CHAPTER XI

The year 1858 is memorable alike in the career of Lincoln and in the political history of the country. It was distinguished by the joint discussions between the two great political leaders of Illinois, which rank among the ablest forensic debates that have taken place since the foundation of the republic. The occasion was one to call out the greatest powers of the two remarkable men who there contested for political supremacy. It was not alone that Lincoln and Douglas were opposing candidates for a high office—that of Senator of the United States: they were the champions and spokesmen of their parties at a critical period when great issues were to be discussed and great movements outlined and directed. It was naturally expected that the winner in the contest would become the political leader of his State. Little was it imagined that the loser would become the leader and savior of the Nation.

On the 21st of April the Democratic convention of Illinois met at Springfield and announced Stephen A. Douglas, then United States Senator, as its choice for another term. June 16 the Republican convention met at the same place and declared unanimously that “Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States 178Senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas’s term of office.” For a number of days previous to the meeting of the Republican convention Lincoln had been engaged in preparing a speech for the occasion. It was composed after his usual method—the separate thoughts jotted down as they came to him, on scraps of paper at hand at the moment, and these notes were arranged in order and elaborated into a finished essay, copied on large sheets of paper in a plain and legible handwriting. This was the speech which afterwards came to be so celebrated as the “house-divided-against-itself” speech. Lincoln was gravely conscious of its unusual importance, and gave great care and deliberation to its composition. The evening of June 16—the day of his nomination by the convention—Lincoln went to his office, accompanied by his friend Herndon, and having locked the door proceeded to read his speech. Slowly and distinctly he read the first paragraph, and then turned to Herndon with, “What do you think of that?” Mr. Herndon was startled at its boldness. “I think,” said he, “it is all true. But is it entirely politic to read or speak it as it is written?” “That makes no difference,” said Lincoln. “That expression is a truth of all human experience,—’a house divided against itself cannot stand.’ The proposition is indisputably true, and has been true for more than six thousand years; I want to use some universally known figure, expressed in simple language, that may strike home to the minds of men in order to rouse them to the peril of the times.” Mr. Herndon was convinced by Lincoln’s language, and advised him to deliver the speech just as it was written. Lincoln was satisfied, but thought it would be prudent to consult a few other friends in the matter, and about a dozen were called in. “After seating them at the round table,” says John Armstrong, one of the number, “he read that clause or section of his speech which reads, ‘a 179house divided against itself cannot stand,’ etc. He read it slowly and cautiously, so as to let each man fully understand it. After he had finished the reading, he asked the opinions of his friends as to the wisdom or policy of it. Every man among them condemned the speech in substance and spirit, especially that section quoted above, as unwise and impolitic if not untrue. They unanimously declared that the whole speech was too far in advance of the times. Herndon sat still while they were giving their respective opinions of its unwisdom and impolicy; then he sprang to his feet and said, ‘Lincoln, deliver it just as it reads. If it is in advance of the times, let us lift the people to its level. The speech is true, wise, and politic, and will succeed now or in the future. Nay, it will aid you, if it will not make you President of the United States.’ Mr. Lincoln sat still a moment, then rose from his chair, walked backwards and forwards in the hall, stopped, and said: ‘Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the questions from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when this speech should be uttered; and if it be that I must go down because of it, then let me go down linked to truth—die in the advocacy of what is right and just. This nation cannot live on injustice; “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” I say again and again.’ This was spoken with emotion—the effects of his love of truth, and sorrow from the disagreement of his friends.”

