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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18557-8.txt b/18557-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eee5b15 --- /dev/null +++ b/18557-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7238 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Battle of Principles, by Newell Dwight Hillis + +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: The Battle of Principles + A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict + +Author: Newell Dwight Hillis + +Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18557] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + The Battle of Principles + + + + + WORKS OF + + NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS + + THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES + A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery + Conflict + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20._ + + THE CONTAGION OF CHARACTER + Studies in Culture and Success + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20._ + + THE FORTUNE OF THE REPUBLIC + Studies, National and Patriotic on America of To-day + and To-morrow + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20._ + + GREAT BOOKS AS LIFE-TEACHERS + Studies of Character, Real and Ideal + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50._ + + THE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE + A Study of Social Sympathy and Service + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25._ + + A MAN'S VALUE TO SOCIETY + Studies in Self-Culture and Character + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25._ + + FAITH AND CHARACTER + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, 75 cents_ + + FORETOKENS OF IMMORTALITY + Studies for "The Hour When the Immortal Hope Burns + Low in the Heart" + _12mo, cloth, net, 50 cents._ + + DAVID THE POET AND KING + _8vo, two colors, deckle edges, net, 75 cents._ + + HOW THE INNER LIGHT FAILED + A Study of the Atrophy of the Spiritual Sense + _18mo, cloth, net, 25 cents._ + + RIGHT LIVING AS A FINE ART + A Study of Channing's Symphony + _12mo, boards, net, 35 cents._ + + THE MASTER OF THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT LIVING + _12mo, boards, net, 35 cents._ + + ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF THE YEARS + _16mo, old English boards, net, 25 cents._ + + THE SCHOOL IN THE HOME + _Net, 50 cents._ + + + + + The + Battle of Principles + + A Study of the Heroism + and Eloquence of the + Anti-Slavery Conflict + + By + NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D. D. + + + + + NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO + Fleming H. Revell Company + LONDON AND EDINBURGH + + Copyright, 1912, by + FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY + + New York: 158 Fifth Avenue + Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. + Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. + London: 21 Paternoster Square + Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street + + + + +Foreword + + +These are days of destiny for the people of the Republic. Democracy, +like a beautiful civilization, is sweeping over all the earth. From +Portugal comes the news of a monarchy that is taking on democratic +forms. Turkey has announced the liberty of the printing press, Russia is +planning a new system of popular education, China is in process of +adopting a constitutional government, with a cabinet responsible to the +people. Unless one reads the newspapers in many languages, the observer +will miss daily some new victory for democracy. Great changes are on +also for the Republic. Now that the Civil War is fifty years away, the +new North and the new South represent a solid nation. Indeed, if every +Northern soldier were to die to-day, not one interest or liberty of this +Republic would be permitted to suffer by the sons of the Confederate +soldiers, who would defend the nation unto blood as bravely as men born +north of Mason and Dixon's line--indeed, who fought gallantly for it in +the Cuban war. The North has entered upon a new industrial epoch, but +the South also is in the midst of its greatest industrial movement, and +in sight of its enlargement, by reason of the Panama Canal. + +The Western Continent is not large, but it holds more than half the farm +land of the planet, and it is already evident that the United States and +Canada, with their free institutions, will indirectly and directly +control the thousand millions of people that will soon live between the +Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and Cape Horn. The one question of the hour +is how to make all the coming millions patriots towards their country, +scholars towards the intellect, obedient citizens towards the laws of +nature and God. Our national peril is Mammonism, and the sordid pursuit +of gold. Our fathers came hither in pursuit of God and liberty,--not +gold and territory. Sixty of our present ninety millions of people have +entered the earthly scene since the Civil War. Our young men and women, +and the children of foreign born peoples need to open the pages of +history, setting forth the great men and events of the Anti-Slavery +epoch in this land. + +The time has come for the teachers in the schoolroom and the preachers +in their pulpits to assemble the youth of the nation, and drill them in +the history of industrial democracy, and of political liberty. If our +youth are to make the twentieth century glorious, they must realize the +continuity of our institutions, and often return to the nineteenth +century and the Anti-Slavery epoch. The phrase, "For God, home and +native land," is often on the lips of our teachers. Love towards God +gives religion; the love of home gives marriage; the love of country, +patriotism. But patriotism is a fire that must be fed with the fuel of +ideas. These chapters are written in the belief that the youth of to-day +will find in the history of their fathers a storehouse filled with seed +for a world sowing, an armoury filled with weapons for to-morrow's +battle, a library rich with wisdom for the morrow's emergency, a +cathedral, bright with memorials of yesterday's heroes, its soldiers and +scholars, its statesmen, and above all, its martyred President. + + NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. + + _Plymouth Church, + Brooklyn, N. Y._ + + + + + Contents + + + I. Rise of American Slavery: Growth of + the Traffic 11 + + II. Webster and Calhoun: The Battle Line + in Array 40 + + III. Garrison and Phillips: Anti-Slavery + Agitation 68 + + IV. Charles Sumner: The Appeal to Educated + Men 95 + + V. Horace Greeley: The Appeal to the + Common People 117 + + VI. Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Brown: + The Conflict Precipitated 136 + + VII. Lincoln and Douglas: Influence of the + Great Debate 160 + + VIII. Reasons for Secession: Southern Leaders 188 + + IX. Henry Ward Beecher: The Appeal to + England 212 + + X. Heroes of Battle: American Soldiers + and Sailors 242 + + XI. The Life of the People at Home Who + Supported the Soldiers at the Front 263 + + XII. Abraham Lincoln: The Martyred President 288 + + INDEX 327 + + + + +I + +RISE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY: GROWTH OF THE TRAFFIC + + +The history of the nineteenth century holds some ten wars that disturbed +the nations of the earth, but perhaps our Civil War alone can be fully +justified at the bar of intellect and conscience. That war was fought, +not in the interest of territory or of national honour,--it was fought +by the white race for the enfranchisement of the black race, and to show +that a democratic government, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the +proposition that all men are created equal, could permanently endure. + +In retrospect, the Great Rebellion seems the mightiest battle and the +most glorious victory in the annals of time. The battle-field was a +thousand miles in length; the combatants numbered two million men; the +struggle was protracted over four years; the hillsides of the whole +South were made billowy with the country's dead; a million men were +killed or wounded in the two thousand two hundred battles; thousands of +gifted boys who might have permanently enriched the North and South +alike, through literature, art or science, were cut off as unfulfilled +prophecies in the beginning of their career, and what is more pathetic, +another million women, desolate and widowed, remained to look with +altered eyes upon an altered world, while alone they walked their Via +Dolorosa. In the physical realm the black shadow of the sun's eclipse +remains but for a few minutes, but through four awful years the nation +dwelt in blackness and dreadful night, while fifty more years passed, +and the shadow has not yet disappeared fully from the land. + +Strictly speaking, the Civil War began with the debate between Daniel +Webster and Calhoun in 1830. These intellectual giants set the battle +lines in array in the halls of the Senate. The warfare that began with +arguments in Congress was soon transferred to the lyceum and lecture +hall, then to the pulpit and press, then to the assembly rooms of State +legislatures, until finally it was submitted to the soldiers. At last +Grant, Sherman and Thomas witnessed to the truth of Webster's argument, +that the Union is one and inseparable, that it should endure now and +forever, but the endorsement was written with the sword's point, and in +letters of blood. The conflict raged, therefore, for thirty-five years, +and some of the most desperate battles were fought not with guns and +cannon, but with arguments, in the presence of assembled thousands, who +listened to the intellectual attack and defense. In their famous debate, +Lincoln and Douglas were over against one another like two fortresses, +bristling with bayonets, and with cannon shotted to the muzzle. + +The many millions of people in the United States, born or immigrated +here since the Civil War, busied with many things during this rich, +complex and prosperous era, have suffered a grievous loss, through the +weakening of their patriotism. Multitudes have forgotten that with great +price their fathers bought our industrial liberty for white and black +alike. The study of no era, perhaps, is so rewarding to the youth of the +country as the study of the Anti-Slavery epoch. It was an era of +intellectual giants and moral heroes. Great men walked in regiments up +and down the land. It was the age of our greatest statesmen of the North +and South,--Webster and Calhoun; of our greatest soldiers,--Grant, +Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, and of Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It was +the era of our greatest orators, Phillips and Beecher; of our greatest +editors, led by Greeley and Raymond; of our greatest poets and scholars, +Whittier and Lowell and Emerson; and of our greatest President, the +Martyr of Emancipation. So wonderful are those scenes named Gettysburg, +Appomattox, and the room where the Emancipation Act was signed, that +even the most skeptical have felt that the issues of liberty and life +for millions of slaves justified the entrance of a Divine Figure upon +the human battle-field. This Unseen Leader and Captain of the host had +dipped His sword in heaven, and carried a blade that was red with +insufferable wrath against oppression, cruelty and wrong. + +Now that fifty years have passed since the Civil War, the events of that +conflict have taken on their true perspective, and movements once +clouded have become clear. For great men and nations alike, the +suggestive hours are the critical hours and epochs. That was a critical +epoch for Athens, when Demosthenes plead the cause of the republic, and +insisted that Athens must defend her liberties, her art, her laws, her +social institutions, and in the spirit of democracy resist the tyrant +Philip, who came with gifts in his hands. That was a critical hour for +brave little Holland, dreaming her dreams of liberty,--when the burghers +resisted the regiments of bloody Alva, and, clinging to the dykes with +their finger-tips, fought their way back to the fields, expelled Philip +of Spain, and, having no fortresses, lifted up their hands and +exclaimed, "These are our bayonets and walls of defense!" Big with +destiny also for this republic was that critical hour when Lincoln, in +his first inaugural, pleaded with the South not to destroy the Union, +nor to turn their cannon against the free institutions that seemed "the +last, best hope of men." But the eyes of the men of the South were +holden, and they were drunk with passion. They lighted the torch that +kindled a conflagration making the Southern city a waste and the rich +cotton-field a desolation. + +At the very beginning, the founders and fathers of the nation were under +the delusion that it was possible to unite in one land two antagonistic +principles,--liberty and slavery. It has been said that the Republic, +founded in New England, was nothing but an attempt to translate into +terms of prose the dreams that haunted the soul of John Milton his long +life through. The founders believed that every man must give an account +of himself to God, and because his responsibility was so great, they +felt that he must be absolutely free. Since no king, no priest, and no +master could give an account for him, he must be self-governing in +politics, self-controlling in industry, and free to go immediately into +the presence of God with his penitence and his prayer. The fathers +sought religious and political freedom,--not money or lands. But the new +temple of liberty was to be for the white race alone, and these builders +of the new commonwealth never thought of the black man, save as a +servant in the house. For more than two centuries, therefore, the wheat +and the tares grew together in the soil. When the tares began to choke +out the wheat, the uprooting of the foul growth became inevitable. +Perhaps the Civil War was a necessity,--for this reason, the disease of +slavery had struck in upon the vitals of the nation and the only cure +was the surgeon's knife. Therefore God raised up soldiers, and anointed +them as surgeons, with "the ointment of war, black and sulphurous." + +By a remarkable coincidence, the year that brought a slave ship to +Jamestown, Virginia, brought the _Mayflower_ and the Pilgrim fathers to +Plymouth Rock. It is a singular fact that the star of hope and the orb +of night rose at one and the same hour upon the horizon. At first the +rich men of London counted the Virginia tobacco a luxury, but the weed +soon became a necessity, and the captain of the African ship exchanged +one slave for ten huge bales of tobacco. A second cargo of slaves +brought even larger dividends to the owners of the slave ship. Soon the +story of the financial returns of the traffic began to inflame the +avarice of England, Spain and Portugal. The slave trade was exalted to +the dignity of commerce in wheat and flour, coal and iron. Just as ships +are now built to carry China's tea and silk, India's indigo and spices, +so ships were built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the +kidnapping of African slaves, and the sale of these men to the sugar and +cotton planters of the West Indies and of America. Even the stories of +the gold and diamond fields of South Africa and Alaska have had less +power to inflame men's minds than the stories of the black men in the +forests of Africa, every one of whom was good for twenty guineas. + +The London of 1700 experienced a boom in slave stocks as the London of +1900 in rubber stocks. Merchants and captains, after a few years' +absence, returned to London to buy houses, carriages and gold plate, and +by their political largesses to win the title of baronet, and even seats +in the House of Lords. This illusion of gold finally fell upon the +throne itself, and King William and Queen Mary lent the traffic royal +patronage. At the very time when men in Boston, exultant over the +success of their experiment in democracy, were writing home to London +about this ideal republic of God that had been set up at Plymouth, and +the orb of liberty began to flame with light and hope for New England, +this other orb began to fling out its rays of sorrow, disease and death +across Africa and the southern sands. + +At length, in 1713, Queen Anne, in the Treaty of Utrecht, after a long +and arduous series of diplomatic negotiations, secured for the English +throne a monopoly of the slave traffic, and the writers of the time +spoke of this treaty as an event that would make the queen's name to be +eulogized as long as time should last. But two hundred years have +reversed the judgment of the civilized world. History now recalls Queen +Anne's monopoly of the slave traffic as it recalls the Black Death in +England, the era of smallpox in Scotland,--for one such treaty is +probably equal to two bubonic plagues, or three epidemics of cholera and +yellow fever. + +Finally, an informal agreement was entered upon between the English +slave dealers, the Spaniards and Portuguese,--an agreement that was +literally a "covenant with death and a compact with hell." The +Portuguese became the explorers of the interior, the advance agents of +the traffic, who reported what tribes had the tallest, strongest men, +and the most comely women. The Spaniards maintained the slave stations +on the coast, and took over from the Portuguese the gangs of slaves who +were chained together and driven down to the coast; the English slave +dealers owned the ships, bought the slaves at wholesale, transported the +wretches across the sea, and retailed the poor creatures to the planters +of the various colonies. Between 1620 and 1770 three million slaves were +driven in gangs down to the African seacoast, and transported to the +colonies. At this time some of the greatest houses in London, Lisbon and +Madrid were founded, and some of the greatest family names were +established during these one hundred and fifty years when the slave +traffic was most prosperous. De Bau thinks that another 250,000 slaves +perished during the voyages across the sea. For the eighteenth century +was a century of cruelty as well as gold,--of crime and art,--of +murderous hate and increasing commerce. If the prophet Daniel had been +describing the Spain, Portugal and England of that time, he would have +portrayed them as an image of mud and gold,--but chiefly mud. Little +wonder that Thomas Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," treating of +the influence and possible consequences of slavery, wrote, "Indeed, I +tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." As England +anchored war-ships in the harbour of Shanghai, and forced the opium +traffic upon China, so she forced the slave traffic upon the American +colonies by gun and cannon. The story of the English kings who crowded +slavery upon the South makes up one of the blackest pages in the history +of a country that has been like unto a sower who went forth to sow with +one hand the good seed of liberty and justice, while with the other she +sowed the tares of slavery and oppression. + +From the very beginning, the climate and the general atmosphere of the +North was unfriendly to slavery, just as the cotton, sugar and indigo, +as well as the warm climate of the South encouraged slave labour. At +first, neither Boston nor New York associated wrong with the custom of +buying and using slave labour. And when, after a short time, opposition +began to develop, this antagonism to slavery was based upon economic, +rather than upon moral considerations. + +Jonathan Edwards was our great theologian, but at the very time that +Jonathan Edwards was writing his "Freedom of the Will" and preaching his +revival sermons on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he was the +owner of slaves. When that philosopher, whose writings had sent his name +into all Europe, died, he bequeathed a favourite slave to his +descendants. Whitefield was the great evangelist of that era, but +Whitefield during his visit to the colonies purchased a Southern +plantation, stocked it with seventy-five slaves, and when he died +bequeathed it to a relative, whom he characterizes as "an elect lady," +who, notwithstanding she was "elect," was quite willing to derive her +livelihood from the sweat of another's brow. + +And yet even in the Providence plantations, where more slaves were +bought and sold than in any other of the Northern colonies, the traffic +soon began to wane. The simple fact is that the rigour of the climate +and the severity of the winters of New England made the life of the +African brief. The slave was the child of a tropic clime, unaccustomed +to clothing, and the January snows and the March winds soon developed +consumption and chilled to death the child of the tropics. It was found +impracticable to use the black man in either the forests or fields, and +in a short time slaves were purchased only as domestic servants. + +But about 1750 the conscience of New England awakened. Men in the pulpit +took a strong position against the traffic. The Congregational churches +of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut declared against slavery and +asked the legislatures to adopt the Jewish law, emancipating all slaves +whatsoever at the end of the tenth year of servitude. A little later, +slavery was made illegal in all the New England colonies, Pennsylvania +at length remembered William Penn, who had freed all his slaves in his +will, while the German churches of that State began to expel all members +who were known to have bought or held a slave. When, therefore, the +convention met in Philadelphia, in 1776, preparatory to the Declaration +of Independence, the delegates were able to say that as a whole the +Northern colonies had cleansed their borders of the abuse, and had +decided to build their institutions and civilization upon free labour, +as the sure foundation of individual and social prosperity. + +But the antagonism to slavery in the Southern colonies was only less +pronounced, and this, not because of economic reasons, but because of +moral considerations. The Southern climate was friendly to cotton and +tobacco, indigo and rice. These products made heavy demands upon labour, +but white labour was unequal to the intense heat of the Southern summer +and workmen were scarce. During the revolutions under King Charles I and +Charles II and the wars at the beginning of the eighteenth century, +England needed every man at home. Virginia offered high wages and large +land rewards, but it was well-nigh impossible for her to secure +immigrants and the labour she needed. In that hour the captain of a +slave ship appeared in the House of Burgesses and offered to supply the +need, but the people of Virginia instructed the delegates to the +assembly to protest against the traffic. Finally, the colony imposed a +duty upon each slave landing, and made the duty so high as to destroy +the profits of the slave trade. King George was furious with anger, and +sent out a royal proclamation forbidding all interference with the slave +traffic under heavy penalty, and affirming that this trade was "highly +beneficial to the colonies, as well as remunerative to the throne." +Growing more antagonistic to slavery, the planters of Fairfax County +called a convention at which Washington presided. Later, in +Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin brought in the resolutions condemning +slavery as "a wicked, cruel and unjustifiable trade." Soon the leading +men of the Southern colonies sent a formal protest to England. Lord +Mansfield supported them in a decision that in English countries, +governed by English laws, freedom was the rule, and slavery illegal, +unless the colony, through its assembly, expressly legalized the slave +traffic. + +When the first convention met in Philadelphia, Jefferson included among +the articles of indictment against George the Third this paragraph: "He +has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most +sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who +never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery or to +incur a miserable death in the transportation thither." This passage, +however, was struck out of the Declaration in compliance with the wishes +of the delegates from two colonies, who desired to continue slavery. But +in 1784 Jefferson reopened the question by reporting an ordinance +prohibiting slavery after the year 1800 in the territory that afterwards +became Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as the +territory north of the Ohio River. This anti-slavery clause was lost in +the convention by only a single vote. "The voice of a single +individual," wrote Jefferson, "would have prevented this abominable +crime. But Heaven will not always be silent. The friends to the rights +of human nature will in the end prevail." + +Indeed, in the Southern States up to the very beginning of the Civil War +there was a strong anti-slavery sentiment. When the first meeting was +held in Baltimore to organize the Abolition Society, eighty-five +abolition societies in various counties of Southern States sent +delegates to the convention. It is a striking fact that the South can +claim as much credit for the organization of the Abolition Society as +William Lloyd Garrison and his friends in the North. For the real +responsibility for slavery does not rest upon Virginia, the Carolinas or +Georgia, but upon the mother-land, upon the avarice of the throne, the +cupidity of English merchants and the power of English guns and cannon. + +By the year 1790, therefore, slavery in the North had either died of +inanition, or had been rendered illegal by the action of State +legislatures, and the chapter was closed. There are the best of reasons +also for believing that in the South slavery was waning, while the +influence of planters who believed free labour more economical was +waxing. Suddenly an unexpected event changed the whole situation. The +commerce of the world rests upon food and clothing. The food of the +world is in wheat and corn, the clothing in cotton and wool. But wool +was so expensive that for the millions in Europe cotton garments were a +necessity. England had the looms and the spindles, but she could not +secure the cotton, and the Southern planters could not grow it. The +cotton pod, as large as a hen's egg, bursts when ripe and the cotton +gushes out in a white mass. Unfortunately, each pod holds eight or ten +seeds, each as large as an orange seed. To clean a single pound of +cotton required a long day's work by a slave. The production of cotton +was slow and costly, the acreage therefore small, and the profits +slender. The South was burdened with debt, the plantations were +mortgaged, and in 1792 the outlook for the cotton planters was very +dark, and all hearts were filled with foreboding and fear. One winter's +night Mrs. General Greene, wife of the Revolutionary soldier, was +entertaining at dinner a company of planters. In those days the planters +had but one thought--how to rid their plantations of their mortgages. It +happened that the conversation turned upon some possible mechanism for +cleaning the cotton. Mrs. Greene turned to her guests, and, reminding +Eli Whitney, a young New Englander who was in her home teaching her +children, that he had invented two or three playthings for her children, +suggested that he turn his attention to the problem. + +Young Whitney had no tools, but he soon made them; had no wire, but he +drew his own wire, and within a few months he perfected the cotton gin. +When the cat climbs upon the crate filled with chickens, it thrusts its +paw between the laths and pulls off the feathers, leaving the chicken +behind the laths. Young Whitney substituted wires for laths, and a +toothed wheel for the cat's paw, and soon pulled all the cotton out at +the top, leaving the seeds to drop through a hole in the bottom of the +gin. Within a year every great planter had a carpenter manufacturing +gins for the fields. With Whitney's machine one man in a single day +could clean more cotton than ten negroes could clean in an entire +winter. Planters annexed wild land, a hundred acres at a time. For the +first time the South was able to supply all the cotton that England's +manufacturers desired. The cities in England awakened to redoubled +industry. Southern cotton lands jumped from $5 to $50 an acre. Whitney +found the South producing 10,000 bales in 1793. Sixty years later it +produced 4,000,000 bales. Historians affirm that this single invention +added $1,000,000,000 as a free gift to the planters of the South. + +Although Eli Whitney took out patents, every planter infringed them. +Whole States organized movements to fight Whitney before the courts. In +1808, when his patent expired, he was poorer than when he began. Feeling +that the Southern planters had robbed him of the legitimate reward of +his invention, Whitney came North and gave himself to the study of +firearms. He invented what is now known as the Colt's revolver, the +Remington rifle and the modern machine gun. Beginning with the feeling +that he had been robbed of his just rights by Southern planters, Whitney +ended by inventing the very weapons that deprived the planters of their +slaves and preserved the Union. + +But the new prosperity and the increased acreage for cotton in the South +created an enormous market for slaves, and soon the sea swarmed with +slave ships. Prices advanced five hundred per cent, until a slave that +had brought $100 brought $500, and some even $1,000. What made slavery +no scourge, but a great religious moral blessing? The answer is, the +cotton gin and the cotton interest that gave a new desire to promote +slavery, to spread it, and to use its labour. For Eli Whitney had made +cotton to be king. Cotton encouraged slavery; slavery at last +threatened the Union and so brought on the Civil War. + +The value of the slave as an economic machine depended upon his +physique, health and general endurance. The slave hunters were +Portuguese, Spaniards and Arabs, who drove the negroes in gangs down to +the coast, where they were loaded upon the slave ships. When the trade +was brisk and prices high, the hold of the ship was crowded to +suffocation, and intense suffering was inevitable. Landing at Savannah +or Charleston, Mobile or New Orleans, the slaves were sold at wholesale, +in the auction place. Later, the slave dealer drove them in gangs +through the villages, where they were sold at retail. The cost of a +slave varied with the price of cotton. Of the three million one hundred +thousand slaves living in the South in 1850, one million eight hundred +thousand were raising cotton. That was the great export, the basis of +prosperity. So great was the demand in England for Southern cotton that +profits were enormous. The Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's time +published a list of forty Southern planters in Louisiana and +Mississippi. One of them had five hundred negroes and sold the cotton +from his plantation at a net profit of one hundred thousand dollars. +Each negro, therefore, netted his master that year five hundred dollars. +The working life of a slave was short, scarcely more than seven years, +and for that reason the ablest negro was never worth more than from a +thousand to twelve hundred dollars. + +But if the cost of free labour was high, the cost of supporting the +slave under the Southern climate was very low. The climate of the Gulf +States is gentle, soft and propitious. Of forty planters who published +their statements, the average cost of clothing and feeding a slave for +one year was thirty dollars. One Louisiana planter, however, showed that +one hundred slaves on his plantation had cost him in cash outlay seven +hundred and fifty dollars for the entire year. This planter states that +his slaves raised their own corn, converted it into meal and bread, +raised their own sugar-cane, made their own molasses, built their own +houses out of the forest hard by. The slaves also raised their own +bacon, but unfortunately the price of meat was so high as to make its +use only an occasional luxury. North Carolina passed a law commanding +the planters to give their slaves meat at certain intervals, but the +law remained a dead letter. Other states, by legal enactment, fixed the +amount of meal that should be given to slaves. + +When Fanny Kemble, the English actress, retired from the stage, it was +to marry a Southern planter, and her autobiography and private letters +throw a flood of light upon the life of the slaves upon a typical +plantation in the cotton States. She says that the planter expected that +about once in seven years he must buy a new set of hands; that the +slaves did little in the winter, but they worked fifteen hours a day in +the spring, and often eighteen hours a day in the summer until the +cotton was picked. She adds that the negro children used to beg her for +a taste of meat, just as English children plead for a little candy. She +states that on her husband's estate slave breeding was most important +and remunerative, and that the increase and the young slaves sold made +it possible for the plantation to pay its interest. "Every negro child +born was worth two hundred dollars the moment it drew breath." + +It was this separation of families that touched the heart of Fanny +Kemble Butler, and stirred the indignation of Harriet Martineau, who at +the end of her year at the South wrote that she would rather walk +through a penitentiary or a lunatic asylum than through the slave +quarters that stood in the rear of the great house where she was +entertained. It is this element that explains the statement of John +Randolph of Virginia. Conversing one evening about the notable orations +to which he had listened, the great lawyer said that the most eloquent +words he had ever heard were "spoken on the auction block by a slave +mother." It seemed that she pleaded with the auctioneer and the +spectators not to separate her from her children and her husband, and +she made these men, who were trafficking in human life, realize the +meaning of Christ's words, "Woe unto him that doth offend one of My +little ones; it were better for him that a millstone were placed about +his neck and that he were cast into the depths of the sea." + +In this era of industrial education for the coloured race it is +interesting to note that five of the slave States imposed heavy +penalties upon any one who should teach the slaves to read or write. +Virginia, however, permitted the owner to teach his slave in the +interest of better management of the plantation. North Carolina finally +consented to arithmetic. After 1831 and the Nat Turner negro +insurrection more stringent laws were passed to prevent the slaves +learning how to read, lest they chance upon abolition documents. A +Georgian planter said that "The very slightest amount of education +impairs their value as slaves, for it instantly destroys their +contentedness; and since you do not contemplate changing their +condition, it is surely doing them an ill service to destroy their +acquiescence in it." In spite of the law, however, domestic servants +were frequently taught to read. Frederick Douglass found a teacher in +his mistress, where he was held as a domestic slave, and Douglass in +turn taught his fellow slaves on the plantation by stealth. The +advertisements of slaves that mention the slave's ability to read and +cipher, as a reason for special value, prove that the more intelligent +slaves had at least the rudiments of knowledge. Olmstead, in his "Cotton +Kingdom," says he visited a plantation in Mississippi, where one of the +negroes had, with the full permission of his master, taught all his +fellows how to read. + +An examination of the influence of slavery upon the poorer whites shows +that two-thirds of the white population suffered hardly less than did +the coloured people. The slaveholding class formed an aristocracy, who +dominated and ruled as lords. When the war broke out, there were about +four hundred thousand slave-holders, and nine and a half million people. +But of these four hundred thousand slave-holders, only about eight +thousand owned more than fifty slaves each, and it was this mere handful +who lived in splendid homes, surrounded with luxury, beauty, and +refinement. Travellers who have thrown the veil of romance and +enchantment about the Southern home, with a great house embowered in +magnolia trees, its rooms stored with art treasures, its walls lined +with marbles and bronzes, and its banqueting room at night crowded with +beautiful women and handsome men--these travellers speak of what was as +a matter of fact exceptional. We must remember that these men +represented a small aristocracy; that their mode of life, so charmingly +pictured by many accomplished writers, was the life of a select group, +and that the great slave plantations numbered not more than eight +thousand in that vast area. + +From the hour of the organization of the Abolition Society, these +Southern planters assumed an aggressive position. Their editors, +politicians and lawyers began to publish briefs, in support of the +peculiar institution. The usual argument began with ridicule of Thomas +Jefferson's famous statement that all men are born equal. The second +argument was an economic one, based on the value of the slaves. Three +million slaves would average a value of five hundred dollars each, and +this meant a billion five hundred millions of property, that had to be +considered as so much property in ships, factories, engines, reapers, +pastures, meadows, herds and flocks. All planters invoked the words of +Moses, permitting the Hebrews to hold slaves, and therefore exhibiting +slavery as a divine institution. Statesmen justified the Fugitive Slave +Law by triumphantly quoting Paul's letter, sending Onesimus back to his +rich master, Philemon. Jefferson Davis rested his argument upon the +curse that God pronounced upon Canaan, and asserted that slavery was +established by a decree of Almighty God and that through the portal of +slavery alone the descendant of the graceless son of Noah entered the +temple of civilization. Once a year the Southern minister preached from +the text, "Cursed be Canaan, the son of Ham. A servant of servants shall +he be unto his brethren." + +A few scholars grounded themselves on the scientific argument. These men +held that the black man was separated from the Saxon by a great chasm, +that if freed he was not equal to self-government, that he was a mere +child when placed in competition with the white man, and that the strong +owed it to the weak, that it was the duty of every superior man to take +charge of the inferior, and impose government from without. + +The politician had a stronger argument in defense of slavery. He held +that the nation that was strong, educated, prosperous, with an army and +navy, had not only the right but the duty of imposing government upon a +colony that was ignorant, poor, and degraded, and that this example of +the nation governing a colony by force of arms proved that the white +man, as master, should impose government from without upon the slave. + +Not until years after the war was over did men fully realize that +slavery was weight and free labour wings to the people. The North +believed that the working man should be free, that he should be +educated in the public schools, and that the only way to increase his +wage was to increase his intelligence. Each new knowledge, therefore, +brought a new economic hunger, and made the free labourer a good buyer +in the market, thus supporting factories and shops. Contrariwise the +slave was a poor buyer. The negro picking cotton out of the pod had few +wants,--one garment about his loins, a pone of corn bread, a husk +mattress,--no more. For that reason the slave starved the factory and +shop. Invention in the South perished. Every attempt to found a factory +was attended with failure. Of necessity, the North grew steadily richer +straight through the war, while the South grew steadily poorer. The war +closed with Northern factories and shops and trade at the high tide of +prosperity. The free working man asked many forms of clothing for the +body, books and magazines for the mind, pictures for the walls, +sewing-machine, the reed organ, every conceivable comfort and +convenience for his family, and these many forms of hunger nourished +invention, made the towns centres of manufacturing life, and built a +rich nation. The Northern working man put his head into his task, the +slave, his heel. When the war was over, the South was like a crushed +egg, impoverished by slavery. The peculiar institution had served well +eight thousand slave planters, each of whom owned more than fifty +slaves. But slavery had starved the remaining millions. + +Now that the new era has come, no statesman, no scholar, no editor, has +ever indicted slavery as the costliest possible form of production, with +half the skill, eloquence and conviction of Southern writers. What +Northern men believe, the Southerner knows. Unconsciously the Southern +youth was handicapped in the commercial race. His Northern brother was +an athlete, stripped to the skin, while he dragged a fetter, invisible. +That he should have come so near to winning the race is a tribute to his +courage, endurance, and a mental resource that can never be praised too +highly. If the rest of the world could only fight for good causes, with +half the ability, chivalry and bravery that the South fought for a bad +economic system, the world would soon enter upon the millennium. + + + + +II + +WEBSTER AND CALHOUN: THE BATTLE LINE IN ARRAY + + +The year was 1830; the scene, the Senate Chamber in Washington; the +combatants, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Two hundred and ten +years had now passed since the ship of liberty had come to New England, +and the ship of slavery had landed in Virginia. These centuries had +given ample time for the development of the real genius and influence of +liberty and free labour in the civilization of the North, and of slave +labour upon the institutions of the South. Little by little the +merchants, manufacturers and professional classes of the North had come +to feel that a free and educated working class produces wealth more +cheaply and rapidly than slave labour, and that the working people of +America must be educated and free, if they were to compete with the free +working people of Great Britain and Europe. Contrariwise, the South +believed that manual labour was a task for slaves, that cotton, rice +and sugar were produced more rapidly by slave labour than by free +labour. The Southern civilization was built on the plan of producing raw +cotton, and exchanging it for manufactured goods. It did not escape the +notice of Southern leaders, however, that under free labour the North +had nearly double the population and wealth of the South. But Senator +Hayne explained this by saying that the biggest nations had never been +the greatest, and that the renowned peoples had been like Athens,--small +states, elect and patrician. + +But darkness and light, summer and winter, liberty and slavery cannot +exist side by side, in peace and tranquility. Unite hydrogen and +chlorine, and the chemist has an explosion that takes off the roof of +the house. And because liberty and slavery were antagonistic, and +mutually destructive, whenever the representatives of both came together +there was inevitably an explosion either on the platform or through the +press. It could not have been otherwise. In Palestine two opposing +civilizations came into collision,--one the Hebrew and the other the +Philistine,--and the Philistine went down. In Holland the Dutchmen, +working towards democracy, collided with the Spaniards, working towards +autocracy, and the Spaniard went down. In England, Hampden and Pym came +into collision with Charles the First and Archbishop Laud. The two +leaders of democracy wished to increase the privileges of the common +people by diffusing property, liberty, office and honours, while Charles +the First and Laud wished to lessen the powers of the people, and to +increase the privileges of the throne; democracy won, and autocracy +lost. And now in this republic, a civilization based upon the freedom +and education of the working classes came into collision with the +Southern civilization, based upon ignorant slave labour, and there were +upheavals and political outbreaks everywhere. In vain Abraham tried to +house Isaac, the son of the free woman, and Ishmael, the son of the +slave woman, under one and the same roof. Slowly the men in the North +and the manufacturers of England came to feel that slavery was +interfering with the commerce and prosperity, not simply of the people +of this republic, but of Europe also. Slavery was an economic +obstruction, lying directly in the path of progress. + +The two men who marked out the lines of struggle and precipitated the +conflict were Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Daniel Webster, the +defender of the Constitution, affirmed that the Union was one and +inseparable, now and forever. John C. Calhoun said, "The State is +sovereign and supreme, and the Union secondary." In effect Webster said, +"The central government is the sun, and the States are planets, moving +round about the central orb." Calhoun answered, "There is no central sun +in our political system, but only planets, each revolving in any orbit +it elects for itself." Webster said, "In the cosmic and political system +alike, it is the central sun that causes the States like planets to move +in order and harmony, without collision, and with rich harvests." +Calhoun answered that every planet should be its own sun, and, if it +choose, be a runaway orb, and collide with whom it will. + +Finally, the argument of Webster and Calhoun was submitted to armies. +Grant and Sherman said, "Webster is right; the Union must be +maintained." Lee and Jackson answered, "Calhoun is right; the Union must +go, and the sovereign State remain." At Bull Run, Calhoun's doctrine +seemed to be in the ascendancy; at Gettysburg, Webster's argument seemed +to have the more cogency; at Appomattox Lee withdrew his support from +Calhoun, and allowed Daniel Webster's plea that the Union must abide and +be now and forever, one and inseparable. + +The Northern statesman, Daniel Webster, was probably the greatest +political genius our country has produced. He was born in New Hampshire, +in 1782, and was seven years old when his father gave him a copy of the +newly-adopted Constitution, which he soon committed to memory. His +father belonged to the farmer class, who read by night and brooded upon +his reading by day. In an era of privation for the colonists, by stern +denial he put his son through Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth +College. While still a young man, Daniel Webster leaped into fame by a +single argument before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and became +the competitor of jurists like Rufus Choate. His orations on "Bunker +Hill Monument," the "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," the "Death of +Adams and Jefferson," are among the really sublime passages in the +history of eloquence. In the Girard College case Webster established the +point that Christianity is a part of the common law of the land. +Criminal lawyers quote Webster's argument in the great Knapp murder +trial, that the voice of conscience is the voice of God, as the world's +best statement of the moral imperative, and the automatic judgment seat +God has set up in the city of man's soul. + +Even from the physical view-point he deserved his epithet, "the godlike +Daniel." Not so tall as Calhoun or Clay, he was more solidly built than +either of the Southern orators. His head was so large and beautiful, +that Crawford, the sculptor, thought Webster his ideal model for a +statue of Jupiter. His skin was a deep bronze and copper hue, but when +excited his face became luminous, and translucent as a lamp of +alabaster. His opponents say that Webster had the finest vocal +instrument of his generation, and that he was a master of all possible +effects through speech. His voice was mellow and sweet, with an +extraordinary range, extending from the ringing clarion tenor note, to +the bass of a deep-toned organ. The historian tells us "Webster had the +faculty of magnifying a word into such prodigious volume that it was +dropped from his lips as a great boulder might drop into the sea, and it +jarred the Senate Chamber like a clap of thunder." The Kentucky lawyer, +Thomas Marshall, said when Webster came to his peroration in his reply +to Hayne, that he "listened as to one inspired." He finally thought he +saw a halo around the orator's head, like the one seen in the old +masters' depictions of saints. + +Webster's opponent was John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina. +Calhoun was the first Southern statesman to mark out the lines of battle +and indicate the methods of attack and defense for the supporters of +slavery. Graduating with high honours at Yale, in the class of 1802, +Calhoun studied law for three years at Litchfield, Connecticut, and then +decided to enter politics. In the lecture halls and class rooms, he +stood at the very forefront, as orator and logician. One day, in Yale +College, Calhoun delivered a speech on an apparently absurd proposition, +which he defended with great acuteness. When he had finished, President +Dwight said, "Calhoun, that is a brilliant piece of logic, and if I ever +want any one to prove that shad grow upon apple trees, I shall appoint +you." + +Upon the lines of broad patriotism, with reference to the interests of +the country as a whole, Calhoun supported the war with England in 1812. +From city to city the young lawyer journeyed, travelling all the way +from Charleston and Savannah to Boston and Portland, urging the right +and the duty of the Republic to resist England's claim to the right of +search of American vessels. Calhoun was widely read in history, he was +full of intense patriotism, his arguments were clear, he had unity, +order and movement in his thinking, he had the art of putting things, +and was a perfect master of his audience. At thirty years of age Calhoun +was as popular in Boston as he was later in Savannah and Charleston. In +1824, he was elected Vice-President,--the only man on the ticket to be +chosen by popular vote. From that hour until his death he remained a +member of the triumvirate that controlled the destinies of the Republic, +sharing honours with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. + +In the South Calhoun was all but idolized. He was tall and slender of +person, refined and elegant in manners, carrying with him great personal +charm. He was a puritan in his morals, maintained a spotless reputation, +and escaped all criticism with reference to private life that was +visited upon his competitors. Many a Northern man who went to Congress +hating the very name of Calhoun, the arch-secessionist, was compelled +to confess that he had to steel his heart against the charm of Calhoun's +speech and personality. The simplicity of his character, the clearness +of his thinking, the sincerity and moral earnestness of his nature, all +united to lend him the influence that he exerted over men like Oliver +Dyer, Webster's friend, who said of Calhoun, "He was by all odds the +most fascinating man in private intercourse that I have ever met." + +When Webster and Clay came into collision, it was over a subject +apparently far removed from the bondage of slaves. If slavery was the +spark that fired the magazine for the great explosion in 1861, the +tariff furnished the powder. The South produced raw material, and +imported all her tools, comforts and conveniences, while the North had +free labour, and her educated working classes were good purchasers, and +lent generous support to manufacturers. Exporting its raw cotton to +England, the South sent its leaders to Congress to ask for free trade +with foreign countries, or in any event, a lower tariff. The Northern +manufacturers sent their leaders to Congress to ask for protection +against foreign woollens, cottons, and all English tools and French +silks, and luxuries. Therefore the interests of the North antagonized +the interests of the South. In the South the anti-slavery sentiment had +disappeared because of Whitney's cotton gin. As Beecher wittily put it +in his Manchester speech: "Slaves that before had been worth three to +four hundred dollars began to be worth six hundred. That knocked away +one-third of adherence to the moral law. Then they became worth seven +hundred dollars, and half the law went; then eight or nine hundred +dollars, and there was no such thing as moral law; then one thousand or +twelve hundred dollars, and slavery became one of the beatitudes." + +The Southern leaders, therefore, wanted free trade with England; the +North urged protection, in the interest of the whole country, rather +than a group of States. The South believed that Northern politics was +selfish; the North believed that the Southern leaders were building up +English manufacturers, and weakening their own country! The people +became one great debating club, and the dispute waxed more bitter day by +day. Every new event seemed to widen the breach. The war of the +Revolution made for unity between North and South, just as the hammer +welds together two pieces of red hot iron. The soldiers of the +Revolution had marched under the same flag, supported the same +Declaration of Independence, and fought for the same Constitution. +Slavery in the North had died through inanition, and during the +eighteenth century in the South also slavery seemed in process of +extinction. But now, in 1830, slavery had become a great source of +immeasurable wealth to the South, just as manufacturing had built up the +prosperity of the North. + +The tariff discussion came to a climax in 1828, through the passing of a +customs act, known as the Tariff of Abominations. Sparks falling on ice +carry no peril, but sparks falling on the dry prairie cause +conflagrations. The news of the passing of the protective tariff created +intense excitement in South Carolina. Public meetings were called in all +the towns in the land, and protests were made against the execution of +the new law. Legislators in the State capital, orators on the platform, +editors through their columns, urged nullification. There were two +reasons for this growing hostility to protection on the part of the +citizens of Calhoun's State; first the belief that as England was the +largest purchaser of cotton, it was to South Carolina's best interest to +have English goods brought in free; second the conviction that the +tariff was a strictly sectional movement in the interest of the +manufacturing North, as opposed to the South with her raw cotton and +slave labour. + +As a candidate for the vice-presidency in 1828 on the same ticket as +General Jackson, Calhoun took no definite step until after the election, +when he published a paper showing the evil which the protective tariff +was doing the Southern states, and asserting the right to interpose a +veto. In January, 1830, having broken with Jackson and abandoned all +hope of later obtaining the presidency by his aid, Calhoun decided to +test the theory of nullification upon the national theatre. Accordingly, +under his direction, Senator Hayne inserted in his speech on the Foote +Resolution on the public lands the defense of what was to be known later +as the South Carolina Doctrine,--that, if a State considered a law of +Congress unconstitutional (as South Carolina asserted the recent tariff +act to be) the State had the right to nullify the law, and, if +obedience was sought to be enforced, the right to secede from the Union. + +His position has been stated by no one so clearly as by himself, for he +spent the next three years perfecting and elaborating his argument. As +the basis of his structure he employed a distinction between "a nation" +and "a union." England was a nation--the United States was a union. +Russia, Austria and Turkey were nations--this republic a union of +sovereign states. Prussia was presided over by a king and was a +nation--the United States was a republic and the citizens ruled +themselves. Calhoun distinguished also between sovereignty and +government; sovereignty is a birthright, a natural and inalienable right +vouchsafed by God; government is an artificial right established by law. +Sovereignty is an inexpungable and inherent privilege; government is a +secondary and artificial privilege. When any sovereign State is injured, +it has not only the right but the duty to withdraw from the compact that +has been broken. The popular notion is that this idea of _Secession_ was +originated by Calhoun and was a South Carolina heresy; as a matter of +fact, it was first presented in Congress by Josiah Quincy, and should +be called "A Massachusetts heresy." + +In 1811, as one of the results of the purchase of Louisiana by +Jefferson, a bill had been offered providing for the reception of the +State of Orleans into the Union. The people of New Orleans spoke the +French language, lived under the code of Napoleon, were monarchial in +their sympathy, and Quincy opposed the bill, just as many men to-day +would oppose the reception into the Union of the Philippines, the +Hawaiians or the Porto Ricans. Mr. Quincy declared that if Orleans were +admitted, the several States would be freed from the federal bonds and +that "as it will be the right of all States, so it will be the duty of +some, to prepare definitely for separation, amicably if they can, +violently if they must." When the speaker ruled out of order these +remarks, Quincy appealed, and the House of Representatives sustained his +appeal by a vote of fifty-six to fifty-three. Congress, under the lead +of Massachusetts, went on record that "it was permissible to discuss a +dissolution of the Union, amicably if we can--forcibly if we must." + +Two years later, Henry Clay taunted the Massachusetts leaders with this +threat to dismember the Union. In 1844, Charles Francis Adams, in a +speech opposing the annexation of Texas, affirmed the right of the +Northern States to dissolve the Union. Even Charles Sumner and Horace +Greeley held the same views in 1861. The editor was anxious to "let the +erring sisters go," believing that the withdrawal was parliamentary; +while Charles Sumner said: "If they will only go, we will build a bridge +of gold for them to go over on." + +But it was Calhoun who carried the doctrine of _Nullification_ to its +full development, and who worked out the theory of sovereignty. In the +debate with Webster, on the Force Bill, he stated his argument as +follows: "The people of Carolina believe that the Union is a union of +States and not of individuals; that it was formed by the States, and +that the citizens of the several States were bound to it through the +acts of their several States; that each State ratified the Constitution +for itself, and that it was only by such ratification of the States that +any obligation was imposed upon its citizens.... On this principle the +people of the State [South Carolina] have declared by the ordinance that +the Acts of Congress which imposed duties under the authority to lay +imposts, were acts not for revenue, as intended by the Constitution, but +for protection, and therefore null and void." "The terms union, federal, +united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of +States. The sovereignty is in the several States, and our system is a +union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a constitutional compact, +and not of a divided sovereignty between the States severally and the +United States." + +His attitude towards slavery is illustrated by the remarks he delivered +in the Senate. "This agitation has produced one happy effect at least; +it has compelled us of the South to look into the nature and character +of this great institution of slavery, and correct many false impressions +that even we had entertained in relation to it. Many in the South once +believed that it was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion +are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as a most safe +and stable basis for free institutions in the world. It is impossible +with us that the conflict can take place between labour and capital, +which makes it so difficult to establish and maintain free institutions +in all wealthy and highly civilized nations, where such institutions as +ours do not exist." + +Calhoun's attempt to have his doctrine set forth on the floor of the +Senate Chamber met a crushing blow. When the hour came, he chose, to +present his view, Hayne of South Carolina, who defended the doctrine of +nullification with great brilliancy and energy. Hayne took the ground +that nullification was the old view always held by Virginia, that it was +the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson, and had been urged by Josiah Quincy of +Massachusetts itself. He was a most gifted orator. After a century of +preparation, at length slavery had chosen its strategic position and +drawn the battle line. From that moment it was certain that slavery must +go, or that the Union must go. A feeling of apprehension spread over the +land. Fear fell upon the hearts of the people. The one question of the +hour was whether Webster could answer the Southern orator and sweep away +the fog with which Hayne had enveloped the discussion, and make the old +Constitution stand out as firm as a mountain, with principles as bright +as the stars. + +By universal consent Webster's reply is our finest example of forensic +eloquence. The essence of the argument was the right of the majority to +control the minority. That one State could nullify and secede whenever +the majority outvoted it, practically destroyed the jury system which is +embedded in Saxon history, destroyed the right of the majority of the +aldermen to control the great city, destroyed the right of the majority +of the supreme justices to make their decision. Webster's argument +crushed the doctrine of secession, and made the Republic a nation. Thus +Calhoun and Webster marked out the line of battle, for when the men in +gray and the men in blue met at Gettysburg and Appomattox it was to +determine whether Calhoun or Webster was right. Grant's final victory +simply stamped with a seal of blood the great charter that Webster's +genius had formulated. + +In retrospect the wonderful thing about Webster's reply is that his +notes were confined to a sheet of letter paper. Afterwards Webster said +that it had been carefully prepared, for while there is such a thing as +extemporaneous delivery, there is "no extemporaneous acquisition." Not +until he entered the Senate Chamber and saw the crowds did he feel the +slightest trepidation. "A strange sensation came. My brain was free. +All that I had ever read or thought or acted, in literature, in history, +in law, in politics, seemed to unroll before me in glowing panorama, and +then it was easy, if I wanted a thunderbolt, to reach out and take it, +as it went smoking by." When Lyman Beecher had read Webster's reply to +Hayne, he turned to a friend and exclaimed, "It makes me think of a +red-hot cannon-ball going through a bucket of empty egg-shells." + +From that hour patriotism rose like a flood. For two generations the +reply has been to Americans what Demosthenes on the Crown was to the +Athenians. Webster placed the nation above the union, made the Nation, +in its constitutionally specified sphere of action, sovereign and +primary, the States secondary and subordinate. He thus made possible a +world-wide victory for free institutions, by which, to-day, democracy +and self-government are making thrones totter and tyrants tremble, and +giving us the assurance that no government is so stable as a government +conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are +free and equal. Webster made logical use of "government of the people, +by the people, and for the people." The soldiers of Gettysburg +exhibited their willingness to defend such a government, to live for +free institutions, and if necessary to die for them. + +Now that long time has passed, Southerners and Northerners alike concede +that Calhoun made three mistakes. He fought against progress and +civilization that has destroyed slavery on moral grounds. He also failed +to see that slavery was the worst possible system of production, for if +the South produced under slavery 4,000,000 bales of cotton in 1861, now +that the coloured man is free she produces 15,000,000 bales of cotton +per year. His theory of the right of the minority as a sovereign right +of secession has broken down at the bar of civilization. If South +Carolina or any State has the right to withdraw, whenever the majority +of other States outvote it, it means that the minority always has a +right to disobey the majority, which means not simply the withdrawal of +the one State from the many States, but later, the withdrawal of a few +counties from a majority of the counties in that State, giving an +endless series of confusions. If any single doctrine is established +among civilized nations to-day it is this one, under democratic +institutions--the right of the majority to rule. + +Three years later Webster once more marked out the basis of the North's +position for all time in a debate with Calhoun himself. Without the +magnificent flights of eloquence which distinguished the Reply to Hayne, +this speech of February 16, 1833, was filled with close and powerful +reasoning. Once and for all he maintained: + +"1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a league, +confederacy, or compact between the people of the several States, in +their sovereign capacities, but a government proper, founded on the +adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and +individuals. + +"2. That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations; that +nothing can dissolve them but revolution. And that consequently there +can be no such thing as secession without revolution." + +The importance of that argument in the history of our country cannot be +overestimated. As James Ford Rhodes has put it: "The justification +alleged by the South for her secession in 1861 was based on the +principles enunciated by Calhoun; the cause was slavery. Had there been +no slavery, the Calhoun theory of the Constitution would never have been +propounded, or had it been, it would have been crushed beyond +resurrection by Webster's speeches of 1830 and 1833. The South could not +in 1861 justify her right to revolution, for there was no oppression nor +invalidation of rights. She could, however, proclaim to the civilized +world what was true, that she went to war to extend slavery. Her defense +therefore is that she made the contest for her constitutional rights, +and this attempted vindication is founded on the Calhoun theory. On the +other hand, the ideas of Webster waxed strong with the years; and the +Northern people, thoroughly imbued with these sentiments, and holding +them as sacred truths, could not do otherwise than resist the +dismemberment of the Union." + +The great crisis that broke Mr. Webster's health and perhaps his heart +came through a misunderstanding. In 1850 the discussion over the Wilmot +proviso was stirring the Senate; Henry Clay had brought in his series of +compromise resolutions, based on the sober belief that the Union was in +imminent danger, and that once again the skillful hand that had penned +the Missouri Compromise might turn the country back into the path of +peace and prosperity. Calhoun, the second of the great Triumvirate, was +already within a month of death. Too weak to read his speech, he was +wheeled into the Senate Chamber, to sit with closed eyes while his last +haughty, arrogant defense of the South's rights was read by Senator +Mason. But the greatest of them all was yet to speak. Webster had the +foresight of Civil War, with rivers of blood, and a man on horseback. +Influenced by what we now see was the broadest patriotism, he delivered +his "Seventh of March Speech,"--the opening words of which disclose a +motive and a purpose too often overlooked by his critics. "I speak +to-day for the preservation of the Union. 'Hear me for my cause.'" +Briefly, his position was this:--that the Union was primary, dealing +with the liberties of fifty and later one hundred millions of +people,--white men as well as black,--and that the slavery question was +secondary, involving an artificial, less important and less permanent +institution. He discussed slavery from the view-point of history, with +arguments of the philosopher rather than those of the orator. He +defended the compromise measures, with their clause in favour of strict +enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, on the ground that the Government +was solemnly pledged by law and contract, and, indeed, "had been pledged +to it again and again." He closed with that famous paragraph +demonstrating the impossibility of peaceable secession. "Sir, he who +sees these States now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and +expects them to quit their places, and fly off without convulsion, may +look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, +and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing +the wreck of the universe." + +But he had defended the Fugitive Slave Law!--Therefore Abolitionists +burned Webster in effigy. Wendell Phillips called him a second Judas +Iscariot. Whittier wrote "Ichabod" across his forehead. Horace Mann +described him as a "fallen star--Lucifer descending from heaven!" Every +arrow was barbed and poisoned. Webster suffered like a great eagle with +a dart through its heart, beating its bloody wings upward through the +pathless air. + +But now that long time has passed, thoughtful men realize that Webster +had studied the fundamental question more deeply, knew the facts better, +and saw clearer than his detractors. It is true that he erred when he +criticized the Abolitionists on the ground that in the last twenty years +they had "produced nothing good or valuable,"--that his words were +chosen in a way that irritated the North unduly,--and, more important +still, that in his remarks on the Fugitive Slave Law he swerved from the +broad statesmanship which distinguished the rest of the speech. But +twelve years later Abraham Lincoln read Daniel Webster's Seventh of +March Speech, and said Webster was right and Boston was wrong. Lincoln +put Webster's position into his letter to Greeley: "My paramount object +in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to +destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I +would do it; if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, I +would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some, and leaving +others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery I do because +I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear I forbear +because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." And to-day, +after sixty years, our foremost writers are agreeing that "from the +historical view-point Webster's position was one of the highest +statesmanship." But the recognition of Webster unfortunately came too +late. + +As time passed Webster felt more and more keenly the injustice done him. +Bitterness poisoned his days, and sorrow shortened his life. When the +autumn came, he made ready for the end, knowing he would not survive +another winter. One October morning Webster said to his physician, "I +shall die to-night." The physician, an old friend, answered, "You are +right, sir." When the twilight fell, and all had gathered about his +bedside, Mr. Webster, in a tone that could be heard throughout the +house, slowly uttered these words, "My general wish on earth has been to +do my Master's will. That there is a God, all must acknowledge. I see +Him in all these wondrous works, Himself how wondrous! What would be the +condition of any of us if we had not the hope of immortality? What +ground is there to rest upon but the Gospel? There were scattered hopes +of the immortality of the soul, especially among the Jews. The Jews +believed in a spiritual origin of creation; the Romans never reached it; +the Greeks never reached it. It is a tradition that communication was +made to the Jews by God Himself through Moses. There were intimations +crepuscular, but--but--but--thank God! the Gospel of Jesus Christ +brought immortality to light, rescued it, brought it to light." + +Then, while all knelt in his death chamber and wept, Webster, in a +strong, firm voice, repeated the whole of the Lord's Prayer, closing +with these words: "Peace on earth and good will to men. That is the +happiness, the essence--good will to men." And so the defender of the +Constitution, the greatest reasoner on political matters of the +Republic, fell upon death. + + * * * * * + +Reflecting upon Webster's unconscious influence as set forth in the +words, "I still live," one of his eulogists says that when Rufus Choate +took ship for that port where he died, a friend exclaimed: "You will be +here a year hence." "Sir," said the lawyer, "I shall be here a hundred +years hence, and a thousand years hence." With his biographer let us +also believe that Daniel Webster is still here; that he watches with +intense interest the spread of democracy; that he now perceives our free +institutions extending their influence around the globe, beneficently +victorious in many a foreign state; that he rejoices as he beholds "the +gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honoured throughout the +world, bearing that sentiment dear to every true American heart, liberty +and union, now and forever, one and inseparable." + + + + +III + +GARRISON AND PHILLIPS: ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION + + +In retrospect, historians make a large place for the eloquence of the +anti-slavery epoch, as a force explaining the abolition movement. Every +great movement must have its advocate and voice. Garrison was the pen +for abolition, Emerson its philosopher, Greeley its editor, and in +Wendell Phillips abolition had its advocate. Political kings are +oftentimes artificial kings. The orator is God's natural king, divinely +enthroned. Back of all eloquence is a great soul, a great cause and a +great peril. Our history holds three supreme moments in the story of +eloquence--the hour of Patrick Henry's speech at Williamsburg, Wendell +Phillips' at Faneuil Hall and Lincoln's at Gettysburg. The great hour +and the great crisis, the great cause and the great man, all met and +melted together at a psychologic moment. In retrospect Phillips seems +like a special gift of God to the anti-slavery period. Webster had more +weight and majesty, Everett a higher polish, Douglas more pathos, +Beecher was more of an embodied thunder-storm, but John Bright was +probably right when he pronounced Wendell Phillips one of the first +orators of his century, or of any century. + +The man back of Wendell Phillips and the abolition movement was William +Lloyd Garrison. This reformer began his career in 1825, as a practical +printer and occasional writer of articles for the daily press. Among +Garrison's friends were two Quakers, one a young farmer, John Greenleaf +Whittier; the other was Benjamin Lundy, who for several years had spent +his time and fortune protesting against the slave traffic. Lundy had +visited Hayti, to examine the conditions of negro life there,--had +returned to Baltimore, where he had been brutally beaten by a slave +dealer, and had finally come to Boston to test out the anti-slavery +sentiment in New England. He held a meeting in a Baptist church, only to +have it broken up by the pastor, who refused to allow Lundy to continue +his remarks, on the ground that his position could only be offensive to +the South, and therefore dangerous. But Lundy succeeded in having a +committee appointed to consider the problem, and young Garrison was one +of its members. A few months later, Garrison was made the editor of a +journal in Bedford, where he began to advance more and more radical +theories, until a rival editor was irritated to the point of charging +him with "the pert loquacity of a blue jay." But Garrison's fidelity to +his own convictions, and his courage in airing them in public, had won +the respect of the Quaker enthusiast, Lundy, and the old man walked all +the way from Baltimore to Bedford to ask Garrison to join him in his +work of agitation. A year later the two men, one old and discouraged, +the other young and hopeful, both being practically penniless,--started +work in Baltimore. Troubles came thick and fast. The slave dealer who +had beaten Lundy now attacked young Garrison. Carelessly worded +criticisms of a Northern slave dealer from Garrison's own town of +Newburyport led to a suit for libel, and a fine of fifty dollars; +neither man could raise the money to pay the fine, and Garrison went to +jail for forty-nine days. But the youth was full of courage and faith, +and in 1831 we find him once more in Boston, starting a new paper, that +was, if possible, more radical than ever. + +In this second venture he was alone, his office was a garret, his only +helper a negro boy whom he had freed. His paper was called the +_Liberator_, and the first edition appeared in January, 1831. Garrison +registered his sublime vow in his opening editorial: "I will be as harsh +as truth and as uncompromising as justice.... I am in earnest,--I will +not equivocate,--I will not excuse,--I will not retract a single +inch,--and I will be heard." His battle cry was "Immediate, +unconditional emancipation on the soil." + +No movement that wrought so great a national convulsion ever had a more +feeble origin. The Revolutionary fathers had three million colonists as +supporters. The leaders of the Home Rule movement had four millions of +Irishmen to back them. Cobden and Bright were supported and cheered on +by the manufacturers of Central England. But young Garrison stood alone, +with empty hands, a slave boy to support, a hand-press printing a sheet +twelve inches square, never knowing where the money for the next edition +was to come from. His motto was "Our country is the world, and our +countrymen all men, black or white." The genius of his message was +unmistakable: "Is slavery wrong anywhere? Then it is wrong everywhere. +Was it wrong once in Palestine? Then it is wrong in all lands. Is a +wrongdoer bound to do right at any time? Then he is bound to do right +instantly." He distributed his sheets among the merchants of Boston. +Beacon Street shook with laughter, for a new Don Quixote had arisen. But +from the first the South was alarmed, for that little sheet from the +printing-press fell upon the South like the stroke and tread of armed +men. + +The _Liberator_ soon brought friends to this unknown youth. But in +August of this same year, 1831, an event occurred which lifted +Garrison,--almost without his being aware of it,--into truly national +prominence. This was the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia,--a negro +uprising under the leadership of a genuine African slave who knew the +Bible by heart, who claimed to have communication with the Holy Spirit, +and who finally employed an eclipse of the sun as a sign to his +followers that they were to arise and slay their masters. The massacre +which resulted lasted forty-eight hours, and sixty-one white people on +the neighbouring plantations lost their lives. Retribution followed +swiftly, and where the slightest suspicion of guilt was to be found, +negroes were shot at sight or burned against the nearest tree. +Southampton County saw a veritable reign of terror. A storm of +indignation swept over the South; thousands of slave owners living on +their great estates, miles from the nearest military station, feared +themselves victims of a servile insurrection. The cause of the uprising +was at once sought for, and a hundred writers laid the blame at the door +of the Boston _Liberator_. Garrison was indicted for felony in North +Carolina. The legislature of Georgia offered a reward for $5,000 to any +one who would kidnap him and deliver his body within the limits of the +state. With one voice the entire South cried out that the _Liberator_ +must be suppressed. + +Later it became clear that Garrison's part in the Nat Turner rebellion +was nil. The _Liberator_ had not a single subscriber in the South; Nat +Turner had never seen a copy of the paper,--and Garrison had been +specific in his statements that he did not believe in active resistance +to authority, or in the use of force of any kind. But the storm had +broken, and Garrison had to fight his way through it. + +Even in Boston Garrison had to face the mob, and meet the scorn of the +ruling classes of the city. His movement had no popular support, in the +true sense of the word, as it had twenty years later, when Wendell +Phillips led the forces of abolition. Cotton was king, and the fear of +losing the Southern trade sent the mercantile classes into a panic of +fear. Garrison's enemies were by no means confined to the South. He was +like David with his sling; and slavery, with all its vassals, North as +well as South, was Goliath armed with steel. But for Garrison there were +only two words, Right and Wrong, and he would not compromise concerning +either. + +Within two years he succeeded in organizing in Philadelphia the American +Anti-Slavery Society; by 1835 he convinced William Ellery Channing that +the time had fully come for an active crusade, and this old minister, +with a literary reputation in Europe almost as great as that of +Washington Irving, published an abolition book called "Slavery," which +is said to have been read by every prominent man in public life. In 1840 +the society numbered not less than 200,000, and the hardest of +Garrison's work was done. + +But he was to have a potent ally in Wendell Phillips, the explanation of +whose career is in his birth gifts. One of his ancestors was a Cambridge +graduate, who rebelled against the tyranny of Charles, and exchanged +wealth and position for a New England wilderness. It was one of his +forefathers who was the first mayor of Boston. Another founded Phillips +Exeter Academy. Wendell Phillips himself began his career at the moment +when Madison's State Papers had won him the presidency, when John Adams +was the glory of the city, when Channing was the light of the pulpit, +and Lyman Beecher was the idol of orthodox Boston. He was in his early +teens when he waited four hours on a Boston wharf to see Lafayette's +boat come in. He was thirteen when he heard Daniel Webster's oration on +Adams and Jefferson. He was sixteen when he entered Harvard College, and +formed his lifelong friendship with his roommate, John Lothrop Motley. +He studied law with Charles Sumner, in the office of Judge Story, a +legal star of the first magnitude. He was counted one of the handsomest +youths in Boston. There was nothing too bright or too hard for Wendell +Phillips to aspire to, or hope for. At the critical moment, when he had +to decide upon his future career, ambition sang to him, as to every +noble youth. George William Curtis represents Phillips as sometimes +forecasting the future, as he saw himself "succeeding Ames, and Otis and +Webster, rising from the bar to the Legislature, from the Legislature to +the Senate, from the Senate--who knows whither? He was already the idol +of society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of the eloquent +refinement and the conservatism of Massachusetts. The delight of social +ease, the refined enjoyment of taste and letters and art, opulence, +leisure, professional distinction, gratified ambition, all offered +bribes to the young student." The measure of his manhood is in the way +he thrust aside all honours and emoluments that stood in the path of +duty. Only he who knows what he renounces gains the true blessing of +renunciation. + +The young orator's attitude towards slavery was determined by the +mobbing of Garrison. One October afternoon in 1835 Wendell Phillips sat +reading by an open window in his office on Court Street. Suddenly his +attention was diverted from the page by voices, angry and profane, +rising from the street without. Looking down he saw a multitude moving +up the street, and soon found that the multitude had become a mob. Five +thousand men were collected in front of the anti-slavery office, and +were trying to crowd their way up the stairs in search of Garrison. In +another room thirty women were assembled to organize a woman's abolition +society. When the women found that the mob wanted to put them out also, +they sent a message to Mayor Lyman asking protection. When the mayor +arrived with the police, instead of dispelling the mob and protecting +liberty of speech, the mayor dispelled the women and protected the mob. +Discovering that they had the sympathy of the mayor and would be +protected by the police, the lawless element rushed upon the office of +the _Liberator_, smashed in the doors and windows, and dragged Garrison +forth. Bareheaded, with a rope about his waist, his coat torn off, but +with erect head, set lips, flashing eyes, Garrison was dragged down the +street to the City Hall. On every side rose the shout "Kill him! Lynch +him! ---- the abolitionist!" Asking who the man was, Phillips was told +that this was Garrison, the editor of the _Liberator_. Meeting the +commander of the Boston regiment, of which he was a member, he +exclaimed, "Why does not the mayor call out the troops? This is +outrageous!" "Why," answered the officer, "don't you see that our +militia are also the mob?" It was all too true. The mob was made up of +men of property and standing. In that hour Wendell Phillips had his +call. In the person of that man dragged down the street with a rope +around his waist, the most gifted speaker in Boston had found his +client; in the crusade against slavery he found his cause, and soon his +clarion voice was heard sounding the onset. + +To Garrison's organized agitation, begun in 1832, that soon spread all +over the country, must be added a second cause for anti-slavery +sentiment,--the murder of Lovejoy. This was on the night of November 7, +1837. The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was a young Presbyterian minister, a +graduate of Princeton Seminary. He began his career as pastor of a +little church in St. Louis and editor of the _Presbyterian Observer_. At +that time he was not an abolitionist, and, perhaps because he had +married the daughter of a slave owner, he had taken no strong position +either for or against slavery. One day an officer arrested a black man +in St. Louis who resisted arrest, and in the mêlée the officer was +killed. His friends claimed that the negro was a freeman, and that there +was a plot to kidnap him and sell him into the Southern cotton fields, +and that he had a right to resist. The real facts will, doubtless, never +be known. To slave owners, however, it was intolerable that a black man +should resist an officer under any circumstances. A mob collected, the +negro was bound to a stake, wood piled round about, and the prisoner was +burned to death. + +Efforts were made to punish the murderers. In the irony of events the +name of the judge was Lawless, and he charged the grand jury +substantially as follows: "When men are hurried by some mysterious +metaphysical electric frenzy to commit a deed of violence they are +absolved from guilt. If you should find that such was the fact in this +case, then act not at all. The case transcends your jurisdiction, and is +beyond the reach of human law." Of course all the murderers went free. +When Mr. Lovejoy commented editorially upon this outrageous charge, +encouraging lynch law, once again the "mysterious, metaphysical +electric frenzy" broke forth, only this time it destroyed his printing +office. The young minister decided to leave the slave State, and crossed +to Alton, Illinois, where there was not only liberty of speech but +liberty of the printing-press. But a mob crossed over from Missouri and +destroyed his press. Determined to maintain his rights, Lovejoy then +brought another press down the Ohio River from Cincinnati. A group of +his friends carried the type from the steamboat to the warehouse, but +the next night a second mob collected, and when Lovejoy stepped from the +building he was riddled with bullets, the warehouse burned, and the +press, for the third time, flung into the Mississippi. The news of this +murder aroused the continent, filling the South with exultation, and the +North with alarm. Slavery, a subject which had long been tabooed, +suddenly became the one topic of conversation in the home, the store, +the street-car. All editors wrote about it; all Northern pulpits began +to preach on the subject. More faggots had been flung upon the fire, and +oil added to the fierce flames. + +Every explosion asks for powder, but also a spark. Falling on ice, a +spark is impotent, falling on powder, an explosion is inevitable. +Wendell Phillips had already been aroused to sympathy with Garrison and +hatred of slavery, and news of the murder of Lovejoy fell upon his heart +like a spark on a powder magazine. When Boston heard that Lovejoy had +been shot by the mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his +printing-press, the leading men of Boston came together in Faneuil Hall. +William Ellery Channing made the opening address, and asked that the +meeting go on record through an indignant protest against this assault +upon the rights of free citizens. James T. Austin, attorney-general of +the commonwealth, replied in a bitter and insulting reference to +Channing, asserting that a clergyman with a gun in his hand, or mingling +in the debate of a popular assembly in Faneuil Hall, was marvellously +out of place. Austin compared the slaves of the South to a menagerie of +wild beasts, and asserted that Lovejoy in defending them was +presumptuous, and died as a fool dieth. He added that the rioters in +Alton killed Lovejoy and flung his press into the river in the spirit of +the Boston mob that boarded the British ships in 1773, and threw the +tea overboard on the night of the "Boston Tea Party." + +That was a great moment in the history not only of liberty, but also in +that of eloquence. Wendell Phillips, then but six years out of Harvard +College, rose to reply. "A comparison has been drawn between the events +of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted +here in Faneuil Hall that Great Britain had a right to tax the colonies. +And we have heard the mob at Alton, drunken murderers of Lovejoy, +compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow +citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? The mob at Alton were met to +wrest from a citizen his just rights,--met to resist the laws. Lovejoy +had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only +defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in +arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him +went against and over the laws. The mob, as the gentleman terms it (mob, +forsooth!--certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvellously +patient generation!), the 'orderly mob' which assembled in the Old South +to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal +exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and Stamp Act +laws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but the king's +usurpation. To find any other account you must read our revolutionary +history upside down. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a +precedent for mobs is an insult to their memory. They were the people +rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the province. The rioters +of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the +gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by +side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those +pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken +into voice to rebuke the recreant American,--the slanderer of the dead. +Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the +prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have +yawned and swallowed him up. Imprudent to defend the liberty of the +press! Why? Because the defense was unsuccessful? Does success gild +crime into patriotism, and the want of it change heroic self-devotion +into imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw +away the scabbard?" + +The next morning young Phillips, like Lord Byron, awoke to find himself +famous. Merchants, politicians, who had long been staggering like +drunken men, indifferent to their rights, and confused in their +feelings, were stunned into sobriety, and began to discuss principles, +and weigh characters, and analyze public leaders, and wakening, men +found that they had been standing on the edge of a precipice. Phillips, +already devoted to the slave, became now his tireless champion through +many years, till the emancipation of 1863. + +One evening in May, 1854, a negro was seen skulking in the shadows near +a dock in Boston. This coloured man, Anthony Burns by name, was a slave, +who had escaped from his Southern master, and after weeks had reached +Philadelphia, where a Quaker had stowed him away in a ship bound for +Boston. A Boston policeman who caught sight of the negro recalled the +rewards offered for the capture of slaves, and soon ran the fugitive +down, and had him before United States Commissioner Loring. The next +morning Theodore Parker hastened to the court-room to say that he was +the chaplain of the Abolition Society, and had come to offer counsel. +But the fugitive was afraid to accept the overture, lest his master +punish him the more severely. + +The news spread quickly throughout the city, and two nights later a +meeting in Faneuil Hall was attended by an enormous gathering, aroused +to the highest pitch of excitement. Hand-bills had been put out, stating +that kidnappers were in the city. The people were in a frenzy. Theodore +Parker delivered one of his most impassioned addresses. "I am an old +man; I have heard hurrahs and cheers for liberty many times; I have not +seen a great many _deeds_ done for liberty. I ask you, Are we to have +deeds as well as words?" Parker moved that, when the meeting adjourned, +it should be to meet the following morning in the square before the +court-house. But he had raised too great a storm to control; a rumour +that a mob of negroes was at that very moment trying to rescue Burns was +all that was needed to empty the room; and the crowd rushed out to the +court-house square. There they discovered a small party of men, led by +Thomas W. Higginson, trying to batter down the court-house doors. The +crowd lent them willing hands. But the marshall defended the +building,--shots were fired,--Higginson wounded, and several of his +followers arrested. Two companies of artillery were at once ordered out +by the mayor, and the attempt to rescue the negro met with complete and +disastrous failure. Wendell Phillips and Parker were the leaders in the +fight. When asked what he would regard as grounds for the return of +Burns to his master, Phillips answered, "Nothing short of a bill of sale +from Almighty God." + +The day of the transfer of the slave to the United States revenue cutter +found Boston in a state of siege. Twenty-two companies of Massachusetts +soldiers patrolled the city; two rows of soldiers, armed with muskets, +shotted to kill, stood on either side of the street through which Burns +was to be led to the vessel. The windows were filled with people, the +houses hung in black, the United States flags were draped in mourning. +From a window near the court-house hung a coffin, with the legend: "The +funeral of liberty." The procession itself was composed of a battalion +of United States artillery, one of United States marines, the +marshall's posse of 125 men guarding the fugitive, and a small cannon, +with two more platoons of marines to guard it. To such a pass had come +Boston, with its respect for law, and its reputation for obedience to +those clothed in authority. A Charleston paper spoke of the return of +Burns as a Southern victory, but added that two or three such victories +would ruin the cause. For the movement against slavery was now rising, +with all the advance of a tidal wave and a mighty storm. + +The public excitement was greatly increased by the Fugitive Slave +legislation of 1850 and 1854. Many Northern men who were opposed to +slavery in the North condoned slavery in the South. Just as Demetrius +urged that by the making of images of Diana "we have our gain," so timid +capital in the North bowed like a suitor at the feet of the imperial +South, and advised silence, remembering that through the money of +Southern planters it had its livelihood. Wendell Phillips went up and +down the land stirring up opinion against the law. He spoke three +hundred times in one year and two hundred and seventy-five times in +another year. Phillips rose upon the opposition like a war eagle +against an advancing storm. Brave men defied the law, organized the +Underground Railroad, and in every way possible defeated the purpose of +the Fugitive Slave Law. So in 1854 when Senator Douglas engineered +through Congress the famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri +Compromise, the North refused to accept what was so palpably pro-slavery +legislation. This was revolutionary. Instantly the North divided into +two camps. The one question of the hour was "Shall a fugitive slave be +furnished with weapons with which to defend his person, and has he the +right of self-defense?" The whole land became a debating society, and +heaved with excitement, like the heaving of an earthquake. The merchant +pointed to his ledger, and urged caution. But liberty was stronger than +the ledger, and the heaving emotion burst through the statutes and rent +the laws asunder. Soon the Fugitive Slave Law, had become a dead letter. +The South had gone one step too far. Abolition stood suddenly in a new +light; "More abolitionists had been made by this single piece of hostile +legislation," said Greeley, "than Garrison and Phillips could have made +in half a century." + +For thirty years Wendell Phillips was the crowned king of the lecture +platform. It was the golden age of the lyceum. Men had more leisure than +to-day. Our era of the drama, music, and travel pictures had not yet +come. The winter nights were long, books few, magazines had not yet +developed, and the people were hungry for instruction and eloquence. +Wendell Phillips achieved the astonishing feat of speaking three hundred +times a year. Eloquence is born of a great theme like the woes and +wrongs of three million slaves. It is sometimes said that oratory is +dying out in our Congress. But Congress is now a board of trade, +discussing duties, protective tariffs on wool, cotton, and hides. +Beecher and Phillips had a great theme--liberty, the emancipation of +millions of slaves. The modern orator in the Senate discusses the +mathematics of woolen goods. It is hard to be eloquent over one salt +barrel and two piles of cowhides. A sermon or a lecture on topics that +fifty years ago would have crowded the greatest room and the street +outside would not to-day draw a corporal's guard. + +But in those heroic days, there was a great opportunity, and the +opportunity was matched by the man. Phillips was handsome as an Apollo. +His voice was sweet as a harp. No man ever studied the art of public +speech more scientifically. He played upon an audience as a skillful +musician upon the banks of keys in an organ. A Southern slaveholder +heard him in the Academy of Music, hating him, but paying him this +tribute, "That man is an infernal machine set to music." His method was +practically the memoriter method. A gentleman, who heard him give his +"Daniel O'Connell" four times in succession, found that the lecture was +repeated without the slightest variation whatsoever, in ideas, +sentences, inflection of the voice, or even gesture. Phillips prepared +his lectures with the greatest care, and then repeated them hundreds of +times. From the moment when he came upon the platform his presence +filled the eye and satisfied it. His very ease and poise begat +confidence and delight. He carved each sentence out of solid sunshine. +He stood quietly, made few gestures, adopted the conversational tone and +took the audience into his confidence. + +Some of his finest effects were produced by the injection of a +parenthesis. Once in an evening sermon in Plymouth Church, when Beecher +was urging the reëlection of Lincoln and defending the Republican party, +a disputatious individual called out from the congregation, "What about +Wendell Phillips?" To which Mr. Beecher made the instant answer, +"Wendell Phillips is not a Republican. Wendell Phillips is a radical and +an independent. What this country needs is not a man of words but a man +of deeds." A few nights later Wendell Phillips was lecturing in the +Brooklyn Academy of Music before the St. Patrick's Society, and made his +reply in the form of a parenthesis, barbing his shaft with an exquisite +inflection of his voice. "Mr. Beecher said last Sunday night +(_forgetting his own vocation_), 'Wendell Phillips is a man of words, +instead of a man of deeds.'" + +Not that the two men were ever unfriendly, for they were co-workers, +standing side by side in the great movement. Once when the trustees of +yonder Academy refused to allow Mr. Phillips to speak, Mr. Beecher made +it a point of honour with his trustees to let Wendell Phillips speak in +Plymouth Church, and ran the risk of the mob destroying the building. +The tumultuous scenes of that night, when bricks came through the +windows, and the police were stationed in Cranberry and Orange Streets, +were repeated all over the land. Again and again Wendell Phillips was +mobbed. Once, at the very beginning of his career as an abolitionist, he +spoke with an old Quaker. People waited to greet the old Quaker and +asked him home for the night; but they pelted Wendell Phillips with +rotten eggs as he went down the street in the dark. Afterwards Wendell +Phillips said to the old Quaker, "I said just what you did, and yet you +were invited home to fried chicken and a bed, while I received raw eggs +and stone." + +"I will tell thee the difference, Wendell. Thou said, 'If thou art a +holder of slaves, thou wilt go to hell.' I said, 'If thou dost not hold +slaves, thou wilt not go to hell.'" + +But Wendell Phillips would not butter parsnips with fine words. Once in +Boston four hundred men surrounded him, got possession of the hall, and +jeered him for an hour and a half. Finally he leaned over the desk and +shouted down to a reporter, "Thank God there is no manacle for the +printing-press." Armed friends rescued him, guarded him home, and for a +week, night and day, the Boston police guarded the house. Those were +tumultuous days. But this great man braved and outlived the storm. + +When the Emancipation Proclamation was declared, William Lloyd Garrison +said nothing remained now but to die. But Phillips opposed the +dissolution of the Anti-Slavery Society, because he saw that when the +physical fetters were broken, there still remained the fetters of the +mind and heart that must be destroyed. So far from ending his labours, +Phillips now redoubled his activities. He threw himself into the labour +movement and helped organize the working classes into a solid force +against capitalism. He took up the cause of suffrage and the higher +education of woman, gave himself to the temperance problem and +prohibition. He lectured oftentimes two hundred nights a year in the +great cities of the land, seeking always to manufacture manhood of a +good quality. He became himself our finest example of the power and +influence of the scholar in the Republic. And when the end came, he +received from his fellow countrymen the admiration and the love that he +had deserved. And the friends who knew him best were not surprised that +the last words on his lips were the words of his friend James Russell +Lowell, that summarized the ideal that Wendell Phillips had pursued for +thirty years. + + "New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; + They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; + Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, + Launch our _Mayflower_, and steer boldly through the desperate winter + sea, + Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key." + + + + +IV + +CHARLES SUMNER: THE APPEAL TO EDUCATED MEN + + +In every country and time, the era of national peril has been the +creative era for the intellect. The eloquence of Greece was at its best +when Philip attacked Athens and Demosthenes defended its liberties. +Dante's poems were born of the collision between the despots who sought +to enslave Florence, and the patriots who dreamed of democracy. Milton's +songs were written during the English Revolution, when the Puritan, +seeking to diffuse the good things of life, and the Cavalier, who wished +to monopolize the earth's treasure, came into a deadly collision. + +In accordance with that principle it seems natural to expect that the +scholars of the Republic should do their best work during the era of +agitation, when the national intellect was white hot, and public +excitement burned by day and night. The anti-slavery epoch, therefore, +was the Augustan Era of American literature, when the historians, poets +and philosophers lent distinction to American literature. At that time +Motley was writing his "History of the Netherlands"; Prescott, his +"History of Mexico and Spain"; Whittier, his songs of slavery and +freedom; Lowell was the satirist of the debate, and was writing his +"Biglow Papers," and Emerson, the philosopher, was undermining the +foundations and shaking the principles of slavery, even as Samson pulled +down the temple of the olden time. + +Emerson, the philosopher, did the thinking, and furnished the +intellectual implements to the abolitionists. Beginning his career as a +preacher, he resigned his position, moved to Concord, and dwelt apart +from men, but "as he mused, the fire burned." Easily our first man of +American letters, he is among the first essayists of all ages and +climes. Essentially, however, he was a man of intellect, an American +Plato, "a Greek head screwed upon Yankee shoulders," to use Holmes' +expression. His essay upon "The American Scholar," and his book on +"Nature," brought him fame in England, and invitations to lecture before +their colleges. Early in his career he won the friendship of Arnold of +Rugby, of Matthew Arnold the son, of Arthur Hugh Clough, and of Thomas +Carlyle. He returned from his honours in England to find himself the +centre of the intellectual movement of New England. A number of younger +men gathered around him, until Emerson's group at Concord became like +unto Goethe's group at Weimar, and Coleridge's in London. During the +late forties American educators, orators and statesmen began to quote +the striking sentences from Emerson. Little by little it came about that +the fighters went to Emerson as to an arsenal for their intellectual +weapons. His first notable contribution to abolitionism was his "Story +of the West India Emancipation." Then came his "Essay on the Fugitive +Slave Law," his speech on the Assault on Mr. Sumner, his writings on +Kansas, and on John Brown. Few men have had such power to condense a +statement of philosophy into a single epigram. Grant once said of his +soldiers that while each man took aim for himself, Winchester slew all +the thousands. Not otherwise, hundreds of orators and reformers went up +and down the land attacking slavery, but while the voices were many, +the argument was one, and Emerson for a time did the speaking for the +abolitionists. + +What Emerson stated in pure white light, Whittier made popular through +his poems of Slavery and Freedom. By way of preëminence he was the poet +of the abolition movement, and the Sir Galahad among our singers. Reared +among the Friends, he had the simplicity of the Quaker, but the solidity +and massiveness of the fighting Puritan. Strange as it may seem, he was +at once the poet of peace, insisting upon the crime of war, and the poet +of freedom, insisting upon the destruction of slavery. The fire and +glow, the moral earnestness, the spiritual passion of Whittier, are best +illustrated in his "Lost Occasion," and "Ichabod." At length the +newspapers of the North took up his work. For some years before the war +broke out, scarcely a month passed by without a new poem of liberty by +Whittier. Soon these poems that were published in the newspapers were +recited in the schools by the children, quoted in the pulpits by the +preachers, and used by the orators as feathers for their arrows. Once +Wendell Phillips concluded an impassioned oration by reciting one of +Whittier's stanzas, when a man in the audience shouted, "That arrow +went home!" to which Wendell Phillips answered, "Yes, and I have a +quiver full of arrows, every one of which was made by a man of +peace,--John Greenleaf Whittier." If Emerson's philosophy was like the +diffused white daylight that makes clear the landscape for an army, +Whittier's occasional poems like "Ichabod" were thunderbolts that +blasted forever all compromise and expediency. + +Sometimes what the essayist fails to achieve ridicule easily +accomplishes. James Russell Lowell was the satirist of the abolition +movement. With biting scorn and irony he laughed men out of narrowness, +ignorance, and selfishness. During the last epoch in his career Lowell +achieved world-wide fame as a diplomat, and was universally admired as +the all round man of letters. But now that he has gone, in retrospect, +the historian perceives that the first era of Lowell's career was the +influential era. He was the Milton of the anti-slavery epoch, as Lincoln +was its Cromwell. His influence in England, in developing an +anti-slavery sentiment there, was, if possible, more influential than in +the home country. The great English editor, William Stead, tells us +that he owes to Lowell's message the influences that made him an editor +and a reformer. In the critical moments of his life he found in Lowell +the inspiration and support that he found in no other books, save in +Carlyle's "Cromwell" and the Bible. "In Russia, in Ireland, in Rome, and +in prison, Lowell's poems have been my constant companions." The poet +used the story of Moses emancipating the Hebrew slaves as an +illustration of the abolitionist as the unknown leader whom God would +raise up to lead the three million black men out of Southern slavery. +"What God did for the Egyptian bondsmen, he believed God would do; +because what God was, God is. He goes on:-- + +"From what a Bible can a man choose his text to-day! A Bible which needs +no translation; and which no priestcraft can close from the laity,--the +open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine and +destroying fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of +God. Methinks the editor who should understand his calling, and be equal +thereto, would truly deserve that title that Homer bestows upon princes. +He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old +Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain, stared at by the elegant +tourist, and crawled over by the hammer of the geologist, he must find +his tables of the new law here among factories and cities in this +wilderness of sin, called the progress of civilization, and be the +captain of our exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order." + +Certain stanzas of Lowell, also, were quoted even more widely, and were +ever upon the lips of college students. Many a soldier boy who went to +battle from the forest and factory, the fields and the mines, scarcely +knew that his inspiration--like Phillip's oratory--was embodied in +Lowell's poem, "The Present Crisis":-- + + "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, + In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; + Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, + Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, + And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. + + "Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record + One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; + Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-- + Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, + Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own." + +Then came Charles Sumner, the scholar in politics, to make practical the +student's message. Daniel Webster's defense of Massachusetts in his +reply to Hayne, and his wonderful eloquence in the years which followed +that first great address, lifted the old Bay State into unique +preëminence in the Senate: when, therefore, Webster left the Senate and +entered the cabinet of Millard Fillmore, the North and the South alike +asked, with intense interest, who should succeed the defender of the +Constitution. That no dramatic interest might be lacking when, in 1851, +Charles Sumner entered the Senate chamber to take the oath of office, it +came about that Henry Clay, the great Compromiser, left the Senate, +going out at one door, on the very day that Conscience, in the person of +this Puritan, entered it by the other door. John C. Calhoun, inflexible, +iron to the end, adhering tenaciously to his doctrine of secession, had +just died, quite unconscious of the fact that his speeches held the +explosives that were to shatter the South and destroy half a million of +his beloved people. Clay, too, was death-stricken, and with great pathos +referred to himself as "a stag scarred by spears, worried by wounds, +dragging his mutilated body to his lair to lie down and die." Webster +was now gray and broken, with the shadow of the eclipse already drawing +near. In such a moment Charles Sumner began his career by an appeal to +the "everlasting yea" and the "everlasting nay."--"I desire to speak +to-day of some laws greater than any passed in this capital or this +country; older than America, older than India--I mean the laws of God." + +Hitherto slavery had been the aggressor, crowding into Texas, edging +into Missouri, with bullets forcing its way into Kansas. Freedom had +always been on the defensive. Now all was changed, with the coming of a +man whose watchword was "Slavery must be destroyed; liberty must be +preserved." That cold body called the Senate became immediately +conscious of the new influence that entered into the very being of the +government, like iron into the rich blood of the physical system. +Charles Sumner made it clear from the beginning that the movement +against slavery was from the Everlasting Arm. With expediency he had +nothing to do, but only with eternal right and eternal wrong. One day +Daniel Webster reminded his young successor of the importance of looking +on the other side, indicating that a shield that was gold on one side +might at least be silver on the other, to which Sumner replied, "There +is no other side." This Boston scholar became a voice for law, "whose +seat is the bosom of God, and whose speech is the melody of the world." +These eternal laws of God rose up to stay the progress of slavery like +the beetling granite cliffs of Maine, that send forth their voice to the +onrushing tides, saying, "Here stay your proud waves--thus far, and no +farther." + +Ancestry, opportunity and events all conspired to equip Charles Sumner +with those implements that make man great. Like Phillips, he was a +descendant of the early settlers of Boston. His father led the men who +delivered Garrison out of the hands of the mob, and who told the excited +populace that unless Boston was careful "our children's heads will be +broken by cannon-balls." The plastic, critical hours of his youth were +spent in Harvard College and in the law office of Judge Story. Never +interested in philosophy and metaphysics, he was surpassed by few as a +master of the humanities, general literature, and the story of the rise +and progress of democracy and free institutions. Not a man of genius, +Charles Sumner was gifted with talent of a very high order. He had, what +is perhaps better than genius, a capacity for sustained labour and +prodigious industry. He did nothing by halves. In his chosen realm he +became a master of the details of every movement related to free +institutions, since the days of the republics of Greece and Switzerland, +Holland and England. Long after other students had blown out their +lights, Charles Sumner's window was still flaming. At a very early epoch +he exhibited his tenacity of will and his constitutional inability to +change his mind. Once he planned with a companion to walk to Boston on +Saturday morning, starting at half-past seven. When the hour struck, a +snow-storm was raging. But having decided to go to Boston, to Boston the +student went alone, floundering through the blizzard. Snow-drifts were +little things, but changing his plan was an impossible thing. The +centre of his character, about which all else revolved, was a certain +axis of pride and self-esteem, which may be pardoned, perhaps, in view +of the fact that the world takes a man largely upon his own estimate of +personal worth. + +In those days the atmosphere of Boston was charged with enthusiasm for +education and the humanities. Among young Sumner's friends were +Prescott, who was writing the history of Spain and Mexico; Bancroft, who +was outlining his history of the United States; Story, the jurist; +Horace Mann, the educator; Dr. Howe, the father of the movement for the +education of the deaf and dumb; Emerson, Longfellow, Channing and +Whittier--all were not simply friends but correspondents of Charles +Sumner. + +Nor must we forget the Boston of earlier days, the Boston of Adams, and +Otis, of Warren and Quincy. In such a city, surrounded by the noblest +traditions of patriotism, stimulated by the greatest group of scholars +that the Republic has produced, Charles Sumner passed his early manhood. +Then, remembering that Edward Everett had fitted himself for his work in +Harvard University by four years abroad, Sumner, in his twenty-seventh +year, went to Europe. He spent five months in Germany, where the spirits +of Goethe, Richter and Luther lingered upon the scene. In Paris he +studied French, French art, French literature, French philosophy, and +finally attended the debates in the French Parliament, examining the +problems with all the care of a member. He lingered long in England, +where he was welcomed and lionized by the foremost men of letters, +science, philosophy, as well as by the leading clergymen and statesmen +of London. He was an honoured guest not at some, but "at most of the +country seats of England and Scotland." He travelled the circuits as the +companion of the greatest English judges, Vaughan, Parke and Alderson. +He met on a familiar footing Macaulay and Grote, Carlyle and Jeffrey, +Sidney Smith and Wordsworth. But his great year was in Italy, in the +Eternal City, the city of Cæsar and Cicero, the city of Horace and +Virgil. In all, Sumner spent thirty years in preparation for his labour. +Few men in American politics have had a wider horizon, a better +equipment in history and literature, or have known so intimately all the +great men in the world of his own generation who were worth knowing. He +went away to Europe an American; he returned a universal man, a citizen +of the world. + +Not until 1845, when he was thirty-four years of age, did a really great +opportunity come to Sumner. Boston at that far-off day made much of the +Fourth of July, and looked forward to the holiday as the great event of +the year. During the previous autumn the mayor and aldermen of the city +invited Sumner to deliver the oration. Webster made John Adams say, +"When we are in our graves, our children will celebrate the day with +song and story, with oration and pageant, and the explosion of cannon, +and greet it with tears of joy and exultation." But unfortunately the +speeches of that time had degenerated into false rhetoric, full of +insincerity. In his oration, Sumner left the beaten track and plunged +into an unknown way. His theme was the crime of war. He attacked his +city and his country for spending millions upon fortifications in the +harbour. He affirmed that the best protection of a nation was not dead +stones but living patriots and heroes. He called the roll of the great +wars of history, and found only one or two, like our Revolution, that +were really justifiable. He defined war as the temporary repeal of all +the ten commandments, and an enthronement of all the crimes. + +In retrospect we know that Sumner overstated his case. His argument +against physical force would forbid the police in great cities, the +militia on the frontier, and would leave communities exposed to the +ravages of brigands on land and pirates by sea. But for the most part, +Sumner's argument in favour of peace was sound. To-day all civilized +countries are coming to recognize war as a blunder, since questions of +justice cannot be settled by brute force. + +When we consider that France is an armed camp, Germany and Austria +countries of bristling bayonets, that three years at the most critical +epoch of the boy's life are consumed in a camp exposed to all manner of +temptations and dangers, at the very time when the youth should be +mastering his trade or his profession, war seems the capitalization of +all the possible follies and wastes. The peasants of Europe plough, each +carrying a soldier upon his back. The brick-mason builds, but staggers +up the ladder with a heavier load than bricks,--the soldier upon his +back. The symbols of nations are still the lion, the eagle and the wolf. +Some political leaders even yet talk about the necessity of an +occasional war to put boys upon their mettle, as if invention, the +building of railways, the founding of cities, the fighting of economic +and social wrongs would not put a man upon his mettle! To put a German +on one side of a fence and a Frenchman on the other, and have one +peasant empty his shotgun into the bowels of the other is about as noble +as going out into a yard and shooting a Jersey cow. The best way to +protect a nation is to build boys into men, through the processes of +productive industry. Machine gun and dreadnought will soon be as +obsolete in the presence of arbitration and the court at the Hague as an +ox-cart is obsolete in the presence of a Pullman palace car. + +Wendell Phillips once said that Lord Bacon had a right to lay his hand +on the steam engine and say to Watt: "This engine is mine; I gave you +the method." So Charles Sumner, after sixty-five years, has a right to +stand yonder at the entrance of the Parliament House of Peace, now being +completed in the capital of Holland, and say: "I laid the foundation +stones of this structure and started a war against war." This oration +of Sumner's on "The True Grandeur of Nations" made him a most unpopular +figure at home, but Europe soon called for his speech. It was translated +into many languages, two hundred and fifty-thousand copies were +published and sold, and for the time Sumner was the most talked of man +of the year. + +Now the one man who was not on the defensive, who was not content to +merely stay the forward progress of slavery, but insisted on driving it +back into the Gulf and ultimately into the sea, to be drowned forever, +was Charles Sumner, with his "Carthago est delenda." His favourite +phrase was "freedom is national, slavery is sectional." Burke himself, +depicting the sufferings of India, scarcely surpassed Sumner's speech on +the devastation of Kansas by outlaws and guerrillas. Commenting upon the +fact that a company of armed slave owners had crossed the borders at +night, and destroyed the homes of a group of Northern settlers, Sumner +said: "Border incursions, which in barbarous lands fretted and harried +an exposed people, are here renewed, with this peculiarity, that our +border robbers do not simply levy blackmail and drive off a few cattle, +they do not seize a few persons and sweep them away into captivity, like +the African slave-traders whom we brand as tyrants, but they commit a +succession of deeds in which border sorrows and African wrongs are +revived together on American soil, while the whole territory is +enslaved. I do not dwell on the anxieties of families exposed to sudden +assault, and lying down to rest with the alarms of war ringing in the +ears, not knowing that another day may be spared them. Throughout this +bitter winter, with the thermometer thirty degrees below zero, the +citizens of Lawrence have slept under arms, with sentinels pacing. In +vain do we condemn the cruelties of another age--the refinement of +torture, the rack and thumbscrew of the Inquisition; for kindred +outrages disgrace these borders. Murder stalks, assassination skulks in +the tall grass; where a candidate for the Legislature was gashed with +knives and hatchets, and after weltering in blood on the snow-clad +earth, trundled along with gaping wounds to fall dead before the face of +his wife." + +With speeches like these, Sumner attacked slavery. The edge of his +argument was keen, but his blows had also the power of sledgehammers. +The Southern leaders were in a frenzy of anger. Harriet Martineau said +of the situation that from 1830 to 1850, by general agreement, men in +Congress referred to slavery under their breath, believing that only by +silence could the Union be preserved. Now came a man who believed that +silence was criminal, who would not be bullied, and would be heard, who +believed in the Golden Rule, insisted on the Declaration of +Independence, and who, in the name of freedom that was national, wished +to destroy the Fugitive Slave Law and bring about the immediate and +unconditional emancipation of all slaves on the ground. + +When two opposing gases come together, an explosion is inevitable. One +day in 1856, after the adjournment of the Senate, a Southern member of +Congress entered the Chamber, and finding Sumner seated, with his legs +under an iron desk screwed to the floor, and, therefore, helpless for +defense, with a heavy walking-stick the assailant beat the powerless man +into insensibility, two of his friends protecting him from those who +would interfere in his murderous assault. Having lost enough blood to +soak through the carpet and stain the very floor, unconscious, and +hovering between life and death, Sumner was carried to a sofa, thence to +his hotel. From that time on the scholar endured a living death. He was +carried to Paris, where Dr. Brown-Sequard tried "the fire cure" upon the +spine. But for years his desk was vacant. Massachusetts insisted that +the empty seat should proclaim to the world her abhorrence of the +barbarism that, unequal to intellectual debate, betakes itself to clubs +and murder. Later on Sumner did return to his seat, but he was broken in +health, and to the end was tortured with pain. Nevertheless, despite all +the physical distresses, he remained the Puritan in politics, adhering +inflexibly to his old ideals of liberty. The great lesson of Sumner's +life is the importance of fidelity to conviction and singleness of +purpose. All Sumner's speeches in Congress, all his lectures on the +platform, his appeals to the people of the North during the years when +he travelled incessantly, addressing great crowds all over the land, had +a single theme, "Liberty is national, Slavery is sectional; Liberty must +be established, Slavery must be destroyed." He had his faults and +limitations, but men without faults are generally men without force. +Limitations are like banks to a river; they increase the strength of the +current for a mill wheel. Sumner's concentration made his enemies call +him a narrow man and a fanatic. But Paul was narrow when he said, "This +one thing I do." Luther was narrow when he nailed his theses to the door +of the church in Wittenberg. Garrison was narrow and a fanatic when he +said, "I will not equivocate, I will not retreat a single inch, and I +will be heard." Rushing between the cliffs of its banks, the Rhine has +power through confinement; spreading out over the plains of North +Germany, the Rhine becomes a mere marsh, laden with miasm, blown to and +fro with the winds. + +The tallow candle is small, while the summer lightning flashes across +the midnight sky. But for the purpose of studying a guide book in the +dark, one lucifer match is worth a sky full of lightning. + +Sumner had the courage of his convictions; he was brave as a lion. +Having no physical fear, he was devoid also of moral fear. He had the +foresight of far-off things, and could look beyond to-day's defeat to +the coming victory for his cause. He had many bitter enemies. His +intolerance and intellectual arrogance offended men. When a friend said +to President Grant, "Sumner is a skeptic; I fear he does not believe in +the Bible," Grant's instant retort was, "Certainly he does not; he did +not write it." + +But we can forgive much to a man who sacrificed much, and endured the +murderous cross of cruelty, obloquy and shame. A lonely and +companionless man, at the end, he trod the wine-press of sorrow in +solitude and isolation. He had no woman's love to heal his wounded +spirit. His one support was the cause he loved. To this cause he clung +with a tenacity that was as sublime as it was pathetic. The last time he +opened his eyes it was to repeat unconsciously the dearest thoughts of +his life, "All humanity is my country." "Take care of my civil rights +bill." + +When long time has passed, many other great names will pass out of view +like tapers that have burned down to the socket. But the name and memory +of this Puritan will probably survive, as the highest type of the +scholar toiling in the heroic age of the Republic. + + + + +V + +HORACE GREELEY: THE APPEAL TO THE COMMON PEOPLE + + +To the work of the statesmen and jurists, the agitators and orators, +must now be added the contribution of the editors. A loaf of bread +represents many elements united in a single body. The sun lends heat, +the clouds lend rain, the soil its chemical elements, the air its rich +dust, and the result is the wheaten loaf. Not otherwise is it with the +moral and political treasure named the Union and the Emancipation of +slaves. The soldier boys at the front stayed the advancing tide of +rebellion, and flung back from Pennsylvania waves all tipped with fire. +With not less heroism farmer boys at home toiled in the fields to feed +and support the boys in blue. Physicians in the hospitals, nurses at the +front, lived also and died, caring for crippled heroes. Mothers and +daughters, sisters, sweethearts and wives wrought innumerable garments +and hospital supplies, while from full hearts giving inspiration or +courageously bearing the miseries of bereavement. Orators went forth to +incite, ministers brought divine sanctions to inspire men towards +patriotism and self-sacrifice. Statesmen supported the leaders by war +measures, manufacturers and bankers stood behind the government. But to +all these workers must be added the work of the correspondents at the +front, with the editors who consecrated the press to liberty. + +The power and wealth of the newspaper of to-day is explained, in no +small measure, by the battles of the Civil War, that kindled the +interest of millions who had never before read the daily newspaper, but +who became after the first battle students of God's book of daily +events. During those terrible days men slept in dread and wakened in +fear as to what might have happened on the Potomac or the Mississippi. +Out of these tumultuous conditions the Sunday newspaper was born. Before +the battle of Bull Run people of New York and Chicago frowned upon the +Sunday newspaper, just as the people of London and Edinburgh to-day will +have none of it. But when there were a million men in arms and the whole +land trembled with the thunder of cannon and the stroke of battle, +anxious parents, fearful wives, knowing that the conflict was on, when +Saturday's sun set felt that they could not wait till Monday morning for +news from the front. + +But if the war did much for the press, newspaper men did much for +liberty. To supply the people of the country with news from the field, a +veritable army of war correspondents was organized, a telegraphic +service was organized and built up, plans were laid that developed into +the Associated Press. This telegraphic service became a vast and shining +web lying all over this land, with wires that trembled by night and day, +flashing out now despair, and now hope, to innumerable hearts. Liberty +owes a great debt to the press, for it assembled all the people in one +vast speaking chamber, and told them how events were going with the +slave and the Union. + +If we are to appreciate fully the place of the press during the +anti-slavery epoch, we must recall the conditions of American life in +the olden time. When the colonies revolted and published their +Declaration there were in the United States only forty-three newspapers, +most of them weeklies. There were fourteen papers in New England, four +in New York State, two in Virginia, two in Carolina and nine in +Pennsylvania. The entire forty-three papers, however, held less printed +matter than any ten pages of our morning journals. The papers of that +time contained no editorials, and were strictly purveyors of the gossip +and news of the week, with rude advertisements--now a cut of a horse +that had strayed, an apprentice that had escaped, a slave that had run +away, enlivened, indeed, by frantic and pathetic appeals for the +subscribers to pay up their dues. There were no public libraries, no +reading rooms, no inns where men could go on winter evenings and read +the papers. + +That which starved the newspaper was the lack of facilities for +distribution. It cost twenty-five cents to send a letter. Most of the +correspondents were widely separated lovers. Romeo, knowing that Juliet +would not be able to pay twenty-five cents for his weekly effusion, +learned the use of the cypher, and by means of a large circle on the +outside of the letter and a pink spot within it succeeded in conveying +certain mystic symbols of osculation, that told the story of undying +fidelity without paying the postman for the letter that was left in his +hands. The old postman who jogged along between Philadelphia and New +York spent three days on the trip, and put in his time knitting +stockings. John Adams tells us that it took him six days on the coach +from Boston to New York, and that he rose every morning long before day, +took his seat in the cold, dark coach, and listened to the creaking of +the wheels on the snow until two hours after dark until late Saturday +night, cold and exhausted, he entered the little inn near Castle Garden. +For these reasons no newspaper had any circulation beyond its own +county. + +The first railroads that helped distribute the newspapers began to be +built about 1836, and the first ship to carry our newspapers to England +sailed in 1838. The first telegraphic message was sent from Washington +to Baltimore in 1844. The first cablegram in the interest of the press +was sent in 1858. Meanwhile the people were isolated, starved, being +fully conscious that they were like peasants shut in between mountain +walls, while they longed to be citizens of the universe. A single +illustration from history will explain the isolation of communities at +that time:--the news that Jackson had been elected President in early +November did not reach his own State of Tennessee until after New Year's +Day! + +Horace Greeley entered the scene at a great crisis for the people, and +was raised up to fill a national need. God had prepared the soldiers to +fight for the people, the orators to speak to the people, the physicians +to heal the people, the educators to instruct the people. He had raised +up the statesmen to make the laws, but the world waited for men to cause +knowledge to run up and down the land. The common people found a friend +in Horace Greeley. He was born in 1811, in Amherst, Massachusetts, near +the very cabin in which his forefathers had settled. God gave him a +hungry mind, which literally consumed facts of nature and life. Not John +Stuart Mill himself was more precocious than Horace Greeley. He was +reading without difficulty at three years of age, and read any ordinary +book at five. There never was an hour when he was not the best scholar +in the little log schoolhouse, where he suffered the long winter +through, scorched if he was on the inside circle next to the fire, or +freezing if he was on the outer rim. + +Reading was the boy's master passion. Like the locust, he consumed every +dry twig and green branch of knowledge. Before he was ten years of age +he believed he had read every book that could be borrowed within a +radius of six miles. He read the Bible through, every word, when he was +five years old; at eleven he had read Shakespeare and Byron. Spelling +was at once a taste and an acquisition. The people of his neighbourhood +put the child up against other crack spellers in the school districts. +It is said that in the old evening spelling-bees, his school-teacher, +who had him in charge, had to wake the child up when his turn came +around to spell. The trustees of Bedford Academy passed a resolution +permitting Horace Greeley, although outside of the district, to enter +their school, while a few teachers raised a purse, and made an offer to +his father to send the boy to Phillips Exeter Academy. But pride +prevented. Horace Greeley's childhood fell on evil days. Men were +miserably poor. It was one long warfare with hunger and cold. The +ravages of disease among children were really the result of insufficient +food in those poverty-stricken times. Although the mortgage on the farm +was a mere bagatelle, the father lost the homestead, and became a hired +man on fifty cents a day, on which amount he had to feed and clothe his +family. This boy worked by day and studied by night. History and +politics, poetry and science, formed the staples of his reading and +reflection. For two years he pleaded with his father to apprentice him +to a printer; the day that the printer refused the boy and showed the +poor farmer and his son the door, brought black gloom to his heart, for +when the door of the printing office closed before him, the gates of +paradise seemed shut forever. + +Trained in the school of experience, and a graduate of the university of +hard-knocks, at twenty years of age the boy determined to seek his +fortune in New York. There are few scenes more pathetic than the +spectacle of this friendless boy starting to walk from Erie, Pa., to +this metropolis, then a city of only two hundred thousand people. He had +a tow head, a bent form, a singular dress, and carried his entire +belongings in a little bundle, supported by a walking stick thrown over +his shoulder. Partly on foot, partly on the wagon of some farmer, who +gave the traveller a lift, partly on the canal boats, Horace Greeley +made his way until, after many days, in August, 1831, he landed at the +foot of Wall Street. + +Not Benjamin Franklin, landing on the wharves of Philadelphia, and +buying a fresh roll on which he breakfasted while he went about looking +for work, is so fascinating a figure as this simple-hearted, unworldly, +artless, unsophisticated youth, with the step of a clodhopper and the +face of an angel. Counting his coin, the boy found he had ten dollars +left, and straightway took lodgings on West Street, for which he +promised to pay two dollars and a half a week. He soon found a job and +began to set type on an edition of the New Testament, with marginal +notes in Greek and Latin. In two years he had his own printing office, +and in 1834 the youth found his place as the editor of the _New Yorker_, +a weekly that first of all took stories and the name of Charles Dickens +to the people of New York. He soon carried the newspaper up to nine +thousand subscribers, and a gross income of $25,000. Genius makes its +own way. The world is always looking for unique ability. Horace Greeley +had the art of putting things. He could make a statement that would go +to the intellect like an arrow to the bull's-eye. There is always +plenty of room for the man who has a gift and can do a thing better than +any one else. + +But the panic of 1837 bankrupted Greeley, who knew nothing about the +business end of his enterprise. He had 9,000 subscribers, but none of +them would pay their bills, and the more his paper grew the worse off he +was. One day he struck from the roll the names of 2,500 subscribers. A +little later he offered to give the entire establishment to a friend, +and pay him $2,000 for taking it off his hands, agreeing to work out by +typesetting the large debt. Then came an overture from Thurlow Weed and +Benedict, and Greeley founded the _Log Cabin_, a campaign paper +advocating the election of General Harrison as president, and sent out +the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." Politics was his passion and +delight. An ardent Whig, he loved Henry Clay as an enthusiast, and +worshipped him like a disciple. The death of Harrison in 1841, +therefore, brought another crisis into Greeley's life. Then he founded +the _New York Tribune_. In later years Horace Greeley used to say that +the first half of his life was preparatory to founding the _Tribune_, +and the other half to building up the newspaper that was his pride. + +On April 3, 1841, the _Log Cabin_ contained an announcement of the +appearance of "a morning journal of politics, literature and general +intelligence." It was to be sold for one penny, was to be free from all +immoral reports, to be accurate in its statements, impartial in its +judgments, unbiassed and unfettered in its opinions. The _New Yorker_ +and the _Log Cabin_ were merged in the new journal. The expenses for the +first week of the _Tribune's_ existence were $525, and its income $92. +Greeley was thirty years old, full of health and vigour, pluck and +determination. He never knew when he was defeated, and when events +knocked him down, he quietly got up again. In seven weeks the _Tribune_ +had a circulation of 11,000. Fertile in resources, full of plans to +advertise his journal, he gained 20,000 during a single political +campaign. Later he sent carrier pigeons to Halifax to bring home special +news. When Daniel Webster was to make an important speech in Albany, he +sent a case of type up by the night boat, and when the Albany boat +reached New York the report of the speech was all ready to be locked up +for the press. When the heart sings, the hand works easily. Work for the +_Tribune_ was literally food and medicine for Greeley. His daily stint +was three or four columns, besides his correspondence, lectures and +addresses. For twenty years he had no vacation and no rest. His one +ideal was to make the _Tribune_ an accurate and trustworthy guide for +the political thinking of the common people. + +What literature was to Burke, what patriotism was to Webster, what all +mankind was to Paul, that politics and political writing were to Horace +Greeley. Dr. Bacon once said of a secretary of the State Association of +Connecticut that he was "possessed of a statistical devil." And Horace +Greeley's _Tribune Almanac_ became so great a power that an envious +competitor once said that Horace Greeley was possessed of a political +devil, who helped him in his statistics on Protection. At last the +_Tribune_ became a national organ, an acknowledged power. Horace Greeley +began to make history, and in 1860 prevented Seward's nomination for the +presidency. It was Greeley's personal preference for Governor Bates of +Missouri that made possible the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. + +As a reformer, Greeley was an extremist in politics. Whatever he wanted, +he wanted on the moment, and had no patience in waiting. He was as +uncompromising as Garrison, as insistent as Wendell Phillips, and as +bitter in his criticism of Lincoln for postponing emancipation as +Theodore Parker himself could have been. When the South seceded Greeley +said that we must "let the erring sisters go." He thought that the North +could do without the South quite as well as the South could do without +the North; that is no true marriage that binds husband and wife together +with chains when love has fled away. He urged that if any six States +would send their representatives to Washington and say: "We wish to +withdraw from the Union," the North had better let those States depart. +It was not that Greeley felt it was best to dissolve the Union, but that +he loathed the idea of compelling States by force to remain in it. + +For a long time he carried the head-lines "On to Richmond" and roused +the North into such a frenzy of feeling that he goaded the President, +the Cabinet and General Winfield Scott into action before they were +ready. Scott was at the head of the army. He was a Virginian, and loved +the Old Dominion State with every drop of blood in his veins. The great +men of the South on their knees begged Scott to join the South and lead +the host of rebellion. Scott answered that he had sworn a solemn oath to +defend the Constitution and the country, and made himself an outcast +that he might be true to God and the Union. But the cry "On to Richmond" +became the cry of an unreasoning multitude of editors and their readers. +All unprepared, the advance was ordered and Bull Run was the result. +Greeley, being the leading editor of the land, was made the +scapegoat--the target of universal criticism. The barbed arrows found +his brain, and becoming excited, sleepless and overwrought, Greeley went +into an attack of brain fever, from which he recovered only after long +time, to register a vow that he would never again discuss the management +of the army. Then came his editorials urging emancipation, illustrated +by "The prayer of twenty millions," and Lincoln's wonderful reply, +written to Greeley, "in deference to an old friend whose heart I have +always found to be right." It is honour enough for any editor to have +called out Lincoln's letter (August 22, 1862), a letter that placed the +President in the first rank as a master of epigrammatic speech, and put +in a nutshell the whole position of the government in relation to the +war. + +Greeley was wrong again in 1864, when he met certain representatives of +the South at Niagara Falls and suggested a plan of adjustment for the +ending of the war. These so-called peace commissioners, without doubt, +used Greeley as a convenient tool, and exhibited him as Don Quixote, +riding forth upon a windmill enterprise. But Greeley had the courage of +his opinions; threats could not cow him nor blows terrify him, nor scorn +and hate drive him from a position which he had taken upon grounds of +conscience and sound reasoning. + +During the draft riots, in 1863, the mob attacked the _Tribune_, +smashing the windows and doors, and it seemed a miracle that Greeley was +not killed. When his friends rescued him the great editor seemed quite +unwilling to be forced into a place of safety. "Well, it doesn't matter; +I have done my work; I may as well be killed by the mob as die in my +bed; between now and the next time is only a little while." + +In May, 1867, Greeley signed the bail bond for Jefferson Davis, +ex-president of the Confederacy. Burning with anger his friends in the +Union League Club of New York called a meeting to expel him. He returned +a defiant answer: "Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting; I have an +engagement out of town and I shall keep it. I do not recognize you as +capable of judging me. You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, +misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow-minded +blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause but +don't know how. Your attempt to base a great and enduring party on the +hate and wrath engendered by a bloody civil war is as though you should +plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow drifted into a tropical +ocean. I tell you here that out of a life earnestly devoted to the good +of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and +signing that bail bond as the wisest act of my life, and will feel that +it did more for freedom and humanity than all of you were competent to +do though you lived to the age of Methuselah. Understand, once for all, +that I dare you and defy you. So long as any man was seeking to +overthrow our government he was my enemy; from the hour when he laid +down his arms he was my formerly erring countryman." + +In 1872, Greeley became the Republican who was a candidate of the +Democratic party for the presidency, and was defeated by Grant. +Doubtless he was actuated by the highest sense of duty. He took the +stump and spoke in every great city in the North and South, without +swerving a hair's breadth in his pacific attitude towards the South, or +in his championship of the coloured race. His great work, "The American +Conflict," on which he spent ten hours a day for many, many months, had +made Greeley a master of all the facts bearing upon the reconciliation +of the North and South. He showed almost superhuman endurance during +that intense campaign. But Grant had captured the imagination of the +people. The old soldiers voted as one solid band, the Republican party +was looked upon as the saviour of the nation, and the people doubted Mr. +Greeley's fitness for the presidency in a national crisis. He was +defeated in November, and went home to watch over his wife during her +illness and death. Just before she died, he wrote a friend saying: "I am +a broken old man; I have not slept one hour in twenty-four; if she +lasts, poor soul, another week, I shall go before her." Sleeplessness +brought on brain fever, his old enemy, and on November 29th, the +worn-out editor fell on sleep. + +His fellow countrymen wakened to realize that the great tribune of the +people had left the country poor. His own city rose as one man, in mood +of profound grief and affectionate admiration and sympathy. His body lay +in state in our city hall the long day through. The poor poured by in +unending column, to pay their last tribute to a man who had never +betrayed the people. The funeral services were attended by the president +and vice-president of the United States, the president-elect, and +numerous officials and citizens of distinction. Mr. Beecher made one +address and then Greeley's pastor, Dr. Chapin, spoke. Men forgot the +wreck of his political fortunes and the tragedy of his later career. He +expressed the ambition of his life in the wish "that the stone which +covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible +inscription: 'Founder of the New York Tribune.'" + +A Universalist in his religious faith, Horace Greeley believed that +right was stronger than wrong, good more powerful than evil, and that +there will be in eternal ages no endless perdition for the evil ones of +earth, but that God and all the resources of His power and love will +here or there compel every knee to bow and every will surrender to the +will divine. He earned the right to say at the end of his noble career, +"I have been spared to see the end of giant wrongs that I once deemed +invincible in this country, and to note the silent upspringing and +growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out +some of the most flagrant and pervading influences that remain. So, +looking calmly, yet humbly, for that close of my mortal career which +cannot be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings +vouchsafed me in the past; and with an awe that is not fear, and a +consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await the opening +before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World." + + + + +VI + +HARRIET BEECHER STOWE; JOHN BROWN: THE CONFLICT PRECIPITATED + + +About 1850, as the result of the long agitation of the editors and +orators, preachers and poets, the people of this country entered upon a +heated mood, when excitement dwelt like fire in the intellect and +conscience. For thinking men, it was becoming clear that civil war was +inevitable, and that commercial relations between North and South would +soon be broken off. But the North had goods to sell, and the South had +money with which to buy; so the word was passed that every one must keep +silence about slavery, lest discussion bring on a financial panic. It +was the era of imprisoned moral sense. In the ocean, some waves are +tidal waves, and on land sometimes the soil is heaved by an earthquake; +at this time God began to heave the conscience of the people as the full +moon heaves the sea. And although we now see that God was behind the +movement, foolish men then tried to stay these moral forces. Northern +merchants and politicians cried, "Peace!" and the Southern successors of +Calhoun lifted the old club, the threat of secession; but the agitation +went on all over the North. Toombs, the Southern senator, tried sheer +bombast, and said he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of +Bunker Hill monument. Timid men in the North began to cry: "Conciliate, +conciliate!" But there can be warfare, and only warfare between darkness +and light, between sickness and health, between wrong and right. At +length Phillips and Greeley took up the cry: "Let the South go!" But the +answer was: "Shall a strong man who has hold of a mad dog let the beast +go into a crowd of little children?" Compromise did something for a +time, as a safety valve, relieving men's pent-up feelings. But God had +His own counsels. Plainly, "every drop of blood shed by the lash was to +be paid for by blood shed by the sword," for "the judgments of God are +true and righteous altogether." + +During those heated days of 1850, when the men of light and leading +began to see their way clearly, the masses were still timid, hesitant +and vacillating in their judgments on slavery. Scholars and thinking men +had already been reached by poets, authors and editors, while the +preachers and lecturers had driven their message home to the conviction +of the ruling classes. Later on was to come the revival of 1857 that +should stir the conscience, but preparatory to that movement it was +necessary to inform the intellect and rouse the affections of the +millions. Then it was that God raised up an author to touch the heart of +the people. + +Wonderful the power of the novel in social reform! The novels of "Oliver +Twist," and "Dombey and Son," were what roused the English people to a +realization of the woes and wrongs of chimney sweeps, of children in the +factories and mines of Great Britain. It was a novel, "All Sorts and +Conditions of Men," that later built People's Palace in the Whitechapel +district of London. And it was a novel, named "Uncle Tom's Cabin," that +created the atmosphere of sympathy in which the flowers of +self-sacrifice and heroism unfolded. + +The authoress was the daughter of Lyman Beecher, who had seven sons and +four daughters, each one of whom was either a preacher or reformer in +some field. His daughter, Harriet, married Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, of +Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, where, on the border between the free soil +of Ohio and the slave soil of Kentucky, people were in a state of +constant excitement and upheaval. The old Blue Grass State exhibited +slavery in its very best condition and also in its worst form. The +harrowing tales and incidents that were afterwards worked up into +literary form by the gifted authoress were all matters of observation, +conversation and experience. One of the earliest incidents of the +Stowes' life in Cincinnati was an experience of Professor Stowe with one +of the Beecher boys. While travelling in Kentucky, the two young men +witnessed the flight of a negro woman, who was running away with her +little child, whom they helped across the Ohio River, to be sent on by +the Underground Railway to Oberlin, on the shore of Lake Erie. And the +similar incident, Eliza's flight across the ice, her son Charles[1] +writes in his recent story of her life, "was an actual occurrence. She +had known and had often talked with the very man who helped Eliza up the +bank of the river." + +Later during their Cincinnati residence, Mrs. Stowe conducted a small +private school and made a practice of allowing a few coloured children +to attend it. One evening the mother of one of these coloured children +came to the Stowes' house in a frenzy of terror, saying that her little +girl had been seized and carried to the river, to be sold as a slave in +Kentucky. Mrs. Stowe raised the money to ransom the beautiful child. + +It was during this period that the Kentucky editor, Bailey, moved across +the river and began to publish a paper in Cincinnati. One night the +editor knocked at the door of the Stowe home, seeking refuge from a mob +that had smashed in his doors and windows, looted his printing-office, +and flung his type into the river. + +On another occasion a Kentuckian named Van Zandt freed his slaves and +carried them across the river into Ohio. His old friends counted him a +traitor, and charges were trumped up that he had used his new home in +Ohio as an underground station for the receiving of runaway slaves. +Professor Stowe was asked to assist in Van Zandt's defense. When other +lawyers were afraid of the mob spirit, a young attorney named Salmon P. +Chase volunteered his services without pay. As the courts were then +entirely under the influence of the Fugitive Slave law, young Chase lost +his case; but that no dramatic note might be wanting, this young +attorney later became chief justice of the United States Supreme Court +and wrote a decision that reversed the former action. All these and many +other facts and events went into Mrs. Stowe's mind as raw silk, and came +out tapestry and brocade. The fuel of events fed the flames of +enthusiasm. It was a great age, when men had to speak. The time was +ripe, the soil was ready, God gave the good seed of liberty, and the +sower went forth to sow. + +Mrs. Stowe tells us how she came to write the last chapter of the book, +the death of "Uncle Tom." She had a coloured woman in her family whose +husband was a slave, living in Kentucky. This black man had invented a +simple tool, was a good salesman, and was permitted to travel from town +to town, and even to cross the river into the Ohio, under no bond save +his solemn pledge to his master not to run away. Mrs. Stowe wrote the +letters for her servant, to this black man in Covington, Ky. One day, +while visiting his wife, in the Stowe home, he said that he would rather +cut off his right hand than break the word he had given to his master. +What white man could boast a more delicate sense of truth? How keen and +delicate the conscience! What weight of manhood in a slave! What +reserves of morality! What latent heroism! The slave's story captured +the imagination of the authoress, and kindled her mind into a creative +mood. + +Out of the incident Mrs. Stowe evolved the character of "Uncle Tom." One +Sunday morning, as she sat at the communion table, the picture of Tom's +death rose and passed before her mind. "At the same time," writes her +son, "the words of Jesus were sounding in her ears: 'Inasmuch as ye have +done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto +Me.' It seemed as if the crucified but now risen and glorified Christ +were speaking to her through the poor black man, cut and bleeding under +the blows of the slave whip." Long afterwards some one asked Mrs. Stowe +how she came to write the death of Uncle Tom, and she answered that she +did not write it, that God gave it to her in a vision, that she saw the +overseer flog him to death, and heard his dying words, and merely wrote +down the vision as she saw it. At the time, she had no idea of writing +more: it was a year later when she began the tale of which this incident +became the crisis. + +For nearly two years the story ran in the _National Era_, published in +Washington. The book was completed on March 20, 1852, and in spite of +Mrs. Stowe's despondency and apprehension of failure, it sold 3,000 +copies the first day, 10,000 in a week, and 300,000 in a year. Save +"Pilgrim's Progress" alone, perhaps no book ever had a wider +circulation, the Bible, of course, and "The Imitation of Christ," by à +Kempis, always excepted. