and when it was
+too late, when the car was beyond call, he blamed himself for not
+accompanying Mr. Lincoln to the Astor House--not because he was a
+distinguished stranger, but because he seemed a sad and lonely man.
+
+_February 12, 1908_.
+
+
+
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. LINCOLN
+
+    69 Wall St., New York,
+
+    February 9, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    The "Young Men's Central Republican Union" of this city very
+    cordially desire that you should deliver during the ensuing
+    month--what I may term--_a political lecture_. The peculiarities of
+    the case are these--A series of lectures has been determined
+    upon--The first was delivered by Mr. Blair of St. Louis a short time
+    ago--the second will be in a few days by Mr. C.M. Clay, and the
+    third we would prefer to have from you, rather than from any other
+    person. Of the audience I should add that it is not that of an
+    ordinary political meeting. These lectures have been _contrived_ to
+    call out our better, but busier citizens, who never attend political
+    meetings. A large part of the audience would also consist of ladies.
+    The time we should prefer, would be about the middle of March, but
+    if any earlier or later day will be more convenient for you we would
+    alter our arrangements.
+
+    Allow me to hope that we shall have the pleasure of welcoming you to
+    New York. You are, I believe, an entire stranger to your Republican
+    brethren here; but they have, for you, the highest esteem, and your
+    celebrated contest with Judge Douglas awoke their warmest sympathy
+    and admiration. Those of us who are "in the ranks" would regard your
+    presence as very material aid, and as an honor and pleasure which I
+    cannot sufficiently express.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+
+    To Hon. Abram Lincoln.
+
+    69 Wall St., New York,
+
+    May 23, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    I enclose a copy of your address in New York.
+
+    We (the Young Men's Rep. Union) design to publish a new edition in
+    larger type and better form, with such notes and references as will
+    best attract readers seeking information. Have you any memoranda of
+    your investigations which you would approve of inserting?
+
+    You and your Western friends, I think, underrate this speech. It has
+    produced a greater effect here than any other single speech. It is
+    the real platform in the Eastern States, and must carry the
+    conservative element in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
+
+    Therefore I desire that it should be as nearly perfect as may be.
+    Most of the emendations are trivial and do not affect the
+    substance--all are merely suggested for your judgment.
+
+    I cannot help adding that this speech is an extraordinary example
+    of condensed English. After some experience in criticising for
+    Reviews, I find hardly anything to touch and nothing to omit. It is
+    the only one I know of which I cannot _shorten_, and--like a good
+    arch--moving one word tumbles a whole sentence down.
+
+    Finally--it being a bad and foolish thing for a candidate to write
+    letters, and you having doubtless more to do of that than is
+    pleasant or profitable, we will not add to your burden in that
+    regard, but if you will let any friend who has nothing to do, advise
+    us as to your wishes, in this or any other matter, we will try to
+    carry them out.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+    To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+
+    Springfield, Ills., May 31, 1860.
+
+    Charles C. Nott, Esq.
+
+    _My Dear Sir_:
+
+    Yours of the 23rd, accompanied by a copy of the speech delivered by
+    me at the Cooper Institute, and upon which you have made some notes
+    for emendations, was received some days ago--Of course I would not
+    object to, but would be pleased rather, with a more perfect edition
+    of that speech.
+
+    I did not preserve memoranda of my investigations; and I could not
+    now re-examine, and make notes, without an expenditure of time
+    which I can not bestow upon it--Some of your notes I do not
+    understand.
+
+    So far as it is intended merely to improve in grammar, and elegance
+    of composition, I am quite agreed; but I do not wish the sense
+    changed, or modified, to a hair's breadth--And you, not having
+    studied the particular points so closely as I have, can not be quite
+    sure that you do not change the sense when you do not intend it--For
+    instance, in a note at bottom of first page, you propose to
+    substitute "Democrats" for "Douglas"--But what I am saying there is
+    _true_ of Douglas, and is not true of "Democrats" generally; so that
+    the proposed substitution would be a very considerable blunder--Your
+    proposed insertion of "residences" though it would do little or no
+    harm, is not at all necessary to the sense I was trying to
+    convey--On page 5 your proposed grammatical change would certainly
+    do no harm--The "_impudently absurd"_ I stick to--The striking out
+    "_he"_ and inserting "_we"_ turns the sense exactly wrong--The
+    striking out "_upon it_" leaves the sense too general and
+    incomplete--The sense is "act as they acted _upon that question_
+    "--not as they acted generally.
+
+    After considering your proposed changes on page 7, I do not think
+    them material, but I am willing to defer to you in relation to them.
+
+    On page 9, striking out "_to us_" is probably right--The word
+    "_lawyer's"_ I wish retained. The word "_Courts"_ struck out twice,
+    I wish reduced to "Court" and retained--"Court" as a collection more
+    properly governs the plural "have" as I understand--"The" preceding
+    "Court," in the latter case, must also be retained--The words
+    "quite," "as," and "or" on the same page, I wish retained. The
+    italicising, and quotation marking, I have no objection to.
+
+    As to the note at bottom, I do not think any too much is
+    admitted--What you propose on page 11 is right--I return your copy
+    of the speech, together with one printed here, under my own hasty
+    supervising. That at New York was printed without any supervision by
+    me--If you conclude to publish a new edition, allow me to see the
+    proof-sheets.
+
+    And now thanking you for your very complimentary letter, and your
+    interest for me generally, I subscribe myself.
+
+    Your friend and servant,
+
+    A. Lincoln.
+
+    69 Wall Street, New York.
+
+    August 28, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    Mr. Judd insists on our printing the revised edition of your Cooper
+    Ins. speech _without waiting to send you the_ proofs.
+
+    If this is so determined, I wish you to know, that I have made no
+    alterations other than those you sanctioned, except--
+
+    1. I do not find that Abraham Baldwin voted on the Ordinance of '87.
+    On the contrary he appears _not_ to have acted with Congress during
+    the sitting of the Convention. Wm. Pierce seems to have taken his
+    place then; and his name is recorded as voting for the Ordinance.
+    This makes no difference in the result, but I presume you will not
+    wish the historical inaccuracy (if it is such) to stand. I will
+    therefore (unless you write to the contrary) strike out his name in
+    that place and reduce the number from "four" to "three" where you
+    sum up the number of times he voted.
+
+    2. In the quotations from the Constitution I have given its exact
+    language; as "delegated" instead of "granted," etc. As it is given
+    in _quo_. marks, I presume the exact letter of the text should be
+    followed.
+
+    _If these are not correct please write immediately_.
+
+    _Our_ apology for the delay is that we have been weighed down by
+    other matters; _mine_ that I have but to-day returned to town.
+
+    Respectfully,
+
+    Charles C. Nott.
+
+    To Hon. Abraham Lincoln.
+
+    69 WALL STREET, N.Y.
+
+    Sept. 17, 1860.
+
+    _Dear Sir_:
+
+    We forward you by this day's express 250 copies, with the last
+    corrections. I delayed sending, thinking that you would prefer these
+    to those first printed.
+
+    The "Abraham Baldwin letter" referred to in your last I regret to
+    say has _not_ arrived. From your not touching the proofs in that
+    regard, I inferred (and hope) that the correction was not itself an
+    error.
+
+    Should you wish a larger number of copies do not hesitate to let us
+    know; it will afford us much pleasure to furnish them and no
+    inconvenience whatever.
+
+    Respectfully, etc.,
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT.
+
+    Hon. A. Lincoln.
+
+
+    SPRINGFIELD, ILLS., Sept. 22, 1860.
+
+    CHARLES C. NOTT, Esq.,
+
+    _My Dear Sir_:
+
+    Yours of the 17th was duly received--The 250 copies have not yet
+    arrived--I am greatly obliged to you for what you have done, and
+    what you propose to do.
+
+    The "Abraham Baldwin letter" in substance was that I could not find
+    the Journal of the Confederation Congress for the session at which
+    was passed the Ordinance of 1787--and that in stating Mr. Baldwin
+    had voted for its passage, I had relied on a communication of Mr.
+    Greeley, over his own signature, published in the New York _Weekly
+    Tribune_ of October 15, 1859. If you will turn to that paper, you
+    will there see that Mr. Greeley apparently copies from the Journal,
+    and places the name of Mr. Baldwin among those of the men who voted
+    for the measure.
+
+    Still; if the Journal itself shows differently, of course it is
+    right.
+
+    Yours very truly,
+
+    A. LINCOLN.
+
+The Address of
+
+THE HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+
+In Vindication of the Policy of the Framers of the
+
+Constitution and the Principles of the
+
+Republican Party.
+
+Delivered at Cooper Institute, February 27th, 1860.
+
+Issued by the Young Men's Republican Union.
+
+With Notes by
+
+CHARLES C. NOTT and CEPHAS BRAINERD,
+
+Members of the Board of Control.
+
+OFFICERS OF THE UNION
+
+CHARLES T. RODGERS, President.
+DEXTER A. HAWKINS, Vice-President.
+ERASMUS STERLING, Secretary.
+WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, Treasurer.
+
+EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
+
+CEPHAS BRAINERD, Chairman.
+BENJAMIN P. MANIERRE,
+RICHARD C. McCORMICK,
+CHARLES C. NOTT,
+CHARLES H. COOPER,
+P.G. DEGRAW,
+JAMES H. WELSH,
+E.C. JOHNSON,
+LEWIS M. PECK.
+
+ADVISORY BOARD
+
+WM. CULLEN BRYANT,
+DANIEL DREW,
+HIRAM BARNEY,
+WILLIAM V. BRADY,
+JOHN JAY,
+GEORGE W. BLUNT,
+HENRY A. HURLBUT,
+ABIJAH MANN, JR.,
+HAMILTON FISH,
+FRANCIS HALL,
+HORACE GREELEY,
+CHARLES A. PEABODY,
+EDGAR KETCHUM,
+JAMES KELLY,
+GEORGE FOLSOM,
+WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES,
+BENJAMIN F. MANIERRE.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This edition of Mr. Lincoln's address has been prepared and published by
+the Young Men's Republican Union of New York, to exemplify its wisdom,
+truthfulness, and learning. No one who has not actually attempted to
+verify its details can understand the patient research and historical
+labor which it embodies. The history of our earlier politics is
+scattered through numerous journals, statutes, pamphlets, and letters;
+and these are defective in completeness and accuracy of statement, and
+in indices and tables of contents. Neither can any one who has not
+travelled over this precise ground appreciate the accuracy of every
+trivial detail, or the self-denying impartiality with which Mr. Lincoln
+has turned from the testimony of "the Fathers," on the general question
+of slavery, to present the single question which he discusses. From the
+first line to the last--from his premises to his conclusion, he travels
+with swift, unerring directness which no logician ever excelled--an
+argument complete and full, without the affectation of learning, and
+without the stiffness which usually accompanies dates and details. A
+single, easy, simple sentence of plain Anglo-Saxon words contains a
+chapter of history that, in some instances, has taken days of labor to
+verify and which must have cost the author months of investigation to
+acquire. And, though the public should justly estimate the labor
+bestowed on the facts which are stated, they cannot estimate the greater
+labor involved on those which are omitted--how many pages have been
+read--how many works examined--what numerous statutes, resolutions,
+speeches, letters, and biographies have been looked through. Commencing
+with this address as a political pamphlet, the reader will leave it as
+an historical work--brief, complete, profound, impartial,
+truthful--which will survive the time and the occasion that called it
+forth, and be esteemed hereafter, no less for its intrinsic worth than
+its unpretending modesty.