On the next evening the speech was delivered to an immense audience in the hall of the House of Representatives at Springfield. “The hall and lobbies and galleries were even more densely crowded and packed than at any time during the day,” says the official report; and as Lincoln “approached the speaker’s stand, he was greeted with shouts and hurrahs, and prolonged cheers.” The prophetic sentences which dropped first from the lips of 180the speaker were freighted with a solemn import which even he could scarcely have divined in full. The seers of old were not more inspired than he who now, out of the irresistible conviction of his heart, said to his surprised and unbelieving listeners:

Mr. Jeriah Bonham, an old citizen of Illinois, relates that he was present as a delegate at the Springfield convention and heard the famous speech of Lincoln. According to Mr. Bonham, “The speech was prepared with unusual care, every paragraph and sentence carefully weighed. The firm bedrock of principles, the issues of the campaign on which he proposed to stand and fight his battles, were all well considered, and his arguments were incontrovertible. In that memorable speech culminated all the grand thoughts he had ever uttered, embodying divinity, statesmanship, law, and morals, and even fraught with prophecy. As he advanced in this argument he towered to his full height, forgetting himself entirely as he grew warm in his work. Men and women 181who heard that speech well remember the wonderful transformation wrought in Lincoln’s appearance. The plain, homely man towered up majestically; his face lit as with angelic light; the long, bent, angular figure, like the strong oak of the forest, stood erect, and his eyes flashed with the fire of inspiration.”

The party that had nominated Lincoln for the Senate was not prepared to endorse his restriction of the coming struggle to the single issue of the slavery question. His friends dreaded the result of his uncompromising frankness, while politicians quite generally condemned it. Even so stanch a friend as Leonard Swett, whose devotion to Lincoln never wavered throughout his whole career, shared these apprehensions. Says Mr. Swett: “The first ten lines of that speech defeated him. The sentiment of the ‘house divided against itself’ seemed wholly inappropriate. It was a speech made at the commencement of a campaign, and apparently made for the campaign. Viewing it in this light alone, nothing could have been more unfortunate or inappropriate. It was saying the wrong thing first; yet he felt that it was an abstract truth, and that standing by the speech would ultimately find him in the right place. I was inclined at the time to believe these words were hastily and inconsiderately uttered; but subsequent facts have convinced me they were deliberate and had been well matured.”

A few days after the delivery of this speech, a gentleman named Dr. Long called on Lincoln and gave him a foretaste of the remarks he was to hear during the next few months. “Well, Lincoln,” said he, “that foolish speech of yours will kill you—will defeat you in this contest, and probably for all offices for all time to come. I am sorry, sorry, very sorry. I wish it was wiped out of existence. Don’t you wish so too?” Laying down the pen with which he had been writing, and slowly raising his head and adjusting his spectacles, Lincoln182replied: “Well, Doctor, if I had to draw a pen across and erase my whole life from existence, and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech, and leave it to the world unerased.”

The Senatorial campaign was now well begun. Douglas opened it by a speech at Chicago on the 9th of July. Lincoln was present, and on the next evening spoke in reply from the same place—the balcony of the Tremont House. A week later Douglas spoke at Bloomington, with Lincoln again in the audience. The notion of a joint discussion seems to have originated with Lincoln, who on the 24th of July addressed a note to Douglas as follows:

The result of this proposal was an agreement that there should be a joint discussion between the two candidates in each of the seven Congressional districts in which they had not both already been heard. Places were named and dates fixed extending to the middle of October. It was agreed that the opening speech on each occasion should occupy one hour; the reply, one hour and a half; the close, half an hour; and that Mr. Douglas should have the first and last voice in four of the seven meetings.

The champions who were thus to enter the lists in a decisive trial of forensic strength and skill are forcibly contrasted by Mr. Speed, who says: “They were the respective leaders of their parties in the State. They were as opposite in character as they were unlike in their persons. Lincoln was long and ungainly; Douglas was short and compact. Douglas, in all elections, was the 183moving spirit and manager. He was content with nothing short of a blind submission to himself. He could not tolerate opposition to his will within his party organization. He held the reins and controlled the movements of the Democratic chariot. With a large State majority, with many able and ambitious men in it, he stepped to the front in his youth and held his place till his death. Lincoln, on the other hand, shrank from any controversy with his friends. His party being in a minority in the State, he was forced to the front because his friends thought he was the only man with whom they could win. In a canvass his friends had to do all the management. He knew nothing of how to reach the people except by addressing their reason. If the situation had been reversed—Lincoln representing the majority and Douglas the minority—I think it most likely Lincoln would never have had the place. He had no heart for a fight with friends.”