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was translated into German, +French, Italian and Spanish, and later appeared in almost every known +language. Written for the people at large, the book struck a chord of +universal human nature, and aroused the learned as well as the simple. +Soon letters began to pour in from the most distinguished men in foreign +countries. Charles Dickens wrote that he had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" +with the deepest interest and sympathy. Lord Carlisle sent a message of +"deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God, who has enabled you to write +this book." Charles Kingsley expressed the judgment that the story would +take away the reproach of slavery from the great and growing nation. Men +like Shaftesbury, Arthur Helps, women like George Sand and Frederika +Bremer added their tribute of praise. Eighteen different publishing +houses in England were issuing the book at one time, and a million and a +half copies were sold in Great Britain. + +Even Heinrich Heine, the poet, the cynic, who carried more power of +sarcasm and irony than any man of his generation, was so moved by the +book that he seems to have returned to the reading of the Bible, and to +Christ the Consoler, in the hour when night and death were falling. +"Astonishing! That after I have whirled about all my life, over all the +dance floors of philosophy, and yielded myself to all the orgies of the +intellect, and paid my addresses to all possible systems, without +satisfaction, like Messalina after a licentious night, I now find myself +on the same standpoint where poor Uncle Tom stands--on that of the +Bible. I kneel down by my black brother in the same prayer. What a +humiliation! With all my sense I have come no farther than the poor +ignorant negro who has just learned to spell. Poor Tom indeed seems to +have seen deeper things in the holy book than I, but I, who used to make +citations from Homer, now begin to quote the Bible as Uncle Tom does!" +Praise can go no farther than this, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has shown +how the love of God can support a slave, under the lash, in the hour +when he is flogged to death, and fill his heart with pity while he +cries, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" It was +this that conquered the intellect of the scholar, and broke his heart, +and flooded his eyes with tears. + +Perhaps the most striking testimony to the influence of "Uncle Tom's +Cabin" grew out of a suggestion of Lord Shaftesbury's that the women of +England and Europe send their signatures to a testimonial to be +presented to Mrs. Stowe, for, when this testimonial came in, it filled +twenty-six thick folio volumes, solidly bound in morocco, and it held +the names of 562,448 women, representing every rank, from the throne of +England to the wives of the humblest artisans in Wales or the peasants +in Italy. + +The message of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is so simple that he who runs may +read. It was not written for literary critics, for scholars or for +college graduates. George Eliot wrote her "Romola" with the historian +and the philosopher and the editor of reviews ever in mind. Harriet +Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for farmers, factory men, +merchants and clerks, the miscellaneous mass that make up the millions, +to rouse them to the wrongs of slavery. + +In it she tried to prove two things. First, that slavery, as a system, +reacted upon the loftiest natures, distorting and injuring them. Witness +the Kentucky gentleman, Mr. Shelby. His wife was a patrician, the very +embodiment of courtesy and good-will, affection and sympathy. Her +husband was a man of honour, a representative of the bluest blood of the +old Lexington families, with a heart so gentle that the sight of a young +bird that had fallen out of the nest in the tree moved him to tears; +but, little by little, pressed by his necessities and hardened by the +spectacle of slaves bought and slaves sold, he himself sells the woman +who has been a nurse to his children, and Uncle Tom who has been like a +saviour to his own boys in the hour of their peril in forest and river, +sends both of the slaves into the cotton plantations of Louisiana, +breaking his solemn pledge to his wife and his family, in the hope that +he could escape from debt, that like a millstone weighed him into the +abyss. + +Then, the book tries to show how slavery develops the worst men, of the +stamp of Simon Legree, the brutal overseer. Legree pours out the vials +of his wrath upon the slaves about him, debauching a young octaroon to +the level of his mistress, hunting his slaves with bloodhounds, killing +them without trial before a jury. Power is dangerous; there is the czar +spirit in every man. Slavery made a brute still more brutal--made the +sensual man more sensual, and finally debased Legree to the level of the +demon. + +It is a book full of pathos and tears. Remembering that the book was +written for the miscellaneous millions, to rouse the nation at large to +moral indignation, it is doubtful whether any book was ever more +perfectly adapted to the end aimed at. Literary artists have criticized +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and contrasted it with "Henry Esmond," "Vanity +Fair" and "Adam Bede." But if Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot +achieved unique success in creating books that should reach their set, +one thing is certain,--the boys, who afterwards became the soldiers of +the Civil War, read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with dim eyes and indignant +hearts, because the book found their judgment and their conscience, and +lifted them to the point where they were made ready in the day of God's +power, to fight the battle for freedom. + +When all the school children had read the death of little Eva and of +Uncle Tom, and all the farmers and working men--the dwellers in city and +country, from seaboard to mountains and prairie--had followed the career +of these slaves to the end, and the people of the North were fully awake +to the horror of the slave traffic, the multitudes began to look with +questioning eyes into each other's faces, asking, "What can be done? +What is the next step?" And then it was that a fanatic entered the +scene. + +His name was John Brown, descended from Peter Brown, a Pilgrim of the +_Mayflower_. He had been cattle-drover, tanner and wool-merchant. When +about forty years of age he was living in Springfield, Massachusetts. +One night, in 1849, a runaway slave knocked at his door and told Brown +the story of his flight, of the weeks he had spent hiding in the swamps, +of his escape to the fastnesses of the mountains, of his life in the +forest, and how he finally reached New York and Springfield. It was a +story of starvation, hunger, cold, blows and piercing anguish. Long +after the children had gone to bed at midnight, while the slave was +sleeping in a blanket beside the fire, John Brown sat musing over the +national infamy. All the next day and night the conference continued +with this runaway, who was also a negro preacher. The following night +John Brown assembled his sons. He closed the door and told his family +his decision. He was a tall man, over six feet, straight and lithe, +slightly gray, with thin lips and smooth face. The Bible was almost the +only book in the house, and no sound was so familiar as the voice of +prayer. Brown was lifted into the prophetic mood. He told his family +that he had decided to give himself, and to consecrate them, to +righting the wrongs of the slaves; that he had heard a voice calling him +to the work of the deliverer; that he would be killed, and that they +must expect also to die the martyr's death, and that henceforth they +must expect only crusts, wounds, bitter enmity, and finally martyrdom. A +little later and Brown had moved the younger children of his family to +North Elba, in the Adirondack woods, that the slaves on the underground +route might be able to hide in the forest, in the event of the pursuers +overtaking them. Brown then began to travel along Mason and Dixon's line +from the city of Washington through to Topeka, Kan. From time to time he +would cross the line, take charge of a little group of slaves, and +hiding by day and travelling by night, carry them from one underground +station to another. It was said that he had personally conducted runaway +slaves along every route for a thousand miles from East to West, between +the Atlantic and the Missouri River. + +One of the friends of Brown's childhood was the Hon. James B. Grinnell, +who founded the town and college in Iowa. This congressman loved to tell +the story of the night when John Brown knocked at his door. Outside was +a wagon, packed with slaves, whom Brown had carried across the line from +Missouri. He had driven four horses at their limit of speed for a +hundred miles and had no defenders, save two or three men and as many +guns. "I am a dealer in wool," said the stranger, "and my name is +Captain John Brown of Kansas." The first thing Mr. Grinnell did was to +find a shelter for these slaves, with food and beds. The next thing was +to hide the wagon and the horses in the thick grove near by. Early the +next morning the news spread like wild-fire, and the settlers began to +pour in. John Brown made a speech to the farmers and justified his act. +The villagers were terrified lest the pursuers come any moment and burn +their houses. The three Congregational ministers offered prayers, asked +for help, and started out to raise money. When the night fell the slaves +were rushed to the terminus of the railway and carried through to +Chicago, being shipped in a freight car as sheep, to distinguish their +woolly heads from the goats, named white men. + +In 1855 John Brown led his five sons and their families into Kansas, to +help preëmpt the State for freedom. When at length the free state +voters won an election and enthroned their governor, two thousand +pro-slavery men from Missouri crossed the State line, burned the little +town of Lawrence, and at the point of the pistol compelled the State +officials to resign; issued writs for a new election, put in a slavery +governor, captured the government, and started back into Missouri. On +their way they passed through Pottawatamie. It was a guerrilla warfare. +When John Brown reached his son's cabin, he found the settlers preparing +for flight. He denounced them as cowards, and when one urged caution, +answered, "I am tired of that word Caution. It is nothing but +cowardice!" Either the border ruffians had to go, or else the settlers +must leave without striking a single blow in defense of their homes. A +man's cabin was his castle. Without waiting for the next attack to be +made, John Brown pointed the settlers to the smoking ashes of cabins +already burned and to the bodies that the Missouri guerrillas had left +on the ground, and took the aggressive himself. He seized five of the +outlaws and killed them for their crime. + +The deed fired Kansas, some say freed Kansas, while others think it +opened the Civil War. Withdrawing to the forest, hiding in the +cottonwood swamps, John Brown organized his company. A reporter of the +_New York Tribune_ finally penetrated the thicket. "Near the edge of the +creek a dozen horses were tied, already saddled for a ride for life. A +dozen rifles were stacked against the trees. In an open space was a +blazing fire with a pot above it. Three or four armed men were lying on +red and blue blankets on the grass. John Brown himself stood near the +fire with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a piece of pork in his hand. +He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded from his boots. The old man +received me with great cordiality, and the little band gathered about +me. He respectfully, but firmly, forbade conversation on the +Pottawatamie affair. After the meal, thanks were returned to the +bountiful Giver. Often, I was told, the old man would retire to the +densest solitudes to wrestle with his God in prayer. He said he was +fighting God's battles for his children's sake: 'Give me men of good +principles, God-fearing men, men who respect themselves, and with a +dozen of them I will oppose a hundred such men as these border +ruffians.' I remained in the camp about an hour. Never before had I met +such a band of men. They were not earnest, but earnestness incarnate." + +After several years of bloody conflict and political struggles between +the pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties, in 1859 the Constitution +prohibiting slavery was passed, and freedom had won in Kansas. In +January of that year John Brown returned to the mountains of Virginia, +and "The Great Black Way," and the dark shadows of the night following +the North Star to liberty. For many years he had been planning an +uprising of the slaves, and an attack upon Virginia. Some biographers +think he conceived the plan as early as 1849. Away back in 1834 Brown +wrote to his brother his determination to war on slavery; but at first +only through educating the blacks. As time went on he came into sterner +conflict with it. + +Brown, in fact, became a fanatic who really believed that the millions +of slaves would rise at his call, and that he could lead his host as a +new Moses, out of the land of bondage. He intended to operate in the +Blue Ridge Mountains, because the paths into the black belt of slavery +were easily followed. Men like Douglas and other escaped slaves who +were living in the North did not see their way clear to join the +movement. + +On Sunday, October 16, 1859, John Brown, with sixteen men, started out +to capture Harper's Ferry and redeem three million slaves. Brown rode in +a one-horse wagon, that held provisions, pikes, one sledge-hammer and +one crowbar; his sixteen men, with guns, followed on foot. Without a +single shot they captured the armoury and the rifle factory, and at +daylight, without the snap of a gun or any violence whatsoever, they +were in possession of Harper's Ferry. On Monday morning the panic spread +like wild-fire. The rumour went abroad of an uprising of all the slaves +of the South. In a few hours the governor called out the militia, +Jefferson guards marched down the Potomac, and two local companies took +positions on the heights. The assault began in the afternoon. One by one +Brown's handful were killed, his two sons, Oliver and Watson, were shot +down, and Brown, badly wounded, was captured. + +The trial and examination of the old fanatic makes a fascinating story. +At noon of Tuesday, the governor of Virginia bent over him as he lay +wounded and blood-stained upon the floor. "Who are you?" asked the +governor. "My name is John Brown; I have been well known as old John +Brown of Kansas. Two of my sons were killed here to-day, and I am dying +too. I came here to liberate slaves, and was to receive no reward. I +have acted from a sense of duty, and am content to await my fate. I am +an old man. If I had succeeded in running off slaves this time, I could +have raised twenty times as many men as I have now for a similar +expedition; but I have failed." + +Then Governor Wise said, "The silver of your hair is reddened by the +blood of crime. You should think upon eternity." + +John Brown replied, "Governor, I have not more than fifteen or twenty +years the start of you to that eternity, and I am prepared to go. There +is an eternity behind and an eternity before, and this little speck in +the centre is but a minute. The difference between your time and mine is +trifling, and I therefore tell you--be prepared. I am prepared--you have +a heavy responsibility. It behooves you to prepare, and more than it +does me." + +Friends in the North tried to secure Brown's release, but he answered +them: "I think I cannot now better serve the cause I love so much than +to die for it, and in my death I may do more than in my life. I believe +that for me, at this time, to seal my testimony for God and humanity +through my blood will do vastly more towards advancing the cause I have +earnestly endeavoured to promote than all I have done in my life +before." + +When the court asked Brown if he had any reason why he should not be +hung, he answered: "This court acknowledges the validity of the law of +God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible. That book +teaches me to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I +endeavoured to act up to that instruction. I believe that to interfere +as I have done, in behalf of God's poor, was not wrong, but right. I am +quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged +away but with blood. If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my +life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood +further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in +this slave country, whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and +unjust enactments, I submit. So let it be done." + +On the morning of his hanging he visited his doomed companions, and then +kissed his wife good-bye. A thousand soldiers stood round about his +scaffold. "This is a beautiful land," said Brown, as he rode, looking +across the landscape. As he climbed the steps of the scaffold a negro +child stood between some black men, and some say he stooped and kissed +the child. And this was his prayer: + +"My love to all who love their neighbours. I have asked to be spared +from having any weak or hypocritical prayers said over me when I am +publicly murdered, and that my only religious attendants be poor, +little, dirty, ragged, bareheaded, and barefooted slave boys and girls, +led by some gray-headed slave mother.... Farewell, farewell." He died in +the spirit of the letter written the day before, when he said, "I think +I feel as happy as Paul did when he lay in prison, for men cannot chain +or hang the soul." + +His deed puzzled the world. For multitudes it is still an enigma. To +many, John Brown seems not only a fanatic but a lunatic. To others, now +that long time has passed, this white-haired old man, weltering in his +blood, which he had spilled for a broken and despised race, seems +right, and he seems to have died, not as a fool dies, but as martyrs +die. That his enterprise was doomed to failure in advance, all knew. +That it was not the wisest plan, Brown's best friends must grant. But +that its fanaticism was overruled by God to release the great South from +the incubus of slavery, Brown's friends and Brown's enemies alike must +concede. + +What other men had been writing about, John Brown did in action. The +attack on Harper's Ferry was the first blow struck during the Civil War. +Other men and women assembled the explosives, but John Brown dropped the +spark in the magazine, which finally blew up that hindrance to progress, +slavery--the Hell Gate obstruction in the passageway of the South and of +all civilization. + + + + +VII + +LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS: INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT DEBATE + + +Strictly speaking, there were three stages in the development of the +anti-slavery sentiment leading up to the Civil War. There was the period +of indifference, from 1759 to 1830, when the North winked at slavery, +ignored the traffic and avoided the whole subject. There was the epoch +of agitation, from 1831 to 1850, when Garrison and his friends insisted +upon "the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves on the +soil," and the agitation was kept up by men who "would not retreat, who +would not equivocate, who would not be silent and who would be heard." +Then came the stage when men tried legislative palliatives; when all +manner of political medicaments and poultices were tried as cures, which +were about as effective in destroying the poison as a porous plaster +would be to draw out the fire from a volcano. For more than sixty years +a veil had hung before men's minds, and it was as if they saw slaves as +trees walking, in an unreal world. The sea captain fears a fog more than +an equinoctial storm. When the mist falls, and obscures the glass, and +the ship is surrounded with white darkness, and the surf is thundering +on some Nantucket, as a graveyard of the sea, the captain longs for a +cold, sharp wind out of the North, to cut the fog and bring out the +stars and sun. And not otherwise was it with the great debate between +Lincoln and Douglas--it lifted the veil from men's eyes, it swept the +fog out of the air, it made the issue clear. Then it was that for the +first time the North saw that the conflict was inevitable, because the +Union could not endure permanently, half slave and half free; saw that +liberty and slavery were as irreconcilable as day and night. + +Before considering the influence of Lincoln's clear thinking and +speaking upon the eternal principles of right, we must note the general +reawakening of the popular intelligence which preceded it, and which was +due to two causes, the panic of 1857 and the religious revival which +swept over the land during the same year. As the Northern merchant +began to see that the South had determined to secede and try her fate +alone, he became afraid to sell his goods to Southern customers. The +Northern manufacturer, in turn, was overstocked, and if the banker +called his loans there was no response, for the chain was broken; the +result was the panic of 1857. Hunger and Want stalked through the +land--Winter and Poverty became bosom friends. Black despair fell upon +the people and in the hour of need they cried unto God, and God heard +them. + +When a nation prospers and grows rich, religion languishes. When nations +enter upon disaster and peril, the people turn unto God. Abundance +enervates. Morals always sink to a low level when men's eyes stand out +with fatness. + +What agitation, what the liberator and the lecture platform, what +statesmen and compromisers could not achieve, was accomplished by the +spirit of God working upon the hearts of men, clarifying the intellect, +deepening the sympathy and lending vigour to the will. + +The first thing the leader of an orchestra does is to see to it that the +instruments are all unified and brought up to concert pitch, and the +revival of religion made the people one in self-sacrifice and their +willingness to live and die for their convictions. + +Multitudes returned to the churches. Thoughtless youth discovered that +there are only two great things in the universe--God and the soul. +Personal religion became the supreme interest of the hour. Men went into +the crucible commonplace; they came out of it heroic stuff. All over the +country the churches were open every night in the week. Moving across +the country the traveller saw the candles burning in the little +schoolhouses, while the farmers assembled to pray and read God's word. +The Fulton Street prayer-meeting in New York attracted the interest of +the nation. The morning newspapers of 1858 carried columns concerning +the business men's noon prayer-meeting, just as to-day they carry the +column on the stock news and the stock market. In his "History of the +United States" Rhodes calls attention to the fact that 230 persons +joined Plymouth Church on profession of faith on a single Sunday +morning. That revival all over the land put its moral stamp upon boys +and girls who afterwards became the leaders of the generation. + +Now every reform and every great war for principle proceeds along +intellectual lines clearly laid out. Twenty-seven years before the +Lincoln-Douglas debates, the "Tariff of Abominations" had brought up the +question of the right of the Southern states to secede. Calhoun had set +up his famous doctrine, and Webster, in his "Second Reply to Hayne," had +knocked it down. The feeling had been intense, but Webster's wonderful +oration in defense of the Constitution and the Union had succeeded in +meeting the crisis, and settling for a time the vexing problem. Yet the +evil of slavery continued its fatal gnawing at the heart of the nation. +By 1855-6 the old question was up again in much the same form. The +atmosphere was clouded, the black shroud of the approaching storm +already discernible on the horizon. A hundred minor problems united in +complicating the discussion of the one all-important thing. Another +leader was wanted to set the battle in array, to mark out the lines of +conflict. Webster and Calhoun were gone, but another was to come to +preserve "liberty and union, one and inseparable." This man was Abraham +Lincoln, and the opponent who was to call out his clearest expositions +of the situation, and spur him on to his greatest arguments, was +Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. + +Douglas was born in 1813, in Brandon, Vermont. His father was a +physician of great promise, who fell with a stroke of apoplexy at a +moment when he was carrying the child Stephen in his arms. The ambitions +of the father for intellectual leadership were fulfilled in the son, who +at fifteen years of age had attracted the notice of the best minds in +his region. Strong men became interested in the boy, and advised his +mother to take him to a relative in Canandaigua, N. Y., where there was +an excellent academy. At seventeen he entered a lawyer's office, +attended every trial before the justice of the peace or the county +clerk, and made a local reputation as a student of politics and law. At +twenty years of age, he started West, to make his fortune, but fell ill +in Cleveland, O., and all but lost his life. A few months later he +entered the town of Winchester, Ill., a stranger, in a strange land. He +carried his coat on one arm and a little bundle of clothes on the other. +There was a crowd on the corner of the street, where an auctioneer was +selling the personal effects and live stock of some settler, and within +a few minutes Douglas was engaged as clerk at the auction. At the end of +three days he found himself the possessor of six dollars, which was the +first money he had ever earned, and what was far more important, he had +by his accuracy, good nature and kindliness won the hearts of the +purchasers, and attracted the attention of the two or three leading men +of the town. That winter he opened a private school, in which forty +scholars were enrolled, while he continued his studies of law during the +long evenings. Ten crowded and successful years soon swept by, and those +years held remarkable achievements. He was admitted to the bar, elected +to the Legislature, made Secretary of State, judge of the Supreme Court, +and at thirty was sent to Congress. He spent three years in Congress; at +thirty-six was chosen to fill out an unexpired term in the Senate, was +reëlected to represent Illinois, and a third time was chosen senator--a +career of uniform and splendid success from the material view-point. + +But the career of Douglas in Washington was the career of an +opportunist, at once full of good and full of evil, full of right and +full of wrong. He was a born politician, an expert manager of men and a +natural machine builder. Many others outranked Douglas in set speeches, +but few equalled him in "catch as catch can" methods of the politician. +What Douglas prided himself upon was his skill in getting through the +committee measures that were difficult to pass. When it became necessary +to get a man's vote for his measure, Douglas would put that man up as a +leader, give him the glory, obliterate himself, and after the bill was +passed, hop up like a jack in the pulpit, as the real manager who +manoeuvred the bill through the Senate. He spent two years on the +legislation that brought about the Illinois Central Railroad, and as +long a time in founding the University of Chicago. + +Often Douglas did things that he believed to be morally wrong because he +discovered that they were politically necessary. For example, a reaction +followed upon the election of the Democrat, James K. Polk, to the +presidency. When his leadership was imperilled, Polk cast about for some +issue that would bring together the remnants of his party, and restore +leadership, and he hit upon the device of the Mexican War. No party was +ever defeated that was fighting a war for the defense of the country. +Douglas criticized Polk most sharply, charged the war upon Polk as a +crime against the people, and yet, under the whip of party policy, +Douglas supported Polk. Slowly he deteriorated in his moral fibre. One +by one the moral lights seem to have gone out. He was intoxicated by his +own success. Ambition deluded him. He began to follow the +will-o'-the-wisp, the light that rises from putrescence and decay in the +swamp, and forgot the eternal stars in God's sky. In 1854 he entered the +valley of decision, and like the rich young ruler made the great +refusal, and chose compromise instead of principle. Later Douglas led +his party along a false route, and became a mistaken leader. + +The circumstances were these; the compromise measures of 1850 had +succeeded apparently in achieving the aim of their author, Henry Clay. +The close of the year 1853 was marked by political repose and calm. The +slavery question seemed practically settled. As President Pierce +expressed it in his message, "A sense of security" had been "restored to +the public mind throughout the Confederacy." Prosperity was blessing the +country, times were good, the future bright with the promise of immense +industrial achievements. In Congress, a bill for the organization of the +territory of Nebraska had passed the House at the previous session, and +was being reported to the Senate, but the bill was in the usual form and +contained no reference to slavery. Suddenly the press announced that +Senator Douglas had read a report on this bill, purporting to show that +the compromise measures of 1850 had established a great principle; that +this principle stated the perpetual right of the residents of new States +to decide all questions pertaining to slavery; and that therefore, +contrary to the old Missouri Compromise, ruling slavery out of that +Northwest territory, it left the slavery question entirely in the hands +of the residents of the new territory of Nebraska. + +The announcement created a profound sensation. Twelve days later a +Kentucky senator by the name of Dixon introduced an amendment to the +Nebraska Act, providing for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The +daring of this move startled even Douglas, but within a few days the +Illinois senator had decided to support the Dixon Amendment. With all +the skill and political engineering at his command, he steered the bill +through the tempest which immediately rose against it like a tidal wave; +and on the third of March, in spite of protests which poured in from +every State in the North, in spite of indignation meetings held in New +York, Boston and Philadelphia, in spite of the opposition of the leaders +like Seward, Chase and Sumner, he actually succeeded in persuading the +Senate to pass the bill. That he was able to do this, is a great tribute +to his powers as a politician and as an orator. He spoke from midnight +until dawn, employing every possible trick of rhetoric and logic to +carry his point, and showing a courtesy and restraint in his attack +which won the sympathy even of his opponents. "Never had a bad cause +been more splendidly advocated." + +But the victory was a costly one; he had made the Fugitive Slave Law a +dead letter in the North; he had introduced a new term, "popular +sovereignty," which was to rouse the nation as a red rag rouses a bull. +He had started a storm, wrote Seward, "such as this country has never +yet seen." Every great newspaper editor in the North,--Greeley, Dana, +Raymond, Webb, Bigelow, Weed,--broke into violent protest against the +bill. Not since the fight at Lexington had such a fierce and universal +cry of reproach arisen in the land. + +And for what had he done all this? Simply that he might increase his +chances of obtaining the presidential nomination in 1856. The "solid +South" had just begun to be spoken of. Douglas was an acute observer, +and he saw that if he could secure the backing of the South, he would +have an immense advantage over his rival Cass. It is said that his +objection to the Dixon Amendment was overborne solely by the fear that +Cass would be before him in supporting it, and thus win the favour of +the South. It is the old story of the mess of pottage. Douglas +afterwards tried to defend himself on the ground that he was offering to +the Democratic party "fresh ammunition," but all knew, and none better +than Douglas, that the Democratic party was in no need of a fresh issue. +He had ruthlessly destroyed the peace of the whole nation, for the sake +of promoting his own selfish interests,--and that, in vain; as in 1853, +Douglas failed to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency in +1856, which was won by Buchanan. + +The bill cost Douglas his prestige, and lost him the confidence of one +half the people of Chicago and Illinois. His friends called him home in +the hope that he might win back the popularity he had lost. But Chicago +would have none of him. He entered the city unwelcomed, had to hire a +building in which to speak, advertised his own meeting, and on the day +of the meeting found the flags at half-mast, while the church bells +tolled the funeral of liberty, where hitherto the bells had pealed the +notes of joy. + +It is impossible not to admire Douglas's courage in that trying ordeal. +He found the hall filled with his opponents, yet he began by saying, "My +fellow citizens, I appear before you to vindicate the Kansas-Nebraska +Bill." The words evoked a perfect tumult, which continued for half an +hour. He appealed to their sense of fair play and honour, but they asked +him whether he had played fair with liberty in Washington. Growing +angry, he tried to denounce them as cowards, afraid to listen to a +discussion, and they answered that it was cowardly to desert a slave who +needed a defender. At eleven o'clock he flung his arms in the air and +dared them to shoot, because a man had waved a pistol. The crowd +answered with a shower of eggs, while a man shouted that bullets were +too valuable to be wasted on traitors. At twelve o'clock the bells rang +out the midnight. Douglas pulled out his watch and shouted, "It is +midnight. I am going home and to church, and you may go to Hades!" +Douglas met a mob in Chicago, just as Beecher met a mob in England. But +Beecher conquered his mob in Manchester; the mob in Chicago conquered +Douglas. Beecher won, because he was right and the mob was wrong; +Douglas lost, because he was wrong and the mob was right. "You can fool +all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people +all the time; you cannot fool all of the people all of the time" on the +great principles of liberty. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Bill brought on +an era of civil war in Kansas, sent the guerrillas over the Sunflower +State, burned Lawrence, destroyed the State government and filled the +whole land with tumult and bitterness. And it cost Douglas his fame and +place among the great men of the Republic. + +In that critical hour for liberty, Abraham Lincoln entered upon the +scene, and challenged Douglas to a debate. It was in the summer of 1858. +Both men were candidates for the Senate--Lincoln, the leader of the new +Republican party State ticket; Douglas, the best known figure in the +land since the death of Clay and Webster. No contrast between two men +could have been greater. Lincoln was tall, angular, lanky, awkward, six +feet four inches in height. Douglas was short, thick-set, graceful, +polished, a man of fine presence, with a great, beautiful head, a high +forehead, square chin, perfectly at home on the platform, a master of +all the tricks of debate, a born king of assemblies. Lincoln was the +stronger man, Douglas the more polished. Lincoln was the better thinker, +Douglas the better orator. Lincoln relied upon fundamental principles, +Douglas wanted to win his case. Lincoln's mind was analytical, and he +loved to take a theme and unfold it, peeling it like an onion, layer by +layer. For Douglas, an oration was a pile of ideas, three hours high. +Lincoln's voice was a high dusty tenor, with small range, and +monotonous; Douglas's voice was a magnificent vocal instrument, +extending from the flute-like tone to the deepest roar. Lincoln lacked +every grace of the great orator; Douglas had every art that makes the +speaker master of his audience. Morally, Lincoln's essential qualities +were his honesty, fairness, and his spirit of good will. Intellectually, +he was a thinker, slow, intense, profound, always trying to find a +mother principle that would explain a concrete fact. He was reared in +childhood on three works--the Bible, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and +the Constitution of the United States. The style of the parable of Jesus +and the simple words of the "Pilgrim's Progress" entered into his +thinking like iron into the rich blood of the physical system. His +thought was as clear as crystal, his language the simple home words, +full of music and old associations. Lincoln knew what he wanted to say, +said it, and sat down. Douglas stormed, threatened, cajoled, bribed, and +could not stop until he had carried his audience. Lincoln wanted to get +the truth out; Douglas wanted to win a crowd over. The one was a +statesman, the other was an opportunist, struggling for place. +Principles are eternal, and because Lincoln loved principles, Lincoln +belongs to the ages. Douglas wanted office, and because the longest +office is six years, when the six years were over, the people put +another man in his niche; Douglas practically disappeared. + +The interest of the people in the seven great joint debates arranged +for this senatorial campaign was beyond all description. Douglas +travelled in a special train and car, with a flat car carrying a cannon +that boomed the announcement of his arrival. He had the wealth and +prestige of the Illinois Central Railroad to support him. Lincoln +trusted to some friend to drive him across country, or had to be +contented with a seat in a caboose of a freight train, waiting on a +switch at a siding, while Douglas's special went whizzing by. The people +of each county made the day of the debate a great holiday. From daylight +until noon all the converging roads were crowded with wagons, carts and +buggies, loaded with people, while other thousands hurried on foot along +the dusty road to the meeting place. From the first Douglas knew his +peril, in that the eyes of the nation were fixed upon his platform, and +that if Lincoln won the debate he won everything. He paid Lincoln the +compliment of saying, "He is the strong man of his party, full of wit, +facts, dates, and the best stump-speaker, with his droll ways and his +dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is shrewd, and if I beat +him my victory will be hardly won." + +Very different was the praise that Lincoln gave Douglas, as he +contrasted the dazzling fame of the great senator with his own unknown +name. "With me," said Lincoln, "the race of ambition has been a failure, +a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success. I affect +no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; ... I would rather +stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a +monarch's brow." Douglas's speeches do not read well, and there are no +nuggets, proverbs, bright sayings or brilliant epigrams which one can +quote. The substance of his speeches was one and the same, for he +traversed the same ground in each of the seven debates, urging ever that +the new Republican party was simply disguised abolitionism, that Lincoln +wanted to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, establish the equality of the +blacks, that this was a threat of war against the South, and therefore +revolutionary and sectional. Over against this mark consider the clarity +of Lincoln's method of thinking and speaking. + +In his address to the convention, accepting the senatorial nomination, +he had said: "If we could first know where we are and whither we are +tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now +far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed +object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. +Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not +ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease +until a crisis has been reached and passed. A house divided against +itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently +half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I +do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be +divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." + +When the campaign opened he challenged Douglas to the debate, and the +critical contest began. + +After several meetings, in which the senator proved himself a slippery +wrestler, Lincoln determined to force Douglas into a corner. He wrote a +question, and with such skill that Douglas was compelled to answer one +way or the other, either answer being fatal to his political ambition. +When Lincoln read this question to his advisers, Medill, Washburne and +Judd, all begged him not to ask it, saying that it would cost him the +senatorship. "Yes, but my loss of the senatorship is nothing. Later on +it will cost Douglas the presidency. I am killing bigger game. The +battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of 1858." The question with which +Douglas was confronted was this: "Can the people of any United States +territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the +United States, exclude slavery from its limit prior to the formation of +a State constitution?" + +What a path perilous was this for Douglas's feet! The path up the edge +of the Matterhorn is a foot wide, yet it is granite, even if the climber +does look down thousands of feet upon his right and thousands of feet +upon his left. But Lincoln made Douglas walk not upon a narrow granite +way, but on a sharp sword. He who tries to walk a tight rope across +Niagara has two alternatives--he either arrives, or he does not. Yonder +is Stephen Douglas, trying to walk a tight rope over the Niagara. + +Forced to an answer, Douglas finally spoke: + +"It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to +the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into any +territory under a constitution. The people have the lawful means to +exclude it if they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a +day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police +legislation. Those police regulations can only be established by the +local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery they will +elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation +effectually prevent its introduction into their midst; if, on the +contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favour its extension." +Douglas had decided. Southern newspapers took up his statement and the +tide of anger rose against the "little giant" that cost him the +presidency. Lincoln had digged a pitfall for unwary feet, and the great +opportunist fell therein. + +After this, Douglas became bitter, excited, and increasingly angry, for +the tide was plainly beginning to run against him. Lincoln's speeches +fairly blazed with quotable sentences. "If you think you can slander a +woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are +satisfied." Again: "Has Douglas the exclusive right in this country to +be on all sides of all questions?" Again: "The plainest print cannot be +read through a gold eagle." Again: "Douglas shirks the responsibility of +pulling the national house down, but he digs under it, that it may fall +of its own weight." + +To the astonishment of the country, when the debate was over, Lincoln +carried Illinois on the popular vote, although he lost the senatorship +through the arrangement of legislative districts that gave the election +to the Democrats. Disappointed, Lincoln retained his good humour, and +laughed over what he called the little episode. "I feel," said Lincoln, +"like the boy who stubbed his toe; it hurt too hard to laugh, and he was +too big to cry. But I have been heard on the great subject of the age, +and though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I +have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long +after I am gone." + +Lincoln had now become a national figure. In February, 1860, Mr. Beecher +and Henry C. Bowen invited him to speak in New York. The first plan was +for him to speak in Plymouth Church, but later considerations led to a +change to Cooper Institute. Lincoln arrived in the city late in the +week; on Sunday morning he heard Mr. Beecher preach. He sat in the Bowen +pew, just back of the Beecher pew, in the morning; in the evening he +arrived very late, and sat in a front pew, in the gallery, with Mr. +Bowen and a friend who had waited in the hall for Mr. Lincoln's arrival. +Lincoln spent the afternoon at the Sunday-school mission, over in Five +Points. As the superintendent of the mission was always casting about +for somebody to talk to his ragamuffins, he asked the tall stranger if +he would say a few words. When they reached the platform, the +superintendent asked Lincoln by what name he should introduce him, to +which Lincoln gave the answer, "Tell them Abraham Lincoln of Illinois," +which was answer enough. The meeting the next day in Cooper Institute +was perhaps the most memorable assembly ever held in New York. William +Cullen Bryant presided, Horace Greeley sat on Lincoln's right, Peter +Cooper close by. "No man," said the _Tribune_, "since the days of Clay +and Webster, spoke to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental +culture of our city. The speech was packed with reason, facts, but +stripped bare of rhetorical flourish. Its keynote was, '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.'" Four morning newspapers reported +the speech in full, and Greeley called him the Great Convincer, saying +no man ever before made such an impression in his first appeal to a New +York audience. That speech probably made Lincoln President. + +By universal consent, Lincoln's nomination in 1860 is one of the +mysteries of politics. Every man of light and leading conceded Seward's +nomination in advance, and two-thirds of the delegates went to the +convention pledged, while eight of the Illinois delegates were against +Lincoln in his own State. The East could not believe that the sceptre +could pass from their hands. Special trains from New York carried +brilliant banners, and New York bands and drilled clubs marched and +countermarched up and down the streets of Chicago. A great wooden wigwam +set up for the occasion held 10,000 spectators. The placing of Seward in +nomination was wildly applauded. But, to the surprise of everybody, the +naming of Lincoln was the signal of an outburst of such enthusiasm as +had never been known. Men held their breath as the votes were +registered. Seward had 1731/2 against Lincoln's 102. As noted in a +former chapter, it has been thought that Horace Greeley's standing out +for Governor Bates of Missouri made possible the shifting of votes for +another Western man. At all events, on the third ballot Lincoln was +nominated. Now hundreds of correspondents began to write stories of this +great unknown. The next day Wendell Phillips demanded from Boston: "Who +is this county court advocate?" But there was a man in Washington who +could speak intelligently concerning the great unknown--his name was +Stephen A. Douglas. + +In that hour Douglas knew the great mistake he had made. The Democratic +convention of that year at Charleston split their party asunder; the +Southerners clamoring for secession should Lincoln be elected, and +nominating John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky; the Northerners standing +fast for the Union and compromise, and nominating Stephen A. Douglas; +while a "Constitutional Union" party of old-line Whigs nominated John +Bell of Tennessee. Lincoln's election was the signal for secession. + +In all the subsequent turmoil, Douglas vigorously sustained the Union +and the Constitution, both in Congress and before the people. When +Sumter was fired upon, he hastened to pledge his influence to Lincoln as +well as to the Union. "There are no neutrals in this war--only patriots +and traitors." Douglas hurried back to Illinois to unify the state for +the Union; he had borrowed $80,000 for his campaign, and he staggered +under the burden of debt. Also he had injured his constitution by +excess, and burned the candle at both ends by overwork. But above all +else was the thought that he had made the great mistake, and lost his +place in history, in saying that he did not care whether a new State +voted slavery up or voted slavery down. During his last sickness he +murmured incessantly, "Failure--I have failed." His last words were: +"Telegraph to the President and let the columns move on." + +Douglas died on June 3, 1861, at the age of forty-eight. The lesson of +his life is the danger of compromise, the peril of refusing adherence to +the highest ideals of principle, and the failure of expediency and +opportunism. + +As Douglas's star went down, Lincoln's star began to climb the sky. It +was Douglas himself who held Lincoln's hat while he made his first +inaugural address. By the irony of fate it was Chief Justice Taney of +the Dred Scott Decision who inaugurated Lincoln into office, that +Lincoln might later make Taney's decision forever null and void. + +And that no dramatic note might be wanted, both Taney and Douglas heard +Lincoln plead with indescribable pathos, majesty and beauty, for the +very Union whose existence their words had threatened. "Physically +speaking, we [the North and South] cannot separate. We cannot remove our +respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall +between them. Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make +laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws +can among friends? Suppose you go to war? You cannot fight always, and +after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, +the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon +you. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, +is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail +you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. +You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I +shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. I am +loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battle-field and patriotic grave to every living heart and hearthstone +all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when +again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our +nature." + +But the great debate through arguments was ended. Henceforth, the appeal +was to arms. + + + + +VIII + +REASONS FOR SECESSION: SOUTHERN LEADERS + + +The seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas convinced both the North +and the South: but, confirming the one for union and liberty, it +confirmed the other for independence and slavery. Lincoln convinced the +North that the Union could not endure permanently half slave and half +free; on the other hand, the South saw just as clearly that the Union, +if it endured, must become all free or all slave. When the men of +light and leading in the North fully understood Lincoln's +"House-divided-against-itself" speech, they went over to the Republican +party, and nominated and elected Lincoln president, that he might put +slavery in a position of gradual extinction, by forbidding its future +growth. The South acted with even greater energy and decision, by making +ready to secede, and arming her citizens for the defense of slavery. The +great debate, through words, had lasted thirty years; now the South +made its appeal to regiments of armed men. + +At that moment slavery controlled the President, the Cabinet, the Senate +and the House. And yet immediately after the election, and before the +inauguration of Lincoln, the Secretary of War, Floyd, secretly began the +transfer of munitions of war from the nation's arsenals to the Southern +States. + +Late one December day in 1860, a Southern gentleman hastened to the +White House. On the steps he met an old friend who had just left +Buchanan. Waving his hat, he shouted, "This is a glorious day! South +Carolina has seceded!" That night an impromptu banquet was held in +Washington, at which the Southern leaders drank to the success of the +slave empire that was to be founded, and talked about a Southern army, a +Southern navy, the annexation of Mexico and the West India Islands. Then +swiftly followed the secession of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas +and Florida. + +Almost every week during the winter of 1861 witnessed the spectacle of +Southern Senators and Representatives saying good-bye to Congress and +announcing the withdrawal of their State from the Union. Those were +days of thick darkness at Washington. Gloom fell upon the North. Already +the shadow of the great eclipse was stealing across the face of Abraham +Lincoln. It seemed as if the government, "conceived in liberty and +dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal," was about +to "perish from the earth." Hamilton had called the Republic "the last, +best hope of earth." Burke had characterized the Constitution "an event +as wonderful as if a new star had arisen on the horizon to shine as +bright as the planets." Now the star was to fall out of the sky! Up to +the day of his inauguration Lincoln could not believe the South would +ever fire on the flag, or take up arms against the Union. "We are +friends, and not enemies--we must not be enemies." But it was not to be +as Lincoln wished. There are some diseases so terrible that they must be +cured by the knife and the cautery. Slavery had fastened on the very +vitals of the South. Therefore, God permitted the surgery of war. + +Lincoln's inaugural address on March 4, 1861, caused a certain solemn +hush to fall upon the land. Its logic, the facts it contained, the +principles it presented, were so convincing for the intellect and yet +so suffused with pathos and beauty and majesty, that the people, North +and South alike, stood uncertain and expectant. + +But the silence was premonitory. In summer, after a hot, sultry day, +when the great city has exhaled poisonous gases, the clouds are piled +mountain high on the horizon. Then a hush comes. Not a leaf stirs. It is +hard to breathe. Suddenly one bolt leaps from the east to the west--the +precursor of ten thousand fiery darts that are to burn the poison away, +and of the heavy rains and winds that will wash the air and make it +sweet and clean. On the 12th of April the silence for the nation was +broken by the shot fired at Fort Sumter. The bomb that went shrieking +through the air was the precursor of a million men in arms, the most +frightful carnage, the most terrible war in history, when brother took +up arms against brother, and the whole land became one vast cemetery. + +It is often said that South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter and began an +aggressive war to destroy the Union, before the South was ready. +Probably the fact in the case is that South Carolina was trying to "fire +the Southern heart," and force the State of Virginia into the secession +movement. The Old Dominion State was naturally a Union State. It was a +Virginian who uttered the most impassioned words in the history of +liberty--Patrick Henry at Williamsburg. It was a Virginian who led the +colonial armies to victory--Washington. It was a Virginian who wrote the +Declaration of Independence--Thomas Jefferson. He too, a Virginian +governor, made the great protest to King George against the further +imposition of slavery by force of arms. He too, a Virginian, the founder +of Washington and Jefferson College, had called upon the men of the +Dominion State to rise up and destroy the curse of slavery. But from the +moment when that shell rose through the pathless air, curved slightly +and burst above Sumter, the die was cast. Five days later, Virginia +passed her ordinance of secession. + +Oh, if the veil could have been lifted from Beauregard's eyes when he +began that bombardment! If he could but have seen the riches become +poverty, cities become a waste, happy homes a desolation, the Southern +hillsides covered with graves, the Southern plantations grown up with +weeds, and the whole secession movement futile, what a vision would +have fallen upon the soldier! + +On the 15th, President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops. If he had asked +for a million, the President would have had them. That shot had kindled +a fire of patriotism that swept across the North like a prairie fire. In +one day the college students deserted the lecture halls, the students of +law and medicine and theology closed their books, the farmer left his +plow in the furrow, the woodsman dropped his ax, the carpenter his +hammer, and the young men of twenty-three States sprang to arms. What +astonished the South most of all was the attitude of Douglas, and the +Northern Democrats, who had been confidently counted upon to stand by +secession. One Southern fire-eater had said that "Douglas and the +Democrats will fight Lincoln and the Republicans, and it will be another +case of the Kilkenny cats, leaving the South in peace to build up a +great empire." But the first thing that Stephen A. Douglas did was to go +to the White House and pledge his support to Lincoln, as did the leading +Democrats of the North. "The attack upon Sumter," said Douglas, "leaves +us but two parties--patriots and traitors." And now the war was +on,--the one side fighting for the Federal Union and liberty for all +men, and the other side fighting for State sovereignty and slavery. + +These great events bring us front to front with the question as to how +Southern men justified their firing upon the old flag and attacking the +Union. Let us confess that men do not make martyrs of themselves unless +they have a cause that commands the intellect and conquers the will. + +Skeptics used to say that the apostles invented the character of Jesus. +As if men first of all invent a lie and inflate a bubble myth, and then +go out in support of it to get themselves mobbed, kicked through the +streets, thrown from windows, tortured on the rack, crucified and burned +alive after incredible heroism for thirty years! To say that the +disciples invented the story of Jesus and then martyred themselves for +their falsehood is as intellectually stupid and silly as it is morally +monstrous! Not otherwise these leading men of the South were men of the +loftiest character, of great personal worth, patriotic, high-minded, and +they did not devastate their land and martyr themselves for idle +abstractions. Here is John C. Calhoun, ranked by all as one of the +triumvirate--Webster, Calhoun and Clay. Here is Gen. Robert E. Lee, of +whom Lord Wolsey said that for one State to have given birth to two such +men as Washington and Lee was to have lent it immortal renown. Lincoln +and Grant and our Northern generals understood the Southern men, +sympathized with them, and therefore because the intellect grasped their +position, Grant's heart forgave Lee, and made the two friends. To +understand this, go to-day to a great battle-field of that conflict and +hear the Northern generals and the Southern generals rehearse the story +of the Civil War, and you will understand the magnanimity of the +Northern leader and the argument of the Southern soldier. History has +destroyed the old delusion that secession was a conspiracy, organized by +a few malignant leaders. All historians to-day, Northern and Southern +alike, concede that it was a great popular uprising of the Southern +people. + +Indeed, it was not altogether a contest between Northern blood on the +one side, and Southern blood on the other. + +Twenty-one of the Southern generals who fought for the Rebellion were +born in New York and New England. Eighty distinguished Confederate +officers were born north of Mason and Dixon's line, were graduates of +West Point, yet these Northern soldiers rejected Webster's argument for +the Union, and accepted Calhoun's theory of State sovereignty. On the +other hand, many of our greatest Union leaders were Southern men by +birth and education, but as Southerners they rejected Calhoun's +philosophy, and accepted Webster's. Virginia gave us the +commander-in-chief of our army, Gen. Winfield Scott; gave us George H. +Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga. The South gave us Farragut, our +greatest admiral. Twelve of the commanders of our battle-ships that +captured the Mississippi River and made it possible for Lincoln to say, +"Once more the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea," were Southern +men. The South also, through Kentucky, gave us the great President, +Abraham Lincoln. It was, therefore, in large measure, a philosophic +contest. The Union forces were the disciples of Daniel Webster, whose +spirit invisible rode upon the wings of the wind, and whose arm bore the +gorgeous ensign, on which were written the words, "Liberty _and_ Union." +On the other hand, the Confederate forces were made up of the disciples +of John C. Calhoun, who followed a banner on which the great citizen of +South Carolina had inscribed these words, "Sovereignty is natural and +inalienable; government is secondary and artificial and can be changed +at the will of the people." In terms of cannon and gun, Grant and Lee +were the leaders of the two opposing armies, but fundamentally the two +armies were led by Daniel Webster on the one side and John C. Calhoun on +the other. + +Further, Calhoun's influence explains the attitude of the +non-slaveholding South towards secession. Of the six million white +people in the South, two millions of them did not own slaves, and most +of these were opposed to the slave traffic. Thousands of Southerners +freed their slaves before the war, and moved into Ohio and Pennsylvania. +Other thousands declined to participate in the traffic. A North +Carolinian named Hinton Rowan Helper published in 1857 a very striking +volume called "The Impending Crisis in the South, and How to Meet It." +Dedicated to the non-slaveholding whites, and not on behalf of the +blacks, its theme was slavery as a blight upon Southern white people +and their institutions, and a political peril. Not Garrison himself ever +made so vigorous and powerful an arraignment of slavery as did this +Southerner. Helper pronounced slavery the enemy of invention, the foe of +manufacturing plants, an obstacle to the development of the land, a +barrier to the progress of the sons of white men. He held that slavery +starves to death masters in the long run, while for the moment it +seemingly enriches them. Slavery was like sin, it wore the garb of an +angel of light; while secretly it sharpened a dagger, with which to stab +to the heart the angel of civilization. Within two years this book sold +over 150,000 copies, and set the whole South in a fever of unrest. +Nevertheless, when the storm broke, the large non-slaveholding element +in the South took up arms for the doctrine of State sovereignty. If they +resented interference with slavery, it was because slavery was a +Southern domestic institution. But this was only an incident; the one +thing they wished was the vindication of the sovereignty of each State +of the Union, and the right of its people to govern themselves without +regard to other States who had the same right of self-government. + +The character of the Southern leaders throws light upon Calhoun's +principle. Than Robert E. Lee, what general has been more idolized by +those who knew him best? His first ancestor in America was a cavalier +who left England rather than endure the tyranny of Charles II. The son +of "Light Horse Harry" of Revolutionary fame, he loved the Union. +Educated at West Point, he left the institution after four years without +a demerit, and won distinction both in the army during the Mexican War, +and later as an engineer. He was a man of such probity, purity and lofty +character that his followers loved him to the point of worship. He was +deeply religious, and the best expression we can use is that Lee, +like Enoch, walked with God. He was offered the position of +commander-in-chief of the Northern forces. But he could not bear to lead +an invading army against his old college, his ancestral homestead, and +against Washington's house at Mount Vernon, or become the enemy of his +own people in Virginia. On April 17th, Virginia passed her ordinance of +secession, and on the 20th, Lee resigned his commission in the United +States army, because he could not take part against his native +State,--"in whose behalf alone," he said, "will I ever again draw my +sword." By the Calhoun doctrine, Virginia was his country, and no one +has ever doubted his sincerity. Lee is the Sir Philip Sidney of the +Civil War. + +Wellington, the Iron Duke, is reported to have said, "A man of fine +Christian sensibilities is totally unfit for the position of soldier." +But Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson prayed as they fought; in +victory and in defeat alike they turned towards God. Jackson, who won +the name of "Stonewall," might have been the son of old Ironsides +himself. During his entire career he turned his camps into revival +meetings when he was on the Potomac and the Rappahannock, and was a +Puritan of Puritans. It is said that literally hundreds of men who +entered his regiments, careless, profane, drinking boys, went home to +join churches on profession of their faith in Christ. After the battle +of Bull Run, Jackson sent a letter home to his Presbyterian minister at +Lexington, Va. The people assembled to hear the minister read the letter +that would give an account of the conflict. It contained only one +sentence: "I forgot to send you my contribution for the coloured +Sunday-school of which I am superintendent." When Jackson lost his left +arm, General Lee wrote to him, "You have lost your left arm, but I have +lost the right arm of my army." Eight days after, Jackson lay dying, +having been accidentally shot by his own men at Chancellorsville. +Suddenly he cried out, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the +shade of the trees;" a companion had just read the great general that +verse in the Psalm, "There is a river whose streams make glad the city +of God." These two men have been a fountain of inspiration to Southern +youth, and their story makes a bright chapter in the history of all +heroism. + +Southern leaders there were also who opposed secession as inexpedient +and wrong. One of the finest exponents of this group was Alexander H. +Stephens, a self-made man, inured in childhood to hardship, and made +sympathetic through his own struggles. Orphaned at fifteen, he worked +his way through college; admitted to the bar at twenty-two, he achieved +fame as a lawyer; elected to Congress, he was one of the noted figures +in the House of Representatives for sixteen years. His slight physique +and his frail health were sad handicaps. He was dyspeptic, sleepless, a +nervous wreck. He ordinarily weighed seventy-two pounds, and during the +best years of his life only ninety-two. When in February, 1865, Lincoln +met Stephens for a peace conference, he saw the commissioner take off a +great outer coat, and unwrap layer after layer of tippet from his +throat, peeling down and down, until finally there stood this tiny man. +Lincoln whispered to his friend, "Did you ever see so small a nubbin +that had so much husk on it?" + +Within ten days after the election of Lincoln, Stephens began his +campaign against secession. He urged that Lincoln was friendly to the +South; that he had neither the desire nor the power to destroy slavery; +that John Brown's attack represented the individual and not the millions +of the North; that nothing could be gained by haste nor lost by delay, +and that the Southern people should heed Lincoln's inaugural. Finally, +he despaired; he wrote Toombs that "the South was wild with frenzy and +passion--that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." He +afterwards explained his later acquiescence with secession by the +statement that when two trains were running under full steam towards a +head-on collision, he got off at the first station. + +As vice-president of the Confederacy, Stephens was not always in +sympathy with Jefferson Davis; he was very frank in his criticism of the +Confederate leader. "While I never have regarded Davis as a great man, +or statesman on a large scale, or a man of any marked genius, yet I have +regarded him as a man of good intentions; weak and vacillating, timid, +petulant, peevish, obstinate, but not firm." + +To understand Jefferson Davis, however, we must take a broader outlook. + +Rhodes ventures the judgment that if the Pilgrim Fathers had settled in +South Carolina they might have held slaves by 1850, and might have +fought to maintain slavery; while if the cavalier had settled in Boston, +where the snow and the winter are unfriendly to the coloured man, the +cavalier would have founded abolition societies. If all scholars do not +see their way clear to fully accept Rhodes' statement, they must confess +that the Scotch-Irish soldiers that followed Cromwell, and after the +restoration of Charles II moved to North Carolina, at last became +slave-holders; while many Southerners, young men who were educated in +Northern colleges and married Northern girls, finally freed their slaves +and moved North, becoming abolitionists. Circumstances, environment, and +association, modify men so profoundly that Buckle believed that climate +and grains determine men's civilization. + +Again, in 1820, Northern leaders became alarmed at the invasion by +slavery of the Northern and Western territories, and Northern +representatives threatened to withdraw from the Union if slavery was +extended, just as in 1861 the Southern leaders not only threatened but +withdrew,--the only difference being this, that the North would rather +withdraw from the Union than have slavery, while the South preferred to +secede rather than have free labour enforced. + +Nor must we forget that Calhoun's principle of the absolute independence +of each State in political government is freely accepted by all +Congregationalists in church government. In 1875, when a Congregational +Association tried to interfere with Mr. Beecher and the government of +Plymouth Church, Plymouth told them plainly that every church is an +independent and self-governing organization, that sovereignty is +natural and government artificial, and that government by the +Association might be transferred but had not been so transferred. The +Congregational principle in church government is pure democracy. + +But the United States were a federal representative republic, under a +constitution; and, to recur again to ecclesiastical illustration, the +Presbyterian form of government is representative and federal. The +Presbyterians base their government on our political institutions. For +the political township, they have a Presbyterian church; for the county, +they set up the Presbytery; for the State, they organized a synod; for +congress, they organized the General Assembly; for the president, they +substituted a moderator. + +In politics we believe in representative government, but as to the +church, Congregationalists believe in pure democracy, and the +independent principle. + +Now John C. Calhoun took this Congregational principle and translated it +into terms of politics, and called it the States' rights or State +sovereignty theory. If John C. Calhoun had been struggling, not for a +political theory, but for an ecclesiastical one, Henry Ward Beecher +would have backed him to a finish. If there is any one group of people +on earth, therefore, who ought not only to understand but to appreciate +John C. Calhoun's argument, they are the Independents. Now for twenty +years John C. Calhoun went up and down the South, analyzing his +argument, explaining and enforcing it. At the very time Northern boys +were reading in their readers Webster's speech for the Union, Southern +boys were reciting Calhoun's speech for the independence of the States. + +Not in consequence of the Calhoun doctrine but in harmony with it, +having always held that the Union was subordinate to the sovereignty of +the States, Jefferson Davis, United States senator from Mississippi, +became the chief organizer of secession after Lincoln's election. A West +Point graduate, a brilliant officer in Indian fights and the Mexican +War, a governor of Mississippi, United States senator, a singularly +efficient Secretary of War under President Pierce, and again an +influential senator, a man of charming personality with many friends, +Mr. Davis was so prominent in the secession movement that he was the +free choice of the Southern people for president of their Confederacy. +And, despite Mr. Stephens' opinion, he probably did as well in that +difficult place as another could have done. To the end of his life he +held to the doctrine of State sovereignty. + +But one question persistently forces itself into the foreground. Why was +it that the people of the North did not "let the erring sisters go," to +use Horace Greeley's expression? Just across the Northern line dwells +another nation--Canada. Why should there not have been a second nation +to the south of Mason and Dixon's line, with Mobile or New Orleans for a +capital--a great slave empire, that would have included Texas, Mexico +and Central America? The answer is very simple. The Constitution stood +in the way. Men saw clearly that if this republic, conceived in liberty +and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal, could +be destroyed by the minority, that would not respect the rights of the +majority, there was no hope for civilization save in the revival of +despotism, with a monarch ruling the people by military force. The North +by a majority of States and votes had chosen Lincoln, with his statement +that the Union could not permanently endure, half slave and half free. +The minority then answered: "If we cannot have our way, we will destroy +the government." Analyzed, this is seen to be sheer anarchy. + +In that hour men remembered what their fathers had endured to found the +Republic and free institutions. When the news came of the attack upon +Fort Sumter, the better angels of men's natures did touch "the mystic +chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave +to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land," and the +tones swelled the chorus of the Union. What other land offered poor men +an opportunity for office, wealth and honours, with full liberty of +thought and speech? Had not the fathers lived and died to make education +democratic through the public schools? Had not the fathers given life +itself to establish the freedom of the printing-press and freedom of +discussion? Had not the fathers bought at great price their political +liberty, and the rights of the ballot? Was not the land dedicated to +toleration and charity in religion? Was the work of Washington and +Jefferson and Hamilton to go down in ruin and nothingness? While the old +world, with her tyrannies, scoffed at the failure of the Republic, men +thought of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Yorktown. They thought of +the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They recalled the +tribute of one of the greatest of English statesmen, who characterized +the American Constitution as "the greatest political instrument ever +struck off by the unaided genius of man." + +And now the Republic was to be destroyed, the Constitution torn into +shreds and stamped under foot, the Declaration of Independence made a +thing of jibes and scorn in the palaces of Madrid and Constantinople, +while slavery, with black fingers, was to knit its claws into the throat +of the angel of liberty and choke the life out. Suddenly men saw that +the only way to insure liberty for the white race was to destroy slavery +for the black races. Men determined that the majority had their rights, +and that these rights should not be wrested away by the minority, +fighting in the interests of slavery. Democracy, the "last, best hope of +earth," should not fail! In that moment Liberty stretched forth her +sceptre of justice, "red with insufferable wrath," and her clarion voice +rang to the outermost corners of the land. Three millions of men +assembled to swear fealty to God and country. Then they marched away, +through the towns and across the prairies, into thickets and swamps, to +be pierced by bullets, torn by shells, to eat crusts, wear rags, shiver +in the cold, burn in the heat, famish in the prison, welter in the +bloody trench, above them a fiery hail, beside them their dying comrades +falling into the arms of death. It is a strange, wild, chivalrous, +divine story of the world's greatest enthusiasm, our fathers' enthusiasm +for liberty and democracy! What God thinks of freedom, is written in the +price that people paid for it! What God thinks of slavery is in the woe +and sorrow and wreckage it has always brought upon those who have sought +to live on the sweat of other men's faces! + +The Russian would not fight against the Japanese because the Russian +peasant owned no lands, had no schoolhouse, no ballot box, no free +printing-press, no religious liberty. The Russian stood sullenly in the +trenches and had to be flogged into the battle. If the Russian peasant +lost, he lost nothing, because he had nothing to lose; if the peasant +won, he gained nothing, because the Russian aristocrat and the baron +took all of the treasure; therefore he would not fight. But the Northern +soldier had everything to fight for. No such treasures were ever thrown +on the earth to be struggled for. Liberty and the Union were worth a +thousand lives and ten thousand deaths. + +It was an awful and a gallant fight, waged by the finest of the world's +manhood on both sides. The Southerner fought for local self-government +and the right to enslave and govern other men; the Northerner fought for +universal self-government and the institutions which had made that +possible without injustice to other men. There can be no choice as +between the splendid qualities that entered into the contest--of +sincerity, earnestness, devotion and fidelity on either side: but the +South lost because slavery had eaten out the enduring vigour of its +resources; the North won because free labour and the rights of man had +given it the greater effective power. At last, the theory on which the +South stood for self-justification crumbled under the supreme test. + + + + +IX + +HENRY WARD BEECHER: THE APPEAL TO ENGLAND + + +One November morning in the White House, Abraham Lincoln kept his +Cabinet waiting while he finished reading a newspaper, containing an +account of Beecher's speeches in England. At last he laid the paper on +the table before them, and in substance said to Stanton, "When this war +is fought to a successful issue, this man, Henry Ward Beecher, will have +earned the right to lift the old flag back to its place on Fort Sumter, +for without these speeches England might have recognized the +Confederacy, and then there might have been no flag to raise." + +Long time has passed since that Friday morning in the capital, and now +all men recognize the justice of the words of the martyred President. +History is a stern judge, and the centuries have given opportunity for +contrast. When a great country, a great emergency, a critical hour, and +a great man meet, a spark is struck out, called great eloquence. Such a +conjunction of city, peril and man once met in Athens, and for +twenty-four centuries boys have been translating Demosthenes' oration +against Philip. Demosthenes spoke, but Philip marched on. Greece bowed +her neck to the yoke, and became subject to Macedonia; Demosthenes +failed. Another crisis came in Westminster Hall, in London, when Edmund +Burke made his plea for the millions of outraged folk in India pillaged +by Warren Hastings. But Hastings became a lord; he died honoured in his +palace; India was left to stagger onward; Burke's splendid oratory +failed. That was a great hour in the history of eloquence when Patrick +Henry and Fisher Ames and Josiah Quincy became voices for liberty and +the new republic. But these orators spoke to sympathetic hearers, and +simply returned to the multitude in a flood what they had received from +the people in dew and rain. + +Henry Ward Beecher spoke to mobs, pleaded with unfriendly critics, and +was asked to change hate to love, ice to fire, weapons for attack into +weapons for defense. He went against the English mob as one goes up +against a castle that is locked, barred and bristling with arms, and he +gave sops to Cerberus, charmed the keys out of him who kept the fortress +gate, cast a spell upon those who guarded the walls, stole all the +weapons, and, single handed, at last lifted the banner of victory above +the ramparts of granite. The history of eloquence holds no other +achievement of the same rank and class. What a volume, that contains the +speech delivered within the limit of nine days, with the introduction at +Manchester, the three great arguments at Glasgow, Edinburgh and +Liverpool, and the peroration in Exeter Hall, London! What physical +reserves as the basis of sustained public speech! What mastery of all +the facts of liberty and democracy, not less than slavery! What +familiarity with English law not less than American! The orator moves +across the scene in history like some refulgent planet in the sky. The +story of those nine wonderful days makes illustrious forever the history +of eloquence and patriotism. + +The winter of 1862 and '63, with its high-wrought excitements, brought +Beecher the peril of a nervous breakdown. His exhaustion illustrates the +fact that some men who stayed at home endured as much as others who +went to the front. Generals and their marching regiments often suffered +much, but they were not alone in their fortitude and faith. Women who +toiled on farm or in hospital, working men who laboured to support the +boys at the front, orators who went up and down the land inciting +patriotism in the people, preachers who realized that the breakdown of +conscience meant the breakdown of the cause--these all were citizen +soldiers who defended the Union and kept the faith. + +Among them all no man poured out his life more generously than Henry +Ward Beecher. Since 1850, through the intensities of the Fugitive Slave +Law, the Fremont campaign, the Kansas troubles, the Lincoln election, +the era of secession and the first two years of the war, he had been +preaching, writing, lecturing, making public addresses, attending to his +great pastorate, and active in every civic and national interest. And +during the war, back and forth, across the land, from city to city, in +church, hall and armoury, he lifted up his voice in the presence of +multitudes, telling the story of the founding of the Republic, showing +that the Republic, with its self-government, was the last, best hope of +man, reminding boys that they must fight and live for the Union that +their fathers had died to found. When at length Antietam was won, and +Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and the rebellion +staggered like a giant stunned by a crushing blow, Beecher was lifted +into the seventh heaven of hope, and had the vision of coming victory. +In that hour he told his people that he was ready to die, that God might +peel him, and strip away all the leaves of life, and do with him as He +pleased; that he had lived fifty years, that he had had a good time, +that he had "hit the devil many blows and square in the face, that it +was joy enough to have uttered some words because they were incorporated +into the lives of men and could not die." + +But we all know that it is possible to stretch the strings of the mental +harp too tightly. Excitement burns the nerve as an electric current +consumes a wire. During those days Beecher wore a garment whose warp and +woof was fiery enthusiasm, and fierce flaming patriotism. The human body +is like a cask of precious liquor. One way to drain off the treasure is +to knock out the bung-hole, and in a few minutes drain the rich +fountain dry; another way is to bore innumerable apertures, that drop by +drop the liquor may waste. And so it was with Beecher, during those +exciting days, with this difference, that sometimes it seemed as if one +great event would drain out all his life in a tumultuous flood, while at +the same time innumerable petitioners taxed his life, drawing away his +strength, drop by drop. Alarmed, the officers and friends in Plymouth +Church insisted upon rest and vacation. They determined to put the sea +between the preacher and his task, planning to lose him for a little +time that they might have him for a long time. + +The popular opinion is that Beecher went to England, not openly, but +secretly as a messenger of the government. Like other myths, the fable +grew slowly, but is now well entrenched in the minds of multitudes. +There is no foundation for the story. Indeed, Mr. Beecher is on record +plainly, stating that no request, no suggestion, no hint, even, came +from Washington. At the time, his relations with the Cabinet were +strained. Seward was unfriendly. Stanton was hurt by his insistence, +through the _Independent_, upon immediate emancipation. For a time even +Lincoln classed him with Horace Greeley, as extremist. His editorials +during the spring of 1862 had one thought, "Carthago delenda est." It +was only after Lincoln came around by a gunboat into New York Harbour, +and secretly met General Winfield Scott in a friend's house, and had +another secret interview with Henry Ward Beecher, and returned (letters +exist from Secretary Hay, following an interview with him over the +records in Washington, which establish this trip to New York to see +Scott and Beecher), that Beecher changed the tone of his editorials, and +went over to Lincoln's position,--that the Union was first, and the +destruction of slavery the secondary thing. The Great Emancipator loved +and trusted Beecher, but the Cabinet was critical, and Lincoln, as he +said, "did not have much influence with the administration." + +The only power and the whole power behind Beecher was that of Plymouth +Church, that gave him the money for all of his expenses, and took from +him a pledge that if he spoke at all he was to speak at their expense, +but under no circumstances to either preach or lecture until he had +recovered his strength. He was ill during the entire voyage, and was +not able to appear on deck until the vessel entered the Mersey. The news +of Beecher's coming had preceded him, and on opening the papers he found +even church leaders antagonistic. They deplored his coming, lest he +increase the excitement. The nobility was in favour of the South, as +were the ship-builders, the mill-owners, the bankers and all who had +investments or loans in the cotton industry of England and of the South. + +One hundred and fifty Congregational ministers greeted Beecher with a +breakfast in London. They asked him to preach and speak on religious +topics, but to avoid all reference to slavery on account of the inflamed +condition of the English mind. The man who introduced him deplored the +war, and described the patience of God in permitting the North to go on. +When Beecher arose to speak he was in a towering rage. He told them that +he would neither preach nor lecture nor speak in a mother land that was +openly hostile to her own daughter, and unfriendly to every principle of +liberty that was dear to England and embedded in English tradition and +history. + +In substance, he said: "Your conscience here in England is very +sensitive on the subject of war, providing some one else is fighting the +war, but England has no conscience at all as to war when she is +prosecuting the campaign." At that very hour England was fighting a war +in Japan, and a war in China, and a war in New Zealand for territory. +Three wars being quite proper, if England fought them, but oh, the +patience of God in permitting the North to exist even for one moment, +while fighting for liberty, the Union and the emancipation of slaves! He +told them that they thought it was a crime for the North to have a war +for emancipation, but quite proper for England to threaten a war over +two men named Mason and Slidell! Beecher understood Old England. No +nation in history ever conducted so many wars. No other nation's +statesmen ever had such skill to invent moral excuses for seizing +territory, in Africa, Egypt, India, Thibet, Australia, New Zealand and +all the islands of the sea. He best described it in his final speech in +London, when returned from the Continent: "On what shore has not the +prow of your ships dashed? What land is there with a name and a people +where your banner has not led your soldiers? And when the great +_reveillé_ shall sound, it will muster British soldiers from every clime +and people under the whole heaven." What? "Speak in England on religion +and keep still on slavery, and the North and the South?" When an engine +is full of steam, it is a bad thing to sit on its safety-valve. +Figuratively speaking, the chairman and the hundred and fifty ministers, +who were trying to get Beecher to speak on religion and keep still on +slavery, sat passively and serenely on the safety-valve for about five +minutes, but finally the engine blew up. Mr. Beecher was not the man to +stifle his convictions in the name of peace, for he knew that in an evil +world a good man has no right to dwell at peace with the devil and his +minions. So he declared his hostility, turned his back on England, and +went to the Continent; and thus ended the first chapter in the European +trip. + +Looking backward, it is easy to discover the explanation of England's +attitude towards slavery and the Southern leaders. During the early +forties England had herself passed through an industrial revolution. +Because she had little agricultural land, and thirty millions of +people, the cost of living was high. When the cry of the people for +bread became bitter, Cobden, Bright and their associates inaugurated and +carried through the Free Corn Movement. With the incoming of free raw +materials England became the great manufacturing centre. What her +farmers lost through free trade in selling grain they gained in the +lowered price on which they bought. Within ten years after the victory +of free trade England became a hive of industry, filled with clustering +cities, while the whole land resounded with the stroke of engines. +Abundance succeeded to poverty and work trod closely upon the heels of +want. So prosperous had England become that by 1860 she was importing +two million bales of cotton from Southern States. The shipyards of +Glasgow built ships to carry cotton, the bankers in London made loans to +Southern planters, the mill-owners in Manchester bought shares in the +Southern cotton fields. The rich men of the South were constant guests +of the mill-owners in Central England and of the bankers in London. +Little by little England was drawn in through financial channels, and +cast her lot in with the production of cotton,--and slavery. + +Then came the Civil War. The planters went to the front with Lee's army; +the slaves freed from overseers would not work. The production of cotton +was halved. The Northern navy blockaded the exit of cotton ships from +the Southern ports. English ships hung around the Southern shores trying +in vain to find access, hoping to run the gauntlet and obtain a cargo of +cotton. One by one the great English mills shut down for want of raw +material, and when two winters had passed, and the autumn of 1863 had +come, and the English working people fronted a third winter, the +spectacle became pathetic and terrible. Gaunt Famine stalked the land. +The skeleton Want stood in the shadow of the poor man's house. But the +courage and fidelity of the English cotton spinners held out for two +years. The poor always love the poor. The classes have always been +wrong, the masses have always been right. Luxury puts wax into the ears +of the aristocrats, but want makes the hearing of the poor very +sensitive to a sob of pain. The sympathy of the cotton spinner was with +the Northern working man. An English working man did not want to be put +in the same class with a Southern slave. He saw that any law that +riveted fetters on black slaves in the South helped forge a manacle for +the cotton spinner's wrist in the mother land. These poor English folk +believed in the dignity of labour, in the right to a good wage, and in +the necessity for all working people standing together. + +But the mill-owner wanted raw cotton. The banker wanted the mill-owner +to have his cotton that his loans might be paid. The ship-builders +wanted Southern cotton that their industry might thrive. Investors who +for two years had had no interest on their Southern loans sympathized +with the South; the politicians, controlled by their financial +interests, wanted the South to succeed. In that hour of temptation +Avarice drew near and choked Justice. Greed offered bribes to +Conscience. Old England's ruling classes, with the full sympathy of men +like Gladstone and hundreds of others, favoured the speedy recognition +of the Southern Confederacy in the hope that that would end the war and +restore England's prosperity. + +In a word, the situation was this: The North had to fight the South, and +England with her influence as well. For here was the North, struggling +for the principles of the Pilgrim Fathers, for liberty, for democracy +and for the slaves, and just in the darkest hour of the struggle, when +she was burying her dead and the whole North was hung with funeral +crape, England, with ships on every sea, England, strong and powerful, +taking advantage of the capture of two Southern emissaries--Mason and +Slidell--from the British ship _Trent_ on the high seas, declared she +would send an army to Canada and ships to batter down our Northern +cities. Even Gladstone bought Southern bonds, but later Gladstone deeply +lamented his sympathy with slavery and the South, and asked the world to +forgive and forget it. Yet if the North has long ago forgiven England, +it must be a hard thing for England to forgive herself that she gave to +slavery every ounce of influence she had, her threats, her frowns, her +diplomacy and her ships. Long afterwards a court of arbitration in +Geneva punished England with an enormous fine for the American shipping +that she helped destroy in her effort to help break down the North and +defeat liberty in a war that her own statesman, John Bright, has +characterized as one of the few wars not only justifiable but glorious +in all history. + +Now this was the attitude of England. Her upper classes and financial +interests were all on the side of slavery and the South. Her great +middle class were largely in favour of liberty. Her working people were +naturally on the side of free labour and the North, but they were +weakened by starvation till their endurance and fortitude were almost +gone. And then it was that Beecher entered the scene, returning from the +Continent to England. Recognition of the Confederacy and other +unfriendly official acts were trembling in the balance; yet there was +hesitation, on account of the common people, who sympathized with the +North. In telling of this afterwards, Mr. Beecher said: "To my amazement +I found that the unvoting English possessed great power in England; a +great deal more power, in fact, than if they had a vote. The aristocracy +and the government felt, 'These men know they have no political +privileges, and we must administer with the strictest regard to their +feelings or there will be a revolution.'" There were many noble +exceptions among the higher classes, and the Queen, doubtless under the +influence of the Prince Consort Albert, who died in 1861, and had been +a firm friend of America, was also friendly to the North; but her +Government was not. + +The argument finally used to persuade Beecher to speak was that the +English Anti-Slavery Society was already discredited, unpopular, and +frowned upon by the nobility and the upper classes, and that if Beecher +would not recognize them by at least one speech their cause and ours +would be still further weakened. + +He began his work with a speech at Manchester, the very centre of the +cotton spinning industry. For weeks the streets had been placarded +against him. On his way to the Free Trade Hall he found, not a +multitude, but a mob, filling the streets. The meeting had been packed +in advance. Within five minutes after his introduction the storm let +loose its fury. There were two or three centres of conflict that became +veritable whirlpools of excitement. All the rest of the audience climbed +on their chairs to see what was going on in the tumultuous centres. +Everybody seemed to be yelling, some for order, and others with the +purpose of breaking up the meeting. Mr. Beecher saw that many were +determined that he should not speak, and he realized that if they broke +him down, other cities would withdraw their invitation, and it would +appear that all England was unalterably opposed to the North, so that +the recognition of the Confederacy might follow. When his enemies began +to wear themselves out and the tumult to subside, Mr. Beecher shot a few +sentences into the noise. "I have registered a vow that I will not leave +your country until I have spoken in your great cities. I am going to be +heard, and my country shall be vindicated." + +The orator soon found that about one-quarter of the audience were +bitterly hostile. Another quarter applauded his sentiment. The great +mass was hesitant, undecided, unconvinced, and he determined to conquer +that undecided class, and add them to that portion that was friendly. He +scornfully reminded them that he had before met men whose cause could +not bear the light of free speech. He roused them by saying that +American institutions were the fruit of English ideas, and that the +fruit of American liberty was from seed corn that was English. + +When some one shouted that he was harsh and unfair, he answered, What if +some exquisite dancing master should stand on the edge of a +battle-field where a hero lifted his battle-axe, and criticize him by +saying that "his gestures and postures violated the proprieties of +polite life!" He added, "When dandies fight they think how they look; +when men fight, they think only of deeds." He said that what the North +desired was not material aid, but simply that England should keep hands +off, and that France should keep hands off. He affirmed that even if +they both interfered, the North would fight on, that slavery must be +destroyed, and that liberty must be established on the American +continent; that the victory of democracy and liberty in the North would +mean their victory over the North and South American continent, and that +if the day ever should come when the old flag should wave again over +every state in the South, and the atrocious crime of slavery should be +destroyed, there should be liberty for the press, and liberty for the +poor in the schoolhouse; if plantations should be broken up and +distributed among the poor farmers, and the privileges of civil liberty +be won, that it would be worth all the blood and tears and woe. + +When he said that Great Britain had frowned upon the North, but hastened +to fling her arms around the neck of the imperious South, one +Englishman waved his arms and shouted: "She doesn't!" and the six +thousand people began to cheer the disclaimer of England's being Romeo. +To which Beecher answered: "I have only to say that she has been caught +in very suspicious circumstances." + +Beecher's unshakable good humour, his witty, lightning-like answers to +their questions and contradictions, his solid sense and--when he got the +chance--his flaming eloquence, finally quelled and captured them. Then +he traversed the entire history of slavery in its relation to the +Colonies, the States, and the different forms of legislation up to the +Kansas and Nebraska Bill. When he concluded his speech, and the +sentiment of the audience was called for, to the astonishment of his +friends, men lifted up their voices with a sound like the sound of many +waters, and lined up for the North and liberty. The enthusiasm was +overwhelming. Within three hours January's frost had turned to the bloom +of June, and the moment was radiant with hope. The London _Times_ +contained four columns of this speech, and the address became the topic +of the hour in every club in England. And either of these facts in +those days meant that Henry Ward Beecher was famous in England. + +His speeches in Glasgow and Edinburgh took up the second and third steps +in the development of slavery and liberty on the American continent. He +told these ship-builders in Glasgow how the providence of God seemed to +be exhibiting to all the peoples of the world the reflex influence of +slavery upon the strongest people and the richest resources, and how +slavery cursed whatever it touched. That the lesson might be the clearer +He gave liberty an unfriendly clime, and gave slavery a rich arena. To +the North He gave short summers, bleak skies, the rocks of New England +hills, the thin soil of New York, the sand dunes of Michigan. To the +South He gave sunny Virginia, the riches of the Gulf States, the +fruitful skies, the abundant rains, the treasures of the cotton, the +sugar and the rice. Above all, God sifted all the nations of the Old +World to find blood rich enough to people the Southern States. The men +who laid the foundations of the great South were people of a heroic +type, giants and heroes of fortitude. God brought the Huguenots, and +the very flower of French chivalry into Florida and Georgia. He sifted +all Scotland and North Ireland for outstanding men for South Carolina. +He took the best blood of England for Virginia. These Southern founders +and fathers had fought in France, endured for their convictions in +Scotland, conquered their enemies in England and North Ireland, and God +rewarded them with the richest, choicest meadows and valleys of the +sunny South. And yet Slavery wrought weakness, while Liberty made the +bleak North to blossom like the rose. + +It is said that plants exude poison from the roots, and soon destroy the +soil unless there is a rotation of crops. Slavery was a noxious plant, +deadlier than the nightshade, and it poisoned the South. The longer +slavery existed, the weaker the Southern giant became, until, toiling +on, the South became bankrupt through slavery, and toiling on, every +year of the war under free labour found the North growing ever richer +and stronger. Liberty is a giant that when it touches the soil renews +its strength. + +Oh, if the South had but had a better cause! History affords nothing +finer than the bravery of Southern soldiers and their leaders; had they +been fighting for liberty, or some great cause that would have supported +them during the struggle instead of bankrupting them as slavery did, it +is doubtful whether any army could have defeated their soldiers. + +In Liverpool Beecher literally fought with the lions of Ephesus. The +bill-boards were posted with placards in red type. All men in England +who had investments in the South and wanted to break Beecher and his +cause seemed to have assembled. From the moment he entered the room the +great audience became a mob, and with groans, hisses, cat-calls, +epithets, men interrupted the orator with cheers for the South. Speaking +was like lifting up one's voice in the midst of a hurricane, or trying +to speak while a typhoon was raging on the sea. For one hour the tumult +raged. From time to time the police would succeed in carrying out some +obstreperous individual but there were enough men scattered through the +hall, each bellowing like a bull of Bashan, to make hearing impossible. +To add to the tumult, from time to time, an Englishman would climb on +his chair and shout, "I am ashamed of Liverpool and my country," and the +confusion would break out afresh. It took one hour to wear the voices +out. When Beecher told the reporters that he would speak slowly so they +could hear, and thus he could reach all England, the audience grew +quieter. + +Beecher urged three arguments,--first, that the national prosperity is +dependent upon the production of wealth, and this meant independence for +the producer; second, that prosperity depends upon manufacturing and +that means a high quality of educated workman; third, that prosperity is +dependent upon commerce and the exchange of commodities between nations, +and that means brotherhood. He urged that the more intelligent and +prosperous the workman, the higher his wage, and, therefore, the better +he supports as a buyer. A slave uses his feet and hands, and produces a +few cents a day. A poor white labourer uses his hands and his lower +head, and earns fifty cents a day. An intelligent Northern working man +uses his hands and his creative intellect, and he produces a dollar a +day. A highly educated worker becomes an inventor as well as a freeman, +and earns five dollars a day. With this wage he buys comforts, tools, +products of the loom, builds up manufactures, and promotes prosperity. +For that reason a few patricians only in the South buy in the English +market, while the millions of slaves demand from Sheffield only whips +and manacles. Therefore slavery starves English trade.--And at last +Liverpool heard him. + +In Exeter Hall in London, Beecher closed his argument: "Shall we let the +South go, and carry slavery with her? If a Northern working man has a +mad dog by the throat shall he let that animal go to spread death? +Letting the South go as a free nation is one thing, but letting her go +to spread slavery over Mexico and Central America is another thing. When +we kill the mad dog we will talk about letting the South go." + +Beecher returned home to find himself the hero of the hour. In Plymouth +Church, on Sunday morning, the audience stood for five minutes, and with +their tears and silence told him of their gratitude and love. From that +hour Stanton asked for his friendship, and was weekly and even daily in +correspondence. He promised Beecher that immediately upon the receipt of +any news from the battle-field he would send him a telegram. Indeed, the +first news that the country had from Stanton of one of the great +victories came to Beecher's pulpit and was read over his desk. Other +great men, the President, secretaries, the generals, the statesmen, +editors, lecturers, preachers, did their part, but high among co-workers +ranks Henry Ward Beecher. God gave him a great task, and armed him for +the battle. He loved the poor, he broke the shackles from the slave, he +discovered to the world the love of God, and dying he flung his helmet +into the thick of the enemy. It is for us and our children to fight our +way forward to that helmet, and fling our own at last into some new +fight for the emancipation of the mind and heart of earth's troubled +millions. + +It must be confessed that the aristocracy of England and her upper +middle class, in the main, still sympathized with the South, while the +English cabinet tried to maintain neutrality. Four-fifths of the House +of Lords were "no well-wishers of anything American, and most of the +House of Commons voted in sympathy with the South." + +But the attitude of the "classes" of England was only the reflection of +her scholars. Carlyle, whose early books had no sale in England, and who +wrote Emerson that he had received his first money to keep him from +starvation from Boston and New York, "when not a penny had been realized +in England," had no sympathy with liberty and the North. As soon as his +own physical wants were supplied by the American check which Emerson +sent him, Carlyle began to call the war "a smoky chimney that had taken +fire." "No war ever waged in my time was to me more profoundly foolish +looking." (Slovenly English, contradictory thinking, and poor morals!) +"Neutral I am to a degree." Then Carlyle tried to sum up his view of the +situation: "Now speaks the Northern Peter to the Southern Paul: 'Paul, +you unaccountable scoundrel! I find you hire your servants for life, not +by the month or year as I do. You are going straight to hell.' Paul: +'Good words, Peter; the risk is my own. Hire you your servants by the +month or day, and go straight to heaven. Leave me to my own method.' +Peter: 'No, I won't. I will beat your brains out.' And he's trying +dreadfully ever since, but cannot quite manage it." + +No one knew better than Carlyle that there is a world diameter between +the South hiring a man for life, and by force holding him in slavery. +But Carlyle for three years poured out such vapid humbug, cant and +hypocrisy as this, and never once was sound in his thinking or fair in +his view-point during the entire war. + +Even Charles Dickens, who had written denouncing slavery in his +"American Notes," returned to England in the spring of 1863 to predict +the overwhelming victory of the South, and to characterize the hopes of +Lincoln as "a harmless hallucination." But little by little, English +sentiment began to change. Goldwin Smith, of Oxford University, +consented to speak at a meeting in Manchester to protest against the +building and sending out of piratical ships in support of the Southern +Confederacy. He affirmed boldly that "no nation ever inflicted upon +another more flagrant or more maddening wrong" [in permitting the +_Alabama_ to escape]. No nation with English blood in its veins had ever +borne such a wrong without resentment. + +Richard Cobden wrote to Mr. Beecher as to the feeling in England: "In +every other instance ... the popular sympathy of this country has always +leaped to the side of the insurgents the moment a rebellion has broken +out. In the present case, our masses have an instinctive feeling that +their cause is bound up in the prosperity of the United States. It is +true that they have not much power in the direct form of a vote; but +when the millions of this country are led by the religious middle class +they can together prevent the government from pursuing a policy hostile +to their sympathies." + +When Beecher appeared and spoke, he aroused, intensified, unified, and +made effective this great underlying force of English popular feeling, +and the unfriendly purposes of the governmental and "upper-class" +element were paralyzed. + +Beecher himself was very modest about his achievement. Said he: "When in +October you go to a tree and give it a jar, and the fruit rains down all +about you, it is not you that ripened and sent down the fruit; the whole +summer has been doing that. It was my good fortune to be there when it +was needed that some one should jar the tree; the fruit was not of my +ripening." + +Beecher returned home in November of 1863, conscious that he had risked +everything in the service of his imperilled country. He found the entire +North had constituted itself a Committee of Reception to welcome him +home. A great public meeting was arranged in the Academy of Music in New +York, and the Music Hall was crowded from pit to dome with the leaders +of the city and of the North. Mr. Beecher entered the room at eight +o'clock, and the whole audience rose to its feet to greet him, but not +until many minutes had passed in tumultuous cheering did he have an +opportunity to speak. From that hour his influence in the country was +second only to that of the President, two or three members of his +cabinet, and General Grant. Abraham Lincoln wrote to Mr. Beecher words +of warmest gratitude and invited him to the White House. "Often and +often," wrote Secretary Stanton, "in the dark hours you have come to me, +and I have longed to hear your voice, feeling that above all other men +you could cheer, strengthen, quiet and uplift me in this great battle, +where by God's providence it has fallen upon me to hold a part, and +perform a duty beyond my own strength." When therefore Lee surrendered, +and the war came to a close, President Lincoln and the cabinet felt that +Beecher's service to the cause of liberty had earned for him the most +unique distinction granted to any man during the war. And so it came +about that four years after Beauregard fired upon Fort Sumter, and the +flag of the Union was lowered to give place to the flag of Secession, +that not a general nor an admiral, but that a minister, Henry Ward +Beecher, was selected to lift into its place again the old flag, that +proclaimed to all the nations of the earth that government of the +people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the +earth. + + + + +X + +HEROES OF BATTLE: AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND SAILORS + + +One of the wariest and most capable of the Confederate commanders was +General Joseph E. Johnston. In his report of the battle of Kenesaw +Mountain in Northwestern Georgia, in June, 1864, when Sherman had at +last driven him to bay, he thus describes the attack and the repulse: +"The Federal troops pressed forward with the resolution always displayed +by the American soldier when properly led. After maintaining the contest +for three-quarters of an hour, they retired unsuccessful, because they +had encountered entrenched infantry, unsurpassed by that of Napoleon's +Old Guard, or that which followed Wellington into France, out of Spain." + +It would be difficult to find a more soldierly appreciation of both +officers and men of those two American armies. And in a recent +interesting book on Grant and Lee[2] is cited a remark of Charles +Francis Adams when American Minister to Great Britain in the early years +of our Civil War. Some one sarcastically asked him his opinion of the +Confederate victories of that time. He quietly replied, "I think they +have been won by my countrymen." In all those four strenuous years, +heroic qualities--enterprise, resolution, valour, self-control, exercise +of judgment amid dangers, endurance and fidelity in disaster--were +plentifully developed throughout both parties of the then divided +American people. The lonely picket-duty, the toilsome march, the endless +duties of the soldier, were a constant drain upon enduring faithfulness, +harder to bear, often, than the crashing excitement of the battle, while +the deadly suffering of camp and hospital were at times easily worse +than all. + +Most fascinating the story of the leaders of the two armies. The career +of two preëminent military leaders of the South, Lee and Jackson, has +already been reviewed--cursorily, as must be the case in all the +references to example--and we have noted them especially as to +character. But it should be said further that in the opinion of military +critics and soldiers, both American and foreign, Robert E. Lee was one +of the most masterly strategists in warlike annals. In his defense of +Richmond as the vital point of the Confederacy he did have the advantage +of operating on interior lines; but when that is said all is said, for +in numbers of men, equipment and military resources, he was always more +meagrely supplied than his Federal opponents. His available means were +mostly in his fertile brain, his prompt judgment, and his dauntless +heart, together with the spirited support of his officers and the +indomitable marching and fighting energy of his soldiers. The intense +and tireless Jackson was indeed the chief's "right arm," and more than +that, a keen intelligence, instant to see and seize the right way, and +to follow it so swiftly that his rarely defeated infantry earned the +proud nickname of "foot-cavalry." + +Out of the many gallant officers of the Southern armies were some others +whose names became familiar throughout the North. Among them were: +Generals Pierre G. T. Beauregard, prominent in service from Bull Run to +the end; the brilliant Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at Pittsburg +Landing in 1862; J. E. B. Stuart, renowned as a fearless cavalry +officer; James Longstreet, a leader of great distinction; the two +Hills--Daniel H. and Ambrose P., both renowned fighters, the latter +immortalized by Stonewall Jackson's last words, "A. P. Hill, prepare for +action!" Another was Richard S. Ewell--not, like all the foregoing, a +West Point graduate, with training and notable service in United States +armies and wars, but, like many Federal generals, a volunteer, who +achieved high rank by efficient activity. + +In naval affairs, naturally, the South had little chance to show her +mettle, having neither navy-yards nor navy, and all her ports being +blockaded. The chief attempts on the water were the iron-plated ram +_Merrimac_, commanded by Commodore Franklin Buchanan, which after +sinking several wooden men-of-war in Hampton Roads was defeated by the +new iron-turreted _Monitor_ under Lieutenant (later Admiral) John L. +Worden; the iron-clad ram _Albemarle_, which damaged Northern shipping +until blown up by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. Navy, in a daring +personal adventure; and the British built, equipped and manned +_Alabama_, under Commodore Raphael Semmes of the Confederacy, which +destroyed millions of dollars in Northern ships on the high seas in +1862-1864, until sunk by the war-steamer _Kearsarge_ under Captain +(later Admiral) John A. Winslow, off Cherbourg, in June, 1864. + +The principal naval activities of the Federals during the war were in +the reduction of fortified places on land in cooperation with the +armies, and in blockading ports of the South to keep in their cotton and +to keep out foreign supplies. One of the earliest feats was the +effective use by Captain Andrew H. Foote in February, 1862, of the +gunboats built in 1861 by Frémont for river warfare, when Foote daringly +shelled Forts Donelson and Henry on the Cumberland River, enabling Grant +to attack and summon them to "unconditional surrender." And on the long +seaboard, the North soon had a line of battle-ships stretching from Cape +Hatteras around to Florida, New Orleans and the further coast of Texas. +Besides its few original war-ships, out of coasters, steamers and old +junk the Navy Department constructed a fleet. But it was the man behind +the gun who maintained the blockade, starved the Confederacy, and +cleared the Mississippi River. + +The story of men like Farragut and his boys is like a chapter out of a +wonder book. In April, 1862, with a fleet of wooden frigates, +mortar-schooners, and half-protected boats he entered the mouth of the +Mississippi below New Orleans. The bottom of the river bristled with +torpedoes--kegs filled with powder, and surrounded with long prongs that +rested upon percussion caps. When a ship struck a prong it exploded the +cap and the powder, and again and again a boat went to the bottom. The +forts that protected the Mississippi thirty miles below the city were +sheathed with sand bags, and mounted a hundred guns; while a boom of +logs and chains crossed the river, and a fleet of fifteen vessels +including an armed ram and a floating battery were there to dispute +further progress. But Farragut lashed himself into the rigging of his +flag-ship, and his fleet stormed the passage, raked with chains and +shell. From the 18th to the 25th of April, a battle royal was waged with +splendid valour on both sides; but the forts were passed, the boom was +broken, the defensive fleet defeated, and Farragut had won New Orleans. +Farragut, David D. Porter and other heroes had their full share of war +and of glory not only here but later in Mobile Bay, and in 1863 with +Grant and Sherman at Vicksburg, and at Port Hudson on the Mississippi, +and Porter at Fort Fisher in December, 1864-January, 1865. Of absolute +maritime warfare there was none, except Winslow's sinking of the +_Alabama_, but in all the river and harbour fighting, against both +fleets and forts, there was endless demand for intrepidity, ingenuity, +large intelligence, and heroism--demands never failing of response. + +The greatest soldiers of the North were McClellan, Sherman, Thomas and +Sheridan, and, towering above all, Grant. We may not linger in detail +upon them all, and can but mention George H. Thomas, the "Rock of +Chickamauga," stern as war, firm as granite, the bravest of knights; +William T. Sherman, audacious, fertile, perhaps the most brilliant of +them all; and Philip H. Sheridan, an organized thunder-storm, with the +swiftness of the war eagle, impetuous, loving adventure, the idol of his +men. + +If at last Grant was the brain of the army, Sherman was, like Jackson to +Lee, its "right arm." From the beginning of his military career, Sherman +won the admiration and confidence of the government and the people of +the North. He achieved honours at Vicksburg, and from that hour on to +his victory at Atlanta and his march to the sea, his name and fame +steadily increased. His victories were won, not only by enthusiasm and +brilliancy, but by a mastery in advance of all the facts in the case. +His knowledge was microscopic, to the last degree, as to the roads, +bridges, and resources of the country through which he was marching. On +approaching Atlanta he came to a region through which he had ridden on +horseback twenty years before. That night in his tent, his guides, spies +and advance scouts spread out their maps before Sherman, and to the +astonishment of all, the soldier corrected and amplified them. It seemed +that a score of years before he had formed the habit of making a +detailed study of each region through which he travelled, and of working +out campaigns of attack and defense. His old notes were so accurate as +to prove the basis of an actual campaign for a great army. His contest +with Johnston represented what has been called an inch by inch struggle, +and although Sherman was victorious, when he passed away, the aged +Southern soldier, Johnston, made the long journey to New York to act as +pall-bearer and to testify to the splendid qualities of his great +opponent. + +It was Grant himself who called Sheridan "the left arm of the Union." By +universal consent "little Phil" was the most brilliant campaigner of the +group of soldiers of the first class. The story of his victory at +Winchester captured the imagination of the North. The poem describing +that achievement became the most popular poem of the year, and was +recited by all the schoolboys on Friday afternoons, and quoted by all +the politicians on the platform. The North had suffered so many defeats +in the Shenandoah Valley that Sheridan's victory put new heart into the +Union forces, and helped unite the Republican party, making certain the +election of Lincoln. + +Indeed, a great German soldier once expressed the judgment that Sheridan +ranked not only with Grant, but with the greatest soldiers of all time. + +The work of George H. McClellan was the work of the pioneer and +pathfinder. It is one thing to take a sword, a Damascus blade, and use +it in leadership, and quite another thing to take raw metal and on the +anvil hammer out the blade for a hero's hand. McClellan made the sword; +Grant used it. There is a pathetic passage in Dante's "Vita Nuova": "It +is easier to sing a song than to create a harp." Dante meant that he had +to create the Italian language before he could write the "Paradiso." Now +McClellan's task was to create an army. He took a body of raw recruits +and drilled them; he organized a system of supplies and built up a +purchasing, transporting and storing department; he tested out all the +guns, the cannons, powder and explosives; he compacted a body of +engineers, weeding out poor ones and educating good ones; he took +officers who at the beginning had their appointments through political +influence and trained them until he had a body of men well knit +together. + +But McClellan had to contend with jealousy and insubordination. He was a +commander early in the war, and he had competitors and detractors. It +was charged against him that he was more anxious to make than to use a +splendid army, and possibly his ideals of efficiency were too high for +those early days. Yet "Little Mac" was idolized by his soldiers, with +whom he fought and won bloody battles, and even the indeterminate ones +are held in doubt as to his responsibility. Had Hooker obeyed his +command, and crossed the bridge at Antietam and occupied the heights +beyond, soldiers think to-day that Lee would have been crushed. Another +fact was against him. The North was not ready to behold nor strong +enough to endure the slaughter to which later on they became accustomed. +After one of McClellan's first campaigns, Burnside wrote home that +McClellan could have fought his way to Richmond, but it would have cost +ten thousand men, and that would have been butchery. Later on, Grant, in +a single brief campaign, lost twenty-five thousand men! But if Grant had +suffered such losses in 1861 or 1862, he would have been dropped by +Washington as unfitted for a military campaign. + +History will rank Grant as the foremost soldier of the Republic. His +story is full of romance. He was of Scotch Covenanter stock that settled +in New England, and made its way to Ohio and Illinois. Like all the most +successful generals on both sides in our Civil War, he was a graduate of +West Point, showed talent in mathematics and engineering, and made an +honourable name in the Mexican War. Scott praised him for his work as +quartermaster and officer. The two maps that Grant made by questioning +ranchmen and farmers as he went through Texas, and the information he +collected from men who had been in and knew the roads and resources of +Mexico, were later on invaluable. Grant was in every Mexican battle save +one. + +Fort Sumter fell on April 14, 1861. On the 15th Lincoln called for +75,000 troops. On the 19th Grant organized a little company in +Springfield, Illinois. Two days later Governor Yates made him colonel. +On the 31st of July he was in command at Mexico, Missouri. On the 7th of +August his victory at Columbus won him the rank of brigadier-general. On +the 10th of February, 1862, he was made major-general; on the 23d of +March, 1864, he was made lieutenant-general of the armies of the United +States. It was one long uninterrupted series of victories, for it has +been said that it will never be known if Grant could conduct a retreat, +because he never was defeated. From the beginning his supreme qualities +as a military commander were fully evidenced. + +Columbus was called the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. Halleck had +ordered Grant to feel the strength of the enemy. But Grant was +resourceful, fertile in expedients, a believer in offensive tactics. +Hurling his forces upon Columbus, he won a signal victory. At Fort +Donelson, Grant showed his iron endurance and untiring patience. When it +came to the critical hour of the assault, a cold sleet-storm fell upon +his army; the ground was a sheet of glass, the trees encased in ice. +Grant himself spent half the night under a tree, standing upright, +receiving reports and working out his plans. When a spy brought word +that the Confederates had packed their knapsacks with three days' +rations, Grant said: "They are preparing to retreat; we must assault the +works," and, despite the storm, made an immediate attack. When Halleck +received the news of the fall of Fort Donelson, in announcing the +victory to Washington he did not even mention the name of Grant, but +asked Lincoln to promote Smith, a subordinate commander. + +Later, in 1863, after months of siege by river and by land, came the +capture of Vicksburg, coincident with the Battle of Gettysburg, that was +the high-water mark of the war. The announcement of these two victories, +on July 4, 1863, intoxicated the North with joy. + +By this time Grant's name was upon all lips, and he stood forth the one +general fitted for command of all the armies--in the West, in the South, +and on the Potomac. Just as some men have the gift of inventing, the +gift of singing, the gift of carving, so Grant had the gift of strategy. +One glance, and Grant had the whole situation in hand--the weak points +to be attacked, the weak points of his own position to be safeguarded, +the danger point for the enemy. Obedient himself, he expected instant +obedience from others. Willing to risk his own life, he expected the +same self-sacrifice on the part of his fellow officers. One biographer +calls him "a master quartermaster," telling us that he knew how to feed +and supply an army. Another calls Grant a great drillmaster, exhibiting +him as the teacher of his own generals. Another terms Grant a natural +engineer, with great gifts, but without detailed training. Another +speaks of him as the greatest soldier in history in the way of attack. +But when all these statements are combined, they tell us that Grant is +the great, all-round soldier of the war, who by natural gifts and long +experience could do many things, and all equally well. It is this that +explains the tributes to his military genius by foreign soldiers, and +the great masters of war in every land. + +Grant's last campaign was against the capital of the Southern +Confederacy, as the key to the Atlantic coast, for until Richmond should +be taken and the Confederate government put to flight, the war would not +be broken. Therefore Grant concentrated all his forces upon that:--"I +will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." In those awful +campaigns Grant came to be called "the butcher," for he was as pitiless +as fate, as unyielding as death. One outpost after another fell; one +Southern regiment after another surrendered. Battles became mere +slaughter-pits. Men went down like forest leaves; the army surgeons, at +the spectacle, grew sick; it seemed more like murder than war. The +Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Chickahominy, Petersburg, were names to make +one shudder. But Lee would not yield, and Grant had one watchword, +"Unconditional surrender." + +At last, without food, without equipment, without arms, Southern +soldiers began to desert by thousands. Lee's army was reduced, his +supplies were cut off, his retreat to the mountains and any chance of +joining with Johnston from the Carolinas were blocked. Grant demanded +surrender to save further bloodshed. + +On the morning of April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee met in peace conference. +Grant had on an old suit splashed with mud, and was without his sword; +Lee wore a splendid new uniform that had just been sent by admirers in +Baltimore. Lee asked upon what terms Grant would receive the surrender. +Grant answered that officers and men "Shall not hereafter serve in the +armies of the Confederate States or in any military capacity against the +United States of America, or render aid to the enemies of the latter, +until properly exchanged,"--all being then freed on parole. The horses +of the cavalry were the property of the men. And Grant said: "I know +that men--and indeed the whole South--are impoverished; I will instruct +my officers to allow the men to retain their horses and take them home +to work their little farms." Lee's final request was for rations for his +starving men. Grant and Lee shook hands, after which the Virginian +mounted his horse and rode off to his army. The Confederates met their +beloved general with tumultuous shouts. With eyes swimming in tears, Lee +said, in substance: "I have done what I thought to be best and what I +thought was right; go back to your homes, conduct yourselves like good +citizens and you will not be molested." + +When certain Northern soldiers were preparing to fire salutes to +celebrate the victory, Grant stopped the demonstration. "The best sign +of rejoicing after victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in +the field." All men in the North felt that the fall of Lee's army meant +the fall of the Confederacy. Indeed, it did practically end the war. The +final sheaf of victory is reaped when the commander, at the head of his +troops, marches into the enemy's capital and makes the palace of his foe +to shelter his own horses. The whole South expected Grant to lead his +Army of the Potomac into Richmond. But Grant remembered Lee's sorrow, +and had no desire for a dramatic triumph. He sent a subordinate to +occupy Richmond, and quietly began the work of disbanding the army. +Sending his regiments back to the fields and factories, he said, "Let us +have peace." From that sentiment issued the new South and the new North. + +But the man who had fought the war through to a successful issue became +the most beloved man in the North, and soon the people bore him to the +White House. The task was one for a giant. Four million slaves, newly +emancipated, had to be cared for. Their fidelity to the families of +their absent masters during the war was beautiful; while, towards the +end of the strife, the enrollment and gallant fighting of 150,000 +coloured men (Northern and Southern) in the Federal armies showed their +manfulness. And now their Southern millions were free. They had the +suffrage, but could not read the names of the men for whom they were +voting. They were free men, but they had no land, no plough, no cabin, +no anything. Pitiful their plight! In retrospect, no race has ever made +such wonderful progress in fifty years. With President Eliot we may say +that "their industrial achievements are the wonder of the world." + +The second task that confronted President Grant was the reconstruction +of the South. It was the era of the carpet-bagger. Northern regiments +dwelt in Southern cities. Men were talking about hanging Jefferson +Davis, and trying to decide whether or not the Confederate soldiers and +officers should receive again the suffrage. Designing whites and +ignorant coloured men gained control of legislatures. Corruption was +rife. The whole South was prostrated. Ten thousand questions arose in +Congress, bewildering, intricate, and the whole land was divided in +opinion as to the proper courses. Finally, all the Confederate officers, +saving perhaps Jefferson Davis alone, and some who refused to accept, +received again their political rights at the hands of the magnanimous +North. Slowly chaos became cosmos. + +Scarcely less heavy were the financial troubles of Grant's +administration. An era of war is an era of extravagance. When hard times +came, men were tempted by the dreams of cheap money, and the greenback +craze was abroad. But Grant stood for honest money, and attacked lying +measures with the zeal of a Hebrew prophet. + +After two presidential terms came two years of foreign travel (1877-79), +and wherever the great soldier went he exhibited his confidence in +democracy, his interest in the working people and the poor. He returned +home to receive such an ovation as no American citizen has ever had. Six +years of private life were followed by a financial disaster that +threatened to destroy his good name itself. Grant was one who made +ill-advised haste to become rich. Scandalized by the deceit and +impoverished by the failure of men he had trusted as partners, the great +soldier was now assaulted by worry and fear. Our best physicians believe +that fear, whether related to property or the loss of name, or grievous +disappointment, is in some way related to cancer. And within a few +months after that awful wreckage, Grant knew that his life was coming to +an end. + +The soldier became an author. Stricken with death, in the hope of +safeguarding his family against poverty Grant decided to write his +memoirs. It was an astonishing literary achievement. His style is simple +as sunshine. Grant knew what he wanted to say, said it, and had done. +Yet all the time a shadow was falling upon the page,--the shadow made by +the messenger of death, who stood by Grant's shoulder, ready to claim +his own. Slowly the soldier wrote the story of his youth, his campaigns +in the West, his battles in the Wilderness, while every day the hand +grew feebler. + +Reared in a religious atmosphere, Grant's nature was essentially moral +and religious. He possessed all the big essential virtues--honesty, +justice, truth, honour, good will. He loved the truth. He felt that he +had done what he could. Southern soldiers and generals as well as +Northern comrades and friends brought to his bedside messages of +affection and good cheer. At length he fell asleep. His tomb on the +height above the Hudson has become a Mecca for innumerable multitudes. + +To the end of time, perhaps, Lincoln will be remembered as the Martyr +President, the best loved of all our leaders, the great Emancipator, the +gentlest memory of our world; but side by side with Lincoln will stand +Grant, the man of oak and rock, the man of iron will, who fought the war +to a successful issue, and will be known in history as the greatest +soldier of the Republic. + + + + +XI + +THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE AT HOME WHO SUPPORTED THE SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT + + +It is a proverb that nothing moves men like tales of eloquence and +heroism. Historians and poets alike believe that stories of bravery and +anecdotes of heroes exert a profound influence upon young hearts. Here +is Socrates. His judges condemn him to the jail and poison. Socrates +quails not, and says: "At what price would one not estimate one night of +noble conference with Homer and Hesiod? You, my judges, go home to your +banquets--I to hemlock and death; but whether it is better for you than +for me, God knoweth." It is a moving story. Here is the early missionary +martyr, fettered and brought before a cruel tyrant, to be condemned to +death. The missionary lifts his chains, calls the roll of the king's +crimes, flashes the sword of justice, coerces the monarch from his +throne, makes him crawl, beg, plead, and beseech the missionary's pity +and prayers, for speech has made a prisoner king, and turned a monarch +into a captive. It is a moving tale. And here are the stories of war: +Xenophon's ten thousand young Greeks, lost in the heart of the great +nation, a thousand miles from home, without maps, without food, +outnumbered daily ten to one, living off the country, fighting all day, +surrounded by a fresh army each night, steadily pursuing their famous +retreat. See, too, the handful at Thermopylæ, defending the Pass, and +every one of them giving his life. And here are the Dutch, driven by the +Bloody Alva into the North Sea, clinging to the dykes by their +finger-tips, and fighting their way back to their homes and altars. And +here are the American boys confined to the prison ship, the _Jersey_, +starved victims of scurvy and fever, without food, without medicine, +with the corpses of their brothers floating in the water just outside, +boys whose monument stands yonder in Fort Greene. What a tale of +martyrdom is theirs! + +Yet the history of heroism holds no more thrilling story than that of +the soldiers of our Civil War. Every other passage, every other +incident, that we have passed in review can be more than duplicated by +soldier boys who have lent new meaning to patriotism and martyrdom. As +many men died in Southern prisons as fell on both sides at the battle of +Gettysburg. This is their story--they counted life not dear unto +themselves; they struggled unto