+
+NEW YORK, September, 1860.
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS
+
+    MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW YORK:--The facts with which
+    I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar; nor is there
+    anything new in the general use I shall make of them. If there shall
+    be any novelty, it will be in the mode of presenting the facts, and
+    the inferences and observations following that presentation.
+
+    In his speech last autumn, at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New
+    York _Times_, Senator Douglas said:
+
+    "_Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live,
+    understood this question just as well, and even better than we do
+    now_."
+
+    I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. I
+    so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed
+    starting-point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of
+    the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas. It simply leaves the
+    inquiry: "_What was the understanding those fathers had of the
+    question mentioned_?"
+
+    What is the frame of Government under which we live?
+
+    The answer must be: "The Constitution of the United States." That
+    Constitution consists of the original, framed in 1787, (and under
+    which the present Government first went into operation,) and twelve
+    subsequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed
+    in 1789.[4]
+
+    Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution? I suppose the
+    "thirty-nine" who signed the original instrument may be fairly
+    called our fathers who framed that part of the present Government.
+    It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is
+    altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and
+    sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names, being
+    familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be
+    repeated.[5]
+
+
+    I take these "thirty-nine" for the present, as being "our fathers
+    who framed the Government under which we live."
+
+    What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers
+    understood "just as well, and even better than we do now"?
+
+    It is this: Does the proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid _our Federal
+    Government_ to control as to slavery in _our Federal Territories_?
+
+    Upon this, Senator Douglas holds the affirmative, and Republicans
+    the negative. This affirmation and denial form an issue; and this
+    issue--this question--is precisely what the text declares our
+    fathers understood "better than we."
+
+    Let us now inquire whether the "thirty-nine," or any of them, ever
+    acted upon this question; and if they did, how they acted upon
+    it--how they expressed that better understanding.
+
+    In 1784, three years before the Constitution--the United States then
+    owning the Northwestern Territory, and no other,[6] the Congress of
+    the Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting
+    slavery in that Territory; and four of the "thirty-nine" who
+    afterward framed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+    on that question. Of these, Roger Sherman, Thomas Mifflin, and Hugh
+    Williamson voted for the prohibition,[7] thus showing that, in their
+    understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+    anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+    to slavery in federal territory. The other of the four--James
+    M'Henry--voted against the prohibition, showing that, for some
+    cause, he thought it improper to vote for it.[8]
+
+    In 1787, still before the Constitution, but while the Convention was
+    in session framing it, and while the Northwestern Territory still
+    was the only territory owned by the United States, the same question
+    of prohibiting Slavery in the Territories again came before the
+    Congress of the Confederation; and two more of the "thirty-nine" who
+    afterward signed the Constitution, were in that Congress, and voted
+    on the question. They were William Blount and William Few[9]; and
+    they both voted for the prohibition--thus showing that, in their
+    understanding, no line dividing local from federal authority, nor
+    anything else, properly forbade the Federal Government to control as
+    to slavery in federal territory. This time, the prohibition became a
+    law, being part of what is now well known as the Ordinance of
+    '87.[10]
+
+    The question of federal control of slavery in the territories, seems
+    not to have been directly before the Convention which framed the
+    original Constitution; and hence it is not recorded that the
+    "thirty-nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument,
+    expressed any opinion on that precise question.[11]
+
+    In 1789, by the first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an
+    act was passed to enforce the Ordinance of '87, including the
+    prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill for
+    this act was reported by one of the "thirty-nine," Thomas
+    Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives from
+    Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a word of
+    opposition, and finally passed both branches without yeas and nays,
+    which is equivalent to an unanimous passage.[12] In this Congress,
+    there were sixteen of the thirty-nine fathers who framed the
+    original Constitution. They were John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman, Wm.
+    S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Thos. Fitzsimmons, William
+    Few, Abraham Baldwin, Rufus King, William Paterson, George Clymer,
+    Richard Bassett, George Read, Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, James
+    Madison.[13]
+
+
+    This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from
+    federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, properly
+    forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal territory; else
+    both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath to support
+    the Constitution, would have constrained them to oppose the
+    prohibition.
+
+    Again, George Washington, another of the "thirty-nine," was then
+    President of the United States, and, as such, approved and signed
+    the bill; thus completing its validity as a law, and thus showing
+    that, in his understanding, no line dividing local from federal
+    authority, nor anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.
+
+    No great while after the adoption of the original Constitution,
+    North Carolina ceded to the Federal Government the country now
+    constituting the State of Tennessee; and a few years later Georgia
+    ceded that which now constitutes the States of Mississippi and
+    Alabama. In both deeds of cession it was made a condition by the
+    ceding States that the Federal Government should not prohibit
+    slavery in the ceded country.[14] Besides this, slavery was then
+    actually in the ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress,
+    on taking charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit
+    slavery within them. But they did interfere with it--take control of
+    it--even there to a certain extent. In 1798, Congress organized the
+    Territory of Mississippi. In the act of organization, they
+    prohibited the bringing of slaves into the Territory, from any place
+    without the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so
+    brought.[15] This act passed both branches of Congress without yeas
+    and nays. In that Congress were three of the "thirty-nine" who
+    framed the original Constitution. They were John Langdon, George
+    Read and Abraham Baldwin.[16] They all, probably, voted for it.
+    Certainly they would have placed their opposition to it upon record,
+    if, in their understanding, any line dividing local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, properly forbade the
+    Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.
+
+    In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana country. Our
+    former territorial acquisitions came from certain of our own States;
+    but this Louisiana country was acquired from a foreign nation. In
+    1804, Congress gave a territorial organization to that part of it
+    which now constitutes the State of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying
+    within that part, was an old and comparatively large city. There
+    were other considerable towns and settlements, and slavery was
+    extensively and thoroughly intermingled with the people. Congress
+    did not, in the Territorial Act, prohibit slavery; but they did
+    interfere with it--take control of it--in a more marked and
+    extensive way than they did in the case of Mississippi. The
+    substance of the provision therein made, in relation to slaves, was:
+
+    _First_. That no slave should be imported into the territory from
+    foreign parts.
+
+    _Second_. That no slave should be carried into it who had been
+    imported into the United States since the first day of May, 1798.
+
+    _Third_. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the
+    owner, and for his own use as a settler; the penalty in all the
+    cases being a fine upon the violator of the law, and freedom to the
+    slave.[17]
+
+    This act also was passed without yeas and nays. In the Congress
+    which passed it, there were two of the "thirty-nine." They were
+    Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton.[18] As stated in the case of
+    Mississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. They would not
+    have allowed it to pass without recording their opposition to it,
+    if, in their understanding, it violated either the line properly
+    dividing local from federal authority, or any provision of the
+    Constitution.
+
+    In 1819-20, came and passed the Missouri question. Many votes were
+    taken, by yeas and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the
+    various phases of the general question. Two of the
+    "thirty-nine"--Rufus King and Charles Pinckney--were members of
+    that Congress.[19] Mr. King steadily voted for slavery prohibition
+    and against all compromises, while Mr. Pinckney as steadily voted
+    against slavery prohibition and against all compromises. By this,
+    Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line dividing local
+    from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, was
+    violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in federal territory; while
+    Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed that, in his understanding, there
+    was some sufficient reason for opposing such prohibition in that
+    case.[20]
+
+    The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the "thirty-nine,"
+    or of any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been able to
+    discover.
+
+    To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as being four in 1784, two
+    in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 1798, two in 1804, and two in
+    1819-20--there would be thirty of them. But this would be counting
+    John Langdon, Roger Sherman, William Few, Rufus King, and George
+    Read each twice, and Abraham Baldwin three times. The true number of
+    those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have shown to have acted upon the
+    question, which, by the text, they understood better than we, is
+    twenty-three, leaving sixteen not shown to have acted upon it in
+    anyway.[21]
+
+    Here, then, we have twenty-three out of our thirty-nine fathers "who
+    framed the Government under which we live," who have, upon their
+    official responsibility and their corporal oaths, acted upon the
+    very question which the text affirms they "understood just as well,
+    and even better than we do now"; and twenty-one of them--a clear
+    majority of the whole "thirty-nine"--so acting upon it as to make
+    them guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if,
+    in their understanding, any proper division between local and
+    federal authority, or anything in the Constitution they had made
+    themselves, and sworn to support, forbade the Federal Government to
+    control as to slavery in the federal territories. Thus the
+    twenty-one acted; and, as actions speak louder than words, so
+    actions under such responsibility speak still louder.
+
+    Two of the twenty-three voted against Congressional prohibition of
+    slavery in the federal territories, in the instances in which they
+    acted upon the question. But for what reasons they so voted is not
+    known. They may have done so because they thought a proper division
+    of local from federal authority, or some provision or principle of
+    the Constitution, stood in the way; or they may, without any such
+    question, have voted against the prohibition on what appeared to
+    them to be sufficient grounds of expediency. No one who has sworn to
+    support the Constitution can conscientiously vote for what he
+    understands to be an unconstitutional measure, however expedient he
+    may think it; but one may and ought to vote against a measure which
+    he deems constitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it
+    inexpedient. It, therefore, would be unsafe to set down even the two
+    who voted against the prohibition, as having done so because, in
+    their understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in federal territory.[22]
+
+    The remaining sixteen of the "thirty-nine," so far as I have
+    discovered, have left no record of their understanding upon the
+    direct question of federal control of slavery in the federal
+    territories. But there is much reason to believe that their
+    understanding upon that question would not have appeared different
+    from that of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at
+    all.[23]
+
+    For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely
+    omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by any
+    person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine fathers
+    who framed the original Constitution; and, for the same reason, I
+    have also omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by
+    any of the "thirty-nine" even, on any other phase of the general
+    question of slavery. If we should look into their acts and
+    declarations on those other phases, as the foreign slave trade, and
+    the morality and policy of slavery generally, it would appear to us
+    that on the direct question of federal control of slavery in federal
+    territories, the sixteen, if they had acted at all, would probably
+    have acted just as the twenty-three did. Among that sixteen were
+    several of the most noted anti-slavery men of those times--as Dr.