The Hon. James G. Blaine has given a masterly description and analysis of the comparative powers of the two illustrious debaters. Douglas, says Mr. Blaine, “was everywhere known as a debater of singular skill. His mind was fertile in resources. He was a master of logic. No man perceived more quickly than he the strength or the weakness of an argument, and no one excelled him in the use of sophistry and fallacy. Where he could not elucidate a point to his own advantage, he would fatally becloud it for his opponent. In that peculiar style of debate which in intensity resembles a physical combat, he had no equal. He spoke with extraordinary readiness. There was no halting in his phrase. He used good English, terse, vigorous, pointed. He disregarded the adornments of rhetoric—rarely used a simile. He was utterly destitute of humor, and had slight appreciation of wit. He never cited historical precedents except from the domain of American politics. 184Inside that field his knowledge was comprehensive, minute, critical; beyond it his learning was limited. He was not a reader. His recreations were not in literature. In the whole range of his voluminous speaking, it would be difficult to find either a line of poetry or a classical allusion. But he was by nature an orator, and by long practice a debater. He could lead a crowd almost irresistibly to his own conclusions. He could, if he wished, incite a mob to desperate deeds. He was, in short, an able, audacious, almost unconquerable opponent in public discussion. It would have been impossible to find any man of the same type able to meet him before the people of Illinois. Whoever attempted it would probably have been destroyed in the first encounter. But the man who was chosen to meet him, who challenged him to the combat, was radically different in every phase of character. Scarcely could two men be more unlike in mental and moral constitution than Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln was calm and philosophic. He loved the truth for the truth’s sake. He would not argue from a false premise, or be deceived himself or deceive others by a false conclusion. He had pondered deeply on the issues which aroused him to action. He had given anxious thought to the problems of free government, and to the destiny of the Republic. He had marked out a path of duty for himself, and he walked it fearlessly. His mental processes were slower but more profound than those of Douglas. He did not seek to say merely the thing which was best for that day’s debate, but the thing which would stand the test of time and square itself with eternal justice. He wished nothing to appear white unless it was white. His logic was severe and faultless. He did not resort to fallacy, and could detect it in his opponent and expose it with merciless directness. He had an abounding sense of humor, and always employed it in illustration of his 185argument—but never for the mere sake of provoking merriment. In this respect he had the wonderful aptness of Franklin. He often taught a great truth with the felicitous brevity of an Aesop fable. His words did not flow in an impetuous torrent, as did those of Douglas; but they were always well chosen, deliberate and conclusive.”