blood, striving against oppression, and +the world itself, with all its beauty, was not worthy of them. + +Our prosperous generation, threatened with effeminacy and softness, +needs to re-open the pages of history and to linger long upon the +portraits of our heroic leaders. Theirs was the greatest war that ever +shook the earth. A million Northern men, and over against them a million +Southern men, and a battle line a thousand miles in length! Including +the long-term men and the short-term service, 3,000,000 men engaged in +the conflict! Two thousand two hundred and sixty-one battles fought--if +we mention conflicts in which there were more than five hundred engaged +on each side. When Lee surrendered, his land was desolate. Armies upon +armies of cripples came home to suffer! There were a million widows and +over three million orphan children! Men who at Lincoln's call for troops +left the college and the university discovered, when it was all over, +that it was too late to take up their studies, and lived on like +unfulfilled prophecies. Others, who during those four years poured out +all the vital nerve forces, brought so little strength out of the long, +bitter struggle that they might better have died, and for years have +been in the invalid's chair, looking with wistful eyes on the great +procession of society moving on to industrial victories! The war all +over? The war has been continued in its influences throughout the entire +generation! It never will be over until the last cripple has dropped his +maimed body, until the last child, robbed of a dead father's care, has +recovered his losses, and the last woman who has lived alone through the +years has found her beloved! + +The courage and endurance of the Southern women, who took full charge of +the cotton plantations and helped support Lee's army, stirs the sense of +wonder. There were many Northern women who had no relatives at the +front, but there was scarcely a Southern home where the father, husband +or sons were not on the battle line. For that reason the Southern women +were always in a state of suspense. Homes were entirely broken up during +the four years. The men were at the front, and all the women were +either at work at home or were in the hospitals as nurses. During 1862 +and 1863 practically every church in Richmond was a hospital, and there +were twenty-five other buildings used by surgeons. Physicians had no +morphine and no quinine. For coffee they used parched corn. Tea rose to +$500 a pound. For sugar they steeped watermelon rind. For soda these +women burned corncobs and mixed the ashes with their corn-meal. They had +neither ice nor salt. They tore up their ingrain carpets to make +trousers for the soldiers. Women wore coarse hemp and calico. Having no +leather, one little factory turned out five hundred pairs of wooden +shoes a month in Richmond. + +When Lee needed bullets, a minister tore the lead pipe out of his house +in Richmond to send the lead to Lee. Flour rose to $400 a barrel. In one +little town iron became so scarce that tenpenny nails were used for +money. No tale more pitiful than that of the women who took charge of +the slaves on the plantation, comforted their little children, buried +their dead, smiled, wept, prayed, worked, compelled their lips to +silence, staggered on, groaned inly while they taught men peace, and +died while others were smiling. Whether or not men are made in the image +of God, these women certainly were. And it was because they believed +with all their mind and soul that independence for the State was the +sovereign gift of God; and they died for independence, just as the boys +in blue lived and died for the Union. + +It was this moral earnestness and intensity of conviction that made the +war so terrible. When England hired Hessians to fight Washington's +troops, and they fought for so much a week, the hired soldiers were slow +to begin attack and quick to retreat. Mercenaries have to be scourged +into battle. Stonewall Jackson's men believed in their cause and +thirsted for the excitement of the attack and onslaught. And yet all the +time the two opposing armies maintained mutual respect and even +developed a new sense of brotherhood as the desperate struggle went on. +Never was there a war carried on with such intensity by day and such a +sense of mutual respect at night. Once when the Rappahannock separated +the two armies, and it was evident that there was no campaign beyond, a +revival broke out in one of Stonewall Jackson's regiments and there were +prayer-meetings in almost every tent every night. Becoming acquainted, +a number of boys in blue by previous arrangement crossed the river, and +knelt in the prayer service. One night the sound of the regiments +singing, "Nearer My God to Thee," rolled through the air across the +river, and finally the boys in the Northern army joined in, until at the +last verse, the two regiments, opposed in arms, were one in voice and +heart, as they poured out their souls to God in the old hymn they had +learned at their mother's knee. For the soldier knew that any moment a +shot might bring the end. + +The sufferings of men in prisons touch the note of horror. The national +government is planning a monument for those who died in Andersonville. +Gettysburg slew 26,000, Andersonville 32,000. The stockade included +twenty-six acres, but three acres were marsh. Incredible as it may seem, +there was no shelter, no beds, no cook-house, no hospital, no nothing. +Just the cold rain in winter chilling men to death, just the pitiless +glare of the August sun scorching them to death. There was no +sanitation, and when it rained the little stream backed up the sewage, +and after each shower men died by scores. Wirtz wrote Jefferson Davis +that one-fifth of the meal was bran, and that he had no meat, no +medicine, no clothing. Men burrowed in the ground, dug caves like rats, +and not infrequently fifty bodies were carried out in a single day. +Wirtz destroyed men faster than did General Lee. The men imprisoned in +Andersonville urge that there were thousands of cords of wood just +outside the stockade, miles upon miles of forests all about, that the +prisoners could have built their own shanties and hospitals, and +cookhouses. To which Wirtz's friends answer that he did not have weapons +or Confederate soldiers enough to guard the prisoners on parole. While +they also answer that the prisoners in Andersonville had as much food +and the same kind as Lee's army was then enjoying. The plain fact is +that the South was out of medicine, clothing and food, and was itself on +the edge of starvation. + +The wonderful thing is that these Union boys, 32,000 of them, who died +at Andersonville, could at any moment have obtained release by taking +the oath not to renew arms against the South. Some few did escape by +digging under the stockade--but what perils they endured to escape from +the enemy's country! They slept in leaves by day, and travelled by +night. They were pursued by bloodhounds, lay in water and swamps, with +only their lips above the filth until the peril had passed by. They wore +rags, ate roots, shivered in the rains, sweltered in the heat, grew more +emaciated, until more dead than alive they reached the Northern lines. + +Now that it is all over, Confederate soldiers like General John B. +Gordon have said on a hundred lecture platforms in Northern cities that, +having done what he could for States' rights and to destroy the Union, +he thanked God above all things else that he was not successful. In the +spirit of Abraham Lincoln, that great Southern soldier wrote the last +words of his life, in the hope that they would help cement the Union +between the North and the South:--"The issues that divided the sections +were born when the Republic was born, and were forever buried in an +ocean of fraternal blood. We shall then see that, under God's +providence, every sheet of flame from the blazing rifles of the +contending armies, every whizzing shell that tore through the forests at +Shiloh and Chancellorsville, every cannon shot that shook Chickamauga's +hills or thundered around the heights of Gettysburg, and all the blood +and the tears that were shed are yet to become contributions for the +upbuilding of American manhood and for the future defense of American +freedom. The Christian Church received its baptism of pentecostal power +as it emerged from the shadows of Calvary, and went forth to its +world-wide work with greater unity and a diviner purpose. So the +Republic, rising from its baptism of blood with a national life more +robust, a national union more complete, and a national influence ever +widening, shall go forever forward in its benign mission to humanity." + +Nor must we forget the work of nurses, the members of the Sanitary +Commission, and the Christian Commission Movement. The events of the +Russian-Japanese war show what is a wonderful progress of science. Japan +sent along with her army experts on the water, the food, and the placing +of tents, that made typhoid, cholera and the usual diseases impossible. +Her surgeons used antiseptic methods, and gangrene was practically +unknown in the Japanese hospitals. But the situation was different in +1861. Modern sanitation, surgery, antiseptic methods, chloroform and +ether are comparatively recent discoveries. Such anesthetics as the +surgeons had were poor in quality and insufficient in quantity. In the +camps fever was prevalent. Smallpox, measles and lesser diseases became +malignant and wrought terrible ravages. Tents became more dangerous than +battle-fields. What the bullet began, the hospitals completed. More men +died through disease than through leaden hail. But the noble army of +physicians and nurses wrought wonders. Think of it! Twenty-six thousand +men dead or dying on the field of Gettysburg! + +Here is a page torn from the journal of one of the nurses there: "We +begin the day with the wounded and sick by washing and freshening them. +Then the surgeons and dressers make their rounds, open the wounds, apply +the remedies and replace the bandages. This is the awful hour. I put my +fingers in my ears this morning. When it is over we go back to the men +and put the ward in order once more, remaking the beds and giving clean +handkerchiefs with a little cologne or bay water upon them, so prized in +the sickening atmosphere of wounds. Then we keep going round and round, +wetting the bandages, going from cot to cot almost without stopping, +giving medicine and brandy according to orders. I am astonished at the +whole-souled and whole-bodied devotion of the surgeons. Men in every +condition of horror, shattered and shrieking, are brought in on +stretchers and dumped down anywhere." Men shattered in the thigh, and +even cases of amputation were shovelled into berths without blanket, +without thought or mercy. It could not have been otherwise. Other +hundreds and thousands were out on the field of Gettysburg bleeding to +death, and every minute was precious. + +No page can ever describe the service of nurses, sisters of mercy, +chaplains, brave men and kind women, who took train and went to the +front upon news of the battle and remained there for weeks. + +But while the soldier boys were striving unto blood for their +convictions, what about the people at home who loved them? How did they +carry their burdens and fulfill their task that was not less important? +Fortunately, during the war, the North was blessed with four bountiful +harvests that were rich enough, not only to support the people at home, +and the soldiers at the front, but also to furnish an excess of food +that could be sold abroad to obtain money with which to help support the +war. It seemed as if the sun, the rain, and the soil had entered into a +conspiracy to support the North and liberty. The largest crop of wheat +and corn ever garnered before the war was in 1859. At that time, men +thought the harvest would never be surpassed. But strangely enough, that +bumper crop of 1859 was surpassed four times in succession during the +Civil War. Meanwhile the herds of cattle and the flocks of sheep more +than doubled during the conflict, and all of the land that was not +yellow with grain became a rich pasture and meadow, covered with cattle, +sheep and horses. + +Even the losses of sugar and cotton usually purchased from the South +were made up to the North. Threatened with the loss of the Southern +sugar, sorghum cane was imported from China, and the people scarcely +missed the Southern sugar. When the cotton failed, the unwonted increase +of the flocks furnished wool for raiment. It stirs wonder to reflect +that one poor crop of wheat and corn might have changed the issue, and +defeated the North. Singularly enough also, the failure of crops in +Europe not only offered a market for the unexpected Northern surplus, +but yielded the highest price ever known, thus bringing in a golden +river to enrich the Northern people. Jefferson Davis had said at the +beginning of the war that "grass would soon be growing not simply in the +streets of the villages of the North, but in Broadway and Wall Street." +Davis believed that the withdrawal of every fourth man would make our +problem of food and clothing impossible of solution. But at that moment +the invention of the reaper enabled one harvester to do the work of ten +men, and the new tools actually more than took the place of the Northern +soldiers who were at the front. + +Furthermore, the spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice descended upon +the Northern women. On the little farms where the farmer's wife was too +poor to buy a reaper, the mother and the daughters went into the field +to plough the corn and thrash the wheat and milk the cows. In many +counties in Iowa and Kansas one-half of the men were at the front, and +in harvest time it is said that there were more women working in the +wheat and corn fields than men. + +One other element fought for liberty and the North. A strange unrest +fell upon Europe. Foreign peoples became discontented and began to +migrate. In the summer of 1862 a vast multitude landed upon the shores +in New York, at the very time when there was a scarcity of labour in the +shops and factories. At the very hour when Lincoln was afraid that it +might become impossible to clothe the army and equip it, the providence +of God raised up foreigners who stepped into the place made vacant by +the newly enlisted soldier; thereafter the North throughout the war +actually increased in population, in wealth, in manufacturing interests. +The Civil War ended with the North richer and more prosperous than when +it began; while in 1861 slavery had impoverished the South, and war left +the Confederacy crushed to the very earth, peeled and stripped, famished +and utterly broken. For the South never yielded until she had cast in +the last earthly possession, and knew that only life and breath were +left. + +Despite the abundant harvests, during the early part of the war the +Northern people passed through gloom, anxiety and bitter disappointment. +At first the colleges and universities were empty, because the students +had all gone to the front, but the common schools were as full as usual. +The churches were better attended than formerly, while the newspapers +were more widely read than ever before. The crisis sobered the people. +The serious note was manifest. One by one luxuries were given up, +amusements seemed paltry, and people forgot their usual diversions. +After Bull Run came a succession of calamities. Longfellow writes: +"Sumner came to dine last night, but the evening was most gloomy, and +all went away in tears." Governor Morton of Indiana wrote Lincoln, +"Another three months like the last six, and we are lost." Robert +Winthrop of Boston came down to New York, and spoke of three scenes that +he had witnessed. The first was a group of soldiers on their way home, +in charge of friends, some crippled, some emaciated, gaunt and broken, +and the rest carried on stretchers. At another station he saw a group of +young soldiers, intelligent, athletic and sturdy, climbing on the car to +start to the front, but on the platform was a group of pale-cheeked and +weeping women, wives, mothers and sweethearts. "Oh, it was terrible! It +is all black, black, black!" said Winthrop. + +But after the battle of Gettysburg, the high-water mark of the war, +men's spirits began to rise. The North became inured to excitement. The +emotion was converted into hard work and endurance, and that dogged +determination to produce the raiment, the weapons and the food to +support the army, or die in the attempt. Depositors took risks and +loaned their money to the banks. Bankers took their courage in their +hands and loaned the money to the manufacturers; manufacturers +advertised for labour in Europe and started up their factories by night +as well as by day. Wages rose, the balance of trade was largely in +favour of the North, the oil regions began to prosper, and industry, +commerce and finance all waxed mighty. In 1864 the whole land was in the +full sweep of industrial prosperity. The debts incident to the panic of +1857 were fully liquidated. Iron is the barometer, and the country +doubled its consumption of iron. An editor writing of his city says, +"Old Hartford seems fat and rich and cozy, and everything is as tranquil +as if there were no war." + +But the industrial conditions of life in the South were very different. +Be it remembered that the North was a self-supporting region, both as +to foods and manufactured articles, while the South, under slavery, +produced raw material, and used that raw stuff to build up factories in +England. When the war came the South found herself without the means of +supplying her own wants. Within six months the South discovered that +every axe and saw and steam-engine and iron rail and bolt and nail had +come from the North. Davis sent out men to scurry the country for old +stoves and every iron scrap was picked up to be melted into weapons. At +the close of the war tenpenny nails were used as five-cent pieces and +currency in North Carolina. To crown all other disasters came the +debasement of the currency. Macaulay says that the world has suffered +less from bad kings than from bad shillings and sixpences. The +Confederacy issued one billion dollars of paper money, States issued +another flood of promises to pay, cities put out municipal currency, +fire and life insurances their shin-plasters, and they kept pouring out +paper money until finally all the printing presses broke down. A month +before the collapse, a Confederate soldier, returning to his little +cabin, paid $10,000 for a fifteen-year-old mule, knee sprung in front +and spavined behind, and $7,500 for the shoes for shoeing the mule. + +Lee's army would have collapsed but for the marvellous heroism, +resourcefulness and courage of the Southern women. They took charge of +the fields, planted the crops, gathered the harvests, and staggered on +to the end. Not one Northern home in five was death-stricken through the +war, but practically every Southern home had lost one or two members of +the family, through father, son or brother. + +Nor must we forget what Lee owed to the fidelity of the negroes. Instead +of insurrection, arson, pillage and murder in Southern towns and old +homesteads, the Southern slave remained true to his mistress, and was +the very soul of fidelity. Yet when the war was over, the town had +become a wilderness, the plantation a desolation, and where there had +been prosperity and even luxury, famine and want and disease had set up +their abiding places. Verily secession sowed the wind and reaped the +whirlwind of destruction. + +That the war influenced some people for good and influenced others for +evil is beyond all doubt. During the first two years it was a distinct +tonic to the intellect and conscience of the people. The sense of +national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak +drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, +made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note +of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness in a generation is the note of +seriousness. In the middle of 1863 James Russell Lowell wrote Bancroft +that the war had been a great, a divine and a wholly unmixed blessing, +and that all of the people were exalted to new levels. Had the war +ceased with the battle of Gettysburg, probably Lowell's statement would +have held true, but later came the reaction towards graft and +corruption, intemperance, profligacy and gambling. Within four years the +representatives of the government expended from seven to eight billions +of dollars. Government contractors bought at a single time 50,000 suits +of clothes, 100,000 rifles, 200,000 blankets. The temptation to graft +was strong for all and irresistible to a few. The government records +speak of one horse-trader in St. Louis who bought his horses and mules +at $75 and sold them to the government for $150, and made enough to buy +Mississippi steamboats for $65,000. He then rented these boats to the +government for one year for $295,000, and at the end of the year still +owned the boats. To what extent charges of graft were made is indicated +by the fact that one claim was reduced from fifty millions to +thirty-three millions. A cartoon of that time with strange exaggeration +represents one man saying to his friend, "So-and-so has obtained a third +contract from the government." To which his friend answers, "Well, well! +A couple of more contracts and he will die worth a million." For any +manufacturer to obtain a government contract was for that man to be on +the highroad to wealth. + +Yet the historians who analyze these reports find a large amount of +exaggeration in the statements. Some waste there was, but the +authorities seem to think that it was the waste of inexperience for the +most part. When the war opened the Navy Department was spending +$1,000,000 a year. By 1862 it was spending $145,000,000, and with no +organization to handle such enormous interests. In general, in view of +the sudden emergency thrust upon the people, the marvel is not that +there was so much corruption among government contractors, but that +there were so many honest contractors, and that there was so little +waste through inexperience. + +In general it may be said that the moral and religious sentiment of both +North and South alike steadily strengthened during the conflict. After +Gettysburg, the Southern people and army, always deeply religious, in +their distress turned to their fathers' God for support. Jackson and +Lee's men fought by day, and held prayer-meetings by night. In the +North, during 1861 and '62 and '63, religious meetings were held all +over the land. When the winter twilight fell, the candles began to burn +in the little schoolhouses, where the farmers assembled and prayed to +God. In the small towns and tiny villages the little churches were +packed with worshippers, not simply on Sundays but during the evenings +of the week. During this interval the layman became as influential as +the ordained preachers. At this time, the Young Men's Christian +Association took its rise, all of the old men saw visions, and all of +the young men dreamed dreams, and many a Saul was found among the +prophets. Poets like Lowell were moved by deeply religious +inspirations. During the war Whittier wrote his loftiest songs and his +noblest and most exalted prayers. The influence of the great conflict +upon philosophers like Emerson is easily traced. American literature +lost its note of unreality. Preaching became practical. There was a +revival of ethics in politics. The war cleared the atmosphere of the +country by sweeping away slavery with all its foundation of lies. + +Wendell Phillips once said the French Revolution was the greatest and +most unmixed blessing of the last one thousand years. Now that it is all +over, and the slain soldiers and the brave women who went down in the +conflict have had all their hard questions asked before the throne of +God, perhaps these heroes and heroines who now live unto God look back +upon this era as an era of sorrow overruled for justice and liberty. The +conclusion of the whole matter is this: a good house must be founded +upon a rock, and no government or civilization can be permanent that is +not based on the freedom, property and intelligence of the working +classes. + +To-day the leaders of thought in the South believe that Lee and Gordon +were right in the statement that they "thanked God that they failed to +establish States' rights, and that Northern men had succeeded in +maintaining the Union." Time has cleared the air of misunderstandings. +At last the North and South understand Lincoln's last words regarding +the Civil War: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and +each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men +should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from +the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not +judged. The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has +been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the +world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come; but +woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that +American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the Providence of +God, must needs come, but 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 due to those by whom the offense came, +shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes +which the believers in a 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 continue until all the wealth piled +by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall +be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid +by another drop of blood drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand +years ago, so still it must be said, '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 on 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 orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and +lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." + + + + +XII + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE MARTYRED PRESIDENT + + +Among the heroes who helped save the Republic, the last, best hope of +earth, in that it gives liberty to the slaves, that it might assure +freedom to the free, stands Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator and martyr. +Take him all in all, Abraham Lincoln is the greatest thing the Republic +has achieved. History tells of no child who passed from a cradle so +humble to a grave so illustrious. The institutions of the Republic were +founded for the manufacture of a good quality of soul. In the presence +of the greatest men of history we can point with pride to Lincoln, +saying, "This is the kind of man the institutions of the Republic can +produce." For Lincoln's most striking characteristic was his +Americanism. At best, Washington was a patrician, the fine product of +aristocratic institutions, so that England claimed him. Washington was +the richest man of his era, his home an old manor house, his estate +wide inherited acres, his relative an English baronet, his brother the +child of Oxford University. The books he read were English books, the +teachers he had were English tutors. The root was planted in English +soil, though it fruited under American skies. But Americanism is the +very essence of Lincoln's thoughts, Lincoln's enthusiasm, Lincoln's +utterances, and Lincoln's character. One of the golden words of the +Republic is the word "opportunity." Here, all the highways that lead to +office, land and honour must be open unto all young feet. A banker's son +may climb to the governor's mansion, or the White House, but so may the +washerwoman's. The widow's son practices eloquence in the corn fields of +Virginia, but he has ability and patriotism, and we bring Henry Clay to +the Senate chamber. A child out in Ohio goes barefooted over the October +grass, driving an old red cow to the barn lot, but we bring McKinley to +the White House. + +Yonder stands the Temple of Fame. The door is open by day and by night, +and a tall, thin, sallow boy turns his back upon a log cabin in Illinois +and seeks entrance. But the angel at the threshold asks hard questions: +"Can you eat crusts? Can you wear rags? Can you sleep in a garret? Can +you endure sleepless nights and days of toil? Can you bear up against +every wind that assails your bark? Can you live for liberty and God's +truth, and can you die for them?" And that boy bowed his assent. +Washington climbed hand over hand up the golden rounds of the ladder of +success; Lincoln built the ladder up which he climbed out of the fence +rails which his own hands had split. Like his Divine Master, he touched +two or three crusts and turned them into bread for the hungry +multitudes. + +His little log cabin shames our palaces. His three books, the Bible, the +"Pilgrim's Progress" and "Æsop's Fables" eclipse our libraries. His six +months in a log schoolhouse were more than equal to our eight years in +lecture hall and university. His fidelity to the great convictions +shames our shifting politicians. For fifty years he walked forward under +clouded skies. Like Dante, he held heart-break at bay. During one brief +epoch only did his sun clear itself of clouds. He died without full +recognition or reward. In retrospect he stands forth the saddest and +sweetest, the strongest and gentlest, the most picturesque and the most +pathetic figure in our history. The Saviour of the world was born in a +stable and cradled in a manger, and went by the Via Dolorosa towards the +world's throne. Not otherwise Abraham Lincoln was born in a cabin, more +suited for herds and flocks than for a young mother and a little child; +and by the way of poverty and adversity the great emancipator travelled +towards his throne of influence and world supremacy. + +History holds a few deeds so great that they can be done but once. There +are some laws, some reforms and some liberties that once achieved are +always achieved. Thus, Columbus discovered this new world, but his +achievement reduced all the other explorers to the level of imitators. +Thus Isaac Newton discovered gravity, and in a moment every other +astronomer became a pupil and a disciple. There never can be but one +James Watt, for, though a thousand inventors improve his engine, their +names are little tapers, shining over against the sun. The last century +offered men of genius two signal opportunities, and there were a +thousand eager aspirants for the honour. Charles Darwin discovered the +golden key that unlocked the kingdom of nature and life, and carried +off the honours of science. Abraham Lincoln, in an hour when some would +meanly lose it, planned to nobly save the Union, emancipated three +million slaves, and carried off the honours in the realm of reform and +liberty. + +How great was the work done by this man and how supreme was the man +himself, we can best understand by comparison and contrast. Among small +men it is easy to be great. In Patagonia, where everybody eats blubber, +a boy in the first reader is a prodigy of learning. + +Anybody can be a giant in heroism and reform among Hottentots and South +Sea savages. But the era of the Civil War was an era of heroes. Great +men walked in regiments up and down the land. It was the age of Daniel +Webster, whose genius is so wonderful that he achieved the four supreme +things of four realms,--the greatest legal argument we have, the +Dartmouth College case; the greatest plea before a judge and jury, the +Knapp murder case; our finest outburst of inspirational eloquence, the +oration at Bunker Hill; the greatest argument in defense of the +Constitution, his reply to Hayne. It was the age of John C. Calhoun, a +statesman whose political theories led half a continent to deeds of +daring war. It was the era of Seward, the all-round scholar, of Chase +the greatest secretary of treasury since Alexander Hamilton, a man who +struck the rock with the rod of his genius, and made the waters of +finance flow forth from the desert. It was the age of our greatest +orators, for then Wendell Phillips and Beecher were at their best. It +was the era of Emerson, the philosopher; of Theodore Parker, the +reformer; of Garrison, the abolitionist; of Lovejoy, the martyr; of +Lowell and Whittier, the poets of freedom; of Greeley, the editor; it +was also the age of the greatest soldiers, Grant and Sherman, and +Sheridan and Lee. The great man is a form of fruit ripened in an +atmosphere made warm and genial, and the climate that nurtured Lincoln +unfolded the talents that represented also other forms of mental fruit. +Among these men Lincoln lived and wrote and spoke, and suffered and +died;--but he stands forth a master among men, an indisputable genius, +one of the five supreme statesmen of all history. + +Now if we are to understand the unique place of Abraham Lincoln in our +history we must recall again for a moment the men who set the battle +lines in array. Unfortunately, most of our histories tell our children +and youth that the Civil War raged about the slave. As a matter of fact, +slavery was the occasion of the war, but not the cause. Slavery was the +sulphur match that exploded the powder magazine, though the powder +magazine could have been set off by a spark from the flint and steel, or +a hundred other methods. + +The Civil War was really fought over the question whether a +constitutionally formed nation dedicated to the proposition that all men +are created equal could permanently endure. The whole period from 1789 +to 1865 was a critical period, during which the Constitution was being +tested and tried out. + +During this testing many forms of secession were planned, and several +actual rebellions took place. In 1787 there was a Massachusetts +rebellion under Shays, over the question of taxation. In 1794 there was +what was known as the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. In 1830 to 1835 +there was a secession movement on in South Carolina, and President +Jackson put down that rebellion over the tariff. Then Daniel Webster +marked out the final lines of battle, entrenching the Constitution +against rebellious attempts. Webster fired the first shot of the war, +whose last shot was fired at Appomattox. Webster carried the flag that +Grant followed at Vicksburg, and shook out the folds of the banner that +was crimsoned with blood at Gettysburg. It was Webster's banner that +Anderson pulled down at Fort Sumter, under the stress of fire, and it +was Webster's banner that, four years later to an hour, the same General +Anderson pulled up on the same flagstaff at the same Fort Sumter. + +During the period of the thirties and the forties, the conflict was a +conflict of words and arguments between men like Webster and Calhoun and +Garrison and Phillips. Later, the strife took on the form of a guerrilla +warfare, and here and there leaders like Lovejoy were martyred. At last +the strife entered into politics, when Douglas and Lincoln struggled for +the supremacy of their principles,--but always it was a question of +Constitutional interpretation, against whatever interest attacked the +"supreme law." + +Soon the conflict entered the Church, and the American Tract Society, +to hold the gifts of slave owners, forbade the distributions of +Testaments to slaves, while the Bishop of New Jersey destroyed an +edition of the Prayer Book because it contained a picture of Ary +Scheffer's picture of "Christ the Emancipator," who was engaged in +striking the shackles from slaves. The bishop was quite willing that +Christ should open the eyes of the blind, make the deaf to hear and the +lame to walk, but as for Jesus freeing the slaves--well, that was too +much. Over the question of the Constitutional power of Congress to +resist the further extension of slavery in newly opened territories, the +whole land rocked with excitement. Liberty and Slavery, like two giants, +grappled for the death struggle. In such an era God raised up Abraham +Lincoln, to lead the people out of the wilderness, and into the Promised +Land of Union, of Liberty, and of Peace. + +Never was a candidate for universal fame born under so unfriendly a sky. +His annals are "the short and simple annals of the poor." His home was a +log cabin that had but three sides, the fourth one being a buffalo robe, +swaying to and fro in the wind. When the biting wind of poverty became +unbearable in Kentucky, the scant possessions were loaded upon a horse, +carried across the Ohio, and the child walked barefooted through the +forests of Indiana, where a new shack was built in the wilderness. There +Lincoln's "angel mother" sickened and died--that mother to whom Lincoln +said he owed all that he was or hoped to be. Then when the winter of +poverty and discontent settled down blacker than ever, the father +removed to another State, where the mud was deeper, and the winters +colder, where nature was less propitious. Lying on his face, before +blazing logs, the boy committed to memory the four Gospels, "Æsop's +Fables," and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." At nineteen he went to New +Orleans, and standing in the slave market saw a young girl sold at +public auction, and told his brother, Dennis Hanks, that if he ever had +a chance he would hit slavery the hardest blow he could. At twenty he +split 1,200 rails for a farmer, whose wife wove for him three yards of +cloth, dyed in walnut juice, with which he had a new suit of clothes. He +started a little store, failed in business, became a surveyor, bought a +copy of the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of +Independence; was made postmaster; several years later returned to the +government agent the exact silver quarters and copper cents that he had +kept tied up in a bag, because honesty meant that the identical coins +must be returned to the government; entered upon the study and the +practice of the law; was elected to the legislature, and reflected; was +sent to Congress, and on a second campaign for the United States +senatorship from Illinois met his competitor, Stephen A. Douglas, in the +great debate. Beginning this contest, he delivered the "house divided +against itself cannot stand" speech; and in the course of his marvellous +debate made the issue between liberty and slavery so clear that a +wayfaring man, though a fool, could not misunderstand; declared that if +slavery was not wrong, there was nothing that was wrong. Soon he came to +be looked upon as one who each year would coin the happy phrase and the +rhythmical watchword that would be taken upon the lips of 30,000,000 of +people; was made the leader of the new "party of freedom," and +President. + +Now, with infinite skill and patience, he entered upon the task of +proving that he was the strongest man in his Cabinet, the strongest man +in the North, the strongest man in the country, and the only man who had +the last fact in the case, and therefore had the right to rule. Seward, +experienced politician and statesman that he was, began by delicately +hinting to Lincoln that if he felt himself unequal to emergencies, he +could rely upon his Secretary of State for guidance, and that he, +Seward, would not evade the responsibility. Lincoln answered by reading +Seward's statement of a possible measure, and then placing beside it a +statement of his own that reduced Seward to the level of a schoolboy +standing up beside a giant. Then Stanton entered the lists as +competitor, and quietly Lincoln asserted himself until Stanton's +attitude became one of almost reverent worship, as he said of Lincoln, +"Henceforth he belongs with the immortals." Then Greeley put in his +claim for supremacy, and after Lincoln had published his answer to +Horace Greeley, in lines as clear as crystal, and in words as gentle as +sunbeams, not a man in the land but saw that Lincoln was intellectually +head and shoulders above Horace Greeley. One by one and step by step he +ascended the hills of difficulty. Round by round he climbed the ladder +of fame. Naturally, therefore, his centennial was observed by a week's +celebration, when all the wheels were still, and all the stores and +factories were silent, when ninety millions of people were gathered into +one vast audience chamber, when one name was upon all lips--the name of +Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of the slaves, the acknowledged master +of men, who gave liberty to the slaves that he might assure freedom to +the free. + +Thoughtless writers have talked Lincoln's ancestry down, and careless +biographers have defamed him. Superficial students speak of him as a +miracle, and say that his genius is surrounded with silence and mystery. +But all that Abraham Lincoln was he had at the hands of his fathers and +his mothers. Although their greatness was latent, his parents had as +much ability in their way as their distinguished son had in his way. How +do we know? Because when God wants to call a strong man He begins by +calling his father and mother. There never was a great man who did not +have a great ancestry, even though the greatness may have been latent +and unconscious. + +Every strong man stands upon the shoulders of his ancestors. When you +start for the top of Pike's Peak you start at Omaha. When you reach +Denver you are six thousand feet in the air, and Pike's Peak is +shouldered up on the foot-hills. Socrates is a great teacher, but look +at Sphroniscus, the sculptor, his father. Paganini is a great musician, +but Paganini was born of musicians whose wrists had muscles that stood +out like whip-cords. Bach is a great musician, but there were forty +people of the name of Bach mentioned in musical dictionaries. Charles +Darwin is the great scientist, but there were four generations of +scientists who had made ready for Darwin, just as there were seven +generations of scholars that culminated in Emerson. And standing in the +shadow behind Abraham Lincoln are half a dozen generations of men and +women who handed forward to him a perfect logic engine, a sound mind, in +a sound body; a mental instrument that worked without fever and without +friction and without flaw. At the hands of Stradivarius one piece of +apple wood is fashioned into a violin. If Stradivarius passes by the +other board because he has not time, let no man say the board that was +undeveloped was not full of latent music. The Divine Artist and +Architect shaped Abraham Lincoln's nature into a world instrument, but +the same quality and the stuff were in his father and mother, who lived +and died a bundle of roots that were never planted, a handful of +blossoms that never fruited. + +Lincoln's father and mother were like the crystal caves in their own +Kentucky. There the traveller is led through a cave of crystals, newly +discovered. One day a farmer ploughing thought the ground sounded hollow +under his feet. Going to the barn, he brought a spade and opened up an +aperture. Flinging down a rope, his friends let the explorer down, and +when the torches were lighted, lo, a cave as of amethysts, sapphires and +diamonds! For generations the cave had been undiscovered and the jewels +unknown. Wild beasts had wandered above these flashing gems, and still +more savage men had lived and fought and died there. And yet just +beneath was this cave of splendid beauty. Oh, pathetic illustration of +men who are big with talent, of women full of latent gifts, of fathers +and mothers like Thomas Lincoln and his young wife, who struggle on +without opportunity, who are denied their chance, who are imprisoned by +poverty, and fettered by circumstance, who are like birds beating bloody +wings against the bars of an iron cage, who die unfulfilled prophecies, +and dying, transfer their ambitions to their gifted children, believing +that their son shall behold what the father and mother must die without +seeing. God worked no miracle in Abraham Lincoln. + +There is a photograph of the signature of the grandfather upon a title +deed in Culpeper County in Virginia. Now, place that signature side by +side with the signature of Abraham Lincoln on the emancipation +proclamation, and the strong, sinewy sweep in the signature of the +grandfather comes down and repeats itself in the strong, steady +clearness of the grandson. And perhaps the strong, sinewy sentence came +down and repeated itself also, for all fine thinking stands with one +foot on fine brain fibre. The time has come for men with a sharp knife +and a hot iron to expunge from two or three of the otherwise best +biographies of Abraham Lincoln these false, superficial and ignorant +statements about his ancestry. Science, observation, experience, history +and sifted facts all unite to tell us that whatever was great in its +unfolding in the talent of Abraham Lincoln was great in the seed form in +his father and mother. + +Where were the hidings of his power? Why is Lincoln revered above his +fellows, the orators, the soldiers, and the statesmen and editors and +secretaries of his time? A line of contrast with the other great men who +were his competitors for fame will make Lincoln's supremacy to stand +forth as clear in outline as the mountains, and as bright as the stars. +For example, Wendell Phillips was the agitator and orator of the +abolitionists. Phillips said, "Emancipation is the essential thing. The +Union secondary. If the Southern States will not emancipate the slaves, +force them out of the Union." Horace Greeley was the editor of the war +epoch. Greeley said, "Emancipation is first, the Union secondary. If +they prefer slavery to liberty let the erring sisters go." Beecher was +the all-round man of genius. His great speech in England began with an +exordium at Manchester; he stated the arguments at Edinburgh, Glasgow +and Liverpool; he pronounced the peroration at Exeter Hall, in London, +and no such peroration and eloquence has been heard since Demosthenes' +philippic against the tyrant of Macedon. But Beecher's criticisms of +Lincoln in the New York _Independent_ during April and May of 1862 led +Lincoln to exclaim after reading one of them, "Is Thy servant a dog that +he should do this thing?" If these great men did not appreciate the +national crisis, Lincoln understood it perfectly. Now, over against the +editorials of Beecher and Horace Greeley and the lectures of Phillips, +stands Lincoln, and to these three men he sent words addressed only to +Horace Greeley, explaining to them why the time had not come for the +Emancipation Proclamation. And although a part of this we have quoted in +defense of Webster's position in 1850, that and yet more of the famous +letter may well be repeated here:-- + + "I would save the Union. + + "If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could + at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. + + "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not + either to save or destroy slavery. + + "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do + it. + + "If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. + + "And if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I + would also do that. + + "What I do about slavery and the coloured race I do because I + believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear + because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. + + "I shall do less whenever I believe that what I am doing hurts the + cause. + + "And I shall do more whenever I believe that doing more will help + the Union." + +How wonderfully does this publish the supremacy of Abraham Lincoln! +Lincoln saw clearly, where others had an indistinct vision. As to +gravity, Isaac Newton's vote outweighs all the other millions of men, +and from the hour that Lincoln published this letter to Horace Greeley +the people saw that Abraham Lincoln had the last fact in the case, saw +the whole truth, saw it through and through. By sheer power, clarity of +thought, strength of statement and fairness, Abraham Lincoln finally won +over not only a lukewarm North, but a bitter South, until to-day he +belongs to the ninety millions. If every Northerner should die, the +brave and patriotic men of the South living now would defend everything +for which Abraham Lincoln lived and died. For at last it is true of both +North and South, in Lincoln's own pathetic words, that the mystic chords +of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every +living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell +the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by +the better angels of our nature. + +The most striking characteristic of Lincoln's character was his honesty. +Some men are naturally secretive: Lincoln was naturally open as +sunshine. The exact fact, truth in the hidden parts, openness, these +were the innermost fibre of his being. Machiavelli laid out the +diplomat's career on the line of deceit, and concealing the cards. +Lincoln would have made a poor diplomat,--he spread all his cards out on +the table. He won from his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, the tribute, +"Lincoln was the fairest and most honest man I ever knew." If there ever +lived an absolutely honest lawyer, Lincoln was the man. In his work +before the jury Lincoln never misrepresented his opponent's position, +never twisted the testimony of the witness, never made biassed +statements to win a verdict. Once a young lawyer who was opposing +Lincoln made a poor plea for his client, and overlooked in his argument +before the jury two most important considerations. Lincoln was restless, +and greatly disturbed. He seemed to think that the lawyer's client had +been badly used, and that his attorney had not given him a fair chance, +or guarded his rights. When Lincoln arose, therefore, he began by saying +that the opposing counsel had overlooked the most important point. He +then stated his opponent's position far more strongly than his lawyer +had, and made the best possible statement for his opponent, to the +astonishment and indignation of his own client, whom he was defending. +Then Lincoln turned to answer these arguments,--with the result that for +the first time the two litigants understood the exact facts of both +sides, and at Lincoln's request settled the case, withdrawing it from +the court. + +This love of the exact truth and of fair play and of essential justice +shone from the man's face, dominated his arguments, explained his +view-point, revealed his character. The nickname, "Honest Old Abe," +tells the whole story. Lincoln's final judgment partook of the nature +of a final decree and law. At length his pronouncements became like a +divine fiat. Take the truth out of Lincoln's character, and it would be +like taking the warmth out of a sunbeam. He _was_ truth, he thought +truth, loved the truth, surrendered himself to the truth. Under that +influence he refused to play politics, or fence for position with +Douglas. Once Lincoln won a case so easily that he returned one-half of +the retainer's fee, because he felt that he had not earned it. + +Here, therefore, is found the secret of Lincoln's unbounded popularity. +The common people know their friends, and--what with Lincoln's +gentleness, his justice, his boundless kindness, his sympathy with the +poor and the unfortunate, and his honesty--he became the most beloved +man in the Illinois circuit. + +Wonderful, too, his literary achievements. His great passages read like +the Bible, and have almost the moral authority thereof. If preachers +ever wear the old Bible out, Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and his speech +at Gettysburg, and certain other passages, will furnish texts for +another hundred years. One thing is certain,--if Chinese students in +their universities two thousand years from now translate any oration out +of the English language, as we now translate the speeches of +Demosthenes, these Chinese students will translate Lincoln's speech at +Gettysburg, and his Second Inaugural Address. Contrary to the usual +idea, it may be confidently affirmed that Lincoln was a well equipped +man, and had the best possible training for literary style. During the +plastic years of memory, Lincoln had three books to study, and two of +these are the finest models for style in all literature,--King James' +Version of the Bible, and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." These are the +world's great literary masterpieces, these are the wells of English, +pure and undefiled. Upon these two books Robert Burns was reared. To the +fact that his mother made him commit to memory forty chapters of the +Bible before he was seven years old, John Ruskin attributed his mastery +in English style. Second rate men know something about everything. +Lincoln was a first rate man who knew everything about some one thing. +If you want to make a versatile man, turn a boy loose in a library. If +you want a boy to have the note of distinction upon his pages, lock him +out of a library, and send him into solitude, with the English Bible, +with John Bunyan, and with Æsop's Fables, and let him take these three +books into his intellect, as he takes meat and bread into the rich blood +of the physical system. + +Literary style is the shadow that the soul flings across the page. Style +is simply the intellect rushing into exhibition and verbal form. +Therefore style is the balance of faculty, symmetry of development. A +man is healthy when he does not know that he has a single organ in his +body, and a page has style when you do not know where to find the note +of distinction. There is a world of difference between "style," and "a +style." Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural has style. Carlyle's French +Revolution has a style. A perfect Kentucky horse has style. A +knee-sprung horse has a style. Down the track comes this perfect horse, +eyes flashing, head up, neck arched, feet dancing, not a flaw, not a +blemish, upon leg or body. Looking at the glorious creature you exclaim, +"That horse has style!" For a horse's style is born of perfect health, +perfect lungs and perfect legs, one power balancing another, and all +united to produce an absolutely perfect horse. Now comes a horse that +represents a collection of ringbones, and glanders, and poll-evil. The +one horse limping in front has "a style." Thomas Carlyle's sentences are +knee-sprung in front and his phrases are spavined behind, and, +therefore, Carlyle has "a style" but not "style." You would know one of +his sentences if you saw its skeleton lying in the desert on the road to +Khartoum. But on the other hand, Lincoln has "style,"--that +indescribable bloom and beauty, born of balance, development and +symmetrical growth. Samuel Johnson bulged on the side of Latinity. +Daniel Webster is an example of the magnificent, illustrating +gorgeousness, opulence, and tropic splendour. Lincoln's sentences are +like the Bible and Bunyan,--they are plate-glass windows through which +you look to see the jewelled thought beyond. + +Lincoln tells us how he made his style. One day he heard a man use the +word "demonstrate." For days he cudgelled his brains to find out just +what it was to demonstrate a statement. He tells us that when he was +about eight years old, he began to be irritated when men used long +words that he could not understand. He began the habit of thinking over +in the dark before he went to sleep any story he had heard, any +statement that had been made, and he tried to substitute for the long +hard words little short simple words, that a boy could understand. +During those early years, he learned that the rich, racy, homey words +are steeped and perfumed with beautiful associations. He knew that words +are fossil poetry. What would one not give for the old cloak that Paul +had from Troas, a piece of the marble by Phidias, the old threshold worn +by the feet of Socrates, an old missal illuminated by Bellini, an old +note-book in which Shakespeare wrote the first outline of Hamlet! And +the old, sweet, home words with which a mother soothes her babe, with +which a lover woos his bride, the old words of God, and home and native +land, are the words that are rich in association and in power to move +the heart. A bird lines its nest with feathers plucked from its own +breast, and the heart steeps the dear, simple speech of home life in +sacred associations. So Lincoln cut out all the long Latin words, and +substituted the short Saxon ones. Schooled in the two great master books +that are the precious life spirit of earth's greatest souls treasured +up, he developed his style. + +Nor must we overlook the fact that the apparent narrowness of his +culture represents a real concentration that made for richness and +depth. If one must choose, take the upper Rhine that is a river deep and +pure and sweet, and strong for bearing the fleets of war and peace +because it is confined between banks and narrowed. But when the Rhine +comes down to the flats and approaches the sea and casts off all +restraints, and tries to include everything, it turns into a swamp, a +morass, losing its power for commerce, and becoming a source of disease +and death. Lincoln's culture was limited to the English, and to a +mastery of the Constitution--the principles of fundamental justice, to +one country--the Republic, to one topic--the Union, and to one +reform--Slavery. Beyond all doubt, this concentration of study during +the critical years of his career made up a much better preparation than +if he had gone to a college, studied half a dozen languages, and fifty +or sixty different subjects, and come out well smattered, but poorly +educated. It may be doubted whether Lincoln would have been much better +off had he been able to read Latin and Greek, and speak French and +German. Many people can say "It is a little yellow dog" in Greek, and +German, and French, and Italian, and English, but after all it is only a +little yellow dog. What educates is the idea, and not the half dozen +names of a thing without an idea. + +The important thing about a cistern is water, and not many mouths to the +pump. Having spent many years learning to express one idea in five ways, +one might be glad to trade the five ways of expression for five ideas to +be expressed in one way. Edward Everett, once President of Harvard +University, could talk in five languages, and at Gettysburg spoke for +two hours. Lincoln could speak in one language, and did so for two +minutes. But the next morning Mr. Everett wrote to the President: "I +should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the +central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." +Lincoln's one language shames our knowledge of four languages, his three +books shame our libraries, and our four years of college culture. + +Nor must we overlook the influence upon Lincoln's style of the parables +of Jesus and the fables of Æsop. There are two invariable signs of +genius in a boy,--one is the serious note, and the other is the +picture-making note. All the great things represent serious thinking. +The greatest artist of the last century was the most serious one,--Watt, +with his Love and Life, and Love and Death, and Mammon, and Hope. The +great poems have been the serious poems, the In Memoriam, and the +Intimations of Immortality, the Hamlet and the Lear. The great orators +have been the serious orators. + +The next sign of genius is the picture-making faculty. Men of talent +evolve arguments, men of genius create emblems, parables and pictures. +Minds oftentimes called profound use long abstractions, and are called +deep thinkers, because nobody can understand them. But along comes a man +of genius, and he squeezes the juice out of the abstract argument, and +flings the rind away, and tells you what it is like. + +Measured in terms of genius, the parables of Jesus are the greatest +literary achievements in history. Æsop's fables teach by pictures. +"Pilgrim's Progress" is pictorial. + +Lincoln was exceedingly fortunate in his generation in that the three +great books of pictures were in his hands during the imaginative epoch. +Of course he was born with the talent for parable, because genius is +one-half nature and the other half nurture. It was this natural gift and +the training that taught him how when he had completed an argument and +mastered the principle, to say, Now what is this great principle like, +and how can I condense it into a picture and put it in a happy phrase +that will sing itself across the land? This picture-making gift inspired +him to quote the keen wisdom of that expression of Jesus, "The house +divided against itself cannot stand." This skill in parables gave him +the expression, "Better not swap horses in the middle of the stream," +that gave him his second election. This vision power gave him that +sentence equal to anything in Shakespeare, when Vicksburg fell, "Once +more the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea." This faculty enabled +him to sweep into one illustration a thousand arguments, so that the +people could never forget the mother principle that explained the facts. + +Nor may we forget what the great cause did for him. The era of the war +was a great era, because God heaved society as the winds heave the +waves, and men were swept forward with irresistible power upon the great +movement of liberty. Great movements make great epochs and great men. A +great ideal of God and righteousness and liberty lifts Savonarola and +Florence to new levels; a great cathedral inspires Michael Angelo's +great dome; a Divine Saviour and His transfiguration exalt Raphael; +Paradise explains Dante; listening to the sevenfold Hallelujah chorus of +God arouses the sweep and majesty of Milton's epic; the woes of three +million slaves made eloquence possible for Phillips and Beecher. The +saving of a Union, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition +that all men were created equal, represented a cause into which Lincoln +could fling himself. The thought of meanly losing or nobly saving the +last, best hope of earth, exalted, transformed, and armed the men, +making feeblings strong, and strong men to be giants. + +Eloquence and heroism wane during the commercial era. No man can be +eloquent upon the duty on hides, or salt, or the digging of mud out of a +river. But dumb lips will break into glorious speech at the thought of +freeing millions of slaves, and saving free institutions, and handing +liberty forward to other lands, and to generations yet unborn. The era +of Fort Sumter and Gettysburg, when liberty and slavery were in their +death grapple, was an era so great that the ordinary issues of avarice, +self-interest, fame, luxury, became contemptible, and men were exalted +to the point where they spake, and suffered, and marched, and died, more +like gods than men. The great battles to be fought, the great armies to +be moved, the great navies to be directed, the great orators and editors +with whom he counselled, the many slaves for whom he became a voice, the +great days on which he felt that he was making history, the great future +into which he hoped to send the great liberties unimpaired and purified, +the great God over all,--lent greatness to Abraham Lincoln, clothed him +with pathos, with sorrow, with dignity and majesty, as with garments. + +Like every giant, he was gentle. The truly great are always sensitive +and sympathetic. In proportion as the mountain goes upward in size does +it gain in power to return the strong man's shout, or the sigh of the +lost child, echoing and reëchoing the cry of need. Sympathy is the soul +journeying abroad, to bind up the wounds of him who has fallen among +thieves. Sympathy cannot feast in a palace while the poor famish. +Selfishness can stop its ears with wax lest it hear the groan of the +poor, but sympathy is knitted in with its kind. Lincoln worked as hard +to help men as slave masters did to recover a fugitive to bondage. It +has been beautifully said that he did kind deeds stealthily, as if he +were afraid of being found out. He became a shield above the fallen; he +stood between the soldier, condemned for the sleep of exhaustion, and +the hangman's noose. He refused to attend a cabinet meeting because he +was trying to find a reason for reprieving a soldier. "It is butchery +day," he said one Friday morning, and he denied himself to a committee +because he did not think that hanging would help the boy who was +condemned to die. "They said he was homely," said a poor woman, going +away from the White House with a reprieve for her son; "he is the +handsomest man I ever saw." It is this sympathy that runs through his +letter to that mother, whose five sons had died gloriously on the field +of battle. For he squeezed the purple clusters of the heart, and let the +crimson tide flow down upon the page, as he prayed that the mother +might carry through the years "only the cherished memory of the loved +and the lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so +costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." + +More striking still, Lincoln's trust in God and His overruling +providence. Mr. Herndon in his biography and Dr. Abbott in an editorial +and an oration at Cooper Institute emphasize the agnosticism of Lincoln. +The one says that in his youth he wrote an article against Christianity, +and the other that he was not a technical Christian. Dr. Abbott thinks +all this so important that he places the agnosticism of Lincoln at the +forefront. But too much has been made of the schoolboy article of +Lincoln on doubt and infidelity. In his youth Gladstone was a Tory, but +he outgrew it. In the outset Paul was against Christianity. Tennyson and +Wordsworth in their teens wrote puerile verse, just as Lincoln in his +teens wrote a foolish paper. But it is cruelly unfair not to allow +Abraham Lincoln the full benefit of what he came to be, and not to take +the man at his best. It is unfair to say that a man is what he is at his +worst and lowest point; a man is what he is at his best and highest +point. Stephen A. Douglas said Lincoln was the most honest man he ever +knew. Well, if Lincoln was an honest man in his character, he must have +been honest in talking about his religion and his faith in God. Was +Abraham Lincoln an agnostic in that hour when he spoke his farewell +words to his neighbours in Springfield, about starting on the memorable +journey to his inauguration? He said: "I feel that I cannot succeed +without the same divine aid that sustained Washington, and on the same +Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my +friends, will all pray that I may receive that divine assistance without +which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain." Was Abraham +Lincoln without faith, and did he play to the gallery, when he set apart +a day of fasting and prayer after the defeat at Bull Run? Having said +that Abraham Lincoln was an honest man, why not remember it, when these +critics read his First Inaugural, in which he declares that +"intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who +has never yet forsaken this favoured land, are still competent to adjust +in the best way all our present difficulty." When Abraham Lincoln wrote +the mother, Mrs. Bixby, "I pray that the heavenly Father may assuage the +anguish of your bereavement," he meant that he believed in God, in a God +who answered prayer, in a God who cared for the mother living, and the +five brave boys dead. "The Almighty has His own purposes," said Lincoln, +in the Second Inaugural, an address that is steeped in religion, that +exhales trust in God. Take God out of that Second Inaugural, and it +would be like taking health out of the body, wisdom out of the book, +sweetness out of the song, culture out of the intellect, life out of the +body. You cannot in one breath say that Lincoln was an agnostic, and +then in the next one say that Lincoln was an honest man. I care not one +whit what Mr. Herndon says. I care everything about what Abraham Lincoln +says about himself in his greatest speeches, in his noblest hours, when +he gave his countrymen his latest, deepest, profoundest thoughts. + +In trying to explain the character of Lincoln we therefore make our +final appeal unto God, for God alone is equal to the making of this +great man. When long time has passed, the name of Lincoln will probably +be mentioned with Moses, Julius Cæsar, Paul, Shakespeare. Men will read +a few of his paragraphs as a kind of Bible of Patriotism. Washington's +name will not be less, but Lincoln's will certainly be more and more, +and then still more. God and Sorrow made the man great. + +And this is his life story. In the darkest hour of the Republic, when +liberty and slavery were struggling to see which should rule the old +homestead, it became evident that slavery would turn the garden into a +desert, and the house into a ruin. And seeking a deliverer and a +saviour, the great God, in His own purpose, passed by the palace with +its silken delights. He took a little babe in His arms, and called to +His side His favourite angel, the angel of Sorrow. Stooping, he +whispered, "Oh, Sorrow, thou well-beloved teacher, take thou this little +child of Mine and make him great. Take him to yonder cabin in the +wilderness; make his home a poor man's house; plant his narrow path +thick with thorns, cut his little feet with sharp and cruel rocks; as he +climbs the hills of difficulty, make each footprint red with his own +life-blood; load his little back with burdens; give to him days of toil +and nights of study and sleeplessness; wrest from his arms whatever he +loves; make his heart, through sorrow, as sensitive to the sigh of a +slave as a thread of silk in a window is sensitive to the slightest wind +that blows; and when you have digged lines of pain in his cheeks, and +made his face more marred than the face of any man of his time, bring +him back to me, and with him I will free three million slaves." That is +how God made Abraham Lincoln great. + +And then,--we slew him. For that is the way our ignorant, sinful earth +has always rewarded its greatest souls. Ours is a world where we crucify +the Saviour in Jerusalem, where we poison Socrates in Athens, where we +exile Dante in Italy, and burn Savonarola in Florence, and starve +Cervantes in Madrid, and jail Bunyan in Bedford,--for the greatest +manhood is always rewarded with martyrdom. And what better thing for +Abraham Lincoln than assassination, because he has emancipated three +million slaves and saved the Union, as the last, best hope of earth? + +But, lo, who are these in bright array, looking over the battlements of +heaven, while the forces of liberty and slavery in other forms struggle +together on these earthly plains beneath? These with radiant faces +unstained by tears, that seem never to have known the mark of pain or +sorrow? Ah! these are they who have come out of great tribulation, +anguish and martyrdom; Paul from the stones; Homer from his blindness; +Socrates from his cup of poison; Milton from his heart-break; Savonarola +from his fagots, and Lincoln from his long martyrdom--the least part of +which was the shot that freed his spirit in the hour of triumph and +joy. + + + + +Index + + + Abolition Societies in the South, 25 + + Abominations, tariff of, 50, 163 + + Æsop's Fables, 290, 297,316 + + "Adam Bede," 148 + + Adams, Charles F., 54, 243 + + Adams, John, 83, 121 + + Alabama, secession, 189 + + _Alabama_, the, 225, 238, 245 + + _Albemarle_, the, 245 + + Albert, Prince Consort, 226 + + Aldersen, Judge, 107 + + Alva, Duke of, 15, 264 + + American Tract Society, 296 + + Ames, Fisher, 213 + + Andersonville, 269, 270 + + Anne, Queen, 18 + + Anti-Slavery epoch, importance of, 6, 7, 13 + + Arab slave-hunters, 30 + + Athens, 14, 41, 212 + + Atlanta and Sherman, 249 + + Austin, James T., 81 + + + Bach, John S., 301 + + Bacon, Lord, 110 + + Bailey, Kentucky editor, 140 + + Bancroft, George, 104, 282 + + Bates, Edward, 184 + + Beauregard, P. G. T., 192, 244 + + Beecher, Henry Ward, 49, 69, 91, 181, 204; + Chapter IX, The Appeal to England, 212-241; + reasons for European trip of, 214-216; + no official embassy, 217; + interview of, with Lincoln, 218; + breakfast to, in London, 219; + speech at Manchester, 227-230; + at Glasgow and Edinburgh, 231, 232; + in Liverpool, 232, 234; + in London, 235; + triumph at home, 235, 239; + raises Sumter flag, 241; + and Lincoln, 212, 218, 304-305 + + Beecher, Lyman, 138 + + Bell, John, 184 + + Bishop of New Jersey, 296 + + Bowen, Henry C., 181 + + Breckenridge, J. C., 184 + + Bremer, Frederika, 144 + + Bright, John, 222, 225 + + Brown, John, Chapter VI, 136-159; + in Springfield, 149; + North Elba, 150; + Iowa, 150; + Kansas, 151-154; + Virginia, 154; + Harper's Ferry, 155; + trial and death, 155-158; + his fanaticism overruled, 159 + + Brown-Sequard, Dr., 114 + + Bryant, Wm. C., 182 + + Buchanan, Com. Franklin, 245 + + Buchanan, James, 189 + + Buckle, Thomas, 204 + + Bunyan, John, 325 + + Burns, Anthony, 84-87 + + Burns, Robert, 310 + + Burnside, Gen. A. E., 252 + + Byron, Lord, 84 + + Calhoun, John C., 12; + early career, 46, 47; + nullification, 51; + government and sovereignty, 52; + mistakes of, 59; + influence on non-slaveholding South, 196; + political doctrine of, in church affairs, 204-205 + + Carlisle, Lord, 144 + + Carlyle, Thomas, 100, 107, 236-238, 311-312 + + Carpet-baggers, 259 + + Cervantes, 325 + + Channing, Wm. E., 74, 75, 81, 104 + + Charles I, 23, 42 + + Charles II, 23 + + Chase, Salmon P., 141 + + Christian Commission, 272 + + Clay, Henry, 52, 61, 289 + + Cobden, Richard, 222, 238 + + Columbus, Christopher, 291 + + Columbus, Ky., 253 + + Congregationalism and State sovereignty, 204-205 + + Constitution, the, 206 + + Convention of 1776, 23 + + Cooper, Peter, 182 + + Cotton, 26-29, 49, 222-224 + + Cushing, Lieut. W. B., 245 + + + Dante, 95, 251, 290, 318, 325 + + Darwin, Charles, 291, 301 + + Davis, Jefferson, Stephens' opinion of, 203; + early career, 206; + as Confederate president, 206 + + De Bau on slave trade, 20 + + Declaration of Independence, 25 + + Demetrius, 87 + + Democracy, advance of, 5 + + Demosthenes, 14, 213 + + Dickens, Charles, novels of reform, 139; + praises "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 143; + predicts Confederate success, 238 + + Donelson, Fort, 246 + + Douglass, Frederick, 34 + + Douglas, Stephen A., + as orator, 69; + early career, 165-166; + supports Polk, 167; + proposes "squatter sovereignty," 169; + loses prestige, 170-172; + challenged to debate by Lincoln, 173; + compared with Lincoln, 174-177; + the great debate, 178-181; + nominated for presidency, 184; + supports Union, 185; + death, 185; + and Northern Democrats in 1861, 193 + + Dutch revolt, 264 + + Dwight, President Yale College, 46 + + Dyer, Oliver, 48 + + + Edwards, Jonathan, 21 + + Eliot, George, 146, 148 + + England, 26, 49; + source of American principles, 218; + as to wars, 220; + why favourable to South, 221-224; + non-voters of, favoured North, 225; + Beecher in, 218-221, 227-235, 239-241 + + English Anti-Slavery Society, 227 + + Emerson, Ralph W., 68, 96, 236, 285 + + Everett, Edward, 69, 106, 315 + + Ewell, Gen. Richard S., 245 + + + Faneuil Hall, 81, 85 + + Farragut, Admiral David, 196, 246-247 + + Fillmore, Millard, 101 + + Florida, secession, 189 + + Floyd, John B., 189 + + Foote, Admiral Andrew H., 246 + + Fort Fisher, 247 + + Forts Donelson and Henry, 246 + + Fort Sumter, 191, 208, 241 + + Franklin, Benjamin, 34 + + Frémont, Gen. J. C., 215, 246 + + Fugitive Slave legislation, 36, 87, 214 + + Fulton Street prayer-meeting, 162 + + + Garrison, Wm. Lloyd and W. Phillips, Chapter III, 68-94; + the pen for abolition, 68; + early career, 69; + begins agitation with Lundy, 70; + starts Liberator, 1831, 71; + accused of Turner uprising, 72; + organized American Anti-Slavery Society, 74; + mobbed in Boston, 76; + satisfied with Lincoln's emancipation, 93 + + Geneva Arbitration, 225 + + George III, 24 + + Gladstone, W. E., 225 + + Gordon, Gen. J. B., 271, 285-286 + + Government contracts, 282-283 + + Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 246, 248; + early career, 252; + rapid promotion, 253; + Columbus, Donelson and Vicksburg, 254; + military genius, 255; + final campaign, 250; + Appomattox, 257-258; + President, 259; + political and financial problems, 259-260; + unwise speculation, 261; + authorship, 261; + character and death, 261-262 + + Great men, era of, 292-293 + + Great Rebellion, the, 11-13; + war of the, 265 + + Greeley, Horace, 54, 182, 183; + Chapter V, 117-135; + early career, 122-126; + founds N. Y. Tribune, 126; + extremist as reformer, 129; + "On to Richmond," 129; + evokes Lincoln letter, 130; + peace commissioner, 131; + draft riots, 131; + bails Davis, 132; + Democratic presidential candidate, 133; + dies, 134-135; + and Lincoln, 299, 305 + + Greenback craze, 260 + + Greene, Mrs. Nathanael, 27 + + Grinnell, James B., 150 + + Grote, George, 107 + + + Halleck, Gen. H. W., 253 + + Hampden, John, 42, 83 + + Hancock, John, 83 + + Hastings, Warren, 213 + + Hay, John, 218 + + Hayne, Robert Y., 41, 51, 56, 163 + + Hayti, 69 + + Heine, Heinrich, 144 + + Helper, Hinton Rowan, 197 + + Helps, Arthur, 144 + + Henry, Fort, 246 + + Henry, Patrick, 68, 191, 213 + + Hessian troops, 268 + + Higginson, T. W., 85 + + Hill, Frederic T., 242 + + Hill, Gen. A. P., 245 + + Hill, Gen. D. H., 245 + + Holland, 15, 41, 264 + + Homer, 326 + + Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 251 + + Howe, Dr. Samuel G., 104 + + + "Imitation of Christ, The," 143 + + "Impending Crisis, The," 197 + + Irving, Washington, 74 + + + Jackson, Andrew, 293 + + Jackson, Thomas J. (Stonewall), 200-202, 244, 245, 268 + + Jamestown, Va., 17 + + Japanese sanitation in war, 272 + + Jefferson, Thomas, 20, 24, 25, 53, 191 + + Jeffrey, Lord, 107 + + Jesus, parables of, 315; + martyrdom of, 325 + + Johnson, Samuel, 312 + + Johnston, Gen. A. S., 244 + + Johnston, Gen. J. E., 242 + + + Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 88, 169, 172 + + _Kearsarge_, the, 246 + + Kemble, Fanny, 32 + + Kenesaw Mountain, 242 + + Kentucky, 196 + + Kingsley, Charles, 144 + + + Laud, Archbishop, 42 + + Lawless, Judge, 79 + + Lee, Robert E., + honour to Virginia, 194; + early career, 199; + as strategist, 244; + final campaign against Grant, 256; + Appomattox, 257-258; + quoted, 285-286 + + _Liberator_, the, 71-73 + + Lincoln, Abraham, new force, 163; + challenges Douglas to debate, 173; + compared with Douglas, 174-176; + "divided-house speech," 177; + the great debate, 177-180; + Cooper Institute speech, 181-183; + presidential nomination, 183; + election and inauguration, 186-187; + inaugural address, 190; + calls for 75,000 troops, 193; + applauds Beecher, 212; + interview with Beecher, 218; + quoted, 286-287; + the Martyred President, Chapter XII, 288-326; + Americanism, 288-289; + three books, 290; + career, in brief, 296-298; + opposes Seward, Stanton and Greeley, 299; + ancestry, 300-303; + opposes Phillips, Greeley and Beecher, 304-306; + honesty, 307-308; + literary style, 309-315; + concentrated culture, 314-315; + with Everett at Gettysburg, 315; + made great by great events, 317-318; + characteristics, 319-320; + religious faith, 321-323; + death, 325 + + Lincoln and Douglas, the Great Debate, Chapter VII, 159-186 + + London, 16, 18, 235 + + _Log Cabin_, the, 125 + + Longfellow, H. W., 104, 273 + + Longstreet, Gen. James, 244 + + Loring, U. S. Commissioner, 84 + + Louisiana, secession, 189 + + Lovejoy, Rev. E. P., murder of, 78-80 + + Lowell, James R., 94, 99-102, 282, 284 + + Lundy, Benjamin, 69-70 + + Luther, Martin, 115 + + + Macaulay, T. B., 107, 280 + + McClellan, Gen. G. B., 250-252 + + Machiavelli, 307 + + McKinley, William, 289 + + Mammonism, 6 + + Mann, Horace, 63, 106 + + Mansfield, Lord, 24 + + Marshall, Thomas, 46 + + Martineau, Harriet, 113 + + Mason, James M., 225 + + Medill, Joseph, 179 + + _Merrimac_, the, 245 + + Mexican War, 167, 252 + + Michael Angelo, 318 + + Milton, John, 16, 93, 318, 326 + + Mississippi, secession, 189 + + Missouri Compromise, 169 + + Mobile Bay, 247 + + _Monitor_, the, 245 + + Morton, Governor of Indiana, 273 + + Moses, 36 + + Motley, John L., 75, 96 + + + Napoleon, 242 + + _National Era_, the, 143 + + Negro, as faithful servant, as soldier, 259-260; + as voter, 281 + + New Orleans taken, 247 + + Newspapers, in 1861-1865, 118, 119 + + Newton, Isaac, 291 + + _New Yorker_, the, 125 + + _New York Tribune_, 126-128 + + Northern officers of Southern birth, 196 + + Northern resources, 274-279 + + Nullification, 51, 54 + + Nurses, 272-274 + + + Otis, James, 83 + + + Palestine, 41 + + Panic of 1857, 160-161 + + Parke, Judge, 107 + + Parker, Theodore, 84, 85 + + Parliament House of Peace, 110 + + Paul, the Apostle, 326 + + Penn, William, 22 + + People at Home during the war, Chapter XI, 263-287 + + Philip of Macedon, 15, 213 + + Philip of Spain, 15 + + Phillips, Wendell, 63; + Chapter III, 68-94; + early career, 75; + aroused by mobbing of Garrison, 76; + Lovejoy's murder, 78; + Faneuil Hall meeting, 81-83; + Burns' rescue party, 85, 86; + agitation against Fugitive Slave Law, 87, 88; + Phillips' lecturing, 89; + oratory, 90; + defiance of mobs, 91-92; + influence, 93; + Lowell's poem, 94; + quoted, 285 + + "Pilgrim's Progress, The," 143 + + Plymouth Church, 91, 163, 181, 204, 218, 235 + + Plymouth Rock, 17 + + Popular sovereignty, 170 + + Porter, Admiral D. D., 247 + + Port Hudson, 247 + + Portuguese slave-traders, 19 + + Postal affairs, during Revolution, 120; + in Jackson's time, 121 + + Presbyterianism and Federal government, 205 + + Prescott, Wm. H., 96, 106 + + Prison-ship martyrs, 264 + + Prison sufferings, 269-271 + + Pym, John, 42 + + + Quincy, Josiah, 53, 83, 213 + + + Randolph, John, 32 + + Raphael, 318 + + Religious sentiment increased, 284 + + Revival of religion in 1857, 161-162 + + Rhodes, J. F., 60, 162, 202 + + "Romola," 146 + + Ruskin, John, 310 + + Russo-Japanese War, 210 + + + Sand, George, 144 + + Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission, 272 + + Savonarola, 325-326 + + Scheffer, Ary, and Christ the Emancipator, 296 + + Scott, Winfield, 196 + + Secession, first threatened by Massachusetts, 52, 53; + reasons for, Chapter VIII, 188-211; + of South Carolina and other States, 189; + why not accepted by North, 207-209; + early rebellions of, 294-295 + + Semmes, Com. Raphael, 245 + + Seward, Wm. H., 128, 183, 184, 217, 299 + + Shaftesbury, Lord, 144, 145 + + Shays' rebellion, 293 + + Shenandoah Valley, 250 + + Sheridan, Gen. Philip, 248, 250 + + Sherman, Gen. W. T., 242, 248-249 + + Slavery, American, Chapter I, 11-39; + Calhoun's view of, 55; + controlled government in 1860, 188; + attacked by North Carolinian, 196; + destroyed vigour of South, 210; + to be paid for by war, 287 + + Slave-trade begins, 17 + + Slidell, John, 225 + + Smith, Sidney, 107 + + Socrates, 263, 301 + + South Carolina, and the tariff, 50; + nullification + doctrine of, 51; + attacked Sumter, 191 + + Southern destitution, 267 + + Southern officers of Northern birth, 195 + + Southern resources, 279, 280 + + Southern women, 266-268, 281 + + Spanish slave-traders, 19 + + "Squatter sovereignty," 169 + + Stanton, Edwin M., 235, 240, 299 + + Stead, William, 99 + + Stephens, Alexander H., 201; + opposes secession, 202; + Confederate vice-president, 203; + opinion of Davis, 203 + + Story, Joseph, 75, 104 + + Stowe, Calvin E., 139 + + Stowe, Charles E., 139 + + Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Chapter VI, 136-148; + daughter of Lyman Beecher, 138; + married, lived in Cincinnati, 139; + wrote death of "Uncle Tom," 141; + "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 143-148 + + Stowe, Lyman Beecher, 139 + + Stradivarius, 301 + + Sumner, Charles, 54, 75; + Chapter IV, 95-116; + succeeds Webster in United States Senate, 102; + early career, 104-110; + oration on war, 107-109; + boldly attacks slavery, 110-113; + beaten by Brooks, 113; + characterization, 114-116 + + Surgeons, 272-274 + + + Taney, Roger B., 186 + + Tariff, the, 48-50 + + Texas, secession, 189 + + Thackeray, W. M., 148 + + Thomas, Gen. G. H., 196, 248 + + _Times_, the London, 230 + + Tombs, Robert, 137 + + _Trent_, the, 225 + + _Tribune Almanac_, 128 + + _Tribune, The New York_, 126-128 + + _Tribune_ reporter and John Brown, 153 + + Turner, Nat, 34 + + + "Uncle Tom," death of, 141 + + "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 143-148 + + + "Vanity Fair," 148 + + Van Zandt, frees slaves, 140 + + Vaughan, Judge, 107 + + Vicksburg, 247 + + Victoria, Queen, 146, 226 + + + War, good and evil influence of the, 281-285 + + Washburne, E. B., 179 + + Washington, George, 24, 191; + contrast with Lincoln, 288-289 + + Watt, James, 110, 291 + + Webster and Calhoun, Chapter II, 40-67 + + Webster, Daniel, 12; + early career, 44, 45; + answers Hayne, 56-58; + answers Calhoun, 60, 61; + 7th of March speech, 61-63; + Lincoln approves, 64; + + Webster dies, 66; + as orator, 69, 164, 292; + banner of, 295 + + Wellington, 242 + + Whiskey rebellion, 293 + + Whitefield, George, 21 + + Whitney, Eli, 27-29, 45 + + Whittier, John G., 63, 69, 96, 106, 285 + + Winchester and Sheridan, 250 + + Winslow, Admiral John A., 246 + + Winthrop, Robert, 273 + + Wirtz, Henry, 270 + + Wise, Governor of Virginia, 155-156 + + Worden, Admiral John L., 245 + + Wordsworth, Wm., 107 + + + Xenophon, 264 + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Story of Her Life." By Charles E. Stowe +and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. + +[2] "On the Trail of Grant and Lee," by Frederic Trevor Hill: New York +and London, D. 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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: The Battle of Principles + A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict + +Author: Newell Dwight Hillis + +Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18557] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<h1>The Battle of Principles</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>WORKS OF</h3> + +<h3>NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS</h3> + + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Books by Newell Dwight Hillis"> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Conflict</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">THE CONTAGION OF CHARACTER</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Studies in Culture and Success</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">THE FORTUNE OF THE REPUBLIC</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Studies, National and Patriotic on America of To-day</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">and To-morrow</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">GREAT BOOKS AS LIFE-TEACHERS</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Studies of Character, Real and Ideal</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">THE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">A Study of Social Sympathy and Service</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">A MAN'S VALUE TO SOCIETY</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Studies in Self-Culture and Character</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">FAITH AND CHARACTER</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, 75 cents</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">FORETOKENS OF IMMORTALITY</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Studies for "The Hour When the Immortal Hope Burns</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Low in the Heart"</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, cloth, net, 50 cents.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">DAVID THE POET AND KING</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>8vo, two colors, deckle edges, net, 75 cents.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">HOW THE INNER LIGHT FAILED</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">A Study of the Atrophy of the Spiritual Sense</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>18mo, cloth, net, 25 cents.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">RIGHT LIVING AS A FINE ART</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">A Study of Channing's Symphony</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, boards, net, 35 cents.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">THE MASTER OF THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT LIVING</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>12mo, boards, net, 35 cents.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF THE YEARS</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>16mo, old English boards, net, 25 cents.</i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;">THE SCHOOL IN THE HOME</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Net, 50 cents.</i></span></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><br /></p> + +<h1>The<br /> +Battle of Principles +</h1> + +<h3>A Study of the Heroism<br /> +and Eloquence of the<br /> +Anti-Slavery Conflict</h3> + +<h4>By</h4> +<h3>NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D. D.</h3> +<p><br /></p> +<p class='center'>New York Chicago Toronto<br /> +Fleming H. Revell Company<br /> +London and Edinburgh +</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + + +<p class='center'>Copyright, 1912, by<br /> +FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY</p> + +<p class='center'>New York: 158 Fifth Avenue<br /> +Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.<br /> +Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.<br /> +London: 21 Paternoster Square<br /> +Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Foreword</h2> + + +<p>These are days of destiny for the people of the Republic. Democracy, +like a beautiful civilization, is sweeping over all the earth. From +Portugal comes the news of a monarchy that is taking on democratic +forms. Turkey has announced the liberty of the printing press, Russia is +planning a new system of popular education, China is in process of +adopting a constitutional government, with a cabinet responsible to the +people. Unless one reads the newspapers in many languages, the observer +will miss daily some new victory for democracy. Great changes are on +also for the Republic. Now that the Civil War is fifty years away, the +new North and the new South represent a solid nation. Indeed, if every +Northern soldier were to die to-day, not one interest or liberty of this +Republic would be permitted to suffer by the sons of the Confederate +soldiers, who would defend the nation unto blood as bravely as men born +north of Mason and Dixon's line—indeed, who fought gallantly for it in +the Cuban<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> war. The North has entered upon a new industrial epoch, but +the South also is in the midst of its greatest industrial movement, and +in sight of its enlargement, by reason of the Panama Canal.</p> + +<p>The Western Continent is not large, but it holds more than half the farm +land of the planet, and it is already evident that the United States and +Canada, with their free institutions, will indirectly and directly +control the thousand millions of people that will soon live between the +Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and Cape Horn. The one question of the hour +is how to make all the coming millions patriots towards their country, +scholars towards the intellect, obedient citizens towards the laws of +nature and God. Our national peril is Mammonism, and the sordid pursuit +of gold. Our fathers came hither in pursuit of God and liberty,—not +gold and territory. Sixty of our present ninety millions of people have +entered the earthly scene since the Civil War. Our young men and women, +and the children of foreign born peoples need to open the pages of +history, setting forth the great men and events of the Anti-Slavery +epoch in this land.</p> + +<p>The time has come for the teachers in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> schoolroom and the preachers +in their pulpits to assemble the youth of the nation, and drill them in +the history of industrial democracy, and of political liberty. If our +youth are to make the twentieth century glorious, they must realize the +continuity of our institutions, and often return to the nineteenth +century and the Anti-Slavery epoch. The phrase, "For God, home and +native land," is often on the lips of our teachers. Love towards God +gives religion; the love of home gives marriage; the love of country, +patriotism. But patriotism is a fire that must be fed with the fuel of +ideas. These chapters are written in the belief that the youth of to-day +will find in the history of their fathers a storehouse filled with seed +for a world sowing, an armoury filled with weapons for to-morrow's +battle, a library rich with wisdom for the morrow's emergency, a +cathedral, bright with memorials of yesterday's heroes, its soldiers and +scholars, its statesmen, and above all, its martyred President.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;" class="smcap">Newell Dwight Hillis.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Plymouth Church,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>Brooklyn, N. Y.</i></span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Contents</h2> + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'>I.</td><td align='left'>Rise of American Slavery: Growth of</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>the Traffic</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_11'>11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>II.</td><td align='left'>Webster and Calhoun: The Battle Line</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>in Array</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_40'>40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>III.</td><td align='left'>Garrison and Phillips: Anti-Slavery</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>Agitation</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IV.</td><td align='left'>Charles Sumner: The Appeal to Educated</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>Men</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>V.</td><td align='left'>Horace Greeley: The Appeal to the</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>Common People</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_117'>117</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VI.</td><td align='left'>Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Brown:</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>The Conflict Precipitated</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_136'>136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VII.</td><td align='left'>Lincoln and Douglas: Influence of the</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>Great Debate</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_160'>160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>VIII.</td><td align='left'>Reasons for Secession: Southern Leaders</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_188'>188</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>IX.</td><td align='left'>Henry Ward Beecher: The Appeal to</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>England</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>X.</td><td align='left'>Heroes of Battle: American Soldiers</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>and Sailors</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_242'>242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XI.</td><td align='left'>The Life of the People at Home Who</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'>Supported the Soldiers at the Front</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_263'>263</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>XII.</td><td align='left'>Abraham Lincoln: The Martyred President</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_288'>288</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Index</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_327'>327</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>I</h2> + +<h3>RISE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY: GROWTH OF THE TRAFFIC</h3> + + +<p>The history of the nineteenth century holds some ten wars that disturbed +the nations of the earth, but perhaps our Civil War alone can be fully +justified at the bar of intellect and conscience. That war was fought, +not in the interest of territory or of national honour,—it was fought +by the white race for the enfranchisement of the black race, and to show +that a democratic government, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the +proposition that all men are created equal, could permanently endure.</p> + +<p>In retrospect, the Great Rebellion seems the mightiest battle and the +most glorious victory in the annals of time. The battle-field was a +thousand miles in length; the combatants numbered two million men; the +struggle was protracted over four years; the hillsides of the whole +South were made billowy with the country's dead; a million men were +killed or wounded in the two thousand two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> hundred battles; thousands of +gifted boys who might have permanently enriched the North and South +alike, through literature, art or science, were cut off as unfulfilled +prophecies in the beginning of their career, and what is more pathetic, +another million women, desolate and widowed, remained to look with +altered eyes upon an altered world, while alone they walked their Via +Dolorosa. In the physical realm the black shadow of the sun's eclipse +remains but for a few minutes, but through four awful years the nation +dwelt in blackness and dreadful night, while fifty more years passed, +and the shadow has not yet disappeared fully from the land.</p> + +<p>Strictly speaking, the Civil War began with the debate between Daniel +Webster and Calhoun in 1830. These intellectual giants set the battle +lines in array in the halls of the Senate. The warfare that began with +arguments in Congress was soon transferred to the lyceum and lecture +hall, then to the pulpit and press, then to the assembly rooms of State +legislatures, until finally it was submitted to the soldiers. At last +Grant, Sherman and Thomas witnessed to the truth of Webster's argument, +that the Union is one and inseparable, that it should endure now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> and +forever, but the endorsement was written with the sword's point, and in +letters of blood. The conflict raged, therefore, for thirty-five years, +and some of the most desperate battles were fought not with guns and +cannon, but with arguments, in the presence of assembled thousands, who +listened to the intellectual attack and defense. In their famous debate, +Lincoln and Douglas were over against one another like two fortresses, +bristling with bayonets, and with cannon shotted to the muzzle.</p> + +<p>The many millions of people in the United States, born or immigrated +here since the Civil War, busied with many things during this rich, +complex and prosperous era, have suffered a grievous loss, through the +weakening of their patriotism. Multitudes have forgotten that with great +price their fathers bought our industrial liberty for white and black +alike. The study of no era, perhaps, is so rewarding to the youth of the +country as the study of the Anti-Slavery epoch. It was an era of +intellectual giants and moral heroes. Great men walked in regiments up +and down the land. It was the age of our greatest statesmen of the North +and South,—Webster and Calhoun; of our greatest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> soldiers,—Grant, +Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, and of Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It was +the era of our greatest orators, Phillips and Beecher; of our greatest +editors, led by Greeley and Raymond; of our greatest poets and scholars, +Whittier and Lowell and Emerson; and of our greatest President, the +Martyr of Emancipation. So wonderful are those scenes named Gettysburg, +Appomattox, and the room where the Emancipation Act was signed, that +even the most skeptical have felt that the issues of liberty and life +for millions of slaves justified the entrance of a Divine Figure upon +the human battle-field. This Unseen Leader and Captain of the host had +dipped His sword in heaven, and carried a blade that was red with +insufferable wrath against oppression, cruelty and wrong.</p> + +<p>Now that fifty years have passed since the Civil War, the events of that +conflict have taken on their true perspective, and movements once +clouded have become clear. For great men and nations alike, the +suggestive hours are the critical hours and epochs. That was a critical +epoch for Athens, when Demosthenes plead the cause of the republic, and +insisted that Athens must defend her liberties, her art, her laws, her +social institu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>tions, and in the spirit of democracy resist the tyrant +Philip, who came with gifts in his hands. That was a critical hour for +brave little Holland, dreaming her dreams of liberty,—when the burghers +resisted the regiments of bloody Alva, and, clinging to the dykes with +their finger-tips, fought their way back to the fields, expelled Philip +of Spain, and, having no fortresses, lifted up their hands and +exclaimed, "These are our bayonets and walls of defense!" Big with +destiny also for this republic was that critical hour when Lincoln, in +his first inaugural, pleaded with the South not to destroy the Union, +nor to turn their cannon against the free institutions that seemed "the +last, best hope of men." But the eyes of the men of the South were +holden, and they were drunk with passion. They lighted the torch that +kindled a conflagration making the Southern city a waste and the rich +cotton-field a desolation.</p> + +<p>At the very beginning, the founders and fathers of the nation were under +the delusion that it was possible to unite in one land two antagonistic +principles,—liberty and slavery. It has been said that the Republic, +founded in New England, was nothing but an attempt to translate into +terms of prose the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> dreams that haunted the soul of John Milton his long +life through. The founders believed that every man must give an account +of himself to God, and because his responsibility was so great, they +felt that he must be absolutely free. Since no king, no priest, and no +master could give an account for him, he must be self-governing in +politics, self-controlling in industry, and free to go immediately into +the presence of God with his penitence and his prayer. The fathers +sought religious and political freedom,—not money or lands. But the new +temple of liberty was to be for the white race alone, and these builders +of the new commonwealth never thought of the black man, save as a +servant in the house. For more than two centuries, therefore, the wheat +and the tares grew together in the soil. When the tares began to choke +out the wheat, the uprooting of the foul growth became inevitable. +Perhaps the Civil War was a necessity,—for this reason, the disease of +slavery had struck in upon the vitals of the nation and the only cure +was the surgeon's knife. Therefore God raised up soldiers, and anointed +them as surgeons, with "the ointment of war, black and sulphurous."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>By a remarkable coincidence, the year that brought a slave ship to +Jamestown, Virginia, brought the <i>Mayflower</i> and the Pilgrim fathers to +Plymouth Rock. It is a singular fact that the star of hope and the orb +of night rose at one and the same hour upon the horizon. At first the +rich men of London counted the Virginia tobacco a luxury, but the weed +soon became a necessity, and the captain of the African ship exchanged +one slave for ten huge bales of tobacco. A second cargo of slaves +brought even larger dividends to the owners of the slave ship. Soon the +story of the financial returns of the traffic began to inflame the +avarice of England, Spain and Portugal. The slave trade was exalted to +the dignity of commerce in wheat and flour, coal and iron. Just as ships +are now built to carry China's tea and silk, India's indigo and spices, +so ships were built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the +kidnapping of African slaves, and the sale of these men to the sugar and +cotton planters of the West Indies and of America. Even the stories of +the gold and diamond fields of South Africa and Alaska have had less +power to inflame men's minds than the stories of the black men in the +forests of Africa,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> every one of whom was good for twenty guineas.</p> + +<p>The London of 1700 experienced a boom in slave stocks as the London of +1900 in rubber stocks. Merchants and captains, after a few years' +absence, returned to London to buy houses, carriages and gold plate, and +by their political largesses to win the title of baronet, and even seats +in the House of Lords. This illusion of gold finally fell upon the +throne itself, and King William and Queen Mary lent the traffic royal +patronage. At the very time when men in Boston, exultant over the +success of their experiment in democracy, were writing home to London +about this ideal republic of God that had been set up at Plymouth, and +the orb of liberty began to flame with light and hope for New England, +this other orb began to fling out its rays of sorrow, disease and death +across Africa and the southern sands.</p> + +<p>At length, in 1713, Queen Anne, in the Treaty of Utrecht, after a long +and arduous series of diplomatic negotiations, secured for the English +throne a monopoly of the slave traffic, and the writers of the time +spoke of this treaty as an event that would make the queen's name to be +eulogized as long as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> time should last. But two hundred years have +reversed the judgment of the civilized world. History now recalls Queen +Anne's monopoly of the slave traffic as it recalls the Black Death in +England, the era of smallpox in Scotland,—for one such treaty is +probably equal to two bubonic plagues, or three epidemics of cholera and +yellow fever.</p> + +<p>Finally, an informal agreement was entered upon between the English +slave dealers, the Spaniards and Portuguese,—an agreement that was +literally a "covenant with death and a compact with hell." The +Portuguese became the explorers of the interior, the advance agents of +the traffic, who reported what tribes had the tallest, strongest men, +and the most comely women. The Spaniards maintained the slave stations +on the coast, and took over from the Portuguese the gangs of slaves who +were chained together and driven down to the coast; the English slave +dealers owned the ships, bought the slaves at wholesale, transported the +wretches across the sea, and retailed the poor creatures to the planters +of the various colonies. Between 1620 and 1770 three million slaves were +driven in gangs down to the African seacoast, and transported<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> to the +colonies. At this time some of the greatest houses in London, Lisbon and +Madrid were founded, and some of the greatest family names were +established during these one hundred and fifty years when the slave +traffic was most prosperous. De Bau thinks that another 250,000 slaves +perished during the voyages across the sea. For the eighteenth century +was a century of cruelty as well as gold,—of crime and art,—of +murderous hate and increasing commerce. If the prophet Daniel had been +describing the Spain, Portugal and England of that time, he would have +portrayed them as an image of mud and gold,—but chiefly mud. Little +wonder that Thomas Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," treating of +the influence and possible consequences of slavery, wrote, "Indeed, I +tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." As England +anchored war-ships in the harbour of Shanghai, and forced the opium +traffic upon China, so she forced the slave traffic upon the American +colonies by gun and cannon. The story of the English kings who crowded +slavery upon the South makes up one of the blackest pages in the history +of a country that has been like unto a sower who went forth to sow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> with +one hand the good seed of liberty and justice, while with the other she +sowed the tares of slavery and oppression.</p> + +<p>From the very beginning, the climate and the general atmosphere of the +North was unfriendly to slavery, just as the cotton, sugar and indigo, +as well as the warm climate of the South encouraged slave labour. At +first, neither Boston nor New York associated wrong with the custom of +buying and using slave labour. And when, after a short time, opposition +began to develop, this antagonism to slavery was based upon economic, +rather than upon moral considerations.</p> + +<p>Jonathan Edwards was our great theologian, but at the very time that +Jonathan Edwards was writing his "Freedom of the Will" and preaching his +revival sermons on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he was the +owner of slaves. When that philosopher, whose writings had sent his name +into all Europe, died, he bequeathed a favourite slave to his +descendants. Whitefield was the great evangelist of that era, but +Whitefield during his visit to the colonies purchased a Southern +plantation, stocked it with seventy-five slaves, and when he died +bequeathed it to a relative, whom he characterizes as "an elect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> lady," +who, notwithstanding she was "elect," was quite willing to derive her +livelihood from the sweat of another's brow.</p> + +<p>And yet even in the Providence plantations, where more slaves were +bought and sold than in any other of the Northern colonies, the traffic +soon began to wane. The simple fact is that the rigour of the climate +and the severity of the winters of New England made the life of the +African brief. The slave was the child of a tropic clime, unaccustomed +to clothing, and the January snows and the March winds soon developed +consumption and chilled to death the child of the tropics. It was found +impracticable to use the black man in either the forests or fields, and +in a short time slaves were purchased only as domestic servants.</p> + +<p>But about 1750 the conscience of New England awakened. Men in the pulpit +took a strong position against the traffic. The Congregational churches +of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut declared against slavery and +asked the legislatures to adopt the Jewish law, emancipating all slaves +whatsoever at the end of the tenth year of servitude. A little later, +slavery was made illegal in all the New England colonies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Pennsylvania +at length remembered William Penn, who had freed all his slaves in his +will, while the German churches of that State began to expel all members +who were known to have bought or held a slave. When, therefore, the +convention met in Philadelphia, in 1776, preparatory to the Declaration +of Independence, the delegates were able to say that as a whole the +Northern colonies had cleansed their borders of the abuse, and had +decided to build their institutions and civilization upon free labour, +as the sure foundation of individual and social prosperity.</p> + +<p>But the antagonism to slavery in the Southern colonies was only less +pronounced, and this, not because of economic reasons, but because of +moral considerations. The Southern climate was friendly to cotton and +tobacco, indigo and rice. These products made heavy demands upon labour, +but white labour was unequal to the intense heat of the Southern summer +and workmen were scarce. During the revolutions under King Charles I and +Charles II and the wars at the beginning of the eighteenth century, +England needed every man at home. Virginia offered high wages and large +land rewards, but it was well-nigh impossible for her to secure +immigrants and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> the labour she needed. In that hour the captain of a +slave ship appeared in the House of Burgesses and offered to supply the +need, but the people of Virginia instructed the delegates to the +assembly to protest against the traffic. Finally, the colony imposed a +duty upon each slave landing, and made the duty so high as to destroy +the profits of the slave trade. King George was furious with anger, and +sent out a royal proclamation forbidding all interference with the slave +traffic under heavy penalty, and affirming that this trade was "highly +beneficial to the colonies, as well as remunerative to the throne." +Growing more antagonistic to slavery, the planters of Fairfax County +called a convention at which Washington presided. Later, in +Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin brought in the resolutions condemning +slavery as "a wicked, cruel and unjustifiable trade." Soon the leading +men of the Southern colonies sent a formal protest to England. Lord +Mansfield supported them in a decision that in English countries, +governed by English laws, freedom was the rule, and slavery illegal, +unless the colony, through its assembly, expressly legalized the slave +traffic.</p> + +<p>When the first convention met in Philadel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>phia, Jefferson included among +the articles of indictment against George the Third this paragraph: "He +has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most +sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who +never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery or to +incur a miserable death in the transportation thither." This passage, +however, was struck out of the Declaration in compliance with the wishes +of the delegates from two colonies, who desired to continue slavery. But +in 1784 Jefferson reopened the question by reporting an ordinance +prohibiting slavery after the year 1800 in the territory that afterwards +became Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as the +territory north of the Ohio River. This anti-slavery clause was lost in +the convention by only a single vote. "The voice of a single +individual," wrote Jefferson, "would have prevented this abominable +crime. But Heaven will not always be silent. The friends to the rights +of human nature will in the end prevail."</p> + +<p>Indeed, in the Southern States up to the very beginning of the Civil War +there was a strong anti-slavery sentiment. When the first meeting was +held in Baltimore to or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>ganize the Abolition Society, eighty-five +abolition societies in various counties of Southern States sent +delegates to the convention. It is a striking fact that the South can +claim as much credit for the organization of the Abolition Society as +William Lloyd Garrison and his friends in the North. For the real +responsibility for slavery does not rest upon Virginia, the Carolinas or +Georgia, but upon the mother-land, upon the avarice of the throne, the +cupidity of English merchants and the power of English guns and cannon.</p> + +<p>By the year 1790, therefore, slavery in the North had either died of +inanition, or had been rendered illegal by the action of State +legislatures, and the chapter was closed. There are the best of reasons +also for believing that in the South slavery was waning, while the +influence of planters who believed free labour more economical was +waxing. Suddenly an unexpected event changed the whole situation. The +commerce of the world rests upon food and clothing. The food of the +world is in wheat and corn, the clothing in cotton and wool. But wool +was so expensive that for the millions in Europe cotton garments were a +necessity. England had the looms and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> the spindles, but she could not +secure the cotton, and the Southern planters could not grow it. The +cotton pod, as large as a hen's egg, bursts when ripe and the cotton +gushes out in a white mass. Unfortunately, each pod holds eight or ten +seeds, each as large as an orange seed. To clean a single pound of +cotton required a long day's work by a slave. The production of cotton +was slow and costly, the acreage therefore small, and the profits +slender. The South was burdened with debt, the plantations were +mortgaged, and in 1792 the outlook for the cotton planters was very +dark, and all hearts were filled with foreboding and fear. One winter's +night Mrs. General Greene, wife of the Revolutionary soldier, was +entertaining at dinner a company of planters. In those days the planters +had but one thought—how to rid their plantations of their mortgages. It +happened that the conversation turned upon some possible mechanism for +cleaning the cotton. Mrs. Greene turned to her guests, and, reminding +Eli Whitney, a young New Englander who was in her home teaching her +children, that he had invented two or three playthings for her children, +suggested that he turn his attention to the problem.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>Young Whitney had no tools, but he soon made them; had no wire, but he +drew his own wire, and within a few months he perfected the cotton gin. +When the cat climbs upon the crate filled with chickens, it thrusts its +paw between the laths and pulls off the feathers, leaving the chicken +behind the laths. Young Whitney substituted wires for laths, and a +toothed wheel for the cat's paw, and soon pulled all the cotton out at +the top, leaving the seeds to drop through a hole in the bottom of the +gin. Within a year every great planter had a carpenter manufacturing +gins for the fields. With Whitney's machine one man in a single day +could clean more cotton than ten negroes could clean in an entire +winter. Planters annexed wild land, a hundred acres at a time. For the +first time the South was able to supply all the cotton that England's +manufacturers desired. The cities in England awakened to redoubled +industry. Southern cotton lands jumped from $5 to $50 an acre. Whitney +found the South producing 10,000 bales in 1793. Sixty years later it +produced 4,000,000 bales. Historians affirm that this single invention +added $1,000,000,000 as a free gift to the planters of the South.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>Although Eli Whitney took out patents, every planter infringed them. +Whole States organized movements to fight Whitney before the courts. In +1808, when his patent expired, he was poorer than when he began. Feeling +that the Southern planters had robbed him of the legitimate reward of +his invention, Whitney came North and gave himself to the study of +firearms. He invented what is now known as the Colt's revolver, the +Remington rifle and the modern machine gun. Beginning with the feeling +that he had been robbed of his just rights by Southern planters, Whitney +ended by inventing the very weapons that deprived the planters of their +slaves and preserved the Union.</p> + +<p>But the new prosperity and the increased acreage for cotton in the South +created an enormous market for slaves, and soon the sea swarmed with +slave ships. Prices advanced five hundred per cent, until a slave that +had brought $100 brought $500, and some even $1,000. What made slavery +no scourge, but a great religious moral blessing? The answer is, the +cotton gin and the cotton interest that gave a new desire to promote +slavery, to spread it, and to use its labour. For Eli Whitney had made +cotton to be king. Cot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>ton encouraged slavery; slavery at last +threatened the Union and so brought on the Civil War.</p> + +<p>The value of the slave as an economic machine depended upon his +physique, health and general endurance. The slave hunters were +Portuguese, Spaniards and Arabs, who drove the negroes in gangs down to +the coast, where they were loaded upon the slave ships. When the trade +was brisk and prices high, the hold of the ship was crowded to +suffocation, and intense suffering was inevitable. Landing at Savannah +or Charleston, Mobile or New Orleans, the slaves were sold at wholesale, +in the auction place. Later, the slave dealer drove them in gangs +through the villages, where they were sold at retail. The cost of a +slave varied with the price of cotton. Of the three million one hundred +thousand slaves living in the South in 1850, one million eight hundred +thousand were raising cotton. That was the great export, the basis of +prosperity. So great was the demand in England for Southern cotton that +profits were enormous. The Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's time +published a list of forty Southern planters in Louisiana and +Mississippi. One of them had five hundred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> negroes and sold the cotton +from his plantation at a net profit of one hundred thousand dollars. +Each negro, therefore, netted his master that year five hundred dollars. +The working life of a slave was short, scarcely more than seven years, +and for that reason the ablest negro was never worth more than from a +thousand to twelve hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>But if the cost of free labour was high, the cost of supporting the +slave under the Southern climate was very low. The climate of the Gulf +States is gentle, soft and propitious. Of forty planters who published +their statements, the average cost of clothing and feeding a slave for +one year was thirty dollars. One Louisiana planter, however, showed that +one hundred slaves on his plantation had cost him in cash outlay seven +hundred and fifty dollars for the entire year. This planter states that +his slaves raised their own corn, converted it into meal and bread, +raised their own sugar-cane, made their own molasses, built their own +houses out of the forest hard by. The slaves also raised their own +bacon, but unfortunately the price of meat was so high as to make its +use only an occasional luxury. North Carolina passed a law commanding +the planters to give their slaves meat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> at certain intervals, but the +law remained a dead letter. Other states, by legal enactment, fixed the +amount of meal that should be given to slaves.</p> + +<p>When Fanny Kemble, the English actress, retired from the stage, it was +to marry a Southern planter, and her autobiography and private letters +throw a flood of light upon the life of the slaves upon a typical +plantation in the cotton States. She says that the planter expected that +about once in seven years he must buy a new set of hands; that the +slaves did little in the winter, but they worked fifteen hours a day in +the spring, and often eighteen hours a day in the summer until the +cotton was picked. She adds that the negro children used to beg her for +a taste of meat, just as English children plead for a little candy. She +states that on her husband's estate slave breeding was most important +and remunerative, and that the increase and the young slaves sold made +it possible for the plantation to pay its interest. "Every negro child +born was worth two hundred dollars the moment it drew breath."</p> + +<p>It was this separation of families that touched the heart of Fanny +Kemble Butler,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> and stirred the indignation of Harriet Martineau, who at +the end of her year at the South wrote that she would rather walk +through a penitentiary or a lunatic asylum than through the slave +quarters that stood in the rear of the great house where she was +entertained. It is this element that explains the statement of John +Randolph of Virginia. Conversing one evening about the notable orations +to which he had listened, the great lawyer said that the most eloquent +words he had ever heard were "spoken on the auction block by a slave +mother." It seemed that she pleaded with the auctioneer and the +spectators not to separate her from her children and her husband, and +she made these men, who were trafficking in human life, realize the +meaning of Christ's words, "Woe unto him that doth offend one of My +little ones; it were better for him that a millstone were placed about +his neck and that he were cast into the depths of the sea."</p> + +<p>In this era of industrial education for the coloured race it is +interesting to note that five of the slave States imposed heavy +penalties upon any one who should teach the slaves to read or write. +Virginia, however, permitted the owner to teach his slave in the +interest of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> better management of the plantation. North Carolina finally +consented to arithmetic. After 1831 and the Nat Turner negro +insurrection more stringent laws were passed to prevent the slaves +learning how to read, lest they chance upon abolition documents. A +Georgian planter said that "The very slightest amount of education +impairs their value as slaves, for it instantly destroys their +contentedness; and since you do not contemplate changing their +condition, it is surely doing them an ill service to destroy their +acquiescence in it." In spite of the law, however, domestic servants +were frequently taught to read. Frederick Douglass found a teacher in +his mistress, where he was held as a domestic slave, and Douglass in +turn taught his fellow slaves on the plantation by stealth. The +advertisements of slaves that mention the slave's ability to read and +cipher, as a reason for special value, prove that the more intelligent +slaves had at least the rudiments of knowledge. Olmstead, in his "Cotton +Kingdom," says he visited a plantation in Mississippi, where one of the +negroes had, with the full permission of his master, taught all his +fellows how to read.</p> + +<p>An examination of the influence of slavery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> upon the poorer whites shows +that two-thirds of the white population suffered hardly less than did +the coloured people. The slaveholding class formed an aristocracy, who +dominated and ruled as lords. When the war broke out, there were about +four hundred thousand slave-holders, and nine and a half million people. +But of these four hundred thousand slave-holders, only about eight +thousand owned more than fifty slaves each, and it was this mere handful +who lived in splendid homes, surrounded with luxury, beauty, and +refinement. Travellers who have thrown the veil of romance and +enchantment about the Southern home, with a great house embowered in +magnolia trees, its rooms stored with art treasures, its walls lined +with marbles and bronzes, and its banqueting room at night crowded with +beautiful women and handsome men—these travellers speak of what was as +a matter of fact exceptional. We must remember that these men +represented a small aristocracy; that their mode of life, so charmingly +pictured by many accomplished writers, was the life of a select group, +and that the great slave plantations numbered not more than eight +thousand in that vast area.</p> + +<p>From the hour of the organization of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Abolition Society, these +Southern planters assumed an aggressive position. Their editors, +politicians and lawyers began to publish briefs, in support of the +peculiar institution. The usual argument began with ridicule of Thomas +Jefferson's famous statement that all men are born equal. The second +argument was an economic one, based on the value of the slaves. Three +million slaves would average a value of five hundred dollars each, and +this meant a billion five hundred millions of property, that had to be +considered as so much property in ships, factories, engines, reapers, +pastures, meadows, herds and flocks. All planters invoked the words of +Moses, permitting the Hebrews to hold slaves, and therefore exhibiting +slavery as a divine institution. Statesmen justified the Fugitive Slave +Law by triumphantly quoting Paul's letter, sending Onesimus back to his +rich master, Philemon. Jefferson Davis rested his argument upon the +curse that God pronounced upon Canaan, and asserted that slavery was +established by a decree of Almighty God and that through the portal of +slavery alone the descendant of the graceless son of Noah entered the +temple of civilization. Once a year the Southern minister preached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> from +the text, "Cursed be Canaan, the son of Ham. A servant of servants shall +he be unto his brethren."</p> + +<p>A few scholars grounded themselves on the scientific argument. These men +held that the black man was separated from the Saxon by a great chasm, +that if freed he was not equal to self-government, that he was a mere +child when placed in competition with the white man, and that the strong +owed it to the weak, that it was the duty of every superior man to take +charge of the inferior, and impose government from without.</p> + +<p>The politician had a stronger argument in defense of slavery. He held +that the nation that was strong, educated, prosperous, with an army and +navy, had not only the right but the duty of imposing government upon a +colony that was ignorant, poor, and degraded, and that this example of +the nation governing a colony by force of arms proved that the white +man, as master, should impose government from without upon the slave.</p> + +<p>Not until years after the war was over did men fully realize that +slavery was weight and free labour wings to the people. The North +believed that the working man should be free,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> that he should be +educated in the public schools, and that the only way to increase his +wage was to increase his intelligence. Each new knowledge, therefore, +brought a new economic hunger, and made the free labourer a good buyer +in the market, thus supporting factories and shops. Contrariwise the +slave was a poor buyer. The negro picking cotton out of the pod had few +wants,—one garment about his loins, a pone of corn bread, a husk +mattress,—no more. For that reason the slave starved the factory and +shop. Invention in the South perished. Every attempt to found a factory +was attended with failure. Of necessity, the North grew steadily richer +straight through the war, while the South grew steadily poorer. The war +closed with Northern factories and shops and trade at the high tide of +prosperity. The free working man asked many forms of clothing for the +body, books and magazines for the mind, pictures for the walls, +sewing-machine, the reed organ, every conceivable comfort and +convenience for his family, and these many forms of hunger nourished +invention, made the towns centres of manufacturing life, and built a +rich nation. The Northern working man put his head into his task,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> the +slave, his heel. When the war was over, the South was like a crushed +egg, impoverished by slavery. The peculiar institution had served well +eight thousand slave planters, each of whom owned more than fifty +slaves. But slavery had starved the remaining millions.</p> + +<p>Now that the new era has come, no statesman, no scholar, no editor, has +ever indicted slavery as the costliest possible form of production, with +half the skill, eloquence and conviction of Southern writers. What +Northern men believe, the Southerner knows. Unconsciously the Southern +youth was handicapped in the commercial race. His Northern brother was +an athlete, stripped to the skin, while he dragged a fetter, invisible. +That he should have come so near to winning the race is a tribute to his +courage, endurance, and a mental resource that can never be praised too +highly. If the rest of the world could only fight for good causes, with +half the ability, chivalry and bravery that the South fought for a bad +economic system, the world would soon enter upon the millennium.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>II</h2> + +<h3>WEBSTER AND CALHOUN: THE BATTLE LINE IN ARRAY</h3> + + +<p>The year was 1830; the scene, the Senate Chamber in Washington; the +combatants, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Two hundred and ten +years had now passed since the ship of liberty had come to New England, +and the ship of slavery had landed in Virginia. These centuries had +given ample time for the development of the real genius and influence of +liberty and free labour in the civilization of the North, and of slave +labour upon the institutions of the South. Little by little the +merchants, manufacturers and professional classes of the North had come +to feel that a free and educated working class produces wealth more +cheaply and rapidly than slave labour, and that the working people of +America must be educated and free, if they were to compete with the free +working people of Great Britain and Europe. Contrariwise, the South +believed that manual labour was a task for slaves, that cotton, rice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +and sugar were produced more rapidly by slave labour than by free +labour. The Southern civilization was built on the plan of producing raw +cotton, and exchanging it for manufactured goods. It did not escape the +notice of Southern leaders, however, that under free labour the North +had nearly double the population and wealth of the South. But Senator +Hayne explained this by saying that the biggest nations had never been +the greatest, and that the renowned peoples had been like Athens,—small +states, elect and patrician.</p> + +<p>But darkness and light, summer and winter, liberty and slavery cannot +exist side by side, in peace and tranquility. Unite hydrogen and +chlorine, and the chemist has an explosion that takes off the roof of +the house. And because liberty and slavery were antagonistic, and +mutually destructive, whenever the representatives of both came together +there was inevitably an explosion either on the platform or through the +press. It could not have been otherwise. In Palestine two opposing +civilizations came into collision,—one the Hebrew and the other the +Philistine,—and the Philistine went down. In Holland the Dutchmen, +working towards democracy, collided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> with the Spaniards, working towards +autocracy, and the Spaniard went down. In England, Hampden and Pym came +into collision with Charles the First and Archbishop Laud. The two +leaders of democracy wished to increase the privileges of the common +people by diffusing property, liberty, office and honours, while Charles +the First and Laud wished to lessen the powers of the people, and to +increase the privileges of the throne; democracy won, and autocracy +lost. And now in this republic, a civilization based upon the freedom +and education of the working classes came into collision with the +Southern civilization, based upon ignorant slave labour, and there were +upheavals and political outbreaks everywhere. In vain Abraham tried to +house Isaac, the son of the free woman, and Ishmael, the son of the +slave woman, under one and the same roof. Slowly the men in the North +and the manufacturers of England came to feel that slavery was +interfering with the commerce and prosperity, not simply of the people +of this republic, but of Europe also. Slavery was an economic +obstruction, lying directly in the path of progress.</p> + +<p>The two men who marked out the lines of struggle and precipitated the +conflict were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Daniel Webster, the +defender of the Constitution, affirmed that the Union was one and +inseparable, now and forever. John C. Calhoun said, "The State is +sovereign and supreme, and the Union secondary." In effect Webster said, +"The central government is the sun, and the States are planets, moving +round about the central orb." Calhoun answered, "There is no central sun +in our political system, but only planets, each revolving in any orbit +it elects for itself." Webster said, "In the cosmic and political system +alike, it is the central sun that causes the States like planets to move +in order and harmony, without collision, and with rich harvests." +Calhoun answered that every planet should be its own sun, and, if it +choose, be a runaway orb, and collide with whom it will.</p> + +<p>Finally, the argument of Webster and Calhoun was submitted to armies. +Grant and Sherman said, "Webster is right; the Union must be +maintained." Lee and Jackson answered, "Calhoun is right; the Union must +go, and the sovereign State remain." At Bull Run, Calhoun's doctrine +seemed to be in the ascendancy; at Gettysburg, Webster's argument seemed +to have the more cogency; at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> Appomattox Lee withdrew his support from +Calhoun, and allowed Daniel Webster's plea that the Union must abide and +be now and forever, one and inseparable.</p> + +<p>The Northern statesman, Daniel Webster, was probably the greatest +political genius our country has produced. He was born in New Hampshire, +in 1782, and was seven years old when his father gave him a copy of the +newly-adopted Constitution, which he soon committed to memory. His +father belonged to the farmer class, who read by night and brooded upon +his reading by day. In an era of privation for the colonists, by stern +denial he put his son through Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth +College. While still a young man, Daniel Webster leaped into fame by a +single argument before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and became +the competitor of jurists like Rufus Choate. His orations on "Bunker +Hill Monument," the "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," the "Death of +Adams and Jefferson," are among the really sublime passages in the +history of eloquence. In the Girard College case Webster established the +point that Christianity is a part of the common law of the land. +Criminal lawyers quote Webster's argument<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> in the great Knapp murder +trial, that the voice of conscience is the voice of God, as the world's +best statement of the moral imperative, and the automatic judgment seat +God has set up in the city of man's soul.</p> + +<p>Even from the physical view-point he deserved his epithet, "the godlike +Daniel." Not so tall as Calhoun or Clay, he was more solidly built than +either of the Southern orators. His head was so large and beautiful, +that Crawford, the sculptor, thought Webster his ideal model for a +statue of Jupiter. His skin was a deep bronze and copper hue, but when +excited his face became luminous, and translucent as a lamp of +alabaster. His opponents say that Webster had the finest vocal +instrument of his generation, and that he was a master of all possible +effects through speech. His voice was mellow and sweet, with an +extraordinary range, extending from the ringing clarion tenor note, to +the bass of a deep-toned organ. The historian tells us "Webster had the +faculty of magnifying a word into such prodigious volume that it was +dropped from his lips as a great boulder might drop into the sea, and it +jarred the Senate Chamber like a clap of thunder." The Kentucky lawyer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +Thomas Marshall, said when Webster came to his peroration in his reply +to Hayne, that he "listened as to one inspired." He finally thought he +saw a halo around the orator's head, like the one seen in the old +masters' depictions of saints.</p> + +<p>Webster's opponent was John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina. +Calhoun was the first Southern statesman to mark out the lines of battle +and indicate the methods of attack and defense for the supporters of +slavery. Graduating with high honours at Yale, in the class of 1802, +Calhoun studied law for three years at Litchfield, Connecticut, and then +decided to enter politics. In the lecture halls and class rooms, he +stood at the very forefront, as orator and logician. One day, in Yale +College, Calhoun delivered a speech on an apparently absurd proposition, +which he defended with great acuteness. When he had finished, President +Dwight said, "Calhoun, that is a brilliant piece of logic, and if I ever +want any one to prove that shad grow upon apple trees, I shall appoint +you."</p> + +<p>Upon the lines of broad patriotism, with reference to the interests of +the country as a whole, Calhoun supported the war with England in 1812. +From city to city the young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> lawyer journeyed, travelling all the way +from Charleston and Savannah to Boston and Portland, urging the right +and the duty of the Republic to resist England's claim to the right of +search of American vessels. Calhoun was widely read in history, he was +full of intense patriotism, his arguments were clear, he had unity, +order and movement in his thinking, he had the art of putting things, +and was a perfect master of his audience. At thirty years of age Calhoun +was as popular in Boston as he was later in Savannah and Charleston. In +1824, he was elected Vice-President,—the only man on the ticket to be +chosen by popular vote. From that hour until his death he remained a +member of the triumvirate that controlled the destinies of the Republic, +sharing honours with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.</p> + +<p>In the South Calhoun was all but idolized. He was tall and slender of +person, refined and elegant in manners, carrying with him great personal +charm. He was a puritan in his morals, maintained a spotless reputation, +and escaped all criticism with reference to private life that was +visited upon his competitors. Many a Northern man who went to Congress +hating the very name of Cal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>houn, the arch-secessionist, was compelled +to confess that he had to steel his heart against the charm of Calhoun's +speech and personality. The simplicity of his character, the clearness +of his thinking, the sincerity and moral earnestness of his nature, all +united to lend him the influence that he exerted over men like Oliver +Dyer, Webster's friend, who said of Calhoun, "He was by all odds the +most fascinating man in private intercourse that I have ever met."</p> + +<p>When Webster and Clay came into collision, it was over a subject +apparently far removed from the bondage of slaves. If slavery was the +spark that fired the magazine for the great explosion in 1861, the +tariff furnished the powder. The South produced raw material, and +imported all her tools, comforts and conveniences, while the North had +free labour, and her educated working classes were good purchasers, and +lent generous support to manufacturers. Exporting its raw cotton to +England, the South sent its leaders to Congress to ask for free trade +with foreign countries, or in any event, a lower tariff. The Northern +manufacturers sent their leaders to Congress to ask for protection +against foreign woollens, cottons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> and all English tools and French +silks, and luxuries. Therefore the interests of the North antagonized +the interests of the South. In the South the anti-slavery sentiment had +disappeared because of Whitney's cotton gin. As Beecher wittily put it +in his Manchester speech: "Slaves that before had been worth three to +four hundred dollars began to be worth six hundred. That knocked away +one-third of adherence to the moral law. Then they became worth seven +hundred dollars, and half the law went; then eight or nine hundred +dollars, and there was no such thing as moral law; then one thousand or +twelve hundred dollars, and slavery became one of the beatitudes."</p> + +<p>The Southern leaders, therefore, wanted free trade with England; the +North urged protection, in the interest of the whole country, rather +than a group of States. The South believed that Northern politics was +selfish; the North believed that the Southern leaders were building up +English manufacturers, and weakening their own country! The people +became one great debating club, and the dispute waxed more bitter day by +day. Every new event seemed to widen the breach. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> war of the +Revolution made for unity between North and South, just as the hammer +welds together two pieces of red hot iron. The soldiers of the +Revolution had marched under the same flag, supported the same +Declaration of Independence, and fought for the same Constitution. +Slavery in the North had died through inanition, and during the +eighteenth century in the South also slavery seemed in process of +extinction. But now, in 1830, slavery had become a great source of +immeasurable wealth to the South, just as manufacturing had built up the +prosperity of the North.</p> + +<p>The tariff discussion came to a climax in 1828, through the passing of a +customs act, known as the Tariff of Abominations. Sparks falling on ice +carry no peril, but sparks falling on the dry prairie cause +conflagrations. The news of the passing of the protective tariff created +intense excitement in South Carolina. Public meetings were called in all +the towns in the land, and protests were made against the execution of +the new law. Legislators in the State capital, orators on the platform, +editors through their columns, urged nullification. There were two +reasons for this growing hostility to protection on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> part of the +citizens of Calhoun's State; first the belief that as England was the +largest purchaser of cotton, it was to South Carolina's best interest to +have English goods brought in free; second the conviction that the +tariff was a strictly sectional movement in the interest of the +manufacturing North, as opposed to the South with her raw cotton and +slave labour.</p> + +<p>As a candidate for the vice-presidency in 1828 on the same ticket as +General Jackson, Calhoun took no definite step until after the election, +when he published a paper showing the evil which the protective tariff +was doing the Southern states, and asserting the right to interpose a +veto. In January, 1830, having broken with Jackson and abandoned all +hope of later obtaining the presidency by his aid, Calhoun decided to +test the theory of nullification upon the national theatre. Accordingly, +under his direction, Senator Hayne inserted in his speech on the Foote +Resolution on the public lands the defense of what was to be known later +as the South Carolina Doctrine,—that, if a State considered a law of +Congress unconstitutional (as South Carolina asserted the recent tariff +act to be) the State had the right to nullify<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the law, and, if +obedience was sought to be enforced, the right to secede from the Union.</p> + +<p>His position has been stated by no one so clearly as by himself, for he +spent the next three years perfecting and elaborating his argument. As +the basis of his structure he employed a distinction between "a nation" +and "a union." England was a nation—the United States was a union. +Russia, Austria and Turkey were nations—this republic a union of +sovereign states. Prussia was presided over by a king and was a +nation—the United States was a republic and the citizens ruled +themselves. Calhoun distinguished also between sovereignty and +government; sovereignty is a birthright, a natural and inalienable right +vouchsafed by God; government is an artificial right established by law. +Sovereignty is an inexpungable and inherent privilege; government is a +secondary and artificial privilege. When any sovereign State is injured, +it has not only the right but the duty to withdraw from the compact that +has been broken. The popular notion is that this idea of <i>Secession</i> was +originated by Calhoun and was a South Carolina heresy; as a matter of +fact, it was first presented in Congress by Josiah Quincy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> and should +be called "A Massachusetts heresy."</p> + +<p>In 1811, as one of the results of the purchase of Louisiana by +Jefferson, a bill had been offered providing for the reception of the +State of Orleans into the Union. The people of New Orleans spoke the +French language, lived under the code of Napoleon, were monarchial in +their sympathy, and Quincy opposed the bill, just as many men to-day +would oppose the reception into the Union of the Philippines, the +Hawaiians or the Porto Ricans. Mr. Quincy declared that if Orleans were +admitted, the several States would be freed from the federal bonds and +that "as it will be the right of all States, so it will be the duty of +some, to prepare definitely for separation, amicably if they can, +violently if they must." When the speaker ruled out of order these +remarks, Quincy appealed, and the House of Representatives sustained his +appeal by a vote of fifty-six to fifty-three. Congress, under the lead +of Massachusetts, went on record that "it was permissible to discuss a +dissolution of the Union, amicably if we can—forcibly if we must."</p> + +<p>Two years later, Henry Clay taunted the Massachusetts leaders with this +threat to dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>member the Union. In 1844, Charles Francis Adams, in a +speech opposing the annexation of Texas, affirmed the right of the +Northern States to dissolve the Union. Even Charles Sumner and Horace +Greeley held the same views in 1861. The editor was anxious to "let the +erring sisters go," believing that the withdrawal was parliamentary; +while Charles Sumner said: "If they will only go, we will build a bridge +of gold for them to go over on."