+    Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Gouverneur Morris--while there was
+    not one now known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John
+    Rutledge, of South Carolina.[24]
+
+    The sum of the whole is, that of our thirty-nine fathers who framed
+    the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear majority of the
+    whole--certainly understood that no proper division of local from
+    federal authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the
+    Federal Government to control slavery in the federal territories;
+    while all the rest probably had the same understanding. Such,
+    unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed the
+    original Constitution; and the text affirms that they understood the
+    question "better than we."
+
+    But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the
+    question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. In
+    and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for amending it;
+    and, as I have already stated, the present frame of "the Government
+    under which we live" consists of that original, and twelve
+    amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those who now insist
+    that federal control of slavery in federal territories violates the
+    Constitution, point us to the provisions which they suppose it thus
+    violates; and, as I understand, they all fix upon provisions in
+    these amendatory articles and not in the original instrument. The
+    Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case, plant themselves upon the
+    fifth amendment, which provides that no person shall be deprived of
+    "life, liberty or property without due process of law"; while
+    Senator Douglas and his peculiar adherents plant themselves upon the
+    tenth amendment, providing that "the powers not delegated to the
+    United States by the Constitution" "are reserved to the States
+    respectively, or to the people."[25]
+
+    Now, it so happens that these amendments were framed by the first
+    Congress which sat under the Constitution--the identical Congress
+    which passed the act already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of
+    slavery in the Northwestern Territory. Not only was it the same
+    Congress, but they were the identical same individual men who, at
+    the same session, and at the same time within the session had under
+    consideration, and in progress toward maturity, these Constitutional
+    amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in all the territory
+    the nation then owned. The Constitutional amendments were introduced
+    before, and passed after, the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87; so
+    that, during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the Ordinance,
+    the Constitutional amendments were also pending.[26]
+
+    The seventy-six members of that Congress, including sixteen of the
+    framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were
+    pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of "the Government
+    under which we live," which is now claimed as forbidding the Federal
+    Government to control slavery in the federal territories.
+
+    Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to affirm
+    that the two things which that Congress deliberately framed, and
+    carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely inconsistent
+    with each other? And does not such affirmation become impudently
+    absurd when coupled with the other affirmation from the same mouth,
+    that those who did the two things, alleged to be inconsistent,
+    understood whether they really were inconsistent better than
+    we--better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent?
+
+    It is surely safe to assume that the thirty-nine framers of the
+    original Constitution, and the seventy-six members of the Congress
+    which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly
+    include those who may be fairly called "our fathers who framed the
+    Government under which we live."[27] And so assuming, I defy any man
+    to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that,
+    in his understanding, any proper division of local from federal
+    authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal
+    Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. I go
+    a step further. I defy any one to show that any living man in the
+    whole world ever did, prior to the beginning of the present
+    century, (and I might almost say prior to the beginning of the last
+    half of the present century,) declare that, in his understanding,
+    any proper division of local from federal authority, or any part of
+    the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control as to
+    slavery in the federal territories. To those who now so declare, I
+    give, not only "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+    live," but with them all other living men within the century in
+    which it was framed, among whom to search, and they shall not be
+    able to find the evidence of a single man agreeing with them.
+
+    Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I
+    do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our
+    fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current
+    experience--to reject all progress--all improvement. What I do say
+    is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers
+    in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and
+    argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly
+    considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case
+    whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better
+    than we.
+
+    If any man at this day sincerely believes that a proper division of
+    local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution,
+    forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the
+    federal territories, he is right to say so, and to enforce his
+    position by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can.
+    But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to
+    history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that
+    "our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live," were
+    of the same opinion--thus substituting falsehood and deception for
+    truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day
+    sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the Government under
+    which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which
+    ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local
+    from federal authority or some part of the Constitution, forbids the
+    Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal
+    territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time,
+    brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he
+    understands their principles better than they did themselves; and
+    especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that
+    they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we
+    do now."
+
+    But enough! _Let all who believe that "our fathers, who framed the
+    Government under which we live, understood this question just as
+    well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they spoke, and act
+    as they acted upon it. This is all Republicans ask--all Republicans
+    desire--in relation to slavery. As those fathers marked it, so let
+    it be again marked, as an evil not to be extended, but to be
+    tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual
+    presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.
+    Let all the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly,
+    but fully and fairly maintained_. For this Republicans contend, and
+    with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content.
+
+    And now, if they would listen--as I suppose they will not--I would
+    address a few words to the Southern people.
+
+    I would say to them: You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just
+    people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and
+    justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you
+    speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles,
+    or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing
+    to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans."
+    In all your contentions with one another each of you deems an
+    unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first
+    thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be
+    an indispensable prerequisite--licence, so to speak--among you to be
+    admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be
+    prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just
+    to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and
+    specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or
+    justify.
+
+    You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the
+    burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is
+    it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section--gets no
+    votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it
+    prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change
+    of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby
+    cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet,
+    are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon
+    find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in
+    your section this very year. You will then begin to discover, as the
+    truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact
+    that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and
+    not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is
+    primarily yours, and remains so until you show that we repel you by
+    some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong
+    principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to
+    where you ought to have started--to a discussion of the right or
+    wrong of our principle. If our principle, put in practice, would
+    wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object,
+    then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly
+    opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of
+    whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section;
+    and so meet us as if it were possible that something may be said on
+    our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe
+    that the principle which "our fathers who framed the Government
+    under which we live" thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and
+    indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so
+    clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment's
+    consideration.
+
+    Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against
+    sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less
+    than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as
+    President of the United States, approved and signed an act of
+    Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern
+    Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that
+    subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and
+    about one year after he penned it, he wrote Lafayette that he
+    considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same
+    connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy
+    of free States.[28]
+
+
+    Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen
+    upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands
+    against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself
+    speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who
+    sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that
+    warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his
+    example pointing to the right application of it.
+
+    But you say you are conservative--eminently conservative--while we
+    are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is
+    conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the
+    new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy
+    on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who
+    framed the Government under which we live"; while you with one
+    accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist
+    upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves
+    as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new
+    propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and
+    denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for
+    reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional
+    Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the
+    Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for
+    maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some
+    for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave
+    another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular
+    Sovereignty"; but never a man among you in favor of federal
+    prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the
+    practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we
+    live." Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an
+    advocate in the century within which our Government originated.
+    Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves,
+    and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based on the most
+    clear and stable foundations.
+
+    Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than
+    it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but
+    we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded
+    the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your
+    innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question.
+    Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go
+    back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same
+    conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt
+    the precepts and policy of the old times.
+
+    You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny
+    it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown
+    was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single
+    Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our
+    party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it.
+    If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man
+    and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for
+    asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after
+    you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told
+    that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is
+    simply malicious slander.[29]
+
+    Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
+    the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and
+    declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it.
+    We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which was
+    not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under
+    which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
+    affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near
+    at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
+    charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in
+    those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not
+    quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at
+    least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it
+    to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and
+    declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any
+    interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your
+    slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do,
+    in common with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which
+    we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves
+    do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the
+    slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe
+    they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your
+    misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political
+    contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with
+    sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the
+    charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood
+    and thunder among the slaves.
+
+    Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
+    Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
+    insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three
+    times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry?[30] You can
+    scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that
+    Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present
+    state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or
+    even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The
+    indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have
+    no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black
+    or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in
+    parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the
+    indispensable connecting trains.
+
+    Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for
+    their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A
+    plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to
+    twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a
+    favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and
+    the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case
+    occurring under peculiar circumstances,[31] The gunpowder plot of
+    British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in
+    point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret;
+    and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the
+    plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity.
+    Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy
+    assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score
+    or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but
+    no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this
+    country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such
+    an event, will be alike disappointed.
+
+    In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, "It is
+    still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and
+    deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil
+    will wear off insensibly; and their places be, _pari passu_, filled
+    up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force
+    itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up."[32]
+
+    Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of
+    emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia;
+    and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding
+    States only. The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the
+    power of restraining the extension of the institution--the power to
+    insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American
+    soil which is now free from slavery.
+
+    John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection.
+    It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in
+    which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd
+    that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it
+    could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with
+    the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings
+    and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people
+    till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He
+    ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own
+    execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's
+    attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the
+    same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case,
+    and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of
+    the two things.
+
+    And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John
+    Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican
+    organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human
+    nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against
+    slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of
+    votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling--that
+    sentiment--by breaking up the political organization which rallies
+    around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has
+    been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if
+    you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which
+    created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some
+    other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the
+    number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?
+
+    But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of
+    your Constitutional rights.[33]
+
+    That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if
+    not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of
+    numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the
+    Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.
+
+    When you make these declarations, you have a specific and
+    well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of
+    yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them
+    there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the
+    Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such
+    right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence
+    in the Constitution, even by implication.
+
+    Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the
+    Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the
+    Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and
+    us. You will rule or ruin in all events.
+
+    This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the
+    Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in
+    your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction
+    between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for
+    you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your
+    Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories,
+    and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made
+    in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare
+    majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another
+    in the reasons for making it;[34] that it is so made as that its
+    avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and
+    that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact--the
+    statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is
+    distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."[35]
+
+    An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of
+    property in a slave is not "_distinctly_ and _expressly_ affirmed"
+    in it. Bear in mind, the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion
+    that such right is _impliedly_ affirmed in the Constitution; but
+    they pledge their veracity that it is "_distinctly_ and _expressly_"
+    affirmed there--"distinctly," that is, not mingled with anything
+    else--"expressly," that is, in words meaning just that, without the
+    aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.
+
+    If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is
+    affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to
+    others to show that neither the word "slave" nor "slavery" is to be
+    found in the Constitution, nor the word "property" even, in any
+    connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery,
+    and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is
+    called a "person";--and wherever his master's legal right in
+    relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as "service or labor
+    which may be due,"--as a debt payable in service or labor.[36] Also,
+    it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode
+    of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was
+    employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that
+    there could be property in man.
+
+    To show all this, is easy and certain.[37]
+
+    When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their
+    notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the
+    mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?