Mr. Arnold, in the course of an extended comparison, says: “At the time of these discussions, both Lincoln and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. Douglas was forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years of age. Physically and mentally, they were as unlike as possible. Douglas was short, not much more than five feet high, with a large head, massive brain, broad shoulders, a wide, deep chest, and features strongly marked. He impressed every one, at first sight, as a strong, sturdy, resolute, fearless man. Lincoln’s herculean stature has already been described. A stranger who listened to him for five minutes would say: ‘This is a kind, genial, sincere, genuine man; a man you can trust, plain, straightforward, honest, and true.’ If this stranger were to hear him make a speech, he would be impressed with his clear good sense, by his wit and humor, by his general intelligence, and by the simple, homely, but pure and accurate language he used. In his long residence at Washington, Douglas had acquired the bearing and manners of a gentleman and a man of the world. But he was always a fascinating and attractive man, and always and everywhere personally popular. He had been for years carefully and thoroughly trained on the stump, in Congress, and in the Senate, to meet in debate the ablest speakers in the State and Nation. For years he had been accustomed to meet on the floor of the Capitol the leaders of the old Whig and Free-soil parties. Among them were Webster and Seward, Fessenden and Crittenden, Chase, Trumbull, Hale and others of nearly equal eminence; and his enthusiastic friends insisted that never, either in single 186conflict or when receiving the assault of the senatorial leaders of a whole party, had he been discomfited. His style was bold, vigorous, and aggressive; at times even defiant. He was ready, fluent, fertile in resources, familiar with national and party history, severe in denunciation, and he handled with skill nearly all the weapons of debate. His iron will and restless energy, together with great personal magnetism, made him the idol of his friends and party. His long, brilliant, and almost universally successful career, gave him perfect confidence in himself, and at times he was arrogant and overbearing…. Lincoln also was a thoroughly trained speaker. He had met successfully, year after year, at the bar and on the stump, the ablest men of Illinois and the Northwest, including Lamborn, Stephen T. Logan, John Calhoun, and many others. He had contended, in generous emulation, with Hardin, Baker, Logan, and Browning; and had very often met Douglas, a conflict with whom he always courted rather than shunned. His speeches, as we read them to-day, show a more familiar knowledge of the slavery question than those of any other statesman of our country. This is especially true of the Peoria speech and the Cooper Institute speech. Lincoln was powerful in argument, always seizing the strong points, and demonstrating his propositions with a clearness and logic approaching the certainty of mathematics. He had, in wit and humor, a great advantage over Douglas. Then he had the better temper; he was always good humored, while Douglas, when hard pressed, was sometimes irritable. Douglas perhaps carried away the more popular applause; Lincoln made the deeper and more lasting impression. Douglas did not disdain an immediate ad captandum triumph; while Lincoln aimed at permanent conviction. Sometimes, when Lincoln’s friends urged him to raise a storm of applause, which he could always do by his happy illustrations and amusing stories, he refused, saying, 187′The occasion is too serious; the issues are too grave. I do not seek applause, or to amuse the people, but to convince them.’ It was observed in the canvass that while Douglas was greeted with the loudest cheers, when Lincoln closed the people seemed serious and thoughtful, and could be heard all through the crowd, gravely and anxiously discussing the subjects on which he had been speaking.”

Soon after the arrangements for the debate had been made, Senator Douglas visited Alton, Illinois. A delegation of prominent Democrats there paid their respects to him, and during the conversation one of them congratulated Douglas on the easy task he would have in defeating Lincoln; at the same time expressing surprise at the champion whom he had selected. Douglas replied: “Gentlemen, you do not know Mr. Lincoln. I have known him long and well, and I know that I shall have anything but an easy task. I assure you I would rather meet any other man in the country than Abraham Lincoln.” This was Douglas’s mature opinion of the man of whom, years before, he had said, in his characteristic way: “Of all the d——d Whig rascals about Springfield, Abe Lincoln is the ablest and honestest.” On another occasion, Douglas said: “I have known Lincoln for nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy between us when we first got acquainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in the world’s goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything they undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made as good bedsteads and tables as I could—although my old boss says that I succeeded 188better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else. But I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him because of the up-hill struggle we both had had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys in wrestling or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or pitching a copper; and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present. I sympathized with him because he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served with me in the Legislature of 1836; then we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, and the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned up as a Member of Congress from the Sangamon district. I was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to welcome my old friend.”

Lincoln, in a speech delivered two years before the joint debate, had spoken thus of Senator Douglas: “Twenty-two years ago, Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted; we were both young then—he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious—I perhaps quite as much as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure—a flat failure; with him, it has been one of splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not unknown even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; so reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch’s brow.”