</p> + +<p>But it was Calhoun who carried the doctrine of <i>Nullification</i> to its +full development, and who worked out the theory of sovereignty. In the +debate with Webster, on the Force Bill, he stated his argument as +follows: "The people of Carolina believe that the Union is a union of +States and not of individuals; that it was formed by the States, and +that the citizens of the several States were bound to it through the +acts of their several States; that each State ratified the Constitution +for itself, and that it was only by such ratification of the States that +any obligation was imposed upon its citizens.... On this principle the +people of the State [South Carolina] have declared by the ordinance that +the Acts of Congress which imposed duties under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> authority to lay +imposts, were acts not for revenue, as intended by the Constitution, but +for protection, and therefore null and void." "The terms union, federal, +united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of +States. The sovereignty is in the several States, and our system is a +union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a constitutional compact, +and not of a divided sovereignty between the States severally and the +United States."</p> + +<p>His attitude towards slavery is illustrated by the remarks he delivered +in the Senate. "This agitation has produced one happy effect at least; +it has compelled us of the South to look into the nature and character +of this great institution of slavery, and correct many false impressions +that even we had entertained in relation to it. Many in the South once +believed that it was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion +are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as a most safe +and stable basis for free institutions in the world. It is impossible +with us that the conflict can take place between labour and capital, +which makes it so difficult to establish and maintain free institutions +in all wealthy and highly civilized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> nations, where such institutions as +ours do not exist."</p> + +<p>Calhoun's attempt to have his doctrine set forth on the floor of the +Senate Chamber met a crushing blow. When the hour came, he chose, to +present his view, Hayne of South Carolina, who defended the doctrine of +nullification with great brilliancy and energy. Hayne took the ground +that nullification was the old view always held by Virginia, that it was +the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson, and had been urged by Josiah Quincy of +Massachusetts itself. He was a most gifted orator. After a century of +preparation, at length slavery had chosen its strategic position and +drawn the battle line. From that moment it was certain that slavery must +go, or that the Union must go. A feeling of apprehension spread over the +land. Fear fell upon the hearts of the people. The one question of the +hour was whether Webster could answer the Southern orator and sweep away +the fog with which Hayne had enveloped the discussion, and make the old +Constitution stand out as firm as a mountain, with principles as bright +as the stars.</p> + +<p>By universal consent Webster's reply is our finest example of forensic +eloquence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> The essence of the argument was the right of the majority to +control the minority. That one State could nullify and secede whenever +the majority outvoted it, practically destroyed the jury system which is +embedded in Saxon history, destroyed the right of the majority of the +aldermen to control the great city, destroyed the right of the majority +of the supreme justices to make their decision. Webster's argument +crushed the doctrine of secession, and made the Republic a nation. Thus +Calhoun and Webster marked out the line of battle, for when the men in +gray and the men in blue met at Gettysburg and Appomattox it was to +determine whether Calhoun or Webster was right. Grant's final victory +simply stamped with a seal of blood the great charter that Webster's +genius had formulated.</p> + +<p>In retrospect the wonderful thing about Webster's reply is that his +notes were confined to a sheet of letter paper. Afterwards Webster said +that it had been carefully prepared, for while there is such a thing as +extemporaneous delivery, there is "no extemporaneous acquisition." Not +until he entered the Senate Chamber and saw the crowds did he feel the +slightest trepidation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> "A strange sensation came. My brain was free. +All that I had ever read or thought or acted, in literature, in history, +in law, in politics, seemed to unroll before me in glowing panorama, and +then it was easy, if I wanted a thunderbolt, to reach out and take it, +as it went smoking by." When Lyman Beecher had read Webster's reply to +Hayne, he turned to a friend and exclaimed, "It makes me think of a +red-hot cannon-ball going through a bucket of empty egg-shells."</p> + +<p>From that hour patriotism rose like a flood. For two generations the +reply has been to Americans what Demosthenes on the Crown was to the +Athenians. Webster placed the nation above the union, made the Nation, +in its constitutionally specified sphere of action, sovereign and +primary, the States secondary and subordinate. He thus made possible a +world-wide victory for free institutions, by which, to-day, democracy +and self-government are making thrones totter and tyrants tremble, and +giving us the assurance that no government is so stable as a government +conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are +free and equal. Webster made logical use of "government of the people, +by the people, and for the people."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> The soldiers of Gettysburg +exhibited their willingness to defend such a government, to live for +free institutions, and if necessary to die for them.</p> + +<p>Now that long time has passed, Southerners and Northerners alike concede +that Calhoun made three mistakes. He fought against progress and +civilization that has destroyed slavery on moral grounds. He also failed +to see that slavery was the worst possible system of production, for if +the South produced under slavery 4,000,000 bales of cotton in 1861, now +that the coloured man is free she produces 15,000,000 bales of cotton +per year. His theory of the right of the minority as a sovereign right +of secession has broken down at the bar of civilization. If South +Carolina or any State has the right to withdraw, whenever the majority +of other States outvote it, it means that the minority always has a +right to disobey the majority, which means not simply the withdrawal of +the one State from the many States, but later, the withdrawal of a few +counties from a majority of the counties in that State, giving an +endless series of confusions. If any single doctrine is established +among civilized nations to-day it is this one, under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> democratic +institutions—the right of the majority to rule.</p> + +<p>Three years later Webster once more marked out the basis of the North's +position for all time in a debate with Calhoun himself. Without the +magnificent flights of eloquence which distinguished the Reply to Hayne, +this speech of February 16, 1833, was filled with close and powerful +reasoning. Once and for all he maintained:</p> + +<p>"1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a league, +confederacy, or compact between the people of the several States, in +their sovereign capacities, but a government proper, founded on the +adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and +individuals.</p> + +<p>"2. That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations; that +nothing can dissolve them but revolution. And that consequently there +can be no such thing as secession without revolution."</p> + +<p>The importance of that argument in the history of our country cannot be +overestimated. As James Ford Rhodes has put it: "The justification +alleged by the South for her secession in 1861 was based on the +principles enunciated by Calhoun; the cause was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> slavery. Had there been +no slavery, the Calhoun theory of the Constitution would never have been +propounded, or had it been, it would have been crushed beyond +resurrection by Webster's speeches of 1830 and 1833. The South could not +in 1861 justify her right to revolution, for there was no oppression nor +invalidation of rights. She could, however, proclaim to the civilized +world what was true, that she went to war to extend slavery. Her defense +therefore is that she made the contest for her constitutional rights, +and this attempted vindication is founded on the Calhoun theory. On the +other hand, the ideas of Webster waxed strong with the years; and the +Northern people, thoroughly imbued with these sentiments, and holding +them as sacred truths, could not do otherwise than resist the +dismemberment of the Union."</p> + +<p>The great crisis that broke Mr. Webster's health and perhaps his heart +came through a misunderstanding. In 1850 the discussion over the Wilmot +proviso was stirring the Senate; Henry Clay had brought in his series of +compromise resolutions, based on the sober belief that the Union was in +imminent danger, and that once again the skillful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> hand that had penned +the Missouri Compromise might turn the country back into the path of +peace and prosperity. Calhoun, the second of the great Triumvirate, was +already within a month of death. Too weak to read his speech, he was +wheeled into the Senate Chamber, to sit with closed eyes while his last +haughty, arrogant defense of the South's rights was read by Senator +Mason. But the greatest of them all was yet to speak. Webster had the +foresight of Civil War, with rivers of blood, and a man on horseback. +Influenced by what we now see was the broadest patriotism, he delivered +his "Seventh of March Speech,"—the opening words of which disclose a +motive and a purpose too often overlooked by his critics. "I speak +to-day for the preservation of the Union. 'Hear me for my cause.'" +Briefly, his position was this:—that the Union was primary, dealing +with the liberties of fifty and later one hundred millions of +people,—white men as well as black,—and that the slavery question was +secondary, involving an artificial, less important and less permanent +institution. He discussed slavery from the view-point of history, with +arguments of the philosopher rather than those of the orator.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> He +defended the compromise measures, with their clause in favour of strict +enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, on the ground that the Government +was solemnly pledged by law and contract, and, indeed, "had been pledged +to it again and again." He closed with that famous paragraph +demonstrating the impossibility of peaceable secession. "Sir, he who +sees these States now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and +expects them to quit their places, and fly off without convulsion, may +look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, +and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing +the wreck of the universe."</p> + +<p>But he had defended the Fugitive Slave Law!—Therefore Abolitionists +burned Webster in effigy. Wendell Phillips called him a second Judas +Iscariot. Whittier wrote "Ichabod" across his forehead. Horace Mann +described him as a "fallen star—Lucifer descending from heaven!" Every +arrow was barbed and poisoned. Webster suffered like a great eagle with +a dart through its heart, beating its bloody wings upward through the +pathless air.</p> + +<p>But now that long time has passed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> thoughtful men realize that Webster +had studied the fundamental question more deeply, knew the facts better, +and saw clearer than his detractors. It is true that he erred when he +criticized the Abolitionists on the ground that in the last twenty years +they had "produced nothing good or valuable,"—that his words were +chosen in a way that irritated the North unduly,—and, more important +still, that in his remarks on the Fugitive Slave Law he swerved from the +broad statesmanship which distinguished the rest of the speech. But +twelve years later Abraham Lincoln read Daniel Webster's Seventh of +March Speech, and said Webster was right and Boston was wrong. Lincoln +put Webster's position into his letter to Greeley: "My paramount object +in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to +destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I +would do it; if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, I +would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some, and leaving +others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery I do because +I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear I forbear +because I do not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>lieve it would help to save the Union." And to-day, +after sixty years, our foremost writers are agreeing that "from the +historical view-point Webster's position was one of the highest +statesmanship." But the recognition of Webster unfortunately came too +late.</p> + +<p>As time passed Webster felt more and more keenly the injustice done him. +Bitterness poisoned his days, and sorrow shortened his life. When the +autumn came, he made ready for the end, knowing he would not survive +another winter. One October morning Webster said to his physician, "I +shall die to-night." The physician, an old friend, answered, "You are +right, sir." When the twilight fell, and all had gathered about his +bedside, Mr. Webster, in a tone that could be heard throughout the +house, slowly uttered these words, "My general wish on earth has been to +do my Master's will. That there is a God, all must acknowledge. I see +Him in all these wondrous works, Himself how wondrous! What would be the +condition of any of us if we had not the hope of immortality? What +ground is there to rest upon but the Gospel? There were scattered hopes +of the immortality of the soul, espe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>cially among the Jews. The Jews +believed in a spiritual origin of creation; the Romans never reached it; +the Greeks never reached it. It is a tradition that communication was +made to the Jews by God Himself through Moses. There were intimations +crepuscular, but—but—but—thank God! the Gospel of Jesus Christ +brought immortality to light, rescued it, brought it to light."</p> + +<p>Then, while all knelt in his death chamber and wept, Webster, in a +strong, firm voice, repeated the whole of the Lord's Prayer, closing +with these words: "Peace on earth and good will to men. That is the +happiness, the essence—good will to men." And so the defender of the +Constitution, the greatest reasoner on political matters of the +Republic, fell upon death.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Reflecting upon Webster's unconscious influence as set forth in the +words, "I still live," one of his eulogists says that when Rufus Choate +took ship for that port where he died, a friend exclaimed: "You will be +here a year hence." "Sir," said the lawyer, "I shall be here a hundred +years hence, and a thousand years hence." With his biographer let us +also believe that Daniel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> Webster is still here; that he watches with +intense interest the spread of democracy; that he now perceives our free +institutions extending their influence around the globe, beneficently +victorious in many a foreign state; that he rejoices as he beholds "the +gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honoured throughout the +world, bearing that sentiment dear to every true American heart, liberty +and union, now and forever, one and inseparable."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>III</h2> + +<h3>GARRISON AND PHILLIPS: ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION</h3> + + +<p>In retrospect, historians make a large place for the eloquence of the +anti-slavery epoch, as a force explaining the abolition movement. Every +great movement must have its advocate and voice. Garrison was the pen +for abolition, Emerson its philosopher, Greeley its editor, and in +Wendell Phillips abolition had its advocate. Political kings are +oftentimes artificial kings. The orator is God's natural king, divinely +enthroned. Back of all eloquence is a great soul, a great cause and a +great peril. Our history holds three supreme moments in the story of +eloquence—the hour of Patrick Henry's speech at Williamsburg, Wendell +Phillips' at Faneuil Hall and Lincoln's at Gettysburg. The great hour +and the great crisis, the great cause and the great man, all met and +melted together at a psychologic moment. In retrospect Phillips seems +like a special gift of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> God to the anti-slavery period. Webster had more +weight and majesty, Everett a higher polish, Douglas more pathos, +Beecher was more of an embodied thunder-storm, but John Bright was +probably right when he pronounced Wendell Phillips one of the first +orators of his century, or of any century.</p> + +<p>The man back of Wendell Phillips and the abolition movement was William +Lloyd Garrison. This reformer began his career in 1825, as a practical +printer and occasional writer of articles for the daily press. Among +Garrison's friends were two Quakers, one a young farmer, John Greenleaf +Whittier; the other was Benjamin Lundy, who for several years had spent +his time and fortune protesting against the slave traffic. Lundy had +visited Hayti, to examine the conditions of negro life there,—had +returned to Baltimore, where he had been brutally beaten by a slave +dealer, and had finally come to Boston to test out the anti-slavery +sentiment in New England. He held a meeting in a Baptist church, only to +have it broken up by the pastor, who refused to allow Lundy to continue +his remarks, on the ground that his position could only be offensive to +the South, and therefore dangerous. But Lundy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> succeeded in having a +committee appointed to consider the problem, and young Garrison was one +of its members. A few months later, Garrison was made the editor of a +journal in Bedford, where he began to advance more and more radical +theories, until a rival editor was irritated to the point of charging +him with "the pert loquacity of a blue jay." But Garrison's fidelity to +his own convictions, and his courage in airing them in public, had won +the respect of the Quaker enthusiast, Lundy, and the old man walked all +the way from Baltimore to Bedford to ask Garrison to join him in his +work of agitation. A year later the two men, one old and discouraged, +the other young and hopeful, both being practically penniless,—started +work in Baltimore. Troubles came thick and fast. The slave dealer who +had beaten Lundy now attacked young Garrison. Carelessly worded +criticisms of a Northern slave dealer from Garrison's own town of +Newburyport led to a suit for libel, and a fine of fifty dollars; +neither man could raise the money to pay the fine, and Garrison went to +jail for forty-nine days. But the youth was full of courage and faith, +and in 1831 we find him once more in Boston, start<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>ing a new paper, that +was, if possible, more radical than ever.</p> + +<p>In this second venture he was alone, his office was a garret, his only +helper a negro boy whom he had freed. His paper was called the +<i>Liberator</i>, and the first edition appeared in January, 1831. Garrison +registered his sublime vow in his opening editorial: "I will be as harsh +as truth and as uncompromising as justice.... I am in earnest,—I will +not equivocate,—I will not excuse,—I will not retract a single +inch,—and I will be heard." His battle cry was "Immediate, +unconditional emancipation on the soil."</p> + +<p>No movement that wrought so great a national convulsion ever had a more +feeble origin. The Revolutionary fathers had three million colonists as +supporters. The leaders of the Home Rule movement had four millions of +Irishmen to back them. Cobden and Bright were supported and cheered on +by the manufacturers of Central England. But young Garrison stood alone, +with empty hands, a slave boy to support, a hand-press printing a sheet +twelve inches square, never knowing where the money for the next edition +was to come from. His motto was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> "Our country is the world, and our +countrymen all men, black or white." The genius of his message was +unmistakable: "Is slavery wrong anywhere? Then it is wrong everywhere. +Was it wrong once in Palestine? Then it is wrong in all lands. Is a +wrongdoer bound to do right at any time? Then he is bound to do right +instantly." He distributed his sheets among the merchants of Boston. +Beacon Street shook with laughter, for a new Don Quixote had arisen. But +from the first the South was alarmed, for that little sheet from the +printing-press fell upon the South like the stroke and tread of armed +men.</p> + +<p>The <i>Liberator</i> soon brought friends to this unknown youth. But in +August of this same year, 1831, an event occurred which lifted +Garrison,—almost without his being aware of it,—into truly national +prominence. This was the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia,—a negro +uprising under the leadership of a genuine African slave who knew the +Bible by heart, who claimed to have communication with the Holy Spirit, +and who finally employed an eclipse of the sun as a sign to his +followers that they were to arise and slay their masters. The massacre +which re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>sulted lasted forty-eight hours, and sixty-one white people on +the neighbouring plantations lost their lives. Retribution followed +swiftly, and where the slightest suspicion of guilt was to be found, +negroes were shot at sight or burned against the nearest tree. +Southampton County saw a veritable reign of terror. A storm of +indignation swept over the South; thousands of slave owners living on +their great estates, miles from the nearest military station, feared +themselves victims of a servile insurrection. The cause of the uprising +was at once sought for, and a hundred writers laid the blame at the door +of the Boston <i>Liberator</i>. Garrison was indicted for felony in North +Carolina. The legislature of Georgia offered a reward for $5,000 to any +one who would kidnap him and deliver his body within the limits of the +state. With one voice the entire South cried out that the <i>Liberator</i> +must be suppressed.</p> + +<p>Later it became clear that Garrison's part in the Nat Turner rebellion +was nil. The <i>Liberator</i> had not a single subscriber in the South; Nat +Turner had never seen a copy of the paper,—and Garrison had been +specific in his statements that he did not believe in active resistance +to authority, or in the use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> of force of any kind. But the storm had +broken, and Garrison had to fight his way through it.</p> + +<p>Even in Boston Garrison had to face the mob, and meet the scorn of the +ruling classes of the city. His movement had no popular support, in the +true sense of the word, as it had twenty years later, when Wendell +Phillips led the forces of abolition. Cotton was king, and the fear of +losing the Southern trade sent the mercantile classes into a panic of +fear. Garrison's enemies were by no means confined to the South. He was +like David with his sling; and slavery, with all its vassals, North as +well as South, was Goliath armed with steel. But for Garrison there were +only two words, Right and Wrong, and he would not compromise concerning +either.</p> + +<p>Within two years he succeeded in organizing in Philadelphia the American +Anti-Slavery Society; by 1835 he convinced William Ellery Channing that +the time had fully come for an active crusade, and this old minister, +with a literary reputation in Europe almost as great as that of +Washington Irving, published an abolition book called "Slavery," which +is said to have been read by every prominent man in public life. In 1840 +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> society numbered not less than 200,000, and the hardest of +Garrison's work was done.</p> + +<p>But he was to have a potent ally in Wendell Phillips, the explanation of +whose career is in his birth gifts. One of his ancestors was a Cambridge +graduate, who rebelled against the tyranny of Charles, and exchanged +wealth and position for a New England wilderness. It was one of his +forefathers who was the first mayor of Boston. Another founded Phillips +Exeter Academy. Wendell Phillips himself began his career at the moment +when Madison's State Papers had won him the presidency, when John Adams +was the glory of the city, when Channing was the light of the pulpit, +and Lyman Beecher was the idol of orthodox Boston. He was in his early +teens when he waited four hours on a Boston wharf to see Lafayette's +boat come in. He was thirteen when he heard Daniel Webster's oration on +Adams and Jefferson. He was sixteen when he entered Harvard College, and +formed his lifelong friendship with his roommate, John Lothrop Motley. +He studied law with Charles Sumner, in the office of Judge Story, a +legal star of the first magnitude. He was counted one of the handsomest +youths in Bos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>ton. There was nothing too bright or too hard for Wendell +Phillips to aspire to, or hope for. At the critical moment, when he had +to decide upon his future career, ambition sang to him, as to every +noble youth. George William Curtis represents Phillips as sometimes +forecasting the future, as he saw himself "succeeding Ames, and Otis and +Webster, rising from the bar to the Legislature, from the Legislature to +the Senate, from the Senate—who knows whither? He was already the idol +of society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of the eloquent +refinement and the conservatism of Massachusetts. The delight of social +ease, the refined enjoyment of taste and letters and art, opulence, +leisure, professional distinction, gratified ambition, all offered +bribes to the young student." The measure of his manhood is in the way +he thrust aside all honours and emoluments that stood in the path of +duty. Only he who knows what he renounces gains the true blessing of +renunciation.</p> + +<p>The young orator's attitude towards slavery was determined by the +mobbing of Garrison. One October afternoon in 1835 Wendell Phillips sat +reading by an open window in his office on Court Street. Suddenly his +atten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>tion was diverted from the page by voices, angry and profane, +rising from the street without. Looking down he saw a multitude moving +up the street, and soon found that the multitude had become a mob. Five +thousand men were collected in front of the anti-slavery office, and +were trying to crowd their way up the stairs in search of Garrison. In +another room thirty women were assembled to organize a woman's abolition +society. When the women found that the mob wanted to put them out also, +they sent a message to Mayor Lyman asking protection. When the mayor +arrived with the police, instead of dispelling the mob and protecting +liberty of speech, the mayor dispelled the women and protected the mob. +Discovering that they had the sympathy of the mayor and would be +protected by the police, the lawless element rushed upon the office of +the <i>Liberator</i>, smashed in the doors and windows, and dragged Garrison +forth. Bareheaded, with a rope about his waist, his coat torn off, but +with erect head, set lips, flashing eyes, Garrison was dragged down the +street to the City Hall. On every side rose the shout "Kill him! Lynch +him! —— the abolitionist!" Asking who the man was, Phillips<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> was told +that this was Garrison, the editor of the <i>Liberator</i>. Meeting the +commander of the Boston regiment, of which he was a member, he +exclaimed, "Why does not the mayor call out the troops? This is +outrageous!" "Why," answered the officer, "don't you see that our +militia are also the mob?" It was all too true. The mob was made up of +men of property and standing. In that hour Wendell Phillips had his +call. In the person of that man dragged down the street with a rope +around his waist, the most gifted speaker in Boston had found his +client; in the crusade against slavery he found his cause, and soon his +clarion voice was heard sounding the onset.</p> + +<p>To Garrison's organized agitation, begun in 1832, that soon spread all +over the country, must be added a second cause for anti-slavery +sentiment,—the murder of Lovejoy. This was on the night of November 7, +1837. The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was a young Presbyterian minister, a +graduate of Princeton Seminary. He began his career as pastor of a +little church in St. Louis and editor of the <i>Presbyterian Observer</i>. At +that time he was not an abolitionist, and, perhaps because he had +married the daughter of a slave owner,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> he had taken no strong position +either for or against slavery. One day an officer arrested a black man +in St. Louis who resisted arrest, and in the mêlée the officer was +killed. His friends claimed that the negro was a freeman, and that there +was a plot to kidnap him and sell him into the Southern cotton fields, +and that he had a right to resist. The real facts will, doubtless, never +be known. To slave owners, however, it was intolerable that a black man +should resist an officer under any circumstances. A mob collected, the +negro was bound to a stake, wood piled round about, and the prisoner was +burned to death.</p> + +<p>Efforts were made to punish the murderers. In the irony of events the +name of the judge was Lawless, and he charged the grand jury +substantially as follows: "When men are hurried by some mysterious +metaphysical electric frenzy to commit a deed of violence they are +absolved from guilt. If you should find that such was the fact in this +case, then act not at all. The case transcends your jurisdiction, and is +beyond the reach of human law." Of course all the murderers went free. +When Mr. Lovejoy commented editorially upon this outrageous charge, +en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>couraging lynch law, once again the "mysterious, metaphysical +electric frenzy" broke forth, only this time it destroyed his printing +office. The young minister decided to leave the slave State, and crossed +to Alton, Illinois, where there was not only liberty of speech but +liberty of the printing-press. But a mob crossed over from Missouri and +destroyed his press. Determined to maintain his rights, Lovejoy then +brought another press down the Ohio River from Cincinnati. A group of +his friends carried the type from the steamboat to the warehouse, but +the next night a second mob collected, and when Lovejoy stepped from the +building he was riddled with bullets, the warehouse burned, and the +press, for the third time, flung into the Mississippi. The news of this +murder aroused the continent, filling the South with exultation, and the +North with alarm. Slavery, a subject which had long been tabooed, +suddenly became the one topic of conversation in the home, the store, +the street-car. All editors wrote about it; all Northern pulpits began +to preach on the subject. More faggots had been flung upon the fire, and +oil added to the fierce flames.</p> + +<p>Every explosion asks for powder, but also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> a spark. Falling on ice, a +spark is impotent, falling on powder, an explosion is inevitable. +Wendell Phillips had already been aroused to sympathy with Garrison and +hatred of slavery, and news of the murder of Lovejoy fell upon his heart +like a spark on a powder magazine. When Boston heard that Lovejoy had +been shot by the mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his +printing-press, the leading men of Boston came together in Faneuil Hall. +William Ellery Channing made the opening address, and asked that the +meeting go on record through an indignant protest against this assault +upon the rights of free citizens. James T. Austin, attorney-general of +the commonwealth, replied in a bitter and insulting reference to +Channing, asserting that a clergyman with a gun in his hand, or mingling +in the debate of a popular assembly in Faneuil Hall, was marvellously +out of place. Austin compared the slaves of the South to a menagerie of +wild beasts, and asserted that Lovejoy in defending them was +presumptuous, and died as a fool dieth. He added that the rioters in +Alton killed Lovejoy and flung his press into the river in the spirit of +the Boston mob that boarded the British ships in 1773,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> and threw the +tea overboard on the night of the "Boston Tea Party."</p> + +<p>That was a great moment in the history not only of liberty, but also in +that of eloquence. Wendell Phillips, then but six years out of Harvard +College, rose to reply. "A comparison has been drawn between the events +of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted +here in Faneuil Hall that Great Britain had a right to tax the colonies. +And we have heard the mob at Alton, drunken murderers of Lovejoy, +compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow +citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? The mob at Alton were met to +wrest from a citizen his just rights,—met to resist the laws. Lovejoy +had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only +defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in +arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him +went against and over the laws. The mob, as the gentleman terms it (mob, +forsooth!—certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvellously +patient generation!), the 'orderly mob' which assembled in the Old South +to destroy the tea were met to resist,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> not the laws, but illegal +exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and Stamp Act +laws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but the king's +usurpation. To find any other account you must read our revolutionary +history upside down. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a +precedent for mobs is an insult to their memory. They were the people +rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the province. The rioters +of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the +gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by +side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those +pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken +into voice to rebuke the recreant American,—the slanderer of the dead. +Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the +prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have +yawned and swallowed him up. Imprudent to defend the liberty of the +press! Why? Because the defense was unsuccessful? Does success gild +crime into patriotism, and the want of it change heroic self-devotion +into imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> when he drew the sword and threw +away the scabbard?"</p> + +<p>The next morning young Phillips, like Lord Byron, awoke to find himself +famous. Merchants, politicians, who had long been staggering like +drunken men, indifferent to their rights, and confused in their +feelings, were stunned into sobriety, and began to discuss principles, +and weigh characters, and analyze public leaders, and wakening, men +found that they had been standing on the edge of a precipice. Phillips, +already devoted to the slave, became now his tireless champion through +many years, till the emancipation of 1863.</p> + +<p>One evening in May, 1854, a negro was seen skulking in the shadows near +a dock in Boston. This coloured man, Anthony Burns by name, was a slave, +who had escaped from his Southern master, and after weeks had reached +Philadelphia, where a Quaker had stowed him away in a ship bound for +Boston. A Boston policeman who caught sight of the negro recalled the +rewards offered for the capture of slaves, and soon ran the fugitive +down, and had him before United States Commissioner Loring. The next +morning Theodore Parker hastened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> the court-room to say that he was +the chaplain of the Abolition Society, and had come to offer counsel. +But the fugitive was afraid to accept the overture, lest his master +punish him the more severely.</p> + +<p>The news spread quickly throughout the city, and two nights later a +meeting in Faneuil Hall was attended by an enormous gathering, aroused +to the highest pitch of excitement. Hand-bills had been put out, stating +that kidnappers were in the city. The people were in a frenzy. Theodore +Parker delivered one of his most impassioned addresses. "I am an old +man; I have heard hurrahs and cheers for liberty many times; I have not +seen a great many <i>deeds</i> done for liberty. I ask you, Are we to have +deeds as well as words?" Parker moved that, when the meeting adjourned, +it should be to meet the following morning in the square before the +court-house. But he had raised too great a storm to control; a rumour +that a mob of negroes was at that very moment trying to rescue Burns was +all that was needed to empty the room; and the crowd rushed out to the +court-house square. There they discovered a small party of men, led by +Thomas W. Higginson, trying to batter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> down the court-house doors. The +crowd lent them willing hands. But the marshall defended the +building,—shots were fired,—Higginson wounded, and several of his +followers arrested. Two companies of artillery were at once ordered out +by the mayor, and the attempt to rescue the negro met with complete and +disastrous failure. Wendell Phillips and Parker were the leaders in the +fight. When asked what he would regard as grounds for the return of +Burns to his master, Phillips answered, "Nothing short of a bill of sale +from Almighty God."</p> + +<p>The day of the transfer of the slave to the United States revenue cutter +found Boston in a state of siege. Twenty-two companies of Massachusetts +soldiers patrolled the city; two rows of soldiers, armed with muskets, +shotted to kill, stood on either side of the street through which Burns +was to be led to the vessel. The windows were filled with people, the +houses hung in black, the United States flags were draped in mourning. +From a window near the court-house hung a coffin, with the legend: "The +funeral of liberty." The procession itself was composed of a battalion +of United States<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> artillery, one of United States marines, the +marshall's posse of 125 men guarding the fugitive, and a small cannon, +with two more platoons of marines to guard it. To such a pass had come +Boston, with its respect for law, and its reputation for obedience to +those clothed in authority. A Charleston paper spoke of the return of +Burns as a Southern victory, but added that two or three such victories +would ruin the cause. For the movement against slavery was now rising, +with all the advance of a tidal wave and a mighty storm.</p> + +<p>The public excitement was greatly increased by the Fugitive Slave +legislation of 1850 and 1854. Many Northern men who were opposed to +slavery in the North condoned slavery in the South. Just as Demetrius +urged that by the making of images of Diana "we have our gain," so timid +capital in the North bowed like a suitor at the feet of the imperial +South, and advised silence, remembering that through the money of +Southern planters it had its livelihood. Wendell Phillips went up and +down the land stirring up opinion against the law. He spoke three +hundred times in one year and two hundred and seventy-five times in +another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> year. Phillips rose upon the opposition like a war eagle +against an advancing storm. Brave men defied the law, organized the +Underground Railroad, and in every way possible defeated the purpose of +the Fugitive Slave Law. So in 1854 when Senator Douglas engineered +through Congress the famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri +Compromise, the North refused to accept what was so palpably pro-slavery +legislation. This was revolutionary. Instantly the North divided into +two camps. The one question of the hour was "Shall a fugitive slave be +furnished with weapons with which to defend his person, and has he the +right of self-defense?" The whole land became a debating society, and +heaved with excitement, like the heaving of an earthquake. The merchant +pointed to his ledger, and urged caution. But liberty was stronger than +the ledger, and the heaving emotion burst through the statutes and rent +the laws asunder. Soon the Fugitive Slave Law, had become a dead letter. +The South had gone one step too far. Abolition stood suddenly in a new +light; "More abolitionists had been made by this single piece of hostile +legislation," said Greeley, "than Garrison<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> and Phillips could have made +in half a century."</p> + +<p>For thirty years Wendell Phillips was the crowned king of the lecture +platform. It was the golden age of the lyceum. Men had more leisure than +to-day. Our era of the drama, music, and travel pictures had not yet +come. The winter nights were long, books few, magazines had not yet +developed, and the people were hungry for instruction and eloquence. +Wendell Phillips achieved the astonishing feat of speaking three hundred +times a year. Eloquence is born of a great theme like the woes and +wrongs of three million slaves. It is sometimes said that oratory is +dying out in our Congress. But Congress is now a board of trade, +discussing duties, protective tariffs on wool, cotton, and hides. +Beecher and Phillips had a great theme—liberty, the emancipation of +millions of slaves. The modern orator in the Senate discusses the +mathematics of woolen goods. It is hard to be eloquent over one salt +barrel and two piles of cowhides. A sermon or a lecture on topics that +fifty years ago would have crowded the greatest room and the street +outside would not to-day draw a corporal's guard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>But in those heroic days, there was a great opportunity, and the +opportunity was matched by the man. Phillips was handsome as an Apollo. +His voice was sweet as a harp. No man ever studied the art of public +speech more scientifically. He played upon an audience as a skillful +musician upon the banks of keys in an organ. A Southern slaveholder +heard him in the Academy of Music, hating him, but paying him this +tribute, "That man is an infernal machine set to music." His method was +practically the memoriter method. A gentleman, who heard him give his +"Daniel O'Connell" four times in succession, found that the lecture was +repeated without the slightest variation whatsoever, in ideas, +sentences, inflection of the voice, or even gesture. Phillips prepared +his lectures with the greatest care, and then repeated them hundreds of +times. From the moment when he came upon the platform his presence +filled the eye and satisfied it. His very ease and poise begat +confidence and delight. He carved each sentence out of solid sunshine. +He stood quietly, made few gestures, adopted the conversational tone and +took the audience into his confidence.</p> + +<p>Some of his finest effects were produced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> by the injection of a +parenthesis. Once in an evening sermon in Plymouth Church, when Beecher +was urging the reëlection of Lincoln and defending the Republican party, +a disputatious individual called out from the congregation, "What about +Wendell Phillips?" To which Mr. Beecher made the instant answer, +"Wendell Phillips is not a Republican. Wendell Phillips is a radical and +an independent. What this country needs is not a man of words but a man +of deeds." A few nights later Wendell Phillips was lecturing in the +Brooklyn Academy of Music before the St. Patrick's Society, and made his +reply in the form of a parenthesis, barbing his shaft with an exquisite +inflection of his voice. "Mr. Beecher said last Sunday night +(<i>forgetting his own vocation</i>), 'Wendell Phillips is a man of words, +instead of a man of deeds.'"</p> + +<p>Not that the two men were ever unfriendly, for they were co-workers, +standing side by side in the great movement. Once when the trustees of +yonder Academy refused to allow Mr. Phillips to speak, Mr. Beecher made +it a point of honour with his trustees to let Wendell Phillips speak in +Plymouth Church, and ran the risk of the mob destroying the build<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>ing. +The tumultuous scenes of that night, when bricks came through the +windows, and the police were stationed in Cranberry and Orange Streets, +were repeated all over the land. Again and again Wendell Phillips was +mobbed. Once, at the very beginning of his career as an abolitionist, he +spoke with an old Quaker. People waited to greet the old Quaker and +asked him home for the night; but they pelted Wendell Phillips with +rotten eggs as he went down the street in the dark. Afterwards Wendell +Phillips said to the old Quaker, "I said just what you did, and yet you +were invited home to fried chicken and a bed, while I received raw eggs +and stone."</p> + +<p>"I will tell thee the difference, Wendell. Thou said, 'If thou art a +holder of slaves, thou wilt go to hell.' I said, 'If thou dost not hold +slaves, thou wilt not go to hell.'"</p> + +<p>But Wendell Phillips would not butter parsnips with fine words. Once in +Boston four hundred men surrounded him, got possession of the hall, and +jeered him for an hour and a half. Finally he leaned over the desk and +shouted down to a reporter, "Thank God there is no manacle for the +printing-press." Armed friends rescued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> him, guarded him home, and for a +week, night and day, the Boston police guarded the house. Those were +tumultuous days. But this great man braved and outlived the storm.</p> + +<p>When the Emancipation Proclamation was declared, William Lloyd Garrison +said nothing remained now but to die. But Phillips opposed the +dissolution of the Anti-Slavery Society, because he saw that when the +physical fetters were broken, there still remained the fetters of the +mind and heart that must be destroyed. So far from ending his labours, +Phillips now redoubled his activities. He threw himself into the labour +movement and helped organize the working classes into a solid force +against capitalism. He took up the cause of suffrage and the higher +education of woman, gave himself to the temperance problem and +prohibition. He lectured oftentimes two hundred nights a year in the +great cities of the land, seeking always to manufacture manhood of a +good quality. He became himself our finest example of the power and +influence of the scholar in the Republic. And when the end came, he +received from his fellow countrymen the admiration and the love that he +had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> deserved. And the friends who knew him best were not surprised that +the last words on his lips were the words of his friend James Russell +Lowell, that summarized the ideal that Wendell Phillips had pursued for +thirty years.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Launch our <i>Mayflower</i>, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key."</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>IV</h2> + +<h3>CHARLES SUMNER: THE APPEAL TO EDUCATED MEN</h3> + + +<p>In every country and time, the era of national peril has been the +creative era for the intellect. The eloquence of Greece was at its best +when Philip attacked Athens and Demosthenes defended its liberties. +Dante's poems were born of the collision between the despots who sought +to enslave Florence, and the patriots who dreamed of democracy. Milton's +songs were written during the English Revolution, when the Puritan, +seeking to diffuse the good things of life, and the Cavalier, who wished +to monopolize the earth's treasure, came into a deadly collision.</p> + +<p>In accordance with that principle it seems natural to expect that the +scholars of the Republic should do their best work during the era of +agitation, when the national intellect was white hot, and public +excitement burned by day and night. The anti-slavery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> epoch, therefore, +was the Augustan Era of American literature, when the historians, poets +and philosophers lent distinction to American literature. At that time +Motley was writing his "History of the Netherlands"; Prescott, his +"History of Mexico and Spain"; Whittier, his songs of slavery and +freedom; Lowell was the satirist of the debate, and was writing his +"Biglow Papers," and Emerson, the philosopher, was undermining the +foundations and shaking the principles of slavery, even as Samson pulled +down the temple of the olden time.</p> + +<p>Emerson, the philosopher, did the thinking, and furnished the +intellectual implements to the abolitionists. Beginning his career as a +preacher, he resigned his position, moved to Concord, and dwelt apart +from men, but "as he mused, the fire burned." Easily our first man of +American letters, he is among the first essayists of all ages and +climes. Essentially, however, he was a man of intellect, an American +Plato, "a Greek head screwed upon Yankee shoulders," to use Holmes' +expression. His essay upon "The American Scholar," and his book on +"Nature," brought him fame in England, and invitations to lecture before +their colleges. Early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> in his career he won the friendship of Arnold of +Rugby, of Matthew Arnold the son, of Arthur Hugh Clough, and of Thomas +Carlyle. He returned from his honours in England to find himself the +centre of the intellectual movement of New England. A number of younger +men gathered around him, until Emerson's group at Concord became like +unto Goethe's group at Weimar, and Coleridge's in London. During the +late forties American educators, orators and statesmen began to quote +the striking sentences from Emerson. Little by little it came about that +the fighters went to Emerson as to an arsenal for their intellectual +weapons. His first notable contribution to abolitionism was his "Story +of the West India Emancipation." Then came his "Essay on the Fugitive +Slave Law," his speech on the Assault on Mr. Sumner, his writings on +Kansas, and on John Brown. Few men have had such power to condense a +statement of philosophy into a single epigram. Grant once said of his +soldiers that while each man took aim for himself, Winchester slew all +the thousands. Not otherwise, hundreds of orators and reformers went up +and down the land attacking slavery, but while the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> voices were many, +the argument was one, and Emerson for a time did the speaking for the +abolitionists.</p> + +<p>What Emerson stated in pure white light, Whittier made popular through +his poems of Slavery and Freedom. By way of preëminence he was the poet +of the abolition movement, and the Sir Galahad among our singers. Reared +among the Friends, he had the simplicity of the Quaker, but the solidity +and massiveness of the fighting Puritan. Strange as it may seem, he was +at once the poet of peace, insisting upon the crime of war, and the poet +of freedom, insisting upon the destruction of slavery. The fire and +glow, the moral earnestness, the spiritual passion of Whittier, are best +illustrated in his "Lost Occasion," and "Ichabod." At length the +newspapers of the North took up his work. For some years before the war +broke out, scarcely a month passed by without a new poem of liberty by +Whittier. Soon these poems that were published in the newspapers were +recited in the schools by the children, quoted in the pulpits by the +preachers, and used by the orators as feathers for their arrows. Once +Wendell Phillips concluded an impassioned oration by reciting one of +Whit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>tier's stanzas, when a man in the audience shouted, "That arrow +went home!" to which Wendell Phillips answered, "Yes, and I have a +quiver full of arrows, every one of which was made by a man of +peace,—John Greenleaf Whittier." If Emerson's philosophy was like the +diffused white daylight that makes clear the landscape for an army, +Whittier's occasional poems like "Ichabod" were thunderbolts that +blasted forever all compromise and expediency.</p> + +<p>Sometimes what the essayist fails to achieve ridicule easily +accomplishes. James Russell Lowell was the satirist of the abolition +movement. With biting scorn and irony he laughed men out of narrowness, +ignorance, and selfishness. During the last epoch in his career Lowell +achieved world-wide fame as a diplomat, and was universally admired as +the all round man of letters. But now that he has gone, in retrospect, +the historian perceives that the first era of Lowell's career was the +influential era. He was the Milton of the anti-slavery epoch, as Lincoln +was its Cromwell. His influence in England, in developing an +anti-slavery sentiment there, was, if possible, more influential than in +the home country. The great English editor, William<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> Stead, tells us +that he owes to Lowell's message the influences that made him an editor +and a reformer. In the critical moments of his life he found in Lowell +the inspiration and support that he found in no other books, save in +Carlyle's "Cromwell" and the Bible. "In Russia, in Ireland, in Rome, and +in prison, Lowell's poems have been my constant companions." The poet +used the story of Moses emancipating the Hebrew slaves as an +illustration of the abolitionist as the unknown leader whom God would +raise up to lead the three million black men out of Southern slavery. +"What God did for the Egyptian bondsmen, he believed God would do; +because what God was, God is. He goes on:—</p> + +<p>"From what a Bible can a man choose his text to-day! A Bible which needs +no translation; and which no priestcraft can close from the laity,—the +open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine and +destroying fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of +God. Methinks the editor who should understand his calling, and be equal +thereto, would truly deserve that title that Homer bestows upon princes. +He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain, stared at by the elegant +tourist, and crawled over by the hammer of the geologist, he must find +his tables of the new law here among factories and cities in this +wilderness of sin, called the progress of civilization, and be the +captain of our exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order."</p> + +<p>Certain stanzas of Lowell, also, were quoted even more widely, and were +ever upon the lips of college students. Many a soldier boy who went to +battle from the forest and factory, the fields and the mines, scarcely +knew that his inspiration—like Phillip's oratory—was embodied in +Lowell's poem, "The Present Crisis":—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Then came Charles Sumner, the scholar in politics, to make practical the +student's message. Daniel Webster's defense of Massachusetts in his +reply to Hayne, and his wonderful eloquence in the years which followed +that first great address, lifted the old Bay State into unique +preëminence in the Senate: when, therefore, Webster left the Senate and +entered the cabinet of Millard Fillmore, the North and the South alike +asked, with intense interest, who should succeed the defender of the +Constitution. That no dramatic interest might be lacking when, in 1851, +Charles Sumner entered the Senate chamber to take the oath of office, it +came about that Henry Clay, the great Compromiser, left the Senate, +going out at one door, on the very day that Conscience, in the person of +this Puritan, entered it by the other door. John C. Calhoun, inflexible, +iron to the end, adhering tenaciously to his doctrine of secession, had +just died, quite unconscious of the fact that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> his speeches held the +explosives that were to shatter the South and destroy half a million of +his beloved people. Clay, too, was death-stricken, and with great pathos +referred to himself as "a stag scarred by spears, worried by wounds, +dragging his mutilated body to his lair to lie down and die." Webster +was now gray and broken, with the shadow of the eclipse already drawing +near. In such a moment Charles Sumner began his career by an appeal to +the "everlasting yea" and the "everlasting nay."—"I desire to speak +to-day of some laws greater than any passed in this capital or this +country; older than America, older than India—I mean the laws of God."</p> + +<p>Hitherto slavery had been the aggressor, crowding into Texas, edging +into Missouri, with bullets forcing its way into Kansas. Freedom had +always been on the defensive. Now all was changed, with the coming of a +man whose watchword was "Slavery must be destroyed; liberty must be +preserved." That cold body called the Senate became immediately +conscious of the new influence that entered into the very being of the +government, like iron into the rich blood of the physical system. +Charles Sumner made it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> clear from the beginning that the movement +against slavery was from the Everlasting Arm. With expediency he had +nothing to do, but only with eternal right and eternal wrong. One day +Daniel Webster reminded his young successor of the importance of looking +on the other side, indicating that a shield that was gold on one side +might at least be silver on the other, to which Sumner replied, "There +is no other side." This Boston scholar became a voice for law, "whose +seat is the bosom of God, and whose speech is the melody of the world." +These eternal laws of God rose up to stay the progress of slavery like +the beetling granite cliffs of Maine, that send forth their voice to the +onrushing tides, saying, "Here stay your proud waves—thus far, and no +farther."</p> + +<p>Ancestry, opportunity and events all conspired to equip Charles Sumner +with those implements that make man great. Like Phillips, he was a +descendant of the early settlers of Boston. His father led the men who +delivered Garrison out of the hands of the mob, and who told the excited +populace that unless Boston was careful "our children's heads will be +broken by cannon-balls." The plastic, critical hours of his youth were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +spent in Harvard College and in the law office of Judge Story. Never +interested in philosophy and metaphysics, he was surpassed by few as a +master of the humanities, general literature, and the story of the rise +and progress of democracy and free institutions. Not a man of genius, +Charles Sumner was gifted with talent of a very high order. He had, what +is perhaps better than genius, a capacity for sustained labour and +prodigious industry. He did nothing by halves. In his chosen realm he +became a master of the details of every movement related to free +institutions, since the days of the republics of Greece and Switzerland, +Holland and England. Long after other students had blown out their +lights, Charles Sumner's window was still flaming. At a very early epoch +he exhibited his tenacity of will and his constitutional inability to +change his mind. Once he planned with a companion to walk to Boston on +Saturday morning, starting at half-past seven. When the hour struck, a +snow-storm was raging. But having decided to go to Boston, to Boston the +student went alone, floundering through the blizzard. Snow-drifts were +little things, but changing his plan was an impossible thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> The +centre of his character, about which all else revolved, was a certain +axis of pride and self-esteem, which may be pardoned, perhaps, in view +of the fact that the world takes a man largely upon his own estimate of +personal worth.</p> + +<p>In those days the atmosphere of Boston was charged with enthusiasm for +education and the humanities. Among young Sumner's friends were +Prescott, who was writing the history of Spain and Mexico; Bancroft, who +was outlining his history of the United States; Story, the jurist; +Horace Mann, the educator; Dr. Howe, the father of the movement for the +education of the deaf and dumb; Emerson, Longfellow, Channing and +Whittier—all were not simply friends but correspondents of Charles +Sumner.</p> + +<p>Nor must we forget the Boston of earlier days, the Boston of Adams, and +Otis, of Warren and Quincy. In such a city, surrounded by the noblest +traditions of patriotism, stimulated by the greatest group of scholars +that the Republic has produced, Charles Sumner passed his early manhood. +Then, remembering that Edward Everett had fitted himself for his work in +Harvard University by four years abroad, Sumner, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> his twenty-seventh +year, went to Europe. He spent five months in Germany, where the spirits +of Goethe, Richter and Luther lingered upon the scene. In Paris he +studied French, French art, French literature, French philosophy, and +finally attended the debates in the French Parliament, examining the +problems with all the care of a member. He lingered long in England, +where he was welcomed and lionized by the foremost men of letters, +science, philosophy, as well as by the leading clergymen and statesmen +of London. He was an honoured guest not at some, but "at most of the +country seats of England and Scotland." He travelled the circuits as the +companion of the greatest English judges, Vaughan, Parke and Alderson. +He met on a familiar footing Macaulay and Grote, Carlyle and Jeffrey, +Sidney Smith and Wordsworth. But his great year was in Italy, in the +Eternal City, the city of Cæsar and Cicero, the city of Horace and +Virgil. In all, Sumner spent thirty years in preparation for his labour. +Few men in American politics have had a wider horizon, a better +equipment in history and literature, or have known so intimately all the +great men in the world of his own generation who were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> worth knowing. He +went away to Europe an American; he returned a universal man, a citizen +of the world.</p> + +<p>Not until 1845, when he was thirty-four years of age, did a really great +opportunity come to Sumner. Boston at that far-off day made much of the +Fourth of July, and looked forward to the holiday as the great event of +the year. During the previous autumn the mayor and aldermen of the city +invited Sumner to deliver the oration. Webster made John Adams say, +"When we are in our graves, our children will celebrate the day with +song and story, with oration and pageant, and the explosion of cannon, +and greet it with tears of joy and exultation." But unfortunately the +speeches of that time had degenerated into false rhetoric, full of +insincerity. In his oration, Sumner left the beaten track and plunged +into an unknown way. His theme was the crime of war. He attacked his +city and his country for spending millions upon fortifications in the +harbour. He affirmed that the best protection of a nation was not dead +stones but living patriots and heroes. He called the roll of the great +wars of history, and found only one or two, like our Revolution, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +were really justifiable. He defined war as the temporary repeal of all +the ten commandments, and an enthronement of all the crimes.</p> + +<p>In retrospect we know that Sumner overstated his case. His argument +against physical force would forbid the police in great cities, the +militia on the frontier, and would leave communities exposed to the +ravages of brigands on land and pirates by sea. But for the most part, +Sumner's argument in favour of peace was sound. To-day all civilized +countries are coming to recognize war as a blunder, since questions of +justice cannot be settled by brute force.</p> + +<p>When we consider that France is an armed camp, Germany and Austria +countries of bristling bayonets, that three years at the most critical +epoch of the boy's life are consumed in a camp exposed to all manner of +temptations and dangers, at the very time when the youth should be +mastering his trade or his profession, war seems the capitalization of +all the possible follies and wastes. The peasants of Europe plough, each +carrying a soldier upon his back. The brick-mason builds, but staggers +up the ladder with a heavier load than bricks,—the soldier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> upon his +back. The symbols of nations are still the lion, the eagle and the wolf. +Some political leaders even yet talk about the necessity of an +occasional war to put boys upon their mettle, as if invention, the +building of railways, the founding of cities, the fighting of economic +and social wrongs would not put a man upon his mettle! To put a German +on one side of a fence and a Frenchman on the other, and have one +peasant empty his shotgun into the bowels of the other is about as noble +as going out into a yard and shooting a Jersey cow. The best way to +protect a nation is to build boys into men, through the processes of +productive industry. Machine gun and dreadnought will soon be as +obsolete in the presence of arbitration and the court at the Hague as an +ox-cart is obsolete in the presence of a Pullman palace car.</p> + +<p>Wendell Phillips once said that Lord Bacon had a right to lay his hand +on the steam engine and say to Watt: "This engine is mine; I gave you +the method." So Charles Sumner, after sixty-five years, has a right to +stand yonder at the entrance of the Parliament House of Peace, now being +completed in the capital of Holland, and say: "I laid the foundation +stones of this struc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>ture and started a war against war." This oration +of Sumner's on "The True Grandeur of Nations" made him a most unpopular +figure at home, but Europe soon called for his speech. It was translated +into many languages, two hundred and fifty-thousand copies were +published and sold, and for the time Sumner was the most talked of man +of the year.</p> + +<p>Now the one man who was not on the defensive, who was not content to +merely stay the forward progress of slavery, but insisted on driving it +back into the Gulf and ultimately into the sea, to be drowned forever, +was Charles Sumner, with his "Carthago est delenda." His favourite +phrase was "freedom is national, slavery is sectional." Burke himself, +depicting the sufferings of India, scarcely surpassed Sumner's speech on +the devastation of Kansas by outlaws and guerrillas. Commenting upon the +fact that a company of armed slave owners had crossed the borders at +night, and destroyed the homes of a group of Northern settlers, Sumner +said: "Border incursions, which in barbarous lands fretted and harried +an exposed people, are here renewed, with this peculiarity, that our +border robbers do not simply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> levy blackmail and drive off a few cattle, +they do not seize a few persons and sweep them away into captivity, like +the African slave-traders whom we brand as tyrants, but they commit a +succession of deeds in which border sorrows and African wrongs are +revived together on American soil, while the whole territory is +enslaved. I do not dwell on the anxieties of families exposed to sudden +assault, and lying down to rest with the alarms of war ringing in the +ears, not knowing that another day may be spared them. Throughout this +bitter winter, with the thermometer thirty degrees below zero, the +citizens of Lawrence have slept under arms, with sentinels pacing. In +vain do we condemn the cruelties of another age—the refinement of +torture, the rack and thumbscrew of the Inquisition; for kindred +outrages disgrace these borders. Murder stalks, assassination skulks in +the tall grass; where a candidate for the Legislature was gashed with +knives and hatchets, and after weltering in blood on the snow-clad +earth, trundled along with gaping wounds to fall dead before the face of +his wife."</p> + +<p>With speeches like these, Sumner attacked slavery. The edge of his +argument was keen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> but his blows had also the power of sledgehammers. +The Southern leaders were in a frenzy of anger. Harriet Martineau said +of the situation that from 1830 to 1850, by general agreement, men in +Congress referred to slavery under their breath, believing that only by +silence could the Union be preserved. Now came a man who believed that +silence was criminal, who would not be bullied, and would be heard, who +believed in the Golden Rule, insisted on the Declaration of +Independence, and who, in the name of freedom that was national, wished +to destroy the Fugitive Slave Law and bring about the immediate and +unconditional emancipation of all slaves on the ground.</p> + +<p>When two opposing gases come together, an explosion is inevitable. One +day in 1856, after the adjournment of the Senate, a Southern member of +Congress entered the Chamber, and finding Sumner seated, with his legs +under an iron desk screwed to the floor, and, therefore, helpless for +defense, with a heavy walking-stick the assailant beat the powerless man +into insensibility, two of his friends protecting him from those who +would interfere in his murderous assault. Having lost enough blood to +soak through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> the carpet and stain the very floor, unconscious, and +hovering between life and death, Sumner was carried to a sofa, thence to +his hotel. From that time on the scholar endured a living death. He was +carried to Paris, where Dr. Brown-Sequard tried "the fire cure" upon the +spine. But for years his desk was vacant. Massachusetts insisted that +the empty seat should proclaim to the world her abhorrence of the +barbarism that, unequal to intellectual debate, betakes itself to clubs +and murder. Later on Sumner did return to his seat, but he was broken in +health, and to the end was tortured with pain. Nevertheless, despite all +the physical distresses, he remained the Puritan in politics, adhering +inflexibly to his old ideals of liberty. The great lesson of Sumner's +life is the importance of fidelity to conviction and singleness of +purpose. All Sumner's speeches in Congress, all his lectures on the +platform, his appeals to the people of the North during the years when +he travelled incessantly, addressing great crowds all over the land, had +a single theme, "Liberty is national, Slavery is sectional; Liberty must +be established, Slavery must be destroyed." He had his faults and +limitations, but men without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> faults are generally men without force. +Limitations are like banks to a river; they increase the strength of the +current for a mill wheel. Sumner's concentration made his enemies call +him a narrow man and a fanatic. But Paul was narrow when he said, "This +one thing I do." Luther was narrow when he nailed his theses to the door +of the church in Wittenberg. Garrison was narrow and a fanatic when he +said, "I will not equivocate, I will not retreat a single inch, and I +will be heard." Rushing between the cliffs of its banks, the Rhine has +power through confinement; spreading out over the plains of North +Germany, the Rhine becomes a mere marsh, laden with miasm, blown to and +fro with the winds.</p> + +<p>The tallow candle is small, while the summer lightning flashes across +the midnight sky. But for the purpose of studying a guide book in the +dark, one lucifer match is worth a sky full of lightning.</p> + +<p>Sumner had the courage of his convictions; he was brave as a lion. +Having no physical fear, he was devoid also of moral fear. He had the +foresight of far-off things, and could look beyond to-day's defeat to +the coming victory for his cause. He had many bitter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> enemies. His +intolerance and intellectual arrogance offended men. When a friend said +to President Grant, "Sumner is a skeptic; I fear he does not believe in +the Bible," Grant's instant retort was, "Certainly he does not; he did +not write it."</p> + +<p>But we can forgive much to a man who sacrificed much, and endured the +murderous cross of cruelty, obloquy and shame. A lonely and +companionless man, at the end, he trod the wine-press of sorrow in +solitude and isolation. He had no woman's love to heal his wounded +spirit. His one support was the cause he loved. To this cause he clung +with a tenacity that was as sublime as it was pathetic. The last time he +opened his eyes it was to repeat unconsciously the dearest thoughts of +his life, "All humanity is my country." "Take care of my civil rights +bill."</p> + +<p>When long time has passed, many other great names will pass out of view +like tapers that have burned down to the socket. But the name and memory +of this Puritan will probably survive, as the highest type of the +scholar toiling in the heroic age of the Republic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>V</h2> + +<h3>HORACE GREELEY: THE APPEAL TO THE COMMON PEOPLE</h3> + + +<p>To the work of the statesmen and jurists, the agitators and orators, +must now be added the contribution of the editors. A loaf of bread +represents many elements united in a single body. The sun lends heat, +the clouds lend rain, the soil its chemical elements, the air its rich +dust, and the result is the wheaten loaf. Not otherwise is it with the +moral and political treasure named the Union and the Emancipation of +slaves. The soldier boys at the front stayed the advancing tide of +rebellion, and flung back from Pennsylvania waves all tipped with fire. +With not less heroism farmer boys at home toiled in the fields to feed +and support the boys in blue. Physicians in the hospitals, nurses at the +front, lived also and died, caring for crippled heroes. Mothers and +daughters, sisters, sweethearts and wives wrought innumerable garments +and hospital supplies, while from full hearts giving in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>spiration or +courageously bearing the miseries of bereavement. Orators went forth to +incite, ministers brought divine sanctions to inspire men towards +patriotism and self-sacrifice. Statesmen supported the leaders by war +measures, manufacturers and bankers stood behind the government. But to +all these workers must be added the work of the correspondents at the +front, with the editors who consecrated the press to liberty.</p> + +<p>The power and wealth of the newspaper of to-day is explained, in no +small measure, by the battles of the Civil War, that kindled the +interest of millions who had never before read the daily newspaper, but +who became after the first battle students of God's book of daily +events. During those terrible days men slept in dread and wakened in +fear as to what might have happened on the Potomac or the Mississippi. +Out of these tumultuous conditions the Sunday newspaper was born. Before +the battle of Bull Run people of New York and Chicago frowned upon the +Sunday newspaper, just as the people of London and Edinburgh to-day will +have none of it. But when there were a million men in arms and the whole +land trembled with the thunder of cannon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> and the stroke of battle, +anxious parents, fearful wives, knowing that the conflict was on, when +Saturday's sun set felt that they could not wait till Monday morning for +news from the front.</p> + +<p>But if the war did much for the press, newspaper men did much for +liberty. To supply the people of the country with news from the field, a +veritable army of war correspondents was organized, a telegraphic +service was organized and built up, plans were laid that developed into +the Associated Press. This telegraphic service became a vast and shining +web lying all over this land, with wires that trembled by night and day, +flashing out now despair, and now hope, to innumerable hearts. Liberty +owes a great debt to the press, for it assembled all the people in one +vast speaking chamber, and told them how events were going with the +slave and the Union.</p> + +<p>If we are to appreciate fully the place of the press during the +anti-slavery epoch, we must recall the conditions of American life in +the olden time. When the colonies revolted and published their +Declaration there were in the United States only forty-three newspapers, +most of them weeklies. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> were fourteen papers in New England, four +in New York State, two in Virginia, two in Carolina and nine in +Pennsylvania. The entire forty-three papers, however, held less printed +matter than any ten pages of our morning journals. The papers of that +time contained no editorials, and were strictly purveyors of the gossip +and news of the week, with rude advertisements—now a cut of a horse +that had strayed, an apprentice that had escaped, a slave that had run +away, enlivened, indeed, by frantic and pathetic appeals for the +subscribers to pay up their dues. There were no public libraries, no +reading rooms, no inns where men could go on winter evenings and read +the papers.</p> + +<p>That which starved the newspaper was the lack of facilities for +distribution. It cost twenty-five cents to send a letter. Most of the +correspondents were widely separated lovers. Romeo, knowing that Juliet +would not be able to pay twenty-five cents for his weekly effusion, +learned the use of the cypher, and by means of a large circle on the +outside of the letter and a pink spot within it succeeded in conveying +certain mystic symbols of osculation, that told the story of undying +fidelity without paying the post<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>man for the letter that was left in his +hands. The old postman who jogged along between Philadelphia and New +York spent three days on the trip, and put in his time knitting +stockings. John Adams tells us that it took him six days on the coach +from Boston to New York, and that he rose every morning long before day, +took his seat in the cold, dark coach, and listened to the creaking of +the wheels on the snow until two hours after dark until late Saturday +night, cold and exhausted, he entered the little inn near Castle Garden. +For these reasons no newspaper had any circulation beyond its own +county.</p> + +<p>The first railroads that helped distribute the newspapers began to be +built about 1836, and the first ship to carry our newspapers to England +sailed in 1838. The first telegraphic message was sent from Washington +to Baltimore in 1844. The first cablegram in the interest of the press +was sent in 1858. Meanwhile the people were isolated, starved, being +fully conscious that they were like peasants shut in between mountain +walls, while they longed to be citizens of the universe. A single +illustration from history will explain the isolation of communities at +that time:—the news that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Jackson had been elected President in early +November did not reach his own State of Tennessee until after New Year's +Day!</p> + +<p>Horace Greeley entered the scene at a great crisis for the people, and +was raised up to fill a national need. God had prepared the soldiers to +fight for the people, the orators to speak to the people, the physicians +to heal the people, the educators to instruct the people. He had raised +up the statesmen to make the laws, but the world waited for men to cause +knowledge to run up and down the land. The common people found a friend +in Horace Greeley. He was born in 1811, in Amherst, Massachusetts, near +the very cabin in which his forefathers had settled. God gave him a +hungry mind, which literally consumed facts of nature and life. Not John +Stuart Mill himself was more precocious than Horace Greeley. He was +reading without difficulty at three years of age, and read any ordinary +book at five. There never was an hour when he was not the best scholar +in the little log schoolhouse, where he suffered the long winter +through, scorched if he was on the inside circle next to the fire, or +freezing if he was on the outer rim.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>Reading was the boy's master passion. Like the locust, he consumed every +dry twig and green branch of knowledge. Before he was ten years of age +he believed he had read every book that could be borrowed within a +radius of six miles. He read the Bible through, every word, when he was +five years old; at eleven he had read Shakespeare and Byron. Spelling +was at once a taste and an acquisition. The people of his neighbourhood +put the child up against other crack spellers in the school districts. +It is said that in the old evening spelling-bees, his school-teacher, +who had him in charge, had to wake the child up when his turn came +around to spell. The trustees of Bedford Academy passed a resolution +permitting Horace Greeley, although outside of the district, to enter +their school, while a few teachers raised a purse, and made an offer to +his father to send the boy to Phillips Exeter Academy. But pride +prevented. Horace Greeley's childhood fell on evil days. Men were +miserably poor. It was one long warfare with hunger and cold. The +ravages of disease among children were really the result of insufficient +food in those poverty-stricken times. Although the mortgage on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> the farm +was a mere bagatelle, the father lost the homestead, and became a hired +man on fifty cents a day, on which amount he had to feed and clothe his +family. This boy worked by day and studied by night. History and +politics, poetry and science, formed the staples of his reading and +reflection. For two years he pleaded with his father to apprentice him +to a printer; the day that the printer refused the boy and showed the +poor farmer and his son the door, brought black gloom to his heart, for +when the door of the printing office closed before him, the gates of +paradise seemed shut forever.</p> + +<p>Trained in the school of experience, and a graduate of the university of +hard-knocks, at twenty years of age the boy determined to seek his +fortune in New York. There are few scenes more pathetic than the +spectacle of this friendless boy starting to walk from Erie, Pa., to +this metropolis, then a city of only two hundred thousand people. He had +a tow head, a bent form, a singular dress, and carried his entire +belongings in a little bundle, supported by a walking stick thrown over +his shoulder. Partly on foot, partly on the wagon of some farmer, who +gave the traveller a lift, partly on the canal boats,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> Horace Greeley +made his way until, after many days, in August, 1831, he landed at the +foot of Wall Street.</p> + +<p>Not Benjamin Franklin, landing on the wharves of Philadelphia, and +buying a fresh roll on which he breakfasted while he went about looking +for work, is so fascinating a figure as this simple-hearted, unworldly, +artless, unsophisticated youth, with the step of a clodhopper and the +face of an angel. Counting his coin, the boy found he had ten dollars +left, and straightway took lodgings on West Street, for which he +promised to pay two dollars and a half a week. He soon found a job and +began to set type on an edition of the New Testament, with marginal +notes in Greek and Latin. In two years he had his own printing office, +and in 1834 the youth found his place as the editor of the <i>New Yorker</i>, +a weekly that first of all took stories and the name of Charles Dickens +to the people of New York. He soon carried the newspaper up to nine +thousand subscribers, and a gross income of $25,000. Genius makes its +own way. The world is always looking for unique ability. Horace Greeley +had the art of putting things. He could make a statement that would go +to the intellect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> like an arrow to the bull's-eye. There is always +plenty of room for the man who has a gift and can do a thing better than +any one else.</p> + +<p>But the panic of 1837 bankrupted Greeley, who knew nothing about the +business end of his enterprise. He had 9,000 subscribers, but none of +them would pay their bills, and the more his paper grew the worse off he +was. One day he struck from the roll the names of 2,500 subscribers. A +little later he offered to give the entire establishment to a friend, +and pay him $2,000 for taking it off his hands, agreeing to work out by +typesetting the large debt. Then came an overture from Thurlow Weed and +Benedict, and Greeley founded the <i>Log Cabin</i>, a campaign paper +advocating the election of General Harrison as president, and sent out +the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." Politics was his passion and +delight. An ardent Whig, he loved Henry Clay as an enthusiast, and +worshipped him like a disciple. The death of Harrison in 1841, +therefore, brought another crisis into Greeley's life. Then he founded +the <i>New York Tribune</i>. In later years Horace Greeley used to say that +the first half of his life was preparatory to founding the <i>Tribune</i>, +and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> other half to building up the newspaper that was his pride.</p> + +<p>On April 3, 1841, the <i>Log Cabin</i> contained an announcement of the +appearance of "a morning journal of politics, literature and general +intelligence." It was to be sold for one penny, was to be free from all +immoral reports, to be accurate in its statements, impartial in its +judgments, unbiassed and unfettered in its opinions. The <i>New Yorker</i> +and the <i>Log Cabin</i> were merged in the new journal. The expenses for the +first week of the <i>Tribune's</i> existence were $525, and its income $92. +Greeley was thirty years old, full of health and vigour, pluck and +determination. He never knew when he was defeated, and when events +knocked him down, he quietly got up again. In seven weeks the <i>Tribune</i> +had a circulation of 11,000. Fertile in resources, full of plans to +advertise his journal, he gained 20,000 during a single political +campaign. Later he sent carrier pigeons to Halifax to bring home special +news. When Daniel Webster was to make an important speech in Albany, he +sent a case of type up by the night boat, and when the Albany boat +reached New York the report of the speech<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> was all ready to be locked up +for the press. When the heart sings, the hand works easily. Work for the +<i>Tribune</i> was literally food and medicine for Greeley. His daily stint +was three or four columns, besides his correspondence, lectures and +addresses. For twenty years he had no vacation and no rest. His one +ideal was to make the <i>Tribune</i> an accurate and trustworthy guide for +the political thinking of the common people.</p> + +<p>What literature was to Burke, what patriotism was to Webster, what all +mankind was to Paul, that politics and political writing were to Horace +Greeley. Dr. Bacon once said of a secretary of the State Association of +Connecticut that he was "possessed of a statistical devil." And Horace +Greeley's <i>Tribune Almanac</i> became so great a power that an envious +competitor once said that Horace Greeley was possessed of a political +devil, who helped him in his statistics on Protection. At last the +<i>Tribune</i> became a national organ, an acknowledged power. Horace Greeley +began to make history, and in 1860 prevented Seward's nomination for the +presidency. It was Greeley's personal preference for Governor Bates of +Missouri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> that made possible the nomination of Abraham Lincoln.</p> + +<p>As a reformer, Greeley was an extremist in politics. Whatever he wanted, +he wanted on the moment, and had no patience in waiting. He was as +uncompromising as Garrison, as insistent as Wendell Phillips, and as +bitter in his criticism of Lincoln for postponing emancipation as +Theodore Parker himself could have been. When the South seceded Greeley +said that we must "let the erring sisters go." He thought that the North +could do without the South quite as well as the South could do without +the North; that is no true marriage that binds husband and wife together +with chains when love has fled away. He urged that if any six States +would send their representatives to Washington and say: "We wish to +withdraw from the Union," the North had better let those States depart. +It was not that Greeley felt it was best to dissolve the Union, but that +he loathed the idea of compelling States by force to remain in it.</p> + +<p>For a long time he carried the head-lines "On to Richmond" and roused +the North into such a frenzy of feeling that he goaded the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> President, +the Cabinet and General Winfield Scott into action before they were +ready. Scott was at the head of the army. He was a Virginian, and loved +the Old Dominion State with every drop of blood in his veins. The great +men of the South on their knees begged Scott to join the South and lead +the host of rebellion. Scott answered that he had sworn a solemn oath to +defend the Constitution and the country, and made himself an outcast +that he might be true to God and the Union. But the cry "On to Richmond" +became the cry of an unreasoning multitude of editors and their readers. +All unprepared, the advance was ordered and Bull Run was the result. +Greeley, being the leading editor of the land, was made the +scapegoat—the target of universal criticism. The barbed arrows found +his brain, and becoming excited, sleepless and overwrought, Greeley went +into an attack of brain fever, from which he recovered only after long +time, to register a vow that he would never again discuss the management +of the army. Then came his editorials urging emancipation, illustrated +by "The prayer of twenty millions," and Lincoln's wonderful reply, +written to Greeley, "in deference to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> an old friend whose heart I have +always found to be right." It is honour enough for any editor to have +called out Lincoln's letter (August 22, 1862), a letter that placed the +President in the first rank as a master of epigrammatic speech, and put +in a nutshell the whole position of the government in relation to the +war.</p> + +<p>Greeley was wrong again in 1864, when he met certain representatives of +the South at Niagara Falls and suggested a plan of adjustment for the +ending of the war. These so-called peace commissioners, without doubt, +used Greeley as a convenient tool, and exhibited him as Don Quixote, +riding forth upon a windmill enterprise. But Greeley had the courage of +his opinions; threats could not cow him nor blows terrify him, nor scorn +and hate drive him from a position which he had taken upon grounds of +conscience and sound reasoning.</p> + +<p>During the draft riots, in 1863, the mob attacked the <i>Tribune</i>, +smashing the windows and doors, and it seemed a miracle that Greeley was +not killed. When his friends rescued him the great editor seemed quite +unwilling to be forced into a place of safety. "Well, it doesn't matter; +I have done my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> work; I may as well be killed by the mob as die in my +bed; between now and the next time is only a little while."</p> + +<p>In May, 1867, Greeley signed the bail bond for Jefferson Davis, +ex-president of the Confederacy. Burning with anger his friends in the +Union League Club of New York called a meeting to expel him. He returned +a defiant answer: "Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting; I have an +engagement out of town and I shall keep it. I do not recognize you as +capable of judging me. You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, +misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow-minded +blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause but +don't know how. Your attempt to base a great and enduring party on the +hate and wrath engendered by a bloody civil war is as though you should +plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow drifted into a tropical +ocean. I tell you here that out of a life earnestly devoted to the good +of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and +signing that bail bond as the wisest act of my life, and will feel that +it did more for freedom and humanity than all of you were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> competent to +do though you lived to the age of Methuselah. Understand, once for all, +that I dare you and defy you. So long as any man was seeking to +overthrow our government he was my enemy; from the hour when he laid +down his arms he was my formerly erring countryman."</p> + +<p>In 1872, Greeley became the Republican who was a candidate of the +Democratic party for the presidency, and was defeated by Grant. +Doubtless he was actuated by the highest sense of duty. He took the +stump and spoke in every great city in the North and South, without +swerving a hair's breadth in his pacific attitude towards the South, or +in his championship of the coloured race. His great work, "The American +Conflict," on which he spent ten hours a day for many, many months, had +made Greeley a master of all the facts bearing upon the reconciliation +of the North and South. He showed almost superhuman endurance during +that intense campaign. But Grant had captured the imagination of the +people. The old soldiers voted as one solid band, the Republican party +was looked upon as the saviour of the nation, and the people doubted Mr. +Greeley's fitness for the presi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>dency in a national crisis. He was +defeated in November, and went home to watch over his wife during her +illness and death. Just before she died, he wrote a friend saying: "I am +a broken old man; I have not slept one hour in twenty-four; if she +lasts, poor soul, another week, I shall go before her." Sleeplessness +brought on brain fever, his old enemy, and on November 29th, the +worn-out editor fell on sleep.</p> + +<p>His fellow countrymen wakened to realize that the great tribune of the +people had left the country poor. His own city rose as one man, in mood +of profound grief and affectionate admiration and sympathy. His body lay +in state in our city hall the long day through. The poor poured by in +unending column, to pay their last tribute to a man who had never +betrayed the people. The funeral services were attended by the president +and vice-president of the United States, the president-elect, and +numerous officials and citizens of distinction. Mr. Beecher made one +address and then Greeley's pastor, Dr. Chapin, spoke. Men forgot the +wreck of his political fortunes and the tragedy of his later career. He +expressed the ambition of his life in the wish "that the stone which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible +inscription: 'Founder of the New York Tribune.'"</p> + +<p>A Universalist in his religious faith, Horace Greeley believed that +right was stronger than wrong, good more powerful than evil, and that +there will be in eternal ages no endless perdition for the evil ones of +earth, but that God and all the resources of His power and love will +here or there compel every knee to bow and every will surrender to the +will divine. He earned the right to say at the end of his noble career, +"I have been spared to see the end of giant wrongs that I once deemed +invincible in this country, and to note the silent upspringing and +growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out +some of the most flagrant and pervading influences that remain. So, +looking calmly, yet humbly, for that close of my mortal career which +cannot be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings +vouchsafed me in the past; and with an awe that is not fear, and a +consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await the opening +before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>VI</h2> + +<h3>HARRIET BEECHER STOWE; JOHN BROWN: THE CONFLICT PRECIPITATED</h3> + + +<p>About 1850, as the result of the long agitation of the editors and +orators, preachers and poets, the people of this country entered upon a +heated mood, when excitement dwelt like fire in the intellect and +conscience. For thinking men, it was becoming clear that civil war was +inevitable, and that commercial relations between North and South would +soon be broken off. But the North had goods to sell, and the South had +money with which to buy; so the word was passed that every one must keep +silence about slavery, lest discussion bring on a financial panic. It +was the era of imprisoned moral sense. In the ocean, some waves are +tidal waves, and on land sometimes the soil is heaved by an earthquake; +at this time God began to heave the conscience of the people as the full +moon heaves the sea. And although we now see that God was behind the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +movement, foolish men then tried to stay these moral forces. Northern +merchants and politicians cried, "Peace!" and the Southern successors of +Calhoun lifted the old club, the threat of secession; but the agitation +went on all over the North. Toombs, the Southern senator, tried sheer +bombast, and said he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of +Bunker Hill monument. Timid men in the North began to cry: "Conciliate, +conciliate!" But there can be warfare, and only warfare between darkness +and light, between sickness and health, between wrong and right. At +length Phillips and Greeley took up the cry: "Let the South go!" But the +answer was: "Shall a strong man who has hold of a mad dog let the beast +go into a crowd of little children?" Compromise did something for a +time, as a safety valve, relieving men's pent-up feelings. But God had +His own counsels. Plainly, "every drop of blood shed by the lash was to +be paid for by blood shed by the sword," for "the judgments of God are +true and righteous altogether."</p> + +<p>During those heated days of 1850, when the men of light and leading +began to see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> their way clearly, the masses were still timid, hesitant +and vacillating in their judgments on slavery. Scholars and thinking men +had already been reached by poets, authors and editors, while the +preachers and lecturers had driven their message home to the conviction +of the ruling classes. Later on was to come the revival of 1857 that +should stir the conscience, but preparatory to that movement it was +necessary to inform the intellect and rouse the affections of the +millions. Then it was that God raised up an author to touch the heart of +the people.</p> + +<p>Wonderful the power of the novel in social reform! The novels of "Oliver +Twist," and "Dombey and Son," were what roused the English people to a +realization of the woes and wrongs of chimney sweeps, of children in the +factories and mines of Great Britain. It was a novel, "All Sorts and +Conditions of Men," that later built People's Palace in the Whitechapel +district of London. And it was a novel, named "Uncle Tom's Cabin," that +created the atmosphere of sympathy in which the flowers of +self-sacrifice and heroism unfolded.</p> + +<p>The authoress was the daughter of Lyman Beecher, who had seven sons and +four daugh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>ters, each one of whom was either a preacher or reformer in +some field. His daughter, Harriet, married Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, of +Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, where, on the border between the free soil +of Ohio and the slave soil of Kentucky, people were in a state of +constant excitement and upheaval. The old Blue Grass State exhibited +slavery in its very best condition and also in its worst form. The +harrowing tales and incidents that were afterwards worked up into +literary form by the gifted authoress were all matters of observation, +conversation and experience. One of the earliest incidents of the +Stowes' life in Cincinnati was an experience of Professor Stowe with one +of the Beecher boys. While travelling in Kentucky, the two young men +witnessed the flight of a negro woman, who was running away with her +little child, whom they helped across the Ohio River, to be sent on by +the Underground Railway to Oberlin, on the shore of Lake Erie. And the +similar incident, Eliza's flight across the ice, her son Charles<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> +writes in his recent story of her life, "was an actual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> occurrence. She +had known and had often talked with the very man who helped Eliza up the +bank of the river."</p> + +<p>Later during their Cincinnati residence, Mrs. Stowe conducted a small +private school and made a practice of allowing a few coloured children +to attend it. One evening the mother of one of these coloured children +came to the Stowes' house in a frenzy of terror, saying that her little +girl had been seized and carried to the river, to be sold as a slave in +Kentucky. Mrs. Stowe raised the money to ransom the beautiful child.</p> + +<p>It was during this period that the Kentucky editor, Bailey, moved across +the river and began to publish a paper in Cincinnati. One night the +editor knocked at the door of the Stowe home, seeking refuge from a mob +that had smashed in his doors and windows, looted his printing-office, +and flung his type into the river.</p> + +<p>On another occasion a Kentuckian named Van Zandt freed his slaves and +carried them across the river into Ohio. His old friends counted him a +traitor, and charges were trumped up that he had used his new home in +Ohio as an underground station for the receiving of runaway slaves. +Professor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Stowe was asked to assist in Van Zandt's defense. When other +lawyers were afraid of the mob spirit, a young attorney named Salmon P. +Chase volunteered his services without pay. As the courts were then +entirely under the influence of the Fugitive Slave law, young Chase lost +his case; but that no dramatic note might be wanting, this young +attorney later became chief justice of the United States Supreme Court +and wrote a decision that reversed the former action. All these and many +other facts and events went into Mrs. Stowe's mind as raw silk, and came +out tapestry and brocade. The fuel of events fed the flames of +enthusiasm. It was a great age, when men had to speak. The time was +ripe, the soil was ready, God gave the good seed of liberty, and the +sower went forth to sow.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stowe tells us how she came to write the last chapter of the book, +the death of "Uncle Tom." She had a coloured woman in her family whose +husband was a slave, living in Kentucky. This black man had invented a +simple tool, was a good salesman, and was permitted to travel from town +to town, and even to cross the river into the Ohio, under no bond save +his solemn pledge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> to his master not to run away. Mrs. Stowe wrote the +letters for her servant, to this black man in Covington, Ky. One day, +while visiting his wife, in the Stowe home, he said that he would rather +cut off his right hand than break the word he had given to his master. +What white man could boast a more delicate sense of truth? How keen and +delicate the conscience! What weight of manhood in a slave! What +reserves of morality! What latent heroism! The slave's story captured +the imagination of the authoress, and kindled her mind into a creative +mood.</p> + +<p>Out of the incident Mrs. Stowe evolved the character of "Uncle Tom." One +Sunday morning, as she sat at the communion table, the picture of Tom's +death rose and passed before her mind. "At the same time," writes her +son, "the words of Jesus were sounding in her ears: 'Inasmuch as ye have +done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto +Me.' It seemed as if the crucified but now risen and glorified Christ +were speaking to her through the poor black man, cut and bleeding under +the blows of the slave whip." Long afterwards some one asked Mrs. Stowe +how she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> came to write the death of Uncle Tom, and she answered that she +did not write it, that God gave it to her in a vision, that she saw the +overseer flog him to death, and heard his dying words, and merely wrote +down the vision as she saw it. At the time, she had no idea of writing +more: it was a year later when she began the tale of which this incident +became the crisis.</p> + +<p>For nearly two years the story ran in the <i>National Era</i>, published in +Washington. The book was completed on March 20, 1852, and in spite of +Mrs. Stowe's despondency and apprehension of failure, it sold 3,000 +copies the first day, 10,000 in a week, and 300,000 in a year. Save +"Pilgrim's Progress" alone, perhaps no book ever had a wider +circulation, the Bible, of course, and "The Imitation of Christ," by à +Kempis, always excepted. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was translated into German, +French, Italian and Spanish, and later appeared in almost every known +language. Written for the people at large, the book struck a chord of +universal human nature, and aroused the learned as well as the simple. +Soon letters began to pour in from the most distinguished men in foreign +countries. Charles Dickens wrote that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" +with the deepest interest and sympathy. Lord Carlisle sent a message of +"deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God, who has enabled you to write +this book." Charles Kingsley expressed the judgment that the story would +take away the reproach of slavery from the great and growing nation. Men +like Shaftesbury, Arthur Helps, women like George Sand and Frederika +Bremer added their tribute of praise. Eighteen different publishing +houses in England were issuing the book at one time, and a million and a +half copies were sold in Great Britain.</p> + +<p>Even Heinrich Heine, the poet, the cynic, who carried more power of +sarcasm and irony than any man of his generation, was so moved by the +book that he seems to have returned to the reading of the Bible, and to +Christ the Consoler, in the hour when night and death were falling. +"Astonishing! That after I have whirled about all my life, over all the +dance floors of philosophy, and yielded myself to all the orgies of the +intellect, and paid my addresses to all possible systems, without +satisfaction, like Messalina after a licentious night, I now find myself +on the same standpoint where poor Uncle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> Tom stands—on that of the +Bible. I kneel down by my black brother in the same prayer. What a +humiliation! With all my sense I have come no farther than the poor +ignorant negro who has just learned to spell. Poor Tom indeed seems to +have seen deeper things in the holy book than I, but I, who used to make +citations from Homer, now begin to quote the Bible as Uncle Tom does!" +Praise can go no farther than this, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has shown +how the love of God can support a slave, under the lash, in the hour +when he is flogged to death, and fill his heart with pity while he +cries, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" It was +this that conquered the intellect of the scholar, and broke his heart, +and flooded his eyes with tears.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most striking testimony to the influence of "Uncle Tom's +Cabin" grew out of a suggestion of Lord Shaftesbury's that the women of +England and Europe send their signatures to a testimonial to be +presented to Mrs. Stowe, for, when this testimonial came in, it filled +twenty-six thick folio volumes, solidly bound in morocco, and it held +the names of 562,448 women, representing every rank,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> from the throne of +England to the wives of the humblest artisans in Wales or the peasants +in Italy.</p> + +<p>The message of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is so simple that he who runs may +read. It was not written for literary critics, for scholars or for +college graduates. George Eliot wrote her "Romola" with the historian +and the philosopher and the editor of reviews ever in mind. Harriet +Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for farmers, factory men, +merchants and clerks, the miscellaneous mass that make up the millions, +to rouse them to the wrongs of slavery.</p> + +<p>In it she tried to prove two things. First, that slavery, as a system, +reacted upon the loftiest natures, distorting and injuring them. Witness +the Kentucky gentleman, Mr. Shelby. His wife was a patrician, the very +embodiment of courtesy and good-will, affection and sympathy. Her +husband was a man of honour, a representative of the bluest blood of the +old Lexington families, with a heart so gentle that the sight of a young +bird that had fallen out of the nest in the tree moved him to tears; +but, little by little, pressed by his necessities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> and hardened by the +spectacle of slaves bought and slaves sold, he himself sells the woman +who has been a nurse to his children, and Uncle Tom who has been like a +saviour to his own boys in the hour of their peril in forest and river, +sends both of the slaves into the cotton plantations of Louisiana, +breaking his solemn pledge to his wife and his family, in the hope that +he could escape from debt, that like a millstone weighed him into the +abyss.</p> + +<p>Then, the book tries to show how slavery develops the worst men, of the +stamp of Simon Legree, the brutal overseer. Legree pours out the vials +of his wrath upon the slaves about him, debauching a young octaroon to +the level of his mistress, hunting his slaves with bloodhounds, killing +them without trial before a jury. Power is dangerous; there is the czar +spirit in every man. Slavery made a brute still more brutal—made the +sensual man more sensual, and finally debased Legree to the level of the +demon.</p> + +<p>It is a book full of pathos and tears. Remembering that the book was +written for the miscellaneous millions, to rouse the nation at large to +moral indignation, it is doubtful whether any book was ever more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +perfectly adapted to the end aimed at. Literary artists have criticized +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and contrasted it with "Henry Esmond," "Vanity +Fair" and "Adam Bede." But if Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot +achieved unique success in creating books that should reach their set, +one thing is certain,—the boys, who afterwards became the soldiers of +the Civil War, read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with dim eyes and indignant +hearts, because the book found their judgment and their conscience, and +lifted them to the point where they were made ready in the day of God's +power, to fight the battle for freedom.</p> + +<p>When all the school children had read the death of little Eva and of +Uncle Tom, and all the farmers and working men—the dwellers in city and +country, from seaboard to mountains and prairie—had followed the career +of these slaves to the end, and the people of the North were fully awake +to the horror of the slave traffic, the multitudes began to look with +questioning eyes into each other's faces, asking, "What can be done? +What is the next step?" And then it was that a fanatic entered the +scene.</p> + +<p>His name was John Brown, descended<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> from Peter Brown, a Pilgrim of the +<i>Mayflower</i>. He had been cattle-drover, tanner and wool-merchant. When +about forty years of age he was living in Springfield, Massachusetts. +One night, in 1849, a runaway slave knocked at his door and told Brown +the story of his flight, of the weeks he had spent hiding in the swamps, +of his escape to the fastnesses of the mountains, of his life in the +forest, and how he finally reached New York and Springfield. It was a +story of starvation, hunger, cold, blows and piercing anguish. Long +after the children had gone to bed at midnight, while the slave was +sleeping in a blanket beside the fire, John Brown sat musing over the +national infamy. All the next day and night the conference continued +with this runaway, who was also a negro preacher. The following night +John Brown assembled his sons. He closed the door and told his family +his decision. He was a tall man, over six feet, straight and lithe, +slightly gray, with thin lips and smooth face. The Bible was almost the +only book in the house, and no sound was so familiar as the voice of +prayer. Brown was lifted into the prophetic mood. He told his family +that he had decided to give himself, and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> consecrate them, to +righting the wrongs of the slaves; that he had heard a voice calling him +to the work of the deliverer; that he would be killed, and that they +must expect also to die the martyr's death, and that henceforth they +must expect only crusts, wounds, bitter enmity, and finally martyrdom. A +little later and Brown had moved the younger children of his family to +North Elba, in the Adirondack woods, that the slaves on the underground +route might be able to hide in the forest, in the event of the pursuers +overtaking them. Brown then began to travel along Mason and Dixon's line +from the city of Washington through to Topeka, Kan. From time to time he +would cross the line, take charge of a little group of slaves, and +hiding by day and travelling by night, carry them from one underground +station to another. It was said that he had personally conducted runaway +slaves along every route for a thousand miles from East to West, between +the Atlantic and the Missouri River.</p> + +<p>One of the friends of Brown's childhood was the Hon. James B. Grinnell, +who founded the town and college in Iowa. This congressman loved to tell +the story of the night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> when John Brown knocked at his door. Outside was +a wagon, packed with slaves, whom Brown had carried across the line from +Missouri. He had driven four horses at their limit of speed for a +hundred miles and had no defenders, save two or three men and as many +guns. "I am a dealer in wool," said the stranger, "and my name is +Captain John Brown of Kansas." The first thing Mr. Grinnell did was to +find a shelter for these slaves, with food and beds. The next thing was +to hide the wagon and the horses in the thick grove near by. Early the +next morning the news spread like wild-fire, and the settlers began to +pour in. John Brown made a speech to the farmers and justified his act. +The villagers were terrified lest the pursuers come any moment and burn +their houses. The three Congregational ministers offered prayers, asked +for help, and started out to raise money. When the night fell the slaves +were rushed to the terminus of the railway and carried through to +Chicago, being shipped in a freight car as sheep, to distinguish their +woolly heads from the goats, named white men.</p> + +<p>In 1855 John Brown led his five sons and their families into Kansas, to +help preëmpt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> the State for freedom. When at length the free state +voters won an election and enthroned their governor, two thousand +pro-slavery men from Missouri crossed the State line, burned the little +town of Lawrence, and at the point of the pistol compelled the State +officials to resign; issued writs for a new election, put in a slavery +governor, captured the government, and started back into Missouri. On +their way they passed through Pottawatamie. It was a guerrilla warfare. +When John Brown reached his son's cabin, he found the settlers preparing +for flight. He denounced them as cowards, and when one urged caution, +answered, "I am tired of that word Caution. It is nothing but +cowardice!" Either the border ruffians had to go, or else the settlers +must leave without striking a single blow in defense of their homes. A +man's cabin was his castle. Without waiting for the next attack to be +made, John Brown pointed the settlers to the smoking ashes of cabins +already burned and to the bodies that the Missouri guerrillas had left +on the ground, and took the aggressive himself. He seized five of the +outlaws and killed them for their crime.</p> + +<p>The deed fired Kansas, some say freed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> Kansas, while others think it +opened the Civil War. Withdrawing to the forest, hiding in the +cottonwood swamps, John Brown organized his company. A reporter of the +<i>New York Tribune</i> finally penetrated the thicket. "Near the edge of the +creek a dozen horses were tied, already saddled for a ride for life. A +dozen rifles were stacked against the trees. In an open space was a +blazing fire with a pot above it. Three or four armed men were lying on +red and blue blankets on the grass. John Brown himself stood near the +fire with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a piece of pork in his hand. +He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded from his boots. The old man +received me with great cordiality, and the little band gathered about +me. He respectfully, but firmly, forbade conversation on the +Pottawatamie affair. After the meal, thanks were returned to the +bountiful Giver. Often, I was told, the old man would retire to the +densest solitudes to wrestle with his God in prayer. He said he was +fighting God's battles for his children's sake: 'Give me men of good +principles, God-fearing men, men who respect themselves, and with a +dozen of them I will oppose a hundred such men as these border +ruffians.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> I remained in the camp about an hour. Never before had I met +such a band of men. They were not earnest, but earnestness incarnate."</p> + +<p>After several years of bloody conflict and political struggles between +the pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties, in 1859 the Constitution +prohibiting slavery was passed, and freedom had won in Kansas. In +January of that year John Brown returned to the mountains of Virginia, +and "The Great Black Way," and the dark shadows of the night following +the North Star to liberty. For many years he had been planning an +uprising of the slaves, and an attack upon Virginia. Some biographers +think he conceived the plan as early as 1849. Away back in 1834 Brown +wrote to his brother his determination to war on slavery; but at first +only through educating the blacks. As time went on he came into sterner +conflict with it.</p> + +<p>Brown, in fact, became a fanatic who really believed that the millions +of slaves would rise at his call, and that he could lead his host as a +new Moses, out of the land of bondage. He intended to operate in the +Blue Ridge Mountains, because the paths into the black belt of slavery +were easily followed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> Men like Douglas and other escaped slaves who +were living in the North did not see their way clear to join the +movement.</p> + +<p>On Sunday, October 16, 1859, John Brown, with sixteen men, started out +to capture Harper's Ferry and redeem three million slaves. Brown rode in +a one-horse wagon, that held provisions, pikes, one sledge-hammer and +one crowbar; his sixteen men, with guns, followed on foot. Without a +single shot they captured the armoury and the rifle factory, and at +daylight, without the snap of a gun or any violence whatsoever, they +were in possession of Harper's Ferry. On Monday morning the panic spread +like wild-fire. The rumour went abroad of an uprising of all the slaves +of the South. In a few hours the governor called out the militia, +Jefferson guards marched down the Potomac, and two local companies took +positions on the heights. The assault began in the afternoon. One by one +Brown's handful were killed, his two sons, Oliver and Watson, were shot +down, and Brown, badly wounded, was captured.</p> + +<p>The trial and examination of the old fanatic makes a fascinating story. +At noon of Tuesday, the governor of Virginia bent over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> him as he lay +wounded and blood-stained upon the floor. "Who are you?" asked the +governor. "My name is John Brown; I have been well known as old John +Brown of Kansas. Two of my sons were killed here to-day, and I am dying +too. I came here to liberate slaves, and was to receive no reward. I +have acted from a sense of duty, and am content to await my fate. I am +an old man. If I had succeeded in running off slaves this time, I could +have raised twenty times as many men as I have now for a similar +expedition; but I have failed."</p> + +<p>Then Governor Wise said, "The silver of your hair is reddened by the +blood of crime. You should think upon eternity."</p> + +<p>John Brown replied, "Governor, I have not more than fifteen or twenty +years the start of you to that eternity, and I am prepared to go. There +is an eternity behind and an eternity before, and this little speck in +the centre is but a minute. The difference between your time and mine is +trifling, and I therefore tell you—be prepared. I am prepared—you have +a heavy responsibility. It behooves you to prepare, and more than it +does me."</p> + +<p>Friends in the North tried to secure Brown's release, but he answered +them: "I think I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> cannot now better serve the cause I love so much than +to die for it, and in my death I may do more than in my life. I believe +that for me, at this time, to seal my testimony for God and humanity +through my blood will do vastly more towards advancing the cause I have +earnestly endeavoured to promote than all I have done in my life +before."</p> + +<p>When the court asked Brown if he had any reason why he should not be +hung, he answered: "This court acknowledges the validity of the law of +God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible. That book +teaches me to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I +endeavoured to act up to that instruction. I believe that to interfere +as I have done, in behalf of God's poor, was not wrong, but right. I am +quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged +away but with blood. If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my +life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood +further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in +this slave country, whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and +unjust enactments, I submit. So let it be done."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the morning of his hanging he visited his doomed companions, and then +kissed his wife good-bye. A thousand soldiers stood round about his +scaffold. "This is a beautiful land," said Brown, as he rode, looking +across the landscape. As he climbed the steps of the scaffold a negro +child stood between some black men, and some say he stooped and kissed +the child. And this was his prayer:</p> + +<p>"My love to all who love their neighbours. I have asked to be spared +from having any weak or hypocritical prayers said over me when I am +publicly murdered, and that my only religious attendants be poor, +little, dirty, ragged, bareheaded, and barefooted slave boys and girls, +led by some gray-headed slave mother.... Farewell, farewell." He died in +the spirit of the letter written the day before, when he said, "I think +I feel as happy as Paul did when he lay in prison, for men cannot chain +or hang the soul."</p> + +<p>His deed puzzled the world. For multitudes it is still an enigma. To +many, John Brown seems not only a fanatic but a lunatic. To others, now +that long time has passed, this white-haired old man, weltering in his +blood, which he had spilled for a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> broken and despised race, seems +right, and he seems to have died, not as a fool dies, but as martyrs +die. That his enterprise was doomed to failure in advance, all knew. +That it was not the wisest plan, Brown's best friends must grant. But +that its fanaticism was overruled by God to release the great South from +the incubus of slavery, Brown's friends and Brown's enemies alike must +concede.</p> + +<p>What other men had been writing about, John Brown did in action. The +attack on Harper's Ferry was the first blow struck during the Civil War. +Other men and women assembled the explosives, but John Brown dropped the +spark in the magazine, which finally blew up that hindrance to progress, +slavery—the Hell Gate obstruction in the passageway of the South and of +all civilization.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>VII</h2> + +<h3>LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS: INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT DEBATE</h3> + + +<p>Strictly speaking, there were three stages in the development of the +anti-slavery sentiment leading up to the Civil War. There was the period +of indifference, from 1759 to 1830, when the North winked at slavery, +ignored the traffic and avoided the whole subject. There was the epoch +of agitation, from 1831 to 1850, when Garrison and his friends insisted +upon "the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves on the +soil," and the agitation was kept up by men who "would not retreat, who +would not equivocate, who would not be silent and who would be heard." +Then came the stage when men tried legislative palliatives; when all +manner of political medicaments and poultices were tried as cures, which +were about as effective in destroying the poison as a porous plaster +would be to draw out the fire from a volcano. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> more than sixty years +a veil had hung before men's minds, and it was as if they saw slaves as +trees walking, in an unreal world. The sea captain fears a fog more than +an equinoctial storm. When the mist falls, and obscures the glass, and +the ship is surrounded with white darkness, and the surf is thundering +on some Nantucket, as a graveyard of the sea, the captain longs for a +cold, sharp wind out of the North, to cut the fog and bring out the +stars and sun. And not otherwise was it with the great debate between +Lincoln and Douglas—it lifted the veil from men's eyes, it swept the +fog out of the air, it made the issue clear. Then it was that for the +first time the North saw that the conflict was inevitable, because the +Union could not endure permanently, half slave and half free; saw that +liberty and slavery were as irreconcilable as day and night.</p> + +<p>Before considering the influence of Lincoln's clear thinking and +speaking upon the eternal principles of right, we must note the general +reawakening of the popular intelligence which preceded it, and which was +due to two causes, the panic of 1857 and the religious revival which +swept over the land during the same year. As the Northern merchant +be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>gan to see that the South had determined to secede and try her fate +alone, he became afraid to sell his goods to Southern customers. The +Northern manufacturer, in turn, was overstocked, and if the banker +called his loans there was no response, for the chain was broken; the +result was the panic of 1857. Hunger and Want stalked through the +land—Winter and Poverty became bosom friends. Black despair fell upon +the people and in the hour of need they cried unto God, and God heard +them.</p> + +<p>When a nation prospers and grows rich, religion languishes. When nations +enter upon disaster and peril, the people turn unto God. Abundance +enervates. Morals always sink to a low level when men's eyes stand out +with fatness.</p> + +<p>What agitation, what the liberator and the lecture platform, what +statesmen and compromisers could not achieve, was accomplished by the +spirit of God working upon the hearts of men, clarifying the intellect, +deepening the sympathy and lending vigour to the will.</p> + +<p>The first thing the leader of an orchestra does is to see to it that the +instruments are all unified and brought up to concert pitch,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> and the +revival of religion made the people one in self-sacrifice and their +willingness to live and die for their convictions.</p> + +<p>Multitudes returned to the churches. Thoughtless youth discovered that +there are only two great things in the universe—God and the soul. +Personal religion became the supreme interest of the hour. Men went into +the crucible commonplace; they came out of it heroic stuff. All over the +country the churches were open every night in the week. Moving across +the country the traveller saw the candles burning in the little +schoolhouses, while the farmers assembled to pray and read God's word. +The Fulton Street prayer-meeting in New York attracted the interest of +the nation. The morning newspapers of 1858 carried columns concerning +the business men's noon prayer-meeting, just as to-day they carry the +column on the stock news and the stock market. In his "History of the +United States" Rhodes calls attention to the fact that 230 persons +joined Plymouth Church on profession of faith on a single Sunday +morning. That revival all over the land put its moral stamp upon boys +and girls who afterwards became the leaders of the generation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now every reform and every great war for principle proceeds along +intellectual lines clearly laid out. Twenty-seven years before the +Lincoln-Douglas debates, the "Tariff of Abominations" had brought up the +question of the right of the Southern states to secede. Calhoun had set +up his famous doctrine, and Webster, in his "Second Reply to Hayne," had +knocked it down. The feeling had been intense, but Webster's wonderful +oration in defense of the Constitution and the Union had succeeded in +meeting the crisis, and settling for a time the vexing problem. Yet the +evil of slavery continued its fatal gnawing at the heart of the nation. +By 1855-6 the old question was up again in much the same form. The +atmosphere was clouded, the black shroud of the approaching storm +already discernible on the horizon. A hundred minor problems united in +complicating the discussion of the one all-important thing. Another +leader was wanted to set the battle in array, to mark out the lines of +conflict. Webster and Calhoun were gone, but another was to come to +preserve "liberty and union, one and inseparable." This man was Abraham +Lincoln, and the opponent who was to call out his clearest expositions +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> situation, and spur him on to his greatest arguments, was +Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.</p> + +<p>Douglas was born in 1813, in Brandon, Vermont. His father was a +physician of great promise, who fell with a stroke of apoplexy at a +moment when he was carrying the child Stephen in his arms. The ambitions +of the father for intellectual leadership were fulfilled in the son, who +at fifteen years of age had attracted the notice of the best minds in +his region. Strong men became interested in the boy, and advised his +mother to take him to a relative in Canandaigua, N. Y., where there was +an excellent academy. At seventeen he entered a lawyer's office, +attended every trial before the justice of the peace or the county +clerk, and made a local reputation as a student of politics and law. At +twenty years of age, he started West, to make his fortune, but fell ill +in Cleveland, O., and all but lost his life. A few months later he +entered the town of Winchester, Ill., a stranger, in a strange land. He +carried his coat on one arm and a little bundle of clothes on the other. +There was a crowd on the corner of the street, where an auctioneer was +selling the personal effects and live stock of some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> settler, and within +a few minutes Douglas was engaged as clerk at the auction. At the end of +three days he found himself the possessor of six dollars, which was the +first money he had ever earned, and what was far more important, he had +by his accuracy, good nature and kindliness won the hearts of the +purchasers, and attracted the attention of the two or three leading men +of the town. That winter he opened a private school, in which forty +scholars were enrolled, while he continued his studies of law during the +long evenings. Ten crowded and successful years soon swept by, and those +years held remarkable achievements. He was admitted to the bar, elected +to the Legislature, made Secretary of State, judge of the Supreme Court, +and at thirty was sent to Congress. He spent three years in Congress; at +thirty-six was chosen to fill out an unexpired term in the Senate, was +reëlected to represent Illinois, and a third time was chosen senator—a +career of uniform and splendid success from the material view-point.</p> + +<p>But the career of Douglas in Washington was the career of an +opportunist, at once full of good and full of evil, full of right and +full of wrong. He was a born politician, an ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>pert manager of men and a +natural machine builder. Many others outranked Douglas in set speeches, +but few equalled him in "catch as catch can" methods of the politician. +What Douglas prided himself upon was his skill in getting through the +committee measures that were difficult to pass. When it became necessary +to get a man's vote for his measure, Douglas would put that man up as a +leader, give him the glory, obliterate himself, and after the bill was +passed, hop up like a jack in the pulpit, as the real manager who +manœuvred the bill through the Senate. He spent two years on the +legislation that brought about the Illinois Central Railroad, and as +long a time in founding the University of Chicago.</p> + +<p>Often Douglas did things that he believed to be morally wrong because he +discovered that they were politically necessary. For example, a reaction +followed upon the election of the Democrat, James K. Polk, to the +presidency. When his leadership was imperilled, Polk cast about for some +issue that would bring together the remnants of his party, and restore +leadership, and he hit upon the device of the Mexican War. No party was +ever defeated that was fighting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> a war for the defense of the country. +Douglas criticized Polk most sharply, charged the war upon Polk as a +crime against the people, and yet, under the whip of party policy, +Douglas supported Polk. Slowly he deteriorated in his moral fibre. One +by one the moral lights seem to have gone out. He was intoxicated by his +own success. Ambition deluded him. He began to follow the +will-o'-the-wisp, the light that rises from putrescence and decay in the +swamp, and forgot the eternal stars in God's sky. In 1854 he entered the +valley of decision, and like the rich young ruler made the great +refusal, and chose compromise instead of principle. Later Douglas led +his party along a false route, and became a mistaken leader.</p> + +<p>The circumstances were these; the compromise measures of 1850 had +succeeded apparently in achieving the aim of their author, Henry Clay. +The close of the year 1853 was marked by political repose and calm. The +slavery question seemed practically settled. As President Pierce +expressed it in his message, "A sense of security" had been "restored to +the public mind throughout the Confederacy." Prosperity was blessing the +country, times were good, the future<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> bright with the promise of immense +industrial achievements. In Congress, a bill for the organization of the +territory of Nebraska had passed the House at the previous session, and +was being reported to the Senate, but the bill was in the usual form and +contained no reference to slavery. Suddenly the press announced that +Senator Douglas had read a report on this bill, purporting to show that +the compromise measures of 1850 had established a great principle; that +this principle stated the perpetual right of the residents of new States +to decide all questions pertaining to slavery; and that therefore, +contrary to the old Missouri Compromise, ruling slavery out of that +Northwest territory, it left the slavery question entirely in the hands +of the residents of the new territory of Nebraska.</p> + +<p>The announcement created a profound sensation. Twelve days later a +Kentucky senator by the name of Dixon introduced an amendment to the +Nebraska Act, providing for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The +daring of this move startled even Douglas, but within a few days the +Illinois senator had decided to support the Dixon Amendment. With all +the skill and political engi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>neering at his command, he steered the bill +through the tempest which immediately rose against it like a tidal wave; +and on the third of March, in spite of protests which poured in from +every State in the North, in spite of indignation meetings held in New +York, Boston and Philadelphia, in spite of the opposition of the leaders +like Seward, Chase and Sumner, he actually succeeded in persuading the +Senate to pass the bill. That he was able to do this, is a great tribute +to his powers as a politician and as an orator. He spoke from midnight +until dawn, employing every possible trick of rhetoric and logic to +carry his point, and showing a courtesy and restraint in his attack +which won the sympathy even of his opponents. "Never had a bad cause +been more splendidly advocated."</p> + +<p>But the victory was a costly one; he had made the Fugitive Slave Law a +dead letter in the North; he had introduced a new term, "popular +sovereignty," which was to rouse the nation as a red rag rouses a bull. +He had started a storm, wrote Seward, "such as this country has never +yet seen." Every great newspaper editor in the North,—Greeley, Dana, +Raymond, Webb, Bigelow, Weed,—broke into violent protest against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> the +bill. Not since the fight at Lexington had such a fierce and universal +cry of reproach arisen in the land.</p> + +<p>And for what had he done all this? Simply that he might increase his +chances of obtaining the presidential nomination in 1856. The "solid +South" had just begun to be spoken of. Douglas was an acute observer, +and he saw that if he could secure the backing of the South, he would +have an immense advantage over his rival Cass. It is said that his +objection to the Dixon Amendment was overborne solely by the fear that +Cass would be before him in supporting it, and thus win the favour of +the South. It is the old story of the mess of pottage. Douglas +afterwards tried to defend himself on the ground that he was offering to +the Democratic party "fresh ammunition," but all knew, and none better +than Douglas, that the Democratic party was in no need of a fresh issue. +He had ruthlessly destroyed the peace of the whole nation, for the sake +of promoting his own selfish interests,—and that, in vain; as in 1853, +Douglas failed to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency in +1856, which was won by Buchanan.</p> + +<p>The bill cost Douglas his prestige, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> lost him the confidence of one +half the people of Chicago and Illinois. His friends called him home in +the hope that he might win back the popularity he had lost. But Chicago +would have none of him. He entered the city unwelcomed, had to hire a +building in which to speak, advertised his own meeting, and on the day +of the meeting found the flags at half-mast, while the church bells +tolled the funeral of liberty, where hitherto the bells had pealed the +notes of joy.</p> + +<p>It is impossible not to admire Douglas's courage in that trying ordeal. +He found the hall filled with his opponents, yet he began by saying, "My +fellow citizens, I appear before you to vindicate the Kansas-Nebraska +Bill." The words evoked a perfect tumult, which continued for half an +hour. He appealed to their sense of fair play and honour, but they asked +him whether he had played fair with liberty in Washington. Growing +angry, he tried to denounce them as cowards, afraid to listen to a +discussion, and they answered that it was cowardly to desert a slave who +needed a defender. At eleven o'clock he flung his arms in the air and +dared them to shoot, because a man had waved a pistol. The crowd +answered with a shower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> of eggs, while a man shouted that bullets were +too valuable to be wasted on traitors. At twelve o'clock the bells rang +out the midnight. Douglas pulled out his watch and shouted, "It is +midnight. I am going home and to church, and you may go to Hades!" +Douglas met a mob in Chicago, just as Beecher met a mob in England. But +Beecher conquered his mob in Manchester; the mob in Chicago conquered +Douglas. Beecher won, because he was right and the mob was wrong; +Douglas lost, because he was wrong and the mob was right. "You can fool +all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people +all the time; you cannot fool all of the people all of the time" on the +great principles of liberty. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Bill brought on +an era of civil war in Kansas, sent the guerrillas over the Sunflower +State, burned Lawrence, destroyed the State government and filled the +whole land with tumult and bitterness. And it cost Douglas his fame and +place among the great men of the Republic.</p> + +<p>In that critical hour for liberty, Abraham Lincoln entered upon the +scene, and challenged Douglas to a debate. It was in the summer of 1858. +Both men were candi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>dates for the Senate—Lincoln, the leader of the new +Republican party State ticket; Douglas, the best known figure in the +land since the death of Clay and Webster. No contrast between two men +could have been greater. Lincoln was tall, angular, lanky, awkward, six +feet four inches in height. Douglas was short, thick-set, graceful, +polished, a man of fine presence, with a great, beautiful head, a high +forehead, square chin, perfectly at home on the platform, a master of +all the tricks of debate, a born king of assemblies. Lincoln was the +stronger man, Douglas the more polished. Lincoln was the better thinker, +Douglas the better orator. Lincoln relied upon fundamental principles, +Douglas wanted to win his case. Lincoln's mind was analytical, and he +loved to take a theme and unfold it, peeling it like an onion, layer by +layer. For Douglas, an oration was a pile of ideas, three hours high. +Lincoln's voice was a high dusty tenor, with small range, and +monotonous; Douglas's voice was a magnificent vocal instrument, +extending from the flute-like tone to the deepest roar. Lincoln lacked +every grace of the great orator; Douglas had every art that makes the +speaker master of his audience. Morally,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> Lincoln's essential qualities +were his honesty, fairness, and his spirit of good will. Intellectually, +he was a thinker, slow, intense, profound, always trying to find a +mother principle that would explain a concrete fact. He was reared in +childhood on three works—the Bible, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and +the Constitution of the United States. The style of the parable of Jesus +and the simple words of the "Pilgrim's Progress" entered into his +thinking like iron into the rich blood of the physical system. His +thought was as clear as crystal, his language the simple home words, +full of music and old associations. Lincoln knew what he wanted to say, +said it, and sat down. Douglas stormed, threatened, cajoled, bribed, and +could not stop until he had carried his audience. Lincoln wanted to get +the truth out; Douglas wanted to win a crowd over. The one was a +statesman, the other was an opportunist, struggling for place. +Principles are eternal, and because Lincoln loved principles, Lincoln +belongs to the ages. Douglas wanted office, and because the longest +office is six years, when the six years were over, the people put +another man in his niche; Douglas practically disappeared.</p> + +<p>The interest of the people in the seven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> great joint debates arranged +for this senatorial campaign was beyond all description. Douglas +travelled in a special train and car, with a flat car carrying a cannon +that boomed the announcement of his arrival. He had the wealth and +prestige of the Illinois Central Railroad to support him. Lincoln +trusted to some friend to drive him across country, or had to be +contented with a seat in a caboose of a freight train, waiting on a +switch at a siding, while Douglas's special went whizzing by. The people +of each county made the day of the debate a great holiday. From daylight +until noon all the converging roads were crowded with wagons, carts and +buggies, loaded with people, while other thousands hurried on foot along +the dusty road to the meeting place. From the first Douglas knew his +peril, in that the eyes of the nation were fixed upon his platform, and +that if Lincoln won the debate he won everything. He paid Lincoln the +compliment of saying, "He is the strong man of his party, full of wit, +facts, dates, and the best stump-speaker, with his droll ways and his +dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is shrewd, and if I beat +him my victory will be hardly won."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>Very different was the praise that Lincoln gave Douglas, as he +contrasted the dazzling fame of the great senator with his own unknown +name. "With me," said Lincoln, "the race of ambition has been a failure, +a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success. I affect +no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; ... I would rather +stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a +monarch's brow." Douglas's speeches do not read well, and there are no +nuggets, proverbs, bright sayings or brilliant epigrams which one can +quote. The substance of his speeches was one and the same, for he +traversed the same ground in each of the seven debates, urging ever that +the new Republican party was simply disguised abolitionism, that Lincoln +wanted to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, establish the equality of the +blacks, that this was a threat of war against the South, and therefore +revolutionary and sectional. Over against this mark consider the clarity +of Lincoln's method of thinking and speaking.</p> + +<p>In his address to the convention, accepting the senatorial nomination, +he had said: "If we could first know where we are and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> whither we are +tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now +far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed +object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. +Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not +ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease +until a crisis has been reached and passed. A house divided against +itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently +half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I +do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be +divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."</p> + +<p>When the campaign opened he challenged Douglas to the debate, and the +critical contest began.</p> + +<p>After several meetings, in which the senator proved himself a slippery +wrestler, Lincoln determined to force Douglas into a corner. He wrote a +question, and with such skill that Douglas was compelled to answer one +way or the other, either answer being fatal to his political ambition. +When Lincoln read this question to his advisers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> Medill, Washburne and +Judd, all begged him not to ask it, saying that it would cost him the +senatorship. "Yes, but my loss of the senatorship is nothing. Later on +it will cost Douglas the presidency. I am killing bigger game. The +battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of 1858." The question with which +Douglas was confronted was this: "Can the people of any United States +territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the +United States, exclude slavery from its limit prior to the formation of +a State constitution?"