+
+    And then it is to be remembered that "our fathers, who framed the
+    Government under which we live"--the men who made the
+    Constitution--decided this same Constitutional question in our
+    favor, long ago--decided it without division among themselves, when
+    making the decision; without division among themselves about the
+    meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is
+    left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.
+
+    Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves
+    justified to break up this Government, unless such a court decision
+    as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final
+    rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a
+    Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will
+    destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having
+    destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a
+    pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver
+    or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"
+
+    To be sure, what the robber demanded of me--my money--was my own;
+    and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than
+    my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my
+    money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my
+    vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.
+
+    A few words now to Republicans. _It is exceedingly desirable that
+    all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace and in
+    harmony, one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it
+    so. Even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and
+    ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not so much as
+    listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to
+    them if, in our deliberate view of our duty, we possibly can_.[38]
+    Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of
+    their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will
+    satisfy them.
+
+    Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally
+    surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present
+    complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned.
+    Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them,
+    if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and
+    insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we
+    never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet
+    this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the
+    denunciation.
+
+    The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must
+    not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we
+    do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We
+    have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our
+    organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches
+    we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this
+    has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince
+    them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any
+    attempt to disturb them.
+
+    These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will
+    convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery _wrong_,
+    and join them in calling it _right_. And this must be done
+    thoroughly--done in _acts_ as well as in _words_. Silence will not
+    be tolerated--we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator
+    Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing
+    all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics,
+    in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return
+    their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our
+    Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected
+    from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to
+    believe that all their troubles proceed from us.
+
+    I am quite aware they do not state their case precisely in this way.
+    Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, _do_ nothing
+    to us, and _say_ what you please about slavery." But we do let them
+    alone--have never disturbed them--so that, after all, it is what we
+    say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of
+    doing, until we cease saying.
+
+    I am also aware they have not, as yet, in terms, demanded the
+    overthrow of our Free-State Constitutions.[39] Yet those
+    Constitutions declare the wrong of slavery, with more solemn
+    emphasis, than do all other sayings against it; and when all these
+    other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these
+    Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the
+    demand. It is nothing to the contrary, that they do not demand the
+    whole of this just now. Demanding what they do, and for the reason
+    they do, they can voluntarily stop nowhere short of this
+    consummation. Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right,
+    and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national
+    recognition of it, as a legal right, and a social blessing.[40]
+
+    Nor can we justifiably withhold this on any ground save our
+    conviction that slavery is wrong. If slavery is right, all words,
+    acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and
+    should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly
+    object to its nationality--its universality; if it is wrong, they
+    cannot justly insist upon its extension--its enlargement. All they
+    ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we
+    ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong.[41]
+    Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise
+    fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as
+    they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as
+    being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them?
+    Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view
+    of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do
+    this?
+
+    Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone
+    where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from
+    its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will
+    prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to
+    overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids
+    this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let
+    us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith
+    we are so industriously plied and belabored--contrivances such as
+    groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong,
+    vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor
+    a dead man--such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about
+    which all true men do care--such as Union appeals beseeching true
+    Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and
+    calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance--such as
+    invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington
+    said, and undo what Washington did.
+
+    Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations
+    against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the
+    Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT
+    RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO
+    OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+A
+
+Andersonville, responsibility for, 190
+Andrew, John. A., 105
+Antietam, battle of, 115
+Appomattox, the surrender at, 177 ff.
+Atlanta, capture of, 151
+
+
+B
+
+Bahamas, trade of the, with the Confederacy, 167 ff.
+Banks, General N.P., 103
+Bazaine, General, in command of French army in Mexico, 156
+Belle Isle, the prison of, 189
+Bentonville, battle of, 183
+Bixby, Mrs., letter to, from Lincoln, 152
+"Black Republicans," the, 250
+Blair, Prank P., difficulties with, 161
+Blount, William, 237
+Border States, the, and emancipation, 114 ff.
+Bragg, Gen. Braxton, 136 ff.
+Brainerd, Cephas, on the Cooper Union address, 211
+Brown, John, raid of, 254
+Bryant on Lincoln, 202
+Buckner, Gen. S.B., 99
+Bull Run, second battle of, 122
+Burnside, Gen. Ambrose F.,
+  and the Army of the Potomac, 127;
+  and the defence of Knoxville, 137
+Butler, Benjamin F., 103, 120
+
+
+C
+
+Cabinet, cabals in the, 160
+Cedar Creek, the battle of, 150 ff.
+Chancellorsville, battle of, 129
+Charleston, evacuation of, 169
+Chase, Salmon P.,
+  and the Presidential election of 1864, 154;
+  resignation of, 154;
+  appointed chief justice, 155;
+  efforts of, for the Presidency, 157;
+  difficulties with, in the Cabinet, 161
+Chickamauga, battle of, 136
+Clay, Cassius M., 223
+Congress and slavery in the Territories, 246 ff.
+Constitution,
+  the 13th amendment to, 163 ff.;
+  defined by Lincoln, 236 ff.;
+  and property in slaves, 260 ff.
+"Crocker, Master", 113
+Curtin, Gov. A.G., 105
+Curtis, Gen. S.R., 108
+
+
+D
+
+Danville, the prison of, 147, 189 ff.;
+  mortality in, 159
+Davis, Jefferson, and Benj. F. Butler, 120;
+  and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 163;
+  capture of, 187;
+  and the other leaders of the South, 189;
+  and the management of the Southern
+prisons, 190 ff;
+  as a prisoner and martyr, 191
+Douglas, Stephen A., and the debate with Lincoln, cited, 235;
+  and the sedition act, 263;
+  and the Dred Scott decision, 246
+Dred Scott case, the, 246
+
+
+E
+
+Early, Jubal A., raid of on Washington, 142 ff.;
+  and the battle of Winchester, 149;
+  and the battle of Cedar Creek, 150
+Elliott, Charles W., 213
+Emancipation Proclamation, the, 115 ff.
+Enfield rifles, use of, by Confederates, 146
+
+
+F
+
+Farragut, Admiral D.G., 111
+Few, William, 237
+Fisher, Fort, capture of, 167
+Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 238
+Floyd, General John B., 99
+Franklin, battle of, 151 ff.
+Franklin, Benjamin, 245
+
+
+G
+
+Georgia, cession of territory by, 239
+Gettysburg, campaign of, 132 ff.
+Goldsborough, surrender of Johnston's army at, 183
+Goodell, Dr. Wm., 212
+Grant, Gen. U.S., captures Fort Donelson, 99;
+  and the Vicksburg campaign, 134;
+  and the Chattanooga campaign, 136;
+  commander of the armies, 137 ff.;
+  suggested for the Presidency, 157;
+  declines to consider terms of peace, 171;
+  at Appomattox, 177 ff.;
+  at Goldsborough, 184 ff.
+Greeley, Horace, 105
+Greene, Frank V., on Lincoln, 106
+
+
+H
+
+Halleck, Gen. H.W., 103
+Hallowell, Col. Norwood, 116
+Hamilton, Alexander, 245
+Hancock, Gen. W.S., 127
+Harper's Ferry, 124;
+  John Brown's raid at, 254
+Helper, H.R., the "Impending Crisis" of, 258
+Hewitt, Abram S., 99 ff.
+Higginson, Col. T.W., 116
+Hood, Gen. John B., 151 ff.
+Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 107, 127, 130 ff., 137
+
+
+I
+
+Intervention of France and England threatened, 122
+
+
+J
+
+Jefferson, Thomas, on emancipation, 257
+Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., 138, 151, 169, 183 ft.
+
+
+K
+
+King, Rufus, 241
+Knoxville, siege of, 137
+
+
+L
+
+Lee, Gen. Robert E. and the Antietam campaign, 122;
+  and the campaign of Gettysburg, 130 ff.;
+  and the defence of Virginia, 137 ff.;
+  proposes treaty of peace, 171;
+  defeated at Five Forks, 171;
+  at Appomattox, 171
+Libby prison, Presidential election in, 158;
+  mortality in, 159;
+  record of, 189 ff.
+Lincoln, Abraham, and Hewitt, A.S., 100 ff.;
+  writes to "Master Crocker", 113;
+  as commander-in-chief, 103 ff.;
+  and the death penalty for soldiers, 119;
+  campaign methods of McClellan, 125 ff.;
+  letter of, appointing Hooker, 128;
+  to Grant on the fall of Vicksburg, 134;
+  address of, at Gettysburg, 134;
+  letter of, to Mrs. Bixby, 152;
+  re-election of, as President, 157;
+  and the exchange of prisoners, 158 ff.;
+  and the control of the administration, 160;
+  and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162 ff.;
+  second inaugural of, 169 ff.;
+  last public address of, 178;
+  death of, 181;
+  and the proposed capture of Jefferson Davis, 188;
+  death of, reported to the army at Goldsborough, 190;
+  comparison of, with Washington and Jackson, 195 ff.;
+  Cooper Union address of, 205 ff.;
+  writes to Nott, 225 ff.
+Lincoln, Robert, on the Cooper Union address, 209
+Longstreet, Gen. James, 133, 137
+Lookout Mountain, battle of, 137
+Louisiana, purchase of, 240
+Lowell on Lincoln, 202
+
+
+M
+
+Maximilian, Prince, and the invasion of Mexico, 156
+McClellan, Gen. George B. 102 ff.;
+  and the Antietam campaign, 122 ff.;
+  ordered to report to New Jersey, 126
+Meade, Gen. Geo. G., 127, 131
+Mifflin, Thomas, 237
+Milliken's Bend, battle of, 118
+Minnesota, troops from, 165;
+  university of, 167
+Missionary Ridge, battle of, 137
+Mississippi, organisation of the Territory of, 240
+Missouri, admission of, 241
+Missouri Compromise, the, 31, 38
+Monocacy Creek, battle of, 143
+Morgan, Gen. John, 177
+Morris, Gouverneur, 245
+
+
+N
+
+Napoleon, Louis, and the invasion of Mexico, 156
+Nashville, battle of, 151 ff.
+_Nation_, the London, on the character of Lincoln, 198 ff.
+New Orleans, capture of, 111 ff.
+Nineteenth Army Corps and Early's raid, 145
+North Carolina, cession of territory by, 239
+Northwestern Territory, the, of the U.S., 237
+Nott, Chas. C.,
+  introduction to the Cooper Union address, 215 ff.;
+  letter of, to Lincoln, 224 ff.
+Noyes, Wm. Curtis, 212
+
+
+O
+
+Ordinance of 1787, 238 ff.