A few days before the first discussion was to take place, 189Lincoln, who had become conscious that some of his party friends distrusted his ability to meet successfully a man who, as the Democrats declared and believed, had never had his equal on the stump, met an old friend from Vermilion County, and, shaking hands, inquired the news. His friend replied, “All looks well; our friends are wide awake, but they are looking forward with some anxiety to these approaching joint discussions with Douglas.” A shade passed over Lincoln’s face, a sad expression came and instantly passed, and then a blaze of light flashed from his eyes, and with his lips compressed and in a manner peculiar to him, half serious and half jocular, he said: “My friend, sit down a minute, and I will tell you a story. You and I, as we have travelled the circuit together attending court, have often seen two men about to fight. One of them, the big or the little giant, as the case may be, is noisy and boastful; he jumps high in the air, strikes his feet together, smites his fists, brags about what he is going to do, and tries hard to ‘skeer‘ the other man. The other man says not a word; his arms are at his side, his fists are clenched, his teeth set, his head settled firmly on his shoulders; he saves his breath and strength for the struggle. This man will whip, as sure as the fight comes off. Good-bye, and remember what I say.”

The spirit and purpose with which Lincoln went into the contest are shown also in the following words: “I shall not ask any favors at all. Judge Douglas asks me if I wish to push this matter to the point of personal difficulty. I tell him, No! He did not make a mistake, in one of his early speeches, when he called me an ‘amiable’ man, though perhaps he did when he called me an ‘intelligent’ man. I again tell him, No! I very much prefer, when this canvass shall be over, however it may result, that we at least part without any bitter recollections of personal difficulties.”

190The speeches in these joint discussions were entirely extemporaneous in form, yet they were reported and printed in all the prominent papers in the West, and found eager readers throughout the country. The voice and manner, which add so much to the effect of a speaker, could not be reproduced on the printed page; nor could full justice be done, in a hasty transcript, to the force and fitness of the language employed. Still, the impressions of those who heard them at the time, as well as later and cooler analyses of them, have agreed in pronouncing these debates among the most able and interesting on record. The scenes connected with the different meetings were intensely exciting. Vast throngs were invariably in attendance, while a whole nation was watching the result. “At Freeport,” says an observer, “Mr. Douglas appeared in an elegant barouche drawn by four white horses, and was received with great applause. But when Mr. Lincoln came up, in a ‘prairie schooner,’—an old-fashioned canvas-covered pioneer wagon,—the enthusiasm of the vast throng was unbounded.”

At Charleston Lincoln opened and closed the day’s debate. It was the fourth discussion, and there was no more doubt of his ability to sustain the conflict. According to Mr. Arnold, “Douglas’s reply to Lincoln was mainly a defense. Lincoln’s close was intensely interesting and dramatic. His logic and arguments were crushing, and Douglas’s evasions were exposed with a power and clearness that left him utterly discomfited. Republicans saw it. Democrats realized it, and a sort of panic seized them, and ran through the crowd of upturned faces. Douglas realized his defeat, and, as Lincoln’s blows fell fast and heavy, he lost his temper. He could not keep his seat; he rose and walked rapidly up and down the platform, behind Lincoln, holding his watch in his hand, and obviously impatient for the call of ‘time.’ A spectator says: ‘He was greatly agitated, his long 191grizzled hair waving in the wind, like the shaggy locks of an enraged lion.’ It was while Douglas was thus exhibiting to the crowd his eager desire to stop Lincoln, that the latter, holding the audience entranced by his eloquence, was striking his heaviest blows. The instant the secondhand of his watch reached the point at which Lincoln’s time was up, Douglas, holding up the watch, called out: ‘Sit down, Lincoln, sit down! Your time is up!’ Turning to Douglas, Lincoln said calmly: ‘I will. I will quit. I believe my time is up.’ ‘Yes,’ said a voice from the platform, ‘Douglas has had enough; it is time you let up on him.’”