</p> + +<p>What a path perilous was this for Douglas's feet! The path up the edge +of the Matterhorn is a foot wide, yet it is granite, even if the climber +does look down thousands of feet upon his right and thousands of feet +upon his left. But Lincoln made Douglas walk not upon a narrow granite +way, but on a sharp sword. He who tries to walk a tight rope across +Niagara has two alternatives—he either arrives, or he does not. Yonder +is Stephen Douglas, trying to walk a tight rope over the Niagara.</p> + +<p>Forced to an answer, Douglas finally spoke:</p> + +<p>"It matters not what way the Supreme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> Court may hereafter decide as to +the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into any +territory under a constitution. The people have the lawful means to +exclude it if they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a +day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police +legislation. Those police regulations can only be established by the +local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery they will +elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation +effectually prevent its introduction into their midst; if, on the +contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favour its extension." +Douglas had decided. Southern newspapers took up his statement and the +tide of anger rose against the "little giant" that cost him the +presidency. Lincoln had digged a pitfall for unwary feet, and the great +opportunist fell therein.</p> + +<p>After this, Douglas became bitter, excited, and increasingly angry, for +the tide was plainly beginning to run against him. Lincoln's speeches +fairly blazed with quotable sentences. "If you think you can slander a +woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are +satisfied." Again:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> "Has Douglas the exclusive right in this country to +be on all sides of all questions?" Again: "The plainest print cannot be +read through a gold eagle." Again: "Douglas shirks the responsibility of +pulling the national house down, but he digs under it, that it may fall +of its own weight."</p> + +<p>To the astonishment of the country, when the debate was over, Lincoln +carried Illinois on the popular vote, although he lost the senatorship +through the arrangement of legislative districts that gave the election +to the Democrats. Disappointed, Lincoln retained his good humour, and +laughed over what he called the little episode. "I feel," said Lincoln, +"like the boy who stubbed his toe; it hurt too hard to laugh, and he was +too big to cry. But I have been heard on the great subject of the age, +and though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I +have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long +after I am gone."</p> + +<p>Lincoln had now become a national figure. In February, 1860, Mr. Beecher +and Henry C. Bowen invited him to speak in New York. The first plan was +for him to speak in Plymouth Church, but later considerations led to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +change to Cooper Institute. Lincoln arrived in the city late in the +week; on Sunday morning he heard Mr. Beecher preach. He sat in the Bowen +pew, just back of the Beecher pew, in the morning; in the evening he +arrived very late, and sat in a front pew, in the gallery, with Mr. +Bowen and a friend who had waited in the hall for Mr. Lincoln's arrival. +Lincoln spent the afternoon at the Sunday-school mission, over in Five +Points. As the superintendent of the mission was always casting about +for somebody to talk to his ragamuffins, he asked the tall stranger if +he would say a few words. When they reached the platform, the +superintendent asked Lincoln by what name he should introduce him, to +which Lincoln gave the answer, "Tell them Abraham Lincoln of Illinois," +which was answer enough. The meeting the next day in Cooper Institute +was perhaps the most memorable assembly ever held in New York. William +Cullen Bryant presided, Horace Greeley sat on Lincoln's right, Peter +Cooper close by. "No man," said the <i>Tribune</i>, "since the days of Clay +and Webster, spoke to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental +culture of our city. The speech was packed with reason, facts, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +stripped bare of rhetorical flourish. Its keynote was, '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.'" Four morning newspapers reported +the speech in full, and Greeley called him the Great Convincer, saying +no man ever before made such an impression in his first appeal to a New +York audience. That speech probably made Lincoln President.</p> + +<p>By universal consent, Lincoln's nomination in 1860 is one of the +mysteries of politics. Every man of light and leading conceded Seward's +nomination in advance, and two-thirds of the delegates went to the +convention pledged, while eight of the Illinois delegates were against +Lincoln in his own State. The East could not believe that the sceptre +could pass from their hands. Special trains from New York carried +brilliant banners, and New York bands and drilled clubs marched and +countermarched up and down the streets of Chicago. A great wooden wigwam +set up for the occasion held 10,000 spectators. The placing of Seward in +nomination was wildly applauded. But, to the surprise of everybody, the +naming of Lincoln was the signal of an outburst of such en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>thusiasm as +had never been known. Men held their breath as the votes were +registered. Seward had 173½ against Lincoln's 102. As noted in a +former chapter, it has been thought that Horace Greeley's standing out +for Governor Bates of Missouri made possible the shifting of votes for +another Western man. At all events, on the third ballot Lincoln was +nominated. Now hundreds of correspondents began to write stories of this +great unknown. The next day Wendell Phillips demanded from Boston: "Who +is this county court advocate?" But there was a man in Washington who +could speak intelligently concerning the great unknown—his name was +Stephen A. Douglas.</p> + +<p>In that hour Douglas knew the great mistake he had made. The Democratic +convention of that year at Charleston split their party asunder; the +Southerners clamoring for secession should Lincoln be elected, and +nominating John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky; the Northerners standing +fast for the Union and compromise, and nominating Stephen A. Douglas; +while a "Constitutional Union" party of old-line Whigs nominated John +Bell of Tennessee. Lincoln's election was the signal for secession.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>In all the subsequent turmoil, Douglas vigorously sustained the Union +and the Constitution, both in Congress and before the people. When +Sumter was fired upon, he hastened to pledge his influence to Lincoln as +well as to the Union. "There are no neutrals in this war—only patriots +and traitors." Douglas hurried back to Illinois to unify the state for +the Union; he had borrowed $80,000 for his campaign, and he staggered +under the burden of debt. Also he had injured his constitution by +excess, and burned the candle at both ends by overwork. But above all +else was the thought that he had made the great mistake, and lost his +place in history, in saying that he did not care whether a new State +voted slavery up or voted slavery down. During his last sickness he +murmured incessantly, "Failure—I have failed." His last words were: +"Telegraph to the President and let the columns move on."</p> + +<p>Douglas died on June 3, 1861, at the age of forty-eight. The lesson of +his life is the danger of compromise, the peril of refusing adherence to +the highest ideals of principle, and the failure of expediency and +opportunism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>As Douglas's star went down, Lincoln's star began to climb the sky. It +was Douglas himself who held Lincoln's hat while he made his first +inaugural address. By the irony of fate it was Chief Justice Taney of +the Dred Scott Decision who inaugurated Lincoln into office, that +Lincoln might later make Taney's decision forever null and void.</p> + +<p>And that no dramatic note might be wanted, both Taney and Douglas heard +Lincoln plead with indescribable pathos, majesty and beauty, for the +very Union whose existence their words had threatened. "Physically +speaking, we [the North and South] cannot separate. We cannot remove our +respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall +between them. Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make +laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws +can among friends? Suppose you go to war? You cannot fight always, and +after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, +the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon +you. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, +is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. +You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I +shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. I am +loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battle-field and patriotic grave to every living heart and hearthstone +all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when +again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our +nature."</p> + +<p>But the great debate through arguments was ended. Henceforth, the appeal +was to arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<h3>REASONS FOR SECESSION: SOUTHERN LEADERS</h3> + + +<p>The seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas convinced both the North +and the South: but, confirming the one for union and liberty, it +confirmed the other for independence and slavery. Lincoln convinced the +North that the Union could not endure permanently half slave and half +free; on the other hand, the South saw just as clearly that the Union, +if it endured, must become all free or all slave. When the men of +light and leading in the North fully understood Lincoln's +"House-divided-against-itself" speech, they went over to the Republican +party, and nominated and elected Lincoln president, that he might put +slavery in a position of gradual extinction, by forbidding its future +growth. The South acted with even greater energy and decision, by making +ready to secede, and arming her citizens for the defense of slavery. The +great debate, through words, had lasted thirty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> years; now the South +made its appeal to regiments of armed men.</p> + +<p>At that moment slavery controlled the President, the Cabinet, the Senate +and the House. And yet immediately after the election, and before the +inauguration of Lincoln, the Secretary of War, Floyd, secretly began the +transfer of munitions of war from the nation's arsenals to the Southern +States.</p> + +<p>Late one December day in 1860, a Southern gentleman hastened to the +White House. On the steps he met an old friend who had just left +Buchanan. Waving his hat, he shouted, "This is a glorious day! South +Carolina has seceded!" That night an impromptu banquet was held in +Washington, at which the Southern leaders drank to the success of the +slave empire that was to be founded, and talked about a Southern army, a +Southern navy, the annexation of Mexico and the West India Islands. Then +swiftly followed the secession of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas +and Florida.</p> + +<p>Almost every week during the winter of 1861 witnessed the spectacle of +Southern Senators and Representatives saying good-bye to Congress and +announcing the withdrawal of their State from the Union. Those were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +days of thick darkness at Washington. Gloom fell upon the North. Already +the shadow of the great eclipse was stealing across the face of Abraham +Lincoln. It seemed as if the government, "conceived in liberty and +dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal," was about +to "perish from the earth." Hamilton had called the Republic "the last, +best hope of earth." Burke had characterized the Constitution "an event +as wonderful as if a new star had arisen on the horizon to shine as +bright as the planets." Now the star was to fall out of the sky! Up to +the day of his inauguration Lincoln could not believe the South would +ever fire on the flag, or take up arms against the Union. "We are +friends, and not enemies—we must not be enemies." But it was not to be +as Lincoln wished. There are some diseases so terrible that they must be +cured by the knife and the cautery. Slavery had fastened on the very +vitals of the South. Therefore, God permitted the surgery of war.</p> + +<p>Lincoln's inaugural address on March 4, 1861, caused a certain solemn +hush to fall upon the land. Its logic, the facts it contained, the +principles it presented, were so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> convincing for the intellect and yet +so suffused with pathos and beauty and majesty, that the people, North +and South alike, stood uncertain and expectant.</p> + +<p>But the silence was premonitory. In summer, after a hot, sultry day, +when the great city has exhaled poisonous gases, the clouds are piled +mountain high on the horizon. Then a hush comes. Not a leaf stirs. It is +hard to breathe. Suddenly one bolt leaps from the east to the west—the +precursor of ten thousand fiery darts that are to burn the poison away, +and of the heavy rains and winds that will wash the air and make it +sweet and clean. On the 12th of April the silence for the nation was +broken by the shot fired at Fort Sumter. The bomb that went shrieking +through the air was the precursor of a million men in arms, the most +frightful carnage, the most terrible war in history, when brother took +up arms against brother, and the whole land became one vast cemetery.</p> + +<p>It is often said that South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter and began an +aggressive war to destroy the Union, before the South was ready. +Probably the fact in the case is that South Carolina was trying to "fire +the South<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>ern heart," and force the State of Virginia into the secession +movement. The Old Dominion State was naturally a Union State. It was a +Virginian who uttered the most impassioned words in the history of +liberty—Patrick Henry at Williamsburg. It was a Virginian who led the +colonial armies to victory—Washington. It was a Virginian who wrote the +Declaration of Independence—Thomas Jefferson. He too, a Virginian +governor, made the great protest to King George against the further +imposition of slavery by force of arms. He too, a Virginian, the founder +of Washington and Jefferson College, had called upon the men of the +Dominion State to rise up and destroy the curse of slavery. But from the +moment when that shell rose through the pathless air, curved slightly +and burst above Sumter, the die was cast. Five days later, Virginia +passed her ordinance of secession.</p> + +<p>Oh, if the veil could have been lifted from Beauregard's eyes when he +began that bombardment! If he could but have seen the riches become +poverty, cities become a waste, happy homes a desolation, the Southern +hillsides covered with graves, the Southern plantations grown up with +weeds, and the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> secession movement futile, what a vision would +have fallen upon the soldier!</p> + +<p>On the 15th, President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops. If he had asked +for a million, the President would have had them. That shot had kindled +a fire of patriotism that swept across the North like a prairie fire. In +one day the college students deserted the lecture halls, the students of +law and medicine and theology closed their books, the farmer left his +plow in the furrow, the woodsman dropped his ax, the carpenter his +hammer, and the young men of twenty-three States sprang to arms. What +astonished the South most of all was the attitude of Douglas, and the +Northern Democrats, who had been confidently counted upon to stand by +secession. One Southern fire-eater had said that "Douglas and the +Democrats will fight Lincoln and the Republicans, and it will be another +case of the Kilkenny cats, leaving the South in peace to build up a +great empire." But the first thing that Stephen A. Douglas did was to go +to the White House and pledge his support to Lincoln, as did the leading +Democrats of the North. "The attack upon Sumter," said Douglas, "leaves +us but two parties—patriots and traitors." And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> now the war was +on,—the one side fighting for the Federal Union and liberty for all +men, and the other side fighting for State sovereignty and slavery.</p> + +<p>These great events bring us front to front with the question as to how +Southern men justified their firing upon the old flag and attacking the +Union. Let us confess that men do not make martyrs of themselves unless +they have a cause that commands the intellect and conquers the will.</p> + +<p>Skeptics used to say that the apostles invented the character of Jesus. +As if men first of all invent a lie and inflate a bubble myth, and then +go out in support of it to get themselves mobbed, kicked through the +streets, thrown from windows, tortured on the rack, crucified and burned +alive after incredible heroism for thirty years! To say that the +disciples invented the story of Jesus and then martyred themselves for +their falsehood is as intellectually stupid and silly as it is morally +monstrous! Not otherwise these leading men of the South were men of the +loftiest character, of great personal worth, patriotic, high-minded, and +they did not devastate their land and martyr themselves for idle +abstractions. Here is John C. Calhoun,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> ranked by all as one of the +triumvirate—Webster, Calhoun and Clay. Here is Gen. Robert E. Lee, of +whom Lord Wolsey said that for one State to have given birth to two such +men as Washington and Lee was to have lent it immortal renown. Lincoln +and Grant and our Northern generals understood the Southern men, +sympathized with them, and therefore because the intellect grasped their +position, Grant's heart forgave Lee, and made the two friends. To +understand this, go to-day to a great battle-field of that conflict and +hear the Northern generals and the Southern generals rehearse the story +of the Civil War, and you will understand the magnanimity of the +Northern leader and the argument of the Southern soldier. History has +destroyed the old delusion that secession was a conspiracy, organized by +a few malignant leaders. All historians to-day, Northern and Southern +alike, concede that it was a great popular uprising of the Southern +people.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it was not altogether a contest between Northern blood on the +one side, and Southern blood on the other.</p> + +<p>Twenty-one of the Southern generals who fought for the Rebellion were +born in New<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> York and New England. Eighty distinguished Confederate +officers were born north of Mason and Dixon's line, were graduates of +West Point, yet these Northern soldiers rejected Webster's argument for +the Union, and accepted Calhoun's theory of State sovereignty. On the +other hand, many of our greatest Union leaders were Southern men by +birth and education, but as Southerners they rejected Calhoun's +philosophy, and accepted Webster's. Virginia gave us the +commander-in-chief of our army, Gen. Winfield Scott; gave us George H. +Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga. The South gave us Farragut, our +greatest admiral. Twelve of the commanders of our battle-ships that +captured the Mississippi River and made it possible for Lincoln to say, +"Once more the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea," were Southern +men. The South also, through Kentucky, gave us the great President, +Abraham Lincoln. It was, therefore, in large measure, a philosophic +contest. The Union forces were the disciples of Daniel Webster, whose +spirit invisible rode upon the wings of the wind, and whose arm bore the +gorgeous ensign, on which were written the words, "Liberty <i>and</i> Union." +On the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> hand, the Confederate forces were made up of the disciples +of John C. Calhoun, who followed a banner on which the great citizen of +South Carolina had inscribed these words, "Sovereignty is natural and +inalienable; government is secondary and artificial and can be changed +at the will of the people." In terms of cannon and gun, Grant and Lee +were the leaders of the two opposing armies, but fundamentally the two +armies were led by Daniel Webster on the one side and John C. Calhoun on +the other.</p> + +<p>Further, Calhoun's influence explains the attitude of the +non-slaveholding South towards secession. Of the six million white +people in the South, two millions of them did not own slaves, and most +of these were opposed to the slave traffic. Thousands of Southerners +freed their slaves before the war, and moved into Ohio and Pennsylvania. +Other thousands declined to participate in the traffic. A North +Carolinian named Hinton Rowan Helper published in 1857 a very striking +volume called "The Impending Crisis in the South, and How to Meet It." +Dedicated to the non-slaveholding whites, and not on behalf of the +blacks, its theme was slavery as a blight upon Southern white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> people +and their institutions, and a political peril. Not Garrison himself ever +made so vigorous and powerful an arraignment of slavery as did this +Southerner. Helper pronounced slavery the enemy of invention, the foe of +manufacturing plants, an obstacle to the development of the land, a +barrier to the progress of the sons of white men. He held that slavery +starves to death masters in the long run, while for the moment it +seemingly enriches them. Slavery was like sin, it wore the garb of an +angel of light; while secretly it sharpened a dagger, with which to stab +to the heart the angel of civilization. Within two years this book sold +over 150,000 copies, and set the whole South in a fever of unrest. +Nevertheless, when the storm broke, the large non-slaveholding element +in the South took up arms for the doctrine of State sovereignty. If they +resented interference with slavery, it was because slavery was a +Southern domestic institution. But this was only an incident; the one +thing they wished was the vindication of the sovereignty of each State +of the Union, and the right of its people to govern themselves without +regard to other States who had the same right of self-government.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>The character of the Southern leaders throws light upon Calhoun's +principle. Than Robert E. Lee, what general has been more idolized by +those who knew him best? His first ancestor in America was a cavalier +who left England rather than endure the tyranny of Charles II. The son +of "Light Horse Harry" of Revolutionary fame, he loved the Union. +Educated at West Point, he left the institution after four years without +a demerit, and won distinction both in the army during the Mexican War, +and later as an engineer. He was a man of such probity, purity and lofty +character that his followers loved him to the point of worship. He was +deeply religious, and the best expression we can use is that Lee, +like Enoch, walked with God. He was offered the position of +commander-in-chief of the Northern forces. But he could not bear to lead +an invading army against his old college, his ancestral homestead, and +against Washington's house at Mount Vernon, or become the enemy of his +own people in Virginia. On April 17th, Virginia passed her ordinance of +secession, and on the 20th, Lee resigned his commission in the United +States army, because he could not take part against his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> native +State,—"in whose behalf alone," he said, "will I ever again draw my +sword." By the Calhoun doctrine, Virginia was his country, and no one +has ever doubted his sincerity. Lee is the Sir Philip Sidney of the +Civil War.</p> + +<p>Wellington, the Iron Duke, is reported to have said, "A man of fine +Christian sensibilities is totally unfit for the position of soldier." +But Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson prayed as they fought; in +victory and in defeat alike they turned towards God. Jackson, who won +the name of "Stonewall," might have been the son of old Ironsides +himself. During his entire career he turned his camps into revival +meetings when he was on the Potomac and the Rappahannock, and was a +Puritan of Puritans. It is said that literally hundreds of men who +entered his regiments, careless, profane, drinking boys, went home to +join churches on profession of their faith in Christ. After the battle +of Bull Run, Jackson sent a letter home to his Presbyterian minister at +Lexington, Va. The people assembled to hear the minister read the letter +that would give an account of the conflict. It contained only one +sentence: "I forgot to send you my con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>tribution for the coloured +Sunday-school of which I am superintendent." When Jackson lost his left +arm, General Lee wrote to him, "You have lost your left arm, but I have +lost the right arm of my army." Eight days after, Jackson lay dying, +having been accidentally shot by his own men at Chancellorsville. +Suddenly he cried out, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the +shade of the trees;" a companion had just read the great general that +verse in the Psalm, "There is a river whose streams make glad the city +of God." These two men have been a fountain of inspiration to Southern +youth, and their story makes a bright chapter in the history of all +heroism.</p> + +<p>Southern leaders there were also who opposed secession as inexpedient +and wrong. One of the finest exponents of this group was Alexander H. +Stephens, a self-made man, inured in childhood to hardship, and made +sympathetic through his own struggles. Orphaned at fifteen, he worked +his way through college; admitted to the bar at twenty-two, he achieved +fame as a lawyer; elected to Congress, he was one of the noted figures +in the House of Representatives for sixteen years. His slight physique +and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> frail health were sad handicaps. He was dyspeptic, sleepless, a +nervous wreck. He ordinarily weighed seventy-two pounds, and during the +best years of his life only ninety-two. When in February, 1865, Lincoln +met Stephens for a peace conference, he saw the commissioner take off a +great outer coat, and unwrap layer after layer of tippet from his +throat, peeling down and down, until finally there stood this tiny man. +Lincoln whispered to his friend, "Did you ever see so small a nubbin +that had so much husk on it?"</p> + +<p>Within ten days after the election of Lincoln, Stephens began his +campaign against secession. He urged that Lincoln was friendly to the +South; that he had neither the desire nor the power to destroy slavery; +that John Brown's attack represented the individual and not the millions +of the North; that nothing could be gained by haste nor lost by delay, +and that the Southern people should heed Lincoln's inaugural. Finally, +he despaired; he wrote Toombs that "the South was wild with frenzy and +passion—that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." He +afterwards explained his later acquiescence with secession by the +statement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> that when two trains were running under full steam towards a +head-on collision, he got off at the first station.</p> + +<p>As vice-president of the Confederacy, Stephens was not always in +sympathy with Jefferson Davis; he was very frank in his criticism of the +Confederate leader. "While I never have regarded Davis as a great man, +or statesman on a large scale, or a man of any marked genius, yet I have +regarded him as a man of good intentions; weak and vacillating, timid, +petulant, peevish, obstinate, but not firm."</p> + +<p>To understand Jefferson Davis, however, we must take a broader outlook.</p> + +<p>Rhodes ventures the judgment that if the Pilgrim Fathers had settled in +South Carolina they might have held slaves by 1850, and might have +fought to maintain slavery; while if the cavalier had settled in Boston, +where the snow and the winter are unfriendly to the coloured man, the +cavalier would have founded abolition societies. If all scholars do not +see their way clear to fully accept Rhodes' statement, they must confess +that the Scotch-Irish soldiers that followed Cromwell, and after the +restoration of Charles II moved to North Carolina, at last became +slave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>-holders; while many Southerners, young men who were educated in +Northern colleges and married Northern girls, finally freed their slaves +and moved North, becoming abolitionists. Circumstances, environment, and +association, modify men so profoundly that Buckle believed that climate +and grains determine men's civilization.</p> + +<p>Again, in 1820, Northern leaders became alarmed at the invasion by +slavery of the Northern and Western territories, and Northern +representatives threatened to withdraw from the Union if slavery was +extended, just as in 1861 the Southern leaders not only threatened but +withdrew,—the only difference being this, that the North would rather +withdraw from the Union than have slavery, while the South preferred to +secede rather than have free labour enforced.</p> + +<p>Nor must we forget that Calhoun's principle of the absolute independence +of each State in political government is freely accepted by all +Congregationalists in church government. In 1875, when a Congregational +Association tried to interfere with Mr. Beecher and the government of +Plymouth Church, Plymouth told them plainly that every church is an +independent and self-governing organization,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> that sovereignty is +natural and government artificial, and that government by the +Association might be transferred but had not been so transferred. The +Congregational principle in church government is pure democracy.</p> + +<p>But the United States were a federal representative republic, under a +constitution; and, to recur again to ecclesiastical illustration, the +Presbyterian form of government is representative and federal. The +Presbyterians base their government on our political institutions. For +the political township, they have a Presbyterian church; for the county, +they set up the Presbytery; for the State, they organized a synod; for +congress, they organized the General Assembly; for the president, they +substituted a moderator.</p> + +<p>In politics we believe in representative government, but as to the +church, Congregationalists believe in pure democracy, and the +independent principle.</p> + +<p>Now John C. Calhoun took this Congregational principle and translated it +into terms of politics, and called it the States' rights or State +sovereignty theory. If John C. Calhoun had been struggling, not for a +political theory, but for an ecclesiastical one, Henry Ward Beecher +would have backed him to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> finish. If there is any one group of people +on earth, therefore, who ought not only to understand but to appreciate +John C. Calhoun's argument, they are the Independents. Now for twenty +years John C. Calhoun went up and down the South, analyzing his +argument, explaining and enforcing it. At the very time Northern boys +were reading in their readers Webster's speech for the Union, Southern +boys were reciting Calhoun's speech for the independence of the States.</p> + +<p>Not in consequence of the Calhoun doctrine but in harmony with it, +having always held that the Union was subordinate to the sovereignty of +the States, Jefferson Davis, United States senator from Mississippi, +became the chief organizer of secession after Lincoln's election. A West +Point graduate, a brilliant officer in Indian fights and the Mexican +War, a governor of Mississippi, United States senator, a singularly +efficient Secretary of War under President Pierce, and again an +influential senator, a man of charming personality with many friends, +Mr. Davis was so prominent in the secession movement that he was the +free choice of the Southern people for president of their Confederacy. +And, despite Mr. Stephens' opinion, he probably<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> did as well in that +difficult place as another could have done. To the end of his life he +held to the doctrine of State sovereignty.</p> + +<p>But one question persistently forces itself into the foreground. Why was +it that the people of the North did not "let the erring sisters go," to +use Horace Greeley's expression? Just across the Northern line dwells +another nation—Canada. Why should there not have been a second nation +to the south of Mason and Dixon's line, with Mobile or New Orleans for a +capital—a great slave empire, that would have included Texas, Mexico +and Central America? The answer is very simple. The Constitution stood +in the way. Men saw clearly that if this republic, conceived in liberty +and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal, could +be destroyed by the minority, that would not respect the rights of the +majority, there was no hope for civilization save in the revival of +despotism, with a monarch ruling the people by military force. The North +by a majority of States and votes had chosen Lincoln, with his statement +that the Union could not permanently endure, half slave and half free. +The minority then answered: "If we cannot have our way, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> will destroy +the government." Analyzed, this is seen to be sheer anarchy.</p> + +<p>In that hour men remembered what their fathers had endured to found the +Republic and free institutions. When the news came of the attack upon +Fort Sumter, the better angels of men's natures did touch "the mystic +chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave +to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land," and the +tones swelled the chorus of the Union. What other land offered poor men +an opportunity for office, wealth and honours, with full liberty of +thought and speech? Had not the fathers lived and died to make education +democratic through the public schools? Had not the fathers given life +itself to establish the freedom of the printing-press and freedom of +discussion? Had not the fathers bought at great price their political +liberty, and the rights of the ballot? Was not the land dedicated to +toleration and charity in religion? Was the work of Washington and +Jefferson and Hamilton to go down in ruin and nothingness? While the old +world, with her tyrannies, scoffed at the failure of the Republic, men +thought of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Yorktown. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> thought of +the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They recalled the +tribute of one of the greatest of English statesmen, who characterized +the American Constitution as "the greatest political instrument ever +struck off by the unaided genius of man."</p> + +<p>And now the Republic was to be destroyed, the Constitution torn into +shreds and stamped under foot, the Declaration of Independence made a +thing of jibes and scorn in the palaces of Madrid and Constantinople, +while slavery, with black fingers, was to knit its claws into the throat +of the angel of liberty and choke the life out. Suddenly men saw that +the only way to insure liberty for the white race was to destroy slavery +for the black races. Men determined that the majority had their rights, +and that these rights should not be wrested away by the minority, +fighting in the interests of slavery. Democracy, the "last, best hope of +earth," should not fail! In that moment Liberty stretched forth her +sceptre of justice, "red with insufferable wrath," and her clarion voice +rang to the outermost corners of the land. Three millions of men +assembled to swear fealty to God and country. Then they marched away,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +through the towns and across the prairies, into thickets and swamps, to +be pierced by bullets, torn by shells, to eat crusts, wear rags, shiver +in the cold, burn in the heat, famish in the prison, welter in the +bloody trench, above them a fiery hail, beside them their dying comrades +falling into the arms of death. It is a strange, wild, chivalrous, +divine story of the world's greatest enthusiasm, our fathers' enthusiasm +for liberty and democracy! What God thinks of freedom, is written in the +price that people paid for it! What God thinks of slavery is in the woe +and sorrow and wreckage it has always brought upon those who have sought +to live on the sweat of other men's faces!</p> + +<p>The Russian would not fight against the Japanese because the Russian +peasant owned no lands, had no schoolhouse, no ballot box, no free +printing-press, no religious liberty. The Russian stood sullenly in the +trenches and had to be flogged into the battle. If the Russian peasant +lost, he lost nothing, because he had nothing to lose; if the peasant +won, he gained nothing, because the Russian aristocrat and the baron +took all of the treasure; therefore he would not fight. But the Northern +soldier had everything to fight for.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> No such treasures were ever thrown +on the earth to be struggled for. Liberty and the Union were worth a +thousand lives and ten thousand deaths.</p> + +<p>It was an awful and a gallant fight, waged by the finest of the world's +manhood on both sides. The Southerner fought for local self-government +and the right to enslave and govern other men; the Northerner fought for +universal self-government and the institutions which had made that +possible without injustice to other men. There can be no choice as +between the splendid qualities that entered into the contest—of +sincerity, earnestness, devotion and fidelity on either side: but the +South lost because slavery had eaten out the enduring vigour of its +resources; the North won because free labour and the rights of man had +given it the greater effective power. At last, the theory on which the +South stood for self-justification crumbled under the supreme test.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>IX</h2> + +<h3>HENRY WARD BEECHER: THE APPEAL TO ENGLAND</h3> + + +<p>One November morning in the White House, Abraham Lincoln kept his +Cabinet waiting while he finished reading a newspaper, containing an +account of Beecher's speeches in England. At last he laid the paper on +the table before them, and in substance said to Stanton, "When this war +is fought to a successful issue, this man, Henry Ward Beecher, will have +earned the right to lift the old flag back to its place on Fort Sumter, +for without these speeches England might have recognized the +Confederacy, and then there might have been no flag to raise."</p> + +<p>Long time has passed since that Friday morning in the capital, and now +all men recognize the justice of the words of the martyred President. +History is a stern judge, and the centuries have given opportunity for +contrast. When a great country, a great emergency, a critical hour, and +a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> man meet, a spark is struck out, called great eloquence. Such a +conjunction of city, peril and man once met in Athens, and for +twenty-four centuries boys have been translating Demosthenes' oration +against Philip. Demosthenes spoke, but Philip marched on. Greece bowed +her neck to the yoke, and became subject to Macedonia; Demosthenes +failed. Another crisis came in Westminster Hall, in London, when Edmund +Burke made his plea for the millions of outraged folk in India pillaged +by Warren Hastings. But Hastings became a lord; he died honoured in his +palace; India was left to stagger onward; Burke's splendid oratory +failed. That was a great hour in the history of eloquence when Patrick +Henry and Fisher Ames and Josiah Quincy became voices for liberty and +the new republic. But these orators spoke to sympathetic hearers, and +simply returned to the multitude in a flood what they had received from +the people in dew and rain.</p> + +<p>Henry Ward Beecher spoke to mobs, pleaded with unfriendly critics, and +was asked to change hate to love, ice to fire, weapons for attack into +weapons for defense. He went against the English mob as one goes up +against a castle that is locked, barred and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> bristling with arms, and he +gave sops to Cerberus, charmed the keys out of him who kept the fortress +gate, cast a spell upon those who guarded the walls, stole all the +weapons, and, single handed, at last lifted the banner of victory above +the ramparts of granite. The history of eloquence holds no other +achievement of the same rank and class. What a volume, that contains the +speech delivered within the limit of nine days, with the introduction at +Manchester, the three great arguments at Glasgow, Edinburgh and +Liverpool, and the peroration in Exeter Hall, London! What physical +reserves as the basis of sustained public speech! What mastery of all +the facts of liberty and democracy, not less than slavery! What +familiarity with English law not less than American! The orator moves +across the scene in history like some refulgent planet in the sky. The +story of those nine wonderful days makes illustrious forever the history +of eloquence and patriotism.</p> + +<p>The winter of 1862 and '63, with its high-wrought excitements, brought +Beecher the peril of a nervous breakdown. His exhaustion illustrates the +fact that some men who stayed at home endured as much as others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> who +went to the front. Generals and their marching regiments often suffered +much, but they were not alone in their fortitude and faith. Women who +toiled on farm or in hospital, working men who laboured to support the +boys at the front, orators who went up and down the land inciting +patriotism in the people, preachers who realized that the breakdown of +conscience meant the breakdown of the cause—these all were citizen +soldiers who defended the Union and kept the faith.</p> + +<p>Among them all no man poured out his life more generously than Henry +Ward Beecher. Since 1850, through the intensities of the Fugitive Slave +Law, the Fremont campaign, the Kansas troubles, the Lincoln election, +the era of secession and the first two years of the war, he had been +preaching, writing, lecturing, making public addresses, attending to his +great pastorate, and active in every civic and national interest. And +during the war, back and forth, across the land, from city to city, in +church, hall and armoury, he lifted up his voice in the presence of +multitudes, telling the story of the founding of the Republic, showing +that the Republic, with its self-government, was the last, best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> hope of +man, reminding boys that they must fight and live for the Union that +their fathers had died to found. When at length Antietam was won, and +Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and the rebellion +staggered like a giant stunned by a crushing blow, Beecher was lifted +into the seventh heaven of hope, and had the vision of coming victory. +In that hour he told his people that he was ready to die, that God might +peel him, and strip away all the leaves of life, and do with him as He +pleased; that he had lived fifty years, that he had had a good time, +that he had "hit the devil many blows and square in the face, that it +was joy enough to have uttered some words because they were incorporated +into the lives of men and could not die."</p> + +<p>But we all know that it is possible to stretch the strings of the mental +harp too tightly. Excitement burns the nerve as an electric current +consumes a wire. During those days Beecher wore a garment whose warp and +woof was fiery enthusiasm, and fierce flaming patriotism. The human body +is like a cask of precious liquor. One way to drain off the treasure is +to knock out the bung-hole, and in a few minutes drain the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> rich +fountain dry; another way is to bore innumerable apertures, that drop by +drop the liquor may waste. And so it was with Beecher, during those +exciting days, with this difference, that sometimes it seemed as if one +great event would drain out all his life in a tumultuous flood, while at +the same time innumerable petitioners taxed his life, drawing away his +strength, drop by drop. Alarmed, the officers and friends in Plymouth +Church insisted upon rest and vacation. They determined to put the sea +between the preacher and his task, planning to lose him for a little +time that they might have him for a long time.</p> + +<p>The popular opinion is that Beecher went to England, not openly, but +secretly as a messenger of the government. Like other myths, the fable +grew slowly, but is now well entrenched in the minds of multitudes. +There is no foundation for the story. Indeed, Mr. Beecher is on record +plainly, stating that no request, no suggestion, no hint, even, came +from Washington. At the time, his relations with the Cabinet were +strained. Seward was unfriendly. Stanton was hurt by his insistence, +through the <i>Independent</i>, upon immediate emancipation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> For a time even +Lincoln classed him with Horace Greeley, as extremist. His editorials +during the spring of 1862 had one thought, "Carthago delenda est." It +was only after Lincoln came around by a gunboat into New York Harbour, +and secretly met General Winfield Scott in a friend's house, and had +another secret interview with Henry Ward Beecher, and returned (letters +exist from Secretary Hay, following an interview with him over the +records in Washington, which establish this trip to New York to see +Scott and Beecher), that Beecher changed the tone of his editorials, and +went over to Lincoln's position,—that the Union was first, and the +destruction of slavery the secondary thing. The Great Emancipator loved +and trusted Beecher, but the Cabinet was critical, and Lincoln, as he +said, "did not have much influence with the administration."</p> + +<p>The only power and the whole power behind Beecher was that of Plymouth +Church, that gave him the money for all of his expenses, and took from +him a pledge that if he spoke at all he was to speak at their expense, +but under no circumstances to either preach or lecture until he had +recovered his strength. He was ill during the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> entire voyage, and was +not able to appear on deck until the vessel entered the Mersey. The news +of Beecher's coming had preceded him, and on opening the papers he found +even church leaders antagonistic. They deplored his coming, lest he +increase the excitement. The nobility was in favour of the South, as +were the ship-builders, the mill-owners, the bankers and all who had +investments or loans in the cotton industry of England and of the South.</p> + +<p>One hundred and fifty Congregational ministers greeted Beecher with a +breakfast in London. They asked him to preach and speak on religious +topics, but to avoid all reference to slavery on account of the inflamed +condition of the English mind. The man who introduced him deplored the +war, and described the patience of God in permitting the North to go on. +When Beecher arose to speak he was in a towering rage. He told them that +he would neither preach nor lecture nor speak in a mother land that was +openly hostile to her own daughter, and unfriendly to every principle of +liberty that was dear to England and embedded in English tradition and +history.</p> + +<p>In substance, he said: "Your conscience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> here in England is very +sensitive on the subject of war, providing some one else is fighting the +war, but England has no conscience at all as to war when she is +prosecuting the campaign." At that very hour England was fighting a war +in Japan, and a war in China, and a war in New Zealand for territory. +Three wars being quite proper, if England fought them, but oh, the +patience of God in permitting the North to exist even for one moment, +while fighting for liberty, the Union and the emancipation of slaves! He +told them that they thought it was a crime for the North to have a war +for emancipation, but quite proper for England to threaten a war over +two men named Mason and Slidell! Beecher understood Old England. No +nation in history ever conducted so many wars. No other nation's +statesmen ever had such skill to invent moral excuses for seizing +territory, in Africa, Egypt, India, Thibet, Australia, New Zealand and +all the islands of the sea. He best described it in his final speech in +London, when returned from the Continent: "On what shore has not the +prow of your ships dashed? What land is there with a name and a people +where your banner has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> not led your soldiers? And when the great +<i>reveillé</i> shall sound, it will muster British soldiers from every clime +and people under the whole heaven." What? "Speak in England on religion +and keep still on slavery, and the North and the South?" When an engine +is full of steam, it is a bad thing to sit on its safety-valve. +Figuratively speaking, the chairman and the hundred and fifty ministers, +who were trying to get Beecher to speak on religion and keep still on +slavery, sat passively and serenely on the safety-valve for about five +minutes, but finally the engine blew up. Mr. Beecher was not the man to +stifle his convictions in the name of peace, for he knew that in an evil +world a good man has no right to dwell at peace with the devil and his +minions. So he declared his hostility, turned his back on England, and +went to the Continent; and thus ended the first chapter in the European +trip.</p> + +<p>Looking backward, it is easy to discover the explanation of England's +attitude towards slavery and the Southern leaders. During the early +forties England had herself passed through an industrial revolution. +Because she had little agricultural land, and thirty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> millions of +people, the cost of living was high. When the cry of the people for +bread became bitter, Cobden, Bright and their associates inaugurated and +carried through the Free Corn Movement. With the incoming of free raw +materials England became the great manufacturing centre. What her +farmers lost through free trade in selling grain they gained in the +lowered price on which they bought. Within ten years after the victory +of free trade England became a hive of industry, filled with clustering +cities, while the whole land resounded with the stroke of engines. +Abundance succeeded to poverty and work trod closely upon the heels of +want. So prosperous had England become that by 1860 she was importing +two million bales of cotton from Southern States. The shipyards of +Glasgow built ships to carry cotton, the bankers in London made loans to +Southern planters, the mill-owners in Manchester bought shares in the +Southern cotton fields. The rich men of the South were constant guests +of the mill-owners in Central England and of the bankers in London. +Little by little England was drawn in through financial channels, and +cast her lot in with the production of cotton,—and slavery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then came the Civil War. The planters went to the front with Lee's army; +the slaves freed from overseers would not work. The production of cotton +was halved. The Northern navy blockaded the exit of cotton ships from +the Southern ports. English ships hung around the Southern shores trying +in vain to find access, hoping to run the gauntlet and obtain a cargo of +cotton. One by one the great English mills shut down for want of raw +material, and when two winters had passed, and the autumn of 1863 had +come, and the English working people fronted a third winter, the +spectacle became pathetic and terrible. Gaunt Famine stalked the land. +The skeleton Want stood in the shadow of the poor man's house. But the +courage and fidelity of the English cotton spinners held out for two +years. The poor always love the poor. The classes have always been +wrong, the masses have always been right. Luxury puts wax into the ears +of the aristocrats, but want makes the hearing of the poor very +sensitive to a sob of pain. The sympathy of the cotton spinner was with +the Northern working man. An English working man did not want to be put +in the same class with a Southern slave. He saw that any law that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +riveted fetters on black slaves in the South helped forge a manacle for +the cotton spinner's wrist in the mother land. These poor English folk +believed in the dignity of labour, in the right to a good wage, and in +the necessity for all working people standing together.</p> + +<p>But the mill-owner wanted raw cotton. The banker wanted the mill-owner +to have his cotton that his loans might be paid. The ship-builders +wanted Southern cotton that their industry might thrive. Investors who +for two years had had no interest on their Southern loans sympathized +with the South; the politicians, controlled by their financial +interests, wanted the South to succeed. In that hour of temptation +Avarice drew near and choked Justice. Greed offered bribes to +Conscience. Old England's ruling classes, with the full sympathy of men +like Gladstone and hundreds of others, favoured the speedy recognition +of the Southern Confederacy in the hope that that would end the war and +restore England's prosperity.</p> + +<p>In a word, the situation was this: The North had to fight the South, and +England with her influence as well. For here was the North, struggling +for the principles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> of the Pilgrim Fathers, for liberty, for democracy +and for the slaves, and just in the darkest hour of the struggle, when +she was burying her dead and the whole North was hung with funeral +crape, England, with ships on every sea, England, strong and powerful, +taking advantage of the capture of two Southern emissaries—Mason and +Slidell—from the British ship <i>Trent</i> on the high seas, declared she +would send an army to Canada and ships to batter down our Northern +cities. Even Gladstone bought Southern bonds, but later Gladstone deeply +lamented his sympathy with slavery and the South, and asked the world to +forgive and forget it. Yet if the North has long ago forgiven England, +it must be a hard thing for England to forgive herself that she gave to +slavery every ounce of influence she had, her threats, her frowns, her +diplomacy and her ships. Long afterwards a court of arbitration in +Geneva punished England with an enormous fine for the American shipping +that she helped destroy in her effort to help break down the North and +defeat liberty in a war that her own statesman, John Bright, has +characterized as one of the few wars not only justifiable but glorious +in all history.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now this was the attitude of England. Her upper classes and financial +interests were all on the side of slavery and the South. Her great +middle class were largely in favour of liberty. Her working people were +naturally on the side of free labour and the North, but they were +weakened by starvation till their endurance and fortitude were almost +gone. And then it was that Beecher entered the scene, returning from the +Continent to England. Recognition of the Confederacy and other +unfriendly official acts were trembling in the balance; yet there was +hesitation, on account of the common people, who sympathized with the +North. In telling of this afterwards, Mr. Beecher said: "To my amazement +I found that the unvoting English possessed great power in England; a +great deal more power, in fact, than if they had a vote. The aristocracy +and the government felt, 'These men know they have no political +privileges, and we must administer with the strictest regard to their +feelings or there will be a revolution.'" There were many noble +exceptions among the higher classes, and the Queen, doubtless under the +influence of the Prince Consort Albert, who died in 1861, and had been +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> firm friend of America, was also friendly to the North; but her +Government was not.</p> + +<p>The argument finally used to persuade Beecher to speak was that the +English Anti-Slavery Society was already discredited, unpopular, and +frowned upon by the nobility and the upper classes, and that if Beecher +would not recognize them by at least one speech their cause and ours +would be still further weakened.</p> + +<p>He began his work with a speech at Manchester, the very centre of the +cotton spinning industry. For weeks the streets had been placarded +against him. On his way to the Free Trade Hall he found, not a +multitude, but a mob, filling the streets. The meeting had been packed +in advance. Within five minutes after his introduction the storm let +loose its fury. There were two or three centres of conflict that became +veritable whirlpools of excitement. All the rest of the audience climbed +on their chairs to see what was going on in the tumultuous centres. +Everybody seemed to be yelling, some for order, and others with the +purpose of breaking up the meeting. Mr. Beecher saw that many were +determined that he should not speak, and he realized that if they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> broke +him down, other cities would withdraw their invitation, and it would +appear that all England was unalterably opposed to the North, so that +the recognition of the Confederacy might follow. When his enemies began +to wear themselves out and the tumult to subside, Mr. Beecher shot a few +sentences into the noise. "I have registered a vow that I will not leave +your country until I have spoken in your great cities. I am going to be +heard, and my country shall be vindicated."</p> + +<p>The orator soon found that about one-quarter of the audience were +bitterly hostile. Another quarter applauded his sentiment. The great +mass was hesitant, undecided, unconvinced, and he determined to conquer +that undecided class, and add them to that portion that was friendly. He +scornfully reminded them that he had before met men whose cause could +not bear the light of free speech. He roused them by saying that +American institutions were the fruit of English ideas, and that the +fruit of American liberty was from seed corn that was English.</p> + +<p>When some one shouted that he was harsh and unfair, he answered, What if +some exquisite dancing master should stand on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> the edge of a +battle-field where a hero lifted his battle-axe, and criticize him by +saying that "his gestures and postures violated the proprieties of +polite life!" He added, "When dandies fight they think how they look; +when men fight, they think only of deeds." He said that what the North +desired was not material aid, but simply that England should keep hands +off, and that France should keep hands off. He affirmed that even if +they both interfered, the North would fight on, that slavery must be +destroyed, and that liberty must be established on the American +continent; that the victory of democracy and liberty in the North would +mean their victory over the North and South American continent, and that +if the day ever should come when the old flag should wave again over +every state in the South, and the atrocious crime of slavery should be +destroyed, there should be liberty for the press, and liberty for the +poor in the schoolhouse; if plantations should be broken up and +distributed among the poor farmers, and the privileges of civil liberty +be won, that it would be worth all the blood and tears and woe.</p> + +<p>When he said that Great Britain had frowned upon the North, but hastened +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> fling her arms around the neck of the imperious South, one +Englishman waved his arms and shouted: "She doesn't!" and the six +thousand people began to cheer the disclaimer of England's being Romeo. +To which Beecher answered: "I have only to say that she has been caught +in very suspicious circumstances."</p> + +<p>Beecher's unshakable good humour, his witty, lightning-like answers to +their questions and contradictions, his solid sense and—when he got the +chance—his flaming eloquence, finally quelled and captured them. Then +he traversed the entire history of slavery in its relation to the +Colonies, the States, and the different forms of legislation up to the +Kansas and Nebraska Bill. When he concluded his speech, and the +sentiment of the audience was called for, to the astonishment of his +friends, men lifted up their voices with a sound like the sound of many +waters, and lined up for the North and liberty. The enthusiasm was +overwhelming. Within three hours January's frost had turned to the bloom +of June, and the moment was radiant with hope. The London <i>Times</i> +contained four columns of this speech, and the address became the topic +of the hour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> in every club in England. And either of these facts in +those days meant that Henry Ward Beecher was famous in England.</p> + +<p>His speeches in Glasgow and Edinburgh took up the second and third steps +in the development of slavery and liberty on the American continent. He +told these ship-builders in Glasgow how the providence of God seemed to +be exhibiting to all the peoples of the world the reflex influence of +slavery upon the strongest people and the richest resources, and how +slavery cursed whatever it touched. That the lesson might be the clearer +He gave liberty an unfriendly clime, and gave slavery a rich arena. To +the North He gave short summers, bleak skies, the rocks of New England +hills, the thin soil of New York, the sand dunes of Michigan. To the +South He gave sunny Virginia, the riches of the Gulf States, the +fruitful skies, the abundant rains, the treasures of the cotton, the +sugar and the rice. Above all, God sifted all the nations of the Old +World to find blood rich enough to people the Southern States. The men +who laid the foundations of the great South were people of a heroic +type, giants and heroes of fortitude. God brought the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> Huguenots, and +the very flower of French chivalry into Florida and Georgia. He sifted +all Scotland and North Ireland for outstanding men for South Carolina. +He took the best blood of England for Virginia. These Southern founders +and fathers had fought in France, endured for their convictions in +Scotland, conquered their enemies in England and North Ireland, and God +rewarded them with the richest, choicest meadows and valleys of the +sunny South. And yet Slavery wrought weakness, while Liberty made the +bleak North to blossom like the rose.</p> + +<p>It is said that plants exude poison from the roots, and soon destroy the +soil unless there is a rotation of crops. Slavery was a noxious plant, +deadlier than the nightshade, and it poisoned the South. The longer +slavery existed, the weaker the Southern giant became, until, toiling +on, the South became bankrupt through slavery, and toiling on, every +year of the war under free labour found the North growing ever richer +and stronger. Liberty is a giant that when it touches the soil renews +its strength.</p> + +<p>Oh, if the South had but had a better cause! History affords nothing +finer than the bravery of Southern soldiers and their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> leaders; had they +been fighting for liberty, or some great cause that would have supported +them during the struggle instead of bankrupting them as slavery did, it +is doubtful whether any army could have defeated their soldiers.</p> + +<p>In Liverpool Beecher literally fought with the lions of Ephesus. The +bill-boards were posted with placards in red type. All men in England +who had investments in the South and wanted to break Beecher and his +cause seemed to have assembled. From the moment he entered the room the +great audience became a mob, and with groans, hisses, cat-calls, +epithets, men interrupted the orator with cheers for the South. Speaking +was like lifting up one's voice in the midst of a hurricane, or trying +to speak while a typhoon was raging on the sea. For one hour the tumult +raged. From time to time the police would succeed in carrying out some +obstreperous individual but there were enough men scattered through the +hall, each bellowing like a bull of Bashan, to make hearing impossible. +To add to the tumult, from time to time, an Englishman would climb on +his chair and shout, "I am ashamed of Liverpool and my country," and the +con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>fusion would break out afresh. It took one hour to wear the voices +out. When Beecher told the reporters that he would speak slowly so they +could hear, and thus he could reach all England, the audience grew +quieter.</p> + +<p>Beecher urged three arguments,—first, that the national prosperity is +dependent upon the production of wealth, and this meant independence for +the producer; second, that prosperity depends upon manufacturing and +that means a high quality of educated workman; third, that prosperity is +dependent upon commerce and the exchange of commodities between nations, +and that means brotherhood. He urged that the more intelligent and +prosperous the workman, the higher his wage, and, therefore, the better +he supports as a buyer. A slave uses his feet and hands, and produces a +few cents a day. A poor white labourer uses his hands and his lower +head, and earns fifty cents a day. An intelligent Northern working man +uses his hands and his creative intellect, and he produces a dollar a +day. A highly educated worker becomes an inventor as well as a freeman, +and earns five dollars a day. With this wage he buys comforts, tools, +products of the loom, builds up manufactures, and promotes prosperity. +For that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> reason a few patricians only in the South buy in the English +market, while the millions of slaves demand from Sheffield only whips +and manacles. Therefore slavery starves English trade.—And at last +Liverpool heard him.</p> + +<p>In Exeter Hall in London, Beecher closed his argument: "Shall we let the +South go, and carry slavery with her? If a Northern working man has a +mad dog by the throat shall he let that animal go to spread death? +Letting the South go as a free nation is one thing, but letting her go +to spread slavery over Mexico and Central America is another thing. When +we kill the mad dog we will talk about letting the South go."</p> + +<p>Beecher returned home to find himself the hero of the hour. In Plymouth +Church, on Sunday morning, the audience stood for five minutes, and with +their tears and silence told him of their gratitude and love. From that +hour Stanton asked for his friendship, and was weekly and even daily in +correspondence. He promised Beecher that immediately upon the receipt of +any news from the battle-field he would send him a telegram. Indeed, the +first news that the country had from Stanton of one of the great +victories came to Beecher's pulpit and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> read over his desk. Other +great men, the President, secretaries, the generals, the statesmen, +editors, lecturers, preachers, did their part, but high among co-workers +ranks Henry Ward Beecher. God gave him a great task, and armed him for +the battle. He loved the poor, he broke the shackles from the slave, he +discovered to the world the love of God, and dying he flung his helmet +into the thick of the enemy. It is for us and our children to fight our +way forward to that helmet, and fling our own at last into some new +fight for the emancipation of the mind and heart of earth's troubled +millions.</p> + +<p>It must be confessed that the aristocracy of England and her upper +middle class, in the main, still sympathized with the South, while the +English cabinet tried to maintain neutrality. Four-fifths of the House +of Lords were "no well-wishers of anything American, and most of the +House of Commons voted in sympathy with the South."</p> + +<p>But the attitude of the "classes" of England was only the reflection of +her scholars. Carlyle, whose early books had no sale in England, and who +wrote Emerson that he had received his first money to keep him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> from +starvation from Boston and New York, "when not a penny had been realized +in England," had no sympathy with liberty and the North. As soon as his +own physical wants were supplied by the American check which Emerson +sent him, Carlyle began to call the war "a smoky chimney that had taken +fire." "No war ever waged in my time was to me more profoundly foolish +looking." (Slovenly English, contradictory thinking, and poor morals!) +"Neutral I am to a degree." Then Carlyle tried to sum up his view of the +situation: "Now speaks the Northern Peter to the Southern Paul: 'Paul, +you unaccountable scoundrel! I find you hire your servants for life, not +by the month or year as I do. You are going straight to hell.' Paul: +'Good words, Peter; the risk is my own. Hire you your servants by the +month or day, and go straight to heaven. Leave me to my own method.' +Peter: 'No, I won't. I will beat your brains out.' And he's trying +dreadfully ever since, but cannot quite manage it."</p> + +<p>No one knew better than Carlyle that there is a world diameter between +the South hiring a man for life, and by force holding him in slavery. +But Carlyle for three years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> poured out such vapid humbug, cant and +hypocrisy as this, and never once was sound in his thinking or fair in +his view-point during the entire war.</p> + +<p>Even Charles Dickens, who had written denouncing slavery in his +"American Notes," returned to England in the spring of 1863 to predict +the overwhelming victory of the South, and to characterize the hopes of +Lincoln as "a harmless hallucination." But little by little, English +sentiment began to change. Goldwin Smith, of Oxford University, +consented to speak at a meeting in Manchester to protest against the +building and sending out of piratical ships in support of the Southern +Confederacy. He affirmed boldly that "no nation ever inflicted upon +another more flagrant or more maddening wrong" [in permitting the +<i>Alabama</i> to escape]. No nation with English blood in its veins had ever +borne such a wrong without resentment.</p> + +<p>Richard Cobden wrote to Mr. Beecher as to the feeling in England: "In +every other instance ... the popular sympathy of this country has always +leaped to the side of the insurgents the moment a rebellion has broken +out. In the present case, our masses have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> an instinctive feeling that +their cause is bound up in the prosperity of the United States. It is +true that they have not much power in the direct form of a vote; but +when the millions of this country are led by the religious middle class +they can together prevent the government from pursuing a policy hostile +to their sympathies."</p> + +<p>When Beecher appeared and spoke, he aroused, intensified, unified, and +made effective this great underlying force of English popular feeling, +and the unfriendly purposes of the governmental and "upper-class" +element were paralyzed.</p> + +<p>Beecher himself was very modest about his achievement. Said he: "When in +October you go to a tree and give it a jar, and the fruit rains down all +about you, it is not you that ripened and sent down the fruit; the whole +summer has been doing that. It was my good fortune to be there when it +was needed that some one should jar the tree; the fruit was not of my +ripening."</p> + +<p>Beecher returned home in November of 1863, conscious that he had risked +everything in the service of his imperilled country. He found the entire +North had constituted itself a Committee of Reception to welcome him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> +home. A great public meeting was arranged in the Academy of Music in New +York, and the Music Hall was crowded from pit to dome with the leaders +of the city and of the North. Mr. Beecher entered the room at eight +o'clock, and the whole audience rose to its feet to greet him, but not +until many minutes had passed in tumultuous cheering did he have an +opportunity to speak. From that hour his influence in the country was +second only to that of the President, two or three members of his +cabinet, and General Grant. Abraham Lincoln wrote to Mr. Beecher words +of warmest gratitude and invited him to the White House. "Often and +often," wrote Secretary Stanton, "in the dark hours you have come to me, +and I have longed to hear your voice, feeling that above all other men +you could cheer, strengthen, quiet and uplift me in this great battle, +where by God's providence it has fallen upon me to hold a part, and +perform a duty beyond my own strength." When therefore Lee surrendered, +and the war came to a close, President Lincoln and the cabinet felt that +Beecher's service to the cause of liberty had earned for him the most +unique distinction granted to any man during the war. And so it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> came +about that four years after Beauregard fired upon Fort Sumter, and the +flag of the Union was lowered to give place to the flag of Secession, +that not a general nor an admiral, but that a minister, Henry Ward +Beecher, was selected to lift into its place again the old flag, that +proclaimed to all the nations of the earth that government of the +people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the +earth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>X</h2> + +<h3>HEROES OF BATTLE: AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND SAILORS</h3> + + +<p>One of the wariest and most capable of the Confederate commanders was +General Joseph E. Johnston. In his report of the battle of Kenesaw +Mountain in Northwestern Georgia, in June, 1864, when Sherman had at +last driven him to bay, he thus describes the attack and the repulse: +"The Federal troops pressed forward with the resolution always displayed +by the American soldier when properly led. After maintaining the contest +for three-quarters of an hour, they retired unsuccessful, because they +had encountered entrenched infantry, unsurpassed by that of Napoleon's +Old Guard, or that which followed Wellington into France, out of Spain."</p> + +<p>It would be difficult to find a more soldierly appreciation of both +officers and men of those two American armies. And in a recent +interesting book on Grant and Lee<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> is cited a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> remark of Charles +Francis Adams when American Minister to Great Britain in the early years +of our Civil War. Some one sarcastically asked him his opinion of the +Confederate victories of that time. He quietly replied, "I think they +have been won by my countrymen." In all those four strenuous years, +heroic qualities—enterprise, resolution, valour, self-control, exercise +of judgment amid dangers, endurance and fidelity in disaster—were +plentifully developed throughout both parties of the then divided +American people. The lonely picket-duty, the toilsome march, the endless +duties of the soldier, were a constant drain upon enduring faithfulness, +harder to bear, often, than the crashing excitement of the battle, while +the deadly suffering of camp and hospital were at times easily worse +than all.</p> + +<p>Most fascinating the story of the leaders of the two armies. The career +of two preëminent military leaders of the South, Lee and Jackson, has +already been reviewed—cursorily, as must be the case in all the +references to example—and we have noted them especially as to +character. But it should be said further that in the opinion of military +critics and soldiers, both American and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>eign, Robert E. Lee was one +of the most masterly strategists in warlike annals. In his defense of +Richmond as the vital point of the Confederacy he did have the advantage +of operating on interior lines; but when that is said all is said, for +in numbers of men, equipment and military resources, he was always more +meagrely supplied than his Federal opponents. His available means were +mostly in his fertile brain, his prompt judgment, and his dauntless +heart, together with the spirited support of his officers and the +indomitable marching and fighting energy of his soldiers. The intense +and tireless Jackson was indeed the chief's "right arm," and more than +that, a keen intelligence, instant to see and seize the right way, and +to follow it so swiftly that his rarely defeated infantry earned the +proud nickname of "foot-cavalry."</p> + +<p>Out of the many gallant officers of the Southern armies were some others +whose names became familiar throughout the North. Among them were: +Generals Pierre G. T. Beauregard, prominent in service from Bull Run to +the end; the brilliant Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at Pittsburg +Landing in 1862; J. E. B. Stuart, renowned as a fearless cavalry +officer; James Longstreet, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> leader of great distinction; the two +Hills—Daniel H. and Ambrose P., both renowned fighters, the latter +immortalized by Stonewall Jackson's last words, "A. P. Hill, prepare for +action!" Another was Richard S. Ewell—not, like all the foregoing, a +West Point graduate, with training and notable service in United States +armies and wars, but, like many Federal generals, a volunteer, who +achieved high rank by efficient activity.</p> + +<p>In naval affairs, naturally, the South had little chance to show her +mettle, having neither navy-yards nor navy, and all her ports being +blockaded. The chief attempts on the water were the iron-plated ram +<i>Merrimac</i>, commanded by Commodore Franklin Buchanan, which after +sinking several wooden men-of-war in Hampton Roads was defeated by the +new iron-turreted <i>Monitor</i> under Lieutenant (later Admiral) John L. +Worden; the iron-clad ram <i>Albemarle</i>, which damaged Northern shipping +until blown up by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. Navy, in a daring +personal adventure; and the British built, equipped and manned +<i>Alabama</i>, under Commodore Raphael Semmes of the Confederacy, which +destroyed millions of dollars in Northern ships on the high seas in +1862-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>1864, until sunk by the war-steamer <i>Kearsarge</i> under Captain +(later Admiral) John A. Winslow, off Cherbourg, in June, 1864.</p> + +<p>The principal naval activities of the Federals during the war were in +the reduction of fortified places on land in cooperation with the +armies, and in blockading ports of the South to keep in their cotton and +to keep out foreign supplies. One of the earliest feats was the +effective use by Captain Andrew H. Foote in February, 1862, of the +gunboats built in 1861 by Frémont for river warfare, when Foote daringly +shelled Forts Donelson and Henry on the Cumberland River, enabling Grant +to attack and summon them to "unconditional surrender." And on the long +seaboard, the North soon had a line of battle-ships stretching from Cape +Hatteras around to Florida, New Orleans and the further coast of Texas. +Besides its few original war-ships, out of coasters, steamers and old +junk the Navy Department constructed a fleet. But it was the man behind +the gun who maintained the blockade, starved the Confederacy, and +cleared the Mississippi River.</p> + +<p>The story of men like Farragut and his boys is like a chapter out of a +wonder book.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> In April, 1862, with a fleet of wooden frigates, +mortar-schooners, and half-protected boats he entered the mouth of the +Mississippi below New Orleans. The bottom of the river bristled with +torpedoes—kegs filled with powder, and surrounded with long prongs that +rested upon percussion caps. When a ship struck a prong it exploded the +cap and the powder, and again and again a boat went to the bottom. The +forts that protected the Mississippi thirty miles below the city were +sheathed with sand bags, and mounted a hundred guns; while a boom of +logs and chains crossed the river, and a fleet of fifteen vessels +including an armed ram and a floating battery were there to dispute +further progress. But Farragut lashed himself into the rigging of his +flag-ship, and his fleet stormed the passage, raked with chains and +shell. From the 18th to the 25th of April, a battle royal was waged with +splendid valour on both sides; but the forts were passed, the boom was +broken, the defensive fleet defeated, and Farragut had won New Orleans. +Farragut, David D. Porter and other heroes had their full share of war +and of glory not only here but later in Mobile Bay, and in 1863 with +Grant and Sherman at Vicksburg,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> and at Port Hudson on the Mississippi, +and Porter at Fort Fisher in December, 1864-January, 1865. Of absolute +maritime warfare there was none, except Winslow's sinking of the +<i>Alabama</i>, but in all the river and harbour fighting, against both +fleets and forts, there was endless demand for intrepidity, ingenuity, +large intelligence, and heroism—demands never failing of response.</p> + +<p>The greatest soldiers of the North were McClellan, Sherman, Thomas and +Sheridan, and, towering above all, Grant. We may not linger in detail +upon them all, and can but mention George H. Thomas, the "Rock of +Chickamauga," stern as war, firm as granite, the bravest of knights; +William T. Sherman, audacious, fertile, perhaps the most brilliant of +them all; and Philip H. Sheridan, an organized thunder-storm, with the +swiftness of the war eagle, impetuous, loving adventure, the idol of his +men.</p> + +<p>If at last Grant was the brain of the army, Sherman was, like Jackson to +Lee, its "right arm." From the beginning of his military career, Sherman +won the admiration and confidence of the government and the people of +the North. He achieved honours at Vicksburg, and from that hour on to +his victory at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> Atlanta and his march to the sea, his name and fame +steadily increased. His victories were won, not only by enthusiasm and +brilliancy, but by a mastery in advance of all the facts in the case. +His knowledge was microscopic, to the last degree, as to the roads, +bridges, and resources of the country through which he was marching. On +approaching Atlanta he came to a region through which he had ridden on +horseback twenty years before. That night in his tent, his guides, spies +and advance scouts spread out their maps before Sherman, and to the +astonishment of all, the soldier corrected and amplified them. It seemed +that a score of years before he had formed the habit of making a +detailed study of each region through which he travelled, and of working +out campaigns of attack and defense. His old notes were so accurate as +to prove the basis of an actual campaign for a great army. His contest +with Johnston represented what has been called an inch by inch struggle, +and although Sherman was victorious, when he passed away, the aged +Southern soldier, Johnston, made the long journey to New York to act as +pall-bearer and to testify to the splendid qualities of his great +opponent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was Grant himself who called Sheridan "the left arm of the Union." By +universal consent "little Phil" was the most brilliant campaigner of the +group of soldiers of the first class. The story of his victory at +Winchester captured the imagination of the North. The poem describing +that achievement became the most popular poem of the year, and was +recited by all the schoolboys on Friday afternoons, and quoted by all +the politicians on the platform. The North had suffered so many defeats +in the Shenandoah Valley that Sheridan's victory put new heart into the +Union forces, and helped unite the Republican party, making certain the +election of Lincoln.</p> + +<p>Indeed, a great German soldier once expressed the judgment that Sheridan +ranked not only with Grant, but with the greatest soldiers of all time.</p> + +<p>The work of George H. McClellan was the work of the pioneer and +pathfinder. It is one thing to take a sword, a Damascus blade, and use +it in leadership, and quite another thing to take raw metal and on the +anvil hammer out the blade for a hero's hand. McClellan made the sword; +Grant used it. There is a pathetic passage in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> Dante's "Vita Nuova": "It +is easier to sing a song than to create a harp." Dante meant that he had +to create the Italian language before he could write the "Paradiso." Now +McClellan's task was to create an army. He took a body of raw recruits +and drilled them; he organized a system of supplies and built up a +purchasing, transporting and storing department; he tested out all the +guns, the cannons, powder and explosives; he compacted a body of +engineers, weeding out poor ones and educating good ones; he took +officers who at the beginning had their appointments through political +influence and trained them until he had a body of men well knit +together.</p> + +<p>But McClellan had to contend with jealousy and insubordination. He was a +commander early in the war, and he had competitors and detractors. It +was charged against him that he was more anxious to make than to use a +splendid army, and possibly his ideals of efficiency were too high for +those early days. Yet "Little Mac" was idolized by his soldiers, with +whom he fought and won bloody battles, and even the indeterminate ones +are held in doubt as to his responsibility. Had Hooker obeyed his +command, and crossed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> the bridge at Antietam and occupied the heights +beyond, soldiers think to-day that Lee would have been crushed. Another +fact was against him. The North was not ready to behold nor strong +enough to endure the slaughter to which later on they became accustomed. +After one of McClellan's first campaigns, Burnside wrote home that +McClellan could have fought his way to Richmond, but it would have cost +ten thousand men, and that would have been butchery. Later on, Grant, in +a single brief campaign, lost twenty-five thousand men! But if Grant had +suffered such losses in 1861 or 1862, he would have been dropped by +Washington as unfitted for a military campaign.</p> + +<p>History will rank Grant as the foremost soldier of the Republic. His +story is full of romance. He was of Scotch Covenanter stock that settled +in New England, and made its way to Ohio and Illinois. Like all the most +successful generals on both sides in our Civil War, he was a graduate of +West Point, showed talent in mathematics and engineering, and made an +honourable name in the Mexican War. Scott praised him for his work as +quartermaster and officer. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> two maps that Grant made by questioning +ranchmen and farmers as he went through Texas, and the information he +collected from men who had been in and knew the roads and resources of +Mexico, were later on invaluable. Grant was in every Mexican battle save +one.</p> + +<p>Fort Sumter fell on April 14, 1861. On the 15th Lincoln called for +75,000 troops. On the 19th Grant organized a little company in +Springfield, Illinois. Two days later Governor Yates made him colonel. +On the 31st of July he was in command at Mexico, Missouri. On the 7th of +August his victory at Columbus won him the rank of brigadier-general. On +the 10th of February, 1862, he was made major-general; on the 23d of +March, 1864, he was made lieutenant-general of the armies of the United +States. It was one long uninterrupted series of victories, for it has +been said that it will never be known if Grant could conduct a retreat, +because he never was defeated. From the beginning his supreme qualities +as a military commander were fully evidenced.</p> + +<p>Columbus was called the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. Halleck had +ordered Grant to feel the strength of the enemy. But Grant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> was +resourceful, fertile in expedients, a believer in offensive tactics. +Hurling his forces upon Columbus, he won a signal victory. At Fort +Donelson, Grant showed his iron endurance and untiring patience. When it +came to the critical hour of the assault, a cold sleet-storm fell upon +his army; the ground was a sheet of glass, the trees encased in ice. +Grant himself spent half the night under a tree, standing upright, +receiving reports and working out his plans. When a spy brought word +that the Confederates had packed their knapsacks with three days' +rations, Grant said: "They are preparing to retreat; we must assault the +works," and, despite the storm, made an immediate attack. When Halleck +received the news of the fall of Fort Donelson, in announcing the +victory to Washington he did not even mention the name of Grant, but +asked Lincoln to promote Smith, a subordinate commander.</p> + +<p>Later, in 1863, after months of siege by river and by land, came the +capture of Vicksburg, coincident with the Battle of Gettysburg, that was +the high-water mark of the war. The announcement of these two victories, +on July 4, 1863, intoxicated the North with joy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<p>By this time Grant's name was upon all lips, and he stood forth the one +general fitted for command of all the armies—in the West, in the South, +and on the Potomac. Just as some men have the gift of inventing, the +gift of singing, the gift of carving, so Grant had the gift of strategy. +One glance, and Grant had the whole situation in hand—the weak points +to be attacked, the weak points of his own position to be safeguarded, +the danger point for the enemy. Obedient himself, he expected instant +obedience from others. Willing to risk his own life, he expected the +same self-sacrifice on the part of his fellow officers. One biographer +calls him "a master quartermaster," telling us that he knew how to feed +and supply an army. Another calls Grant a great drillmaster, exhibiting +him as the teacher of his own generals. Another terms Grant a natural +engineer, with great gifts, but without detailed training. Another +speaks of him as the greatest soldier in history in the way of attack. +But when all these statements are combined, they tell us that Grant is +the great, all-round soldier of the war, who by natural gifts and long +experience could do many things, and all equally well. It is this that +explains the tributes to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> military genius by foreign soldiers, and +the great masters of war in every land.</p> + +<p>Grant's last campaign was against the capital of the Southern +Confederacy, as the key to the Atlantic coast, for until Richmond should +be taken and the Confederate government put to flight, the war would not +be broken. Therefore Grant concentrated all his forces upon that:—"I +will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." In those awful +campaigns Grant came to be called "the butcher," for he was as pitiless +as fate, as unyielding as death. One outpost after another fell; one +Southern regiment after another surrendered. Battles became mere +slaughter-pits. Men went down like forest leaves; the army surgeons, at +the spectacle, grew sick; it seemed more like murder than war. The +Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Chickahominy, Petersburg, were names to make +one shudder. But Lee would not yield, and Grant had one watchword, +"Unconditional surrender."</p> + +<p>At last, without food, without equipment, without arms, Southern +soldiers began to desert by thousands. Lee's army was reduced, his +supplies were cut off, his retreat to the mountains and any chance of +joining with Johnston from the Carolinas were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> blocked. Grant demanded +surrender to save further bloodshed.</p> + +<p>On the morning of April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee met in peace conference. +Grant had on an old suit splashed with mud, and was without his sword; +Lee wore a splendid new uniform that had just been sent by admirers in +Baltimore. Lee asked upon what terms Grant would receive the surrender. +Grant answered that officers and men "Shall not hereafter serve in the +armies of the Confederate States or in any military capacity against the +United States of America, or render aid to the enemies of the latter, +until properly exchanged,"—all being then freed on parole. The horses +of the cavalry were the property of the men. And Grant said: "I know +that men—and indeed the whole South—are impoverished; I will instruct +my officers to allow the men to retain their horses and take them home +to work their little farms." Lee's final request was for rations for his +starving men. Grant and Lee shook hands, after which the Virginian +mounted his horse and rode off to his army. The Confederates met their +beloved general with tumultuous shouts. With eyes swimming in tears, Lee +said, in substance: "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> have done what I thought to be best and what I +thought was right; go back to your homes, conduct yourselves like good +citizens and you will not be molested."</p> + +<p>When certain Northern soldiers were preparing to fire salutes to +celebrate the victory, Grant stopped the demonstration. "The best sign +of rejoicing after victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in +the field." All men in the North felt that the fall of Lee's army meant +the fall of the Confederacy. Indeed, it did practically end the war. The +final sheaf of victory is reaped when the commander, at the head of his +troops, marches into the enemy's capital and makes the palace of his foe +to shelter his own horses. The whole South expected Grant to lead his +Army of the Potomac into Richmond. But Grant remembered Lee's sorrow, +and had no desire for a dramatic triumph. He sent a subordinate to +occupy Richmond, and quietly began the work of disbanding the army. +Sending his regiments back to the fields and factories, he said, "Let us +have peace." From that sentiment issued the new South and the new North.</p> + +<p>But the man who had fought the war through to a successful issue became +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> most beloved man in the North, and soon the people bore him to the +White House. The task was one for a giant. Four million slaves, newly +emancipated, had to be cared for. Their fidelity to the families of +their absent masters during the war was beautiful; while, towards the +end of the strife, the enrollment and gallant fighting of 150,000 +coloured men (Northern and Southern) in the Federal armies showed their +manfulness. And now their Southern millions were free. They had the +suffrage, but could not read the names of the men for whom they were +voting. They were free men, but they had no land, no plough, no cabin, +no anything. Pitiful their plight! In retrospect, no race has ever made +such wonderful progress in fifty years. With President Eliot we may say +that "their industrial achievements are the wonder of the world."</p> + +<p>The second task that confronted President Grant was the reconstruction +of the South. It was the era of the carpet-bagger. Northern regiments +dwelt in Southern cities. Men were talking about hanging Jefferson +Davis, and trying to decide whether or not the Confederate soldiers and +officers should receive again the suffrage. Designing whites and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +ignorant coloured men gained control of legislatures. Corruption was +rife. The whole South was prostrated. Ten thousand questions arose in +Congress, bewildering, intricate, and the whole land was divided in +opinion as to the proper courses. Finally, all the Confederate officers, +saving perhaps Jefferson Davis alone, and some who refused to accept, +received again their political rights at the hands of the magnanimous +North. Slowly chaos became cosmos.</p> + +<p>Scarcely less heavy were the financial troubles of Grant's +administration. An era of war is an era of extravagance. When hard times +came, men were tempted by the dreams of cheap money, and the greenback +craze was abroad. But Grant stood for honest money, and attacked lying +measures with the zeal of a Hebrew prophet.</p> + +<p>After two presidential terms came two years of foreign travel (1877-79), +and wherever the great soldier went he exhibited his confidence in +democracy, his interest in the working people and the poor. He returned +home to receive such an ovation as no American citizen has ever had. Six +years of private life were followed by a financial disaster that +threatened to destroy his good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> name itself. Grant was one who made +ill-advised haste to become rich. Scandalized by the deceit and +impoverished by the failure of men he had trusted as partners, the great +soldier was now assaulted by worry and fear. Our best physicians believe +that fear, whether related to property or the loss of name, or grievous +disappointment, is in some way related to cancer. And within a few +months after that awful wreckage, Grant knew that his life was coming to +an end.</p> + +<p>The soldier became an author. Stricken with death, in the hope of +safeguarding his family against poverty Grant decided to write his +memoirs. It was an astonishing literary achievement. His style is simple +as sunshine. Grant knew what he wanted to say, said it, and had done. +Yet all the time a shadow was falling upon the page,—the shadow made by +the messenger of death, who stood by Grant's shoulder, ready to claim +his own. Slowly the soldier wrote the story of his youth, his campaigns +in the West, his battles in the Wilderness, while every day the hand +grew feebler.</p> + +<p>Reared in a religious atmosphere, Grant's nature was essentially moral +and religious. He possessed all the big essential virtues<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>—honesty, +justice, truth, honour, good will. He loved the truth. He felt that he +had done what he could. Southern soldiers and generals as well as +Northern comrades and friends brought to his bedside messages of +affection and good cheer. At length he fell asleep. His tomb on the +height above the Hudson has become a Mecca for innumerable multitudes.</p> + +<p>To the end of time, perhaps, Lincoln will be remembered as the Martyr +President, the best loved of all our leaders, the great Emancipator, the +gentlest memory of our world; but side by side with Lincoln will stand +Grant, the man of oak and rock, the man of iron will, who fought the war +to a successful issue, and will be known in history as the greatest +soldier of the Republic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>XI</h2> + +<h3>THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE AT HOME WHO SUPPORTED THE SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT</h3> + + +<p>It is a proverb that nothing moves men like tales of eloquence and +heroism. Historians and poets alike believe that stories of bravery and +anecdotes of heroes exert a profound influence upon young hearts. Here +is Socrates. His judges condemn him to the jail and poison. Socrates +quails not, and says: "At what price would one not estimate one night of +noble conference with Homer and Hesiod? You, my judges, go home to your +banquets—I to hemlock and death; but whether it is better for you than +for me, God knoweth." It is a moving story. Here is the early missionary +martyr, fettered and brought before a cruel tyrant, to be condemned to +death. The missionary lifts his chains, calls the roll of the king's +crimes, flashes the sword of justice, coerces the monarch from his +throne, makes him crawl, beg, plead, and beseech the missionary's pity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +and prayers, for speech has made a prisoner king, and turned a monarch +into a captive. It is a moving tale. And here are the stories of war: +Xenophon's ten thousand young Greeks, lost in the heart of the great +nation, a thousand miles from home, without maps, without food, +outnumbered daily ten to one, living off the country, fighting all day, +surrounded by a fresh army each night, steadily pursuing their famous +retreat. See, too, the handful at Thermopylæ, defending the Pass, and +every one of them giving his life. And here are the Dutch, driven by the +Bloody Alva into the North Sea, clinging to the dykes by their +finger-tips, and fighting their way back to their homes and altars. And +here are the American boys confined to the prison ship, the <i>Jersey</i>, +starved victims of scurvy and fever, without food, without medicine, +with the corpses of their brothers floating in the water just outside, +boys whose monument stands yonder in Fort Greene. What a tale of +martyrdom is theirs!</p> + +<p>Yet the history of heroism holds no more thrilling story than that of +the soldiers of our Civil War. Every other passage, every other +incident, that we have passed in review can be more than duplicated by +soldier boys who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> have lent new meaning to patriotism and martyrdom. As +many men died in Southern prisons as fell on both sides at the battle of +Gettysburg. This is their story—they counted life not dear unto +themselves; they struggled unto blood, striving against oppression, and +the world itself, with all its beauty, was not worthy of them.</p> + +<p>Our prosperous generation, threatened with effeminacy and softness, +needs to re-open the pages of history and to linger long upon the +portraits of our heroic leaders. Theirs was the greatest war that ever +shook the earth. A million Northern men, and over against them a million +Southern men, and a battle line a thousand miles in length! Including +the long-term men and the short-term service, 3,000,000 men engaged in +the conflict! Two thousand two hundred and sixty-one battles fought—if +we mention conflicts in which there were more than five hundred engaged +on each side. When Lee surrendered, his land was desolate. Armies upon +armies of cripples came home to suffer! There were a million widows and +over three million orphan children! Men who at Lincoln's call for troops +left the college and the university discovered, when it was all over,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> +that it was too late to take up their studies, and lived on like +unfulfilled prophecies. Others, who during those four years poured out +all the vital nerve forces, brought so little strength out of the long, +bitter struggle that they might better have died, and for years have +been in the invalid's chair, looking with wistful eyes on the great +procession of society moving on to industrial victories! The war all +over? The war has been continued in its influences throughout the entire +generation! It never will be over until the last cripple has dropped his +maimed body, until the last child, robbed of a dead father's care, has +recovered his losses, and the last woman who has lived alone through the +years has found her beloved!</p> + +<p>The courage and endurance of the Southern women, who took full charge of +the cotton plantations and helped support Lee's army, stirs the sense of +wonder. There were many Northern women who had no relatives at the +front, but there was scarcely a Southern home where the father, husband +or sons were not on the battle line. For that reason the Southern women +were always in a state of suspense. Homes were entirely broken up during +the four years. The men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> were at the front, and all the women were +either at work at home or were in the hospitals as nurses. During 1862 +and 1863 practically every church in Richmond was a hospital, and there +were twenty-five other buildings used by surgeons. Physicians had no +morphine and no quinine. For coffee they used parched corn. Tea rose to +$500 a pound. For sugar they steeped watermelon rind. For soda these +women burned corncobs and mixed the ashes with their corn-meal. They had +neither ice nor salt. They tore up their ingrain carpets to make +trousers for the soldiers. Women wore coarse hemp and calico. Having no +leather, one little factory turned out five hundred pairs of wooden +shoes a month in Richmond.</p> + +<p>When Lee needed bullets, a minister tore the lead pipe out of his house +in Richmond to send the lead to Lee. Flour rose to $400 a barrel. In one +little town iron became so scarce that tenpenny nails were used for +money. No tale more pitiful than that of the women who took charge of +the slaves on the plantation, comforted their little children, buried +their dead, smiled, wept, prayed, worked, compelled their lips to +silence, staggered on, groaned inly while they taught men peace,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> and +died while others were smiling. Whether or not men are made in the image +of God, these women certainly were. And it was because they believed +with all their mind and soul that independence for the State was the +sovereign gift of God; and they died for independence, just as the boys +in blue lived and died for the Union.</p> + +<p>It was this moral earnestness and intensity of conviction that made the +war so terrible. When England hired Hessians to fight Washington's +troops, and they fought for so much a week, the hired soldiers were slow +to begin attack and quick to retreat. Mercenaries have to be scourged +into battle. Stonewall Jackson's men believed in their cause and +thirsted for the excitement of the attack and onslaught. And yet all the +time the two opposing armies maintained mutual respect and even +developed a new sense of brotherhood as the desperate struggle went on. +Never was there a war carried on with such intensity by day and such a +sense of mutual respect at night. Once when the Rappahannock separated +the two armies, and it was evident that there was no campaign beyond, a +revival broke out in one of Stonewall Jackson's regiments and there were +prayer-meet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>ings in almost every tent every night. Becoming acquainted, +a number of boys in blue by previous arrangement crossed the river, and +knelt in the prayer service. One night the sound of the regiments +singing, "Nearer My God to Thee," rolled through the air across the +river, and finally the boys in the Northern army joined in, until at the +last verse, the two regiments, opposed in arms, were one in voice and +heart, as they poured out their souls to God in the old hymn they had +learned at their mother's knee. For the soldier knew that any moment a +shot might bring the end.</p> + +<p>The sufferings of men in prisons touch the note of horror. The national +government is planning a monument for those who died in Andersonville. +Gettysburg slew 26,000, Andersonville 32,000. The stockade included +twenty-six acres, but three acres were marsh. Incredible as it may seem, +there was no shelter, no beds, no cook-house, no hospital, no nothing. +Just the cold rain in winter chilling men to death, just the pitiless +glare of the August sun scorching them to death. There was no +sanitation, and when it rained the little stream backed up the sewage, +and after each shower men died by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> scores. Wirtz wrote Jefferson Davis +that one-fifth of the meal was bran, and that he had no meat, no +medicine, no clothing. Men burrowed in the ground, dug caves like rats, +and not infrequently fifty bodies were carried out in a single day. +Wirtz destroyed men faster than did General Lee. The men imprisoned in +Andersonville urge that there were thousands of cords of wood just +outside the stockade, miles upon miles of forests all about, that the +prisoners could have built their own shanties and hospitals, and +cookhouses. To which Wirtz's friends answer that he did not have weapons +or Confederate soldiers enough to guard the prisoners on parole. While +they also answer that the prisoners in Andersonville had as much food +and the same kind as Lee's army was then enjoying. The plain fact is +that the South was out of medicine, clothing and food, and was itself on +the edge of starvation.</p> + +<p>The wonderful thing is that these Union boys, 32,000 of them, who died +at Andersonville, could at any moment have obtained release by taking +the oath not to renew arms against the South. Some few did escape by +digging under the stockade—but what perils they endured to escape from +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> enemy's country! They slept in leaves by day, and travelled by +night. They were pursued by bloodhounds, lay in water and swamps, with +only their lips above the filth until the peril had passed by. They wore +rags, ate roots, shivered in the rains, sweltered in the heat, grew more +emaciated, until more dead than alive they reached the Northern lines.</p> + +<p>Now that it is all over, Confederate soldiers like General John B. +Gordon have said on a hundred lecture platforms in Northern cities that, +having done what he could for States' rights and to destroy the Union, +he thanked God above all things else that he was not successful. In the +spirit of Abraham Lincoln, that great Southern soldier wrote the last +words of his life, in the hope that they would help cement the Union +between the North and the South:—"The issues that divided the sections +were born when the Republic was born, and were forever buried in an +ocean of fraternal blood. We shall then see that, under God's +providence, every sheet of flame from the blazing rifles of the +contending armies, every whizzing shell that tore through the forests at +Shiloh and Chancellorsville, every cannon shot that shook Chick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>amauga's +hills or thundered around the heights of Gettysburg, and all the blood +and the tears that were shed are yet to become contributions for the +upbuilding of American manhood and for the future defense of American +freedom. The Christian Church received its baptism of pentecostal power +as it emerged from the shadows of Calvary, and went forth to its +world-wide work with greater unity and a diviner purpose. So the +Republic, rising from its baptism of blood with a national life more +robust, a national union more complete, and a national influence ever +widening, shall go forever forward in its benign mission to humanity."</p> + +<p>Nor must we forget the work of nurses, the members of the Sanitary +Commission, and the Christian Commission Movement. The events of the +Russian-Japanese war show what is a wonderful progress of science. Japan +sent along with her army experts on the water, the food, and the placing +of tents, that made typhoid, cholera and the usual diseases impossible. +Her surgeons used antiseptic methods, and gangrene was practically +unknown in the Japanese hospitals. But the situation was different in +1861. Modern sanitation, surgery, antiseptic meth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>ods, chloroform and +ether are comparatively recent discoveries. Such anesthetics as the +surgeons had were poor in quality and insufficient in quantity. In the +camps fever was prevalent. Smallpox, measles and lesser diseases became +malignant and wrought terrible ravages. Tents became more dangerous than +battle-fields. What the bullet began, the hospitals completed. More men +died through disease than through leaden hail. But the noble army of +physicians and nurses wrought wonders. Think of it! Twenty-six thousand +men dead or dying on the field of Gettysburg!</p> + +<p>Here is a page torn from the journal of one of the nurses there: "We +begin the day with the wounded and sick by washing and freshening them. +Then the surgeons and dressers make their rounds, open the wounds, apply +the remedies and replace the bandages. This is the awful hour. I put my +fingers in my ears this morning. When it is over we go back to the men +and put the ward in order once more, remaking the beds and giving clean +handkerchiefs with a little cologne or bay water upon them, so prized in +the sickening atmosphere of wounds. Then we keep going round and round, +wetting the bandages, going from cot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> to cot almost without stopping, +giving medicine and brandy according to orders. I am astonished at the +whole-souled and whole-bodied devotion of the surgeons. Men in every +condition of horror, shattered and shrieking, are brought in on +stretchers and dumped down anywhere." Men shattered in the thigh, and +even cases of amputation were shovelled into berths without blanket, +without thought or mercy. It could not have been otherwise. Other +hundreds and thousands were out on the field of Gettysburg bleeding to +death, and every minute was precious.</p> + +<p>No page can ever describe the service of nurses, sisters of mercy, +chaplains, brave men and kind women, who took train and went to the +front upon news of the battle and remained there for weeks.</p> + +<p>But while the soldier boys were striving unto blood for their +convictions, what about the people at home who loved them? How did they +carry their burdens and fulfill their task that was not less important? +Fortunately, during the war, the North was blessed with four bountiful +harvests that were rich enough, not only to support the people at home, +and the soldiers at the front,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> but also to furnish an excess of food +that could be sold abroad to obtain money with which to help support the +war. It seemed as if the sun, the rain, and the soil had entered into a +conspiracy to support the North and liberty. The largest crop of wheat +and corn ever garnered before the war was in 1859. At that time, men +thought the harvest would never be surpassed. But strangely enough, that +bumper crop of 1859 was surpassed four times in succession during the +Civil War. Meanwhile the herds of cattle and the flocks of sheep more +than doubled during the conflict, and all of the land that was not +yellow with grain became a rich pasture and meadow, covered with cattle, +sheep and horses.</p> + +<p>Even the losses of sugar and cotton usually purchased from the South +were made up to the North. Threatened with the loss of the Southern +sugar, sorghum cane was imported from China, and the people scarcely +missed the Southern sugar. When the cotton failed, the unwonted increase +of the flocks furnished wool for raiment. It stirs wonder to reflect +that one poor crop of wheat and corn might have changed the issue, and +defeated the North. Singularly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> enough also, the failure of crops in +Europe not only offered a market for the unexpected Northern surplus, +but yielded the highest price ever known, thus bringing in a golden +river to enrich the Northern people. Jefferson Davis had said at the +beginning of the war that "grass would soon be growing not simply in the +streets of the villages of the North, but in Broadway and Wall Street." +Davis believed that the withdrawal of every fourth man would make our +problem of food and clothing impossible of solution. But at that moment +the invention of the reaper enabled one harvester to do the work of ten +men, and the new tools actually more than took the place of the Northern +soldiers who were at the front.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice descended upon +the Northern women. On the little farms where the farmer's wife was too +poor to buy a reaper, the mother and the daughters went into the field +to plough the corn and thrash the wheat and milk the cows. In many +counties in Iowa and Kansas one-half of the men were at the front, and +in harvest time it is said that there were more women working in the +wheat and corn fields than men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>One other element fought for liberty and the North. A strange unrest +fell upon Europe. Foreign peoples became discontented and began to +migrate. In the summer of 1862 a vast multitude landed upon the shores +in New York, at the very time when there was a scarcity of labour in the +shops and factories. At the very hour when Lincoln was afraid that it +might become impossible to clothe the army and equip it, the providence +of God raised up foreigners who stepped into the place made vacant by +the newly enlisted soldier; thereafter the North throughout the war +actually increased in population, in wealth, in manufacturing interests. +The Civil War ended with the North richer and more prosperous than when +it began; while in 1861 slavery had impoverished the South, and war left +the Confederacy crushed to the very earth, peeled and stripped, famished +and utterly broken. For the South never yielded until she had cast in +the last earthly possession, and knew that only life and breath were +left.</p> + +<p>Despite the abundant harvests, during the early part of the war the +Northern people passed through gloom, anxiety and bitter disappointment. +At first the colleges and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> universities were empty, because the students +had all gone to the front, but the common schools were as full as usual. +The churches were better attended than formerly, while the newspapers +were more widely read than ever before. The crisis sobered the people. +The serious note was manifest. One by one luxuries were given up, +amusements seemed paltry, and people forgot their usual diversions. +After Bull Run came a succession of calamities. Longfellow writes: +"Sumner came to dine last night, but the evening was most gloomy, and +all went away in tears." Governor Morton of Indiana wrote Lincoln, +"Another three months like the last six, and we are lost." Robert +Winthrop of Boston came down to New York, and spoke of three scenes that +he had witnessed. The first was a group of soldiers on their way home, +in charge of friends, some crippled, some emaciated, gaunt and broken, +and the rest carried on stretchers. At another station he saw a group of +young soldiers, intelligent, athletic and sturdy, climbing on the car to +start to the front, but on the platform was a group of pale-cheeked and +weeping women, wives, mothers and sweethearts. "Oh, it was terrible! It +is all black, black, black!" said Winthrop.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + +<p>But after the battle of Gettysburg, the high-water mark of the war, +men's spirits began to rise. The North became inured to excitement. The +emotion was converted into hard work and endurance, and that dogged +determination to produce the raiment, the weapons and the food to +support the army, or die in the attempt. Depositors took risks and +loaned their money to the banks. Bankers took their courage in their +hands and loaned the money to the manufacturers; manufacturers +advertised for labour in Europe and started up their factories by night +as well as by day. Wages rose, the balance of trade was largely in +favour of the North, the oil regions began to prosper, and industry, +commerce and finance all waxed mighty. In 1864 the whole land was in the +full sweep of industrial prosperity. The debts incident to the panic of +1857 were fully liquidated. Iron is the barometer, and the country +doubled its consumption of iron. An editor writing of his city says, +"Old Hartford seems fat and rich and cozy, and everything is as tranquil +as if there were no war."</p> + +<p>But the industrial conditions of life in the South were very different. +Be it remem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>bered that the North was a self-supporting region, both as +to foods and manufactured articles, while the South, under slavery, +produced raw material, and used that raw stuff to build up factories in +England. When the war came the South found herself without the means of +supplying her own wants. Within six months the South discovered that +every axe and saw and steam-engine and iron rail and bolt and nail had +come from the North. Davis sent out men to scurry the country for old +stoves and every iron scrap was picked up to be melted into weapons. At +the close of the war tenpenny nails were used as five-cent pieces and +currency in North Carolina. To crown all other disasters came the +debasement of the currency. Macaulay says that the world has suffered +less from bad kings than from bad shillings and sixpences. The +Confederacy issued one billion dollars of paper money, States issued +another flood of promises to pay, cities put out municipal currency, +fire and life insurances their shin-plasters, and they kept pouring out +paper money until finally all the printing presses broke down. A month +before the collapse, a Confederate soldier, returning to his little +cabin, paid $10,000 for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> a fifteen-year-old mule, knee sprung in front +and spavined behind, and $7,500 for the shoes for shoeing the mule.</p> + +<p>Lee's army would have collapsed but for the marvellous heroism, +resourcefulness and courage of the Southern women. They took charge of +the fields, planted the crops, gathered the harvests, and staggered on +to the end. Not one Northern home in five was death-stricken through the +war, but practically every Southern home had lost one or two members of +the family, through father, son or brother.</p> + +<p>Nor must we forget what Lee owed to the fidelity of the negroes. Instead +of insurrection, arson, pillage and murder in Southern towns and old +homesteads, the Southern slave remained true to his mistress, and was +the very soul of fidelity. Yet when the war was over, the town had +become a wilderness, the plantation a desolation, and where there had +been prosperity and even luxury, famine and want and disease had set up +their abiding places. Verily secession sowed the wind and reaped the +whirlwind of destruction.</p> + +<p>That the war influenced some people for good and influenced others for +evil is beyond all doubt. During the first two years it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> a distinct +tonic to the intellect and conscience of the people. The sense of +national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak +drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, +made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note +of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness in a generation is the note of +seriousness. In the middle of 1863 James Russell Lowell wrote Bancroft +that the war had been a great, a divine and a wholly unmixed blessing, +and that all of the people were exalted to new levels. Had the war +ceased with the battle of Gettysburg, probably Lowell's statement would +have held true, but later came the reaction towards graft and +corruption, intemperance, profligacy and gambling. Within four years the +representatives of the government expended from seven to eight billions +of dollars. Government contractors bought at a single time 50,000 suits +of clothes, 100,000 rifles, 200,000 blankets. The temptation to graft +was strong for all and irresistible to a few. The government records +speak of one horse-trader in St. Louis who bought his horses and mules +at $75 and sold them to the government for $150, and made enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> to buy +Mississippi steamboats for $65,000. He then rented these boats to the +government for one year for $295,000, and at the end of the year still +owned the boats. To what extent charges of graft were made is indicated +by the fact that one claim was reduced from fifty millions to +thirty-three millions. A cartoon of that time with strange exaggeration +represents one man saying to his friend, "So-and-so has obtained a third +contract from the government." To which his friend answers, "Well, well! +A couple of more contracts and he will die worth a million." For any +manufacturer to obtain a government contract was for that man to be on +the highroad to wealth.</p> + +<p>Yet the historians who analyze these reports find a large amount of +exaggeration in the statements. Some waste there was, but the +authorities seem to think that it was the waste of inexperience for the +most part. When the war opened the Navy Department was spending +$1,000,000 a year. By 1862 it was spending $145,000,000, and with no +organization to handle such enormous interests. In general, in view of +the sudden emergency thrust upon the people, the marvel is not that +there was so much corruption<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> among government contractors, but that +there were so many honest contractors, and that there was so little +waste through inexperience.</p> + +<p>In general it may be said that the moral and religious sentiment of both +North and South alike steadily strengthened during the conflict. After +Gettysburg, the Southern people and army, always deeply religious, in +their distress turned to their fathers' God for support. Jackson and +Lee's men fought by day, and held prayer-meetings by night. In the +North, during 1861 and '62 and '63, religious meetings were held all +over the land. When the winter twilight fell, the candles began to burn +in the little schoolhouses, where the farmers assembled and prayed to +God. In the small towns and tiny villages the little churches were +packed with worshippers, not simply on Sundays but during the evenings +of the week. During this interval the layman became as influential as +the ordained preachers. At this time, the Young Men's Christian +Association took its rise, all of the old men saw visions, and all of +the young men dreamed dreams, and many a Saul was found among the +prophets. Poets like Lowell were moved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> by deeply religious +inspirations. During the war Whittier wrote his loftiest songs and his +noblest and most exalted prayers. The influence of the great conflict +upon philosophers like Emerson is easily traced. American literature +lost its note of unreality. Preaching became practical. There was a +revival of ethics in politics. The war cleared the atmosphere of the +country by sweeping away slavery with all its foundation of lies.</p> + +<p>Wendell Phillips once said the French Revolution was the greatest and +most unmixed blessing of the last one thousand years. Now that it is all +over, and the slain soldiers and the brave women who went down in the +conflict have had all their hard questions asked before the throne of +God, perhaps these heroes and heroines who now live unto God look back +upon this era as an era of sorrow overruled for justice and liberty. The +conclusion of the whole matter is this: a good house must be founded +upon a rock, and no government or civilization can be permanent that is +not based on the freedom, property and intelligence of the working +classes.</p> + +<p>To-day the leaders of thought in the South believe that Lee and Gordon +were right in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> the statement that they "thanked God that they failed to +establish States' rights, and that Northern men had succeeded in +maintaining the Union." Time has cleared the air of misunderstandings. +At last the North and South understand Lincoln's last words regarding +the Civil War: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and +each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men +should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from +the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not +judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has +been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the +world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come; but +woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that +American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the Providence of +God, must needs come, but 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 due to those by whom the offense came, +shall we discern therein any departure from those divine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> attributes +which the believers in a 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 continue until all the wealth piled +by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall +be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid +by another drop of blood drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand +years ago, so still it must be said, '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 on 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 orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and +lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>XII</h2> + +<h3>ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE MARTYRED PRESIDENT</h3> + + +<p>Among the heroes who helped save the Republic, the last, best hope of +earth, in that it gives liberty to the slaves, that it might assure +freedom to the free, stands Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator and martyr. +Take him all in all, Abraham Lincoln is the greatest thing the Republic +has achieved. History tells of no child who passed from a cradle so +humble to a grave so illustrious. The institutions of the Republic were +founded for the manufacture of a good quality of soul. In the presence +of the greatest men of history we can point with pride to Lincoln, +saying, "This is the kind of man the institutions of the Republic can +produce." For Lincoln's most striking characteristic was his +Americanism. At best, Washington was a patrician, the fine product of +aristocratic institutions, so that England claimed him. Washington was +the richest man of his era, his home an old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> manor house, his estate +wide inherited acres, his relative an English baronet, his brother the +child of Oxford University. The books he read were English books, the +teachers he had were English tutors. The root was planted in English +soil, though it fruited under American skies. But Americanism is the +very essence of Lincoln's thoughts, Lincoln's enthusiasm, Lincoln's +utterances, and Lincoln's character. One of the golden words of the +Republic is the word "opportunity." Here, all the highways that lead to +office, land and honour must be open unto all young feet. A banker's son +may climb to the governor's mansion, or the White House, but so may the +washerwoman's. The widow's son practices eloquence in the corn fields of +Virginia, but he has ability and patriotism, and we bring Henry Clay to +the Senate chamber. A child out in Ohio goes barefooted over the October +grass, driving an old red cow to the barn lot, but we bring McKinley to +the White House.</p> + +<p>Yonder stands the Temple of Fame. The door is open by day and by night, +and a tall, thin, sallow boy turns his back upon a log cabin in Illinois +and seeks entrance. But the angel at the threshold asks hard ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>tions: +"Can you eat crusts? Can you wear rags? Can you sleep in a garret? Can +you endure sleepless nights and days of toil? Can you bear up against +every wind that assails your bark? Can you live for liberty and God's +truth, and can you die for them?" And that boy bowed his assent. +Washington climbed hand over hand up the golden rounds of the ladder of +success; Lincoln built the ladder up which he climbed out of the fence +rails which his own hands had split. Like his Divine Master, he touched +two or three crusts and turned them into bread for the hungry +multitudes.</p> + +<p>His little log cabin shames our palaces. His three books, the Bible, the +"Pilgrim's Progress" and "Æsop's Fables" eclipse our libraries. His six +months in a log schoolhouse were more than equal to our eight years in +lecture hall and university. His fidelity to the great convictions +shames our shifting politicians. For fifty years he walked forward under +clouded skies. Like Dante, he held heart-break at bay. During one brief +epoch only did his sun clear itself of clouds. He died without full +recognition or reward. In retrospect he stands forth the saddest and +sweetest, the strongest and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> gentlest, the most picturesque and the most +pathetic figure in our history. The Saviour of the world was born in a +stable and cradled in a manger, and went by the Via Dolorosa towards the +world's throne. Not otherwise Abraham Lincoln was born in a cabin, more +suited for herds and flocks than for a young mother and a little child; +and by the way of poverty and adversity the great emancipator travelled +towards his throne of influence and world supremacy.</p> + +<p>History holds a few deeds so great that they can be done but once. There +are some laws, some reforms and some liberties that once achieved are +always achieved. Thus, Columbus discovered this new world, but his +achievement reduced all the other explorers to the level of imitators. +Thus Isaac Newton discovered gravity, and in a moment every other +astronomer became a pupil and a disciple. There never can be but one +James Watt, for, though a thousand inventors improve his engine, their +names are little tapers, shining over against the sun. The last century +offered men of genius two signal opportunities, and there were a +thousand eager aspirants for the honour. Charles Darwin discovered the +golden key that un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>locked the kingdom of nature and life, and carried +off the honours of science. Abraham Lincoln, in an hour when some would +meanly lose it, planned to nobly save the Union, emancipated three +million slaves, and carried off the honours in the realm of reform and +liberty.</p> + +<p>How great was the work done by this man and how supreme was the man +himself, we can best understand by comparison and contrast. Among small +men it is easy to be great. In Patagonia, where everybody eats blubber, +a boy in the first reader is a prodigy of learning.</p> + +<p>Anybody can be a giant in heroism and reform among Hottentots and South +Sea savages. But the era of the Civil War was an era of heroes. Great +men walked in regiments up and down the land. It was the age of Daniel +Webster, whose genius is so wonderful that he achieved the four supreme +things of four realms,—the greatest legal argument we have, the +Dartmouth College case; the greatest plea before a judge and jury, the +Knapp murder case; our finest outburst of inspirational eloquence, the +oration at Bunker Hill; the greatest argument in defense of the +Constitution, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> reply to Hayne. It was the age of John C. Calhoun, a +statesman whose political theories led half a continent to deeds of +daring war. It was the era of Seward, the all-round scholar, of Chase +the greatest secretary of treasury since Alexander Hamilton, a man who +struck the rock with the rod of his genius, and made the waters of +finance flow forth from the desert. It was the age of our greatest +orators, for then Wendell Phillips and Beecher were at their best. It +was the era of Emerson, the philosopher; of Theodore Parker, the +reformer; of Garrison, the abolitionist; of Lovejoy, the martyr; of +Lowell and Whittier, the poets of freedom; of Greeley, the editor; it +was also the age of the greatest soldiers, Grant and Sherman, and +Sheridan and Lee. The great man is a form of fruit ripened in an +atmosphere made warm and genial, and the climate that nurtured Lincoln +unfolded the talents that represented also other forms of mental fruit. +Among these men Lincoln lived and wrote and spoke, and suffered and +died;—but he stands forth a master among men, an indisputable genius, +one of the five supreme statesmen of all history.</p> + +<p>Now if we are to understand the unique<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> place of Abraham Lincoln in our +history we must recall again for a moment the men who set the battle +lines in array. Unfortunately, most of our histories tell our children +and youth that the Civil War raged about the slave. As a matter of fact, +slavery was the occasion of the war, but not the cause. Slavery was the +sulphur match that exploded the powder magazine, though the powder +magazine could have been set off by a spark from the flint and steel, or +a hundred other methods.</p> + +<p>The Civil War was really fought over the question whether a +constitutionally formed nation dedicated to the proposition that all men +are created equal could permanently endure. The whole period from 1789 +to 1865 was a critical period, during which the Constitution was being +tested and tried out.</p> + +<p>During this testing many forms of secession were planned, and several +actual rebellions took place. In 1787 there was a Massachusetts +rebellion under Shays, over the question of taxation. In 1794 there was +what was known as the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. In 1830 to 1835 +there was a secession movement on in South Carolina, and President +Jackson put down that re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>bellion over the tariff. Then Daniel Webster +marked out the final lines of battle, entrenching the Constitution +against rebellious attempts. Webster fired the first shot of the war, +whose last shot was fired at Appomattox. Webster carried the flag that +Grant followed at Vicksburg, and shook out the folds of the banner that +was crimsoned with blood at Gettysburg. It was Webster's banner that +Anderson pulled down at Fort Sumter, under the stress of fire, and it +was Webster's banner that, four years later to an hour, the same General +Anderson pulled up on the same flagstaff at the same Fort Sumter.</p> + +<p>During the period of the thirties and the forties, the conflict was a +conflict of words and arguments between men like Webster and Calhoun and +Garrison and Phillips. Later, the strife took on the form of a guerrilla +warfare, and here and there leaders like Lovejoy were martyred. At last +the strife entered into politics, when Douglas and Lincoln struggled for +the supremacy of their principles,—but always it was a question of +Constitutional interpretation, against whatever interest attacked the +"supreme law."</p> + +<p>Soon the conflict entered the Church, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> the American Tract Society, +to hold the gifts of slave owners, forbade the distributions of +Testaments to slaves, while the Bishop of New Jersey destroyed an +edition of the Prayer Book because it contained a picture of Ary +Scheffer's picture of "Christ the Emancipator," who was engaged in +striking the shackles from slaves. The bishop was quite willing that +Christ should open the eyes of the blind, make the deaf to hear and the +lame to walk, but as for Jesus freeing the slaves—well, that was too +much. Over the question of the Constitutional power of Congress to +resist the further extension of slavery in newly opened territories, the +whole land rocked with excitement. Liberty and Slavery, like two giants, +grappled for the death struggle. In such an era God raised up Abraham +Lincoln, to lead the people out of the wilderness, and into the Promised +Land of Union, of Liberty, and of Peace.</p> + +<p>Never was a candidate for universal fame born under so unfriendly a sky. +His annals are "the short and simple annals of the poor." His home was a +log cabin that had but three sides, the fourth one being a buffalo robe, +swaying to and fro in the wind. When the biting wind of poverty became +unbear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>able in Kentucky, the scant possessions were loaded upon a horse, +carried across the Ohio, and the child walked barefooted through the +forests of Indiana, where a new shack was built in the wilderness. There +Lincoln's "angel mother" sickened and died—that mother to whom Lincoln +said he owed all that he was or hoped to be. Then when the winter of +poverty and discontent settled down blacker than ever, the father +removed to another State, where the mud was deeper, and the winters +colder, where nature was less propitious. Lying on his face, before +blazing logs, the boy committed to memory the four Gospels, "Æsop's +Fables," and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." At nineteen he went to New +Orleans, and standing in the slave market saw a young girl sold at +public auction, and told his brother, Dennis Hanks, that if he ever had +a chance he would hit slavery the hardest blow he could. At twenty he +split 1,200 rails for a farmer, whose wife wove for him three yards of +cloth, dyed in walnut juice, with which he had a new suit of clothes. He +started a little store, failed in business, became a surveyor, bought a +copy of the Constitution of the United States and the Decla<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>ration of +Independence; was made postmaster; several years later returned to the +government agent the exact silver quarters and copper cents that he had +kept tied up in a bag, because honesty meant that the identical coins +must be returned to the government; entered upon the study and the +practice of the law; was elected to the legislature, and reflected; was +sent to Congress, and on a second campaign for the United States +senatorship from Illinois met his competitor, Stephen A. Douglas, in the +great debate. Beginning this contest, he delivered the "house divided +against itself cannot stand" speech; and in the course of his marvellous +debate made the issue between liberty and slavery so clear that a +wayfaring man, though a fool, could not misunderstand; declared that if +slavery was not wrong, there was nothing that was wrong. Soon he came to +be looked upon as one who each year would coin the happy phrase and the +rhythmical watchword that would be taken upon the lips of 30,000,000 of +people; was made the leader of the new "party of freedom," and +President.</p> + +<p>Now, with infinite skill and patience, he entered upon the task of +proving that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> was the strongest man in his Cabinet, the strongest man +in the North, the strongest man in the country, and the only man who had +the last fact in the case, and therefore had the right to rule. Seward, +experienced politician and statesman that he was, began by delicately +hinting to Lincoln that if he felt himself unequal to emergencies, he +could rely upon his Secretary of State for guidance, and that he, +Seward, would not evade the responsibility. Lincoln answered by reading +Seward's statement of a possible measure, and then placing beside it a +statement of his own that reduced Seward to the level of a schoolboy +standing up beside a giant. Then Stanton entered the lists as +competitor, and quietly Lincoln asserted himself until Stanton's +attitude became one of almost reverent worship, as he said of Lincoln, +"Henceforth he belongs with the immortals." Then Greeley put in his +claim for supremacy, and after Lincoln had published his answer to +Horace Greeley, in lines as clear as crystal, and in words as gentle as +sunbeams, not a man in the land but saw that Lincoln was intellectually +head and shoulders above Horace Greeley. One by one and step by step he +ascended the hills<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> of difficulty. Round by round he climbed the ladder +of fame. Naturally, therefore, his centennial was observed by a week's +celebration, when all the wheels were still, and all the stores and +factories were silent, when ninety millions of people were gathered into +one vast audience chamber, when one name was upon all lips—the name of +Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of the slaves, the acknowledged master +of men, who gave liberty to the slaves that he might assure freedom to +the free.</p> + +<p>Thoughtless writers have talked Lincoln's ancestry down, and careless +biographers have defamed him. Superficial students speak of him as a +miracle, and say that his genius is surrounded with silence and mystery. +But all that Abraham Lincoln was he had at the hands of his fathers and +his mothers. Although their greatness was latent, his parents had as +much ability in their way as their distinguished son had in his way. How +do we know? Because when God wants to call a strong man He begins by +calling his father and mother. There never was a great man who did not +have a great ancestry, even though the greatness may have been latent +and unconscious.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p>Every strong man stands upon the shoulders of his ancestors. When you +start for the top of Pike's Peak you start at Omaha. When you reach +Denver you are six thousand feet in the air, and Pike's Peak is +shouldered up on the foot-hills. Socrates is a great teacher, but look +at Sphroniscus, the sculptor, his father. Paganini is a great musician, +but Paganini was born of musicians whose wrists had muscles that stood +out like whip-cords. Bach is a great musician, but there were forty +people of the name of Bach mentioned in musical dictionaries. Charles +Darwin is the great scientist, but there were four generations of +scientists who had made ready for Darwin, just as there were seven +generations of scholars that culminated in Emerson. And standing in the +shadow behind Abraham Lincoln are half a dozen generations of men and +women who handed forward to him a perfect logic engine, a sound mind, in +a sound body; a mental instrument that worked without fever and without +friction and without flaw. At the hands of Stradivarius one piece of +apple wood is fashioned into a violin. If Stradivarius passes by the +other board because he has not time, let no man say the board that was +undeveloped was not full of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> latent music. The Divine Artist and +Architect shaped Abraham Lincoln's nature into a world instrument, but +the same quality and the stuff were in his father and mother, who lived +and died a bundle of roots that were never planted, a handful of +blossoms that never fruited.</p> + +<p>Lincoln's father and mother were like the crystal caves in their own +Kentucky. There the traveller is led through a cave of crystals, newly +discovered. One day a farmer ploughing thought the ground sounded hollow +under his feet. Going to the barn, he brought a spade and opened up an +aperture. Flinging down a rope, his friends let the explorer down, and +when the torches were lighted, lo, a cave as of amethysts, sapphires and +diamonds! For generations the cave had been undiscovered and the jewels +unknown. Wild beasts had wandered above these flashing gems, and still +more savage men had lived and fought and died there. And yet just +beneath was this cave of splendid beauty. Oh, pathetic illustration of +men who are big with talent, of women full of latent gifts, of fathers +and mothers like Thomas Lincoln and his young wife, who struggle on +without opportunity, who are denied their chance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> who are imprisoned by +poverty, and fettered by circumstance, who are like birds beating bloody +wings against the bars of an iron cage, who die unfulfilled prophecies, +and dying, transfer their ambitions to their gifted children, believing +that their son shall behold what the father and mother must die without +seeing. God worked no miracle in Abraham Lincoln.</p> + +<p>There is a photograph of the signature of the grandfather upon a title +deed in Culpeper County in Virginia. Now, place that signature side by +side with the signature of Abraham Lincoln on the emancipation +proclamation, and the strong, sinewy sweep in the signature of the +grandfather comes down and repeats itself in the strong, steady +clearness of the grandson. And perhaps the strong, sinewy sentence came +down and repeated itself also, for all fine thinking stands with one +foot on fine brain fibre. The time has come for men with a sharp knife +and a hot iron to expunge from two or three of the otherwise best +biographies of Abraham Lincoln these false, superficial and ignorant +statements about his ancestry. Science, observation, experience, history +and sifted facts all unite to tell us that whatever was great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> in its +unfolding in the talent of Abraham Lincoln was great in the seed form in +his father and mother.