+
+
+P
+
+Pea Ridge, battle of, 108
+Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162
+Pickett, Gen. G.E., 133
+Pinckney, Charles, 241 ff.
+Pope, Gen. John, 103, 122
+Port Hudson, surrender of, 112
+Presidential election in Libby prison, 158
+Prisoners, the exchange of, 158
+Putnam, George Palmer, and the Cooper Union address, 212
+
+
+R
+
+Reagan, Postmaster-general, at Goldsborough, 184
+Reconstruction, Lincoln's views on, 180 ff.
+Republican party, the, and slavery in the Territories, 249 ff.
+Republican Union, the Young Men's, 223, 232
+Reynolds, Gen. J.T., 127
+Rosecrans, Gen. Wm. S., and the Chattanooga campaign, 136
+Rutledge, John, 245
+
+
+S
+
+Schechter, Rabbi, on the character of Lincoln, 200
+Schofield, Gen. Geo. W., 152
+Schurz, Carl, on the character of Lincoln, 201
+Seward, W.H., 64, 160
+Sharp's breech-loaders introduced in 1864, 146
+Shaw, Col. R.G., 116
+Shenandoah, campaign in the valley of the, 149
+Sheridan, Gen. Philip,
+  in the Shenandoah, 149 ff.;
+  wins battle of Five Forks, 171
+Sherman, Roger, 237
+Sherman, Gen. Wm. T.,
+  at Missionary Ridge, 137;
+  captures Atlanta, 151;
+  and the Georgia planter, 164;
+  passes by Charleston, 169;
+  at Goldsborough, 183 ff.
+Sigel, Gen. Franz, 108
+Smith, Gen. Kirby, surrender of, 191
+Soldiers authorised to vote in presidential election, 152
+Southampton, insurrection at, 256
+South Mountain, battle of the, 124
+Stanton, Edwin, M., 65, 101 ff., 185
+Stephens, Alexander H., and the Peace Conference of Feb., 1865, 162 ff.
+Sumter, Fort, restoration of the flag on, 182
+
+
+T
+
+Taylor, Gen. Richard, surrender of, 191
+Thomas. Gen. Geo. H., 136
+
+
+V
+
+Vicksburg, surrender of, 112, 134
+
+
+W
+
+Wallace, Gen. Lew, 143
+Washington assailed by Early, 142 ff.
+Washington, George, and the
+  Ordinance of 1787, 239;
+  Farewell Address of, 252;
+  the example of, 266
+Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, 119
+Whittier on Lincoln, 201
+Wilderness, battle of the, 140 ff.
+Williamson, Hugh, 237
+Wilmington, capture of, 167
+Winchester, third battle of, 149
+Winder, Gen., and the management of the Southern prisons, 190
+Wisconsin, troops from, 165
+Wisewell, Col. F.H., 144 ff.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: This letter has not been published. It is cited here
+through the courtesy of Mr. Robert Lincoln and Mr. R.W. Gilder.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The text of the speech, as revised by Lincoln and with the
+introduction and notes by Nott and Brainerd, is given as an appendix to
+this volume.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The late George Palmer Putnam.]
+
+[Footnote 4:--The Constitution is attested September 17, 1787. It was
+ratified by all of the States, excepting North Carolina and Rhode
+Island, in 1788, and went into operation on the first Wednesday in
+January, 1789. The first Congress proposed, in 1789, ten articles of
+amendments, all of which were ratified. Article XI. of the amendments
+was prepared by the Third Congress, in 1794, and Article XII. by the
+Eighth Congress, in 1803. Another Article was proposed by the Eleventh
+Congress, prohibiting _citizens_ from receiving titles of nobility,
+presents or offices, from foreign nations. Although this has been
+printed as one of the amendments, it was in fact never ratified, being
+approved by but twelve States. _Vide_ Message of President Monroe, Feb.
+4, 1818.]
+
+[Footnote 5:--The Convention consisted of _sixty-five_ members. Of
+these, _ten_ did not attend the Convention, and _sixteen_ did not sign
+the Constitution. Of these sixteen, six refused to sign, and published
+their reasons for so refusing, _viz._: Robert Yates and John Lansing, of
+New-York; Edmund Randolph and George Mason, of Virginia; Luther Martin,
+of Maryland, and Elbridge Gerry, of Mass. Alexander Hamilton alone
+subscribed for New-York, and Rhode Island was not represented in the
+Convention. The names of the "thirty-nine," and the States which they
+represented are subsequently given.]
+
+[Footnote 6:--The cession of Territory was authorized by New-York, Feb.
+19, 1780; by Virginia, January 2, 1781, and again, (without certain
+conditions at first imposed,) "at their sessions, begun on the 20th day
+of October, 1783;" by Mass., Nov. 13, 1784; by Conn., May----, 1786; by
+S. Carolina, March 8, 1787; by N. Carolina, Dec.----, 1789; and by
+Georgia at some time prior to April, 1802.
+
+The deeds of cession were executed by New-York, March 1, 1781; by
+Virginia, March 1, 1784; by Mass., April 19, 1785; by Conn., Sept. 13,
+1786; by S. Carolina, August 9, 1787; by N. Carolina, Feb. 25, 1790; and
+by Georgia, April 24, 1802. Five of these grants were therefore made
+before the adoption of the Constitution, and one afterward; while the
+sixth (North Carolina) was authorized before, and consummated afterward.
+The cession of this State contains the express proviso "that no
+regulations made, or to be made by Congress, shall tend to emancipate
+slaves." The cession of Georgia conveys the Territory subject to the
+Ordinance of '87, except the provision prohibiting slavery.
+
+These dates are also interesting in connection with the extraordinary
+assertions of Chief Justice Taney, (19 How., page 434,) that "the
+example of Virginia was soon afterwards followed by other States," and
+that (p. 436) the power in the Constitution "to dispose of and make all
+needful rules and regulations respecting the Territory or other property
+belonging to the United States," was intended only "to transfer to the
+new Government the property then held in common," "and has no reference
+whatever to any Territory or other property which the new sovereignty
+might afterwards itself acquire." On this subject, _vide Federalist_,
+No. 43, sub. 4 and 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7:--Sherman was from Connecticut; Mifflin from Penn.;
+Williamson from North Carolina, and M'Henry from Maryland.]
+
+[Footnote 8:--What Mr. M'Henry's views were, it seems impossible to
+ascertain. When the Ordinance of '87 was passed he was sitting in the
+Convention. He was afterwards appointed Secretary of War; yet no record
+has thus far been discovered of his opinion. Mr. M'Henry also wrote a
+biography of La Fayette, which, however, cannot be found in any of the
+public libraries, among which may be mentioned the State Library at
+Albany, and the Astor, Society, and Historical Society Libraries, at New
+York.
+
+Hamilton says of him, in a letter to Washington _(Works_, vol. vi., p.
+65): "M'Henry you know. He would give no strength to the Administration,
+but he would not disgrace the office; his views are good."]
+
+[Footnote 9:--William Blount was from North Carolina, and William Few
+from Georgia--the two States which afterward ceded their Territory to
+the United States. In addition to these facts the following extract from
+the speech of Rufus King in the Senate, on the Missouri Bill, shows the
+entire unanimity with which the Southern States approved the
+prohibition:
+
+"The State of Virginia, which ceded to the United States her claims to
+this Territory, consented, by her delegates in the Old Congress, to this
+Ordinance. Not only Virginia, but North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, by the unanimous votes of their delegates in the Old Congress,
+approved of the Ordinance of 1787, by which Slavery is forever abolished
+in the Territory northwest of the river Ohio. Without the votes of these
+States, the Ordinance could not have been passed; and there is no
+recollection of an opposition from any of these States to the act of
+confirmation passed under the actual Constitution."]
+
+[Footnote 10:--"The famous Ordinance of Congress of the 13th July, 1787,
+which has ever since constituted, in most respects, the model of all our
+territorial governments, and is equally remarkable for the brevity and
+exactness of its text, and for its masterly display of the fundamental
+principles of civil and religious liberty."--_Justice Story, 1
+Commentaries_: Sec. 1312.
+
+"It is well known that the Ordinance of 1787 was drawn by the Hon.
+Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, and adopted with scarcely a verbal
+alteration by Congress. It is a noble and imperishable monument to his
+fame."--_Id._ note.
+
+The ordinance was reported by a committee, of which Wm. S. Johnson and
+Charles Pinckney were members. It recites that, "for extending the
+fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the
+basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are
+erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws,
+constitutions, and governments which forever hereafter shall be formed
+in the said Territory; to provide also for the establishment of States
+and permanent government, and for their admission to a share in the
+federal councils, on an equal footing with the original States, at as
+early periods as may be consistent with the general interest--
+
+"It is hereby ordained and declared, by the authority aforesaid, that
+the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact
+between the original States and the people and States in the said
+Territory, and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to
+wit:"
+
+"_Art._ 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in
+the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof
+the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any
+person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully
+claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
+reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or
+service."
+
+On passing the ordinance, the ayes and nays were required by Judge
+Yates, of New York, when it appeared _that his was the only vote in the
+negative_.
+
+The ordinance of April 23, 1784, was a brief outline of that of '87. It
+was reported by a Committee, of which Mr. Jefferson was chairman, and
+the report contained a slavery prohibition intended to take effect in
+1800. This was stricken out of the report, six States voting to retain
+it--three voting to strike out--one being divided (N.C.), and the others
+not being represented. (The assent of nine States was necessary to
+retain any provision.) And this is the vote alluded to by Mr. Lincoln.
+But subsequently, March 16, 1785, a motion was made by Rufus King to
+commit a proposition "that there be neither slavery nor involuntary
+servitude" in any of the Territories; which was carried by the vote of
+eight States, including Maryland.--_Journal Am. Congress,_ vol. 4, pp.
+373, 380, 481, 752.
+
+When, therefore, the ordinance of '87 came before Congress, on its final
+passage, the subject of slavery prohibition had been "_agitated_" for
+nearly three years; and the deliberate and almost unanimous vote of that
+body upon that question leaves no room to doubt what the fathers
+believed, and how, in that belief, they acted.]
+
+[Footnote 11:--It singularly and fortunately happens that one of the
+"thirty-nine," "while engaged on that instrument," viz., while
+advocating its ratification before the Pennsylvania Convention, did
+express an opinion upon this "precise question," which opinion was
+_never_ disputed or doubted, in that or any other Convention, and was
+accepted by the opponents of the Constitution, as an indisputable fact.
+This was the celebrated James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. The opinion is as
+follows:--
+
+MONDAY, _Dec._ 3, 1787.
+
+"With respect to the clause restricting Congress from prohibiting the
+migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, prior to the year 1808: The Hon.