The institution of slavery was, of course, the topic around which circled all the arguments in these joint discussions. It was the great topic of the hour—the important point of division between the Republican and Democratic parties. Lincoln’s exposition of the subject was profound and masterly. At the meeting in Quincy the issue was defined and the argument driven home with unsparing logic and directness. In closing the debate, he said:

In these debates Lincoln often seemed like one transfigured—carried away by his own eloquence and the force of his conviction. He said to a friend during the canvass: “Sometimes, in the excitement of speaking, I seem to see the end of slavery. I feel that the time is soon coming when the sun shall shine, the rain shall fall, on no man who shall go forth to unrequited toil…. How this will come, when it will come, by whom it will come, I cannot tell;—but that time will surely come.” Again, at the first encounter at Alton, he uttered these pregnant sentences:

On still another occasion he used these unmistakable words:

It is not in the scope of this narrative to print extended quotations from the speeches made in this memorable contest, but rather to give such reminiscences and anecdotes, and description by eye-witnesses, as will best serve to bring the scenes and actors vividly to mind. Fortunately, many such records are still in existence, and from them some most entertaining personal accounts have been obtained. Among these is an impressive pen-picture of Lincoln on the stump, as admirably sketched by the Rev. Dr. George C. Noyes, of Chicago. “Mr. Lincoln in repose,” says Dr. Noyes, “was a very different man in personal appearance from Mr. Lincoln on the platform or on the stump, when his whole nature was roused by his masterful interest in the subject of his discourse. In the former case he was, as has often been described, a man of awkward and ungainly appearance and exceedingly homely countenance. In the latter case, he was a man of magnificent presence and remarkably impressive manner. The writer retains to this day a very vivid impression of his appearance in both these characters, and both on the same day. It was in Jacksonville, in the summer of 1858, and during the great contest with Douglas, when the prize contended for was a seat in the United States Senate. The day was warm; the streets were dusty, and filled with great crowds of people. When Lincoln arrived on the train from Springfield, he was met by an immense procession of people on horseback, in carriages, in wagons and vehicles of every description, and on foot, who escorted him through the principal streets to his hotel. The enthusiasm of the multitude 195was great; but Lincoln’s extremely homely face wore an expression of sadness. He rode in a carriage near the head of the procession, looking dust-begrimed and worn and weary; and though he frequently lifted his hat in recognition of the cheers of the crowds lining the streets, I saw no smile on his face, and he seemed to take no pleasure in the demonstrations of enthusiasm which his presence called forth. His clothes were very ill-fitting, and his long arms and hands protruded far through his coat sleeves, giving him a peculiarly uncouth appearance. Though I had often seen him before, and had heard him in court—always with delight in his clearness and cogency of statement, his illuminating humor, and his conspicuous fairness and candor—yet I had never before seen him when he appeared so homely; and I thought him about the ugliest man I had ever seen. There was nothing in his looks or manner that was prepossessing. Such he appeared as he rode in the procession on the forenoon of that warm summer day. His appearance was not different in the afternoon of that day, when, in the public square, he first stood before the great multitude who had assembled there to hear him. His powers were aroused gradually as he went on with his speech. There was much play of humor. ‘Judge Douglas has,’ he said, ‘one great advantage of me in this contest. When he stands before his admiring friends, who gather in great numbers to hear him, they can easily see, with half an eye, all kinds of fat offices sprouting out of his fat and jocund face, and, indeed, from every part of his plump and well-rounded body. His appearance is therefore irresistibly attractive. His friends expect him to be President, and they expect their reward. But when I stand before the people, not the sharpest vision is able to detect in my lean and lank person, or in my sunken and hollow cheeks, the faintest sign or promise of an office. I am not a candidate for the Presidency, and hence there 196is no beauty in me that men should desire me.’ The crowd was convulsed with laughter at this sally. As the speech went on, the speaker, though often impressing his points with apposite and laughter-provoking stories, grew more and more earnest. He showed that the government was founded in the interest of freedom, not slavery. He traced the steady aggressions of the slave power step by step, until he came to declare and to dwell upon the fact of the irrepressible conflict between the two. Then, as he went on to show, with wonderful eloquence of speech and of manner, that the country must and would ultimately become, not all slave, but all free, he was transfigured before his audience. His homely countenance fairly glowed with the splendor of his prophetic speech; and his body, no longer awkward and ungainly, but mastered and swayed by his thought, became an obedient and graceful instrument of eloquent expression. The whole man seemed to speak. He seemed like some grand Hebrew prophet, whose face was glorified by the bright visions of a better day which he saw and declared. His eloquence was not merely that of clear and luminous statement, felicitous illustration, or excited yet restrained feeling; it was the eloquence also of thought. With something of the imaginative, he united rare dialectic power. He felt the truth before he expounded it; but when once it was felt by him, then his logical power came into remarkably effective play. Step by step he led his hearers onward, till at last he placed them on the summit whence they could see all the landscape of his subject in harmonious and connected order. Of these two contrasted pictures of Lincoln, it is only the last which shows him as he was in his real and essential greatness. And not this fully; for it was in his character that he was greatest. He was not merely a thinker, but a thinker for man, directing his thought to the ends of justice, freedom, and humanity. If he desired and sought high position, it 197was only that he might thus better serve the cause of freedom to which he was devoted. From the time when he withdrew, in a spirit of magnanimity that was never appreciated, in favor of a rival candidate for the United States Senate, it was evident that the cause was more to him than any personal advantage or advancement.”