</p> + +<p>Where were the hidings of his power? Why is Lincoln revered above his +fellows, the orators, the soldiers, and the statesmen and editors and +secretaries of his time? A line of contrast with the other great men who +were his competitors for fame will make Lincoln's supremacy to stand +forth as clear in outline as the mountains, and as bright as the stars. +For example, Wendell Phillips was the agitator and orator of the +abolitionists. Phillips said, "Emancipation is the essential thing. The +Union secondary. If the Southern States will not emancipate the slaves, +force them out of the Union." Horace Greeley was the editor of the war +epoch. Greeley said, "Emancipation is first, the Union secondary. If +they prefer slavery to liberty let the erring sisters go." Beecher was +the all-round man of genius. His great speech in England began with an +exordium at Manchester; he stated the arguments at Edinburgh, Glasgow +and Liverpool; he pronounced the peroration at Exeter Hall, in London, +and no such peroration and eloquence has been heard since Demosthenes'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> +philippic against the tyrant of Macedon. But Beecher's criticisms of +Lincoln in the New York <i>Independent</i> during April and May of 1862 led +Lincoln to exclaim after reading one of them, "Is Thy servant a dog that +he should do this thing?" If these great men did not appreciate the +national crisis, Lincoln understood it perfectly. Now, over against the +editorials of Beecher and Horace Greeley and the lectures of Phillips, +stands Lincoln, and to these three men he sent words addressed only to +Horace Greeley, explaining to them why the time had not come for the +Emancipation Proclamation. And although a part of this we have quoted in +defense of Webster's position in 1850, that and yet more of the famous +letter may well be repeated here:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I would save the Union.</p> + +<p>"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could +at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.</p> + +<p>"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not +either to save or destroy slavery.</p> + +<p>"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do +it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.</p> + +<p>"And if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I +would also do that.</p> + +<p>"What I do about slavery and the coloured race I do because I +believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear +because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.</p> + +<p>"I shall do less whenever I believe that what I am doing hurts the +cause.</p> + +<p>"And I shall do more whenever I believe that doing more will help +the Union."</p></div> + +<p>How wonderfully does this publish the supremacy of Abraham Lincoln! +Lincoln saw clearly, where others had an indistinct vision. As to +gravity, Isaac Newton's vote outweighs all the other millions of men, +and from the hour that Lincoln published this letter to Horace Greeley +the people saw that Abraham Lincoln had the last fact in the case, saw +the whole truth, saw it through and through. By sheer power, clarity of +thought, strength of statement and fairness, Abraham Lincoln finally won +over not only a lukewarm North, but a bitter South, until to-day he +belongs to the ninety millions. If every Northerner should die, the +brave and patriotic men of the South living now would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> defend everything +for which Abraham Lincoln lived and died. For at last it is true of both +North and South, in Lincoln's own pathetic words, that the mystic chords +of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every +living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell +the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by +the better angels of our nature.</p> + +<p>The most striking characteristic of Lincoln's character was his honesty. +Some men are naturally secretive: Lincoln was naturally open as +sunshine. The exact fact, truth in the hidden parts, openness, these +were the innermost fibre of his being. Machiavelli laid out the +diplomat's career on the line of deceit, and concealing the cards. +Lincoln would have made a poor diplomat,—he spread all his cards out on +the table. He won from his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, the tribute, +"Lincoln was the fairest and most honest man I ever knew." If there ever +lived an absolutely honest lawyer, Lincoln was the man. In his work +before the jury Lincoln never misrepresented his opponent's position, +never twisted the testimony of the witness, never made biassed +statements to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> win a verdict. Once a young lawyer who was opposing +Lincoln made a poor plea for his client, and overlooked in his argument +before the jury two most important considerations. Lincoln was restless, +and greatly disturbed. He seemed to think that the lawyer's client had +been badly used, and that his attorney had not given him a fair chance, +or guarded his rights. When Lincoln arose, therefore, he began by saying +that the opposing counsel had overlooked the most important point. He +then stated his opponent's position far more strongly than his lawyer +had, and made the best possible statement for his opponent, to the +astonishment and indignation of his own client, whom he was defending. +Then Lincoln turned to answer these arguments,—with the result that for +the first time the two litigants understood the exact facts of both +sides, and at Lincoln's request settled the case, withdrawing it from +the court.</p> + +<p>This love of the exact truth and of fair play and of essential justice +shone from the man's face, dominated his arguments, explained his +view-point, revealed his character. The nickname, "Honest Old Abe," +tells the whole story. Lincoln's final judg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>ment partook of the nature +of a final decree and law. At length his pronouncements became like a +divine fiat. Take the truth out of Lincoln's character, and it would be +like taking the warmth out of a sunbeam. He <i>was</i> truth, he thought +truth, loved the truth, surrendered himself to the truth. Under that +influence he refused to play politics, or fence for position with +Douglas. Once Lincoln won a case so easily that he returned one-half of +the retainer's fee, because he felt that he had not earned it.</p> + +<p>Here, therefore, is found the secret of Lincoln's unbounded popularity. +The common people know their friends, and—what with Lincoln's +gentleness, his justice, his boundless kindness, his sympathy with the +poor and the unfortunate, and his honesty—he became the most beloved +man in the Illinois circuit.</p> + +<p>Wonderful, too, his literary achievements. His great passages read like +the Bible, and have almost the moral authority thereof. If preachers +ever wear the old Bible out, Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and his speech +at Gettysburg, and certain other passages, will furnish texts for +another hundred years. One thing is certain,—if Chinese students in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +their universities two thousand years from now translate any oration out +of the English language, as we now translate the speeches of +Demosthenes, these Chinese students will translate Lincoln's speech at +Gettysburg, and his Second Inaugural Address. Contrary to the usual +idea, it may be confidently affirmed that Lincoln was a well equipped +man, and had the best possible training for literary style. During the +plastic years of memory, Lincoln had three books to study, and two of +these are the finest models for style in all literature,—King James' +Version of the Bible, and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." These are the +world's great literary masterpieces, these are the wells of English, +pure and undefiled. Upon these two books Robert Burns was reared. To the +fact that his mother made him commit to memory forty chapters of the +Bible before he was seven years old, John Ruskin attributed his mastery +in English style. Second rate men know something about everything. +Lincoln was a first rate man who knew everything about some one thing. +If you want to make a versatile man, turn a boy loose in a library. If +you want a boy to have the note of distinction upon his pages, lock him +out of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> library, and send him into solitude, with the English Bible, +with John Bunyan, and with Æsop's Fables, and let him take these three +books into his intellect, as he takes meat and bread into the rich blood +of the physical system.</p> + +<p>Literary style is the shadow that the soul flings across the page. Style +is simply the intellect rushing into exhibition and verbal form. +Therefore style is the balance of faculty, symmetry of development. A +man is healthy when he does not know that he has a single organ in his +body, and a page has style when you do not know where to find the note +of distinction. There is a world of difference between "style," and "a +style." Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural has style. Carlyle's French +Revolution has a style. A perfect Kentucky horse has style. A +knee-sprung horse has a style. Down the track comes this perfect horse, +eyes flashing, head up, neck arched, feet dancing, not a flaw, not a +blemish, upon leg or body. Looking at the glorious creature you exclaim, +"That horse has style!" For a horse's style is born of perfect health, +perfect lungs and perfect legs, one power balancing another, and all +united to produce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> an absolutely perfect horse. Now comes a horse that +represents a collection of ringbones, and glanders, and poll-evil. The +one horse limping in front has "a style." Thomas Carlyle's sentences are +knee-sprung in front and his phrases are spavined behind, and, +therefore, Carlyle has "a style" but not "style." You would know one of +his sentences if you saw its skeleton lying in the desert on the road to +Khartoum. But on the other hand, Lincoln has "style,"—that +indescribable bloom and beauty, born of balance, development and +symmetrical growth. Samuel Johnson bulged on the side of Latinity. +Daniel Webster is an example of the magnificent, illustrating +gorgeousness, opulence, and tropic splendour. Lincoln's sentences are +like the Bible and Bunyan,—they are plate-glass windows through which +you look to see the jewelled thought beyond.</p> + +<p>Lincoln tells us how he made his style. One day he heard a man use the +word "demonstrate." For days he cudgelled his brains to find out just +what it was to demonstrate a statement. He tells us that when he was +about eight years old, he began to be irritated when men used long +words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> that he could not understand. He began the habit of thinking over +in the dark before he went to sleep any story he had heard, any +statement that had been made, and he tried to substitute for the long +hard words little short simple words, that a boy could understand. +During those early years, he learned that the rich, racy, homey words +are steeped and perfumed with beautiful associations. He knew that words +are fossil poetry. What would one not give for the old cloak that Paul +had from Troas, a piece of the marble by Phidias, the old threshold worn +by the feet of Socrates, an old missal illuminated by Bellini, an old +note-book in which Shakespeare wrote the first outline of Hamlet! And +the old, sweet, home words with which a mother soothes her babe, with +which a lover woos his bride, the old words of God, and home and native +land, are the words that are rich in association and in power to move +the heart. A bird lines its nest with feathers plucked from its own +breast, and the heart steeps the dear, simple speech of home life in +sacred associations. So Lincoln cut out all the long Latin words, and +substituted the short Saxon ones. Schooled in the two great master books +that are the precious life spirit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> of earth's greatest souls treasured +up, he developed his style.</p> + +<p>Nor must we overlook the fact that the apparent narrowness of his +culture represents a real concentration that made for richness and +depth. If one must choose, take the upper Rhine that is a river deep and +pure and sweet, and strong for bearing the fleets of war and peace +because it is confined between banks and narrowed. But when the Rhine +comes down to the flats and approaches the sea and casts off all +restraints, and tries to include everything, it turns into a swamp, a +morass, losing its power for commerce, and becoming a source of disease +and death. Lincoln's culture was limited to the English, and to a +mastery of the Constitution—the principles of fundamental justice, to +one country—the Republic, to one topic—the Union, and to one +reform—Slavery. Beyond all doubt, this concentration of study during +the critical years of his career made up a much better preparation than +if he had gone to a college, studied half a dozen languages, and fifty +or sixty different subjects, and come out well smattered, but poorly +educated. It may be doubted whether Lincoln would have been much better +off had he been able<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> to read Latin and Greek, and speak French and +German. Many people can say "It is a little yellow dog" in Greek, and +German, and French, and Italian, and English, but after all it is only a +little yellow dog. What educates is the idea, and not the half dozen +names of a thing without an idea.</p> + +<p>The important thing about a cistern is water, and not many mouths to the +pump. Having spent many years learning to express one idea in five ways, +one might be glad to trade the five ways of expression for five ideas to +be expressed in one way. Edward Everett, once President of Harvard +University, could talk in five languages, and at Gettysburg spoke for +two hours. Lincoln could speak in one language, and did so for two +minutes. But the next morning Mr. Everett wrote to the President: "I +should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the +central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." +Lincoln's one language shames our knowledge of four languages, his three +books shame our libraries, and our four years of college culture.</p> + +<p>Nor must we overlook the influence upon Lincoln's style of the parables +of Jesus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> and the fables of Æsop. There are two invariable signs of +genius in a boy,—one is the serious note, and the other is the +picture-making note. All the great things represent serious thinking. +The greatest artist of the last century was the most serious one,—Watt, +with his Love and Life, and Love and Death, and Mammon, and Hope. The +great poems have been the serious poems, the In Memoriam, and the +Intimations of Immortality, the Hamlet and the Lear. The great orators +have been the serious orators.</p> + +<p>The next sign of genius is the picture-making faculty. Men of talent +evolve arguments, men of genius create emblems, parables and pictures. +Minds oftentimes called profound use long abstractions, and are called +deep thinkers, because nobody can understand them. But along comes a man +of genius, and he squeezes the juice out of the abstract argument, and +flings the rind away, and tells you what it is like.</p> + +<p>Measured in terms of genius, the parables of Jesus are the greatest +literary achievements in history. Æsop's fables teach by pictures. +"Pilgrim's Progress" is pictorial.</p> + +<p>Lincoln was exceedingly fortunate in his generation in that the three +great books of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> pictures were in his hands during the imaginative epoch. +Of course he was born with the talent for parable, because genius is +one-half nature and the other half nurture. It was this natural gift and +the training that taught him how when he had completed an argument and +mastered the principle, to say, Now what is this great principle like, +and how can I condense it into a picture and put it in a happy phrase +that will sing itself across the land? This picture-making gift inspired +him to quote the keen wisdom of that expression of Jesus, "The house +divided against itself cannot stand." This skill in parables gave him +the expression, "Better not swap horses in the middle of the stream," +that gave him his second election. This vision power gave him that +sentence equal to anything in Shakespeare, when Vicksburg fell, "Once +more the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea." This faculty enabled +him to sweep into one illustration a thousand arguments, so that the +people could never forget the mother principle that explained the facts.</p> + +<p>Nor may we forget what the great cause did for him. The era of the war +was a great era, because God heaved society as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> winds heave the +waves, and men were swept forward with irresistible power upon the great +movement of liberty. Great movements make great epochs and great men. A +great ideal of God and righteousness and liberty lifts Savonarola and +Florence to new levels; a great cathedral inspires Michael Angelo's +great dome; a Divine Saviour and His transfiguration exalt Raphael; +Paradise explains Dante; listening to the sevenfold Hallelujah chorus of +God arouses the sweep and majesty of Milton's epic; the woes of three +million slaves made eloquence possible for Phillips and Beecher. The +saving of a Union, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition +that all men were created equal, represented a cause into which Lincoln +could fling himself. The thought of meanly losing or nobly saving the +last, best hope of earth, exalted, transformed, and armed the men, +making feeblings strong, and strong men to be giants.</p> + +<p>Eloquence and heroism wane during the commercial era. No man can be +eloquent upon the duty on hides, or salt, or the digging of mud out of a +river. But dumb lips will break into glorious speech at the thought of +freeing millions of slaves, and saving free<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> institutions, and handing +liberty forward to other lands, and to generations yet unborn. The era +of Fort Sumter and Gettysburg, when liberty and slavery were in their +death grapple, was an era so great that the ordinary issues of avarice, +self-interest, fame, luxury, became contemptible, and men were exalted +to the point where they spake, and suffered, and marched, and died, more +like gods than men. The great battles to be fought, the great armies to +be moved, the great navies to be directed, the great orators and editors +with whom he counselled, the many slaves for whom he became a voice, the +great days on which he felt that he was making history, the great future +into which he hoped to send the great liberties unimpaired and purified, +the great God over all,—lent greatness to Abraham Lincoln, clothed him +with pathos, with sorrow, with dignity and majesty, as with garments.</p> + +<p>Like every giant, he was gentle. The truly great are always sensitive +and sympathetic. In proportion as the mountain goes upward in size does +it gain in power to return the strong man's shout, or the sigh of the +lost child, echoing and reëchoing the cry of need. Sympathy is the soul +journey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>ing abroad, to bind up the wounds of him who has fallen among +thieves. Sympathy cannot feast in a palace while the poor famish. +Selfishness can stop its ears with wax lest it hear the groan of the +poor, but sympathy is knitted in with its kind. Lincoln worked as hard +to help men as slave masters did to recover a fugitive to bondage. It +has been beautifully said that he did kind deeds stealthily, as if he +were afraid of being found out. He became a shield above the fallen; he +stood between the soldier, condemned for the sleep of exhaustion, and +the hangman's noose. He refused to attend a cabinet meeting because he +was trying to find a reason for reprieving a soldier. "It is butchery +day," he said one Friday morning, and he denied himself to a committee +because he did not think that hanging would help the boy who was +condemned to die. "They said he was homely," said a poor woman, going +away from the White House with a reprieve for her son; "he is the +handsomest man I ever saw." It is this sympathy that runs through his +letter to that mother, whose five sons had died gloriously on the field +of battle. For he squeezed the purple clusters of the heart, and let the +crimson<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> tide flow down upon the page, as he prayed that the mother +might carry through the years "only the cherished memory of the loved +and the lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so +costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."</p> + +<p>More striking still, Lincoln's trust in God and His overruling +providence. Mr. Herndon in his biography and Dr. Abbott in an editorial +and an oration at Cooper Institute emphasize the agnosticism of Lincoln. +The one says that in his youth he wrote an article against Christianity, +and the other that he was not a technical Christian. Dr. Abbott thinks +all this so important that he places the agnosticism of Lincoln at the +forefront. But too much has been made of the schoolboy article of +Lincoln on doubt and infidelity. In his youth Gladstone was a Tory, but +he outgrew it. In the outset Paul was against Christianity. Tennyson and +Wordsworth in their teens wrote puerile verse, just as Lincoln in his +teens wrote a foolish paper. But it is cruelly unfair not to allow +Abraham Lincoln the full benefit of what he came to be, and not to take +the man at his best. It is unfair to say that a man is what he is at his +worst and lowest point; a man is what he is at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> his best and highest +point. Stephen A. Douglas said Lincoln was the most honest man he ever +knew. Well, if Lincoln was an honest man in his character, he must have +been honest in talking about his religion and his faith in God. Was +Abraham Lincoln an agnostic in that hour when he spoke his farewell +words to his neighbours in Springfield, about starting on the memorable +journey to his inauguration? He said: "I feel that I cannot succeed +without the same divine aid that sustained Washington, and on the same +Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my +friends, will all pray that I may receive that divine assistance without +which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain." Was Abraham +Lincoln without faith, and did he play to the gallery, when he set apart +a day of fasting and prayer after the defeat at Bull Run? Having said +that Abraham Lincoln was an honest man, why not remember it, when these +critics read his First Inaugural, in which he declares that +"intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who +has never yet forsaken this favoured land, are still competent to adjust +in the best way all our present difficulty." When<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> Abraham Lincoln wrote +the mother, Mrs. Bixby, "I pray that the heavenly Father may assuage the +anguish of your bereavement," he meant that he believed in God, in a God +who answered prayer, in a God who cared for the mother living, and the +five brave boys dead. "The Almighty has His own purposes," said Lincoln, +in the Second Inaugural, an address that is steeped in religion, that +exhales trust in God. Take God out of that Second Inaugural, and it +would be like taking health out of the body, wisdom out of the book, +sweetness out of the song, culture out of the intellect, life out of the +body. You cannot in one breath say that Lincoln was an agnostic, and +then in the next one say that Lincoln was an honest man. I care not one +whit what Mr. Herndon says. I care everything about what Abraham Lincoln +says about himself in his greatest speeches, in his noblest hours, when +he gave his countrymen his latest, deepest, profoundest thoughts.</p> + +<p>In trying to explain the character of Lincoln we therefore make our +final appeal unto God, for God alone is equal to the making of this +great man. When long time has passed, the name of Lincoln will probably +be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> mentioned with Moses, Julius Cæsar, Paul, Shakespeare. Men will read +a few of his paragraphs as a kind of Bible of Patriotism. Washington's +name will not be less, but Lincoln's will certainly be more and more, +and then still more. God and Sorrow made the man great.</p> + +<p>And this is his life story. In the darkest hour of the Republic, when +liberty and slavery were struggling to see which should rule the old +homestead, it became evident that slavery would turn the garden into a +desert, and the house into a ruin. And seeking a deliverer and a +saviour, the great God, in His own purpose, passed by the palace with +its silken delights. He took a little babe in His arms, and called to +His side His favourite angel, the angel of Sorrow. Stooping, he +whispered, "Oh, Sorrow, thou well-beloved teacher, take thou this little +child of Mine and make him great. Take him to yonder cabin in the +wilderness; make his home a poor man's house; plant his narrow path +thick with thorns, cut his little feet with sharp and cruel rocks; as he +climbs the hills of difficulty, make each footprint red with his own +life-blood; load his little back with burdens; give to him days of toil +and nights of study and sleeplessness;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> wrest from his arms whatever he +loves; make his heart, through sorrow, as sensitive to the sigh of a +slave as a thread of silk in a window is sensitive to the slightest wind +that blows; and when you have digged lines of pain in his cheeks, and +made his face more marred than the face of any man of his time, bring +him back to me, and with him I will free three million slaves." That is +how God made Abraham Lincoln great.</p> + +<p>And then,—we slew him. For that is the way our ignorant, sinful earth +has always rewarded its greatest souls. Ours is a world where we crucify +the Saviour in Jerusalem, where we poison Socrates in Athens, where we +exile Dante in Italy, and burn Savonarola in Florence, and starve +Cervantes in Madrid, and jail Bunyan in Bedford,—for the greatest +manhood is always rewarded with martyrdom. And what better thing for +Abraham Lincoln than assassination, because he has emancipated three +million slaves and saved the Union, as the last, best hope of earth?</p> + +<p>But, lo, who are these in bright array, looking over the battlements of +heaven, while the forces of liberty and slavery in other forms struggle +together on these earthly plains beneath? These with radiant faces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> +unstained by tears, that seem never to have known the mark of pain or +sorrow? Ah! these are they who have come out of great tribulation, +anguish and martyrdom; Paul from the stones; Homer from his blindness; +Socrates from his cup of poison; Milton from his heart-break; Savonarola +from his fagots, and Lincoln from his long martyrdom—the least part of +which was the shot that freed his spirit in the hour of triumph and +joy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Index</h2> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Abolition Societies in the South, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Abominations, tariff of, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Æsop's Fables, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Adam Bede," <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams, Charles F., <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams, John, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alabama, secession, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Alabama</i>, the, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Albemarle</i>, the, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Albert, Prince Consort, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aldersen, Judge, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alva, Duke of, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">American Tract Society, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ames, Fisher, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Andersonville, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anne, Queen, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anti-Slavery epoch, importance of, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Arab slave-hunters, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Athens, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Atlanta and Sherman, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Austin, James T., <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bach, John S., <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bacon, Lord, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bailey, Kentucky editor, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bancroft, George, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bates, Edward, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beauregard, P. G. T., <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher, Henry Ward, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chapter IX, The Appeal to England, <a href='#Page_212'>212-241</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reasons for European trip of, <a href='#Page_214'>214-216</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">no official embassy, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">interview of, with Lincoln, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">breakfast to, in London, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">speech at Manchester, <a href='#Page_227'>227-230</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">at Glasgow and Edinburgh, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Liverpool, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in London, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">triumph at home, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">raises Sumter flag, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and Lincoln, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304-305</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher, Lyman, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bell, John, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bishop of New Jersey, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bowen, Henry C., <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breckenridge, J. C., <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bremer, Frederika, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bright, John, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brown, John, Chapter VI, <a href='#Page_136'>136-159</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Springfield, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">North Elba, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Iowa, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kansas, <a href='#Page_151'>151-154</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Virginia, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Harper's Ferry, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">trial and death, <a href='#Page_155'>155-158</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">his fanaticism overruled, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brown-Sequard, Dr., <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bryant, Wm. C., <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Buchanan, Com. Franklin, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Buchanan, James, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Buckle, Thomas, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bunyan, John, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burns, Anthony, <a href='#Page_84'>84-87</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burns, Robert, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Burnside, Gen. A. E., <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Byron, Lord, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Calhoun, John C., <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nullification, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">government and sovereignty, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">mistakes of, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">influence on non-slaveholding South, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">political doctrine of, in church affairs, <a href='#Page_204'>204-205</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carlisle, Lord, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carlyle, Thomas, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236-238</a>, <a href='#Page_311'>31-3121</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Carpet-baggers, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cervantes, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Channing, Wm. E., <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Charles I, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Charles II, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Chase, Salmon P., <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christian Commission, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Clay, Henry, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cobden, Richard, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Columbus, Christopher, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Columbus, Ky., <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Congregationalism and State sovereignty, <a href='#Page_204'>204-205</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Constitution, the, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Convention of 1776, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cooper, Peter, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cotton, <a href='#Page_26'>26-29</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222-224</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cushing, Lieut. W. B., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dante, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a>, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Darwin, Charles, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Davis, Jefferson, Stephens' opinion of, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as Confederate president, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">De Bau on slave trade, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Declaration of Independence, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Demetrius, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Democracy, advance of, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Demosthenes, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dickens, Charles, novels of reform, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">praises "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">predicts Confederate success, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Donelson, Fort, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douglass, Frederick, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Douglas, Stephen A.,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as orator, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_165'>165-166</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Polk, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">proposes "squatter sovereignty," <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">loses prestige, <a href='#Page_170'>170-172</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">challenged to debate by Lincoln, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">compared with Lincoln, <a href='#Page_174'>174-177</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the great debate, <a href='#Page_178'>178-181</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">nominated for presidency, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">supports Union, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and Northern Democrats in 1861, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dutch revolt, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dwight, President Yale College, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dyer, Oliver, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Edwards, Jonathan, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eliot, George, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">England, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">source of American principles, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as to wars, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">why favourable to South, <a href='#Page_221'>221-224</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">non-voters of, favoured North, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beecher in, <a href='#Page_218'>218-221</a>, <a href='#Page_227'>227-235</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239-241</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">English Anti-Slavery Society, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Emerson, Ralph W., <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Everett, Edward, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ewell, Gen. Richard S., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Faneuil Hall, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Farragut, Admiral David, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246-247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fillmore, Millard, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Florida, secession, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Floyd, John B., <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Foote, Admiral Andrew H., <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fort Fisher, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forts Donelson and Henry, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fort Sumter, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Franklin, Benjamin, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Frémont, Gen. J. C., <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fugitive Slave legislation, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a>, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fulton Street prayer-meeting, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Garrison, Wm. Lloyd and W. Phillips, Chapter III, <a href='#Page_68'>68-94</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the pen for abolition, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">begins agitation with Lundy, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">starts Liberator, 1831, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">accused of Turner uprising, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">organized American Anti-Slavery Society, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">mobbed in Boston, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">satisfied with Lincoln's emancipation, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Geneva Arbitration, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George III, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gladstone, W. E., <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gordon, Gen. J. B., <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285-286</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Government contracts, <a href='#Page_282'>282-283</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">rapid promotion, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Columbus, Donelson and Vicksburg, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">military genius, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">final campaign, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Appomattox, <a href='#Page_257'>257-258</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">President, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">political and financial problems, <a href='#Page_259'>259-260</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">unwise speculation, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">authorship, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">character and death, <a href='#Page_261'>261-262</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Great men, era of, <a href='#Page_292'>292-293</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Great Rebellion, the, <a href='#Page_11'>11-13</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">war of the, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greeley, Horace, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chapter V, <a href='#Page_117'>117-135</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_122'>122-126</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">founds N. Y. Tribune, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">extremist as reformer, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"On to Richmond," <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">evokes Lincoln letter, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">peace commissioner, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">draft riots, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">bails Davis, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Democratic presidential candidate, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">dies, <a href='#Page_134'>134-135</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">and Lincoln, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greenback craze, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greene, Mrs. Nathanael, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grinnell, James B., <a href='#Page_150'>150</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grote, George, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Halleck, Gen. H. W., <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hampden, John, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hancock, John, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hastings, Warren, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hay, John, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hayne, Robert Y., <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_56'>56</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hayti, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Heine, Heinrich, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Helper, Hinton Rowan, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Helps, Arthur, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henry, Fort, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Henry, Patrick, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hessian troops, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Higginson, T. W., <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hill, Frederic T., <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hill, Gen. A. P., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hill, Gen. D. H., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holland, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Homer, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hooker, Gen. Joseph, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Howe, Dr. Samuel G., <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Imitation of Christ, The," <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Impending Crisis, The," <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Irving, Washington, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jackson, Andrew, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jackson, Thomas J. (Stonewall), <a href='#Page_200'>200-202</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jamestown, Va., <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Japanese sanitation in war, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jeffrey, Lord, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jesus, parables of, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">martyrdom of, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnson, Samuel, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnston, Gen. A. S., <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Johnston, Gen. J. E., <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kansas-Nebraska Bill, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Kearsarge</i>, the, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kemble, Fanny, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kenesaw Mountain, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kentucky, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kingsley, Charles, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laud, Archbishop, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lawless, Judge, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lee, Robert E.,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">honour to Virginia, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as strategist, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">final campaign against Grant, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Appomattox, <a href='#Page_257'>257-258</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">quoted, <a href='#Page_285'>285-286</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Liberator</i>, the, <a href='#Page_71'>71-73</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lincoln, Abraham, new force, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">challenges Douglas to debate, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">compared with Douglas, <a href='#Page_174'>174-176</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"divided-house speech," <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the great debate, <a href='#Page_177'>177-180</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cooper Institute speech, <a href='#Page_181'>181-183</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">presidential nomination, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">election and inauguration, <a href='#Page_186'>186-187</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">inaugural address, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">calls for 75,000 troops, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">applauds Beecher, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">interview with Beecher, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">quoted, <a href='#Page_286'>286-287</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">the Martyred President, Chapter XII, <a href='#Page_288'>288-326</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Americanism, <a href='#Page_288'>288-289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">three books, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">career, in brief, <a href='#Page_296'>296-298</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes Seward, Stanton and Greeley, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">ancestry, <a href='#Page_300'>300-303</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes Phillips, Greeley and Beecher, <a href='#Page_304'>304-306</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">honesty, <a href='#Page_307'>307-308</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">literary style, <a href='#Page_309'>309-315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">concentrated culture, <a href='#Page_314'>314-315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">with Everett at Gettysburg, <a href='#Page_315'>315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">made great by great events, <a href='#Page_317'>317-318</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">characteristics, <a href='#Page_319'>319-320</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">religious faith, <a href='#Page_321'>321-323</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">death, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lincoln and Douglas, the Great Debate, Chapter VII, <a href='#Page_159'>159-186</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">London, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Log Cabin</i>, the, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longfellow, H. W., <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Longstreet, Gen. James, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Loring, U. S. Commissioner, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Louisiana, secession, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lovejoy, Rev. E. P., murder of, <a href='#Page_78'>78-80</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lowell, James R., <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99-102</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lundy, Benjamin, <a href='#Page_69'>69-70</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Luther, Martin, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Macaulay, T. B., <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">McClellan, Gen. G. B., <a href='#Page_250'>250-252</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Machiavelli, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">McKinley, William, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mammonism, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mann, Horace, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mansfield, Lord, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Marshall, Thomas, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Martineau, Harriet, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mason, James M., <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Medill, Joseph, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Merrimac</i>, the, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mexican War, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Michael Angelo, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Milton, John, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mississippi, secession, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Missouri Compromise, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mobile Bay, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Monitor</i>, the, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Morton, Governor of Indiana, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Moses, <a href='#Page_36'>36</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Motley, John L., <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Napoleon, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>National Era</i>, the, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Negro, as faithful servant, as soldier, <a href='#Page_259'>259-260</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as voter, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New Orleans taken, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Newspapers, in 1861-1865, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a>, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Newton, Isaac, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>New Yorker</i>, the, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>New York Tribune</i>, <a href='#Page_126'>126-128</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Northern officers of Southern birth, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Northern resources, <a href='#Page_274'>274-279</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nullification, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nurses, <a href='#Page_272'>272-274</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Otis, James, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Palestine, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Panic of 1857, <a href='#Page_160'>160-161</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Parke, Judge, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Parker, Theodore, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Parliament House of Peace, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Paul, the Apostle, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Penn, William, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">People at Home during the war, Chapter XI, <a href='#Page_263'>263-287</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Philip of Macedon, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Philip of Spain, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Phillips, Wendell, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chapter III, <a href='#Page_68'>68-94</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">aroused by mobbing of Garrison, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lovejoy's murder, <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Faneuil Hall meeting, <a href='#Page_81'>81-83</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Burns' rescue party, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">agitation against Fugitive Slave Law, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Phillips' lecturing, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">oratory, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defiance of mobs, <a href='#Page_91'>91-92</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">influence, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lowell's poem, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">quoted, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Pilgrim's Progress, The," <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Plymouth Church, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Plymouth Rock, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Popular sovereignty, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Porter, Admiral D. D., <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Port Hudson, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Portuguese slave-traders, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Postal affairs, during Revolution, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">in Jackson's time, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Presbyterianism and Federal government, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prescott, Wm. H., <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prison-ship martyrs, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prison sufferings, <a href='#Page_269'>269-271</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pym, John, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quincy, Josiah, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Randolph, John, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Raphael, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Religious sentiment increased, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Revival of religion in 1857, <a href='#Page_161'>161-162</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rhodes, J. F., <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Romola," <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ruskin, John, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Russo-Japanese War, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sand, George, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Savonarola, <a href='#Page_325'>325-326</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scheffer, Ary, and Christ the Emancipator, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scott, Winfield, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Secession, first threatened by Massachusetts, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">reasons for, Chapter VIII, <a href='#Page_188'>188-211</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">of South Carolina and other States, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">why not accepted by North, <a href='#Page_207'>207-209</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early rebellions of, <a href='#Page_294'>294-295</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Semmes, Com. Raphael, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Seward, Wm. H., <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shaftesbury, Lord, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shays' rebellion, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shenandoah Valley, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sheridan, Gen. Philip, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sherman, Gen. W. T., <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248-249</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slavery, American, Chapter I, <a href='#Page_11'>11-39</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Calhoun's view of, <a href='#Page_55'>55</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">controlled government in 1860, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attacked by North Carolinian, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">destroyed vigour of South, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">to be paid for by war, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slave-trade begins, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Slidell, John, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Smith, Sidney, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Socrates, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">South Carolina, and the tariff, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">nullification</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">doctrine of, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">attacked Sumter, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern destitution, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern officers of Northern birth, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern resources, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Southern women, <a href='#Page_266'>266-268</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spanish slave-traders, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Squatter sovereignty," <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stanton, Edwin M., <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a>, <a href='#Page_299'>299</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stead, William, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stephens, Alexander H., <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opposes secession, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Confederate vice-president, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">opinion of Davis, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Story, Joseph, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stowe, Calvin E., <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stowe, Charles E., <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Chapter VI, <a href='#Page_136'>136-148</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">daughter of Lyman Beecher, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">married, lived in Cincinnati, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">wrote death of "Uncle Tom," <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href='#Page_143'>143-148</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stowe, Lyman Beecher, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stradivarius, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sumner, Charles, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Chapter IV, <a href='#Page_95'>95-116</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">succeeds Webster in United States Senate, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_104'>104-110</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">oration on war, <a href='#Page_107'>107-109</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">boldly attacks slavery, <a href='#Page_110'>110-113</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">beaten by Brooks, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">characterization, <a href='#Page_114'>114-116</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Surgeons, <a href='#Page_272'>272-274</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Taney, Roger B., <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tariff, the, <a href='#Page_48'>48-50</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Texas, secession, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thackeray, W. M., <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thomas, Gen. G. H., <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Times</i>, the London, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tombs, Robert, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Trent</i>, the, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Tribune Almanac</i>, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Tribune, The New York</i>, <a href='#Page_126'>126-128</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Tribune</i> reporter and John Brown, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Turner, Nat, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Uncle Tom," death of, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href='#Page_143'>143-148</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Vanity Fair," <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Van Zandt, frees slaves, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vaughan, Judge, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vicksburg, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Victoria, Queen, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">War, good and evil influence of the, <a href='#Page_281'>281-285</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Washburne, E. B., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Washington, George, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">contrast with Lincoln, <a href='#Page_288'>288-289</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watt, James, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Webster and Calhoun, Chapter II, <a href='#Page_40'>40-67</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Webster, Daniel, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">early career, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">answers Hayne, <a href='#Page_56'>56-58</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">answers Calhoun, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">7th of March speech, <a href='#Page_61'>61-63</a>;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lincoln approves, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>;</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Webster dies, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">as orator, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">banner of, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wellington, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whiskey rebellion, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whitefield, George, <a href='#Page_21'>21</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whitney, Eli, <a href='#Page_27'>27-29</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier, John G., <a href='#Page_63'>63</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Winchester and Sheridan, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Winslow, Admiral John A., <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Winthrop, Robert, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wirtz, Henry, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wise, Governor of Virginia, <a href='#Page_155'>155-156</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Worden, Admiral John L., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wordsworth, Wm., <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Xenophon, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>"Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Story of Her Life." By Charles +E. Stowe and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "On the Trail of Grant and Lee," by Frederic Trevor Hill: +New York and London, D. Appleton & Co.</p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Battle of Principles, by Newell Dwight Hillis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES *** + +***** This file should be named 18557-h.htm or 18557-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/5/5/18557/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Battle of Principles + A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict + +Author: Newell Dwight Hillis + +Release Date: June 11, 2006 [EBook #18557] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + The Battle of Principles + + + + + WORKS OF + + NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS + + THE BATTLE OF PRINCIPLES + A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery + Conflict + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20._ + + THE CONTAGION OF CHARACTER + Studies in Culture and Success + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20._ + + THE FORTUNE OF THE REPUBLIC + Studies, National and Patriotic on America of To-day + and To-morrow + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, $1.20._ + + GREAT BOOKS AS LIFE-TEACHERS + Studies of Character, Real and Ideal + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50._ + + THE INVESTMENT OF INFLUENCE + A Study of Social Sympathy and Service + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25._ + + A MAN'S VALUE TO SOCIETY + Studies in Self-Culture and Character + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25._ + + FAITH AND CHARACTER + _12mo, cloth, gilt top, net, 75 cents_ + + FORETOKENS OF IMMORTALITY + Studies for "The Hour When the Immortal Hope Burns + Low in the Heart" + _12mo, cloth, net, 50 cents._ + + DAVID THE POET AND KING + _8vo, two colors, deckle edges, net, 75 cents._ + + HOW THE INNER LIGHT FAILED + A Study of the Atrophy of the Spiritual Sense + _18mo, cloth, net, 25 cents._ + + RIGHT LIVING AS A FINE ART + A Study of Channing's Symphony + _12mo, boards, net, 35 cents._ + + THE MASTER OF THE SCIENCE OF RIGHT LIVING + _12mo, boards, net, 35 cents._ + + ACROSS THE CONTINENT OF THE YEARS + _16mo, old English boards, net, 25 cents._ + + THE SCHOOL IN THE HOME + _Net, 50 cents._ + + + + + The + Battle of Principles + + A Study of the Heroism + and Eloquence of the + Anti-Slavery Conflict + + By + NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D. D. + + + + + NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO + Fleming H. Revell Company + LONDON AND EDINBURGH + + Copyright, 1912, by + FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY + + New York: 158 Fifth Avenue + Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave. + Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. + London: 21 Paternoster Square + Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street + + + + +Foreword + + +These are days of destiny for the people of the Republic. Democracy, +like a beautiful civilization, is sweeping over all the earth. From +Portugal comes the news of a monarchy that is taking on democratic +forms. Turkey has announced the liberty of the printing press, Russia is +planning a new system of popular education, China is in process of +adopting a constitutional government, with a cabinet responsible to the +people. Unless one reads the newspapers in many languages, the observer +will miss daily some new victory for democracy. Great changes are on +also for the Republic. Now that the Civil War is fifty years away, the +new North and the new South represent a solid nation. Indeed, if every +Northern soldier were to die to-day, not one interest or liberty of this +Republic would be permitted to suffer by the sons of the Confederate +soldiers, who would defend the nation unto blood as bravely as men born +north of Mason and Dixon's line--indeed, who fought gallantly for it in +the Cuban war. The North has entered upon a new industrial epoch, but +the South also is in the midst of its greatest industrial movement, and +in sight of its enlargement, by reason of the Panama Canal. + +The Western Continent is not large, but it holds more than half the farm +land of the planet, and it is already evident that the United States and +Canada, with their free institutions, will indirectly and directly +control the thousand millions of people that will soon live between the +Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and Cape Horn. The one question of the hour +is how to make all the coming millions patriots towards their country, +scholars towards the intellect, obedient citizens towards the laws of +nature and God. Our national peril is Mammonism, and the sordid pursuit +of gold. Our fathers came hither in pursuit of God and liberty,--not +gold and territory. Sixty of our present ninety millions of people have +entered the earthly scene since the Civil War. Our young men and women, +and the children of foreign born peoples need to open the pages of +history, setting forth the great men and events of the Anti-Slavery +epoch in this land. + +The time has come for the teachers in the schoolroom and the preachers +in their pulpits to assemble the youth of the nation, and drill them in +the history of industrial democracy, and of political liberty. If our +youth are to make the twentieth century glorious, they must realize the +continuity of our institutions, and often return to the nineteenth +century and the Anti-Slavery epoch. The phrase, "For God, home and +native land," is often on the lips of our teachers. Love towards God +gives religion; the love of home gives marriage; the love of country, +patriotism. But patriotism is a fire that must be fed with the fuel of +ideas. These chapters are written in the belief that the youth of to-day +will find in the history of their fathers a storehouse filled with seed +for a world sowing, an armoury filled with weapons for to-morrow's +battle, a library rich with wisdom for the morrow's emergency, a +cathedral, bright with memorials of yesterday's heroes, its soldiers and +scholars, its statesmen, and above all, its martyred President. + + NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS. + + _Plymouth Church, + Brooklyn, N. Y._ + + + + + Contents + + + I. Rise of American Slavery: Growth of + the Traffic 11 + + II. Webster and Calhoun: The Battle Line + in Array 40 + + III. Garrison and Phillips: Anti-Slavery + Agitation 68 + + IV. Charles Sumner: The Appeal to Educated + Men 95 + + V. Horace Greeley: The Appeal to the + Common People 117 + + VI. Harriet Beecher Stowe; John Brown: + The Conflict Precipitated 136 + + VII. Lincoln and Douglas: Influence of the + Great Debate 160 + + VIII. Reasons for Secession: Southern Leaders 188 + + IX. Henry Ward Beecher: The Appeal to + England 212 + + X. Heroes of Battle: American Soldiers + and Sailors 242 + + XI. The Life of the People at Home Who + Supported the Soldiers at the Front 263 + + XII. Abraham Lincoln: The Martyred President 288 + + INDEX 327 + + + + +I + +RISE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY: GROWTH OF THE TRAFFIC + + +The history of the nineteenth century holds some ten wars that disturbed +the nations of the earth, but perhaps our Civil War alone can be fully +justified at the bar of intellect and conscience. That war was fought, +not in the interest of territory or of national honour,--it was fought +by the white race for the enfranchisement of the black race, and to show +that a democratic government, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the +proposition that all men are created equal, could permanently endure. + +In retrospect, the Great Rebellion seems the mightiest battle and the +most glorious victory in the annals of time. The battle-field was a +thousand miles in length; the combatants numbered two million men; the +struggle was protracted over four years; the hillsides of the whole +South were made billowy with the country's dead; a million men were +killed or wounded in the two thousand two hundred battles; thousands of +gifted boys who might have permanently enriched the North and South +alike, through literature, art or science, were cut off as unfulfilled +prophecies in the beginning of their career, and what is more pathetic, +another million women, desolate and widowed, remained to look with +altered eyes upon an altered world, while alone they walked their Via +Dolorosa. In the physical realm the black shadow of the sun's eclipse +remains but for a few minutes, but through four awful years the nation +dwelt in blackness and dreadful night, while fifty more years passed, +and the shadow has not yet disappeared fully from the land. + +Strictly speaking, the Civil War began with the debate between Daniel +Webster and Calhoun in 1830. These intellectual giants set the battle +lines in array in the halls of the Senate. The warfare that began with +arguments in Congress was soon transferred to the lyceum and lecture +hall, then to the pulpit and press, then to the assembly rooms of State +legislatures, until finally it was submitted to the soldiers. At last +Grant, Sherman and Thomas witnessed to the truth of Webster's argument, +that the Union is one and inseparable, that it should endure now and +forever, but the endorsement was written with the sword's point, and in +letters of blood. The conflict raged, therefore, for thirty-five years, +and some of the most desperate battles were fought not with guns and +cannon, but with arguments, in the presence of assembled thousands, who +listened to the intellectual attack and defense. In their famous debate, +Lincoln and Douglas were over against one another like two fortresses, +bristling with bayonets, and with cannon shotted to the muzzle. + +The many millions of people in the United States, born or immigrated +here since the Civil War, busied with many things during this rich, +complex and prosperous era, have suffered a grievous loss, through the +weakening of their patriotism. Multitudes have forgotten that with great +price their fathers bought our industrial liberty for white and black +alike. The study of no era, perhaps, is so rewarding to the youth of the +country as the study of the Anti-Slavery epoch. It was an era of +intellectual giants and moral heroes. Great men walked in regiments up +and down the land. It was the age of our greatest statesmen of the North +and South,--Webster and Calhoun; of our greatest soldiers,--Grant, +Sherman, Thomas and Sheridan, and of Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It was +the era of our greatest orators, Phillips and Beecher; of our greatest +editors, led by Greeley and Raymond; of our greatest poets and scholars, +Whittier and Lowell and Emerson; and of our greatest President, the +Martyr of Emancipation. So wonderful are those scenes named Gettysburg, +Appomattox, and the room where the Emancipation Act was signed, that +even the most skeptical have felt that the issues of liberty and life +for millions of slaves justified the entrance of a Divine Figure upon +the human battle-field. This Unseen Leader and Captain of the host had +dipped His sword in heaven, and carried a blade that was red with +insufferable wrath against oppression, cruelty and wrong. + +Now that fifty years have passed since the Civil War, the events of that +conflict have taken on their true perspective, and movements once +clouded have become clear. For great men and nations alike, the +suggestive hours are the critical hours and epochs. That was a critical +epoch for Athens, when Demosthenes plead the cause of the republic, and +insisted that Athens must defend her liberties, her art, her laws, her +social institutions, and in the spirit of democracy resist the tyrant +Philip, who came with gifts in his hands. That was a critical hour for +brave little Holland, dreaming her dreams of liberty,--when the burghers +resisted the regiments of bloody Alva, and, clinging to the dykes with +their finger-tips, fought their way back to the fields, expelled Philip +of Spain, and, having no fortresses, lifted up their hands and +exclaimed, "These are our bayonets and walls of defense!" Big with +destiny also for this republic was that critical hour when Lincoln, in +his first inaugural, pleaded with the South not to destroy the Union, +nor to turn their cannon against the free institutions that seemed "the +last, best hope of men." But the eyes of the men of the South were +holden, and they were drunk with passion. They lighted the torch that +kindled a conflagration making the Southern city a waste and the rich +cotton-field a desolation. + +At the very beginning, the founders and fathers of the nation were under +the delusion that it was possible to unite in one land two antagonistic +principles,--liberty and slavery. It has been said that the Republic, +founded in New England, was nothing but an attempt to translate into +terms of prose the dreams that haunted the soul of John Milton his long +life through. The founders believed that every man must give an account +of himself to God, and because his responsibility was so great, they +felt that he must be absolutely free. Since no king, no priest, and no +master could give an account for him, he must be self-governing in +politics, self-controlling in industry, and free to go immediately into +the presence of God with his penitence and his prayer. The fathers +sought religious and political freedom,--not money or lands. But the new +temple of liberty was to be for the white race alone, and these builders +of the new commonwealth never thought of the black man, save as a +servant in the house. For more than two centuries, therefore, the wheat +and the tares grew together in the soil. When the tares began to choke +out the wheat, the uprooting of the foul growth became inevitable. +Perhaps the Civil War was a necessity,--for this reason, the disease of +slavery had struck in upon the vitals of the nation and the only cure +was the surgeon's knife. Therefore God raised up soldiers, and anointed +them as surgeons, with "the ointment of war, black and sulphurous." + +By a remarkable coincidence, the year that brought a slave ship to +Jamestown, Virginia, brought the _Mayflower_ and the Pilgrim fathers to +Plymouth Rock. It is a singular fact that the star of hope and the orb +of night rose at one and the same hour upon the horizon. At first the +rich men of London counted the Virginia tobacco a luxury, but the weed +soon became a necessity, and the captain of the African ship exchanged +one slave for ten huge bales of tobacco. A second cargo of slaves +brought even larger dividends to the owners of the slave ship. Soon the +story of the financial returns of the traffic began to inflame the +avarice of England, Spain and Portugal. The slave trade was exalted to +the dignity of commerce in wheat and flour, coal and iron. Just as ships +are now built to carry China's tea and silk, India's indigo and spices, +so ships were built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the +kidnapping of African slaves, and the sale of these men to the sugar and +cotton planters of the West Indies and of America. Even the stories of +the gold and diamond fields of South Africa and Alaska have had less +power to inflame men's minds than the stories of the black men in the +forests of Africa, every one of whom was good for twenty guineas. + +The London of 1700 experienced a boom in slave stocks as the London of +1900 in rubber stocks. Merchants and captains, after a few years' +absence, returned to London to buy houses, carriages and gold plate, and +by their political largesses to win the title of baronet, and even seats +in the House of Lords. This illusion of gold finally fell upon the +throne itself, and King William and Queen Mary lent the traffic royal +patronage. At the very time when men in Boston, exultant over the +success of their experiment in democracy, were writing home to London +about this ideal republic of God that had been set up at Plymouth, and +the orb of liberty began to flame with light and hope for New England, +this other orb began to fling out its rays of sorrow, disease and death +across Africa and the southern sands. + +At length, in 1713, Queen Anne, in the Treaty of Utrecht, after a long +and arduous series of diplomatic negotiations, secured for the English +throne a monopoly of the slave traffic, and the writers of the time +spoke of this treaty as an event that would make the queen's name to be +eulogized as long as time should last. But two hundred years have +reversed the judgment of the civilized world. History now recalls Queen +Anne's monopoly of the slave traffic as it recalls the Black Death in +England, the era of smallpox in Scotland,--for one such treaty is +probably equal to two bubonic plagues, or three epidemics of cholera and +yellow fever. + +Finally, an informal agreement was entered upon between the English +slave dealers, the Spaniards and Portuguese,--an agreement that was +literally a "covenant with death and a compact with hell." The +Portuguese became the explorers of the interior, the advance agents of +the traffic, who reported what tribes had the tallest, strongest men, +and the most comely women. The Spaniards maintained the slave stations +on the coast, and took over from the Portuguese the gangs of slaves who +were chained together and driven down to the coast; the English slave +dealers owned the ships, bought the slaves at wholesale, transported the +wretches across the sea, and retailed the poor creatures to the planters +of the various colonies. Between 1620 and 1770 three million slaves were +driven in gangs down to the African seacoast, and transported to the +colonies. At this time some of the greatest houses in London, Lisbon and +Madrid were founded, and some of the greatest family names were +established during these one hundred and fifty years when the slave +traffic was most prosperous. De Bau thinks that another 250,000 slaves +perished during the voyages across the sea. For the eighteenth century +was a century of cruelty as well as gold,--of crime and art,--of +murderous hate and increasing commerce. If the prophet Daniel had been +describing the Spain, Portugal and England of that time, he would have +portrayed them as an image of mud and gold,--but chiefly mud. Little +wonder that Thomas Jefferson, in his "Notes on Virginia," treating of +the influence and possible consequences of slavery, wrote, "Indeed, I +tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just." As England +anchored war-ships in the harbour of Shanghai, and forced the opium +traffic upon China, so she forced the slave traffic upon the American +colonies by gun and cannon. The story of the English kings who crowded +slavery upon the South makes up one of the blackest pages in the history +of a country that has been like unto a sower who went forth to sow with +one hand the good seed of liberty and justice, while with the other she +sowed the tares of slavery and oppression. + +From the very beginning, the climate and the general atmosphere of the +North was unfriendly to slavery, just as the cotton, sugar and indigo, +as well as the warm climate of the South encouraged slave labour. At +first, neither Boston nor New York associated wrong with the custom of +buying and using slave labour. And when, after a short time, opposition +began to develop, this antagonism to slavery was based upon economic, +rather than upon moral considerations. + +Jonathan Edwards was our great theologian, but at the very time that +Jonathan Edwards was writing his "Freedom of the Will" and preaching his +revival sermons on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," he was the +owner of slaves. When that philosopher, whose writings had sent his name +into all Europe, died, he bequeathed a favourite slave to his +descendants. Whitefield was the great evangelist of that era, but +Whitefield during his visit to the colonies purchased a Southern +plantation, stocked it with seventy-five slaves, and when he died +bequeathed it to a relative, whom he characterizes as "an elect lady," +who, notwithstanding she was "elect," was quite willing to derive her +livelihood from the sweat of another's brow. + +And yet even in the Providence plantations, where more slaves were +bought and sold than in any other of the Northern colonies, the traffic +soon began to wane. The simple fact is that the rigour of the climate +and the severity of the winters of New England made the life of the +African brief. The slave was the child of a tropic clime, unaccustomed +to clothing, and the January snows and the March winds soon developed +consumption and chilled to death the child of the tropics. It was found +impracticable to use the black man in either the forests or fields, and +in a short time slaves were purchased only as domestic servants. + +But about 1750 the conscience of New England awakened. Men in the pulpit +took a strong position against the traffic. The Congregational churches +of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut declared against slavery and +asked the legislatures to adopt the Jewish law, emancipating all slaves +whatsoever at the end of the tenth year of servitude. A little later, +slavery was made illegal in all the New England colonies, Pennsylvania +at length remembered William Penn, who had freed all his slaves in his +will, while the German churches of that State began to expel all members +who were known to have bought or held a slave. When, therefore, the +convention met in Philadelphia, in 1776, preparatory to the Declaration +of Independence, the delegates were able to say that as a whole the +Northern colonies had cleansed their borders of the abuse, and had +decided to build their institutions and civilization upon free labour, +as the sure foundation of individual and social prosperity. + +But the antagonism to slavery in the Southern colonies was only less +pronounced, and this, not because of economic reasons, but because of +moral considerations. The Southern climate was friendly to cotton and +tobacco, indigo and rice. These products made heavy demands upon labour, +but white labour was unequal to the intense heat of the Southern summer +and workmen were scarce. During the revolutions under King Charles I and +Charles II and the wars at the beginning of the eighteenth century, +England needed every man at home. Virginia offered high wages and large +land rewards, but it was well-nigh impossible for her to secure +immigrants and the labour she needed. In that hour the captain of a +slave ship appeared in the House of Burgesses and offered to supply the +need, but the people of Virginia instructed the delegates to the +assembly to protest against the traffic. Finally, the colony imposed a +duty upon each slave landing, and made the duty so high as to destroy +the profits of the slave trade. King George was furious with anger, and +sent out a royal proclamation forbidding all interference with the slave +traffic under heavy penalty, and affirming that this trade was "highly +beneficial to the colonies, as well as remunerative to the throne." +Growing more antagonistic to slavery, the planters of Fairfax County +called a convention at which Washington presided. Later, in +Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin brought in the resolutions condemning +slavery as "a wicked, cruel and unjustifiable trade." Soon the leading +men of the Southern colonies sent a formal protest to England. Lord +Mansfield supported them in a decision that in English countries, +governed by English laws, freedom was the rule, and slavery illegal, +unless the colony, through its assembly, expressly legalized the slave +traffic. + +When the first convention met in Philadelphia, Jefferson included among +the articles of indictment against George the Third this paragraph: "He +has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most +sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who +never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery or to +incur a miserable death in the transportation thither." This passage, +however, was struck out of the Declaration in compliance with the wishes +of the delegates from two colonies, who desired to continue slavery. But +in 1784 Jefferson reopened the question by reporting an ordinance +prohibiting slavery after the year 1800 in the territory that afterwards +became Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as the +territory north of the Ohio River. This anti-slavery clause was lost in +the convention by only a single vote. "The voice of a single +individual," wrote Jefferson, "would have prevented this abominable +crime. But Heaven will not always be silent. The friends to the rights +of human nature will in the end prevail." + +Indeed, in the Southern States up to the very beginning of the Civil War +there was a strong anti-slavery sentiment. When the first meeting was +held in Baltimore to organize the Abolition Society, eighty-five +abolition societies in various counties of Southern States sent +delegates to the convention. It is a striking fact that the South can +claim as much credit for the organization of the Abolition Society as +William Lloyd Garrison and his friends in the North. For the real +responsibility for slavery does not rest upon Virginia, the Carolinas or +Georgia, but upon the mother-land, upon the avarice of the throne, the +cupidity of English merchants and the power of English guns and cannon. + +By the year 1790, therefore, slavery in the North had either died of +inanition, or had been rendered illegal by the action of State +legislatures, and the chapter was closed. There are the best of reasons +also for believing that in the South slavery was waning, while the +influence of planters who believed free labour more economical was +waxing. Suddenly an unexpected event changed the whole situation. The +commerce of the world rests upon food and clothing. The food of the +world is in wheat and corn, the clothing in cotton and wool. But wool +was so expensive that for the millions in Europe cotton garments were a +necessity. England had the looms and the spindles, but she could not +secure the cotton, and the Southern planters could not grow it. The +cotton pod, as large as a hen's egg, bursts when ripe and the cotton +gushes out in a white mass. Unfortunately, each pod holds eight or ten +seeds, each as large as an orange seed. To clean a single pound of +cotton required a long day's work by a slave. The production of cotton +was slow and costly, the acreage therefore small, and the profits +slender. The South was burdened with debt, the plantations were +mortgaged, and in 1792 the outlook for the cotton planters was very +dark, and all hearts were filled with foreboding and fear. One winter's +night Mrs. General Greene, wife of the Revolutionary soldier, was +entertaining at dinner a company of planters. In those days the planters +had but one thought--how to rid their plantations of their mortgages. It +happened that the conversation turned upon some possible mechanism for +cleaning the cotton. Mrs. Greene turned to her guests, and, reminding +Eli Whitney, a young New Englander who was in her home teaching her +children, that he had invented two or three playthings for her children, +suggested that he turn his attention to the problem. + +Young Whitney had no tools, but he soon made them; had no wire, but he +drew his own wire, and within a few months he perfected the cotton gin. +When the cat climbs upon the crate filled with chickens, it thrusts its +paw between the laths and pulls off the feathers, leaving the chicken +behind the laths. Young Whitney substituted wires for laths, and a +toothed wheel for the cat's paw, and soon pulled all the cotton out at +the top, leaving the seeds to drop through a hole in the bottom of the +gin. Within a year every great planter had a carpenter manufacturing +gins for the fields. With Whitney's machine one man in a single day +could clean more cotton than ten negroes could clean in an entire +winter. Planters annexed wild land, a hundred acres at a time. For the +first time the South was able to supply all the cotton that England's +manufacturers desired. The cities in England awakened to redoubled +industry. Southern cotton lands jumped from $5 to $50 an acre. Whitney +found the South producing 10,000 bales in 1793. Sixty years later it +produced 4,000,000 bales. Historians affirm that this single invention +added $1,000,000,000 as a free gift to the planters of the South. + +Although Eli Whitney took out patents, every planter infringed them. +Whole States organized movements to fight Whitney before the courts. In +1808, when his patent expired, he was poorer than when he began. Feeling +that the Southern planters had robbed him of the legitimate reward of +his invention, Whitney came North and gave himself to the study of +firearms. He invented what is now known as the Colt's revolver, the +Remington rifle and the modern machine gun. Beginning with the feeling +that he had been robbed of his just rights by Southern planters, Whitney +ended by inventing the very weapons that deprived the planters of their +slaves and preserved the Union. + +But the new prosperity and the increased acreage for cotton in the South +created an enormous market for slaves, and soon the sea swarmed with +slave ships. Prices advanced five hundred per cent, until a slave that +had brought $100 brought $500, and some even $1,000. What made slavery +no scourge, but a great religious moral blessing? The answer is, the +cotton gin and the cotton interest that gave a new desire to promote +slavery, to spread it, and to use its labour. For Eli Whitney had made +cotton to be king. Cotton encouraged slavery; slavery at last +threatened the Union and so brought on the Civil War. + +The value of the slave as an economic machine depended upon his +physique, health and general endurance. The slave hunters were +Portuguese, Spaniards and Arabs, who drove the negroes in gangs down to +the coast, where they were loaded upon the slave ships. When the trade +was brisk and prices high, the hold of the ship was crowded to +suffocation, and intense suffering was inevitable. Landing at Savannah +or Charleston, Mobile or New Orleans, the slaves were sold at wholesale, +in the auction place. Later, the slave dealer drove them in gangs +through the villages, where they were sold at retail. The cost of a +slave varied with the price of cotton. Of the three million one hundred +thousand slaves living in the South in 1850, one million eight hundred +thousand were raising cotton. That was the great export, the basis of +prosperity. So great was the demand in England for Southern cotton that +profits were enormous. The Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's time +published a list of forty Southern planters in Louisiana and +Mississippi. One of them had five hundred negroes and sold the cotton +from his plantation at a net profit of one hundred thousand dollars. +Each negro, therefore, netted his master that year five hundred dollars. +The working life of a slave was short, scarcely more than seven years, +and for that reason the ablest negro was never worth more than from a +thousand to twelve hundred dollars. + +But if the cost of free labour was high, the cost of supporting the +slave under the Southern climate was very low. The climate of the Gulf +States is gentle, soft and propitious. Of forty planters who published +their statements, the average cost of clothing and feeding a slave for +one year was thirty dollars. One Louisiana planter, however, showed that +one hundred slaves on his plantation had cost him in cash outlay seven +hundred and fifty dollars for the entire year. This planter states that +his slaves raised their own corn, converted it into meal and bread, +raised their own sugar-cane, made their own molasses, built their own +houses out of the forest hard by. The slaves also raised their own +bacon, but unfortunately the price of meat was so high as to make its +use only an occasional luxury. North Carolina passed a law commanding +the planters to give their slaves meat at certain intervals, but the +law remained a dead letter. Other states, by legal enactment, fixed the +amount of meal that should be given to slaves. + +When Fanny Kemble, the English actress, retired from the stage, it was +to marry a Southern planter, and her autobiography and private letters +throw a flood of light upon the life of the slaves upon a typical +plantation in the cotton States. She says that the planter expected that +about once in seven years he must buy a new set of hands; that the +slaves did little in the winter, but they worked fifteen hours a day in +the spring, and often eighteen hours a day in the summer until the +cotton was picked. She adds that the negro children used to beg her for +a taste of meat, just as English children plead for a little candy. She +states that on her husband's estate slave breeding was most important +and remunerative, and that the increase and the young slaves sold made +it possible for the plantation to pay its interest. "Every negro child +born was worth two hundred dollars the moment it drew breath." + +It was this separation of families that touched the heart of Fanny +Kemble Butler, and stirred the indignation of Harriet Martineau, who at +the end of her year at the South wrote that she would rather walk +through a penitentiary or a lunatic asylum than through the slave +quarters that stood in the rear of the great house where she was +entertained. It is this element that explains the statement of John +Randolph of Virginia. Conversing one evening about the notable orations +to which he had listened, the great lawyer said that the most eloquent +words he had ever heard were "spoken on the auction block by a slave +mother." It seemed that she pleaded with the auctioneer and the +spectators not to separate her from her children and her husband, and +she made these men, who were trafficking in human life, realize the +meaning of Christ's words, "Woe unto him that doth offend one of My +little ones; it were better for him that a millstone were placed about +his neck and that he were cast into the depths of the sea." + +In this era of industrial education for the coloured race it is +interesting to note that five of the slave States imposed heavy +penalties upon any one who should teach the slaves to read or write. +Virginia, however, permitted the owner to teach his slave in the +interest of better management of the plantation. North Carolina finally +consented to arithmetic. After 1831 and the Nat Turner negro +insurrection more stringent laws were passed to prevent the slaves +learning how to read, lest they chance upon abolition documents. A +Georgian planter said that "The very slightest amount of education +impairs their value as slaves, for it instantly destroys their +contentedness; and since you do not contemplate changing their +condition, it is surely doing them an ill service to destroy their +acquiescence in it." In spite of the law, however, domestic servants +were frequently taught to read. Frederick Douglass found a teacher in +his mistress, where he was held as a domestic slave, and Douglass in +turn taught his fellow slaves on the plantation by stealth. The +advertisements of slaves that mention the slave's ability to read and +cipher, as a reason for special value, prove that the more intelligent +slaves had at least the rudiments of knowledge. Olmstead, in his "Cotton +Kingdom," says he visited a plantation in Mississippi, where one of the +negroes had, with the full permission of his master, taught all his +fellows how to read. + +An examination of the influence of slavery upon the poorer whites shows +that two-thirds of the white population suffered hardly less than did +the coloured people. The slaveholding class formed an aristocracy, who +dominated and ruled as lords. When the war broke out, there were about +four hundred thousand slave-holders, and nine and a half million people. +But of these four hundred thousand slave-holders, only about eight +thousand owned more than fifty slaves each, and it was this mere handful +who lived in splendid homes, surrounded with luxury, beauty, and +refinement. Travellers who have thrown the veil of romance and +enchantment about the Southern home, with a great house embowered in +magnolia trees, its rooms stored with art treasures, its walls lined +with marbles and bronzes, and its banqueting room at night crowded with +beautiful women and handsome men--these travellers speak of what was as +a matter of fact exceptional. We must remember that these men +represented a small aristocracy; that their mode of life, so charmingly +pictured by many accomplished writers, was the life of a select group, +and that the great slave plantations numbered not more than eight +thousand in that vast area. + +From the hour of the organization of the Abolition Society, these +Southern planters assumed an aggressive position. Their editors, +politicians and lawyers began to publish briefs, in support of the +peculiar institution. The usual argument began with ridicule of Thomas +Jefferson's famous statement that all men are born equal. The second +argument was an economic one, based on the value of the slaves. Three +million slaves would average a value of five hundred dollars each, and +this meant a billion five hundred millions of property, that had to be +considered as so much property in ships, factories, engines, reapers, +pastures, meadows, herds and flocks. All planters invoked the words of +Moses, permitting the Hebrews to hold slaves, and therefore exhibiting +slavery as a divine institution. Statesmen justified the Fugitive Slave +Law by triumphantly quoting Paul's letter, sending Onesimus back to his +rich master, Philemon. Jefferson Davis rested his argument upon the +curse that God pronounced upon Canaan, and asserted that slavery was +established by a decree of Almighty God and that through the portal of +slavery alone the descendant of the graceless son of Noah entered the +temple of civilization. Once a year the Southern minister preached from +the text, "Cursed be Canaan, the son of Ham. A servant of servants shall +he be unto his brethren." + +A few scholars grounded themselves on the scientific argument. These men +held that the black man was separated from the Saxon by a great chasm, +that if freed he was not equal to self-government, that he was a mere +child when placed in competition with the white man, and that the strong +owed it to the weak, that it was the duty of every superior man to take +charge of the inferior, and impose government from without. + +The politician had a stronger argument in defense of slavery. He held +that the nation that was strong, educated, prosperous, with an army and +navy, had not only the right but the duty of imposing government upon a +colony that was ignorant, poor, and degraded, and that this example of +the nation governing a colony by force of arms proved that the white +man, as master, should impose government from without upon the slave. + +Not until years after the war was over did men fully realize that +slavery was weight and free labour wings to the people. The North +believed that the working man should be free, that he should be +educated in the public schools, and that the only way to increase his +wage was to increase his intelligence. Each new knowledge, therefore, +brought a new economic hunger, and made the free labourer a good buyer +in the market, thus supporting factories and shops. Contrariwise the +slave was a poor buyer. The negro picking cotton out of the pod had few +wants,--one garment about his loins, a pone of corn bread, a husk +mattress,--no more. For that reason the slave starved the factory and +shop. Invention in the South perished. Every attempt to found a factory +was attended with failure. Of necessity, the North grew steadily richer +straight through the war, while the South grew steadily poorer. The war +closed with Northern factories and shops and trade at the high tide of +prosperity. The free working man asked many forms of clothing for the +body, books and magazines for the mind, pictures for the walls, +sewing-machine, the reed organ, every conceivable comfort and +convenience for his family, and these many forms of hunger nourished +invention, made the towns centres of manufacturing life, and built a +rich nation. The Northern working man put his head into his task, the +slave, his heel. When the war was over, the South was like a crushed +egg, impoverished by slavery. The peculiar institution had served well +eight thousand slave planters, each of whom owned more than fifty +slaves. But slavery had starved the remaining millions. + +Now that the new era has come, no statesman, no scholar, no editor, has +ever indicted slavery as the costliest possible form of production, with +half the skill, eloquence and conviction of Southern writers. What +Northern men believe, the Southerner knows. Unconsciously the Southern +youth was handicapped in the commercial race. His Northern brother was +an athlete, stripped to the skin, while he dragged a fetter, invisible. +That he should have come so near to winning the race is a tribute to his +courage, endurance, and a mental resource that can never be praised too +highly. If the rest of the world could only fight for good causes, with +half the ability, chivalry and bravery that the South fought for a bad +economic system, the world would soon enter upon the millennium. + + + + +II + +WEBSTER AND CALHOUN: THE BATTLE LINE IN ARRAY + + +The year was 1830; the scene, the Senate Chamber in Washington; the +combatants, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Two hundred and ten +years had now passed since the ship of liberty had come to New England, +and the ship of slavery had landed in Virginia. These centuries had +given ample time for the development of the real genius and influence of +liberty and free labour in the civilization of the North, and of slave +labour upon the institutions of the South. Little by little the +merchants, manufacturers and professional classes of the North had come +to feel that a free and educated working class produces wealth more +cheaply and rapidly than slave labour, and that the working people of +America must be educated and free, if they were to compete with the free +working people of Great Britain and Europe. Contrariwise, the South +believed that manual labour was a task for slaves, that cotton, rice +and sugar were produced more rapidly by slave labour than by free +labour. The Southern civilization was built on the plan of producing raw +cotton, and exchanging it for manufactured goods. It did not escape the +notice of Southern leaders, however, that under free labour the North +had nearly double the population and wealth of the South. But Senator +Hayne explained this by saying that the biggest nations had never been +the greatest, and that the renowned peoples had been like Athens,--small +states, elect and patrician. + +But darkness and light, summer and winter, liberty and slavery cannot +exist side by side, in peace and tranquility. Unite hydrogen and +chlorine, and the chemist has an explosion that takes off the roof of +the house. And because liberty and slavery were antagonistic, and +mutually destructive, whenever the representatives of both came together +there was inevitably an explosion either on the platform or through the +press. It could not have been otherwise. In Palestine two opposing +civilizations came into collision,--one the Hebrew and the other the +Philistine,--and the Philistine went down. In Holland the Dutchmen, +working towards democracy, collided with the Spaniards, working towards +autocracy, and the Spaniard went down. In England, Hampden and Pym came +into collision with Charles the First and Archbishop Laud. The two +leaders of democracy wished to increase the privileges of the common +people by diffusing property, liberty, office and honours, while Charles +the First and Laud wished to lessen the powers of the people, and to +increase the privileges of the throne; democracy won, and autocracy +lost. And now in this republic, a civilization based upon the freedom +and education of the working classes came into collision with the +Southern civilization, based upon ignorant slave labour, and there were +upheavals and political outbreaks everywhere. In vain Abraham tried to +house Isaac, the son of the free woman, and Ishmael, the son of the +slave woman, under one and the same roof. Slowly the men in the North +and the manufacturers of England came to feel that slavery was +interfering with the commerce and prosperity, not simply of the people +of this republic, but of Europe also. Slavery was an economic +obstruction, lying directly in the path of progress. + +The two men who marked out the lines of struggle and precipitated the +conflict were Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun. Daniel Webster, the +defender of the Constitution, affirmed that the Union was one and +inseparable, now and forever. John C. Calhoun said, "The State is +sovereign and supreme, and the Union secondary." In effect Webster said, +"The central government is the sun, and the States are planets, moving +round about the central orb." Calhoun answered, "There is no central sun +in our political system, but only planets, each revolving in any orbit +it elects for itself." Webster said, "In the cosmic and political system +alike, it is the central sun that causes the States like planets to move +in order and harmony, without collision, and with rich harvests." +Calhoun answered that every planet should be its own sun, and, if it +choose, be a runaway orb, and collide with whom it will. + +Finally, the argument of Webster and Calhoun was submitted to armies. +Grant and Sherman said, "Webster is right; the Union must be +maintained." Lee and Jackson answered, "Calhoun is right; the Union must +go, and the sovereign State remain." At Bull Run, Calhoun's doctrine +seemed to be in the ascendancy; at Gettysburg, Webster's argument seemed +to have the more cogency; at Appomattox Lee withdrew his support from +Calhoun, and allowed Daniel Webster's plea that the Union must abide and +be now and forever, one and inseparable. + +The Northern statesman, Daniel Webster, was probably the greatest +political genius our country has produced. He was born in New Hampshire, +in 1782, and was seven years old when his father gave him a copy of the +newly-adopted Constitution, which he soon committed to memory. His +father belonged to the farmer class, who read by night and brooded upon +his reading by day. In an era of privation for the colonists, by stern +denial he put his son through Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth +College. While still a young man, Daniel Webster leaped into fame by a +single argument before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and became +the competitor of jurists like Rufus Choate. His orations on "Bunker +Hill Monument," the "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," the "Death of +Adams and Jefferson," are among the really sublime passages in the +history of eloquence. In the Girard College case Webster established the +point that Christianity is a part of the common law of the land. +Criminal lawyers quote Webster's argument in the great Knapp murder +trial, that the voice of conscience is the voice of God, as the world's +best statement of the moral imperative, and the automatic judgment seat +God has set up in the city of man's soul. + +Even from the physical view-point he deserved his epithet, "the godlike +Daniel." Not so tall as Calhoun or Clay, he was more solidly built than +either of the Southern orators. His head was so large and beautiful, +that Crawford, the sculptor, thought Webster his ideal model for a +statue of Jupiter. His skin was a deep bronze and copper hue, but when +excited his face became luminous, and translucent as a lamp of +alabaster. His opponents say that Webster had the finest vocal +instrument of his generation, and that he was a master of all possible +effects through speech. His voice was mellow and sweet, with an +extraordinary range, extending from the ringing clarion tenor note, to +the bass of a deep-toned organ. The historian tells us "Webster had the +faculty of magnifying a word into such prodigious volume that it was +dropped from his lips as a great boulder might drop into the sea, and it +jarred the Senate Chamber like a clap of thunder." The Kentucky lawyer, +Thomas Marshall, said when Webster came to his peroration in his reply +to Hayne, that he "listened as to one inspired." He finally thought he +saw a halo around the orator's head, like the one seen in the old +masters' depictions of saints. + +Webster's opponent was John C. Calhoun, senator from South Carolina. +Calhoun was the first Southern statesman to mark out the lines of battle +and indicate the methods of attack and defense for the supporters of +slavery. Graduating with high honours at Yale, in the class of 1802, +Calhoun studied law for three years at Litchfield, Connecticut, and then +decided to enter politics. In the lecture halls and class rooms, he +stood at the very forefront, as orator and logician. One day, in Yale +College, Calhoun delivered a speech on an apparently absurd proposition, +which he defended with great acuteness. When he had finished, President +Dwight said, "Calhoun, that is a brilliant piece of logic, and if I ever +want any one to prove that shad grow upon apple trees, I shall appoint +you." + +Upon the lines of broad patriotism, with reference to the interests of +the country as a whole, Calhoun supported the war with England in 1812. +From city to city the young lawyer journeyed, travelling all the way +from Charleston and Savannah to Boston and Portland, urging the right +and the duty of the Republic to resist England's claim to the right of +search of American vessels. Calhoun was widely read in history, he was +full of intense patriotism, his arguments were clear, he had unity, +order and movement in his thinking, he had the art of putting things, +and was a perfect master of his audience. At thirty years of age Calhoun +was as popular in Boston as he was later in Savannah and Charleston. In +1824, he was elected Vice-President,--the only man on the ticket to be +chosen by popular vote. From that hour until his death he remained a +member of the triumvirate that controlled the destinies of the Republic, +sharing honours with Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. + +In the South Calhoun was all but idolized. He was tall and slender of +person, refined and elegant in manners, carrying with him great personal +charm. He was a puritan in his morals, maintained a spotless reputation, +and escaped all criticism with reference to private life that was +visited upon his competitors. Many a Northern man who went to Congress +hating the very name of Calhoun, the arch-secessionist, was compelled +to confess that he had to steel his heart against the charm of Calhoun's +speech and personality. The simplicity of his character, the clearness +of his thinking, the sincerity and moral earnestness of his nature, all +united to lend him the influence that he exerted over men like Oliver +Dyer, Webster's friend, who said of Calhoun, "He was by all odds the +most fascinating man in private intercourse that I have ever met." + +When Webster and Clay came into collision, it was over a subject +apparently far removed from the bondage of slaves. If slavery was the +spark that fired the magazine for the great explosion in 1861, the +tariff furnished the powder. The South produced raw material, and +imported all her tools, comforts and conveniences, while the North had +free labour, and her educated working classes were good purchasers, and +lent generous support to manufacturers. Exporting its raw cotton to +England, the South sent its leaders to Congress to ask for free trade +with foreign countries, or in any event, a lower tariff. The Northern +manufacturers sent their leaders to Congress to ask for protection +against foreign woollens, cottons, and all English tools and French +silks, and luxuries. Therefore the interests of the North antagonized +the interests of the South. In the South the anti-slavery sentiment had +disappeared because of Whitney's cotton gin. As Beecher wittily put it +in his Manchester speech: "Slaves that before had been worth three to +four hundred dollars began to be worth six hundred. That knocked away +one-third of adherence to the moral law. Then they became worth seven +hundred dollars, and half the law went; then eight or nine hundred +dollars, and there was no such thing as moral law; then one thousand or +twelve hundred dollars, and slavery became one of the beatitudes." + +The Southern leaders, therefore, wanted free trade with England; the +North urged protection, in the interest of the whole country, rather +than a group of States. The South believed that Northern politics was +selfish; the North believed that the Southern leaders were building up +English manufacturers, and weakening their own country! The people +became one great debating club, and the dispute waxed more bitter day by +day. Every new event seemed to widen the breach. The war of the +Revolution made for unity between North and South, just as the hammer +welds together two pieces of red hot iron. The soldiers of the +Revolution had marched under the same flag, supported the same +Declaration of Independence, and fought for the same Constitution. +Slavery in the North had died through inanition, and during the +eighteenth century in the South also slavery seemed in process of +extinction. But now, in 1830, slavery had become a great source of +immeasurable wealth to the South, just as manufacturing had built up the +prosperity of the North. + +The tariff discussion came to a climax in 1828, through the passing of a +customs act, known as the Tariff of Abominations. Sparks falling on ice +carry no peril, but sparks falling on the dry prairie cause +conflagrations. The news of the passing of the protective tariff created +intense excitement in South Carolina. Public meetings were called in all +the towns in the land, and protests were made against the execution of +the new law. Legislators in the State capital, orators on the platform, +editors through their columns, urged nullification. There were two +reasons for this growing hostility to protection on the part of the +citizens of Calhoun's State; first the belief that as England was the +largest purchaser of cotton, it was to South Carolina's best interest to +have English goods brought in free; second the conviction that the +tariff was a strictly sectional movement in the interest of the +manufacturing North, as opposed to the South with her raw cotton and +slave labour. + +As a candidate for the vice-presidency in 1828 on the same ticket as +General Jackson, Calhoun took no definite step until after the election, +when he published a paper showing the evil which the protective tariff +was doing the Southern states, and asserting the right to interpose a +veto. In January, 1830, having broken with Jackson and abandoned all +hope of later obtaining the presidency by his aid, Calhoun decided to +test the theory of nullification upon the national theatre. Accordingly, +under his direction, Senator Hayne inserted in his speech on the Foote +Resolution on the public lands the defense of what was to be known later +as the South Carolina Doctrine,--that, if a State considered a law of +Congress unconstitutional (as South Carolina asserted the recent tariff +act to be) the State had the right to nullify the law, and, if +obedience was sought to be enforced, the right to secede from the Union. + +His position has been stated by no one so clearly as by himself, for he +spent the next three years perfecting and elaborating his argument. As +the basis of his structure he employed a distinction between "a nation" +and "a union." England was a nation--the United States was a union. +Russia, Austria and Turkey were nations--this republic a union of +sovereign states. Prussia was presided over by a king and was a +nation--the United States was a republic and the citizens ruled +themselves. Calhoun distinguished also between sovereignty and +government; sovereignty is a birthright, a natural and inalienable right +vouchsafed by God; government is an artificial right established by law. +Sovereignty is an inexpungable and inherent privilege; government is a +secondary and artificial privilege. When any sovereign State is injured, +it has not only the right but the duty to withdraw from the compact that +has been broken. The popular notion is that this idea of _Secession_ was +originated by Calhoun and was a South Carolina heresy; as a matter of +fact, it was first presented in Congress by Josiah Quincy, and should +be called "A Massachusetts heresy." + +In 1811, as one of the results of the purchase of Louisiana by +Jefferson, a bill had been offered providing for the reception of the +State of Orleans into the Union. The people of New Orleans spoke the +French language, lived under the code of Napoleon, were monarchial in +their sympathy, and Quincy opposed the bill, just as many men to-day +would oppose the reception into the Union of the Philippines, the +Hawaiians or the Porto Ricans. Mr. Quincy declared that if Orleans were +admitted, the several States would be freed from the federal bonds and +that "as it will be the right of all States, so it will be the duty of +some, to prepare definitely for separation, amicably if they can, +violently if they must." When the speaker ruled out of order these +remarks, Quincy appealed, and the House of Representatives sustained his +appeal by a vote of fifty-six to fifty-three. Congress, under the lead +of Massachusetts, went on record that "it was permissible to discuss a +dissolution of the Union, amicably if we can--forcibly if we must." + +Two years later, Henry Clay taunted the Massachusetts leaders with this +threat to dismember the Union. In 1844, Charles Francis Adams, in a +speech opposing the annexation of Texas, affirmed the right of the +Northern States to dissolve the Union. Even Charles Sumner and Horace +Greeley held the same views in 1861. The editor was anxious to "let the +erring sisters go," believing that the withdrawal was parliamentary; +while Charles Sumner said: "If they will only go, we will build a bridge +of gold for them to go over on." + +But it was Calhoun who carried the doctrine of _Nullification_ to its +full development, and who worked out the theory of sovereignty. In the +debate with Webster, on the Force Bill, he stated his argument as +follows: "The people of Carolina believe that the Union is a union of +States and not of individuals; that it was formed by the States, and +that the citizens of the several States were bound to it through the +acts of their several States; that each State ratified the Constitution +for itself, and that it was only by such ratification of the States that +any obligation was imposed upon its citizens.... On this principle the +people of the State [South Carolina] have declared by the ordinance that +the Acts of Congress which imposed duties under the authority to lay +imposts, were acts not for revenue, as intended by the Constitution, but +for protection, and therefore null and void." "The terms union, federal, +united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of +States. The sovereignty is in the several States, and our system is a +union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a constitutional compact, +and not of a divided sovereignty between the States severally and the +United States." + +His attitude towards slavery is illustrated by the remarks he delivered +in the Senate. "This agitation has produced one happy effect at least; +it has compelled us of the South to look into the nature and character +of this great institution of slavery, and correct many false impressions +that even we had entertained in relation to it. Many in the South once +believed that it was a moral and political evil. That folly and delusion +are gone. We see it now in its true light, and regard it as a most safe +and stable basis for free institutions in the world. It is impossible +with us that the conflict can take place between labour and capital, +which makes it so difficult to establish and maintain free institutions +in all wealthy and highly civilized nations, where such institutions as +ours do not exist." + +Calhoun's attempt to have his doctrine set forth on the floor of the +Senate Chamber met a crushing blow. When the hour came, he chose, to +present his view, Hayne of South Carolina, who defended the doctrine of +nullification with great brilliancy and energy. Hayne took the ground +that nullification was the old view always held by Virginia, that it was +the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson, and had been urged by Josiah Quincy of +Massachusetts itself. He was a most gifted orator. After a century of +preparation, at length slavery had chosen its strategic position and +drawn the battle line. From that moment it was certain that slavery must +go, or that the Union must go. A feeling of apprehension spread over the +land. Fear fell upon the hearts of the people. The one question of the +hour was whether Webster could answer the Southern orator and sweep away +the fog with which Hayne had enveloped the discussion, and make the old +Constitution stand out as firm as a mountain, with principles as bright +as the stars. + +By universal consent Webster's reply is our finest example of forensic +eloquence. The essence of the argument was the right of the majority to +control the minority. That one State could nullify and secede whenever +the majority outvoted it, practically destroyed the jury system which is +embedded in Saxon history, destroyed the right of the majority of the +aldermen to control the great city, destroyed the right of the majority +of the supreme justices to make their decision. Webster's argument +crushed the doctrine of secession, and made the Republic a nation. Thus +Calhoun and Webster marked out the line of battle, for when the men in +gray and the men in blue met at Gettysburg and Appomattox it was to +determine whether Calhoun or Webster was right. Grant's final victory +simply stamped with a seal of blood the great charter that Webster's +genius had formulated. + +In retrospect the wonderful thing about Webster's reply is that his +notes were confined to a sheet of letter paper. Afterwards Webster said +that it had been carefully prepared, for while there is such a thing as +extemporaneous delivery, there is "no extemporaneous acquisition." Not +until he entered the Senate Chamber and saw the crowds did he feel the +slightest trepidation. "A strange sensation came. My brain was free. +All that I had ever read or thought or acted, in literature, in history, +in law, in politics, seemed to unroll before me in glowing panorama, and +then it was easy, if I wanted a thunderbolt, to reach out and take it, +as it went smoking by." When Lyman Beecher had read Webster's reply to +Hayne, he turned to a friend and exclaimed, "It makes me think of a +red-hot cannon-ball going through a bucket of empty egg-shells." + +From that hour patriotism rose like a flood. For two generations the +reply has been to Americans what Demosthenes on the Crown was to the +Athenians. Webster placed the nation above the union, made the Nation, +in its constitutionally specified sphere of action, sovereign and +primary, the States secondary and subordinate. He thus made possible a +world-wide victory for free institutions, by which, to-day, democracy +and self-government are making thrones totter and tyrants tremble, and +giving us the assurance that no government is so stable as a government +conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are +free and equal. Webster made logical use of "government of the people, +by the people, and for the people." The soldiers of Gettysburg +exhibited their willingness to defend such a government, to live for +free institutions, and if necessary to die for them. + +Now that long time has passed, Southerners and Northerners alike concede +that Calhoun made three mistakes. He fought against progress and +civilization that has destroyed slavery on moral grounds. He also failed +to see that slavery was the worst possible system of production, for if +the South produced under slavery 4,000,000 bales of cotton in 1861, now +that the coloured man is free she produces 15,000,000 bales of cotton +per year. His theory of the right of the minority as a sovereign right +of secession has broken down at the bar of civilization. If South +Carolina or any State has the right to withdraw, whenever the majority +of other States outvote it, it means that the minority always has a +right to disobey the majority, which means not simply the withdrawal of +the one State from the many States, but later, the withdrawal of a few +counties from a majority of the counties in that State, giving an +endless series of confusions. If any single doctrine is established +among civilized nations to-day it is this one, under democratic +institutions--the right of the majority to rule. + +Three years later Webster once more marked out the basis of the North's +position for all time in a debate with Calhoun himself. Without the +magnificent flights of eloquence which distinguished the Reply to Hayne, +this speech of February 16, 1833, was filled with close and powerful +reasoning. Once and for all he maintained: + +"1. That the Constitution of the United States is not a league, +confederacy, or compact between the people of the several States, in +their sovereign capacities, but a government proper, founded on the +adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and +individuals. + +"2. That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations; that +nothing can dissolve them but revolution. And that consequently there +can be no such thing as secession without revolution." + +The importance of that argument in the history of our country cannot be +overestimated. As James Ford Rhodes has put it: "The justification +alleged by the South for her secession in 1861 was based on the +principles enunciated by Calhoun; the cause was slavery. Had there been +no slavery, the Calhoun theory of the Constitution would never have been +propounded, or had it been, it would have been crushed beyond +resurrection by Webster's speeches of 1830 and 1833. The South could not +in 1861 justify her right to revolution, for there was no oppression nor +invalidation of rights. She could, however, proclaim to the civilized +world what was true, that she went to war to extend slavery. Her defense +therefore is that she made the contest for her constitutional rights, +and this attempted vindication is founded on the Calhoun theory. On the +other hand, the ideas of Webster waxed strong with the years; and the +Northern people, thoroughly imbued with these sentiments, and holding +them as sacred truths, could not do otherwise than resist the +dismemberment of the Union." + +The great crisis that broke Mr. Webster's health and perhaps his heart +came through a misunderstanding. In 1850 the discussion over the Wilmot +proviso was stirring the Senate; Henry Clay had brought in his series of +compromise resolutions, based on the sober belief that the Union was in +imminent danger, and that once again the skillful hand that had penned +the Missouri Compromise might turn the country back into the path of +peace and prosperity. Calhoun, the second of the great Triumvirate, was +already within a month of death. Too weak to read his speech, he was +wheeled into the Senate Chamber, to sit with closed eyes while his last +haughty, arrogant defense of the South's rights was read by Senator +Mason. But the greatest of them all was yet to speak. Webster had the +foresight of Civil War, with rivers of blood, and a man on horseback. +Influenced by what we now see was the broadest patriotism, he delivered +his "Seventh of March Speech,"--the opening words of which disclose a +motive and a purpose too often overlooked by his critics. "I speak +to-day for the preservation of the Union. 'Hear me for my cause.'" +Briefly, his position was this:--that the Union was primary, dealing +with the liberties of fifty and later one hundred millions of +people,--white men as well as black,--and that the slavery question was +secondary, involving an artificial, less important and less permanent +institution. He discussed slavery from the view-point of history, with +arguments of the philosopher rather than those of the orator. He +defended the compromise measures, with their clause in favour of strict +enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, on the ground that the Government +was solemnly pledged by law and contract, and, indeed, "had been pledged +to it again and again." He closed with that famous paragraph +demonstrating the impossibility of peaceable secession. "Sir, he who +sees these States now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and +expects them to quit their places, and fly off without convulsion, may +look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, +and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing +the wreck of the universe." + +But he had defended the Fugitive Slave Law!--Therefore Abolitionists +burned Webster in effigy. Wendell Phillips called him a second Judas +Iscariot. Whittier wrote "Ichabod" across his forehead. Horace Mann +described him as a "fallen star--Lucifer descending from heaven!" Every +arrow was barbed and poisoned. Webster suffered like a great eagle with +a dart through its heart, beating its bloody wings upward through the +pathless air. + +But now that long time has passed, thoughtful men realize that Webster +had studied the fundamental question more deeply, knew the facts better, +and saw clearer than his detractors. It is true that he erred when he +criticized the Abolitionists on the ground that in the last twenty years +they had "produced nothing good or valuable,"--that his words were +chosen in a way that irritated the North unduly,--and, more important +still, that in his remarks on the Fugitive Slave Law he swerved from the +broad statesmanship which distinguished the rest of the speech. But +twelve years later Abraham Lincoln read Daniel Webster's Seventh of +March Speech, and said Webster was right and Boston was wrong. Lincoln +put Webster's position into his letter to Greeley: "My paramount object +in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to +destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I +would do it; if I could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, I +would do it, and if I could save the Union by freeing some, and leaving +others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery I do because +I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear I forbear +because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." And to-day, +after sixty years, our foremost writers are agreeing that "from the +historical view-point Webster's position was one of the highest +statesmanship." But the recognition of Webster unfortunately came too +late. + +As time passed Webster felt more and more keenly the injustice done him. +Bitterness poisoned his days, and sorrow shortened his life. When the +autumn came, he made ready for the end, knowing he would not survive +another winter. One October morning Webster said to his physician, "I +shall die to-night." The physician, an old friend, answered, "You are +right, sir." When the twilight fell, and all had gathered about his +bedside, Mr. Webster, in a tone that could be heard throughout the +house, slowly uttered these words, "My general wish on earth has been to +do my Master's will. That there is a God, all must acknowledge. I see +Him in all these wondrous works, Himself how wondrous! What would be the +condition of any of us if we had not the hope of immortality? What +ground is there to rest upon but the Gospel? There were scattered hopes +of the immortality of the soul, especially among the Jews. The Jews +believed in a spiritual origin of creation; the Romans never reached it; +the Greeks never reached it. It is a tradition that communication was +made to the Jews by God Himself through Moses. There were intimations +crepuscular, but--but--but--thank God! the Gospel of Jesus Christ +brought immortality to light, rescued it, brought it to light." + +Then, while all knelt in his death chamber and wept, Webster, in a +strong, firm voice, repeated the whole of the Lord's Prayer, closing +with these words: "Peace on earth and good will to men. That is the +happiness, the essence--good will to men." And so the defender of the +Constitution, the greatest reasoner on political matters of the +Republic, fell upon death. + + * * * * * + +Reflecting upon Webster's unconscious influence as set forth in the +words, "I still live," one of his eulogists says that when Rufus Choate +took ship for that port where he died, a friend exclaimed: "You will be +here a year hence." "Sir," said the lawyer, "I shall be here a hundred +years hence, and a thousand years hence." With his biographer let us +also believe that Daniel Webster is still here; that he watches with +intense interest the spread of democracy; that he now perceives our free +institutions extending their influence around the globe, beneficently +victorious in many a foreign state; that he rejoices as he beholds "the +gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honoured throughout the +world, bearing that sentiment dear to every true American heart, liberty +and union, now and forever, one and inseparable." + + + + +III + +GARRISON AND PHILLIPS: ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION + + +In retrospect, historians make a large place for the eloquence of the +anti-slavery epoch, as a force explaining the abolition movement. Every +great movement must have its advocate and voice. Garrison was the pen +for abolition, Emerson its philosopher, Greeley its editor, and in +Wendell Phillips abolition had its advocate. Political kings are +oftentimes artificial kings. The orator is God's natural king, divinely +enthroned. Back of all eloquence is a great soul, a great cause and a +great peril. Our history holds three supreme moments in the story of +eloquence--the hour of Patrick Henry's speech at Williamsburg, Wendell +Phillips' at Faneuil Hall and Lincoln's at Gettysburg. The great hour +and the great crisis, the great cause and the great man, all met and +melted together at a psychologic moment. In retrospect Phillips seems +like a special gift of God to the anti-slavery period. Webster had more +weight and majesty, Everett a higher polish, Douglas more pathos, +Beecher was more of an embodied thunder-storm, but John Bright was +probably right when he pronounced Wendell Phillips one of the first +orators of his century, or of any century. + +The man back of Wendell Phillips and the abolition movement was William +Lloyd Garrison. This reformer began his career in 1825, as a practical +printer and occasional writer of articles for the daily press. Among +Garrison's friends were two Quakers, one a young farmer, John Greenleaf +Whittier; the other was Benjamin Lundy, who for several years had spent +his time and fortune protesting against the slave traffic. Lundy had +visited Hayti, to examine the conditions of negro life there,--had +returned to Baltimore, where he had been brutally beaten by a slave +dealer, and had finally come to Boston to test out the anti-slavery +sentiment in New England. He held a meeting in a Baptist church, only to +have it broken up by the pastor, who refused to allow Lundy to continue +his remarks, on the ground that his position could only be offensive to +the South, and therefore dangerous. But Lundy succeeded in having a +committee appointed to consider the problem, and young Garrison was one +of its members. A few months later, Garrison was made the editor of a +journal in Bedford, where he began to advance more and more radical +theories, until a rival editor was irritated to the point of charging +him with "the pert loquacity of a blue jay." But Garrison's fidelity to +his own convictions, and his courage in airing them in public, had won +the respect of the Quaker enthusiast, Lundy, and the old man walked all +the way from Baltimore to Bedford to ask Garrison to join him in his +work of agitation. A year later the two men, one old and discouraged, +the other young and hopeful, both being practically penniless,--started +work in Baltimore. Troubles came thick and fast. The slave dealer who +had beaten Lundy now attacked young Garrison. Carelessly worded +criticisms of a Northern slave dealer from Garrison's own town of +Newburyport led to a suit for libel, and a fine of fifty dollars; +neither man could raise the money to pay the fine, and Garrison went to +jail for forty-nine days. But the youth was full of courage and faith, +and in 1831 we find him once more in Boston, starting a new paper, that +was, if possible, more radical than ever. + +In this second venture he was alone, his office was a garret, his only +helper a negro boy whom he had freed. His paper was called the +_Liberator_, and the first edition appeared in January, 1831. Garrison +registered his sublime vow in his opening editorial: "I will be as harsh +as truth and as uncompromising as justice.... I am in earnest,--I will +not equivocate,--I will not excuse,--I will not retract a single +inch,--and I will be heard." His battle cry was "Immediate, +unconditional emancipation on the soil." + +No movement that wrought so great a national convulsion ever had a more +feeble origin. The Revolutionary fathers had three million colonists as +supporters. The leaders of the Home Rule movement had four millions of +Irishmen to back them. Cobden and Bright were supported and cheered on +by the manufacturers of Central England. But young Garrison stood alone, +with empty hands, a slave boy to support, a hand-press printing a sheet +twelve inches square, never knowing where the money for the next edition +was to come from. His motto was "Our country is the world, and our +countrymen all men, black or white." The genius of his message was +unmistakable: "Is slavery wrong anywhere? Then it is wrong everywhere. +Was it wrong once in Palestine? Then it is wrong in all lands. Is a +wrongdoer bound to do right at any time? Then he is bound to do right +instantly." He distributed his sheets among the merchants of Boston. +Beacon Street shook with laughter, for a new Don Quixote had arisen. But +from the first the South was alarmed, for that little sheet from the +printing-press fell upon the South like the stroke and tread of armed +men. + +The _Liberator_ soon brought friends to this unknown youth. But in +August of this same year, 1831, an event occurred which lifted +Garrison,--almost without his being aware of it,--into truly national +prominence. This was the Nat Turner rebellion in Virginia,--a negro +uprising under the leadership of a genuine African slave who knew the +Bible by heart, who claimed to have communication with the Holy Spirit, +and who finally employed an eclipse of the sun as a sign to his +followers that they were to arise and slay their masters. The massacre +which resulted lasted forty-eight hours, and sixty-one white people on +the neighbouring plantations lost their lives. Retribution followed +swiftly, and where the slightest suspicion of guilt was to be found, +negroes were shot at sight or burned against the nearest tree. +Southampton County saw a veritable reign of terror. A storm of +indignation swept over the South; thousands of slave owners living on +their great estates, miles from the nearest military station, feared +themselves victims of a servile insurrection. The cause of the uprising +was at once sought for, and a hundred writers laid the blame at the door +of the Boston _Liberator_. Garrison was indicted for felony in North +Carolina. The legislature of Georgia offered a reward for $5,000 to any +one who would kidnap him and deliver his body within the limits of the +state. With one voice the entire South cried out that the _Liberator_ +must be suppressed. + +Later it became clear that Garrison's part in the Nat Turner rebellion +was nil. The _Liberator_ had not a single subscriber in the South; Nat +Turner had never seen a copy of the paper,--and Garrison had been +specific in his statements that he did not believe in active resistance +to authority, or in the use of force of any kind. But the storm had +broken, and Garrison had to fight his way through it. + +Even in Boston Garrison had to face the mob, and meet the scorn of the +ruling classes of the city. His movement had no popular support, in the +true sense of the word, as it had twenty years later, when Wendell +Phillips led the forces of abolition. Cotton was king, and the fear of +losing the Southern trade sent the mercantile classes into a panic of +fear. Garrison's enemies were by no means confined to the South. He was +like David with his sling; and slavery, with all its vassals, North as +well as South, was Goliath armed with steel. But for Garrison there were +only two words, Right and Wrong, and he would not compromise concerning +either. + +Within two years he succeeded in organizing in Philadelphia the American +Anti-Slavery Society; by 1835 he convinced William Ellery Channing that +the time had fully come for an active crusade, and this old minister, +with a literary reputation in Europe almost as great as that of +Washington Irving, published an abolition book called "Slavery," which +is said to have been read by every prominent man in public life. In 1840 +the society numbered not less than 200,000, and the hardest of +Garrison's work was done. + +But he was to have a potent ally in Wendell Phillips, the explanation of +whose career is in his birth gifts. One of his ancestors was a Cambridge +graduate, who rebelled against the tyranny of Charles, and exchanged +wealth and position for a New England wilderness. It was one of his +forefathers who was the first mayor of Boston. Another founded Phillips +Exeter Academy. Wendell Phillips himself began his career at the moment +when Madison's State Papers had won him the presidency, when John Adams +was the glory of the city, when Channing was the light of the pulpit, +and Lyman Beecher was the idol of orthodox Boston. He was in his early +teens when he waited four hours on a Boston wharf to see Lafayette's +boat come in. He was thirteen when he heard Daniel Webster's oration on +Adams and Jefferson. He was sixteen when he entered Harvard College, and +formed his lifelong friendship with his roommate, John Lothrop Motley. +He studied law with Charles Sumner, in the office of Judge Story, a +legal star of the first magnitude. He was counted one of the handsomest +youths in Boston. There was nothing too bright or too hard for Wendell +Phillips to aspire to, or hope for. At the critical moment, when he had +to decide upon his future career, ambition sang to him, as to every +noble youth. George William Curtis represents Phillips as sometimes +forecasting the future, as he saw himself "succeeding Ames, and Otis and +Webster, rising from the bar to the Legislature, from the Legislature to +the Senate, from the Senate--who knows whither? He was already the idol +of society, the applauded orator, the brilliant champion of the eloquent +refinement and the conservatism of Massachusetts. The delight of social +ease, the refined enjoyment of taste and letters and art, opulence, +leisure, professional distinction, gratified ambition, all offered +bribes to the young student." The measure of his manhood is in the way +he thrust aside all honours and emoluments that stood in the path of +duty. Only he who knows what he renounces gains the true blessing of +renunciation. + +The young orator's attitude towards slavery was determined by the +mobbing of Garrison. One October afternoon in 1835 Wendell Phillips sat +reading by an open window in his office on Court Street. Suddenly his +attention was diverted from the page by voices, angry and profane, +rising from the street without. Looking down he saw a multitude moving +up the street, and soon found that the multitude had become a mob. Five +thousand men were collected in front of the anti-slavery office, and +were trying to crowd their way up the stairs in search of Garrison. In +another room thirty women were assembled to organize a woman's abolition +society. When the women found that the mob wanted to put them out also, +they sent a message to Mayor Lyman asking protection. When the mayor +arrived with the police, instead of dispelling the mob and protecting +liberty of speech, the mayor dispelled the women and protected the mob. +Discovering that they had the sympathy of the mayor and would be +protected by the police, the lawless element rushed upon the office of +the _Liberator_, smashed in the doors and windows, and dragged Garrison +forth. Bareheaded, with a rope about his waist, his coat torn off, but +with erect head, set lips, flashing eyes, Garrison was dragged down the +street to the City Hall. On every side rose the shout "Kill him! Lynch +him! ---- the abolitionist!" Asking who the man was, Phillips was told +that this was Garrison, the editor of the _Liberator_. Meeting the +commander of the Boston regiment, of which he was a member, he +exclaimed, "Why does not the mayor call out the troops? This is +outrageous!" "Why," answered the officer, "don't you see that our +militia are also the mob?" It was all too true. The mob was made up of +men of property and standing. In that hour Wendell Phillips had his +call. In the person of that man dragged down the street with a rope +around his waist, the most gifted speaker in Boston had found his +client; in the crusade against slavery he found his cause, and soon his +clarion voice was heard sounding the onset. + +To Garrison's organized agitation, begun in 1832, that soon spread all +over the country, must be added a second cause for anti-slavery +sentiment,--the murder of Lovejoy. This was on the night of November 7, +1837. The Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy was a young Presbyterian minister, a +graduate of Princeton Seminary. He began his career as pastor of a +little church in St. Louis and editor of the _Presbyterian Observer_. At +that time he was not an abolitionist, and, perhaps because he had +married the daughter of a slave owner, he had taken no strong position +either for or against slavery. One day an officer arrested a black man +in St. Louis who resisted arrest, and in the melee the officer was +killed. His friends claimed that the negro was a freeman, and that there +was a plot to kidnap him and sell him into the Southern cotton fields, +and that he had a right to resist. The real facts will, doubtless, never +be known. To slave owners, however, it was intolerable that a black man +should resist an officer under any circumstances. A mob collected, the +negro was bound to a stake, wood piled round about, and the prisoner was +burned to death. + +Efforts were made to punish the murderers. In the irony of events the +name of the judge was Lawless, and he charged the grand jury +substantially as follows: "When men are hurried by some mysterious +metaphysical electric frenzy to commit a deed of violence they are +absolved from guilt. If you should find that such was the fact in this +case, then act not at all. The case transcends your jurisdiction, and is +beyond the reach of human law." Of course all the murderers went free. +When Mr. Lovejoy commented editorially upon this outrageous charge, +encouraging lynch law, once again the "mysterious, metaphysical +electric frenzy" broke forth, only this time it destroyed his printing +office. The young minister decided to leave the slave State, and crossed +to Alton, Illinois, where there was not only liberty of speech but +liberty of the printing-press. But a mob crossed over from Missouri and +destroyed his press. Determined to maintain his rights, Lovejoy then +brought another press down the Ohio River from Cincinnati. A group of +his friends carried the type from the steamboat to the warehouse, but +the next night a second mob collected, and when Lovejoy stepped from the +building he was riddled with bullets, the warehouse burned, and the +press, for the third time, flung into the Mississippi. The news of this +murder aroused the continent, filling the South with exultation, and the +North with alarm. Slavery, a subject which had long been tabooed, +suddenly became the one topic of conversation in the home, the store, +the street-car. All editors wrote about it; all Northern pulpits began +to preach on the subject. More faggots had been flung upon the fire, and +oil added to the fierce flames. + +Every explosion asks for powder, but also a spark. Falling on ice, a +spark is impotent, falling on powder, an explosion is inevitable. +Wendell Phillips had already been aroused to sympathy with Garrison and +hatred of slavery, and news of the murder of Lovejoy fell upon his heart +like a spark on a powder magazine. When Boston heard that Lovejoy had +been shot by the mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his +printing-press, the leading men of Boston came together in Faneuil Hall. +William Ellery Channing made the opening address, and asked that the +meeting go on record through an indignant protest against this assault +upon the rights of free citizens. James T. Austin, attorney-general of +the commonwealth, replied in a bitter and insulting reference to +Channing, asserting that a clergyman with a gun in his hand, or mingling +in the debate of a popular assembly in Faneuil Hall, was marvellously +out of place. Austin compared the slaves of the South to a menagerie of +wild beasts, and asserted that Lovejoy in defending them was +presumptuous, and died as a fool dieth. He added that the rioters in +Alton killed Lovejoy and flung his press into the river in the spirit of +the Boston mob that boarded the British ships in 1773, and threw the +tea overboard on the night of the "Boston Tea Party." + +That was a great moment in the history not only of liberty, but also in +that of eloquence. Wendell Phillips, then but six years out of Harvard +College, rose to reply. "A comparison has been drawn between the events +of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted +here in Faneuil Hall that Great Britain had a right to tax the colonies. +And we have heard the mob at Alton, drunken murderers of Lovejoy, +compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow +citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? The mob at Alton were met to +wrest from a citizen his just rights,--met to resist the laws. Lovejoy +had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only +defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in +arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him +went against and over the laws. The mob, as the gentleman terms it (mob, +forsooth!--certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvellously +patient generation!), the 'orderly mob' which assembled in the Old South +to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal +exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and Stamp Act +laws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but the king's +usurpation. To find any other account you must read our revolutionary +history upside down. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a +precedent for mobs is an insult to their memory. They were the people +rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the province. The rioters +of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the +gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by +side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those +pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken +into voice to rebuke the recreant American,--the slanderer of the dead. +Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the +prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have +yawned and swallowed him up. Imprudent to defend the liberty of the +press! Why? Because the defense was unsuccessful? Does success gild +crime into patriotism, and the want of it change heroic self-devotion +into imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw +away the scabbard?" + +The next morning young Phillips, like Lord Byron, awoke to find himself +famous. Merchants, politicians, who had long been staggering like +drunken men, indifferent to their rights, and confused in their +feelings, were stunned into sobriety, and began to discuss principles, +and weigh characters, and analyze public leaders, and wakening, men +found that they had been standing on the edge of a precipice. Phillips, +already devoted to the slave, became now his tireless champion through +many years, till the emancipation of 1863. + +One evening in May, 1854, a negro was seen skulking in the shadows near +a dock in Boston. This coloured man, Anthony Burns by name, was a slave, +who had escaped from his Southern master, and after weeks had reached +Philadelphia, where a Quaker had stowed him away in a ship bound for +Boston. A Boston policeman who caught sight of the negro recalled the +rewards offered for the capture of slaves, and soon ran the fugitive +down, and had him before United States Commissioner Loring. The next +morning Theodore Parker hastened to the court-room to say that he was +the chaplain of the Abolition Society, and had come to offer counsel. +But the fugitive was afraid to accept the overture, lest his master +punish him the more severely. + +The news spread quickly throughout the city, and two nights later a +meeting in Faneuil Hall was attended by an enormous gathering, aroused +to the highest pitch of excitement. Hand-bills had been put out, stating +that kidnappers were in the city. The people were in a frenzy. Theodore +Parker delivered one of his most impassioned addresses. "I am an old +man; I have heard hurrahs and cheers for liberty many times; I have not +seen a great many _deeds_ done for liberty. I ask you, Are we to have +deeds as well as words?" Parker moved that, when the meeting adjourned, +it should be to meet the following morning in the square before the +court-house. But he had raised too great a storm to control; a rumour +that a mob of negroes was at that very moment trying to rescue Burns was +all that was needed to empty the room; and the crowd rushed out to the +court-house square. There they discovered a small party of men, led by +Thomas W. Higginson, trying to batter down the court-house doors. The +crowd lent them willing hands. But the marshall defended the +building,--shots were fired,--Higginson wounded, and several of his +followers arrested. Two companies of artillery were at once ordered out +by the mayor, and the attempt to rescue the negro met with complete and +disastrous failure. Wendell Phillips and Parker were the leaders in the +fight. When asked what he would regard as grounds for the return of +Burns to his master, Phillips answered, "Nothing short of a bill of sale +from Almighty God." + +The day of the transfer of the slave to the United States revenue cutter +found Boston in a state of siege. Twenty-two companies of Massachusetts +soldiers patrolled the city; two rows of soldiers, armed with muskets, +shotted to kill, stood on either side of the street through which Burns +was to be led to the vessel. The windows were filled with people, the +houses hung in black, the United States flags were draped in mourning. +From a window near the court-house hung a coffin, with the legend: "The +funeral of liberty." The procession itself was composed of a battalion +of United States artillery, one of United States marines, the +marshall's posse of 125 men guarding the fugitive, and a small cannon, +with two more platoons of marines to guard it. To such a pass had come +Boston, with its respect for law, and its reputation for obedience to +those clothed in authority. A Charleston paper spoke of the return of +Burns as a Southern victory, but added that two or three such victories +would ruin the cause. For the movement against slavery was now rising, +with all the advance of a tidal wave and a mighty storm. + +The public excitement was greatly increased by the Fugitive Slave +legislation of 1850 and 1854. Many Northern men who were opposed to +slavery in the North condoned slavery in the South. Just as Demetrius +urged that by the making of images of Diana "we have our gain," so timid +capital in the North bowed like a suitor at the feet of the imperial +South, and advised silence, remembering that through the money of +Southern planters it had its livelihood. Wendell Phillips went up and +down the land stirring up opinion against the law. He spoke three +hundred times in one year and two hundred and seventy-five times in +another year. Phillips rose upon the opposition like a war eagle +against an advancing storm. Brave men defied the law, organized the +Underground Railroad, and in every way possible defeated the purpose of +the Fugitive Slave Law. So in 1854 when Senator Douglas engineered +through Congress the famous Kansas-Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri +Compromise, the North refused to accept what was so palpably pro-slavery +legislation. This was revolutionary. Instantly the North divided into +two camps. The one question of the hour was "Shall a fugitive slave be +furnished with weapons with which to defend his person, and has he the +right of self-defense?" The whole land became a debating society, and +heaved with excitement, like the heaving of an earthquake. The merchant +pointed to his ledger, and urged caution. But liberty was stronger than +the ledger, and the heaving emotion burst through the statutes and rent +the laws asunder. Soon the Fugitive Slave Law, had become a dead letter. +The South had gone one step too far. Abolition stood suddenly in a new +light; "More abolitionists had been made by this single piece of hostile +legislation," said Greeley, "than Garrison and Phillips could have made +in half a century." + +For thirty years Wendell Phillips was the crowned king of the lecture +platform. It was the golden age of the lyceum. Men had more leisure than +to-day. Our era of the drama, music, and travel pictures had not yet +come. The winter nights were long, books few, magazines had not yet +developed, and the people were hungry for instruction and eloquence. +Wendell Phillips achieved the astonishing feat of speaking three hundred +times a year. Eloquence is born of a great theme like the woes and +wrongs of three million slaves. It is sometimes said that oratory is +dying out in our Congress. But Congress is now a board of trade, +discussing duties, protective tariffs on wool, cotton, and hides. +Beecher and Phillips had a great theme--liberty, the emancipation of +millions of slaves. The modern orator in the Senate discusses the +mathematics of woolen goods. It is hard to be eloquent over one salt +barrel and two piles of cowhides. A sermon or a lecture on topics that +fifty years ago would have crowded the greatest room and the street +outside would not to-day draw a corporal's guard. + +But in those heroic days, there was a great opportunity, and the +opportunity was matched by the man. Phillips was handsome as an Apollo. +His voice was sweet as a harp. No man ever studied the art of public +speech more scientifically. He played upon an audience as a skillful +musician upon the banks of keys in an organ. A Southern slaveholder +heard him in the Academy of Music, hating him, but paying him this +tribute, "That man is an infernal machine set to music." His method was +practically the memoriter method. A gentleman, who heard him give his +"Daniel O'Connell" four times in succession, found that the lecture was +repeated without the slightest variation whatsoever, in ideas, +sentences, inflection of the voice, or even gesture. Phillips prepared +his lectures with the greatest care, and then repeated them hundreds of +times. From the moment when he came upon the platform his presence +filled the eye and satisfied it. His very ease and poise begat +confidence and delight. He carved each sentence out of solid sunshine. +He stood quietly, made few gestures, adopted the conversational tone and +took the audience into his confidence. + +Some of his finest effects were produced by the injection of a +parenthesis. Once in an evening sermon in Plymouth Church, when Beecher +was urging the reelection of Lincoln and defending the Republican party, +a disputatious individual called out from the congregation, "What about +Wendell Phillips?" To which Mr. Beecher made the instant answer, +"Wendell Phillips is not a Republican. Wendell Phillips is a radical and +an independent. What this country needs is not a man of words but a man +of deeds." A few nights later Wendell Phillips was lecturing in the +Brooklyn Academy of Music before the St. Patrick's Society, and made his +reply in the form of a parenthesis, barbing his shaft with an exquisite +inflection of his voice. "Mr. Beecher said last Sunday night +(_forgetting his own vocation_), 'Wendell Phillips is a man of words, +instead of a man of deeds.'" + +Not that the two men were ever unfriendly, for they were co-workers, +standing side by side in the great movement. Once when the trustees of +yonder Academy refused to allow Mr. Phillips to speak, Mr. Beecher made +it a point of honour with his trustees to let Wendell Phillips speak in +Plymouth Church, and ran the risk of the mob destroying the building. +The tumultuous scenes of that night, when bricks came through the +windows, and the police were stationed in Cranberry and Orange Streets, +were repeated all over the land. Again and again Wendell Phillips was +mobbed. Once, at the very beginning of his career as an abolitionist, he +spoke with an old Quaker. People waited to greet the old Quaker and +asked him home for the night; but they pelted Wendell Phillips with +rotten eggs as he went down the street in the dark. Afterwards Wendell +Phillips said to the old Quaker, "I said just what you did, and yet you +were invited home to fried chicken and a bed, while I received raw eggs +and stone." + +"I will tell thee the difference, Wendell. Thou said, 'If thou art a +holder of slaves, thou wilt go to hell.' I said, 'If thou dost not hold +slaves, thou wilt not go to hell.'" + +But Wendell Phillips would not butter parsnips with fine words. Once in +Boston four hundred men surrounded him, got possession of the hall, and +jeered him for an hour and a half. Finally he leaned over the desk and +shouted down to a reporter, "Thank God there is no manacle for the +printing-press." Armed friends rescued him, guarded him home, and for a +week, night and day, the Boston police guarded the house. Those were +tumultuous days. But this great man braved and outlived the storm. + +When the Emancipation Proclamation was declared, William Lloyd Garrison +said nothing remained now but to die. But Phillips opposed the +dissolution of the Anti-Slavery Society, because he saw that when the +physical fetters were broken, there still remained the fetters of the +mind and heart that must be destroyed. So far from ending his labours, +Phillips now redoubled his activities. He threw himself into the labour +movement and helped organize the working classes into a solid force +against capitalism. He took up the cause of suffrage and the higher +education of woman, gave himself to the temperance problem and +prohibition. He lectured oftentimes two hundred nights a year in the +great cities of the land, seeking always to manufacture manhood of a +good quality. He became himself our finest example of the power and +influence of the scholar in the Republic. And when the end came, he +received from his fellow countrymen the admiration and the love that he +had deserved. And the friends who knew him best were not surprised that +the last words on his lips were the words of his friend James Russell +Lowell, that summarized the ideal that Wendell Phillips had pursued for +thirty years. + + "New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; + They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; + Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, + Launch our _Mayflower_, and steer boldly through the desperate winter + sea, + Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key." + + + + +IV + +CHARLES SUMNER: THE APPEAL TO EDUCATED MEN + + +In every country and time, the era of national peril has been the +creative era for the intellect. The eloquence of Greece was at its best +when Philip attacked Athens and Demosthenes defended its liberties. +Dante's poems were born of the collision between the despots who sought +to enslave Florence, and the patriots who dreamed of democracy. Milton's +songs were written during the English Revolution, when the Puritan, +seeking to diffuse the good things of life, and the Cavalier, who wished +to monopolize the earth's treasure, came into a deadly collision. + +In accordance with that principle it seems natural to expect that the +scholars of the Republic should do their best work during the era of +agitation, when the national intellect was white hot, and public +excitement burned by day and night. The anti-slavery epoch, therefore, +was the Augustan Era of American literature, when the historians, poets +and philosophers lent distinction to American literature. At that time +Motley was writing his "History of the Netherlands"; Prescott, his +"History of Mexico and Spain"; Whittier, his songs of slavery and +freedom; Lowell was the satirist of the debate, and was writing his +"Biglow Papers," and Emerson, the philosopher, was undermining the +foundations and shaking the principles of slavery, even as Samson pulled +down the temple of the olden time. + +Emerson, the philosopher, did the thinking, and furnished the +intellectual implements to the abolitionists. Beginning his career as a +preacher, he resigned his position, moved to Concord, and dwelt apart +from men, but "as he mused, the fire burned." Easily our first man of +American letters, he is among the first essayists of all ages and +climes. Essentially, however, he was a man of intellect, an American +Plato, "a Greek head screwed upon Yankee shoulders," to use Holmes' +expression. His essay upon "The American Scholar," and his book on +"Nature," brought him fame in England, and invitations to lecture before +their colleges. Early in his career he won the friendship of Arnold of +Rugby, of Matthew Arnold the son, of Arthur Hugh Clough, and of Thomas +Carlyle. He returned from his honours in England to find himself the +centre of the intellectual movement of New England. A number of younger +men gathered around him, until Emerson's group at Concord became like +unto Goethe's group at Weimar, and Coleridge's in London. During the +late forties American educators, orators and statesmen began to quote +the striking sentences from Emerson. Little by little it came about that +the fighters went to Emerson as to an arsenal for their intellectual +weapons. His first notable contribution to abolitionism was his "Story +of the West India Emancipation." Then came his "Essay on the Fugitive +Slave Law," his speech on the Assault on Mr. Sumner, his writings on +Kansas, and on John Brown. Few men have had such power to condense a +statement of philosophy into a single epigram. Grant once said of his +soldiers that while each man took aim for himself, Winchester slew all +the thousands. Not otherwise, hundreds of orators and reformers went up +and down the land attacking slavery, but while the voices were many, +the argument was one, and Emerson for a time did the speaking for the +abolitionists. + +What Emerson stated in pure white light, Whittier made popular through +his poems of Slavery and Freedom. By way of preeminence he was the poet +of the abolition movement, and the Sir Galahad among our singers. Reared +among the Friends, he had the simplicity of the Quaker, but the solidity +and massiveness of the fighting Puritan. Strange as it may seem, he was +at once the poet of peace, insisting upon the crime of war, and the poet +of freedom, insisting upon the destruction of slavery. The fire and +glow, the moral earnestness, the spiritual passion of Whittier, are best +illustrated in his "Lost Occasion," and "Ichabod." At length the +newspapers of the North took up his work. For some years before the war +broke out, scarcely a month passed by without a new poem of liberty by +Whittier. Soon these poems that were published in the newspapers were +recited in the schools by the children, quoted in the pulpits by the +preachers, and used by the orators as feathers for their arrows. Once +Wendell Phillips concluded an impassioned oration by reciting one of +Whittier's stanzas, when a man in the audience shouted, "That arrow +went home!" to which Wendell Phillips answered, "Yes, and I have a +quiver full of arrows, every one of which was made by a man of +peace,--John Greenleaf Whittier." If Emerson's philosophy was like the +diffused white daylight that makes clear the landscape for an army, +Whittier's occasional poems like "Ichabod" were thunderbolts that +blasted forever all compromise and expediency. + +Sometimes what the essayist fails to achieve ridicule easily +accomplishes. James Russell Lowell was the satirist of the abolition +movement. With biting scorn and irony he laughed men out of narrowness, +ignorance, and selfishness. During the last epoch in his career Lowell +achieved world-wide fame as a diplomat, and was universally admired as +the all round man of letters. But now that he has gone, in retrospect, +the historian perceives that the first era of Lowell's career was the +influential era. He was the Milton of the anti-slavery epoch, as Lincoln +was its Cromwell. His influence in England, in developing an +anti-slavery sentiment there, was, if possible, more influential than in +the home country. The great English editor, William Stead, tells us +that he owes to Lowell's message the influences that made him an editor +and a reformer. In the critical moments of his life he found in Lowell +the inspiration and support that he found in no other books, save in +Carlyle's "Cromwell" and the Bible. "In Russia, in Ireland, in Rome, and +in prison, Lowell's poems have been my constant companions." The poet +used the story of Moses emancipating the Hebrew slaves as an +illustration of the abolitionist as the unknown leader whom God would +raise up to lead the three million black men out of Southern slavery. +"What God did for the Egyptian bondsmen, he believed God would do; +because what God was, God is. He goes on:-- + +"From what a Bible can a man choose his text to-day! A Bible which needs +no translation; and which no priestcraft can close from the laity,--the +open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine and +destroying fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of +God. Methinks the editor who should understand his calling, and be equal +thereto, would truly deserve that title that Homer bestows upon princes. +He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old +Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain, stared at by the elegant +tourist, and crawled over by the hammer of the geologist, he must find +his tables of the new law here among factories and cities in this +wilderness of sin, called the progress of civilization, and be the +captain of our exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order." + +Certain stanzas of Lowell, also, were quoted even more widely, and were +ever upon the lips of college students. Many a soldier boy who went to +battle from the forest and factory, the fields and the mines, scarcely +knew that his inspiration--like Phillip's oratory--was embodied in +Lowell's poem, "The Present Crisis":-- + + "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, + In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; + Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, + Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right, + And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. + + "Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record + One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; + Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-- + Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, + Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own." + +Then came Charles Sumner, the scholar in politics, to make practical the +student's message. Daniel Webster's defense of Massachusetts in his +reply to Hayne, and his wonderful eloquence in the years which followed +that first great address, lifted the old Bay State into unique +preeminence in the Senate: when, therefore, Webster left the Senate and +entered the cabinet of Millard Fillmore, the North and the South alike +asked, with intense interest, who should succeed the defender of the +Constitution. That no dramatic interest might be lacking when, in 1851, +Charles Sumner entered the Senate chamber to take the oath of office, it +came about that Henry Clay, the great Compromiser, left the Senate, +going out at one door, on the very day that Conscience, in the person of +this Puritan, entered it by the other door. John C. Calhoun, inflexible, +iron to the end, adhering tenaciously to his doctrine of secession, had +just died, quite unconscious of the fact that his speeches held the +explosives that were to shatter the South and destroy half a million of +his beloved people. Clay, too, was death-stricken, and with great pathos +referred to himself as "a stag scarred by spears, worried by wounds, +dragging his mutilated body to his lair to lie down and die." Webster +was now gray and broken, with the shadow of the eclipse already drawing +near. In such a moment Charles Sumner began his career by an appeal to +the "everlasting yea" and the "everlasting nay."--"I desire to speak +to-day of some laws greater than any passed in this capital or this +country; older than America, older than India--I mean the laws of God." + +Hitherto slavery had been the aggressor, crowding into Texas, edging +into Missouri, with bullets forcing its way into Kansas. Freedom had +always been on the defensive. Now all was changed, with the coming of a +man whose watchword was "Slavery must be destroyed; liberty must be +preserved." That cold body called the Senate became immediately +conscious of the new influence that entered into the very being of the +government, like iron into the rich blood of the physical system. +Charles Sumner made it clear from the beginning that the movement +against slavery was from the Everlasting Arm. With expediency he had +nothing to do, but only with eternal right and eternal wrong. One day +Daniel Webster reminded his young successor of the importance of looking +on the other side, indicating that a shield that was gold on one side +might at least be silver on the other, to which Sumner replied, "There +is no other side." This Boston scholar became a voice for law, "whose +seat is the bosom of God, and whose speech is the melody of the world." +These eternal laws of God rose up to stay the progress of slavery like +the beetling granite cliffs of Maine, that send forth their voice to the +onrushing tides, saying, "Here stay your proud waves--thus far, and no +farther." + +Ancestry, opportunity and events all conspired to equip Charles Sumner +with those implements that make man great. Like Phillips, he was a +descendant of the early settlers of Boston. His father led the men who +delivered Garrison out of the hands of the mob, and who told the excited +populace that unless Boston was careful "our children's heads will be +broken by cannon-balls." The plastic, critical hours of his youth were +spent in Harvard College and in the law office of Judge Story. Never +interested in philosophy and metaphysics, he was surpassed by few as a +master of the humanities, general literature, and the story of the rise +and progress of democracy and free institutions. Not a man of genius, +Charles Sumner was gifted with talent of a very high order. He had, what +is perhaps better than genius, a capacity for sustained labour and +prodigious industry. He did nothing by halves. In his chosen realm he +became a master of the details of every movement related to free +institutions, since the days of the republics of Greece and Switzerland, +Holland and England. Long after other students had blown out their +lights, Charles Sumner's window was still flaming. At a very early epoch +he exhibited his tenacity of will and his constitutional inability to +change his mind. Once he planned with a companion to walk to Boston on +Saturday morning, starting at half-past seven. When the hour struck, a +snow-storm was raging. But having decided to go to Boston, to Boston the +student went alone, floundering through the blizzard. Snow-drifts were +little things, but changing his plan was an impossible thing. The +centre of his character, about which all else revolved, was a certain +axis of pride and self-esteem, which may be pardoned, perhaps, in view +of the fact that the world takes a man largely upon his own estimate of +personal worth. + +In those days the atmosphere of Boston was charged with enthusiasm for +education and the humanities. Among young Sumner's friends were +Prescott, who was writing the history of Spain and Mexico; Bancroft, who +was outlining his history of the United States; Story, the jurist; +Horace Mann, the educator; Dr. Howe, the father of the movement for the +education of the deaf and dumb; Emerson, Longfellow, Channing and +Whittier--all were not simply friends but correspondents of Charles +Sumner. + +Nor must we forget the Boston of earlier days, the Boston of Adams, and +Otis, of Warren and Quincy. In such a city, surrounded by the noblest +traditions of patriotism, stimulated by the greatest group of scholars +that the Republic has produced, Charles Sumner passed his early manhood. +Then, remembering that Edward Everett had fitted himself for his work in +Harvard University by four years abroad, Sumner, in his twenty-seventh +year, went to Europe. He spent five months in Germany, where the spirits +of Goethe, Richter and Luther lingered upon the scene. In Paris he +studied French, French art, French literature, French philosophy, and +finally attended the debates in the French Parliament, examining the +problems with all the care of a member. He lingered long in England, +where he was welcomed and lionized by the foremost men of letters, +science, philosophy, as well as by the leading clergymen and statesmen +of London. He was an honoured guest not at some, but "at most of the +country seats of England and Scotland." He travelled the circuits as the +companion of the greatest English judges, Vaughan, Parke and Alderson. +He met on a familiar footing Macaulay and Grote, Carlyle and Jeffrey, +Sidney Smith and Wordsworth. But his great year was in Italy, in the +Eternal City, the city of Caesar and Cicero, the city of Horace and +Virgil. In all, Sumner spent thirty years in preparation for his labour. +Few men in American politics have had a wider horizon, a better +equipment in history and literature, or have known so intimately all the +great men in the world of his own generation who were worth knowing. He +went away to Europe an American; he returned a universal man, a citizen +of the world. + +Not until 1845, when he was thirty-four years of age, did a really great +opportunity come to Sumner. Boston at that far-off day made much of the +Fourth of July, and looked forward to the holiday as the great event of +the year. During the previous autumn the mayor and aldermen of the city +invited Sumner to deliver the oration. Webster made John Adams say, +"When we are in our graves, our children will celebrate the day with +song and story, with oration and pageant, and the explosion of cannon, +and greet it with tears of joy and exultation." But unfortunately the +speeches of that time had degenerated into false rhetoric, full of +insincerity. In his oration, Sumner left the beaten track and plunged +into an unknown way. His theme was the crime of war. He attacked his +city and his country for spending millions upon fortifications in the +harbour. He affirmed that the best protection of a nation was not dead +stones but living patriots and heroes. He called the roll of the great +wars of history, and found only one or two, like our Revolution, that +were really justifiable. He defined war as the temporary repeal of all +the ten commandments, and an enthronement of all the crimes. + +In retrospect we know that Sumner overstated his case. His argument +against physical force would forbid the police in great cities, the +militia on the frontier, and would leave communities exposed to the +ravages of brigands on land and pirates by sea. But for the most part, +Sumner's argument in favour of peace was sound. To-day all civilized +countries are coming to recognize war as a blunder, since questions of +justice cannot be settled by brute force. + +When we consider that France is an armed camp, Germany and Austria +countries of bristling bayonets, that three years at the most critical +epoch of the boy's life are consumed in a camp exposed to all manner of +temptations and dangers, at the very time when the youth should be +mastering his trade or his profession, war seems the capitalization of +all the possible follies and wastes. The peasants of Europe plough, each +carrying a soldier upon his back. The brick-mason builds, but staggers +up the ladder with a heavier load than bricks,--the soldier upon his +back. The symbols of nations are still the lion, the eagle and the wolf. +Some political leaders even yet talk about the necessity of an +occasional war to put boys upon their mettle, as if invention, the +building of railways, the founding of cities, the fighting of economic +and social wrongs would not put a man upon his mettle! To put a German +on one side of a fence and a Frenchman on the other, and have one +peasant empty his shotgun into the bowels of the other is about as noble +as going out into a yard and shooting a Jersey cow. The best way to +protect a nation is to build boys into men, through the processes of +productive industry. Machine gun and dreadnought will soon be as +obsolete in the presence of arbitration and the court at the Hague as an +ox-cart is obsolete in the presence of a Pullman palace car. + +Wendell Phillips once said that Lord Bacon had a right to lay his hand +on the steam engine and say to Watt: "This engine is mine; I gave you +the method." So Charles Sumner, after sixty-five years, has a right to +stand yonder at the entrance of the Parliament House of Peace, now being +completed in the capital of Holland, and say: "I laid the foundation +stones of this structure and started a war against war." This oration +of Sumner's on "The True Grandeur of Nations" made him a most unpopular +figure at home, but Europe soon called for his speech. It was translated +into many languages, two hundred and fifty-thousand copies were +published and sold, and for the time Sumner was the most talked of man +of the year. + +Now the one man who was not on the defensive, who was not content to +merely stay the forward progress of slavery, but insisted on driving it +back into the Gulf and ultimately into the sea, to be drowned forever, +was Charles Sumner, with his "Carthago est delenda." His favourite +phrase was "freedom is national, slavery is sectional." Burke himself, +depicting the sufferings of India, scarcely surpassed Sumner's speech on +the devastation of Kansas by outlaws and guerrillas. Commenting upon the +fact that a company of armed slave owners had crossed the borders at +night, and destroyed the homes of a group of Northern settlers, Sumner +said: "Border incursions, which in barbarous lands fretted and harried +an exposed people, are here renewed, with this peculiarity, that our +border robbers do not simply levy blackmail and drive off a few cattle, +they do not seize a few persons and sweep them away into captivity, like +the African slave-traders whom we brand as tyrants, but they commit a +succession of deeds in which border sorrows and African wrongs are +revived together on American soil, while the whole territory is +enslaved. I do not dwell on the anxieties of families exposed to sudden +assault, and lying down to rest with the alarms of war ringing in the +ears, not knowing that another day may be spared them. Throughout this +bitter winter, with the thermometer thirty degrees below zero, the +citizens of Lawrence have slept under arms, with sentinels pacing. In +vain do we condemn the cruelties of another age--the refinement of +torture, the rack and thumbscrew of the Inquisition; for kindred +outrages disgrace these borders. Murder stalks, assassination skulks in +the tall grass; where a candidate for the Legislature was gashed with +knives and hatchets, and after weltering in blood on the snow-clad +earth, trundled along with gaping wounds to fall dead before the face of +his wife." + +With speeches like these, Sumner attacked slavery. The edge of his +argument was keen, but his blows had also the power of sledgehammers. +The Southern leaders were in a frenzy of anger. Harriet Martineau said +of the situation that from 1830 to 1850, by general agreement, men in +Congress referred to slavery under their breath, believing that only by +silence could the Union be preserved. Now came a man who believed that +silence was criminal, who would not be bullied, and would be heard, who +believed in the Golden Rule, insisted on the Declaration of +Independence, and who, in the name of freedom that was national, wished +to destroy the Fugitive Slave Law and bring about the immediate and +unconditional emancipation of all slaves on the ground. + +When two opposing gases come together, an explosion is inevitable. One +day in 1856, after the adjournment of the Senate, a Southern member of +Congress entered the Chamber, and finding Sumner seated, with his legs +under an iron desk screwed to the floor, and, therefore, helpless for +defense, with a heavy walking-stick the assailant beat the powerless man +into insensibility, two of his friends protecting him from those who +would interfere in his murderous assault. Having lost enough blood to +soak through the carpet and stain the very floor, unconscious, and +hovering between life and death, Sumner was carried to a sofa, thence to +his hotel. From that time on the scholar endured a living death. He was +carried to Paris, where Dr. Brown-Sequard tried "the fire cure" upon the +spine. But for years his desk was vacant. Massachusetts insisted that +the empty seat should proclaim to the world her abhorrence of the +barbarism that, unequal to intellectual debate, betakes itself to clubs +and murder. Later on Sumner did return to his seat, but he was broken in +health, and to the end was tortured with pain. Nevertheless, despite all +the physical distresses, he remained the Puritan in politics, adhering +inflexibly to his old ideals of liberty. The great lesson of Sumner's +life is the importance of fidelity to conviction and singleness of +purpose. All Sumner's speeches in Congress, all his lectures on the +platform, his appeals to the people of the North during the years when +he travelled incessantly, addressing great crowds all over the land, had +a single theme, "Liberty is national, Slavery is sectional; Liberty must +be established, Slavery must be destroyed." He had his faults and +limitations, but men without faults are generally men without force. +Limitations are like banks to a river; they increase the strength of the +current for a mill wheel. Sumner's concentration made his enemies call +him a narrow man and a fanatic. But Paul was narrow when he said, "This +one thing I do." Luther was narrow when he nailed his theses to the door +of the church in Wittenberg. Garrison was narrow and a fanatic when he +said, "I will not equivocate, I will not retreat a single inch, and I +will be heard." Rushing between the cliffs of its banks, the Rhine has +power through confinement; spreading out over the plains of North +Germany, the Rhine becomes a mere marsh, laden with miasm, blown to and +fro with the winds. + +The tallow candle is small, while the summer lightning flashes across +the midnight sky. But for the purpose of studying a guide book in the +dark, one lucifer match is worth a sky full of lightning. + +Sumner had the courage of his convictions; he was brave as a lion. +Having no physical fear, he was devoid also of moral fear. He had the +foresight of far-off things, and could look beyond to-day's defeat to +the coming victory for his cause. He had many bitter enemies. His +intolerance and intellectual arrogance offended men. When a friend said +to President Grant, "Sumner is a skeptic; I fear he does not believe in +the Bible," Grant's instant retort was, "Certainly he does not; he did +not write it." + +But we can forgive much to a man who sacrificed much, and endured the +murderous cross of cruelty, obloquy and shame. A lonely and +companionless man, at the end, he trod the wine-press of sorrow in +solitude and isolation. He had no woman's love to heal his wounded +spirit. His one support was the cause he loved. To this cause he clung +with a tenacity that was as sublime as it was pathetic. The last time he +opened his eyes it was to repeat unconsciously the dearest thoughts of +his life, "All humanity is my country." "Take care of my civil rights +bill." + +When long time has passed, many other great names will pass out of view +like tapers that have burned down to the socket. But the name and memory +of this Puritan will probably survive, as the highest type of the +scholar toiling in the heroic age of the Republic. + + + + +V + +HORACE GREELEY: THE APPEAL TO THE COMMON PEOPLE + + +To the work of the statesmen and jurists, the agitators and orators, +must now be added the contribution of the editors. A loaf of bread +represents many elements united in a single body. The sun lends heat, +the clouds lend rain, the soil its chemical elements, the air its rich +dust, and the result is the wheaten loaf. Not otherwise is it with the +moral and political treasure named the Union and the Emancipation of +slaves. The soldier boys at the front stayed the advancing tide of +rebellion, and flung back from Pennsylvania waves all tipped with fire. +With not less heroism farmer boys at home toiled in the fields to feed +and support the boys in blue. Physicians in the hospitals, nurses at the +front, lived also and died, caring for crippled heroes. Mothers and +daughters, sisters, sweethearts and wives wrought innumerable garments +and hospital supplies, while from full hearts giving inspiration or +courageously bearing the miseries of bereavement. Orators went forth to +incite, ministers brought divine sanctions to inspire men towards +patriotism and self-sacrifice. Statesmen supported the leaders by war +measures, manufacturers and bankers stood behind the government. But to +all these workers must be added the work of the correspondents at the +front, with the editors who consecrated the press to liberty. + +The power and wealth of the newspaper of to-day is explained, in no +small measure, by the battles of the Civil War, that kindled the +interest of millions who had never before read the daily newspaper, but +who became after the first battle students of God's book of daily +events. During those terrible days men slept in dread and wakened in +fear as to what might have happened on the Potomac or the Mississippi. +Out of these tumultuous conditions the Sunday newspaper was born. Before +the battle of Bull Run people of New York and Chicago frowned upon the +Sunday newspaper, just as the people of London and Edinburgh to-day will +have none of it. But when there were a million men in arms and the whole +land trembled with the thunder of cannon and the stroke of battle, +anxious parents, fearful wives, knowing that the conflict was on, when +Saturday's sun set felt that they could not wait till Monday morning for +news from the front. + +But if the war did much for the press, newspaper men did much for +liberty. To supply the people of the country with news from the field, a +veritable army of war correspondents was organized, a telegraphic +service was organized and built up, plans were laid that developed into +the Associated Press. This telegraphic service became a vast and shining +web lying all over this land, with wires that trembled by night and day, +flashing out now despair, and now hope, to innumerable hearts. Liberty +owes a great debt to the press, for it assembled all the people in one +vast speaking chamber, and told them how events were going with the +slave and the Union. + +If we are to appreciate fully the place of the press during the +anti-slavery epoch, we must recall the conditions of American life in +the olden time. When the colonies revolted and published their +Declaration there were in the United States only forty-three newspapers, +most of them weeklies. There were fourteen papers in New England, four +in New York State, two in Virginia, two in Carolina and nine in +Pennsylvania. The entire forty-three papers, however, held less printed +matter than any ten pages of our morning journals. The papers of that +time contained no editorials, and were strictly purveyors of the gossip +and news of the week, with rude advertisements--now a cut of a horse +that had strayed, an apprentice that had escaped, a slave that had run +away, enlivened, indeed, by frantic and pathetic appeals for the +subscribers to pay up their dues. There were no public libraries, no +reading rooms, no inns where men could go on winter evenings and read +the papers. + +That which starved the newspaper was the lack of facilities for +distribution. It cost twenty-five cents to send a letter. Most of the +correspondents were widely separated lovers. Romeo, knowing that Juliet +would not be able to pay twenty-five cents for his weekly effusion, +learned the use of the cypher, and by means of a large circle on the +outside of the letter and a pink spot within it succeeded in conveying +certain mystic symbols of osculation, that told the story of undying +fidelity without paying the postman for the letter that was left in his +hands. The old postman who jogged along between Philadelphia and New +York spent three days on the trip, and put in his time knitting +stockings. John Adams tells us that it took him six days on the coach +from Boston to New York, and that he rose every morning long before day, +took his seat in the cold, dark coach, and listened to the creaking of +the wheels on the snow until two hours after dark until late Saturday +night, cold and exhausted, he entered the little inn near Castle Garden. +For these reasons no newspaper had any circulation beyond its own +county. + +The first railroads that helped distribute the newspapers began to be +built about 1836, and the first ship to carry our newspapers to England +sailed in 1838. The first telegraphic message was sent from Washington +to Baltimore in 1844. The first cablegram in the interest of the press +was sent in 1858. Meanwhile the people were isolated, starved, being +fully conscious that they were like peasants shut in between mountain +walls, while they longed to be citizens of the universe. A single +illustration from history will explain the isolation of communities at +that time:--the news that Jackson had been elected President in early +November did not reach his own State of Tennessee until after New Year's +Day! + +Horace Greeley entered the scene at a great crisis for the people, and +was raised up to fill a national need. God had prepared the soldiers to +fight for the people, the orators to speak to the people, the physicians +to heal the people, the educators to instruct the people. He had raised +up the statesmen to make the laws, but the world waited for men to cause +knowledge to run up and down the land. The common people found a friend +in Horace Greeley. He was born in 1811, in Amherst, Massachusetts, near +the very cabin in which his forefathers had settled. God gave him a +hungry mind, which literally consumed facts of nature and life. Not John +Stuart Mill himself was more precocious than Horace Greeley. He was +reading without difficulty at three years of age, and read any ordinary +book at five. There never was an hour when he was not the best scholar +in the little log schoolhouse, where he suffered the long winter +through, scorched if he was on the inside circle next to the fire, or +freezing if he was on the outer rim. + +Reading was the boy's master passion. Like the locust, he consumed every +dry twig and green branch of knowledge. Before he was ten years of age +he believed he had read every book that could be borrowed within a +radius of six miles. He read the Bible through, every word, when he was +five years old; at eleven he had read Shakespeare and Byron. Spelling +was at once a taste and an acquisition. The people of his neighbourhood +put the child up against other crack spellers in the school districts. +It is said that in the old evening spelling-bees, his school-teacher, +who had him in charge, had to wake the child up when his turn came +around to spell. The trustees of Bedford Academy passed a resolution +permitting Horace Greeley, although outside of the district, to enter +their school, while a few teachers raised a purse, and made an offer to +his father to send the boy to Phillips Exeter Academy. But pride +prevented. Horace Greeley's childhood fell on evil days. Men were +miserably poor. It was one long warfare with hunger and cold. The +ravages of disease among children were really the result of insufficient +food in those poverty-stricken times. Although the mortgage on the farm +was a mere bagatelle, the father lost the homestead, and became a hired +man on fifty cents a day, on which amount he had to feed and clothe his +family. This boy worked by day and studied by night. History and +politics, poetry and science, formed the staples of his reading and +reflection. For two years he pleaded with his father to apprentice him +to a printer; the day that the printer refused the boy and showed the +poor farmer and his son the door, brought black gloom to his heart, for +when the door of the printing office closed before him, the gates of +paradise seemed shut forever. + +Trained in the school of experience, and a graduate of the university of +hard-knocks, at twenty years of age the boy determined to seek his +fortune in New York. There are few scenes more pathetic than the +spectacle of this friendless boy starting to walk from Erie, Pa., to +this metropolis, then a city of only two hundred thousand people. He had +a tow head, a bent form, a singular dress, and carried his entire +belongings in a little bundle, supported by a walking stick thrown over +his shoulder. Partly on foot, partly on the wagon of some farmer, who +gave the traveller a lift, partly on the canal boats, Horace Greeley +made his way until, after many days, in August, 1831, he landed at the +foot of Wall Street. + +Not Benjamin Franklin, landing on the wharves of Philadelphia, and +buying a fresh roll on which he breakfasted while he went about looking +for work, is so fascinating a figure as this simple-hearted, unworldly, +artless, unsophisticated youth, with the step of a clodhopper and the +face of an angel. Counting his coin, the boy found he had ten dollars +left, and straightway took lodgings on West Street, for which he +promised to pay two dollars and a half a week. He soon found a job and +began to set type on an edition of the New Testament, with marginal +notes in Greek and Latin. In two years he had his own printing office, +and in 1834 the youth found his place as the editor of the _New Yorker_, +a weekly that first of all took stories and the name of Charles Dickens +to the people of New York. He soon carried the newspaper up to nine +thousand subscribers, and a gross income of $25,000. Genius makes its +own way. The world is always looking for unique ability. Horace Greeley +had the art of putting things. He could make a statement that would go +to the intellect like an arrow to the bull's-eye. There is always +plenty of room for the man who has a gift and can do a thing better than +any one else. + +But the panic of 1837 bankrupted Greeley, who knew nothing about the +business end of his enterprise. He had 9,000 subscribers, but none of +them would pay their bills, and the more his paper grew the worse off he +was. One day he struck from the roll the names of 2,500 subscribers. A +little later he offered to give the entire establishment to a friend, +and pay him $2,000 for taking it off his hands, agreeing to work out by +typesetting the large debt. Then came an overture from Thurlow Weed and +Benedict, and Greeley founded the _Log Cabin_, a campaign paper +advocating the election of General Harrison as president, and sent out +the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." Politics was his passion and +delight. An ardent Whig, he loved Henry Clay as an enthusiast, and +worshipped him like a disciple. The death of Harrison in 1841, +therefore, brought another crisis into Greeley's life. Then he founded +the _New York Tribune_. In later years Horace Greeley used to say that +the first half of his life was preparatory to founding the _Tribune_, +and the other half to building up the newspaper that was his pride. + +On April 3, 1841, the _Log Cabin_ contained an announcement of the +appearance of "a morning journal of politics, literature and general +intelligence." It was to be sold for one penny, was to be free from all +immoral reports, to be accurate in its statements, impartial in its +judgments, unbiassed and unfettered in its opinions. The _New Yorker_ +and the _Log Cabin_ were merged in the new journal. The expenses for the +first week of the _Tribune's_ existence were $525, and its income $92. +Greeley was thirty years old, full of health and vigour, pluck and +determination. He never knew when he was defeated, and when events +knocked him down, he quietly got up again. In seven weeks the _Tribune_ +had a circulation of 11,000. Fertile in resources, full of plans to +advertise his journal, he gained 20,000 during a single political +campaign. Later he sent carrier pigeons to Halifax to bring home special +news. When Daniel Webster was to make an important speech in Albany, he +sent a case of type up by the night boat, and when the Albany boat +reached New York the report of the speech was all ready to be locked up +for the press. When the heart sings, the hand works easily. Work for the +_Tribune_ was literally food and medicine for Greeley. His daily stint +was three or four columns, besides his correspondence, lectures and +addresses. For twenty years he had no vacation and no rest. His one +ideal was to make the _Tribune_ an accurate and trustworthy guide for +the political thinking of the common people. + +What literature was to Burke, what patriotism was to Webster, what all +mankind was to Paul, that politics and political writing were to Horace +Greeley. Dr. Bacon once said of a secretary of the State Association of +Connecticut that he was "possessed of a statistical devil." And Horace +Greeley's _Tribune Almanac_ became so great a power that an envious +competitor once said that Horace Greeley was possessed of a political +devil, who helped him in his statistics on Protection. At last the +_Tribune_ became a national organ, an acknowledged power. Horace Greeley +began to make history, and in 1860 prevented Seward's nomination for the +presidency. It was Greeley's personal preference for Governor Bates of +Missouri that made possible the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. + +As a reformer, Greeley was an extremist in politics. Whatever he wanted, +he wanted on the moment, and had no patience in waiting. He was as +uncompromising as Garrison, as insistent as Wendell Phillips, and as +bitter in his criticism of Lincoln for postponing emancipation as +Theodore Parker himself could have been. When the South seceded Greeley +said that we must "let the erring sisters go." He thought that the North +could do without the South quite as well as the South could do without +the North; that is no true marriage that binds husband and wife together +with chains when love has fled away. He urged that if any six States +would send their representatives to Washington and say: "We wish to +withdraw from the Union," the North had better let those States depart. +It was not that Greeley felt it was best to dissolve the Union, but that +he loathed the idea of compelling States by force to remain in it. + +For a long time he carried the head-lines "On to Richmond" and roused +the North into such a frenzy of feeling that he goaded the President, +the Cabinet and General Winfield Scott into action before they were +ready. Scott was at the head of the army. He was a Virginian, and loved +the Old Dominion State with every drop of blood in his veins. The great +men of the South on their knees begged Scott to join the South and lead +the host of rebellion. Scott answered that he had sworn a solemn oath to +defend the Constitution and the country, and made himself an outcast +that he might be true to God and the Union. But the cry "On to Richmond" +became the cry of an unreasoning multitude of editors and their readers. +All unprepared, the advance was ordered and Bull Run was the result. +Greeley, being the leading editor of the land, was made the +scapegoat--the target of universal criticism. The barbed arrows found +his brain, and becoming excited, sleepless and overwrought, Greeley went +into an attack of brain fever, from which he recovered only after long +time, to register a vow that he would never again discuss the management +of the army. Then came his editorials urging emancipation, illustrated +by "The prayer of twenty millions," and Lincoln's wonderful reply, +written to Greeley, "in deference to an old friend whose heart I have +always found to be right." It is honour enough for any editor to have +called out Lincoln's letter (August 22, 1862), a letter that placed the +President in the first rank as a master of epigrammatic speech, and put +in a nutshell the whole position of the government in relation to the +war. + +Greeley was wrong again in 1864, when he met certain representatives of +the South at Niagara Falls and suggested a plan of adjustment for the +ending of the war. These so-called peace commissioners, without doubt, +used Greeley as a convenient tool, and exhibited him as Don Quixote, +riding forth upon a windmill enterprise. But Greeley had the courage of +his opinions; threats could not cow him nor blows terrify him, nor scorn +and hate drive him from a position which he had taken upon grounds of +conscience and sound reasoning. + +During the draft riots, in 1863, the mob attacked the _Tribune_, +smashing the windows and doors, and it seemed a miracle that Greeley was +not killed. When his friends rescued him the great editor seemed quite +unwilling to be forced into a place of safety. "Well, it doesn't matter; +I have done my work; I may as well be killed by the mob as die in my +bed; between now and the next time is only a little while." + +In May, 1867, Greeley signed the bail bond for Jefferson Davis, +ex-president of the Confederacy. Burning with anger his friends in the +Union League Club of New York called a meeting to expel him. He returned +a defiant answer: "Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting; I have an +engagement out of town and I shall keep it. I do not recognize you as +capable of judging me. You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, +misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow-minded +blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and good cause but +don't know how. Your attempt to base a great and enduring party on the +hate and wrath engendered by a bloody civil war is as though you should +plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow drifted into a tropical +ocean. I tell you here that out of a life earnestly devoted to the good +of human kind, your children will select my going to Richmond and +signing that bail bond as the wisest act of my life, and will feel that +it did more for freedom and humanity than all of you were competent to +do though you lived to the age of Methuselah. Understand, once for all, +that I dare you and defy you. So long as any man was seeking to +overthrow our government he was my enemy; from the hour when he laid +down his arms he was my formerly erring countryman." + +In 1872, Greeley became the Republican who was a candidate of the +Democratic party for the presidency, and was defeated by Grant. +Doubtless he was actuated by the highest sense of duty. He took the +stump and spoke in every great city in the North and South, without +swerving a hair's breadth in his pacific attitude towards the South, or +in his championship of the coloured race. His great work, "The American +Conflict," on which he spent ten hours a day for many, many months, had +made Greeley a master of all the facts bearing upon the reconciliation +of the North and South. He showed almost superhuman endurance during +that intense campaign. But Grant had captured the imagination of the +people. The old soldiers voted as one solid band, the Republican party +was looked upon as the saviour of the nation, and the people doubted Mr. +Greeley's fitness for the presidency in a national crisis. He was +defeated in November, and went home to watch over his wife during her +illness and death. Just before she died, he wrote a friend saying: "I am +a broken old man; I have not slept one hour in twenty-four; if she +lasts, poor soul, another week, I shall go before her." Sleeplessness +brought on brain fever, his old enemy, and on November 29th, the +worn-out editor fell on sleep. + +His fellow countrymen wakened to realize that the great tribune of the +people had left the country poor. His own city rose as one man, in mood +of profound grief and affectionate admiration and sympathy. His body lay +in state in our city hall the long day through. The poor poured by in +unending column, to pay their last tribute to a man who had never +betrayed the people. The funeral services were attended by the president +and vice-president of the United States, the president-elect, and +numerous officials and citizens of distinction. Mr. Beecher made one +address and then Greeley's pastor, Dr. Chapin, spoke. Men forgot the +wreck of his political fortunes and the tragedy of his later career. He +expressed the ambition of his life in the wish "that the stone which +covers my ashes may bear to future eyes the still intelligible +inscription: 'Founder of the New York Tribune.'" + +A Universalist in his religious faith, Horace Greeley believed that +right was stronger than wrong, good more powerful than evil, and that +there will be in eternal ages no endless perdition for the evil ones of +earth, but that God and all the resources of His power and love will +here or there compel every knee to bow and every will surrender to the +will divine. He earned the right to say at the end of his noble career, +"I have been spared to see the end of giant wrongs that I once deemed +invincible in this country, and to note the silent upspringing and +growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out +some of the most flagrant and pervading influences that remain. So, +looking calmly, yet humbly, for that close of my mortal career which +cannot be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings +vouchsafed me in the past; and with an awe that is not fear, and a +consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await the opening +before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World." + + + + +VI + +HARRIET BEECHER STOWE; JOHN BROWN: THE CONFLICT PRECIPITATED + + +About 1850, as the result of the long agitation of the editors and +orators, preachers and poets, the people of this country entered upon a +heated mood, when excitement dwelt like fire in the intellect and +conscience. For thinking men, it was becoming clear that civil war was +inevitable, and that commercial relations between North and South would +soon be broken off. But the North had goods to sell, and the South had +money with which to buy; so the word was passed that every one must keep +silence about slavery, lest discussion bring on a financial panic. It +was the era of imprisoned moral sense. In the ocean, some waves are +tidal waves, and on land sometimes the soil is heaved by an earthquake; +at this time God began to heave the conscience of the people as the full +moon heaves the sea. And although we now see that God was behind the +movement, foolish men then tried to stay these moral forces. Northern +merchants and politicians cried, "Peace!" and the Southern successors of +Calhoun lifted the old club, the threat of secession; but the agitation +went on all over the North. Toombs, the Southern senator, tried sheer +bombast, and said he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of +Bunker Hill monument. Timid men in the North began to cry: "Conciliate, +conciliate!" But there can be warfare, and only warfare between darkness +and light, between sickness and health, between wrong and right. At +length Phillips and Greeley took up the cry: "Let the South go!" But the +answer was: "Shall a strong man who has hold of a mad dog let the beast +go into a crowd of little children?" Compromise did something for a +time, as a safety valve, relieving men's pent-up feelings. But God had +His own counsels. Plainly, "every drop of blood shed by the lash was to +be paid for by blood shed by the sword," for "the judgments of God are +true and righteous altogether." + +During those heated days of 1850, when the men of light and leading +began to see their way clearly, the masses were still timid, hesitant +and vacillating in their judgments on slavery. Scholars and thinking men +had already been reached by poets, authors and editors, while the +preachers and lecturers had driven their message home to the conviction +of the ruling classes. Later on was to come the revival of 1857 that +should stir the conscience, but preparatory to that movement it was +necessary to inform the intellect and rouse the affections of the +millions. Then it was that God raised up an author to touch the heart of +the people. + +Wonderful the power of the novel in social reform! The novels of "Oliver +Twist," and "Dombey and Son," were what roused the English people to a +realization of the woes and wrongs of chimney sweeps, of children in the +factories and mines of Great Britain. It was a novel, "All Sorts and +Conditions of Men," that later built People's Palace in the Whitechapel +district of London. And it was a novel, named "Uncle Tom's Cabin," that +created the atmosphere of sympathy in which the flowers of +self-sacrifice and heroism unfolded. + +The authoress was the daughter of Lyman Beecher, who had seven sons and +four daughters, each one of whom was either a preacher or reformer in +some field. His daughter, Harriet, married Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, of +Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, where, on the border between the free soil +of Ohio and the slave soil of Kentucky, people were in a state of +constant excitement and upheaval. The old Blue Grass State exhibited +slavery in its very best condition and also in its worst form. The +harrowing tales and incidents that were afterwards worked up into +literary form by the gifted authoress were all matters of observation, +conversation and experience. One of the earliest incidents of the +Stowes' life in Cincinnati was an experience of Professor Stowe with one +of the Beecher boys. While travelling in Kentucky, the two young men +witnessed the flight of a negro woman, who was running away with her +little child, whom they helped across the Ohio River, to be sent on by +the Underground Railway to Oberlin, on the shore of Lake Erie. And the +similar incident, Eliza's flight across the ice, her son Charles[1] +writes in his recent story of her life, "was an actual occurrence. She +had known and had often talked with the very man who helped Eliza up the +bank of the river." + +Later during their Cincinnati residence, Mrs. Stowe conducted a small +private school and made a practice of allowing a few coloured children +to attend it. One evening the mother of one of these coloured children +came to the Stowes' house in a frenzy of terror, saying that her little +girl had been seized and carried to the river, to be sold as a slave in +Kentucky. Mrs. Stowe raised the money to ransom the beautiful child. + +It was during this period that the Kentucky editor, Bailey, moved across +the river and began to publish a paper in Cincinnati. One night the +editor knocked at the door of the Stowe home, seeking refuge from a mob +that had smashed in his doors and windows, looted his printing-office, +and flung his type into the river. + +On another occasion a Kentuckian named Van Zandt freed his slaves and +carried them across the river into Ohio. His old friends counted him a +traitor, and charges were trumped up that he had used his new home in +Ohio as an underground station for the receiving of runaway slaves. +Professor Stowe was asked to assist in Van Zandt's defense. When other +lawyers were afraid of the mob spirit, a young attorney named Salmon P. +Chase volunteered his services without pay. As the courts were then +entirely under the influence of the Fugitive Slave law, young Chase lost +his case; but that no dramatic note might be wanting, this young +attorney later became chief justice of the United States Supreme Court +and wrote a decision that reversed the former action. All these and many +other facts and events went into Mrs. Stowe's mind as raw silk, and came +out tapestry and brocade. The fuel of events fed the flames of +enthusiasm. It was a great age, when men had to speak. The time was +ripe, the soil was ready, God gave the good seed of liberty, and the +sower went forth to sow. + +Mrs. Stowe tells us how she came to write the last chapter of the book, +the death of "Uncle Tom." She had a coloured woman in her family whose +husband was a slave, living in Kentucky. This black man had invented a +simple tool, was a good salesman, and was permitted to travel from town +to town, and even to cross the river into the Ohio, under no bond save +his solemn pledge to his master not to run away. Mrs. Stowe wrote the +letters for her servant, to this black man in Covington, Ky. One day, +while visiting his wife, in the Stowe home, he said that he would rather +cut off his right hand than break the word he had given to his master. +What white man could boast a more delicate sense of truth? How keen and +delicate the conscience! What weight of manhood in a slave! What +reserves of morality! What latent heroism! The slave's story captured +the imagination of the authoress, and kindled her mind into a creative +mood. + +Out of the incident Mrs. Stowe evolved the character of "Uncle Tom." One +Sunday morning, as she sat at the communion table, the picture of Tom's +death rose and passed before her mind. "At the same time," writes her +son, "the words of Jesus were sounding in her ears: 'Inasmuch as ye have +done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto +Me.' It seemed as if the crucified but now risen and glorified Christ +were speaking to her through the poor black man, cut and bleeding under +the blows of the slave whip." Long afterwards some one asked Mrs. Stowe +how she came to write the death of Uncle Tom, and she answered that she +did not write it, that God gave it to her in a vision, that she saw the +overseer flog him to death, and heard his dying words, and merely wrote +down the vision as she saw it. At the time, she had no idea of writing +more: it was a year later when she began the tale of which this incident +became the crisis. + +For nearly two years the story ran in the _National Era_, published in +Washington. The book was completed on March 20, 1852, and in spite of +Mrs. Stowe's despondency and apprehension of failure, it sold 3,000 +copies the first day, 10,000 in a week, and 300,000 in a year. Save +"Pilgrim's Progress" alone, perhaps no book ever had a wider +circulation, the Bible, of course, and "The Imitation of Christ," by a +Kempis, always excepted. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was translated into German, +French, Italian and Spanish, and later appeared in almost every known +language. Written for the people at large, the book struck a chord of +universal human nature, and aroused the learned as well as the simple. +Soon letters began to pour in from the most distinguished men in foreign +countries. Charles Dickens wrote that he had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" +with the deepest interest and sympathy. Lord Carlisle sent a message of +"deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God, who has enabled you to write +this book." Charles Kingsley expressed the judgment that the story would +take away the reproach of slavery from the great and growing nation. Men +like Shaftesbury, Arthur Helps, women like George Sand and Frederika +Bremer added their tribute of praise. Eighteen different publishing +houses in England were issuing the book at one time, and a million and a +half copies were sold in Great Britain. + +Even Heinrich Heine, the poet, the cynic, who carried more power of +sarcasm and irony than any man of his generation, was so moved by the +book that he seems to have returned to the reading of the Bible, and to +Christ the Consoler, in the hour when night and death were falling. +"Astonishing! That after I have whirled about all my life, over all the +dance floors of philosophy, and yielded myself to all the orgies of the +intellect, and paid my addresses to all possible systems, without +satisfaction, like Messalina after a licentious night, I now find myself +on the same standpoint where poor Uncle Tom stands--on that of the +Bible. I kneel down by my black brother in the same prayer. What a +humiliation! With all my sense I have come no farther than the poor +ignorant negro who has just learned to spell. Poor Tom indeed seems to +have seen deeper things in the holy book than I, but I, who used to make +citations from Homer, now begin to quote the Bible as Uncle Tom does!" +Praise can go no farther than this, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has shown +how the love of God can support a slave, under the lash, in the hour +when he is flogged to death, and fill his heart with pity while he +cries, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" It was +this that conquered the intellect of the scholar, and broke his heart, +and flooded his eyes with tears. + +Perhaps the most striking testimony to the influence of "Uncle Tom's +Cabin" grew out of a suggestion of Lord Shaftesbury's that the women of +England and Europe send their signatures to a testimonial to be +presented to Mrs. Stowe, for, when this testimonial came in, it filled +twenty-six thick folio volumes, solidly bound in morocco, and it held +the names of 562,448 women, representing every rank, from the throne of +England to the wives of the humblest artisans in Wales or the peasants +in Italy. + +The message of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is so simple that he who runs may +read. It was not written for literary critics, for scholars or for +college graduates. George Eliot wrote her "Romola" with the historian +and the philosopher and the editor of reviews ever in mind. Harriet +Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for farmers, factory men, +merchants and clerks, the miscellaneous mass that make up the millions, +to rouse them to the wrongs of slavery. + +In it she tried to prove two things. First, that slavery, as a system, +reacted upon the loftiest natures, distorting and injuring them. Witness +the Kentucky gentleman, Mr. Shelby. His wife was a patrician, the very +embodiment of courtesy and good-will, affection and sympathy. Her +husband was a man of honour, a representative of the bluest blood of the +old Lexington families, with a heart so gentle that the sight of a young +bird that had fallen out of the nest in the tree moved him to tears; +but, little by little, pressed by his necessities and hardened by the +spectacle of slaves bought and slaves sold, he himself sells the woman +who has been a nurse to his children, and Uncle Tom who has been like a +saviour to his own boys in the hour of their peril in forest and river, +sends both of the slaves into the cotton plantations of Louisiana, +breaking his solemn pledge to his wife and his family, in the hope that +he could escape from debt, that like a millstone weighed him into the +abyss. + +Then, the book tries to show how slavery develops the worst men, of the +stamp of Simon Legree, the brutal overseer. Legree pours out the vials +of his wrath upon the slaves about him, debauching a young octaroon to +the level of his mistress, hunting his slaves with bloodhounds, killing +them without trial before a jury. Power is dangerous; there is the czar +spirit in every man. Slavery made a brute still more brutal--made the +sensual man more sensual, and finally debased Legree to the level of the +demon. + +It is a book full of pathos and tears. Remembering that the book was +written for the miscellaneous millions, to rouse the nation at large to +moral indignation, it is doubtful whether any book was ever more +perfectly adapted to the end aimed at. Literary artists have criticized +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and contrasted it with "Henry Esmond," "Vanity +Fair" and "Adam Bede." But if Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot +achieved unique success in creating books that should reach their set, +one thing is certain,--the boys, who afterwards became the soldiers of +the Civil War, read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with dim eyes and indignant +hearts, because the book found their judgment and their conscience, and +lifted them to the point where they were made ready in the day of God's +power, to fight the battle for freedom. + +When all the school children had read the death of little Eva and of +Uncle Tom, and all the farmers and working men--the dwellers in city and +country, from seaboard to mountains and prairie--had followed the career +of these slaves to the end, and the people of the North were fully awake +to the horror of the slave traffic, the multitudes began to look with +questioning eyes into each other's faces, asking, "What can be done? +What is the next step?" And then it was that a fanatic entered the +scene. + +His name was John Brown, descended from Peter Brown, a Pilgrim of the +_Mayflower_. He had been cattle-drover, tanner and wool-merchant. When +about forty years of age he was living in Springfield, Massachusetts. +One night, in 1849, a runaway slave knocked at his door and told Brown +the story of his flight, of the weeks he had spent hiding in the swamps, +of his escape to the fastnesses of the mountains, of his life in the +forest, and how he finally reached New York and Springfield. It was a +story of starvation, hunger, cold, blows and piercing anguish. Long +after the children had gone to bed at midnight, while the slave was +sleeping in a blanket beside the fire, John Brown sat musing over the +national infamy. All the next day and night the conference continued +with this runaway, who was also a negro preacher. The following night +John Brown assembled his sons. He closed the door and told his family +his decision. He was a tall man, over six feet, straight and lithe, +slightly gray, with thin lips and smooth face. The Bible was almost the +only book in the house, and no sound was so familiar as the voice of +prayer. Brown was lifted into the prophetic mood. He told his family +that he had decided to give himself, and to consecrate them, to +righting the wrongs of the slaves; that he had heard a voice calling him +to the work of the deliverer; that he would be killed, and that they +must expect also to die the martyr's death, and that henceforth they +must expect only crusts, wounds, bitter enmity, and finally martyrdom. A +little later and Brown had moved the younger children of his family to +North Elba, in the Adirondack woods, that the slaves on the underground +route might be able to hide in the forest, in the event of the pursuers +overtaking them. Brown then began to travel along Mason and Dixon's line +from the city of Washington through to Topeka, Kan. From time to time he +would cross the line, take charge of a little group of slaves, and +hiding by day and travelling by night, carry them from one underground +station to another. It was said that he had personally conducted runaway +slaves along every route for a thousand miles from East to West, between +the Atlantic and the Missouri River. + +One of the friends of Brown's childhood was the Hon. James B. Grinnell, +who founded the town and college in Iowa. This congressman loved to tell +the story of the night when John Brown knocked at his door. Outside was +a wagon, packed with slaves, whom Brown had carried across the line from +Missouri. He had driven four horses at their limit of speed for a +hundred miles and had no defenders, save two or three men and as many +guns. "I am a dealer in wool," said the stranger, "and my name is +Captain John Brown of Kansas." The first thing Mr. Grinnell did was to +find a shelter for these slaves, with food and beds. The next thing was +to hide the wagon and the horses in the thick grove near by. Early the +next morning the news spread like wild-fire, and the settlers began to +pour in. John Brown made a speech to the farmers and justified his act. +The villagers were terrified lest the pursuers come any moment and burn +their houses. The three Congregational ministers offered prayers, asked +for help, and started out to raise money. When the night fell the slaves +were rushed to the terminus of the railway and carried through to +Chicago, being shipped in a freight car as sheep, to distinguish their +woolly heads from the goats, named white men. + +In 1855 John Brown led his five sons and their families into Kansas, to +help preempt the State for freedom. When at length the free state +voters won an election and enthroned their governor, two thousand +pro-slavery men from Missouri crossed the State line, burned the little +town of Lawrence, and at the point of the pistol compelled the State +officials to resign; issued writs for a new election, put in a slavery +governor, captured the government, and started back into Missouri. On +their way they passed through Pottawatamie. It was a guerrilla warfare. +When John Brown reached his son's cabin, he found the settlers preparing +for flight. He denounced them as cowards, and when one urged caution, +answered, "I am tired of that word Caution. It is nothing but +cowardice!" Either the border ruffians had to go, or else the settlers +must leave without striking a single blow in defense of their homes. A +man's cabin was his castle. Without waiting for the next attack to be +made, John Brown pointed the settlers to the smoking ashes of cabins +already burned and to the bodies that the Missouri guerrillas had left +on the ground, and took the aggressive himself. He seized five of the +outlaws and killed them for their crime. + +The deed fired Kansas, some say freed Kansas, while others think it +opened the Civil War. Withdrawing to the forest, hiding in the +cottonwood swamps, John Brown organized his company. A reporter of the +_New York Tribune_ finally penetrated the thicket. "Near the edge of the +creek a dozen horses were tied, already saddled for a ride for life. A +dozen rifles were stacked against the trees. In an open space was a +blazing fire with a pot above it. Three or four armed men were lying on +red and blue blankets on the grass. John Brown himself stood near the +fire with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a piece of pork in his hand. +He was poorly clad, and his toes protruded from his boots. The old man +received me with great cordiality, and the little band gathered about +me. He respectfully, but firmly, forbade conversation on the +Pottawatamie affair. After the meal, thanks were returned to the +bountiful Giver. Often, I was told, the old man would retire to the +densest solitudes to wrestle with his God in prayer. He said he was +fighting God's battles for his children's sake: 'Give me men of good +principles, God-fearing men, men who respect themselves, and with a +dozen of them I will oppose a hundred such men as these border +ruffians.' I remained in the camp about an hour. Never before had I met +such a band of men. They were not earnest, but earnestness incarnate." + +After several years of bloody conflict and political struggles between +the pro-slavery and anti-slavery parties, in 1859 the Constitution +prohibiting slavery was passed, and freedom had won in Kansas. In +January of that year John Brown returned to the mountains of Virginia, +and "The Great Black Way," and the dark shadows of the night following +the North Star to liberty. For many years he had been planning an +uprising of the slaves, and an attack upon Virginia. Some biographers +think he conceived the plan as early as 1849. Away back in 1834 Brown +wrote to his brother his determination to war on slavery; but at first +only through educating the blacks. As time went on he came into sterner +conflict with it. + +Brown, in fact, became a fanatic who really believed that the millions +of slaves would rise at his call, and that he could lead his host as a +new Moses, out of the land of bondage. He intended to operate in the +Blue Ridge Mountains, because the paths into the black belt of slavery +were easily followed. Men like Douglas and other escaped slaves who +were living in the North did not see their way clear to join the +movement. + +On Sunday, October 16, 1859, John Brown, with sixteen men, started out +to capture Harper's Ferry and redeem three million slaves. Brown rode in +a one-horse wagon, that held provisions, pikes, one sledge-hammer and +one crowbar; his sixteen men, with guns, followed on foot. Without a +single shot they captured the armoury and the rifle factory, and at +daylight, without the snap of a gun or any violence whatsoever, they +were in possession of Harper's Ferry. On Monday morning the panic spread +like wild-fire. The rumour went abroad of an uprising of all the slaves +of the South. In a few hours the governor called out the militia, +Jefferson guards marched down the Potomac, and two local companies took +positions on the heights. The assault began in the afternoon. One by one +Brown's handful were killed, his two sons, Oliver and Watson, were shot +down, and Brown, badly wounded, was captured. + +The trial and examination of the old fanatic makes a fascinating story. +At noon of Tuesday, the governor of Virginia bent over him as he lay +wounded and blood-stained upon the floor. "Who are you?" asked the +governor. "My name is John Brown; I have been well known as old John +Brown of Kansas. Two of my sons were killed here to-day, and I am dying +too. I came here to liberate slaves, and was to receive no reward. I +have acted from a sense of duty, and am content to await my fate. I am +an old man. If I had succeeded in running off slaves this time, I could +have raised twenty times as many men as I have now for a similar +expedition; but I have failed." + +Then Governor Wise said, "The silver of your hair is reddened by the +blood of crime. You should think upon eternity." + +John Brown replied, "Governor, I have not more than fifteen or twenty +years the start of you to that eternity, and I am prepared to go. There +is an eternity behind and an eternity before, and this little speck in +the centre is but a minute. The difference between your time and mine is +trifling, and I therefore tell you--be prepared. I am prepared--you have +a heavy responsibility. It behooves you to prepare, and more than it +does me." + +Friends in the North tried to secure Brown's release, but he answered +them: "I think I cannot now better serve the cause I love so much than +to die for it, and in my death I may do more than in my life. I believe +that for me, at this time, to seal my testimony for God and humanity +through my blood will do vastly more towards advancing the cause I have +earnestly endeavoured to promote than all I have done in my life +before." + +When the court asked Brown if he had any reason why he should not be +hung, he answered: "This court acknowledges the validity of the law of +God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible. That book +teaches me to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I +endeavoured to act up to that instruction. I believe that to interfere +as I have done, in behalf of God's poor, was not wrong, but right. I am +quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged +away but with blood. If it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my +life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood +further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in +this slave country, whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel and +unjust enactments, I submit. So let it be done." + +On the morning of his hanging he visited his doomed companions, and then +kissed his wife good-bye. A thousand soldiers stood round about his +scaffold. "This is a beautiful land," said Brown, as he rode, looking +across the landscape. As he climbed the steps of the scaffold a negro +child stood between some black men, and some say he stooped and kissed +the child. And this was his prayer: + +"My love to all who love their neighbours. I have asked to be spared +from having any weak or hypocritical prayers said over me when I am +publicly murdered, and that my only religious attendants be poor, +little, dirty, ragged, bareheaded, and barefooted slave boys and girls, +led by some gray-headed slave mother.... Farewell, farewell." He died in +the spirit of the letter written the day before, when he said, "I think +I feel as happy as Paul did when he lay in prison, for men cannot chain +or hang the soul." + +His deed puzzled the world. For multitudes it is still an enigma. To +many, John Brown seems not only a fanatic but a lunatic. To others, now +that long time has passed, this white-haired old man, weltering in his +blood, which he had spilled for a broken and despised race, seems +right, and he seems to have died, not as a fool dies, but as martyrs +die. That his enterprise was doomed to failure in advance, all knew. +That it was not the wisest plan, Brown's best friends must grant. But +that its fanaticism was overruled by God to release the great South from +the incubus of slavery, Brown's friends and Brown's enemies alike must +concede. + +What other men had been writing about, John Brown did in action. The +attack on Harper's Ferry was the first blow struck during the Civil War. +Other men and women assembled the explosives, but John Brown dropped the +spark in the magazine, which finally blew up that hindrance to progress, +slavery--the Hell Gate obstruction in the passageway of the South and of +all civilization. + + + + +VII + +LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS: INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT DEBATE + + +Strictly speaking, there were three stages in the development of the +anti-slavery sentiment leading up to the Civil War. There was the period +of indifference, from 1759 to 1830, when the North winked at slavery, +ignored the traffic and avoided the whole subject. There was the epoch +of agitation, from 1831 to 1850, when Garrison and his friends insisted +upon "the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves on the +soil," and the agitation was kept up by men who "would not retreat, who +would not equivocate, who would not be silent and who would be heard." +Then came the stage when men tried legislative palliatives; when all +manner of political medicaments and poultices were tried as cures, which +were about as effective in destroying the poison as a porous plaster +would be to draw out the fire from a volcano. For more than sixty years +a veil had hung before men's minds, and it was as if they saw slaves as +trees walking, in an unreal world. The sea captain fears a fog more than +an equinoctial storm. When the mist falls, and obscures the glass, and +the ship is surrounded with white darkness, and the surf is thundering +on some Nantucket, as a graveyard of the sea, the captain longs for a +cold, sharp wind out of the North, to cut the fog and bring out the +stars and sun. And not otherwise was it with the great debate between +Lincoln and Douglas--it lifted the veil from men's eyes, it swept the +fog out of the air, it made the issue clear. Then it was that for the +first time the North saw that the conflict was inevitable, because the +Union could not endure permanently, half slave and half free; saw that +liberty and slavery were as irreconcilable as day and night. + +Before considering the influence of Lincoln's clear thinking and +speaking upon the eternal principles of right, we must note the general +reawakening of the popular intelligence which preceded it, and which was +due to two causes, the panic of 1857 and the religious revival which +swept over the land during the same year. As the Northern merchant +began to see that the South had determined to secede and try her fate +alone, he became afraid to sell his goods to Southern customers. The +Northern manufacturer, in turn, was overstocked, and if the banker +called his loans there was no response, for the chain was broken; the +result was the panic of 1857. Hunger and Want stalked through the +land--Winter and Poverty became bosom friends. Black despair fell upon +the people and in the hour of need they cried unto God, and God heard +them. + +When a nation prospers and grows rich, religion languishes. When nations +enter upon disaster and peril, the people turn unto God. Abundance +enervates. Morals always sink to a low level when men's eyes stand out +with fatness. + +What agitation, what the liberator and the lecture platform, what +statesmen and compromisers could not achieve, was accomplished by the +spirit of God working upon the hearts of men, clarifying the intellect, +deepening the sympathy and lending vigour to the will. + +The first thing the leader of an orchestra does is to see to it that the +instruments are all unified and brought up to concert pitch, and the +revival of religion made the people one in self-sacrifice and their +willingness to live and die for their convictions. + +Multitudes returned to the churches. Thoughtless youth discovered that +there are only two great things in the universe--God and the soul. +Personal religion became the supreme interest of the hour. Men went into +the crucible commonplace; they came out of it heroic stuff. All over the +country the churches were open every night in the week. Moving across +the country the traveller saw the candles burning in the little +schoolhouses, while the farmers assembled to pray and read God's word. +The Fulton Street prayer-meeting in New York attracted the interest of +the nation. The morning newspapers of 1858 carried columns concerning +the business men's noon prayer-meeting, just as to-day they carry the +column on the stock news and the stock market. In his "History of the +United States" Rhodes calls attention to the fact that 230 persons +joined Plymouth Church on profession of faith on a single Sunday +morning. That revival all over the land put its moral stamp upon boys +and girls who afterwards became the leaders of the generation. + +Now every reform and every great war for principle proceeds along +intellectual lines clearly laid out. Twenty-seven years before the +Lincoln-Douglas debates, the "Tariff of Abominations" had brought up the +question of the right of the Southern states to secede. Calhoun had set +up his famous doctrine, and Webster, in his "Second Reply to Hayne," had +knocked it down. The feeling had been intense, but Webster's wonderful +oration in defense of the Constitution and the Union had succeeded in +meeting the crisis, and settling for a time the vexing problem. Yet the +evil of slavery continued its fatal gnawing at the heart of the nation. +By 1855-6 the old question was up again in much the same form. The +atmosphere was clouded, the black shroud of the approaching storm +already discernible on the horizon. A hundred minor problems united in +complicating the discussion of the one all-important thing. Another +leader was wanted to set the battle in array, to mark out the lines of +conflict. Webster and Calhoun were gone, but another was to come to +preserve "liberty and union, one and inseparable." This man was Abraham +Lincoln, and the opponent who was to call out his clearest expositions +of the situation, and spur him on to his greatest arguments, was +Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. + +Douglas was born in 1813, in Brandon, Vermont. His father was a +physician of great promise, who fell with a stroke of apoplexy at a +moment when he was carrying the child Stephen in his arms. The ambitions +of the father for intellectual leadership were fulfilled in the son, who +at fifteen years of age had attracted the notice of the best minds in +his region. Strong men became interested in the boy, and advised his +mother to take him to a relative in Canandaigua, N. Y., where there was +an excellent academy. At seventeen he entered a lawyer's office, +attended every trial before the justice of the peace or the county +clerk, and made a local reputation as a student of politics and law. At +twenty years of age, he started West, to make his fortune, but fell ill +in Cleveland, O., and all but lost his life. A few months later he +entered the town of Winchester, Ill., a stranger, in a strange land. He +carried his coat on one arm and a little bundle of clothes on the other. +There was a crowd on the corner of the street, where an auctioneer was +selling the personal effects and live stock of some settler, and within +a few minutes Douglas was engaged as clerk at the auction. At the end of +three days he found himself the possessor of six dollars, which was the +first money he had ever earned, and what was far more important, he had +by his accuracy, good nature and kindliness won the hearts of the +purchasers, and attracted the attention of the two or three leading men +of the town. That winter he opened a private school, in which forty +scholars were enrolled, while he continued his studies of law during the +long evenings. Ten crowded and successful years soon swept by, and those +years held remarkable achievements. He was admitted to the bar, elected +to the Legislature, made Secretary of State, judge of the Supreme Court, +and at thirty was sent to Congress. He spent three years in Congress; at +thirty-six was chosen to fill out an unexpired term in the Senate, was +reelected to represent Illinois, and a third time was chosen senator--a +career of uniform and splendid success from the material view-point. + +But the career of Douglas in Washington was the career of an +opportunist, at once full of good and full of evil, full of right and +full of wrong. He was a born politician, an expert manager of men and a +natural machine builder. Many others outranked Douglas in set speeches, +but few equalled him in "catch as catch can" methods of the politician. +What Douglas prided himself upon was his skill in getting through the +committee measures that were difficult to pass. When it became necessary +to get a man's vote for his measure, Douglas would put that man up as a +leader, give him the glory, obliterate himself, and after the bill was +passed, hop up like a jack in the pulpit, as the real manager who +manoeuvred the bill through the Senate. He spent two years on the +legislation that brought about the Illinois Central Railroad, and as +long a time in founding the University of Chicago. + +Often Douglas did things that he believed to be morally wrong because he +discovered that they were politically necessary. For example, a reaction +followed upon the election of the Democrat, James K. Polk, to the +presidency. When his leadership was imperilled, Polk cast about for some +issue that would bring together the remnants of his party, and restore +leadership, and he hit upon the device of the Mexican War. No party was +ever defeated that was fighting a war for the defense of the country. +Douglas criticized Polk most sharply, charged the war upon Polk as a +crime against the people, and yet, under the whip of party policy, +Douglas supported Polk. Slowly he deteriorated in his moral fibre. One +by one the moral lights seem to have gone out. He was intoxicated by his +own success. Ambition deluded him. He began to follow the +will-o'-the-wisp, the light that rises from putrescence and decay in the +swamp, and forgot the eternal stars in God's sky. In 1854 he entered the +valley of decision, and like the rich young ruler made the great +refusal, and chose compromise instead of principle. Later Douglas led +his party along a false route, and became a mistaken leader. + +The circumstances were these; the compromise measures of 1850 had +succeeded apparently in achieving the aim of their author, Henry Clay. +The close of the year 1853 was marked by political repose and calm. The +slavery question seemed practically settled. As President Pierce +expressed it in his message, "A sense of security" had been "restored to +the public mind throughout the Confederacy." Prosperity was blessing the +country, times were good, the future bright with the promise of immense +industrial achievements. In Congress, a bill for the organization of the +territory of Nebraska had passed the House at the previous session, and +was being reported to the Senate, but the bill was in the usual form and +contained no reference to slavery. Suddenly the press announced that +Senator Douglas had read a report on this bill, purporting to show that +the compromise measures of 1850 had established a great principle; that +this principle stated the perpetual right of the residents of new States +to decide all questions pertaining to slavery; and that therefore, +contrary to the old Missouri Compromise, ruling slavery out of that +Northwest territory, it left the slavery question entirely in the hands +of the residents of the new territory of Nebraska. + +The announcement created a profound sensation. Twelve days later a +Kentucky senator by the name of Dixon introduced an amendment to the +Nebraska Act, providing for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The +daring of this move startled even Douglas, but within a few days the +Illinois senator had decided to support the Dixon Amendment. With all +the skill and political engineering at his command, he steered the bill +through the tempest which immediately rose against it like a tidal wave; +and on the third of March, in spite of protests which poured in from +every State in the North, in spite of indignation meetings held in New +York, Boston and Philadelphia, in spite of the opposition of the leaders +like Seward, Chase and Sumner, he actually succeeded in persuading the +Senate to pass the bill. That he was able to do this, is a great tribute +to his powers as a politician and as an orator. He spoke from midnight +until dawn, employing every possible trick of rhetoric and logic to +carry his point, and showing a courtesy and restraint in his attack +which won the sympathy even of his opponents. "Never had a bad cause +been more splendidly advocated." + +But the victory was a costly one; he had made the Fugitive Slave Law a +dead letter in the North; he had introduced a new term, "popular +sovereignty," which was to rouse the nation as a red rag rouses a bull. +He had started a storm, wrote Seward, "such as this country has never +yet seen." Every great newspaper editor in the North,--Greeley, Dana, +Raymond, Webb, Bigelow, Weed,--broke into violent protest against the +bill. Not since the fight at Lexington had such a fierce and universal +cry of reproach arisen in the land. + +And for what had he done all this? Simply that he might increase his +chances of obtaining the presidential nomination in 1856. The "solid +South" had just begun to be spoken of. Douglas was an acute observer, +and he saw that if he could secure the backing of the South, he would +have an immense advantage over his rival Cass. It is said that his +objection to the Dixon Amendment was overborne solely by the fear that +Cass would be before him in supporting it, and thus win the favour of +the South. It is the old story of the mess of pottage. Douglas +afterwards tried to defend himself on the ground that he was offering to +the Democratic party "fresh ammunition," but all knew, and none better +than Douglas, that the Democratic party was in no need of a fresh issue. +He had ruthlessly destroyed the peace of the whole nation, for the sake +of promoting his own selfish interests,--and that, in vain; as in 1853, +Douglas failed to secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency in +1856, which was won by Buchanan. + +The bill cost Douglas his prestige, and lost him the confidence of one +half the people of Chicago and Illinois. His friends called him home in +the hope that he might win back the popularity he had lost. But Chicago +would have none of him. He entered the city unwelcomed, had to hire a +building in which to speak, advertised his own meeting, and on the day +of the meeting found the flags at half-mast, while the church bells +tolled the funeral of liberty, where hitherto the bells had pealed the +notes of joy. + +It is impossible not to admire Douglas's courage in that trying ordeal. +He found the hall filled with his opponents, yet he began by saying, "My +fellow citizens, I appear before you to vindicate the Kansas-Nebraska +Bill." The words evoked a perfect tumult, which continued for half an +hour. He appealed to their sense of fair play and honour, but they asked +him whether he had played fair with liberty in Washington. Growing +angry, he tried to denounce them as cowards, afraid to listen to a +discussion, and they answered that it was cowardly to desert a slave who +needed a defender. At eleven o'clock he flung his arms in the air and +dared them to shoot, because a man had waved a pistol. The crowd +answered with a shower of eggs, while a man shouted that bullets were +too valuable to be wasted on traitors. At twelve o'clock the bells rang +out the midnight. Douglas pulled out his watch and shouted, "It is +midnight. I am going home and to church, and you may go to Hades!" +Douglas met a mob in Chicago, just as Beecher met a mob in England. But +Beecher conquered his mob in Manchester; the mob in Chicago conquered +Douglas. Beecher won, because he was right and the mob was wrong; +Douglas lost, because he was wrong and the mob was right. "You can fool +all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people +all the time; you cannot fool all of the people all of the time" on the +great principles of liberty. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Bill brought on +an era of civil war in Kansas, sent the guerrillas over the Sunflower +State, burned Lawrence, destroyed the State government and filled the +whole land with tumult and bitterness. And it cost Douglas his fame and +place among the great men of the Republic. + +In that critical hour for liberty, Abraham Lincoln entered upon the +scene, and challenged Douglas to a debate. It was in the summer of 1858. +Both men were candidates for the Senate--Lincoln, the leader of the new +Republican party State ticket; Douglas, the best known figure in the +land since the death of Clay and Webster. No contrast between two men +could have been greater. Lincoln was tall, angular, lanky, awkward, six +feet four inches in height. Douglas was short, thick-set, graceful, +polished, a man of fine presence, with a great, beautiful head, a high +forehead, square chin, perfectly at home on the platform, a master of +all the tricks of debate, a born king of assemblies. Lincoln was the +stronger man, Douglas the more polished. Lincoln was the better thinker, +Douglas the better orator. Lincoln relied upon fundamental principles, +Douglas wanted to win his case. Lincoln's mind was analytical, and he +loved to take a theme and unfold it, peeling it like an onion, layer by +layer. For Douglas, an oration was a pile of ideas, three hours high. +Lincoln's voice was a high dusty tenor, with small range, and +monotonous; Douglas's voice was a magnificent vocal instrument, +extending from the flute-like tone to the deepest roar. Lincoln lacked +every grace of the great orator; Douglas had every art that makes the +speaker master of his audience. Morally, Lincoln's essential qualities +were his honesty, fairness, and his spirit of good will. Intellectually, +he was a thinker, slow, intense, profound, always trying to find a +mother principle that would explain a concrete fact. He was reared in +childhood on three works--the Bible, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" and +the Constitution of the United States. The style of the parable of Jesus +and the simple words of the "Pilgrim's Progress" entered into his +thinking like iron into the rich blood of the physical system. His +thought was as clear as crystal, his language the simple home words, +full of music and old associations. Lincoln knew what he wanted to say, +said it, and sat down. Douglas stormed, threatened, cajoled, bribed, and +could not stop until he had carried his audience. Lincoln wanted to get +the truth out; Douglas wanted to win a crowd over. The one was a +statesman, the other was an opportunist, struggling for place. +Principles are eternal, and because Lincoln loved principles, Lincoln +belongs to the ages. Douglas wanted office, and because the longest +office is six years, when the six years were over, the people put +another man in his niche; Douglas practically disappeared. + +The interest of the people in the seven great joint debates arranged +for this senatorial campaign was beyond all description. Douglas +travelled in a special train and car, with a flat car carrying a cannon +that boomed the announcement of his arrival. He had the wealth and +prestige of the Illinois Central Railroad to support him. Lincoln +trusted to some friend to drive him across country, or had to be +contented with a seat in a caboose of a freight train, waiting on a +switch at a siding, while Douglas's special went whizzing by. The people +of each county made the day of the debate a great holiday. From daylight +until noon all the converging roads were crowded with wagons, carts and +buggies, loaded with people, while other thousands hurried on foot along +the dusty road to the meeting place. From the first Douglas knew his +peril, in that the eyes of the nation were fixed upon his platform, and +that if Lincoln won the debate he won everything. He paid Lincoln the +compliment of saying, "He is the strong man of his party, full of wit, +facts, dates, and the best stump-speaker, with his droll ways and his +dry jokes, in the West. He is as honest as he is shrewd, and if I beat +him my victory will be hardly won." + +Very different was the praise that Lincoln gave Douglas, as he +contrasted the dazzling fame of the great senator with his own unknown +name. "With me," said Lincoln, "the race of ambition has been a failure, +a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success. I affect +no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; ... I would rather +stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a +monarch's brow." Douglas's speeches do not read well, and there are no +nuggets, proverbs, bright sayings or brilliant epigrams which one can +quote. The substance of his speeches was one and the same, for he +traversed the same ground in each of the seven debates, urging ever that +the new Republican party was simply disguised abolitionism, that Lincoln +wanted to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, establish the equality of the +blacks, that this was a threat of war against the South, and therefore +revolutionary and sectional. Over against this mark consider the clarity +of Lincoln's method of thinking and speaking. + +In his address to the convention, accepting the senatorial nomination, +he had said: "If we could first know where we are and whither we are +tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now +far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed +object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. +Under the operation of that policy that agitation has not only not +ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will not cease +until a crisis has been reached and passed. A house divided against +itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently +half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I +do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be +divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." + +When the campaign opened he challenged Douglas to the debate, and the +critical contest began. + +After several meetings, in which the senator proved himself a slippery +wrestler, Lincoln determined to force Douglas into a corner. He wrote a +question, and with such skill that Douglas was compelled to answer one +way or the other, either answer being fatal to his political ambition. +When Lincoln read this question to his advisers, Medill, Washburne and +Judd, all begged him not to ask it, saying that it would cost him the +senatorship. "Yes, but my loss of the senatorship is nothing. Later on +it will cost Douglas the presidency. I am killing bigger game. The +battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of 1858." The question with which +Douglas was confronted was this: "Can the people of any United States +territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the +United States, exclude slavery from its limit prior to the formation of +a State constitution?" + +What a path perilous was this for Douglas's feet! The path up the edge +of the Matterhorn is a foot wide, yet it is granite, even if the climber +does look down thousands of feet upon his right and thousands of feet +upon his left. But Lincoln made Douglas walk not upon a narrow granite +way, but on a sharp sword. He who tries to walk a tight rope across +Niagara has two alternatives--he either arrives, or he does not. Yonder +is Stephen Douglas, trying to walk a tight rope over the Niagara. + +Forced to an answer, Douglas finally spoke: + +"It matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to +the abstract question whether slavery may or may not go into any +territory under a constitution. The people have the lawful means to +exclude it if they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a +day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police +legislation. Those police regulations can only be established by the +local legislature; and if the people are opposed to slavery they will +elect representatives to that body who will by unfriendly legislation +effectually prevent its introduction into their midst; if, on the +contrary, they are for it, their legislation will favour its extension." +Douglas had decided. Southern newspapers took up his statement and the +tide of anger rose against the "little giant" that cost him the +presidency. Lincoln had digged a pitfall for unwary feet, and the great +opportunist fell therein. + +After this, Douglas became bitter, excited, and increasingly angry, for +the tide was plainly beginning to run against him. Lincoln's speeches +fairly blazed with quotable sentences. "If you think you can slander a +woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are +satisfied." Again: "Has Douglas the exclusive right in this country to +be on all sides of all questions?" Again: "The plainest print cannot be +read through a gold eagle." Again: "Douglas shirks the responsibility of +pulling the national house down, but he digs under it, that it may fall +of its own weight." + +To the astonishment of the country, when the debate was over, Lincoln +carried Illinois on the popular vote, although he lost the senatorship +through the arrangement of legislative districts that gave the election +to the Democrats. Disappointed, Lincoln retained his good humour, and +laughed over what he called the little episode. "I feel," said Lincoln, +"like the boy who stubbed his toe; it hurt too hard to laugh, and he was +too big to cry. But I have been heard on the great subject of the age, +and though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten, I believe I +have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long +after I am gone." + +Lincoln had now become a national figure. In February, 1860, Mr. Beecher +and Henry C. Bowen invited him to speak in New York. The first plan was +for him to speak in Plymouth Church, but later considerations led to a +change to Cooper Institute. Lincoln arrived in the city late in the +week; on Sunday morning he heard Mr. Beecher preach. He sat in the Bowen +pew, just back of the Beecher pew, in the morning; in the evening he +arrived very late, and sat in a front pew, in the gallery, with Mr. +Bowen and a friend who had waited in the hall for Mr. Lincoln's arrival. +Lincoln spent the afternoon at the Sunday-school mission, over in Five +Points. As the superintendent of the mission was always casting about +for somebody to talk to his ragamuffins, he asked the tall stranger if +he would say a few words. When they reached the platform, the +superintendent asked Lincoln by what name he should introduce him, to +which Lincoln gave the answer, "Tell them Abraham Lincoln of Illinois," +which was answer enough. The meeting the next day in Cooper Institute +was perhaps the most memorable assembly ever held in New York. William +Cullen Bryant presided, Horace Greeley sat on Lincoln's right, Peter +Cooper close by. "No man," said the _Tribune_, "since the days of Clay +and Webster, spoke to a larger assemblage of the intellect and mental +culture of our city. The speech was packed with reason, facts, but +stripped bare of rhetorical flourish. Its keynote was, '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.'" Four morning newspapers reported +the speech in full, and Greeley called him the Great Convincer, saying +no man ever before made such an impression in his first appeal to a New +York audience. That speech probably made Lincoln President. + +By universal consent, Lincoln's nomination in 1860 is one of the +mysteries of politics. Every man of light and leading conceded Seward's +nomination in advance, and two-thirds of the delegates went to the +convention pledged, while eight of the Illinois delegates were against +Lincoln in his own State. The East could not believe that the sceptre +could pass from their hands. Special trains from New York carried +brilliant banners, and New York bands and drilled clubs marched and +countermarched up and down the streets of Chicago. A great wooden wigwam +set up for the occasion held 10,000 spectators. The placing of Seward in +nomination was wildly applauded. But, to the surprise of everybody, the +naming of Lincoln was the signal of an outburst of such enthusiasm as +had never been known. Men held their breath as the votes were +registered. Seward had 1731/2 against Lincoln's 102. As noted in a +former chapter, it has been thought that Horace Greeley's standing out +for Governor Bates of Missouri made possible the shifting of votes for +another Western man. At all events, on the third ballot Lincoln was +nominated. Now hundreds of correspondents began to write stories of this +great unknown. The next day Wendell Phillips demanded from Boston: "Who +is this county court advocate?" But there was a man in Washington who +could speak intelligently concerning the great unknown--his name was +Stephen A. Douglas. + +In that hour Douglas knew the great mistake he had made. The Democratic +convention of that year at Charleston split their party asunder; the +Southerners clamoring for secession should Lincoln be elected, and +nominating John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky; the Northerners standing +fast for the Union and compromise, and nominating Stephen A. Douglas; +while a "Constitutional Union" party of old-line Whigs nominated John +Bell of Tennessee. Lincoln's election was the signal for secession. + +In all the subsequent turmoil, Douglas vigorously sustained the Union +and the Constitution, both in Congress and before the people. When +Sumter was fired upon, he hastened to pledge his influence to Lincoln as +well as to the Union. "There are no neutrals in this war--only patriots +and traitors." Douglas hurried back to Illinois to unify the state for +the Union; he had borrowed $80,000 for his campaign, and he staggered +under the burden of debt. Also he had injured his constitution by +excess, and burned the candle at both ends by overwork. But above all +else was the thought that he had made the great mistake, and lost his +place in history, in saying that he did not care whether a new State +voted slavery up or voted slavery down. During his last sickness he +murmured incessantly, "Failure--I have failed." His last words were: +"Telegraph to the President and let the columns move on." + +Douglas died on June 3, 1861, at the age of forty-eight. The lesson of +his life is the danger of compromise, the peril of refusing adherence to +the highest ideals of principle, and the failure of expediency and +opportunism. + +As Douglas's star went down, Lincoln's star began to climb the sky. It +was Douglas himself who held Lincoln's hat while he made his first +inaugural address. By the irony of fate it was Chief Justice Taney of +the Dred Scott Decision who inaugurated Lincoln into office, that +Lincoln might later make Taney's decision forever null and void. + +And that no dramatic note might be wanted, both Taney and Douglas heard +Lincoln plead with indescribable pathos, majesty and beauty, for the +very Union whose existence their words had threatened. "Physically +speaking, we [the North and South] cannot separate. We cannot remove our +respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall +between them. Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make +laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws +can among friends? Suppose you go to war? You cannot fight always, and +after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, +the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon +you. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, +is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail +you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. +You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I +shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. I am +loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. +Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of +affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every +battle-field and patriotic grave to every living heart and hearthstone +all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when +again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our +nature." + +But the great debate through arguments was ended. Henceforth, the appeal +was to arms. + + + + +VIII + +REASONS FOR SECESSION: SOUTHERN LEADERS + + +The seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas convinced both the North +and the South: but, confirming the one for union and liberty, it +confirmed the other for independence and slavery. Lincoln convinced the +North that the Union could not endure permanently half slave and half +free; on the other hand, the South saw just as clearly that the Union, +if it endured, must become all free or all slave. When the men of +light and leading in the North fully understood Lincoln's +"House-divided-against-itself" speech, they went over to the Republican +party, and nominated and elected Lincoln president, that he might put +slavery in a position of gradual extinction, by forbidding its future +growth. The South acted with even greater energy and decision, by making +ready to secede, and arming her citizens for the defense of slavery. The +great debate, through words, had lasted thirty years; now the South +made its appeal to regiments of armed men. + +At that moment slavery controlled the President, the Cabinet, the Senate +and the House. And yet immediately after the election, and before the +inauguration of Lincoln, the Secretary of War, Floyd, secretly began the +transfer of munitions of war from the nation's arsenals to the Southern +States. + +Late one December day in 1860, a Southern gentleman hastened to the +White House. On the steps he met an old friend who had just left +Buchanan. Waving his hat, he shouted, "This is a glorious day! South +Carolina has seceded!" That night an impromptu banquet was held in +Washington, at which the Southern leaders drank to the success of the +slave empire that was to be founded, and talked about a Southern army, a +Southern navy, the annexation of Mexico and the West India Islands. Then +swiftly followed the secession of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas +and Florida. + +Almost every week during the winter of 1861 witnessed the spectacle of +Southern Senators and Representatives saying good-bye to Congress and +announcing the withdrawal of their State from the Union. Those were +days of thick darkness at Washington. Gloom fell upon the North. Already +the shadow of the great eclipse was stealing across the face of Abraham +Lincoln. It seemed as if the government, "conceived in liberty and +dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal," was about +to "perish from the earth." Hamilton had called the Republic "the last, +best hope of earth." Burke had characterized the Constitution "an event +as wonderful as if a new star had arisen on the horizon to shine as +bright as the planets." Now the star was to fall out of the sky! Up to +the day of his inauguration Lincoln could not believe the South would +ever fire on the flag, or take up arms against the Union. "We are +friends, and not enemies--we must not be enemies." But it was not to be +as Lincoln wished. There are some diseases so terrible that they must be +cured by the knife and the cautery. Slavery had fastened on the very +vitals of the South. Therefore, God permitted the surgery of war. + +Lincoln's inaugural address on March 4, 1861, caused a certain solemn +hush to fall upon the land. Its logic, the facts it contained, the +principles it presented, were so convincing for the intellect and yet +so suffused with pathos and beauty and majesty, that the people, North +and South alike, stood uncertain and expectant. + +But the silence was premonitory. In summer, after a hot, sultry day, +when the great city has exhaled poisonous gases, the clouds are piled +mountain high on the horizon. Then a hush comes. Not a leaf stirs. It is +hard to breathe. Suddenly one bolt leaps from the east to the west--the +precursor of ten thousand fiery darts that are to burn the poison away, +and of the heavy rains and winds that will wash the air and make it +sweet and clean. On the 12th of April the silence for the nation was +broken by the shot fired at Fort Sumter. The bomb that went shrieking +through the air was the precursor of a million men in arms, the most +frightful carnage, the most terrible war in history, when brother took +up arms against brother, and the whole land became one vast cemetery. + +It is often said that South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter and began an +aggressive war to destroy the Union, before the South was ready. +Probably the fact in the case is that South Carolina was trying to "fire +the Southern heart," and force the State of Virginia into the secession +movement. The Old Dominion State was naturally a Union State. It was a +Virginian who uttered the most impassioned words in the history of +liberty--Patrick Henry at Williamsburg. It was a Virginian who led the +colonial armies to victory--Washington. It was a Virginian who wrote the +Declaration of Independence--Thomas Jefferson. He too, a Virginian +governor, made the great protest to King George against the further +imposition of slavery by force of arms. He too, a Virginian, the founder +of Washington and Jefferson College, had called upon the men of the +Dominion State to rise up and destroy the curse of slavery. But from the +moment when that shell rose through the pathless air, curved slightly +and burst above Sumter, the die was cast. Five days later, Virginia +passed her ordinance of secession. + +Oh, if the veil could have been lifted from Beauregard's eyes when he +began that bombardment! If he could but have seen the riches become +poverty, cities become a waste, happy homes a desolation, the Southern +hillsides covered with graves, the Southern plantations grown up with +weeds, and the whole secession movement futile, what a vision would +have fallen upon the soldier! + +On the 15th, President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops. If he had asked +for a million, the President would have had them. That shot had kindled +a fire of patriotism that swept across the North like a prairie fire. In +one day the college students deserted the lecture halls, the students of +law and medicine and theology closed their books, the farmer left his +plow in the furrow, the woodsman dropped his ax, the carpenter his +hammer, and the young men of twenty-three States sprang to arms. What +astonished the South most of all was the attitude of Douglas, and the +Northern Democrats, who had been confidently counted upon to stand by +secession. One Southern fire-eater had said that "Douglas and the +Democrats will fight Lincoln and the Republicans, and it will be another +case of the Kilkenny cats, leaving the South in peace to build up a +great empire." But the first thing that Stephen A. Douglas did was to go +to the White House and pledge his support to Lincoln, as did the leading +Democrats of the North. "The attack upon Sumter," said Douglas, "leaves +us but two parties--patriots and traitors." And now the war was +on,--the one side fighting for the Federal Union and liberty for all +men, and the other side fighting for State sovereignty and slavery. + +These great events bring us front to front with the question as to how +Southern men justified their firing upon the old flag and attacking the +Union. Let us confess that men do not make martyrs of themselves unless +they have a cause that commands the intellect and conquers the will. + +Skeptics used to say that the apostles invented the character of Jesus. +As if men first of all invent a lie and inflate a bubble myth, and then +go out in support of it to get themselves mobbed, kicked through the +streets, thrown from windows, tortured on the rack, crucified and burned +alive after incredible heroism for thirty years! To say that the +disciples invented the story of Jesus and then martyred themselves for +their falsehood is as intellectually stupid and silly as it is morally +monstrous! Not otherwise these leading men of the South were men of the +loftiest character, of great personal worth, patriotic, high-minded, and +they did not devastate their land and martyr themselves for idle +abstractions. Here is John C. Calhoun, ranked by all as one of the +triumvirate--Webster, Calhoun and Clay. Here is Gen. Robert E. Lee, of +whom Lord Wolsey said that for one State to have given birth to two such +men as Washington and Lee was to have lent it immortal renown. Lincoln +and Grant and our Northern generals understood the Southern men, +sympathized with them, and therefore because the intellect grasped their +position, Grant's heart forgave Lee, and made the two friends. To +understand this, go to-day to a great battle-field of that conflict and +hear the Northern generals and the Southern generals rehearse the story +of the Civil War, and you will understand the magnanimity of the +Northern leader and the argument of the Southern soldier. History has +destroyed the old delusion that secession was a conspiracy, organized by +a few malignant leaders. All historians to-day, Northern and Southern +alike, concede that it was a great popular uprising of the Southern +people. + +Indeed, it was not altogether a contest between Northern blood on the +one side, and Southern blood on the other. + +Twenty-one of the Southern generals who fought for the Rebellion were +born in New York and New England. Eighty distinguished Confederate +officers were born north of Mason and Dixon's line, were graduates of +West Point, yet these Northern soldiers rejected Webster's argument for +the Union, and accepted Calhoun's theory of State sovereignty. On the +other hand, many of our greatest Union leaders were Southern men by +birth and education, but as Southerners they rejected Calhoun's +philosophy, and accepted Webster's. Virginia gave us the +commander-in-chief of our army, Gen. Winfield Scott; gave us George H. +Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga. The South gave us Farragut, our +greatest admiral. Twelve of the commanders of our battle-ships that +captured the Mississippi River and made it possible for Lincoln to say, +"Once more the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea," were Southern +men. The South also, through Kentucky, gave us the great President, +Abraham Lincoln. It was, therefore, in large measure, a philosophic +contest. The Union forces were the disciples of Daniel Webster, whose +spirit invisible rode upon the wings of the wind, and whose arm bore the +gorgeous ensign, on which were written the words, "Liberty _and_ Union." +On the other hand, the Confederate forces were made up of the disciples +of John C. Calhoun, who followed a banner on which the great citizen of +South Carolina had inscribed these words, "Sovereignty is natural and +inalienable; government is secondary and artificial and can be changed +at the will of the people." In terms of cannon and gun, Grant and Lee +were the leaders of the two opposing armies, but fundamentally the two +armies were led by Daniel Webster on the one side and John C. Calhoun on +the other. + +Further, Calhoun's influence explains the attitude of the +non-slaveholding South towards secession. Of the six million white +people in the South, two millions of them did not own slaves, and most +of these were opposed to the slave traffic. Thousands of Southerners +freed their slaves before the war, and moved into Ohio and Pennsylvania. +Other thousands declined to participate in the traffic. A North +Carolinian named Hinton Rowan Helper published in 1857 a very striking +volume called "The Impending Crisis in the South, and How to Meet It." +Dedicated to the non-slaveholding whites, and not on behalf of the +blacks, its theme was slavery as a blight upon Southern white people +and their institutions, and a political peril. Not Garrison himself ever +made so vigorous and powerful an arraignment of slavery as did this +Southerner. Helper pronounced slavery the enemy of invention, the foe of +manufacturing plants, an obstacle to the development of the land, a +barrier to the progress of the sons of white men. He held that slavery +starves to death masters in the long run, while for the moment it +seemingly enriches them. Slavery was like sin, it wore the garb of an +angel of light; while secretly it sharpened a dagger, with which to stab +to the heart the angel of civilization. Within two years this book sold +over 150,000 copies, and set the whole South in a fever of unrest. +Nevertheless, when the storm broke, the large non-slaveholding element +in the South took up arms for the doctrine of State sovereignty. If they +resented interference with slavery, it was because slavery was a +Southern domestic institution. But this was only an incident; the one +thing they wished was the vindication of the sovereignty of each State +of the Union, and the right of its people to govern themselves without +regard to other States who had the same right of self-government. + +The character of the Southern leaders throws light upon Calhoun's +principle. Than Robert E. Lee, what general has been more idolized by +those who knew him best? His first ancestor in America was a cavalier +who left England rather than endure the tyranny of Charles II. The son +of "Light Horse Harry" of Revolutionary fame, he loved the Union. +Educated at West Point, he left the institution after four years without +a demerit, and won distinction both in the army during the Mexican War, +and later as an engineer. He was a man of such probity, purity and lofty +character that his followers loved him to the point of worship. He was +deeply religious, and the best expression we can use is that Lee, +like Enoch, walked with God. He was offered the position of +commander-in-chief of the Northern forces. But he could not bear to lead +an invading army against his old college, his ancestral homestead, and +against Washington's house at Mount Vernon, or become the enemy of his +own people in Virginia. On April 17th, Virginia passed her ordinance of +secession, and on the 20th, Lee resigned his commission in the United +States army, because he could not take part against his native +State,--"in whose behalf alone," he said, "will I ever again draw my +sword." By the Calhoun doctrine, Virginia was his country, and no one +has ever doubted his sincerity. Lee is the Sir Philip Sidney of the +Civil War. + +Wellington, the Iron Duke, is reported to have said, "A man of fine +Christian sensibilities is totally unfit for the position of soldier." +But Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson prayed as they fought; in +victory and in defeat alike they turned towards God. Jackson, who won +the name of "Stonewall," might have been the son of old Ironsides +himself. During his entire career he turned his camps into revival +meetings when he was on the Potomac and the Rappahannock, and was a +Puritan of Puritans. It is said that literally hundreds of men who +entered his regiments, careless, profane, drinking boys, went home to +join churches on profession of their faith in Christ. After the battle +of Bull Run, Jackson sent a letter home to his Presbyterian minister at +Lexington, Va. The people assembled to hear the minister read the letter +that would give an account of the conflict. It contained only one +sentence: "I forgot to send you my contribution for the coloured +Sunday-school of which I am superintendent." When Jackson lost his left +arm, General Lee wrote to him, "You have lost your left arm, but I have +lost the right arm of my army." Eight days after, Jackson lay dying, +having been accidentally shot by his own men at Chancellorsville. +Suddenly he cried out, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the +shade of the trees;" a companion had just read the great general that +verse in the Psalm, "There is a river whose streams make glad the city +of God." These two men have been a fountain of inspiration to Southern +youth, and their story makes a bright chapter in the history of all +heroism. + +Southern leaders there were also who opposed secession as inexpedient +and wrong. One of the finest exponents of this group was Alexander H. +Stephens, a self-made man, inured in childhood to hardship, and made +sympathetic through his own struggles. Orphaned at fifteen, he worked +his way through college; admitted to the bar at twenty-two, he achieved +fame as a lawyer; elected to Congress, he was one of the noted figures +in the House of Representatives for sixteen years. His slight physique +and his frail health were sad handicaps. He was dyspeptic, sleepless, a +nervous wreck. He ordinarily weighed seventy-two pounds, and during the +best years of his life only ninety-two. When in February, 1865, Lincoln +met Stephens for a peace conference, he saw the commissioner take off a +great outer coat, and unwrap layer after layer of tippet from his +throat, peeling down and down, until finally there stood this tiny man. +Lincoln whispered to his friend, "Did you ever see so small a nubbin +that had so much husk on it?" + +Within ten days after the election of Lincoln, Stephens began his +campaign against secession. He urged that Lincoln was friendly to the +South; that he had neither the desire nor the power to destroy slavery; +that John Brown's attack represented the individual and not the millions +of the North; that nothing could be gained by haste nor lost by delay, +and that the Southern people should heed Lincoln's inaugural. Finally, +he despaired; he wrote Toombs that "the South was wild with frenzy and +passion--that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." He +afterwards explained his later acquiescence with secession by the +statement that when two trains were running under full steam towards a +head-on collision, he got off at the first station. + +As vice-president of the Confederacy, Stephens was not always in +sympathy with Jefferson Davis; he was very frank in his criticism of the +Confederate leader. "While I never have regarded Davis as a great man, +or statesman on a large scale, or a man of any marked genius, yet I have +regarded him as a man of good intentions; weak and vacillating, timid, +petulant, peevish, obstinate, but not firm." + +To understand Jefferson Davis, however, we must take a broader outlook. + +Rhodes ventures the judgment that if the Pilgrim Fathers had settled in +South Carolina they might have held slaves by 1850, and might have +fought to maintain slavery; while if the cavalier had settled in Boston, +where the snow and the winter are unfriendly to the coloured man, the +cavalier would have founded abolition societies. If all scholars do not +see their way clear to fully accept Rhodes' statement, they must confess +that the Scotch-Irish soldiers that followed Cromwell, and after the +restoration of Charles II moved to North Carolina, at last became +slave-holders; while many Southerners, young men who were educated in +Northern colleges and married Northern girls, finally freed their slaves +and moved North, becoming abolitionists. Circumstances, environment, and +association, modify men so profoundly that Buckle believed that climate +and grains determine men's civilization. + +Again, in 1820, Northern leaders became alarmed at the invasion by +slavery of the Northern and Western territories, and Northern +representatives threatened to withdraw from the Union if slavery was +extended, just as in 1861 the Southern leaders not only threatened but +withdrew,--the only difference being this, that the North would rather +withdraw from the Union than have slavery, while the South preferred to +secede rather than have free labour enforced. + +Nor must we forget that Calhoun's principle of the absolute independence +of each State in political government is freely accepted by all +Congregationalists in church government. In 1875, when a Congregational +Association tried to interfere with Mr. Beecher and the government of +Plymouth Church, Plymouth told them plainly that every church is an +independent and self-governing organization, that sovereignty is +natural and government artificial, and that government by the +Association might be transferred but had not been so transferred. The +Congregational principle in church government is pure democracy. + +But the United States were a federal representative republic, under a +constitution; and, to recur again to ecclesiastical illustration, the +Presbyterian form of government is representative and federal. The +Presbyterians base their government on our political institutions. For +the political township, they have a Presbyterian church; for the county, +they set up the Presbytery; for the State, they organized a synod; for +congress, they organized the General Assembly; for the president, they +substituted a moderator. + +In politics we believe in representative government, but as to the +church, Congregationalists believe in pure democracy, and the +independent principle. + +Now John C. Calhoun took this Congregational principle and translated it +into terms of politics, and called it the States' rights or State +sovereignty theory. If John C. Calhoun had been struggling, not for a +political theory, but for an ecclesiastical one, Henry Ward Beecher +would have backed him to a finish. If there is any one group of people +on earth, therefore, who ought not only to understand but to appreciate +John C. Calhoun's argument, they are the Independents. Now for twenty +years John C. Calhoun went up and down the South, analyzing his +argument, explaining and enforcing it. At the very time Northern boys +were reading in their readers Webster's speech for the Union, Southern +boys were reciting Calhoun's speech for the independence of the States. + +Not in consequence of the Calhoun doctrine but in harmony with it, +having always held that the Union was subordinate to the sovereignty of +the States, Jefferson Davis, United States senator from Mississippi, +became the chief organizer of secession after Lincoln's election. A West +Point graduate, a brilliant officer in Indian fights and the Mexican +War, a governor of Mississippi, United States senator, a singularly +efficient Secretary of War under President Pierce, and again an +influential senator, a man of charming personality with many friends, +Mr. Davis was so prominent in the secession movement that he was the +free choice of the Southern people for president of their Confederacy. +And, despite Mr. Stephens' opinion, he probably did as well in that +difficult place as another could have done. To the end of his life he +held to the doctrine of State sovereignty. + +But one question persistently forces itself into the foreground. Why was +it that the people of the North did not "let the erring sisters go," to +use Horace Greeley's expression? Just across the Northern line dwells +another nation--Canada. Why should there not have been a second nation +to the south of Mason and Dixon's line, with Mobile or New Orleans for a +capital--a great slave empire, that would have included Texas, Mexico +and Central America? The answer is very simple. The Constitution stood +in the way. Men saw clearly that if this republic, conceived in liberty +and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal, could +be destroyed by the minority, that would not respect the rights of the +majority, there was no hope for civilization save in the revival of +despotism, with a monarch ruling the people by military force. The North +by a majority of States and votes had chosen Lincoln, with his statement +that the Union could not permanently endure, half slave and half free. +The minority then answered: "If we cannot have our way, we will destroy +the government." Analyzed, this is seen to be sheer anarchy. + +In that hour men remembered what their fathers had endured to found the +Republic and free institutions. When the news came of the attack upon +Fort Sumter, the better angels of men's natures did touch "the mystic +chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave +to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land," and the +tones swelled the chorus of the Union. What other land offered poor men +an opportunity for office, wealth and honours, with full liberty of +thought and speech? Had