+gentleman says that this clause is not only dark, but intended to grant
+to Congress, for that time, the power to admit the importation of
+slaves. No such thing was intended; but I will tell you what was done,
+and it gives me high pleasure that so much was done. Under the present
+Confederation, the States may admit the importation of slaves as long as
+they please; but by this article, after the year 1808, the Congress will
+have power to prohibit such importation, notwithstanding the disposition
+of any State to the contrary. I consider this as laying the foundation
+for banishing slavery out of this country; and though the period is more
+distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual
+change which was pursued in Pennsylvania. It is with much satisfaction
+that I view this power in the general government, whereby they may lay
+an interdiction on this reproachful trade. But an immediate advantage is
+also obtained; for a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not
+exceeding $10 for each person; and this, sir, operates as a partial
+prohibition; it was all that could be obtained. I am sorry it was no
+more; but from this I think there is reason to hope that yet a few
+years, and it will be prohibited altogether. _And in the meantime, the
+new States which are to be formed will be under the control of Congress
+in this particular, and slaves will never be introduced amongst
+them_."--2 _Elliott's Debates_, 423.
+
+It was argued by Patrick Henry in the Convention in Virginia, as
+follows:
+
+"May not Congress enact that every black man must fight? Did we not see
+a little of this in the last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make
+emancipation general. But acts of Assembly passed, that every slave who
+would go to the army should be free. Another thing will contribute to
+bring this event about. Slavery is detested. We feel its fatal effects.
+We deplore it with all the pity of humanity. Let all these
+considerations press with full force on the minds of Congress. Let that
+urbanity which, I trust, will distinguish America, and the necessity of
+national defence--let all these things operate on their minds, they will
+search that paper, and see if they have power of manumission. And have
+they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence
+and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of
+slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be
+warranted by that power? There is no ambiguous implication, no logical
+deduction. The paper speaks to the point; they have the power in clear,
+unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."--3
+_Elliott's Debates_, 534.
+
+Edmund Randolph, one of the framers of the Constitution, replied to Mr.
+Henry, admitting the general force of the argument, but claiming that,
+because of other provisions, it had no application to the _States_ where
+slavery _then_ existed; thus conceding that power to exist in Congress
+as to all territory belonging to the United States.
+
+Dr. Ramsay, a member of the Convention of South Carolina, in his history
+of the United States, vol. 3, pages 36, 37, says: "Under these liberal
+principles, Congress, in organizing _colonies_, bound themselves to
+impart to their inhabitants all the privileges of coequal States, as
+soon as they were capable of enjoying them. In their infancy,
+_government was administered for them_ without any expense. As soon as
+they should have 60,000 inhabitants, they were authorized to call a
+convention, and, by common consent, to form their own constitution. This
+being done, they were entitled to representation in Congress, and every
+right attached to the original States. These privileges are not confined
+to any particular country or _complexion_. They are communicable to the
+emancipated slave (for in the new State of Ohio, slavery is altogether
+prohibited), to the copper-colored native, and all other human beings
+who, after a competent residence and degree of civilization, are capable
+of enjoying the blessings of regular government."]
+
+[Footnote 12:--The Act of 1789, as reported by the Committee, was
+received and read Thursday, July 16th. The second reading was on Friday,
+the 17th, when it was committed to the Committee of the whole house, "on
+Monday next." On Monday, July 20th, it was considered in Committee of
+the whole, and ordered to a third reading on the following day; on the
+21st, it passed the House, and was sent to the Senate. In the Senate it
+had its first reading on the same day, and was ordered to a second
+reading on the following day (July 22d), and on the 4th of August it
+passed, and on the 7th was approved by the President.]
+
+[Footnote 13:--The "sixteen" represented these States: Langdon and
+Oilman, New Hampshire; Sherman and Johnson, Connecticut; Morris,
+Fitzsimmons, and Clymer, Pennsylvania; King, Massachusetts; Paterson,
+New Jersey; Few and Baldwin, Georgia; Bassett and Read, Delaware;
+Butler, South Carolina; Carroll, Maryland; and Madison, Virginia]
+
+[Footnote 14:--_Vide_ note 3, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 15:--Chap. 28, Sec. 7, U.S. Statutes, 5th Congress, 2d Session.]
+
+[Footnote 16:--Langdon was from New Hampshire, Read from Delaware, and
+Baldwin from Georgia.]
+
+[Footnote 17:--Chap. 38, Sec. 10, U.S. Statutes, 8th Congress, 1st
+Session.]
+
+[Footnote 18:--Baldwin was from Georgia, and Dayton from New Jersey.]
+
+[Footnote 19:--Rufus King, who sat in the old Congress, and also in the
+Convention, as the representative of Massachusetts, removed to New York
+and was sent by that State to the U.S. Senate of the first Congress.
+Charles Pinckney was hi the House, as a representative of South
+Carolina.]
+
+[Footnote 20:--Although Mr. Pinckney opposed "slavery prohibition" in
+1820, yet his views, with regard to the _powers_ of the general
+government, may be better judged by his actions in the Convention:
+
+FRIDAY, _June 8th,_ 1787.--"Mr. Pinckney moved 'that the National
+Legislature shall have the power of negativing all laws to be passed by
+the State Legislatures, which they may judge improper,' in the room of
+the clause as it stood reported.
+
+"He grounds his motion on the necessity of one supreme controlling
+power, and he considers this as the _corner-stone_ of the present
+system; and hence the necessity of retrenching the State authorities, in
+order to preserve the good government of the national council."--T. 400,
+_Elliott's Debates_.
+
+And again, THURSDAY, _August 23d,_ 1787, Mr. Pinckney renewed the motion
+with some modifications.--T. 1409. _Madison Papers_.
+
+And although Mr. Pinckney, as correctly stated by Mr. Lincoln, "steadily
+voted against slavery prohibition, and against all compromises," he
+still regarded the passage of the Missouri Compromise as a great triumph
+of the South, which is apparent from the following letter:
+
+CONGRESS HALL, _March 2d_, 1820, 3 _o'clock at night_.
+
+DEAR SIR:---I hasten to inform you, that this moment we have carried
+the question to admit Missouri, and all Louisiana to the southward of
+36 deg. 30', free from the restriction of slavery, and give the South, in a
+short time, an addition of six, perhaps eight, members to the Senate of
+the United States. It is considered here by the slaveholding States as a
+great triumph.
+
+The votes were close--ninety to eighty-six--produced by the seceding and
+absence of a few moderate men from the North. To the north of 36 deg. 30,'
+there is to be, by the present law, restriction; which you will see by
+the votes, I voted against. But it is at present of no moment; it is a
+vast tract, uninhabited, only by savages and wild beasts, in which not a
+foot of the Indian claims to soil is extinguished, and in which,
+according to the ideas prevalent, no land office will be opened for a
+great length of time.
+
+With respect, your obedient servant,
+
+CHARLES PINCKNEY.
+
+But conclusive evidence of Mr. Pinckney's views is furnished in the fact
+that _he was himself a member of the Committee which reported the
+Ordinance of_ '87, and that _on every occasion, when it was under the
+consideration of Congress, he voted against all amendments_.--_Jour. Am.
+Congress_, Sept. 29th, 1786. Oct. 4th. When the ordinance came up for
+its final passage, Mr. Pinckney was sitting in the Convention, and did
+not take any part in the proceedings of Congress.]
+
+[Footnote 21:--By reference to notes 4, 6, 10, 13, 15, and 16 it will be
+seen that, of the twenty-three who acted upon the question of
+prohibition, twelve were from the present slaveholding States.]
+
+[Footnote 22:--_Vide_ notes 5 and 17, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 23:--"The remaining sixteen" were Nathaniel Gorham,
+Massachusetts; Alex. Hamilton, New York; William Livingston and David
+Brearly, New Jersey; Benjamin Franklin, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson,
+and Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, John Dickinson,
+and Jacob Broom, Delaware; Daniel, of St. Thomas, Jenifer, Maryland;
+John Blair, Virginia; Richard Dobbs Spaight, North Carolina; and John
+Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, South Carolina.]
+
+[Footnote 24:--"The only distinction between freedom and slavery
+consists in this: in the former state, a man is governed by the laws to
+which he has given his consent, either in person or by his
+representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another. In
+the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they
+depend upon the pleasure of a master. It is easy to discern which of the
+two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing
+to be free rather than slave.... Were not the disadvantages of slavery
+too obvious to stand in need of it, I might enumerate and describe the
+tedious train of calamities inseparable from it. I might show that it is
+fatal to religion and morality; that it tends to debase the mind, and
+corrupt its noblest springs of action. I might show that it relaxes the
+sinews of industry and clips the wings of commerce, and works misery and
+indigence in every shape."--HAMILTON, _Works_, vol. 2, pp. 3, 9.
+
+"That you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of _liberty_ to
+those unhappy _men_, who, alone in this land of freedom, are degraded
+into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding
+freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means
+for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American
+people; that you will promote mercy and _justice_ toward this distressed
+race; and that you will step to the _very verge_ of the power vested in
+you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
+fellow-men."--Philadelphia, Feb. 3rd, 1790. _Franklin's Petition to
+Congress for the Abolition of Slavery._
+
+Mr. Gouverneur Morris said: "He never would concur in upholding domestic
+slavery. It was a notorious institution. It was the curse of heaven on
+the States where it prevailed.... The admission of slavery into the
+representation, when fairly explained, comes to this--that the
+inhabitant of South Carolina or Georgia, who goes to the coast of
+Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away
+his fellow-creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them to
+the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes, in a government
+instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizen
+of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so
+notorious a practice.... He would sooner submit himself to a tax for
+paying for all the negroes in the United States than saddle posterity
+with such a constitution."--_Debate on Slave Representation in the
+Convention. Madison Papers_.]
+
+[Footnote 25:--An eminent jurist (Chancellor Walworth) has said that
+"The preamble which was prefixed to these amendments, as adopted by
+Congress, is important to show in what light that body considered them."
+(8 _Wend. R.,_ p. 100.) It declares that a number of the State
+Conventions "having at the time of their adopting the Constitution
+_expressed_ a _desire_, in order to prevent _misconstruction or abuse of
+its powers_, that further _declaratory_ and restrictive clauses should
+be added," resolved, etc.
+
+This preamble is in substance the preamble affixed to the "Conciliatory
+Resolutions" of Massachusetts, which were drawn by Chief Justice
+Parsons, and offered in the Convention as a compromise by John Hancock.
+(_Life Ch. J. Parsons,_ p. 67.) They were afterward copied and adopted
+with some additions by New Hampshire.