not the fathers lived and died to make education +democratic through the public schools? Had not the fathers given life +itself to establish the freedom of the printing-press and freedom of +discussion? Had not the fathers bought at great price their political +liberty, and the rights of the ballot? Was not the land dedicated to +toleration and charity in religion? Was the work of Washington and +Jefferson and Hamilton to go down in ruin and nothingness? While the old +world, with her tyrannies, scoffed at the failure of the Republic, men +thought of Bunker Hill and Valley Forge and Yorktown. They thought of +the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They recalled the +tribute of one of the greatest of English statesmen, who characterized +the American Constitution as "the greatest political instrument ever +struck off by the unaided genius of man." + +And now the Republic was to be destroyed, the Constitution torn into +shreds and stamped under foot, the Declaration of Independence made a +thing of jibes and scorn in the palaces of Madrid and Constantinople, +while slavery, with black fingers, was to knit its claws into the throat +of the angel of liberty and choke the life out. Suddenly men saw that +the only way to insure liberty for the white race was to destroy slavery +for the black races. Men determined that the majority had their rights, +and that these rights should not be wrested away by the minority, +fighting in the interests of slavery. Democracy, the "last, best hope of +earth," should not fail! In that moment Liberty stretched forth her +sceptre of justice, "red with insufferable wrath," and her clarion voice +rang to the outermost corners of the land. Three millions of men +assembled to swear fealty to God and country. Then they marched away, +through the towns and across the prairies, into thickets and swamps, to +be pierced by bullets, torn by shells, to eat crusts, wear rags, shiver +in the cold, burn in the heat, famish in the prison, welter in the +bloody trench, above them a fiery hail, beside them their dying comrades +falling into the arms of death. It is a strange, wild, chivalrous, +divine story of the world's greatest enthusiasm, our fathers' enthusiasm +for liberty and democracy! What God thinks of freedom, is written in the +price that people paid for it! What God thinks of slavery is in the woe +and sorrow and wreckage it has always brought upon those who have sought +to live on the sweat of other men's faces! + +The Russian would not fight against the Japanese because the Russian +peasant owned no lands, had no schoolhouse, no ballot box, no free +printing-press, no religious liberty. The Russian stood sullenly in the +trenches and had to be flogged into the battle. If the Russian peasant +lost, he lost nothing, because he had nothing to lose; if the peasant +won, he gained nothing, because the Russian aristocrat and the baron +took all of the treasure; therefore he would not fight. But the Northern +soldier had everything to fight for. No such treasures were ever thrown +on the earth to be struggled for. Liberty and the Union were worth a +thousand lives and ten thousand deaths. + +It was an awful and a gallant fight, waged by the finest of the world's +manhood on both sides. The Southerner fought for local self-government +and the right to enslave and govern other men; the Northerner fought for +universal self-government and the institutions which had made that +possible without injustice to other men. There can be no choice as +between the splendid qualities that entered into the contest--of +sincerity, earnestness, devotion and fidelity on either side: but the +South lost because slavery had eaten out the enduring vigour of its +resources; the North won because free labour and the rights of man had +given it the greater effective power. At last, the theory on which the +South stood for self-justification crumbled under the supreme test. + + + + +IX + +HENRY WARD BEECHER: THE APPEAL TO ENGLAND + + +One November morning in the White House, Abraham Lincoln kept his +Cabinet waiting while he finished reading a newspaper, containing an +account of Beecher's speeches in England. At last he laid the paper on +the table before them, and in substance said to Stanton, "When this war +is fought to a successful issue, this man, Henry Ward Beecher, will have +earned the right to lift the old flag back to its place on Fort Sumter, +for without these speeches England might have recognized the +Confederacy, and then there might have been no flag to raise." + +Long time has passed since that Friday morning in the capital, and now +all men recognize the justice of the words of the martyred President. +History is a stern judge, and the centuries have given opportunity for +contrast. When a great country, a great emergency, a critical hour, and +a great man meet, a spark is struck out, called great eloquence. Such a +conjunction of city, peril and man once met in Athens, and for +twenty-four centuries boys have been translating Demosthenes' oration +against Philip. Demosthenes spoke, but Philip marched on. Greece bowed +her neck to the yoke, and became subject to Macedonia; Demosthenes +failed. Another crisis came in Westminster Hall, in London, when Edmund +Burke made his plea for the millions of outraged folk in India pillaged +by Warren Hastings. But Hastings became a lord; he died honoured in his +palace; India was left to stagger onward; Burke's splendid oratory +failed. That was a great hour in the history of eloquence when Patrick +Henry and Fisher Ames and Josiah Quincy became voices for liberty and +the new republic. But these orators spoke to sympathetic hearers, and +simply returned to the multitude in a flood what they had received from +the people in dew and rain. + +Henry Ward Beecher spoke to mobs, pleaded with unfriendly critics, and +was asked to change hate to love, ice to fire, weapons for attack into +weapons for defense. He went against the English mob as one goes up +against a castle that is locked, barred and bristling with arms, and he +gave sops to Cerberus, charmed the keys out of him who kept the fortress +gate, cast a spell upon those who guarded the walls, stole all the +weapons, and, single handed, at last lifted the banner of victory above +the ramparts of granite. The history of eloquence holds no other +achievement of the same rank and class. What a volume, that contains the +speech delivered within the limit of nine days, with the introduction at +Manchester, the three great arguments at Glasgow, Edinburgh and +Liverpool, and the peroration in Exeter Hall, London! What physical +reserves as the basis of sustained public speech! What mastery of all +the facts of liberty and democracy, not less than slavery! What +familiarity with English law not less than American! The orator moves +across the scene in history like some refulgent planet in the sky. The +story of those nine wonderful days makes illustrious forever the history +of eloquence and patriotism. + +The winter of 1862 and '63, with its high-wrought excitements, brought +Beecher the peril of a nervous breakdown. His exhaustion illustrates the +fact that some men who stayed at home endured as much as others who +went to the front. Generals and their marching regiments often suffered +much, but they were not alone in their fortitude and faith. Women who +toiled on farm or in hospital, working men who laboured to support the +boys at the front, orators who went up and down the land inciting +patriotism in the people, preachers who realized that the breakdown of +conscience meant the breakdown of the cause--these all were citizen +soldiers who defended the Union and kept the faith. + +Among them all no man poured out his life more generously than Henry +Ward Beecher. Since 1850, through the intensities of the Fugitive Slave +Law, the Fremont campaign, the Kansas troubles, the Lincoln election, +the era of secession and the first two years of the war, he had been +preaching, writing, lecturing, making public addresses, attending to his +great pastorate, and active in every civic and national interest. And +during the war, back and forth, across the land, from city to city, in +church, hall and armoury, he lifted up his voice in the presence of +multitudes, telling the story of the founding of the Republic, showing +that the Republic, with its self-government, was the last, best hope of +man, reminding boys that they must fight and live for the Union that +their fathers had died to found. When at length Antietam was won, and +Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and the rebellion +staggered like a giant stunned by a crushing blow, Beecher was lifted +into the seventh heaven of hope, and had the vision of coming victory. +In that hour he told his people that he was ready to die, that God might +peel him, and strip away all the leaves of life, and do with him as He +pleased; that he had lived fifty years, that he had had a good time, +that he had "hit the devil many blows and square in the face, that it +was joy enough to have uttered some words because they were incorporated +into the lives of men and could not die." + +But we all know that it is possible to stretch the strings of the mental +harp too tightly. Excitement burns the nerve as an electric current +consumes a wire. During those days Beecher wore a garment whose warp and +woof was fiery enthusiasm, and fierce flaming patriotism. The human body +is like a cask of precious liquor. One way to drain off the treasure is +to knock out the bung-hole, and in a few minutes drain the rich +fountain dry; another way is to bore innumerable apertures, that drop by +drop the liquor may waste. And so it was with Beecher, during those +exciting days, with this difference, that sometimes it seemed as if one +great event would drain out all his life in a tumultuous flood, while at +the same time innumerable petitioners taxed his life, drawing away his +strength, drop by drop. Alarmed, the officers and friends in Plymouth +Church insisted upon rest and vacation. They determined to put the sea +between the preacher and his task, planning to lose him for a little +time that they might have him for a long time. + +The popular opinion is that Beecher went to England, not openly, but +secretly as a messenger of the government. Like other myths, the fable +grew slowly, but is now well entrenched in the minds of multitudes. +There is no foundation for the story. Indeed, Mr. Beecher is on record +plainly, stating that no request, no suggestion, no hint, even, came +from Washington. At the time, his relations with the Cabinet were +strained. Seward was unfriendly. Stanton was hurt by his insistence, +through the _Independent_, upon immediate emancipation. For a time even +Lincoln classed him with Horace Greeley, as extremist. His editorials +during the spring of 1862 had one thought, "Carthago delenda est." It +was only after Lincoln came around by a gunboat into New York Harbour, +and secretly met General Winfield Scott in a friend's house, and had +another secret interview with Henry Ward Beecher, and returned (letters +exist from Secretary Hay, following an interview with him over the +records in Washington, which establish this trip to New York to see +Scott and Beecher), that Beecher changed the tone of his editorials, and +went over to Lincoln's position,--that the Union was first, and the +destruction of slavery the secondary thing. The Great Emancipator loved +and trusted Beecher, but the Cabinet was critical, and Lincoln, as he +said, "did not have much influence with the administration." + +The only power and the whole power behind Beecher was that of Plymouth +Church, that gave him the money for all of his expenses, and took from +him a pledge that if he spoke at all he was to speak at their expense, +but under no circumstances to either preach or lecture until he had +recovered his strength. He was ill during the entire voyage, and was +not able to appear on deck until the vessel entered the Mersey. The news +of Beecher's coming had preceded him, and on opening the papers he found +even church leaders antagonistic. They deplored his coming, lest he +increase the excitement. The nobility was in favour of the South, as +were the ship-builders, the mill-owners, the bankers and all who had +investments or loans in the cotton industry of England and of the South. + +One hundred and fifty Congregational ministers greeted Beecher with a +breakfast in London. They asked him to preach and speak on religious +topics, but to avoid all reference to slavery on account of the inflamed +condition of the English mind. The man who introduced him deplored the +war, and described the patience of God in permitting the North to go on. +When Beecher arose to speak he was in a towering rage. He told them that +he would neither preach nor lecture nor speak in a mother land that was +openly hostile to her own daughter, and unfriendly to every principle of +liberty that was dear to England and embedded in English tradition and +history. + +In substance, he said: "Your conscience here in England is very +sensitive on the subject of war, providing some one else is fighting the +war, but England has no conscience at all as to war when she is +prosecuting the campaign." At that very hour England was fighting a war +in Japan, and a war in China, and a war in New Zealand for territory. +Three wars being quite proper, if England fought them, but oh, the +patience of God in permitting the North to exist even for one moment, +while fighting for liberty, the Union and the emancipation of slaves! He +told them that they thought it was a crime for the North to have a war +for emancipation, but quite proper for England to threaten a war over +two men named Mason and Slidell! Beecher understood Old England. No +nation in history ever conducted so many wars. No other nation's +statesmen ever had such skill to invent moral excuses for seizing +territory, in Africa, Egypt, India, Thibet, Australia, New Zealand and +all the islands of the sea. He best described it in his final speech in +London, when returned from the Continent: "On what shore has not the +prow of your ships dashed? What land is there with a name and a people +where your banner has not led your soldiers? And when the great +_reveille_ shall sound, it will muster British soldiers from every clime +and people under the whole heaven." What? "Speak in England on religion +and keep still on slavery, and the North and the South?" When an engine +is full of steam, it is a bad thing to sit on its safety-valve. +Figuratively speaking, the chairman and the hundred and fifty ministers, +who were trying to get Beecher to speak on religion and keep still on +slavery, sat passively and serenely on the safety-valve for about five +minutes, but finally the engine blew up. Mr. Beecher was not the man to +stifle his convictions in the name of peace, for he knew that in an evil +world a good man has no right to dwell at peace with the devil and his +minions. So he declared his hostility, turned his back on England, and +went to the Continent; and thus ended the first chapter in the European +trip. + +Looking backward, it is easy to discover the explanation of England's +attitude towards slavery and the Southern leaders. During the early +forties England had herself passed through an industrial revolution. +Because she had little agricultural land, and thirty millions of +people, the cost of living was high. When the cry of the people for +bread became bitter, Cobden, Bright and their associates inaugurated and +carried through the Free Corn Movement. With the incoming of free raw +materials England became the great manufacturing centre. What her +farmers lost through free trade in selling grain they gained in the +lowered price on which they bought. Within ten years after the victory +of free trade England became a hive of industry, filled with clustering +cities, while the whole land resounded with the stroke of engines. +Abundance succeeded to poverty and work trod closely upon the heels of +want. So prosperous had England become that by 1860 she was importing +two million bales of cotton from Southern States. The shipyards of +Glasgow built ships to carry cotton, the bankers in London made loans to +Southern planters, the mill-owners in Manchester bought shares in the +Southern cotton fields. The rich men of the South were constant guests +of the mill-owners in Central England and of the bankers in London. +Little by little England was drawn in through financial channels, and +cast her lot in with the production of cotton,--and slavery. + +Then came the Civil War. The planters went to the front with Lee's army; +the slaves freed from overseers would not work. The production of cotton +was halved. The Northern navy blockaded the exit of cotton ships from +the Southern ports. English ships hung around the Southern shores trying +in vain to find access, hoping to run the gauntlet and obtain a cargo of +cotton. One by one the great English mills shut down for want of raw +material, and when two winters had passed, and the autumn of 1863 had +come, and the English working people fronted a third winter, the +spectacle became pathetic and terrible. Gaunt Famine stalked the land. +The skeleton Want stood in the shadow of the poor man's house. But the +courage and fidelity of the English cotton spinners held out for two +years. The poor always love the poor. The classes have always been +wrong, the masses have always been right. Luxury puts wax into the ears +of the aristocrats, but want makes the hearing of the poor very +sensitive to a sob of pain. The sympathy of the cotton spinner was with +the Northern working man. An English working man did not want to be put +in the same class with a Southern slave. He saw that any law that +riveted fetters on black slaves in the South helped forge a manacle for +the cotton spinner's wrist in the mother land. These poor English folk +believed in the dignity of labour, in the right to a good wage, and in +the necessity for all working people standing together. + +But the mill-owner wanted raw cotton. The banker wanted the mill-owner +to have his cotton that his loans might be paid. The ship-builders +wanted Southern cotton that their industry might thrive. Investors who +for two years had had no interest on their Southern loans sympathized +with the South; the politicians, controlled by their financial +interests, wanted the South to succeed. In that hour of temptation +Avarice drew near and choked Justice. Greed offered bribes to +Conscience. Old England's ruling classes, with the full sympathy of men +like Gladstone and hundreds of others, favoured the speedy recognition +of the Southern Confederacy in the hope that that would end the war and +restore England's prosperity. + +In a word, the situation was this: The North had to fight the South, and +England with her influence as well. For here was the North, struggling +for the principles of the Pilgrim Fathers, for liberty, for democracy +and for the slaves, and just in the darkest hour of the struggle, when +she was burying her dead and the whole North was hung with funeral +crape, England, with ships on every sea, England, strong and powerful, +taking advantage of the capture of two Southern emissaries--Mason and +Slidell--from the British ship _Trent_ on the high seas, declared she +would send an army to Canada and ships to batter down our Northern +cities. Even Gladstone bought Southern bonds, but later Gladstone deeply +lamented his sympathy with slavery and the South, and asked the world to +forgive and forget it. Yet if the North has long ago forgiven England, +it must be a hard thing for England to forgive herself that she gave to +slavery every ounce of influence she had, her threats, her frowns, her +diplomacy and her ships. Long afterwards a court of arbitration in +Geneva punished England with an enormous fine for the American shipping +that she helped destroy in her effort to help break down the North and +defeat liberty in a war that her own statesman, John Bright, has +characterized as one of the few wars not only justifiable but glorious +in all history. + +Now this was the attitude of England. Her upper classes and financial +interests were all on the side of slavery and the South. Her great +middle class were largely in favour of liberty. Her working people were +naturally on the side of free labour and the North, but they were +weakened by starvation till their endurance and fortitude were almost +gone. And then it was that Beecher entered the scene, returning from the +Continent to England. Recognition of the Confederacy and other +unfriendly official acts were trembling in the balance; yet there was +hesitation, on account of the common people, who sympathized with the +North. In telling of this afterwards, Mr. Beecher said: "To my amazement +I found that the unvoting English possessed great power in England; a +great deal more power, in fact, than if they had a vote. The aristocracy +and the government felt, 'These men know they have no political +privileges, and we must administer with the strictest regard to their +feelings or there will be a revolution.'" There were many noble +exceptions among the higher classes, and the Queen, doubtless under the +influence of the Prince Consort Albert, who died in 1861, and had been +a firm friend of America, was also friendly to the North; but her +Government was not. + +The argument finally used to persuade Beecher to speak was that the +English Anti-Slavery Society was already discredited, unpopular, and +frowned upon by the nobility and the upper classes, and that if Beecher +would not recognize them by at least one speech their cause and ours +would be still further weakened. + +He began his work with a speech at Manchester, the very centre of the +cotton spinning industry. For weeks the streets had been placarded +against him. On his way to the Free Trade Hall he found, not a +multitude, but a mob, filling the streets. The meeting had been packed +in advance. Within five minutes after his introduction the storm let +loose its fury. There were two or three centres of conflict that became +veritable whirlpools of excitement. All the rest of the audience climbed +on their chairs to see what was going on in the tumultuous centres. +Everybody seemed to be yelling, some for order, and others with the +purpose of breaking up the meeting. Mr. Beecher saw that many were +determined that he should not speak, and he realized that if they broke +him down, other cities would withdraw their invitation, and it would +appear that all England was unalterably opposed to the North, so that +the recognition of the Confederacy might follow. When his enemies began +to wear themselves out and the tumult to subside, Mr. Beecher shot a few +sentences into the noise. "I have registered a vow that I will not leave +your country until I have spoken in your great cities. I am going to be +heard, and my country shall be vindicated." + +The orator soon found that about one-quarter of the audience were +bitterly hostile. Another quarter applauded his sentiment. The great +mass was hesitant, undecided, unconvinced, and he determined to conquer +that undecided class, and add them to that portion that was friendly. He +scornfully reminded them that he had before met men whose cause could +not bear the light of free speech. He roused them by saying that +American institutions were the fruit of English ideas, and that the +fruit of American liberty was from seed corn that was English. + +When some one shouted that he was harsh and unfair, he answered, What if +some exquisite dancing master should stand on the edge of a +battle-field where a hero lifted his battle-axe, and criticize him by +saying that "his gestures and postures violated the proprieties of +polite life!" He added, "When dandies fight they think how they look; +when men fight, they think only of deeds." He said that what the North +desired was not material aid, but simply that England should keep hands +off, and that France should keep hands off. He affirmed that even if +they both interfered, the North would fight on, that slavery must be +destroyed, and that liberty must be established on the American +continent; that the victory of democracy and liberty in the North would +mean their victory over the North and South American continent, and that +if the day ever should come when the old flag should wave again over +every state in the South, and the atrocious crime of slavery should be +destroyed, there should be liberty for the press, and liberty for the +poor in the schoolhouse; if plantations should be broken up and +distributed among the poor farmers, and the privileges of civil liberty +be won, that it would be worth all the blood and tears and woe. + +When he said that Great Britain had frowned upon the North, but hastened +to fling her arms around the neck of the imperious South, one +Englishman waved his arms and shouted: "She doesn't!" and the six +thousand people began to cheer the disclaimer of England's being Romeo. +To which Beecher answered: "I have only to say that she has been caught +in very suspicious circumstances." + +Beecher's unshakable good humour, his witty, lightning-like answers to +their questions and contradictions, his solid sense and--when he got the +chance--his flaming eloquence, finally quelled and captured them. Then +he traversed the entire history of slavery in its relation to the +Colonies, the States, and the different forms of legislation up to the +Kansas and Nebraska Bill. When he concluded his speech, and the +sentiment of the audience was called for, to the astonishment of his +friends, men lifted up their voices with a sound like the sound of many +waters, and lined up for the North and liberty. The enthusiasm was +overwhelming. Within three hours January's frost had turned to the bloom +of June, and the moment was radiant with hope. The London _Times_ +contained four columns of this speech, and the address became the topic +of the hour in every club in England. And either of these facts in +those days meant that Henry Ward Beecher was famous in England. + +His speeches in Glasgow and Edinburgh took up the second and third steps +in the development of slavery and liberty on the American continent. He +told these ship-builders in Glasgow how the providence of God seemed to +be exhibiting to all the peoples of the world the reflex influence of +slavery upon the strongest people and the richest resources, and how +slavery cursed whatever it touched. That the lesson might be the clearer +He gave liberty an unfriendly clime, and gave slavery a rich arena. To +the North He gave short summers, bleak skies, the rocks of New England +hills, the thin soil of New York, the sand dunes of Michigan. To the +South He gave sunny Virginia, the riches of the Gulf States, the +fruitful skies, the abundant rains, the treasures of the cotton, the +sugar and the rice. Above all, God sifted all the nations of the Old +World to find blood rich enough to people the Southern States. The men +who laid the foundations of the great South were people of a heroic +type, giants and heroes of fortitude. God brought the Huguenots, and +the very flower of French chivalry into Florida and Georgia. He sifted +all Scotland and North Ireland for outstanding men for South Carolina. +He took the best blood of England for Virginia. These Southern founders +and fathers had fought in France, endured for their convictions in +Scotland, conquered their enemies in England and North Ireland, and God +rewarded them with the richest, choicest meadows and valleys of the +sunny South. And yet Slavery wrought weakness, while Liberty made the +bleak North to blossom like the rose. + +It is said that plants exude poison from the roots, and soon destroy the +soil unless there is a rotation of crops. Slavery was a noxious plant, +deadlier than the nightshade, and it poisoned the South. The longer +slavery existed, the weaker the Southern giant became, until, toiling +on, the South became bankrupt through slavery, and toiling on, every +year of the war under free labour found the North growing ever richer +and stronger. Liberty is a giant that when it touches the soil renews +its strength. + +Oh, if the South had but had a better cause! History affords nothing +finer than the bravery of Southern soldiers and their leaders; had they +been fighting for liberty, or some great cause that would have supported +them during the struggle instead of bankrupting them as slavery did, it +is doubtful whether any army could have defeated their soldiers. + +In Liverpool Beecher literally fought with the lions of Ephesus. The +bill-boards were posted with placards in red type. All men in England +who had investments in the South and wanted to break Beecher and his +cause seemed to have assembled. From the moment he entered the room the +great audience became a mob, and with groans, hisses, cat-calls, +epithets, men interrupted the orator with cheers for the South. Speaking +was like lifting up one's voice in the midst of a hurricane, or trying +to speak while a typhoon was raging on the sea. For one hour the tumult +raged. From time to time the police would succeed in carrying out some +obstreperous individual but there were enough men scattered through the +hall, each bellowing like a bull of Bashan, to make hearing impossible. +To add to the tumult, from time to time, an Englishman would climb on +his chair and shout, "I am ashamed of Liverpool and my country," and the +confusion would break out afresh. It took one hour to wear the voices +out. When Beecher told the reporters that he would speak slowly so they +could hear, and thus he could reach all England, the audience grew +quieter. + +Beecher urged three arguments,--first, that the national prosperity is +dependent upon the production of wealth, and this meant independence for +the producer; second, that prosperity depends upon manufacturing and +that means a high quality of educated workman; third, that prosperity is +dependent upon commerce and the exchange of commodities between nations, +and that means brotherhood. He urged that the more intelligent and +prosperous the workman, the higher his wage, and, therefore, the better +he supports as a buyer. A slave uses his feet and hands, and produces a +few cents a day. A poor white labourer uses his hands and his lower +head, and earns fifty cents a day. An intelligent Northern working man +uses his hands and his creative intellect, and he produces a dollar a +day. A highly educated worker becomes an inventor as well as a freeman, +and earns five dollars a day. With this wage he buys comforts, tools, +products of the loom, builds up manufactures, and promotes prosperity. +For that reason a few patricians only in the South buy in the English +market, while the millions of slaves demand from Sheffield only whips +and manacles. Therefore slavery starves English trade.--And at last +Liverpool heard him. + +In Exeter Hall in London, Beecher closed his argument: "Shall we let the +South go, and carry slavery with her? If a Northern working man has a +mad dog by the throat shall he let that animal go to spread death? +Letting the South go as a free nation is one thing, but letting her go +to spread slavery over Mexico and Central America is another thing. When +we kill the mad dog we will talk about letting the South go." + +Beecher returned home to find himself the hero of the hour. In Plymouth +Church, on Sunday morning, the audience stood for five minutes, and with +their tears and silence told him of their gratitude and love. From that +hour Stanton asked for his friendship, and was weekly and even daily in +correspondence. He promised Beecher that immediately upon the receipt of +any news from the battle-field he would send him a telegram. Indeed, the +first news that the country had from Stanton of one of the great +victories came to Beecher's pulpit and was read over his desk. Other +great men, the President, secretaries, the generals, the statesmen, +editors, lecturers, preachers, did their part, but high among co-workers +ranks Henry Ward Beecher. God gave him a great task, and armed him for +the battle. He loved the poor, he broke the shackles from the slave, he +discovered to the world the love of God, and dying he flung his helmet +into the thick of the enemy. It is for us and our children to fight our +way forward to that helmet, and fling our own at last into some new +fight for the emancipation of the mind and heart of earth's troubled +millions. + +It must be confessed that the aristocracy of England and her upper +middle class, in the main, still sympathized with the South, while the +English cabinet tried to maintain neutrality. Four-fifths of the House +of Lords were "no well-wishers of anything American, and most of the +House of Commons voted in sympathy with the South." + +But the attitude of the "classes" of England was only the reflection of +her scholars. Carlyle, whose early books had no sale in England, and who +wrote Emerson that he had received his first money to keep him from +starvation from Boston and New York, "when not a penny had been realized +in England," had no sympathy with liberty and the North. As soon as his +own physical wants were supplied by the American check which Emerson +sent him, Carlyle began to call the war "a smoky chimney that had taken +fire." "No war ever waged in my time was to me more profoundly foolish +looking." (Slovenly English, contradictory thinking, and poor morals!) +"Neutral I am to a degree." Then Carlyle tried to sum up his view of the +situation: "Now speaks the Northern Peter to the Southern Paul: 'Paul, +you unaccountable scoundrel! I find you hire your servants for life, not +by the month or year as I do. You are going straight to hell.' Paul: +'Good words, Peter; the risk is my own. Hire you your servants by the +month or day, and go straight to heaven. Leave me to my own method.' +Peter: 'No, I won't. I will beat your brains out.' And he's trying +dreadfully ever since, but cannot quite manage it." + +No one knew better than Carlyle that there is a world diameter between +the South hiring a man for life, and by force holding him in slavery. +But Carlyle for three years poured out such vapid humbug, cant and +hypocrisy as this, and never once was sound in his thinking or fair in +his view-point during the entire war. + +Even Charles Dickens, who had written denouncing slavery in his +"American Notes," returned to England in the spring of 1863 to predict +the overwhelming victory of the South, and to characterize the hopes of +Lincoln as "a harmless hallucination." But little by little, English +sentiment began to change. Goldwin Smith, of Oxford University, +consented to speak at a meeting in Manchester to protest against the +building and sending out of piratical ships in support of the Southern +Confederacy. He affirmed boldly that "no nation ever inflicted upon +another more flagrant or more maddening wrong" [in permitting the +_Alabama_ to escape]. No nation with English blood in its veins had ever +borne such a wrong without resentment. + +Richard Cobden wrote to Mr. Beecher as to the feeling in England: "In +every other instance ... the popular sympathy of this country has always +leaped to the side of the insurgents the moment a rebellion has broken +out. In the present case, our masses have an instinctive feeling that +their cause is bound up in the prosperity of the United States. It is +true that they have not much power in the direct form of a vote; but +when the millions of this country are led by the religious middle class +they can together prevent the government from pursuing a policy hostile +to their sympathies." + +When Beecher appeared and spoke, he aroused, intensified, unified, and +made effective this great underlying force of English popular feeling, +and the unfriendly purposes of the governmental and "upper-class" +element were paralyzed. + +Beecher himself was very modest about his achievement. Said he: "When in +October you go to a tree and give it a jar, and the fruit rains down all +about you, it is not you that ripened and sent down the fruit; the whole +summer has been doing that. It was my good fortune to be there when it +was needed that some one should jar the tree; the fruit was not of my +ripening." + +Beecher returned home in November of 1863, conscious that he had risked +everything in the service of his imperilled country. He found the entire +North had constituted itself a Committee of Reception to welcome him +home. A great public meeting was arranged in the Academy of Music in New +York, and the Music Hall was crowded from pit to dome with the leaders +of the city and of the North. Mr. Beecher entered the room at eight +o'clock, and the whole audience rose to its feet to greet him, but not +until many minutes had passed in tumultuous cheering did he have an +opportunity to speak. From that hour his influence in the country was +second only to that of the President, two or three members of his +cabinet, and General Grant. Abraham Lincoln wrote to Mr. Beecher words +of warmest gratitude and invited him to the White House. "Often and +often," wrote Secretary Stanton, "in the dark hours you have come to me, +and I have longed to hear your voice, feeling that above all other men +you could cheer, strengthen, quiet and uplift me in this great battle, +where by God's providence it has fallen upon me to hold a part, and +perform a duty beyond my own strength." When therefore Lee surrendered, +and the war came to a close, President Lincoln and the cabinet felt that +Beecher's service to the cause of liberty had earned for him the most +unique distinction granted to any man during the war. And so it came +about that four years after Beauregard fired upon Fort Sumter, and the +flag of the Union was lowered to give place to the flag of Secession, +that not a general nor an admiral, but that a minister, Henry Ward +Beecher, was selected to lift into its place again the old flag, that +proclaimed to all the nations of the earth that government of the +people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the +earth. + + + + +X + +HEROES OF BATTLE: AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND SAILORS + + +One of the wariest and most capable of the Confederate commanders was +General Joseph E. Johnston. In his report of the battle of Kenesaw +Mountain in Northwestern Georgia, in June, 1864, when Sherman had at +last driven him to bay, he thus describes the attack and the repulse: +"The Federal troops pressed forward with the resolution always displayed +by the American soldier when properly led. After maintaining the contest +for three-quarters of an hour, they retired unsuccessful, because they +had encountered entrenched infantry, unsurpassed by that of Napoleon's +Old Guard, or that which followed Wellington into France, out of Spain." + +It would be difficult to find a more soldierly appreciation of both +officers and men of those two American armies. And in a recent +interesting book on Grant and Lee[2] is cited a remark of Charles +Francis Adams when American Minister to Great Britain in the early years +of our Civil War. Some one sarcastically asked him his opinion of the +Confederate victories of that time. He quietly replied, "I think they +have been won by my countrymen." In all those four strenuous years, +heroic qualities--enterprise, resolution, valour, self-control, exercise +of judgment amid dangers, endurance and fidelity in disaster--were +plentifully developed throughout both parties of the then divided +American people. The lonely picket-duty, the toilsome march, the endless +duties of the soldier, were a constant drain upon enduring faithfulness, +harder to bear, often, than the crashing excitement of the battle, while +the deadly suffering of camp and hospital were at times easily worse +than all. + +Most fascinating the story of the leaders of the two armies. The career +of two preeminent military leaders of the South, Lee and Jackson, has +already been reviewed--cursorily, as must be the case in all the +references to example--and we have noted them especially as to +character. But it should be said further that in the opinion of military +critics and soldiers, both American and foreign, Robert E. Lee was one +of the most masterly strategists in warlike annals. In his defense of +Richmond as the vital point of the Confederacy he did have the advantage +of operating on interior lines; but when that is said all is said, for +in numbers of men, equipment and military resources, he was always more +meagrely supplied than his Federal opponents. His available means were +mostly in his fertile brain, his prompt judgment, and his dauntless +heart, together with the spirited support of his officers and the +indomitable marching and fighting energy of his soldiers. The intense +and tireless Jackson was indeed the chief's "right arm," and more than +that, a keen intelligence, instant to see and seize the right way, and +to follow it so swiftly that his rarely defeated infantry earned the +proud nickname of "foot-cavalry." + +Out of the many gallant officers of the Southern armies were some others +whose names became familiar throughout the North. Among them were: +Generals Pierre G. T. Beauregard, prominent in service from Bull Run to +the end; the brilliant Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at Pittsburg +Landing in 1862; J. E. B. Stuart, renowned as a fearless cavalry +officer; James Longstreet, a leader of great distinction; the two +Hills--Daniel H. and Ambrose P., both renowned fighters, the latter +immortalized by Stonewall Jackson's last words, "A. P. Hill, prepare for +action!" Another was Richard S. Ewell--not, like all the foregoing, a +West Point graduate, with training and notable service in United States +armies and wars, but, like many Federal generals, a volunteer, who +achieved high rank by efficient activity. + +In naval affairs, naturally, the South had little chance to show her +mettle, having neither navy-yards nor navy, and all her ports being +blockaded. The chief attempts on the water were the iron-plated ram +_Merrimac_, commanded by Commodore Franklin Buchanan, which after +sinking several wooden men-of-war in Hampton Roads was defeated by the +new iron-turreted _Monitor_ under Lieutenant (later Admiral) John L. +Worden; the iron-clad ram _Albemarle_, which damaged Northern shipping +until blown up by Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. Navy, in a daring +personal adventure; and the British built, equipped and manned +_Alabama_, under Commodore Raphael Semmes of the Confederacy, which +destroyed millions of dollars in Northern ships on the high seas in +1862-1864, until sunk by the war-steamer _Kearsarge_ under Captain +(later Admiral) John A. Winslow, off Cherbourg, in June, 1864. + +The principal naval activities of the Federals during the war were in +the reduction of fortified places on land in cooperation with the +armies, and in blockading ports of the South to keep in their cotton and +to keep out foreign supplies. One of the earliest feats was the +effective use by Captain Andrew H. Foote in February, 1862, of the +gunboats built in 1861 by Fremont for river warfare, when Foote daringly +shelled Forts Donelson and Henry on the Cumberland River, enabling Grant +to attack and summon them to "unconditional surrender." And on the long +seaboard, the North soon had a line of battle-ships stretching from Cape +Hatteras around to Florida, New Orleans and the further coast of Texas. +Besides its few original war-ships, out of coasters, steamers and old +junk the Navy Department constructed a fleet. But it was the man behind +the gun who maintained the blockade, starved the Confederacy, and +cleared the Mississippi River. + +The story of men like Farragut and his boys is like a chapter out of a +wonder book. In April, 1862, with a fleet of wooden frigates, +mortar-schooners, and half-protected boats he entered the mouth of the +Mississippi below New Orleans. The bottom of the river bristled with +torpedoes--kegs filled with powder, and surrounded with long prongs that +rested upon percussion caps. When a ship struck a prong it exploded the +cap and the powder, and again and again a boat went to the bottom. The +forts that protected the Mississippi thirty miles below the city were +sheathed with sand bags, and mounted a hundred guns; while a boom of +logs and chains crossed the river, and a fleet of fifteen vessels +including an armed ram and a floating battery were there to dispute +further progress. But Farragut lashed himself into the rigging of his +flag-ship, and his fleet stormed the passage, raked with chains and +shell. From the 18th to the 25th of April, a battle royal was waged with +splendid valour on both sides; but the forts were passed, the boom was +broken, the defensive fleet defeated, and Farragut had won New Orleans. +Farragut, David D. Porter and other heroes had their full share of war +and of glory not only here but later in Mobile Bay, and in 1863 with +Grant and Sherman at Vicksburg, and at Port Hudson on the Mississippi, +and Porter at Fort Fisher in December, 1864-January, 1865. Of absolute +maritime warfare there was none, except Winslow's sinking of the +_Alabama_, but in all the river and harbour fighting, against both +fleets and forts, there was endless demand for intrepidity, ingenuity, +large intelligence, and heroism--demands never failing of response. + +The greatest soldiers of the North were McClellan, Sherman, Thomas and +Sheridan, and, towering above all, Grant. We may not linger in detail +upon them all, and can but mention George H. Thomas, the "Rock of +Chickamauga," stern as war, firm as granite, the bravest of knights; +William T. Sherman, audacious, fertile, perhaps the most brilliant of +them all; and Philip H. Sheridan, an organized thunder-storm, with the +swiftness of the war eagle, impetuous, loving adventure, the idol of his +men. + +If at last Grant was the brain of the army, Sherman was, like Jackson to +Lee, its "right arm." From the beginning of his military career, Sherman +won the admiration and confidence of the government and the people of +the North. He achieved honours at Vicksburg, and from that hour on to +his victory at Atlanta and his march to the sea, his name and fame +steadily increased. His victories were won, not only by enthusiasm and +brilliancy, but by a mastery in advance of all the facts in the case. +His knowledge was microscopic, to the last degree, as to the roads, +bridges, and resources of the country through which he was marching. On +approaching Atlanta he came to a region through which he had ridden on +horseback twenty years before. That night in his tent, his guides, spies +and advance scouts spread out their maps before Sherman, and to the +astonishment of all, the soldier corrected and amplified them. It seemed +that a score of years before he had formed the habit of making a +detailed study of each region through which he travelled, and of working +out campaigns of attack and defense. His old notes were so accurate as +to prove the basis of an actual campaign for a great army. His contest +with Johnston represented what has been called an inch by inch struggle, +and although Sherman was victorious, when he passed away, the aged +Southern soldier, Johnston, made the long journey to New York to act as +pall-bearer and to testify to the splendid qualities of his great +opponent. + +It was Grant himself who called Sheridan "the left arm of the Union." By +universal consent "little Phil" was the most brilliant campaigner of the +group of soldiers of the first class. The story of his victory at +Winchester captured the imagination of the North. The poem describing +that achievement became the most popular poem of the year, and was +recited by all the schoolboys on Friday afternoons, and quoted by all +the politicians on the platform. The North had suffered so many defeats +in the Shenandoah Valley that Sheridan's victory put new heart into the +Union forces, and helped unite the Republican party, making certain the +election of Lincoln. + +Indeed, a great German soldier once expressed the judgment that Sheridan +ranked not only with Grant, but with the greatest soldiers of all time. + +The work of George H. McClellan was the work of the pioneer and +pathfinder. It is one thing to take a sword, a Damascus blade, and use +it in leadership, and quite another thing to take raw metal and on the +anvil hammer out the blade for a hero's hand. McClellan made the sword; +Grant used it. There is a pathetic passage in Dante's "Vita Nuova": "It +is easier to sing a song than to create a harp." Dante meant that he had +to create the Italian language before he could write the "Paradiso." Now +McClellan's task was to create an army. He took a body of raw recruits +and drilled them; he organized a system of supplies and built up a +purchasing, transporting and storing department; he tested out all the +guns, the cannons, powder and explosives; he compacted a body of +engineers, weeding out poor ones and educating good ones; he took +officers who at the beginning had their appointments through political +influence and trained them until he had a body of men well knit +together. + +But McClellan had to contend with jealousy and insubordination. He was a +commander early in the war, and he had competitors and detractors. It +was charged against him that he was more anxious to make than to use a +splendid army, and possibly his ideals of efficiency were too high for +those early days. Yet "Little Mac" was idolized by his soldiers, with +whom he fought and won bloody battles, and even the indeterminate ones +are held in doubt as to his responsibility. Had Hooker obeyed his +command, and crossed the bridge at Antietam and occupied the heights +beyond, soldiers think to-day that Lee would have been crushed. Another +fact was against him. The North was not ready to behold nor strong +enough to endure the slaughter to which later on they became accustomed. +After one of McClellan's first campaigns, Burnside wrote home that +McClellan could have fought his way to Richmond, but it would have cost +ten thousand men, and that would have been butchery. Later on, Grant, in +a single brief campaign, lost twenty-five thousand men! But if Grant had +suffered such losses in 1861 or 1862, he would have been dropped by +Washington as unfitted for a military campaign. + +History will rank Grant as the foremost soldier of the Republic. His +story is full of romance. He was of Scotch Covenanter stock that settled +in New England, and made its way to Ohio and Illinois. Like all the most +successful generals on both sides in our Civil War, he was a graduate of +West Point, showed talent in mathematics and engineering, and made an +honourable name in the Mexican War. Scott praised him for his work as +quartermaster and officer. The two maps that Grant made by questioning +ranchmen and farmers as he went through Texas, and the information he +collected from men who had been in and knew the roads and resources of +Mexico, were later on invaluable. Grant was in every Mexican battle save +one. + +Fort Sumter fell on April 14, 1861. On the 15th Lincoln called for +75,000 troops. On the 19th Grant organized a little company in +Springfield, Illinois. Two days later Governor Yates made him colonel. +On the 31st of July he was in command at Mexico, Missouri. On the 7th of +August his victory at Columbus won him the rank of brigadier-general. On +the 10th of February, 1862, he was made major-general; on the 23d of +March, 1864, he was made lieutenant-general of the armies of the United +States. It was one long uninterrupted series of victories, for it has +been said that it will never be known if Grant could conduct a retreat, +because he never was defeated. From the beginning his supreme qualities +as a military commander were fully evidenced. + +Columbus was called the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. Halleck had +ordered Grant to feel the strength of the enemy. But Grant was +resourceful, fertile in expedients, a believer in offensive tactics. +Hurling his forces upon Columbus, he won a signal victory. At Fort +Donelson, Grant showed his iron endurance and untiring patience. When it +came to the critical hour of the assault, a cold sleet-storm fell upon +his army; the ground was a sheet of glass, the trees encased in ice. +Grant himself spent half the night under a tree, standing upright, +receiving reports and working out his plans. When a spy brought word +that the Confederates had packed their knapsacks with three days' +rations, Grant said: "They are preparing to retreat; we must assault the +works," and, despite the storm, made an immediate attack. When Halleck +received the news of the fall of Fort Donelson, in announcing the +victory to Washington he did not even mention the name of Grant, but +asked Lincoln to promote Smith, a subordinate commander. + +Later, in 1863, after months of siege by river and by land, came the +capture of Vicksburg, coincident with the Battle of Gettysburg, that was +the high-water mark of the war. The announcement of these two victories, +on July 4, 1863, intoxicated the North with joy. + +By this time Grant's name was upon all lips, and he stood forth the one +general fitted for command of all the armies--in the West, in the South, +and on the Potomac. Just as some men have the gift of inventing, the +gift of singing, the gift of carving, so Grant had the gift of strategy. +One glance, and Grant had the whole situation in hand--the weak points +to be attacked, the weak points of his own position to be safeguarded, +the danger point for the enemy. Obedient himself, he expected instant +obedience from others. Willing to risk his own life, he expected the +same self-sacrifice on the part of his fellow officers. One biographer +calls him "a master quartermaster," telling us that he knew how to feed +and supply an army. Another calls Grant a great drillmaster, exhibiting +him as the teacher of his own generals. Another terms Grant a natural +engineer, with great gifts, but without detailed training. Another +speaks of him as the greatest soldier in history in the way of attack. +But when all these statements are combined, they tell us that Grant is +the great, all-round soldier of the war, who by natural gifts and long +experience could do many things, and all equally well. It is this that +explains the tributes to his military genius by foreign soldiers, and +the great masters of war in every land. + +Grant's last campaign was against the capital of the Southern +Confederacy, as the key to the Atlantic coast, for until Richmond should +be taken and the Confederate government put to flight, the war would not +be broken. Therefore Grant concentrated all his forces upon that:--"I +will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." In those awful +campaigns Grant came to be called "the butcher," for he was as pitiless +as fate, as unyielding as death. One outpost after another fell; one +Southern regiment after another surrendered. Battles became mere +slaughter-pits. Men went down like forest leaves; the army surgeons, at +the spectacle, grew sick; it seemed more like murder than war. The +Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Chickahominy, Petersburg, were names to make +one shudder. But Lee would not yield, and Grant had one watchword, +"Unconditional surrender." + +At last, without food, without equipment, without arms, Southern +soldiers began to desert by thousands. Lee's army was reduced, his +supplies were cut off, his retreat to the mountains and any chance of +joining with Johnston from the Carolinas were blocked. Grant demanded +surrender to save further bloodshed. + +On the morning of April 9, 1865, Grant and Lee met in peace conference. +Grant had on an old suit splashed with mud, and was without his sword; +Lee wore a splendid new uniform that had just been sent by admirers in +Baltimore. Lee asked upon what terms Grant would receive the surrender. +Grant answered that officers and men "Shall not hereafter serve in the +armies of the Confederate States or in any military capacity against the +United States of America, or render aid to the enemies of the latter, +until properly exchanged,"--all being then freed on parole. The horses +of the cavalry were the property of the men. And Grant said: "I know +that men--and indeed the whole South--are impoverished; I will instruct +my officers to allow the men to retain their horses and take them home +to work their little farms." Lee's final request was for rations for his +starving men. Grant and Lee shook hands, after which the Virginian +mounted his horse and rode off to his army. The Confederates met their +beloved general with tumultuous shouts. With eyes swimming in tears, Lee +said, in substance: "I have done what I thought to be best and what I +thought was right; go back to your homes, conduct yourselves like good +citizens and you will not be molested." + +When certain Northern soldiers were preparing to fire salutes to +celebrate the victory, Grant stopped the demonstration. "The best sign +of rejoicing after victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in +the field." All men in the North felt that the fall of Lee's army meant +the fall of the Confederacy. Indeed, it did practically end the war. The +final sheaf of victory is reaped when the commander, at the head of his +troops, marches into the enemy's capital and makes the palace of his foe +to shelter his own horses. The whole South expected Grant to lead his +Army of the Potomac into Richmond. But Grant remembered Lee's sorrow, +and had no desire for a dramatic triumph. He sent a subordinate to +occupy Richmond, and quietly began the work of disbanding the army. +Sending his regiments back to the fields and factories, he said, "Let us +have peace." From that sentiment issued the new South and the new North. + +But the man who had fought the war through to a successful issue became +the most beloved man in the North, and soon the people bore him to the +White House. The task was one for a giant. Four million slaves, newly +emancipated, had to be cared for. Their fidelity to the families of +their absent masters during the war was beautiful; while, towards the +end of the strife, the enrollment and gallant fighting of 150,000 +coloured men (Northern and Southern) in the Federal armies showed their +manfulness. And now their Southern millions were free. They had the +suffrage, but could not read the names of the men for whom they were +voting. They were free men, but they had no land, no plough, no cabin, +no anything. Pitiful their plight! In retrospect, no race has ever made +such wonderful progress in fifty years. With President Eliot we may say +that "their industrial achievements are the wonder of the world." + +The second task that confronted President Grant was the reconstruction +of the South. It was the era of the carpet-bagger. Northern regiments +dwelt in Southern cities. Men were talking about hanging Jefferson +Davis, and trying to decide whether or not the Confederate soldiers and +officers should receive again the suffrage. Designing whites and +ignorant coloured men gained control of legislatures. Corruption was +rife. The whole South was prostrated. Ten thousand questions arose in +Congress, bewildering, intricate, and the whole land was divided in +opinion as to the proper courses. Finally, all the Confederate officers, +saving perhaps Jefferson Davis alone, and some who refused to accept, +received again their political rights at the hands of the magnanimous +North. Slowly chaos became cosmos. + +Scarcely less heavy were the financial troubles of Grant's +administration. An era of war is an era of extravagance. When hard times +came, men were tempted by the dreams of cheap money, and the greenback +craze was abroad. But Grant stood for honest money, and attacked lying +measures with the zeal of a Hebrew prophet. + +After two presidential terms came two years of foreign travel (1877-79), +and wherever the great soldier went he exhibited his confidence in +democracy, his interest in the working people and the poor. He returned +home to receive such an ovation as no American citizen has ever had. Six +years of private life were followed by a financial disaster that +threatened to destroy his good name itself. Grant was one who made +ill-advised haste to become rich. Scandalized by the deceit and +impoverished by the failure of men he had trusted as partners, the great +soldier was now assaulted by worry and fear. Our best physicians believe +that fear, whether related to property or the loss of name, or grievous +disappointment, is in some way related to cancer. And within a few +months after that awful wreckage, Grant knew that his life was coming to +an end. + +The soldier became an author. Stricken with death, in the hope of +safeguarding his family against poverty Grant decided to write his +memoirs. It was an astonishing literary achievement. His style is simple +as sunshine. Grant knew what he wanted to say, said it, and had done. +Yet all the time a shadow was falling upon the page,--the shadow made by +the messenger of death, who stood by Grant's shoulder, ready to claim +his own. Slowly the soldier wrote the story of his youth, his campaigns +in the West, his battles in the Wilderness, while every day the hand +grew feebler. + +Reared in a religious atmosphere, Grant's nature was essentially moral +and religious. He possessed all the big essential virtues--honesty, +justice, truth, honour, good will. He loved the truth. He felt that he +had done what he could. Southern soldiers and generals as well as +Northern comrades and friends brought to his bedside messages of +affection and good cheer. At length he fell asleep. His tomb on the +height above the Hudson has become a Mecca for innumerable multitudes. + +To the end of time, perhaps, Lincoln will be remembered as the Martyr +President, the best loved of all our leaders, the great Emancipator, the +gentlest memory of our world; but side by side with Lincoln will stand +Grant, the man of oak and rock, the man of iron will, who fought the war +to a successful issue, and will be known in history as the greatest +soldier of the Republic. + + + + +XI + +THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE AT HOME WHO SUPPORTED THE SOLDIERS AT THE FRONT + + +It is a proverb that nothing moves men like tales of eloquence and +heroism. Historians and poets alike believe that stories of bravery and +anecdotes of heroes exert a profound influence upon young hearts. Here +is Socrates. His judges condemn him to the jail and poison. Socrates +quails not, and says: "At what price would one not estimate one night of +noble conference with Homer and Hesiod? You, my judges, go home to your +banquets--I to hemlock and death; but whether it is better for you than +for me, God knoweth." It is a moving story. Here is the early missionary +martyr, fettered and brought before a cruel tyrant, to be condemned to +death. The missionary lifts his chains, calls the roll of the king's +crimes, flashes the sword of justice, coerces the monarch from his +throne, makes him crawl, beg, plead, and beseech the missionary's pity +and prayers, for speech has made a prisoner king, and turned a monarch +into a captive. It is a moving tale. And here are the stories of war: +Xenophon's ten thousand young Greeks, lost in the heart of the great +nation, a thousand miles from home, without maps, without food, +outnumbered daily ten to one, living off the country, fighting all day, +surrounded by a fresh army each night, steadily pursuing their famous +retreat. See, too, the handful at Thermopylae, defending the Pass, and +every one of them giving his life. And here are the Dutch, driven by the +Bloody Alva into the North Sea, clinging to the dykes by their +finger-tips, and fighting their way back to their homes and altars. And +here are the American boys confined to the prison ship, the _Jersey_, +starved victims of scurvy and fever, without food, without medicine, +with the corpses of their brothers floating in the water just outside, +boys whose monument stands yonder in Fort Greene. What a tale of +martyrdom is theirs! + +Yet the history of heroism holds no more thrilling story than that of +the soldiers of our Civil War. Every other passage, every other +incident, that we have passed in review can be more than duplicated by +soldier boys who have lent new meaning to patriotism and martyrdom. As +many men died in Southern prisons as fell on both sides at the battle of +Gettysburg. This is their story--they counted life not dear unto +themselves; they struggled unto blood, striving against oppression, and +the world itself, with all its beauty, was not worthy of them. + +Our prosperous generation, threatened with effeminacy and softness, +needs to re-open the pages of history and to linger long upon the +portraits of our heroic leaders. Theirs was the greatest war that ever +shook the earth. A million Northern men, and over against them a million +Southern men, and a battle line a thousand miles in length! Including +the long-term men and the short-term service, 3,000,000 men engaged in +the conflict! Two thousand two hundred and sixty-one battles fought--if +we mention conflicts in which there were more than five hundred engaged +on each side. When Lee surrendered, his land was desolate. Armies upon +armies of cripples came home to suffer! There were a million widows and +over three million orphan children! Men who at Lincoln's call for troops +left the college and the university discovered, when it was all over, +that it was too late to take up their studies, and lived on like +unfulfilled prophecies. Others, who during those four years poured out +all the vital nerve forces, brought so little strength out of the long, +bitter struggle that they might better have died, and for years have +been in the invalid's chair, looking with wistful eyes on the great +procession of society moving on to industrial victories! The war all +over? The war has been continued in its influences throughout the entire +generation! It never will be over until the last cripple has dropped his +maimed body, until the last child, robbed of a dead father's care, has +recovered his losses, and the last woman who has lived alone through the +years has found her beloved! + +The courage and endurance of the Southern women, who took full charge of +the cotton plantations and helped support Lee's army, stirs the sense of +wonder. There were many Northern women who had no relatives at the +front, but there was scarcely a Southern home where the father, husband +or sons were not on the battle line. For that reason the Southern women +were always in a state of suspense. Homes were entirely broken up during +the four years. The men were at the front, and all the women were +either at work at home or were in the hospitals as nurses. During 1862 +and 1863 practically every church in Richmond was a hospital, and there +were twenty-five other buildings used by surgeons. Physicians had no +morphine and no quinine. For coffee they used parched corn. Tea rose to +$500 a pound. For sugar they steeped watermelon rind. For soda these +women burned corncobs and mixed the ashes with their corn-meal. They had +neither ice nor salt. They tore up their ingrain carpets to make +trousers for the soldiers. Women wore coarse hemp and calico. Having no +leather, one little factory turned out five hundred pairs of wooden +shoes a month in Richmond. + +When Lee needed bullets, a minister tore the lead pipe out of his house +in Richmond to send the lead to Lee. Flour rose to $400 a barrel. In one +little town iron became so scarce that tenpenny nails were used for +money. No tale more pitiful than that of the women who took charge of +the slaves on the plantation, comforted their little children, buried +their dead, smiled, wept, prayed, worked, compelled their lips to +silence, staggered on, groaned inly while they taught men peace, and +died while others were smiling. Whether or not men are made in the image +of God, these women certainly were. And it was because they believed +with all their mind and soul that independence for the State was the +sovereign gift of God; and they died for independence, just as the boys +in blue lived and died for the Union. + +It was this moral earnestness and intensity of conviction that made the +war so terrible. When England hired Hessians to fight Washington's +troops, and they fought for so much a week, the hired soldiers were slow +to begin attack and quick to retreat. Mercenaries have to be scourged +into battle. Stonewall Jackson's men believed in their cause and +thirsted for the excitement of the attack and onslaught. And yet all the +time the two opposing armies maintained mutual respect and even +developed a new sense of brotherhood as the desperate struggle went on. +Never was there a war carried on with such intensity by day and such a +sense of mutual respect at night. Once when the Rappahannock separated +the two armies, and it was evident that there was no campaign beyond, a +revival broke out in one of Stonewall Jackson's regiments and there were +prayer-meetings in almost every tent every night. Becoming acquainted, +a number of boys in blue by previous arrangement crossed the river, and +knelt in the prayer service. One night the sound of the regiments +singing, "Nearer My God to Thee," rolled through the air across the +river, and finally the boys in the Northern army joined in, until at the +last verse, the two regiments, opposed in arms, were one in voice and +heart, as they poured out their souls to God in the old hymn they had +learned at their mother's knee. For the soldier knew that any moment a +shot might bring the end. + +The sufferings of men in prisons touch the note of horror. The national +government is planning a monument for those who died in Andersonville. +Gettysburg slew 26,000, Andersonville 32,000. The stockade included +twenty-six acres, but three acres were marsh. Incredible as it may seem, +there was no shelter, no beds, no cook-house, no hospital, no nothing. +Just the cold rain in winter chilling men to death, just the pitiless +glare of the August sun scorching them to death. There was no +sanitation, and when it rained the little stream backed up the sewage, +and after each shower men died by scores. Wirtz wrote Jefferson Davis +that one-fifth of the meal was bran, and that he had no meat, no +medicine, no clothing. Men burrowed in the ground, dug caves like rats, +and not infrequently fifty bodies were carried out in a single day. +Wirtz destroyed men faster than did General Lee. The men imprisoned in +Andersonville urge that there were thousands of cords of wood just +outside the stockade, miles upon miles of forests all about, that the +prisoners could have built their own shanties and hospitals, and +cookhouses. To which Wirtz's friends answer that he did not have weapons +or Confederate soldiers enough to guard the prisoners on parole. While +they also answer that the prisoners in Andersonville had as much food +and the same kind as Lee's army was then enjoying. The plain fact is +that the South was out of medicine, clothing and food, and was itself on +the edge of starvation. + +The wonderful thing is that these Union boys, 32,000 of them, who died +at Andersonville, could at any moment have obtained release by taking +the oath not to renew arms against the South. Some few did escape by +digging under the stockade--but what perils they endured to escape from +the enemy's country! They slept in leaves by day, and travelled by +night. They were pursued by bloodhounds, lay in water and swamps, with +only their lips above the filth until the peril had passed by. They wore +rags, ate roots, shivered in the rains, sweltered in the heat, grew more +emaciated, until more dead than alive they reached the Northern lines. + +Now that it is all over, Confederate soldiers like General John B. +Gordon have said on a hundred lecture platforms in Northern cities that, +having done what he could for States' rights and to destroy the Union, +he thanked God above all things else that he was not successful. In the +spirit of Abraham Lincoln, that great Southern soldier wrote the last +words of his life, in the hope that they would help cement the Union +between the North and the South:--"The issues that divided the sections +were born when the Republic was born, and were forever buried in an +ocean of fraternal blood. We shall then see that, under God's +providence, every sheet of flame from the blazing rifles of the +contending armies, every whizzing shell that tore through the forests at +Shiloh and Chancellorsville, every cannon shot that shook Chickamauga's +hills or thundered around the heights of Gettysburg, and all the blood +and the tears that were shed are yet to become contributions for the +upbuilding of American manhood and for the future defense of American +freedom. The Christian Church received its baptism of pentecostal power +as it emerged from the shadows of Calvary, and went forth to its +world-wide work with greater unity and a diviner purpose. So the +Republic, rising from its baptism of blood with a national life more +robust, a national union more complete, and a national influence ever +widening, shall go forever forward in its benign mission to humanity." + +Nor must we forget the work of nurses, the members of the Sanitary +Commission, and the Christian Commission Movement. The events of the +Russian-Japanese war show what is a wonderful progress of science. Japan +sent along with her army experts on the water, the food, and the placing +of tents, that made typhoid, cholera and the usual diseases impossible. +Her surgeons used antiseptic methods, and gangrene was practically +unknown in the Japanese hospitals. But the situation was different in +1861. Modern sanitation, surgery, antiseptic methods, chloroform and +ether are comparatively recent discoveries. Such anesthetics as the +surgeons had were poor in quality and insufficient in quantity. In the +camps fever was prevalent. Smallpox, measles and lesser diseases became +malignant and wrought terrible ravages. Tents became more dangerous than +battle-fields. What the bullet began, the hospitals completed. More men +died through disease than through leaden hail. But the noble army of +physicians and nurses wrought wonders. Think of it! Twenty-six thousand +men dead or dying on the field of Gettysburg! + +Here is a page torn from the journal of one of the nurses there: "We +begin the day with the wounded and sick by washing and freshening them. +Then the surgeons and dressers make their rounds, open the wounds, apply +the remedies and replace the bandages. This is the awful hour. I put my +fingers in my ears this morning. When it is over we go back to the men +and put the ward in order once more, remaking the beds and giving clean +handkerchiefs with a little cologne or bay water upon them, so prized in +the sickening atmosphere of wounds. Then we keep going round and round, +wetting the bandages, going from cot to cot almost without stopping, +giving medicine and brandy according to orders. I am astonished at the +whole-souled and whole-bodied devotion of the surgeons. Men in every +condition of horror, shattered and shrieking, are brought in on +stretchers and dumped down anywhere." Men shattered in the thigh, and +even cases of amputation were shovelled into berths without blanket, +without thought or mercy. It could not have been otherwise. Other +hundreds and thousands were out on the field of Gettysburg bleeding to +death, and every minute was precious. + +No page can ever describe the service of nurses, sisters of mercy, +chaplains, brave men and kind women, who took train and went to the +front upon news of the battle and remained there for weeks. + +But while the soldier boys were striving unto blood for their +convictions, what about the people at home who loved them? How did they +carry their burdens and fulfill their task that was not less important? +Fortunately, during the war, the North was blessed with four bountiful +harvests that were rich enough, not only to support the people at home, +and the soldiers at the front, but also to furnish an excess of food +that could be sold abroad to obtain money with which to help support the +war. It seemed as if the sun, the rain, and the soil had entered into a +conspiracy to support the North and liberty. The largest crop of wheat +and corn ever garnered before the war was in 1859. At that time, men +thought the harvest would never be surpassed. But strangely enough, that +bumper crop of 1859 was surpassed four times in succession during the +Civil War. Meanwhile the herds of cattle and the flocks of sheep more +than doubled during the conflict, and all of the land that was not +yellow with grain became a rich pasture and meadow, covered with cattle, +sheep and horses. + +Even the losses of sugar and cotton usually purchased from the South +were made up to the North. Threatened with the loss of the Southern +sugar, sorghum cane was imported from China, and the people scarcely +missed the Southern sugar. When the cotton failed, the unwonted increase +of the flocks furnished wool for raiment. It stirs wonder to reflect +that one poor crop of wheat and corn might have changed the issue, and +defeated the North. Singularly enough also, the failure of crops in +Europe not only offered a market for the unexpected Northern surplus, +but yielded the highest price ever known, thus bringing in a golden +river to enrich the Northern people. Jefferson Davis had said at the +beginning of the war that "grass would soon be growing not simply in the +streets of the villages of the North, but in Broadway and Wall Street." +Davis believed that the withdrawal of every fourth man would make our +problem of food and clothing impossible of solution. But at that moment +the invention of the reaper enabled one harvester to do the work of ten +men, and the new tools actually more than took the place of the Northern +soldiers who were at the front. + +Furthermore, the spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice descended upon +the Northern women. On the little farms where the farmer's wife was too +poor to buy a reaper, the mother and the daughters went into the field +to plough the corn and thrash the wheat and milk the cows. In many +counties in Iowa and Kansas one-half of the men were at the front, and +in harvest time it is said that there were more women working in the +wheat and corn fields than men. + +One other element fought for liberty and the North. A strange unrest +fell upon Europe. Foreign peoples became discontented and began to +migrate. In the summer of 1862 a vast multitude landed upon the shores +in New York, at the very time when there was a scarcity of labour in the +shops and factories. At the very hour when Lincoln was afraid that it +might become impossible to clothe the army and equip it, the providence +of God raised up foreigners who stepped into the place made vacant by +the newly enlisted soldier; thereafter the North throughout the war +actually increased in population, in wealth, in manufacturing interests. +The Civil War ended with the North richer and more prosperous than when +it began; while in 1861 slavery had impoverished the South, and war left +the Confederacy crushed to the very earth, peeled and stripped, famished +and utterly broken. For the South never yielded until she had cast in +the last earthly possession, and knew that only life and breath were +left. + +Despite the abundant harvests, during the early part of the war the +Northern people passed through gloom, anxiety and bitter disappointment. +At first the colleges and universities were empty, because the students +had all gone to the front, but the common schools were as full as usual. +The churches were better attended than formerly, while the newspapers +were more widely read than ever before. The crisis sobered the people. +The serious note was manifest. One by one luxuries were given up, +amusements seemed paltry, and people forgot their usual diversions. +After Bull Run came a succession of calamities. Longfellow writes: +"Sumner came to dine last night, but the evening was most gloomy, and +all went away in tears." Governor Morton of Indiana wrote Lincoln, +"Another three months like the last six, and we are lost." Robert +Winthrop of Boston came down to New York, and spoke of three scenes that +he had witnessed. The first was a group of soldiers on their way home, +in charge of friends, some crippled, some emaciated, gaunt and broken, +and the rest carried on stretchers. At another station he saw a group of +young soldiers, intelligent, athletic and sturdy, climbing on the car to +start to the front, but on the platform was a group of pale-cheeked and +weeping women, wives, mothers and sweethearts. "Oh, it was terrible! It +is all black, black, black!" said Winthrop. + +But after the battle of Gettysburg, the high-water mark of the war, +men's spirits began to rise. The North became inured to excitement. The +emotion was converted into hard work and endurance, and that dogged +determination to produce the raiment, the weapons and the food to +support the army, or die in the attempt. Depositors took risks and +loaned their money to the banks. Bankers took their courage in their +hands and loaned the money to the manufacturers; manufacturers +advertised for labour in Europe and started up their factories by night +as well as by day. Wages rose, the balance of trade was largely in +favour of the North, the oil regions began to prosper, and industry, +commerce and finance all waxed mighty. In 1864 the whole land was in the +full sweep of industrial prosperity. The debts incident to the panic of +1857 were fully liquidated. Iron is the barometer, and the country +doubled its consumption of iron. An editor writing of his city says, +"Old Hartford seems fat and rich and cozy, and everything is as tranquil +as if there were no war." + +But the industrial conditions of life in the South were very different. +Be it remembered that the North was a self-supporting region, both as +to foods and manufactured articles, while the South, under slavery, +produced raw material, and used that raw stuff to build up factories in +England. When the war came the South found herself without the means of +supplying her own wants. Within six months the South discovered that +every axe and saw and steam-engine and iron rail and bolt and nail had +come from the North. Davis sent out men to scurry the country for old +stoves and every iron scrap was picked up to be melted into weapons. At +the close of the war tenpenny nails were used as five-cent pieces and +currency in North Carolina. To crown all other disasters came the +debasement of the currency. Macaulay says that the world has suffered +less from bad kings than from bad shillings and sixpences. The +Confederacy issued one billion dollars of paper money, States issued +another flood of promises to pay, cities put out municipal currency, +fire and life insurances their shin-plasters, and they kept pouring out +paper money until finally all the printing presses broke down. A month +before the collapse, a Confederate soldier, returning to his little +cabin, paid $10,000 for a fifteen-year-old mule, knee sprung in front +and spavined behind, and $7,500 for the shoes for shoeing the mule. + +Lee's army would have collapsed but for the marvellous heroism, +resourcefulness and courage of the Southern women. They took charge of +the fields, planted the crops, gathered the harvests, and staggered on +to the end. Not one Northern home in five was death-stricken through the +war, but practically every Southern home had lost one or two members of +the family, through father, son or brother. + +Nor must we forget what Lee owed to the fidelity of the negroes. Instead +of insurrection, arson, pillage and murder in Southern towns and old +homesteads, the Southern slave remained true to his mistress, and was +the very soul of fidelity. Yet when the war was over, the town had +become a wilderness, the plantation a desolation, and where there had +been prosperity and even luxury, famine and want and disease had set up +their abiding places. Verily secession sowed the wind and reaped the +whirlwind of destruction. + +That the war influenced some people for good and influenced others for +evil is beyond all doubt. During the first two years it was a distinct +tonic to the intellect and conscience of the people. The sense of +national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak +drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, +made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note +of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness in a generation is the note of +seriousness. In the middle of 1863 James Russell Lowell wrote Bancroft +that the war had been a great, a divine and a wholly unmixed blessing, +and that all of the people were exalted to new levels. Had the war +ceased with the battle of Gettysburg, probably Lowell's statement would +have held true, but later came the reaction towards graft and +corruption, intemperance, profligacy and gambling. Within four years the +representatives of the government expended from seven to eight billions +of dollars. Government contractors bought at a single time 50,000 suits +of clothes, 100,000 rifles, 200,000 blankets. The temptation to graft +was strong for all and irresistible to a few. The government records +speak of one horse-trader in St. Louis who bought his horses and mules +at $75 and sold them to the government for $150, and made enough to buy +Mississippi steamboats for $65,000. He then rented these boats to the +government for one year for $295,000, and at the end of the year still +owned the boats. To what extent charges of graft were made is indicated +by the fact that one claim was reduced from fifty millions to +thirty-three millions. A cartoon of that time with strange exaggeration +represents one man saying to his friend, "So-and-so has obtained a third +contract from the government." To which his friend answers, "Well, well! +A couple of more contracts and he will die worth a million." For any +manufacturer to obtain a government contract was for that man to be on +the highroad to wealth. + +Yet the historians who analyze these reports find a large amount of +exaggeration in the statements. Some waste there was, but the +authorities seem to think that it was the waste of inexperience for the +most part. When the war opened the Navy Department was spending +$1,000,000 a year. By 1862 it was spending $145,000,000, and with no +organization to handle such enormous interests. In general, in view of +the sudden emergency thrust upon the people, the marvel is not that +there was so much corruption among government contractors, but that +there were so many honest contractors, and that there was so little +waste through inexperience. + +In general it may be said that the moral and religious sentiment of both +North and South alike steadily strengthened during the conflict. After +Gettysburg, the Southern people and army, always deeply religious, in +their distress turned to their fathers' God for support. Jackson and +Lee's men fought by day, and held prayer-meetings by night. In the +North, during 1861 and '62 and '63, religious meetings were held all +over the land. When the winter twilight fell, the candles began to burn +in the little schoolhouses, where the farmers assembled and prayed to +God. In the small towns and tiny villages the little churches were +packed with worshippers, not simply on Sundays but during the evenings +of the week. During this interval the layman became as influential as +the ordained preachers. At this time, the Young Men's Christian +Association took its rise, all of the old men saw visions, and all of +the young men dreamed dreams, and many a Saul was found among the +prophets. Poets like Lowell were moved by deeply religious +inspirations. During the war Whittier wrote his loftiest songs and his +noblest and most exalted prayers. The influence of the great conflict +upon philosophers like Emerson is easily traced. American literature +lost its note of unreality. Preaching became practical. There was a +revival of ethics in politics. The war cleared the atmosphere of the +country by sweeping away slavery with all its foundation of lies. + +Wendell Phillips once said the French Revolution was the greatest and +most unmixed blessing of the last one thousand years. Now that it is all +over, and the slain soldiers and the brave women who went down in the +conflict have had all their hard questions asked before the throne of +God, perhaps these heroes and heroines who now live unto God look back +upon this era as an era of sorrow overruled for justice and liberty. The +conclusion of the whole matter is this: a good house must be founded +upon a rock, and no government or civilization can be permanent that is +not based on the freedom, property and intelligence of the working +classes. + +To-day the leaders of thought in the South believe that Lee and Gordon +were right in the statement that they "thanked God that they failed to +establish States' rights, and that Northern men had succeeded in +maintaining the Union." Time has cleared the air of misunderstandings. +At last the North and South understand Lincoln's last words regarding +the Civil War: "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and +each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men +should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from +the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not +judged. The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has +been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the +world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come; but +woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.' If we shall suppose that +American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the Providence of +God, must needs come, but 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 due to those by whom the offense came, +shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes +which the believers in a 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 continue until all the wealth piled +by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall +be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid +by another drop of blood drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand +years ago, so still it must be said, '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 on 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 orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and +lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." + + + + +XII + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE MARTYRED PRESIDENT + + +Among the heroes who helped save the Republic, the last, best hope of +earth, in that it gives liberty to the slaves, that it might assure +freedom to the free, stands Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator and martyr. +Take him all in all, Abraham Lincoln is the greatest thing the Republic +has achieved. History tells of no child who passed from a cradle so +humble to a grave so illustrious. The institutions of the Republic were +founded for the manufacture of a good quality of soul. In the presence +of the greatest men of history we can point with pride to Lincoln, +saying, "This is the kind of man the institutions of the Republic can +produce." For Lincoln's most striking characteristic was his +Americanism. At best, Washington was a patrician, the fine product of +aristocratic institutions, so that England claimed him. Washington was +the richest man of his era, his home an old manor house, his estate +wide inherited acres, his relative an English baronet, his brother the +child of Oxford University. The books he read were English books, the +teachers he had were English tutors. The root was planted in English +soil, though it fruited under American skies. But Americanism is the +very essence of Lincoln's thoughts, Lincoln's enthusiasm, Lincoln's +utterances, and Lincoln's character. One of the golden words of the +Republic is the word "opportunity." Here, all the highways that lead to +office, land and honour must be open unto all young feet. A banker's son +may climb to the governor's mansion, or the White House, but so may the +washerwoman's. The widow's son practices eloquence in the corn fields of +Virginia, but he has ability and patriotism, and we bring Henry Clay to +the Senate chamber. A child out in Ohio goes barefooted over the October +grass, driving an old red cow to the barn lot, but we bring McKinley to +the White House. + +Yonder stands the Temple of Fame. The door is open by day and by night, +and a tall, thin, sallow boy turns his back upon a log cabin in Illinois +and seeks entrance. But the angel at the threshold asks hard questions: +"Can you eat crusts? Can you wear rags? Can you sleep in a garret? Can +you endure sleepless nights and days of toil? Can you bear up against +every wind that assails your bark? Can you live for liberty and God's +truth, and can you die for them?" And that boy bowed his assent. +Washington climbed hand over hand up the golden rounds of the ladder of +success; Lincoln built the ladder up which he climbed out of the fence +rails which his own hands had split. Like his Divine Master, he touched +two or three crusts and turned them into bread for the hungry +multitudes. + +His little log cabin shames our palaces. His three books, the Bible, the +"Pilgrim's Progress" and "AEsop's Fables" eclipse our libraries. His six +months in a log schoolhouse were more than equal to our eight years in +lecture hall and university. His fidelity to the great convictions +shames our shifting politicians. For fifty years he walked forward under +clouded skies. Like Dante, he held heart-break at bay. During one brief +epoch only did his sun clear itself of clouds. He died without full +recognition or reward. In retrospect he stands forth the saddest and +sweetest, the strongest and gentlest, the most picturesque and the most +pathetic figure in our history. The Saviour of the world was born in a +stable and cradled in a manger, and went by the Via Dolorosa towards the +world's throne. Not otherwise Abraham Lincoln was born in a cabin, more +suited for herds and flocks than for a young mother and a little child; +and by the way of poverty and adversity the great emancipator travelled +towards his throne of influence and world supremacy. + +History holds a few deeds so great that they can be done but once. There +are some laws, some reforms and some liberties that once achieved are +always achieved. Thus, Columbus discovered this new world, but his +achievement reduced all the other explorers to the level of imitators. +Thus Isaac Newton discovered gravity, and in a moment every other +astronomer became a pupil and a disciple. There never can be but one +James Watt, for, though a thousand inventors improve his engine, their +names are little tapers, shining over against the sun. The last century +offered men of genius two signal opportunities, and there were a +thousand eager aspirants for the honour. Charles Darwin discovered the +golden key that unlocked the kingdom of nature and life, and carried +off the honours of science. Abraham Lincoln, in an hour when some would +meanly lose it, planned to nobly save the Union, emancipated three +million slaves, and carried off the honours in the realm of reform and +liberty. + +How great was the work done by this man and how supreme was the man +himself, we can best understand by comparison and contrast. Among small +men it is easy to be great. In Patagonia, where everybody eats blubber, +a boy in the first reader is a prodigy of learning. + +Anybody can be a giant in heroism and reform among Hottentots and South +Sea savages. But the era of the Civil War was an era of heroes. Great +men walked in regiments up and down the land. It was the age of Daniel +Webster, whose genius is so wonderful that he achieved the four supreme +things of four realms,--the greatest legal argument we have, the +Dartmouth College case; the greatest plea before a judge and jury, the +Knapp murder case; our finest outburst of inspirational eloquence, the +oration at Bunker Hill; the greatest argument in defense of the +Constitution, his reply to Hayne. It was the age of John C. Calhoun, a +statesman whose political theories led half a continent to deeds of +daring war. It was the era of Seward, the all-round scholar, of Chase +the greatest secretary of treasury since Alexander Hamilton, a man who +struck the rock with the rod of his genius, and made the waters of +finance flow forth from the desert. It was the age of our greatest +orators, for then Wendell Phillips and Beecher were at their best. It +was the era of Emerson, the philosopher; of Theodore Parker, the +reformer; of Garrison, the abolitionist; of Lovejoy, the martyr; of +Lowell and Whittier, the poets of freedom; of Greeley, the editor; it +was also the age of the greatest soldiers, Grant and Sherman, and +Sheridan and Lee. The great man is a form of fruit ripened in an +atmosphere made warm and genial, and the climate that nurtured Lincoln +unfolded the talents that represented also other forms of mental fruit. +Among these men Lincoln lived and wrote and spoke, and suffered and +died;--but he stands forth a master among men, an indisputable genius, +one of the five supreme statesmen of all history. + +Now if we are to understand the unique place of Abraham Lincoln in our +history we must recall again for a moment the men who set the battle +lines in array. Unfortunately, most of our histories tell our children +and youth that the Civil War raged about the slave. As a matter of fact, +slavery was the occasion of the war, but not the cause. Slavery was the +sulphur match that exploded the powder magazine, though the powder +magazine could have been set off by a spark from the flint and steel, or +a hundred other methods. + +The Civil War was really fought over the question whether a +constitutionally formed nation dedicated to the proposition that all men +are created equal could permanently endure. The whole period from 1789 +to 1865 was a critical period, during which the Constitution was being +tested and tried out. + +During this testing many forms of secession were planned, and several +actual rebellions took place. In 1787 there was a Massachusetts +rebellion under Shays, over the question of taxation. In 1794 there was +what was known as the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. In 1830 to 1835 +there was a secession movement on in South Carolina, and President +Jackson put down that rebellion over the tariff. Then Daniel Webster +marked out the final lines of battle, entrenching the Constitution +against rebellious attempts. Webster fired the first shot of the war, +whose last shot was fired at Appomattox. Webster carried the flag that +Grant followed at Vicksburg, and shook out the folds of the banner that +was crimsoned with blood at Gettysburg. It was Webster's banner that +Anderson pulled down at Fort Sumter, under the stress of fire, and it +was Webster's banner that, four years later to an hour, the same General +Anderson pulled up on the same flagstaff at the same Fort Sumter. + +During the period of the thirties and the forties, the conflict was a +conflict of words and arguments between men like Webster and Calhoun and +Garrison and Phillips. Later, the strife took on the form of a guerrilla +warfare, and here and there leaders like Lovejoy were martyred. At last +the strife entered into politics, when Douglas and Lincoln struggled for +the supremacy of their principles,--but always it was a question of +Constitutional interpretation, against whatever interest attacked the +"supreme law." + +Soon the conflict entered the Church, and the American Tract Society, +to hold the gifts of slave owners, forbade the distributions of +Testaments to slaves, while the Bishop of New Jersey destroyed an +edition of the Prayer Book because it contained a picture of Ary +Scheffer's picture of "Christ the Emancipator," who was engaged in +striking the shackles from slaves. The bishop was quite willing that +Christ should open the eyes of the blind, make the deaf to hear and the +lame to walk, but as for Jesus freeing the slaves--well, that was too +much. Over the question of the Constitutional power of Congress to +resist the further extension of slavery in newly opened territories, the +whole land rocked with excitement. Liberty and Slavery, like two giants, +grappled for the death struggle. In such an era God raised up Abraham +Lincoln, to lead the people out of the wilderness, and into the Promised +Land of Union, of Liberty, and of Peace. + +Never was a candidate for universal fame born under so unfriendly a sky. +His annals are "the short and simple annals of the poor." His home was a +log cabin that had but three sides, the fourth one being a buffalo robe, +swaying to and fro in the wind. When the biting wind of poverty became +unbearable in Kentucky, the scant possessions were loaded upon a horse, +carried across the Ohio, and the child walked barefooted through the +forests of Indiana, where a new shack was built in the wilderness. There +Lincoln's "angel mother" sickened and died--that mother to whom Lincoln +said he owed all that he was or hoped to be. Then when the winter of +poverty and discontent settled down blacker than ever, the father +removed to another State, where the mud was deeper, and the winters +colder, where nature was less propitious. Lying on his face, before +blazing logs, the boy committed to memory the four Gospels, "AEsop's +Fables," and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." At nineteen he went to New +Orleans, and standing in the slave market saw a young girl sold at +public auction, and told his brother, Dennis Hanks, that if he ever had +a chance he would hit slavery the hardest blow he could. At twenty he +split 1,200 rails for a farmer, whose wife wove for him three yards of +cloth, dyed in walnut juice, with which he had a new suit of clothes. He +started a little store, failed in business, became a surveyor, bought a +copy of the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of +Independence; was made postmaster; several years later returned to the +government agent the exact silver quarters and copper cents that he had +kept tied up in a bag, because honesty meant that the identical coins +must be returned to the government; entered upon the study and the +practice of the law; was elected to the legislature, and reflected; was +sent to Congress, and on a second campaign for the United States +senatorship from Illinois met his competitor, Stephen A. Douglas, in the +great debate. Beginning this contest, he delivered the "house divided +against itself cannot stand" speech; and in the course of his marvellous +debate made the issue between liberty and slavery so clear that a +wayfaring man, though a fool, could not misunderstand; declared that if +slavery was not wrong, there was nothing that was wrong. Soon he came to +be looked upon as one who each year would coin the happy phrase and the +rhythmical watchword that would be taken upon the lips of 30,000,000 of +people; was made the leader of the new "party of freedom," and +President. + +Now, with infinite skill and patience, he entered upon the task of +proving that he was the strongest man in his Cabinet, the strongest man +in the North, the strongest man in the country, and the only man who had +the last fact in the case, and therefore had the right to rule. Seward, +experienced politician and statesman that he was, began by delicately +hinting to Lincoln that if he felt himself unequal to emergencies, he +could rely upon his Secretary of State for guidance, and that he, +Seward, would not evade the responsibility. Lincoln answered by reading +Seward's statement of a possible measure, and then placing beside it a +statement of his own that reduced Seward to the level of a schoolboy +standing up beside a giant. Then Stanton entered the lists as +competitor, and quietly Lincoln asserted himself until Stanton's +attitude became one of almost reverent worship, as he said of Lincoln, +"Henceforth he belongs with the immortals." Then Greeley put in his +claim for supremacy, and after Lincoln had published his answer to +Horace Greeley, in lines as clear as crystal, and in words as gentle as +sunbeams, not a man in the land but saw that Lincoln was intellectually +head and shoulders above Horace Greeley. One by one and step by step he +ascended the hills of difficulty. Round by round he climbed the ladder +of fame. Naturally, therefore, his centennial was observed by a week's +celebration, when all the wheels were still, and all the stores and +factories were silent, when ninety millions of people were gathered into +one vast audience chamber, when one name was upon all lips--the name of +Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator of the slaves, the acknowledged master +of men, who gave liberty to the slaves that he might assure freedom to +the free. + +Thoughtless writers have talked Lincoln's ancestry down, and careless +biographers have defamed him. Superficial students speak of him as a +miracle, and say that his genius is surrounded with silence and mystery. +But all that Abraham Lincoln was he had at the hands of his fathers and +his mothers. Although their greatness was latent, his parents had as +much ability in their way as their distinguished son had in his way. How +do we know? Because when God wants to call a strong man He begins by +calling his father and mother. There never was a great man who did not +have a great ancestry, even though the greatness may have been latent +and unconscious. + +Every strong man stands upon the shoulders of his ancestors. When you +start for the top of Pike's Peak you start at Omaha. When you reach +Denver you are six thousand feet in the air, and Pike's Peak is +shouldered up on the foot-hills. Socrates is a great teacher, but look +at Sphroniscus, the sculptor, his father. Paganini is a great musician, +but Paganini was born of musicians whose wrists had muscles that stood +out like whip-cords. Bach is a great musician, but there were forty +people of the name of Bach mentioned in musical dictionaries. Charles +Darwin is the great scientist, but there were four generations of +scientists who had made ready for Darwin, just as there were seven +generations of scholars that culminated in Emerson. And standing in the +shadow behind Abraham Lincoln are half a dozen generations of men and +women who handed forward to him a perfect logic engine, a sound mind, in +a sound body; a mental instrument that worked without fever and without +friction and without flaw. At the hands of Stradivarius one piece of +apple wood is fashioned into a violin. If Stradivarius passes by the +other board because he has not time, let no man say the board that was +undeveloped was not full of latent music. The Divine Artist and +Architect shaped Abraham Lincoln's nature into a world instrument, but +the same quality and the stuff were in his father and mother, who lived +and died a bundle of roots that were never planted, a handful of +blossoms that never fruited. + +Lincoln's father and mother were like the crystal caves in their own +Kentucky. There the traveller is led through a cave of crystals, newly +discovered. One day a farmer ploughing thought the ground sounded hollow +under his feet. Going to the barn, he brought a spade and opened up an +aperture. Flinging down a rope, his friends let the explorer down, and +when the torches were lighted, lo, a cave as of amethysts, sapphires and +diamonds! For generations the cave had been undiscovered and the jewels +unknown. Wild beasts had wandered above these flashing gems, and still +more savage men had lived and fought and died there. And yet just +beneath was this cave of splendid beauty. Oh, pathetic illustration of +men who are big with talent, of women full of latent gifts, of fathers +and mothers like Thomas Lincoln and his young wife, who struggle on +without opportunity, who are denied their chance, who are imprisoned by +poverty, and fettered by circumstance, who are like birds beating bloody +wings against the bars of an iron cage, who die unfulfilled prophecies, +and dying, transfer their ambitions to their gifted children, believing +that their son shall behold what the father and mother must die without +seeing. God worked no miracle in Abraham Lincoln. + +There is a photograph of the signature of the grandfather upon a title +deed in Culpeper County in Virginia. Now, place that signature side by +side with the signature of Abraham Lincoln on the emancipation +proclamation, and the strong, sinewy sweep in the signature of the +grandfather comes down and repeats itself in the strong, steady +clearness of the grandson. And perhaps the strong, sinewy sentence came +down and repeated itself also, for all fine thinking stands with one +foot on fine brain fibre. The time has come for men with a sharp knife +and a hot iron to expunge from two or three of the otherwise best +biographies of Abraham Lincoln these false, superficial and ignorant +statements about his ancestry. Science, observation, experience, history +and sifted facts all unite to tell us that whatever was great in its +unfolding in the talent of Abraham Lincoln was great in the seed form in +his father and mother. + +Where were the hidings of his power? Why is Lincoln revered above his +fellows, the orators, the soldiers, and the statesmen and editors and +secretaries of his time? A line of contrast with the other great men who +were his competitors for fame will make Lincoln's supremacy to stand +forth as clear in outline as the mountains, and as bright as the stars. +For example, Wendell Phillips was the agitator and orator of the +abolitionists. Phillips said, "Emancipation is the essential thing. The +Union secondary. If the Southern States will not emancipate the slaves, +force them out of the Union." Horace Greeley was the editor of the war +epoch. Greeley said, "Emancipation is first, the Union secondary. If +they prefer slavery to liberty let the erring sisters go." Beecher was +the all-round man of genius. His great speech in England began with an +exordium at Manchester; he stated the arguments at Edinburgh, Glasgow +and Liverpool; he pronounced the peroration at Exeter Hall, in London, +and no such peroration and eloquence has been heard since Demosthenes' +philippic against the tyrant of Macedon. But Beecher's criticisms of +Lincoln in the New York _Independent_ during April and May of 1862 led +Lincoln to exclaim after reading one of them, "Is Thy servant a dog that +he should do this thing?" If these great men did not appreciate the +national crisis, Lincoln understood it perfectly. Now, over against the +editorials of Beecher and Horace Greeley and the lectures of Phillips, +stands Lincoln, and to these three men he sent words addressed only to +Horace Greeley, explaining to them why the time had not come for the +Emancipation Proclamation. And although a part of this we have quoted in +defense of Webster's position in 1850, that and yet more of the famous +letter may well be repeated here:-- + + "I would save the Union. + + "If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could + at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. + + "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not + either to save or destroy slavery. + + "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do + it. + + "If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. + + "And if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I + would also do that. + + "What I do about slavery and the coloured race I do because I + believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear + because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. + + "I shall do less whenever I believe that what I am doing hurts the + cause. + + "And I shall do more whenever I believe that doing more will help + the Union." + +How wonderfully does this publish the supremacy of Abraham Lincoln! +Lincoln saw clearly, where others had an indistinct vision. As to +gravity, Isaac Newton's vote outweighs all the other millions of men, +and from the hour that Lincoln published this letter to Horace Greeley +the people saw that Abraham Lincoln had the last fact in the case, saw +the whole truth, saw it through and through. By sheer power, clarity of +thought, strength of statement and fairness, Abraham Lincoln finally won +over not only a lukewarm North, but a bitter South, until to-day he +belongs to the ninety millions. If every Northerner should die, the +brave and patriotic men of the South living now would defend everything +for which Abraham Lincoln lived and died. For at last it is true of both +North and South, in Lincoln's own pathetic words, that the mystic chords +of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every +living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell +the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by +the better angels of our nature. + +The most striking characteristic of Lincoln's character was his honesty. +Some men are naturally secretive: Lincoln was naturally open as +sunshine. The exact fact, truth in the hidden parts, openness, these +were the innermost fibre of his being. Machiavelli laid out the +diplomat's career on the line of deceit, and concealing the cards. +Lincoln would have made a poor diplomat,--he spread all his cards out on +the table. He won from his opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, the tribute, +"Lincoln was the fairest and most honest man I ever knew." If there ever +lived an absolutely honest lawyer, Lincoln was the man. In his work +before the jury Lincoln never misrepresented his opponent's position, +never twisted the testimony of the witness, never made biassed +statements to win a verdict. Once a young lawyer who was opposing +Lincoln made a poor plea for his client, and overlooked in his argument +before the jury two most important considerations. Lincoln was restless, +and greatly disturbed. He seemed to think that the lawyer's client had +been badly used, and that his attorney had not given him a fair chance, +or guarded his rights. When Lincoln arose, therefore, he began by saying +that the opposing counsel had overlooked the most important point. He +then stated his opponent's position far more strongly than his lawyer +had, and made the best possible statement for his opponent, to the +astonishment and indignation of his own client, whom he was defending. +Then Lincoln turned to answer these arguments,--with the result that for +the first time the two litigants understood the exact facts of both +sides, and at Lincoln's request settled the case, withdrawing it from +the court. + +This love of the exact truth and of fair play and of essential justice +shone from the man's face, dominated his arguments, explained his +view-point, revealed his character. The nickname, "Honest Old Abe," +tells the whole story. Lincoln's final judgment partook of the nature +of a final decree and law. At length his pronouncements became like a +divine fiat. Take the truth out of Lincoln's character, and it would be +like taking the warmth out of a sunbeam. He _was_ truth, he thought +truth, loved the truth, surrendered himself to the truth. Under that +influence he refused to play politics, or fence for position with +Douglas. Once Lincoln won a case so easily that he returned one-half of +the retainer's fee, because he felt that he had not earned it. + +Here, therefore, is found the secret of Lincoln's unbounded popularity. +The common people know their friends, and--what with Lincoln's +gentleness, his justice, his boundless kindness, his sympathy with the +poor and the unfortunate, and his honesty--he became the most beloved +man in the Illinois circuit. + +Wonderful, too, his literary achievements. His great passages read like +the Bible, and have almost the moral authority thereof. If preachers +ever wear the old Bible out, Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and his speech +at Gettysburg, and certain other passages, will furnish texts for +another hundred years. One thing is certain,--if Chinese students in +their universities two thousand years from now translate any oration out +of the English language, as we now translate the speeches of +Demosthenes, these Chinese students will translate Lincoln's speech at +Gettysburg, and his Second Inaugural Address. Contrary to the usual +idea, it may be confidently affirmed that Lincoln was a well equipped +man, and had the best possible training for literary style. During the +plastic years of memory, Lincoln had three books to study, and two of +these are the finest models for style in all literature,--King James' +Version of the Bible, and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." These are the +world's great literary masterpieces, these are the wells of English, +pure and undefiled. Upon these two books Robert Burns was reared. To the +fact that his mother made him commit to memory forty chapters of the +Bible before he was seven years old, John Ruskin attributed his mastery +in English style. Second rate men know something about everything. +Lincoln was a first rate man who knew everything about some one thing. +If you want to make a versatile man, turn a boy loose in a library. If +you want a boy to have the note of distinction upon his pages, lock him +out of a library, and send him into solitude, with the English Bible, +with John Bunyan, and with AEsop's Fables, and let him take these three +books into his intellect, as he takes meat and bread into the rich blood +of the physical system. + +Literary style is the shadow that the soul flings across the page. Style +is simply the intellect rushing into exhibition and verbal form. +Therefore style is the balance of faculty, symmetry of development. A +man is healthy when he does not know that he has a single organ in his +body, and a page has style when you do not know where to find the note +of distinction. There is a world of difference between "style," and "a +style." Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural has style. Carlyle's French +Revolution has a style. A perfect Kentucky horse has style. A +knee-sprung horse has a style. Down the track comes this perfect horse, +eyes flashing, head up, neck arched, feet dancing, not a flaw, not a +blemish, upon leg or body. Looking at the glorious creature you exclaim, +"That horse has style!" For a horse's style is born of perfect health, +perfect lungs and perfect legs, one power balancing another, and all +united to produce an absolutely perfect horse. Now comes a horse that +represents a collection of ringbones, and glanders, and poll-evil. The +one horse limping in front has "a style." Thomas Carlyle's sentences are +knee-sprung in front and his phrases are spavined behind, and, +therefore, Carlyle has "a style" but not "style." You would know one of +his sentences if you saw its skeleton lying in the desert on the road to +Khartoum. But on the other hand, Lincoln has "style,"--that +indescribable bloom and beauty, born of balance, development and +symmetrical growth. Samuel Johnson bulged on the side of Latinity. +Daniel Webster is an example of the magnificent, illustrating +gorgeousness, opulence, and tropic splendour. Lincoln's sentences are +like the Bible and Bunyan,--they are plate-glass windows through which +you look to see the jewelled thought beyond. + +Lincoln tells us how he made his style. One day he heard a man use the +word "demonstrate." For days he cudgelled his brains to find out just +what it was to demonstrate a statement. He tells us that when he was +about eight years old, he began to be irritated when men used long +words that he could not understand. He began the habit of thinking over +in the dark before he went to sleep any story he had heard, any +statement that had been made, and he tried to substitute for the long +hard words little short simple words, that a boy could understand. +During those early years, he learned that the rich, racy, homey words +are steeped and perfumed with beautiful associations. He knew that words +are fossil poetry. What would one not give for the old cloak that Paul +had from Troas, a piece of the marble by Phidias, the old threshold worn +by the feet of Socrates, an old missal illuminated by Bellini, an old +note-book in which Shakespeare wrote the first outline of Hamlet! And +the old, sweet, home words with which a mother soothes her babe, with +which a lover woos his bride, the old words of God, and home and native +land, are the words that are rich in association and in power to move +the heart. A bird lines its nest with feathers plucked from its own +breast, and the heart steeps the dear, simple speech of home life in +sacred associations. So Lincoln cut out all the long Latin words, and +substituted the short Saxon ones. Schooled in the two great master books +that are the precious life spirit of earth's greatest souls treasured +up, he developed his style. + +Nor must we overlook the fact that the apparent narrowness of his +culture represents a real concentration that made for richness and +depth. If one must choose, take the upper Rhine that is a river deep and +pure and sweet, and strong for bearing the fleets of war and peace +because it is confined between banks and narrowed. But when the Rhine +comes down to the flats and approaches the sea and casts off all +restraints, and tries to include everything, it turns into a swamp, a +morass, losing its power for commerce, and becoming a source of disease +and death. Lincoln's culture was limited to the English, and to a +mastery of the Constitution--the principles of fundamental justice, to +one country--the Republic, to one topic--the Union, and to one +reform--Slavery. Beyond all doubt, this concentration of study during +the critical years of his career made up a much better preparation than +if he had gone to a college, studied half a dozen languages, and fifty +or sixty different subjects, and come out well smattered, but poorly +educated. It may be doubted whether Lincoln would have been much better +off had he been able to read Latin and Greek, and speak French and +German. Many people can say "It is a little yellow dog" in Greek, and +German, and French, and Italian, and English, but after all it is only a +little yellow dog. What educates is the idea, and not the half dozen +names of a thing without an idea. + +The important thing about a cistern is water, and not many mouths to the +pump. Having spent many years learning to express one idea in five ways, +one might be glad to trade the five ways of expression for five ideas to +be expressed in one way. Edward Everett, once President of Harvard +University, could talk in five languages, and at Gettysburg spoke for +two hours. Lincoln could speak in one language, and did so for two +minutes. But the next morning Mr. Everett wrote to the President: "I +should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the +central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." +Lincoln's one language shames our knowledge of four languages, his three +books shame our libraries, and our four years of college culture. + +Nor must we overlook the influence upon Lincoln's style of the parables +of Jesus and the fables of AEsop. There are two invariable signs of +genius in a boy,--one is the serious note, and the other is the +picture-making note. All the great things represent serious thinking. +The greatest artist of the last century was the most serious one,--Watt, +with his Love and Life, and Love and Death, and Mammon, and Hope. The +great poems have been the serious poems, the In Memoriam, and the +Intimations of Immortality, the Hamlet and the Lear. The great orators +have been the serious orators. + +The next sign of genius is the picture-making faculty. Men of talent +evolve arguments, men of genius create emblems, parables and pictures. +Minds oftentimes called profound use long abstractions, and are called +deep thinkers, because nobody can understand them. But along comes a man +of genius, and he squeezes the juice out of the abstract argument, and +flings the rind away, and tells you what it is like. + +Measured in terms of genius, the parables of Jesus are the greatest +literary achievements in history. AEsop's fables teach by pictures. +"Pilgrim's Progress" is pictorial. + +Lincoln was exceedingly fortunate in his generation in that the three +great books of pictures were in his hands during the imaginative epoch. +Of course he was born with the talent for parable, because genius is +one-half nature and the other half nurture. It was this natural gift and +the training that taught him how when he had completed an argument and +mastered the principle, to say, Now what is this great principle like, +and how can I condense it into a picture and put it in a happy phrase +that will sing itself across the land? This picture-making gift inspired +him to quote the keen wisdom of that expression of Jesus, "The house +divided against itself cannot stand." This skill in parables gave him +the expression, "Better not swap horses in the middle of the stream," +that gave him his second election. This vision power gave him that +sentence equal to anything in Shakespeare, when Vicksburg fell, "Once +more the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea." This faculty enabled +him to sweep into one illustration a thousand arguments, so that the +people could never forget the mother principle that explained the facts. + +Nor may we forget what the great cause did for him. The era of the war +was a great era, because God heaved society as the winds heave the +waves, and men were swept forward with irresistible power upon the great +movement of liberty. Great movements make great epochs and great men. A +great ideal of God and righteousness and liberty lifts Savonarola and +Florence to new levels; a great cathedral inspires Michael Angelo's +great dome; a Divine Saviour and His transfiguration exalt Raphael; +Paradise explains Dante; listening to the sevenfold Hallelujah chorus of +God arouses the sweep and majesty of Milton's epic; the woes of three +million slaves made eloquence possible for Phillips and Beecher. The +saving of a Union, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition +that all men were created equal, represented a cause into which Lincoln +could fling himself. The thought of meanly losing or nobly saving the +last, best hope of earth, exalted, transformed, and armed the men, +making feeblings strong, and strong men to be giants. + +Eloquence and heroism wane during the commercial era. No man can be +eloquent upon the duty on hides, or salt, or the digging of mud out of a +river. But dumb lips will break into glorious speech at the thought of +freeing millions of slaves, and saving free institutions, and handing +liberty forward to other lands, and to generations yet unborn. The era +of Fort Sumter and Gettysburg, when liberty and slavery were in their +death grapple, was an era so great that the ordinary issues of avarice, +self-interest, fame, luxury, became contemptible, and men were exalted +to the point where they spake, and suffered, and marched, and died, more +like gods than men. The great battles to be fought, the great armies to +be moved, the great navies to be directed, the great orators and editors +with whom he counselled, the many slaves for whom he became a voice, the +great days on which he felt that he was making history, the great future +into which he hoped to send the great liberties unimpaired and purified, +the great God over all,--lent greatness to Abraham Lincoln, clothed him +with pathos, with sorrow, with dignity and majesty, as with garments. + +Like every giant, he was gentle. The truly great are always sensitive +and sympathetic. In proportion as the mountain goes upward in size does +it gain in power to return the strong man's shout, or the sigh of the +lost child, echoing and reechoing the cry of need. Sympathy is the soul +journeying abroad, to bind up the wounds of him who has fallen among +thieves. Sympathy cannot feast in a palace while the poor famish. +Selfishness can stop its ears with wax lest it hear the groan of the +poor, but sympathy is knitted in with its kind. Lincoln worked as hard +to help men as slave masters did to recover a fugitive to bondage. It +has been beautifully said that he did kind deeds stealthily, as if he +were afraid of being found out. He became a shield above the fallen; he +stood between the soldier, condemned for the sleep of exhaustion, and +the hangman's noose. He refused to attend a cabinet meeting because he +was trying to find a reason for reprieving a soldier. "It is butchery +day," he said one Friday morning, and he denied himself to a committee +because he did not think that hanging would help the boy who was +condemned to die. "They said he was homely," said a poor woman, going +away from the White House with a reprieve for her son; "he is the +handsomest man I ever saw." It is this sympathy that runs through his +letter to that mother, whose five sons had died gloriously on the field +of battle. For he squeezed the purple clusters of the heart, and let the +crimson tide flow down upon the page, as he prayed that the mother +might carry through the years "only the cherished memory of the loved +and the lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so +costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." + +More striking still, Lincoln's trust in God and His overruling +providence. Mr. Herndon in his biography and Dr. Abbott in an editorial +and an oration at Cooper Institute emphasize the agnosticism of Lincoln. +The one says that in his youth he wrote an article against Christianity, +and the other that he was not a technical Christian. Dr. Abbott thinks +all this so important that he places the agnosticism of Lincoln at the +forefront. But too much has been made of the schoolboy article of +Lincoln on doubt and infidelity. In his youth Gladstone was a Tory, but +he outgrew it. In the outset Paul was against Christianity. Tennyson and +Wordsworth in their teens wrote puerile verse, just as Lincoln in his +teens wrote a foolish paper. But it is cruelly unfair not to allow +Abraham Lincoln the full benefit of what he came to be, and not to take +the man at his best. It is unfair to say that a man is what he is at his +worst and lowest point; a man is what he is at his best and highest +point. Stephen A. Douglas said Lincoln was the most honest man he ever +knew. Well, if Lincoln was an honest man in his character, he must have +been honest in talking about his religion and his faith in God. Was +Abraham Lincoln an agnostic in that hour when he spoke his farewell +words to his neighbours in Springfield, about starting on the memorable +journey to his inauguration? He said: "I feel that I cannot succeed +without the same divine aid that sustained Washington, and on the same +Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my +friends, will all pray that I may receive that divine assistance without +which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain." Was Abraham +Lincoln without faith, and did he play to the gallery, when he set apart +a day of fasting and prayer after the defeat at Bull Run? Having said +that Abraham Lincoln was an honest man, why not remember it, when these +critics read his First Inaugural, in which he declares that +"intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who +has never yet forsaken this favoured land, are still competent to adjust +in the best way all our present difficulty." When Abraham Lincoln wrote +the mother, Mrs. Bixby, "I pray that the heavenly Father may assuage the +anguish of your bereavement," he meant that he believed in God, in a God +who answered prayer, in a God who cared for the mother living, and the +five brave boys dead. "The Almighty has His own purposes," said Lincoln, +in the Second Inaugural, an address that is steeped in religion, that +exhales trust in God. Take God out of that Second Inaugural, and it +would be like taking health out of the body, wisdom out of the book, +sweetness out of the song, culture out of the intellect, life out of the +body. You cannot in one breath say that Lincoln was an agnostic, and +then in the next one say that Lincoln was an honest man. I care not one +whit what Mr. Herndon says. I care everything about what Abraham Lincoln +says about himself in his greatest speeches, in his noblest hours, when +he gave his countrymen his latest, deepest, profoundest thoughts. + +In trying to explain the character of Lincoln we therefore make our +final appeal unto God, for God alone is equal to the making of this +great man. When long time has passed, the name of Lincoln will probably +be mentioned with Moses, Julius Caesar, Paul, Shakespeare. Men will read +a few of his paragraphs as a kind of Bible of Patriotism. Washington's +name will not be less, but Lincoln's will certainly be more and more, +and then still more. God and Sorrow made the man great. + +And this is his life story. In the darkest hour of the Republic, when +liberty and slavery were struggling to see which should rule the old +homestead, it became evident that slavery would turn the garden into a +desert, and the house into a ruin. And seeking a deliverer and a +saviour, the great God, in His own purpose, passed by the palace with +its silken delights. He took a little babe in His arms, and called to +His side His favourite angel, the angel of Sorrow. Stooping, he +whispered, "Oh, Sorrow, thou well-beloved teacher, take thou this little +child of Mine and make him great. Take him to yonder cabin in the +wilderness; make his home a poor man's house; plant his narrow path +thick with thorns, cut his little feet with sharp and cruel rocks; as he +climbs the hills of difficulty, make each footprint red with his own +life-blood; load his little back with burdens; give to him days of toil +and nights of study and sleeplessness; wrest from his arms whatever he +loves; make his heart, through sorrow, as sensitive to the sigh of a +slave as a thread of silk in a window is sensitive to the slightest wind +that blows; and when you have digged lines of pain in his cheeks, and +made his face more marred than the face of any man of his time, bring +him back to me, and with him I will free three million slaves." That is +how God made Abraham Lincoln great. + +And then,--we slew him. For that is the way our ignorant, sinful earth +has always rewarded its greatest souls. Ours is a world where we crucify +the Saviour in Jerusalem, where we poison Socrates in Athens, where we +exile Dante in Italy, and burn Savonarola in Florence, and starve +Cervantes in Madrid, and jail Bunyan in Bedford,--for the greatest +manhood is always rewarded with martyrdom. And what better thing for +Abraham Lincoln than assassination, because he has emancipated three +million slaves and saved the Union, as the last, best hope of earth? + +But, lo, who are these in bright array, looking over the battlements of +heaven, while the forces of liberty and slavery in other forms struggle +together on these earthly plains beneath? These with radiant faces +unstained by tears, that seem never to have known the mark of pain or +sorrow? Ah! these are they who have come out of great tribulation, +anguish and martyrdom; Paul from the stones; Homer from his blindness; +Socrates from his cup of poison; Milton from his heart-break; Savonarola +from his fagots, and Lincoln from his long martyrdom--the least part of +which was the shot that freed his spirit in the hour of triumph and +joy. + + + + +Index + + + Abolition Societies in the South, 25 + + Abominations, tariff of, 50, 163 + + AEsop's Fables, 290, 297,316 + + "Adam Bede," 148 + + Adams, Charles F., 54, 243 + + Adams, John, 83, 121 + + Alabama, secession, 189 + + _Alabama_, the, 225, 238, 245 + + _Albemarle_, the, 245 + + Albert, Prince Consort, 226 + + Aldersen, Judge, 107 + + Alva, Duke of, 15, 264 + + American Tract Society, 296 + + Ames, Fisher, 213 + + Andersonville, 269, 270 + + Anne, Queen, 18 + + Anti-Slavery epoch, importance of, 6, 7, 13 + + Arab slave-hunters, 30 + + Athens, 14, 41, 212 + + Atlanta and Sherman, 249 + + Austin, James T., 81 + + + Bach, John S., 301 + + Bacon, Lord, 110 + + Bailey, Kentucky editor, 140 + + Bancroft, George, 104, 282 + + Bates, Edward, 184 + + Beauregard, P. G. T., 192, 244 + + Beecher, Henry Ward, 49, 69, 91, 181, 204; + Chapter IX, The Appeal to England, 212-241; + reasons for European trip of, 214-216; + no official embassy, 217; + interview of, with Lincoln, 218; + breakfast to, in London, 219; + speech at Manchester, 227-230; + at Glasgow and Edinburgh, 231, 232; + in Liverpool, 232, 234; + in London, 235; + triumph at home, 235, 239; + raises Sumter flag, 241; + and Lincoln, 212, 218, 304-305 + + Beecher, Lyman, 138 + + Bell, John, 184 + + Bishop of New Jersey, 296 + + Bowen, Henry C., 181 + + Breckenridge, J. C., 184 + + Bremer, Frederika, 144 + + Bright, John, 222, 225 + + Brown, John, Chapter VI, 136-159; + in Springfield, 149; + North Elba, 150; + Iowa, 150; + Kansas, 151-154; + Virginia, 154; + Harper's Ferry, 155; + trial and death, 155-158; + his fanaticism overruled, 159 + + Brown-Sequard, Dr., 114 + + Bryant, Wm. C., 182 + + Buchanan, Com. Franklin, 245 + + Buchanan, James, 189 + + Buckle, Thomas, 204 + + Bunyan, John, 325 + + Burns, Anthony, 84-87 + + Burns, Robert, 310 + + Burnside, Gen. A. E., 252 + + Byron, Lord, 84 + + Calhoun, John C., 12; + early career, 46, 47; + nullification, 51; + government and sovereignty, 52; + mistakes of, 59; + influence on non-slaveholding South, 196; + political doctrine of, in church affairs, 204-205 + + Carlisle, Lord, 144 + + Carlyle, Thomas, 100, 107, 236-238, 311-312 + + Carpet-baggers, 259 + + Cervantes, 325 + + Channing, Wm. E., 74, 75, 81, 104 + + Charles I, 23, 42 + + Charles II, 23 + + Chase, Salmon P., 141 + + Christian Commission, 272 + + Clay, Henry, 52, 61, 289 + + Cobden, Richard, 222, 238 + + Columbus, Christopher, 291 + + Columbus, Ky., 253 + + Congregationalism and State sovereignty, 204-205 + + Constitution, the, 206 + + Convention of 1776, 23 + + Cooper, Peter, 182 + + Cotton, 26-29, 49, 222-224 + + Cushing, Lieut. W. B., 245 + + + Dante, 95, 251, 290, 318, 325 + + Darwin, Charles, 291, 301 + + Davis, Jefferson, Stephens' opinion of, 203; + early career, 206; + as Confederate president, 206 + + De Bau on slave trade, 20 + + Declaration of Independence, 25 + + Demetrius, 87 + + Democracy, advance of, 5 + + Demosthenes, 14, 213 + + Dickens, Charles, novels of reform, 139; + praises "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 143; + predicts Confederate success, 238 + + Donelson, Fort, 246 + + Douglass, Frederick, 34 + + Douglas, Stephen A., + as orator, 69; + early career, 165-166; + supports Polk, 167; + proposes "squatter sovereignty," 169; + loses prestige, 170-172; + challenged to debate by Lincoln, 173; + compared with Lincoln, 174-177; + the great debate, 178-181; + nominated for presidency, 184; + supports Union, 185; + death, 185; + and Northern Democrats in 1861, 193 + + Dutch revolt, 264 + + Dwight, President Yale College, 46 + + Dyer, Oliver, 48 + + + Edwards, Jonathan, 21 + + Eliot, George, 146, 148 + + England, 26, 49; + source of American principles, 218; + as to wars, 220; + why favourable to South, 221-224; + non-voters of, favoured North, 225; + Beecher in, 218-221, 227-235, 239-241 + + English Anti-Slavery Society, 227 + + Emerson, Ralph W., 68, 96, 236, 285 + + Everett, Edward, 69, 106, 315 + + Ewell, Gen. Richard S., 245 + + + Faneuil Hall, 81, 85 + + Farragut, Admiral David, 196, 246-247 + + Fillmore, Millard, 101 + + Florida, secession, 189 + + Floyd, John B., 189 + + Foote, Admiral Andrew H., 246 + + Fort Fisher, 247 + + Forts Donelson and Henry, 246 + + Fort Sumter, 191, 208, 241 + + Franklin, Benjamin, 34 + + Fremont, Gen. J. C., 215, 246 + + Fugitive Slave legislation, 36, 87, 214 + + Fulton Street prayer-meeting, 162 + + + Garrison, Wm. Lloyd and W. Phillips, Chapter III, 68-94; + the pen for abolition, 68; + early career, 69; + begins agitation with Lundy, 70; + starts Liberator, 1831, 71; + accused of Turner uprising, 72; + organized American Anti-Slavery Society, 74; + mobbed in Boston, 76; + satisfied with Lincoln's emancipation, 93 + + Geneva Arbitration, 225 + + George III, 24 + + Gladstone, W. E., 225 + + Gordon, Gen. J. B., 271, 285-286 + + Government contracts, 282-283 + + Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 246, 248; + early career, 252; + rapid promotion, 253; + Columbus, Donelson and Vicksburg, 254; + military genius, 255; + final campaign, 250; + Appomattox, 257-258; + President, 259; + political and financial problems, 259-260; + unwise speculation, 261; + authorship, 261; + character and death, 261-262 + + Great men, era of, 292-293 + + Great Rebellion, the, 11-13; + war of the, 265 + + Greeley, Horace, 54, 182, 183; + Chapter V, 117-135; + early career, 122-126; + founds N. Y. Tribune, 126; + extremist as reformer, 129; + "On to Richmond," 129; + evokes Lincoln letter, 130; + peace commissioner, 131; + draft riots, 131; + bails Davis, 132; + Democratic presidential candidate, 133; + dies, 134-135; + and Lincoln, 299, 305 + + Greenback craze, 260 + + Greene, Mrs. Nathanael, 27 + + Grinnell, James B., 150 + + Grote, George, 107 + + + Halleck, Gen. H. W., 253 + + Hampden, John, 42, 83 + + Hancock, John, 83 + + Hastings, Warren, 213 + + Hay, John, 218 + + Hayne, Robert Y., 41, 51, 56, 163 + + Hayti, 69 + + Heine, Heinrich, 144 + + Helper, Hinton Rowan, 197 + + Helps, Arthur, 144 + + Henry, Fort, 246 + + Henry, Patrick, 68, 191, 213 + + Hessian troops, 268 + + Higginson, T. W., 85 + + Hill, Frederic T., 242 + + Hill, Gen. A. P., 245 + + Hill, Gen. D. H., 245 + + Holland, 15, 41, 264 + + Homer, 326 + + Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 251 + + Howe, Dr. Samuel G., 104 + + + "Imitation of Christ, The," 143 + + "Impending Crisis, The," 197 + + Irving, Washington, 74 + + + Jackson, Andrew, 293 + + Jackson, Thomas J. (Stonewall), 200-202, 244, 245, 268 + + Jamestown, Va., 17 + + Japanese sanitation in war, 272 + + Jefferson, Thomas, 20, 24, 25, 53, 191 + + Jeffrey, Lord, 107 + + Jesus, parables of, 315; + martyrdom of, 325 + + Johnson, Samuel, 312 + + Johnston, Gen. A. S., 244 + + Johnston, Gen. J. E., 242 + + + Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 88, 169, 172 + + _Kearsarge_, the, 246 + + Kemble, Fanny, 32 + + Kenesaw Mountain, 242 + + Kentucky, 196 + + Kingsley, Charles, 144 + + + Laud, Archbishop, 42 + + Lawless, Judge, 79 + + Lee, Robert E., + honour to Virginia, 194; + early career, 199; + as strategist, 244; + final campaign against Grant, 256; + Appomattox, 257-258; + quoted, 285-286 + + _Liberator_, the, 71-73 + + Lincoln, Abraham, new force, 163; + challenges Douglas to debate, 173; + compared with Douglas, 174-176; + "divided-house speech," 177; + the great debate, 177-180; + Cooper Institute speech, 181-183; + presidential nomination, 183; + election and inauguration, 186-187; + inaugural address, 190; + calls for 75,000 troops, 193; + applauds Beecher, 212; + interview with Beecher, 218; + quoted, 286-287; + the Martyred President, Chapter XII, 288-326; + Americanism, 288-289; + three books, 290; + career, in brief, 296-298; + opposes Seward, Stanton and Greeley, 299; + ancestry, 300-303; + opposes Phillips, Greeley and Beecher, 304-306; + honesty, 307-308; + literary style, 309-315; + concentrated culture, 314-315; + with Everett at Gettysburg, 315; + made great by great events, 317-318; + characteristics, 319-320; + religious faith, 321-323; + death, 325 + + Lincoln and Douglas, the Great Debate, Chapter VII, 159-186 + + London, 16, 18, 235 + + _Log Cabin_, the, 125 + + Longfellow, H. W., 104, 273 + + Longstreet, Gen. James, 244 + + Loring, U. S. Commissioner, 84 + + Louisiana, secession, 189 + + Lovejoy, Rev. E. P., murder of, 78-80 + + Lowell, James R., 94, 99-102, 282, 284 + + Lundy, Benjamin, 69-70 + + Luther, Martin, 115 + + + Macaulay, T. B., 107, 280 + + McClellan, Gen. G. B., 250-252 + + Machiavelli, 307 + + McKinley, William, 289 + + Mammonism, 6 + + Mann, Horace, 63, 106 + + Mansfield, Lord, 24 + + Marshall, Thomas, 46 + + Martineau, Harriet, 113 + + Mason, James M., 225 + + Medill, Joseph, 179 + + _Merrimac_, the, 245 + + Mexican War, 167, 252 + + Michael Angelo, 318 + + Milton, John, 16, 93, 318, 326 + + Mississippi, secession, 189 + + Missouri Compromise, 169 + + Mobile Bay, 247 + + _Monitor_, the, 245 + + Morton, Governor of Indiana, 273 + + Moses, 36 + + Motley, John L., 75, 96 + + + Napoleon, 242 + + _National Era_, the, 143 + + Negro, as faithful servant, as soldier, 259-260; + as voter, 281 + + New Orleans taken, 247 + + Newspapers, in 1861-1865, 118, 119 + + Newton, Isaac, 291 + + _New Yorker_, the, 125 + + _New York Tribune_, 126-128 + + Northern officers of Southern birth, 196 + + Northern resources, 274-279 + + Nullification, 51, 54 + + Nurses, 272-274 + + + Otis, James, 83 + + + Palestine, 41 + + Panic of 1857, 160-161 + + Parke, Judge, 107 + + Parker, Theodore, 84, 85 + + Parliament House of Peace, 110 + + Paul, the Apostle, 326 + + Penn, William, 22 + + People at Home during the war, Chapter XI, 263-287 + + Philip of Macedon, 15, 213 + + Philip of Spain, 15 + + Phillips, Wendell, 63; + Chapter III, 68-94; + early career, 75; + aroused by mobbing of Garrison, 76; + Lovejoy's murder, 78; + Faneuil Hall meeting, 81-83; + Burns' rescue party, 85, 86; + agitation against Fugitive Slave Law, 87, 88; + Phillips' lecturing, 89; + oratory, 90; + defiance of mobs, 91-92; + influence, 93; + Lowell's poem, 94; + quoted, 285 + + "Pilgrim's Progress, The," 143 + + Plymouth Church, 91, 163, 181, 204, 218, 235 + + Plymouth Rock, 17 + + Popular sovereignty, 170 + + Porter, Admiral D. D., 247 + + Port Hudson, 247 + + Portuguese slave-traders, 19 + + Postal affairs, during Revolution, 120; + in Jackson's time, 121 + + Presbyterianism and Federal government, 205 + + Prescott, Wm. H., 96, 106 + + Prison-ship martyrs, 264 + + Prison sufferings, 269-271 + + Pym, John, 42 + + + Quincy, Josiah, 53, 83, 213 + + + Randolph, John, 32 + + Raphael, 318 + + Religious sentiment increased, 284 + + Revival of religion in 1857, 161-162 + + Rhodes, J. F., 60, 162, 202 + + "Romola," 146 + + Ruskin, John, 310 + + Russo-Japanese War, 210 + + + Sand, George, 144 + + Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission, 272 + + Savonarola, 325-326 + + Scheffer, Ary, and Christ the Emancipator, 296 + + Scott, Winfield, 196 + + Secession, first threatened by Massachusetts, 52, 53; + reasons for, Chapter VIII, 188-211; + of South Carolina and other States, 189; + why not accepted by North, 207-209; + early rebellions of, 294-295 + + Semmes, Com. Raphael, 245 + + Seward, Wm. H., 128, 183, 184, 217, 299 + + Shaftesbury, Lord, 144, 145 + + Shays' rebellion, 293 + + Shenandoah Valley, 250 + + Sheridan, Gen. Philip, 248, 250 + + Sherman, Gen. W. T., 242, 248-249 + + Slavery, American, Chapter I, 11-39; + Calhoun's view of, 55; + controlled government in 1860, 188; + attacked by North Carolinian, 196; + destroyed vigour of South, 210; + to be paid for by war, 287 + + Slave-trade begins, 17 + + Slidell, John, 225 + + Smith, Sidney, 107 + + Socrates, 263, 301 + + South Carolina, and the tariff, 50; + nullification + doctrine of, 51; + attacked Sumter, 191 + + Southern destitution, 267 + + Southern officers of Northern birth, 195 + + Southern resources, 279, 280 + + Southern women, 266-268, 281 + + Spanish slave-traders, 19 + + "Squatter sovereignty," 169 + + Stanton, Edwin M., 235, 240, 299 + + Stead, William, 99 + + Stephens, Alexander H., 201; + opposes secession, 202; + Confederate vice-president, 203; + opinion of Davis, 203 + + Story, Joseph, 75, 104 + + Stowe, Calvin E., 139 + + Stowe, Charles E., 139 + + Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Chapter VI, 136-148; + daughter of Lyman Beecher, 138; + married, lived in Cincinnati, 139; + wrote death of "Uncle Tom," 141; + "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 143-148 + + Stowe, Lyman Beecher, 139 + + Stradivarius, 301 + + Sumner, Charles, 54, 75; + Chapter IV, 95-116; + succeeds Webster in United States Senate, 102; + early career, 104-110; + oration on war, 107-109; + boldly attacks slavery, 110-113; + beaten by Brooks, 113; + characterization, 114-116 + + Surgeons, 272-274 + + + Taney, Roger B., 186 + + Tariff, the, 48-50 + + Texas, secession, 189 + + Thackeray, W. M., 148 + + Thomas, Gen. G. H., 196, 248 + + _Times_, the London, 230 + + Tombs, Robert, 137 + + _Trent_, the, 225 + + _Tribune Almanac_, 128 + + _Tribune, The New York_, 126-128 + + _Tribune_ reporter and John Brown, 153 + + Turner, Nat, 34 + + + "Uncle Tom," death of, 141 + + "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 143-148 + + + "Vanity Fair," 148 + + Van Zandt, frees slaves, 140 + + Vaughan, Judge, 107 + + Vicksburg, 247 + + Victoria, Queen, 146, 226 + + + War, good and evil influence of the, 281-285 + + Washburne, E. B., 179 + + Washington, George, 24, 191; + contrast with Lincoln, 288-289 + + Watt, James, 110, 291 + + Webster and Calhoun, Chapter II, 40-67 + + Webster, Daniel, 12; + early career, 44, 45; + answers Hayne, 56-58; + answers Calhoun, 60, 61; + 7th of March speech, 61-63; + Lincoln approves, 64; + + Webster dies, 66; + as orator, 69, 164, 292; + banner of, 295 + + Wellington, 242 + + Whiskey rebellion, 293 + + Whitefield, George, 21 + + Whitney, Eli, 27-29, 45 + + Whittier, John G., 63, 69, 96, 106, 285 + + Winchester and Sheridan, 250 + + Winslow, Admiral John A., 246 + + Winthrop, Robert, 273 + + Wirtz, Henry, 270 + + Wise, Governor of Virginia, 155-156 + + Worden, Admiral John L., 245 + + Wordsworth, Wm., 107 + + + Xenophon, 264 + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "Harriet Beecher Stowe: The Story of Her Life." By Charles E. Stowe +and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. + +[2] "On the Trail of Grant and Lee," by Frederic Trevor Hill: New York +and London, D. 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