+
+The fifth amendment, on which the Supreme Court relies, is taken almost
+literally from the declaration of rights put forth by the Convention of
+New York, and the clause referred to forms the ninth paragraph of the
+declaration. The tenth amendment, on which Senator Douglas relies, is
+taken from the Conciliatory Resolutions, and is the first of those
+resolutions somewhat modified. Thus, these two amendments, sought to be
+used for slavery, originated in the two great anti-slavery States, New
+York and Massachusetts.]
+
+[Footnote 26:--The amendments were proposed by Mr. Madison in the House
+of Representatives, June 8, 1789. They were adopted by the House, August
+24, and some further amendments seem to have been transmitted by the
+Senate, September 9. The printed journals of the Senate do not state the
+time of the final passage, and the message transmitting them to the
+State Legislatures speaks of them as adopted at the first session, begun
+on the fourth day of March, 1789. The date of the introduction and
+passage of the act enforcing the Ordinance of '87 will be found at note
+9, _ante_.]
+
+[Footnote 27:--It is singular that while two of the "thirty-nine" were
+in that Congress of 1819, there was but one (besides Mr. King) of the
+"seventy-six." The one was William Smith, of South Carolina. He was then
+a Senator, and, like Mr. Pinckney, occupied extreme Southern ground.]
+
+[Footnote 28:--The following is an extract from the letter referred to:
+
+"I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro slavery. I
+have long considered it a most serious evil, both socially and
+politically, and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our
+States of such a burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance which
+prohibits the existence of involuntary servitude in our Northwestern
+Territory forever. I consider it a wise measure. It meets with the
+approval and assent of nearly every member from the States more
+immediately interested in slave labor. The prevailing opinion in
+Virginia is against the spread of slavery in our new Territories, and I
+trust we shall have a confederation of free States."
+
+The following extract from a letter of Washington to Robert Morris,
+April, 12th, 1786, shows how strong were his views, and how clearly he
+deemed emancipation a subject for legislative enactment: "I can only say
+that there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a
+plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is but one proper and
+effective mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, BY
+LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY, and that, as far as _my suffrage will go, shall
+never be wanting_."]
+
+[Footnote 29:--A Committee of five, consisting of Messrs. Mason, Davis,
+and Fitch (Democrats), and Collamer and Doolittle (Republicans), was
+appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by the U.S. Senate, to investigate the Harper's
+Ferry affair. That Committee was directed, among other things, to
+inquire: (1) "Whether such invasion and seizure was made under color of
+any organization intended to subvert the government of any of the States
+of the Union." (2) "What was the character and extent of such
+organisation." (3) "And whether any citizens of the United States, not
+present, were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by contributions
+of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise."
+
+The majority of the Committee, Messrs. Mason, Davis, and Fitch, reply to
+the inquiries as follows:
+
+1. "There will be found in the Appendix a copy of the proceedings of a
+Convention held at Chatham, Canada, of the Provisional Form of
+Government there pretended to have been instituted, the object of which
+clearly was to subvert the government of one or more States, and of
+course, to that extent, the government of the United States." By
+reference to the copy of Proceedings it appears that _nineteen_ persons
+were present at that Convention, _eight_ of whom were either killed or
+executed at Charlestown, and one examined before the Committee.
+
+2. "The character of the military organization appears, by the
+commissions issued to certain of the armed party as captains,
+lieutenants, etc., a specimen of which will be found in the Appendix."
+
+(These Commissions are signed by John Brown as Commander-in-Chief, under
+the Provisional Government, and by J.H. Kagi as Secretary.)
+
+"It clearly appeared that the scheme of Brown was to take with him
+comparatively but few men; but those had been carefully trained by
+military instruction previously, and were to act as officers. For his
+military force he relied, very clearly, on inciting insurrection amongst
+the Slaves."
+
+3. "It does not appear that the contributions were made with actual
+knowledge of the use for which they were designed by Brown, although it
+does appear that money was freely contributed by those styling
+themselves the friends of this man Brown, and friends alike of what they
+styled the cause of freedom (of which they claimed him to be an especial
+apostle), without inquiring as to the way in which the money would be
+used by him to advance such pretended cause."
+
+In concluding the report the majority of the Committee thus characterize
+the "invasion": "It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the
+sanction of no public or political authority--distinguishable only from
+ordinary felonies by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them," etc.]
+
+[Footnote 30:--The Southampton insurrection, August, 1831, was induced
+by the remarkable ability of a slave calling himself General Nat Turner.
+He led his fellow bondsmen to believe that he was acting under the order
+of Heaven. In proof of this he alleged that the singular appearance of
+the sun at that time was a divine signal for the commencement of the
+struggle which would result in the recovery of their freedom. This
+insurrection resulted in the death of sixty-four white persons, and more
+than one hundred slaves. The Southampton was the eleventh large
+insurrection in the Southern States, besides numerous attempts and
+revolts.]
+
+[Footnote 31:--In March, 1790, the General Assembly of France, on the
+petition of the _free_ people of color in St. Domingo, many of whom were
+intelligent and wealthy, passed a decree intended to be in their favor,
+but so ambiguous as to be construed in favor of both the whites and the
+blacks. The differences growing out of the decree created two
+parties--the _whites_ and the people of color; and some blood was shed.
+In 1791, the blacks again petitioned, and a decree was passed declaring
+the colored people citizens, who were born of free parents on both
+sides. This produced great excitement among the whites, and the two
+parties armed against each other, and horrible massacres and
+conflagrations followed. Then the Assembly rescinded this last decree,
+and like results followed, the blacks being the exasperated parties and
+the aggressors. Then the decree giving citizenship to the blacks was
+restored, and commissioners were sent out to keep the peace. The
+commissioners, unable to sustain themselves, between the two parties,
+with the troops they had, issued a proclamation that all blacks who were
+willing to range themselves under the banner of the Republic should be
+free. As a result a very large proportion of the blacks became in fact
+free. In 1794, the Conventional Assembly _abolished slavery_ throughout
+the French Colonies. Some years afterward, the French Government sought,
+with an army of 60,000 men, to reinstate slavery, but were unsuccessful,
+and then the white planters were driven from the Island.]
+
+[Footnote 32:--_Vide_ Jefferson's Autobiography, commenced January 6th,
+1821. JEFFERSON'S _Works_, vol. 1, p. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 33:--"I am not ashamed or afraid publicly to avow that the
+election of William H. Seward or Salmon P. Chase, or any such
+representative of the Republican party, upon a sectional platform, ought
+to be resisted to the disruption of every tie that binds this
+Confederacy together. (Applause on the Democratic side of the House.)"
+_Mr. Curry, of Alabama, in the House of Representatives_.
+
+"Just so sure as the Republican party succeed in electing a sectional
+man, upon their sectional, anti-slavery platform, breathing destruction
+and death to the rights of my people, just so sure, in my judgment, the
+time will have come when the South must and will take an unmistakable
+and decided action, and then he who dallies is a dastard, and he who
+doubts is damned! I need not tell what I, a Southern man, will do. I
+think I may safely speak for the masses of the people of Georgia--that
+when that event happens, they, in my judgment, will consider it an overt
+act, a declaration of war, and meet immediately in convention, to take
+into consideration the mode and measure of redress. That is my position;
+and if that be treason to the Government, make the most of it."--_Mr.
+Gartell, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives_.
+
+"I said to my constituents, and to the people of the capital of my
+State, on my way here, if such an event did occur," [_i.e._, the
+election of a Republican President, upon a Republican platform], "while
+it would be their duty to determine the course which the State would
+pursue, it would be my privilege to counsel with them as to what I
+believed to be the proper course; and I said to them, what I say now,
+and what I will always say in such an event, that my counsel would be to
+take independence out of the Union in preference to the loss of
+constitutional rights, and consequent degradation and dishonor, in it.
+That is my position, and it is the position which I know the Democratic
+party of the State of Mississippi will maintain."--_Gov. McRae, of
+Mississippi._
+
+"It is useless to attempt to conceal the fact that, in the present
+temper of the Southern people, it" [_i.e._, the election of a Republican
+President] "cannot be, and will not be, submitted to. The 'irrepressible
+conflict' doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most
+distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of
+war against the institution of slavery, wherever it exists; and I would
+be disloyal to Virginia and the South, if I did not declare that the
+election of such a man, entertaining such sentiment, and advocating such
+doctrines, _ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States_. The idea
+of permitting such a man to have the control and direction of the army
+and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high judicial and
+executive officers, POSTMASTERS INCLUDED, _cannot_ be entertained by the
+South for a moment."--_Gov. Letcher, of Virginia_.
+
+"Slavery _must_ be maintained--in the Union, if possible; out of it, if
+necessary: peaceably if we may; forcibly if we must."--_Senator Iverson,
+of Georgia_.
+
+"Lincoln and Hamlin, the Black Republican nominees, will be elected in
+November next, and the South will then decide the great question whether
+they will submit to the domination of Black Republican rule--the
+fundamental principle of their organization being an open, undisguised,
+and declared war upon our social institutions. I believe that the honor
+and safety of the South, in that contingency, will require the prompt
+secession of the slaveholding States from the Union; and failing then to
+obtain from the free States additional and higher guaranties for the
+protection of our rights and property, that the seceding States should
+proceed to establish a new government. But while I think such would be
+the imperative duty of the South, I should emphatically reprobate and
+repudiate any scheme having for its object the separate secession of
+South Carolina. If Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi alone--giving us a
+portion of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts--would unite with this State in
+a common secession upon the election of a Black Republican, I would give
+my consent to the policy."--_Letter of Hon. James L. Orr, of S.C., to
+John Martin and others, July_ 23, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 34:--The Hon. John A. Andrew, of the Boston Bar, made the
+following analysis of the Dred Scott case in the Massachusetts
+Legislature. Hon. Caleb Cushing was then a member of that body, but did
+not question its correctness.
+
+"On the question of possibility of citizenship to one of the Dred Scott
+color, extraction, and origin, three Justices, viz., Taney, Wayne, and
+Daniels, held the negative. Nelson and Campbell passed over the plea by
+which the question was raised. Grier agreed with Nelson. Catron said the
+question was not open. McLean agreed with Catron, but thought the plea
+bad. Curtis agreed that the question was open, but attacked the plea,
+met its averments, and decided that a free-born colored person, native
+to any State, is a citizen thereof by birth, and is therefore a citizen
+of the Union, and entitled to sue in the Federal Courts.
+
+"Had a majority of the court directly sustained the plea in abatement,
+and denied the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court appealed from, then all
+else they could have said and done would have been done and said in a
+cause not theirs to try and not theirs to discuss. In the absence of
+such a majority, one step more was to be taken. And the next step
+reveals an agreement of six of the Justices, on a point decisive of the
+cause, and putting an end to all the functions of the court.
+
+"It is this. Scott was first carried to Rock Island, in the State of
+Illinois, where he remained about two years, before going with his
+master to Fort Snelling, in the Territory of Wisconsin. His claim to
+freedom was rested on the alleged effect of his translation from a slave
+State, and again into a free territory. If, by his removal to Illinois,
+he became emancipated from his master, the subsequent continuance of his
+pilgrimage into the Louisiana purchase could not add to his freedom, nor
+alter the fact. If, by reason of any want or infirmity in the laws of
+Illinois, or of conformity on his part to their behests, Dred Scott
+remained a slave while he remained in that State, then--for the sake of
+learning the effect on him of his territorial residence beyond the
+Mississippi, and of his marriage and other proceedings there, and the
+effect of the sojournment and marriage of Harriet, in the same
+territory, upon herself and her children--it might become needful to
+advance one other step into the investigation of the law; to inspect the
+Missouri Compromise, banishing slavery to the south of the line of 36 deg.
+30' in the Louisiana purchase.
+
+"But no exigency of the cause ever demanded or justified that advance;
+for six of the Justices, including the Chief Justice himself, decided
+that the _status_ of the plaintiff, as free or slave, was dependent, not
+upon the laws of the State in which he had been, but of the State of
+Missouri, in which he was at the commencement of the suit. The Chief
+Justice asserted that 'it is now firmly settled by the decisions of the
+highest court in the State, that Scott and his family, on their return
+were not free, but were, by the laws of Missouri, the property of the
+defendant.' This was the burden of the opinion of Nelson, who declares
+'the question is one solely depending upon the law of Missouri, and that
+the Federal Court, sitting in the State, and trying the case before us,
+was bound to follow it.' It received the emphatic endorsement of Wayne,
+whose general concurrence was with the Chief Justice. Grier concurred in
+set terms with Nelson on all 'the questions discussed by him.' Campbell
+says, 'The claim of the plaintiff to freedom depends upon the effect to
+be given to his absence from Missouri, in company with his master in
+Illinois and Minnesota, _and this effect is to be ascertained by
+reference to the laws of Missouri_.' Five of the Justices, then (if no
+more of them), regard the law of Missouri as decisive of the plaintiff's
+rights."]
+
+[Footnote 35:--"Now, as we have already said in an earlier part of this
+opinion upon a different point, the right of property in a slave is
+distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to
+traffic in it, _like an ordinary article of merchandise and property_,
+was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States in every State that
+might desire it, for twenty years."--_Ch. J. Taney_, 19 _How. U.S.R_.,
+p. 451. _Vide_ language of Mr. Madison, note 34, as to "_merchandise_."]
+
+[Footnote 36:--Not only was the right of property _not_ intended to be
+"distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution"; but the
+following extract from Mr. Madison demonstrates that the utmost care was
+taken to avoid so doing:
+
+"The clause as originally offered [respecting fugitive slaves] read, 'If
+any person LEGALLY bound to service or labor in any of the United States
+shall escape into another State," etc., etc. (Vol. 3, p. 1456.) In
+regard to this, Mr. Madison says, "The term '_legally'_ was struck out,
+and the words 'under the laws thereof,' inserted after the word State,
+in compliance with the wish of some who thought the term 'legally'
+equivocal and favoring the idea that slavery was legal in a moral point
+of view."--_Ib_., p. 1589.]
+
+[Footnote 37:--We subjoin a portion of the history alluded to by Mr.
+Lincoln. The following extract relates to the provision of the
+Constitution relative to the slave trade. (Article I, Sec. 9.)
+
+_25th August_, 1787.--The report of the Committee of eleven being taken
+up, Gen. [Charles Cotesworth] Pinckney moved to strike out the words
+"the year 1800," and insert the words "the year 1808."
+
+Mr. Gorham seconded the motion.
+
+Mr. Madison--Twenty years will produce all the mischief that can be
+apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be
+more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it
+in the Constitution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Gouverneur Morris was for making the clause read at once--
+
+"The importation of slaves into North Carolina, South Carolina, and
+Georgia, shall not be prohibited," etc. This, he said, would be most
+fair, and would avoid _the _ ambiguity by which, under the power with
+regard to naturalization, the liberty reserved to the States might be
+defeated. He wished it to be known, also, that this part of the
+Constitution was a compliance with those States. If the change of
+language, however, should be objected to by the members from those
+States, he should not urge it.
+
+Col. Mason (of Virginia) was not against using the term "slaves," but
+against naming North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, lest it
+should give offence to the people of those States.
+
+Mr. Sherman liked a description better than the terms proposed, which
+had been declined by the old Congress and were not pleasing to some
+people.
+
+Mr. Clymer concurred with Mr. Sherman.
+
+Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, said that _both in opinion and
+practice he was against slavery; but thought it more in favor of
+humanity, from a view of all circumstances, to let in South Carolina and
+Georgia, on those terms, than to exclude them from the Union_.
+
+Mr. Morris withdrew his motion.
+
+Mr. Dickinson wished the clause to be confined to the States which had
+not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves, and for that
+purpose moved to amend the clause so as to read--
+
+"The importation of slaves into such of the States as shall permit the
+same, shall not be prohibited by the Legislature of the United States,
+until the year 1808," which was disagreed to, _nem. con_.
+
+The first part of the report was then agreed to as follows:
+
+"The migration or importation of such persons as the several States now
+existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the
+Legislature prior to the year 1808."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sherman was against the second part ["but a tax or duty may be
+imposed on such migration or importation at a rate not exceeding _the
+average of the duties laid on imports_"], as acknowledging men to be
+property by taxing them as such under the _character_ of slaves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Madison _thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the like idea
+that there could be property in men_. The reason of duties did not hold,
+as slaves _are not, like merchandise_, consumed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was finally agreed, _nem. con_., to make the clause read--
+
+"But a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding
+_ten dollars_ for each PERSON."--_Madison Papers, Aug_. 25, 1787.]
+
+[Footnote 38:--Compare this noble passage and that at page 18, with the
+twaddle of Mr. Orr (note 30), and the slang of Mr. Douglas (note 37).]
+
+[Footnote 39:--That demand has since been made. Says MR. O'CONOR,
+counsel for the State of Virginia in the _Lemon Case_, page 44: "We
+claim that under these various provisions of the Federal Constitution, a
+citizen of Virginia has an immunity against the operation of any law
+which the State of New York can enact, whilst he is a stranger and
+wayfarer, or whilst passing through our territory; and that he has
+absolute protection for all his domestic rights, and for all his rights
+of property, which under the laws of the United States, and the laws of
+his own State, he was entitled to, whilst in his own State. We claim
+this, and neither more NOR LESS."
+
+Throughout the whole of that case, in which the right to pass through
+New York with slaves at the pleasure of the slave owners is maintained,
+it is nowhere contended that the statute is contrary to the Constitution
+of New York; but that the statute and the Constitution of the State are
+both contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
+
+The State of Virginia, not content with the decision of our own courts
+upon the right claimed by them, is now engaged in carrying this, the
+Lemon case, to the Supreme Court of the United States, hoping by a
+decision there, in accordance with the intimations in the Dred Scott
+case, to overthrow the Constitution of New York.
+
+Senator Toombs, of Georgia, has claimed, in the Senate, that laws of
+Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode
+Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, for the exclusion of slavery, conceded
+to be warranted by the State Constitutions, are contrary to the
+Constitution of the United States, and has asked for the enactment of
+laws by the General Government which shall override the laws of those
+States and the Constitutions which authorize them.]
+
+[Footnote 40:--"Policy, humanity, and Christianity, alike forbid the
+extension of the evils of free society to new people and coming
+generations."--_Richmond Enquirer, Jan_. 22, 1856.
+
+"I am satisfied that the mind of the South has undergone a change to
+this great extent, that it is now the _almost universal belief_ in the
+South, not only that the condition of African slavery in their midst, is
+the best condition to which the African race has ever been subjected,
+but that _it has the effect of ennobling both races, the white and the
+black_."--_Senator Mason, of Virginia_.
+
+"I declare again, as I did in reply to the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr.
+Doolittle), that, in my opinion, slavery is a great moral, social, and
+political blessing--a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the
+master."--_Mr. Brown, in the Senate, March_ 6, 1860.
+
+"I am a Southern States' Rights man; I am an African slave-trader. I am
+one of those Southern men who believe that slavery is right--morally,
+religiously, socially, and politically." (Applause.) ... "I represent
+the African Slave-trade interests of that section. (Applause.) I am
+proud of the position I occupy in that respect. I believe the African
+Slave-trader is a true missionary and a true Christian."
+(Applause.)--_Mr. Gaulden, a delegate from First Congressional District
+of Georgia, in the Charleston Convention, now a supporter of Mr.
+Douglas_.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly speak again, but you see from the
+tones of my voice that I am unable to. This has been a happy, a glorious
+day. I shall never forget it. There is a charm about this beautiful day,
+about this sea air, and especially about that peculiar institution of
+yours--a clam bake. I think you have the advantage, in that respect, of
+Southerners. For my own part, I have much more fondness for your clams
+than I have for their niggers. But every man to his taste."--_Hon_
+_Stephen A. Douglas's Address at Rocky Point, R.I., Aug._ 2, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 41:--It is interesting to observe how two profoundly logical
+minds, though holding extreme, opposite views, have deduced this common
+conclusion. Says Mr. O'Conor, the eminent leader of the New York Bar,
+and the counsel for the State of Virginia in the Lemon case, in his
+speech at Cooper Institute, December 19th, 1859:
+
+"That is the point to which this great argument must come--Is negro
+slavery unjust? If it is unjust, it violates that first rule of human
+conduct--'Render to every man his due.' If it is unjust, it violates the
+law of God which says, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself,' for that requires
+that we should perpetrate no injustice. Gentlemen, if it could be
+maintained that negro slavery was unjust, perhaps I might be
+prepared--perhaps we all ought to be prepared--to go with that
+distinguished man to whom allusion is frequently made, and say, 'There
+is a higher law which compels us to trample beneath our feet the
+Constitution established by our fathers, with all the blessings it
+secures to their children.' But I insist--and that is the argument which
+we must meet, and on which we must come to a conclusion that shall
+govern our actions in the future selection of representatives in the
+Congress of the United States--insist that negro slavery is not unjust."]
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABRAHAM LINCOLN***
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