Another graphic description of Lincoln’s appearance and manner on the stump is given by Mr. Jeriah Bonham, whose account of the famous “house-divided-against-itself” speech has already found a place in this narrative. “When Mr. Lincoln took the stand,” says Mr. Bonham, “he did not, on rising, show his full height, but stood in a stooping posture, his long-tailed coat hanging loosely around his body, and descending over an ill-fitting pair of pantaloons that covered his not very symmetrical legs. He began his speech in a rather diffident manner, seeming for awhile at a loss for words; his voice was irregular, even a little tremulous, as he began his argument. As he proceeded he seemed to gain more confidence, his form straightened up, his face brightened, his language became free and animated. Soon he had drawn the attention of the crowd by two or three well-told stories that illustrated his argument; and then he became eloquent, carrying his audience at will, as tumultuous applause greeted every telling point he made.”

Mrs. John A. Logan, in her “Recollections of a Soldier’s Wife,” says: “I always like to think of Mr. Lincoln as he was when I saw him with the eyes of an opponent. His awkwardness has not been exaggerated, but it gave no effect of self-consciousness. There was something about his ungainliness and his homely face which would have made anyone who simply passed him in the street remember him. His very awkwardness was an asset in public life, in that it attracted attention to him. Douglas, on the other hand, won by the magnetism of his personality. Lincoln did not seem to have any magnetism, though of 198course he actually did have the rarest and most precious kind. Give Mr. Lincoln five minutes and Mr. Douglas five minutes before an audience which knew neither, and Mr. Douglas would make the greater impression. But give them each an hour, and the contrary would be true.”

In the party that attended Lincoln in the Senatorial campaign was the Hon. Andrew Shuman, afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois and one of the veteran journalists of Chicago. Mr. Shuman was detailed to report the joint debates for his paper; and he accompanied Lincoln through nearly all of the campaign, travelling with him by night—sometimes occupying the same room, and when in crowded quarters the same bed. He thus saw much of Lincoln, and had the best of opportunities for studying his character; not only hearing all his public speeches, but having long conversations with him in private, and listening to the stories, anecdotes, and gay or grave discourse by which the journeys and the frequent “waits” were enlivened. The group consisted of several gentlemen, including Norman B. Judd of Chicago, afterwards a member of Congress; Robert R. Hitt, who was Lincoln’s shorthand reporter, afterwards member of Congress from Illinois; Mr. Villard, later the President of the Northern Pacific Railroad, then a newspaper correspondent; Mr. Shuman; and, at various times, other politicians and journalists. Of this party Lincoln was always the leading spirit in conversation. He would tell stories himself, and draw out stories from others; and his laugh, though not the loudest, was always the heartiest. Then he would pass to soberer themes, and discuss them with a tinge of that melancholy which, however he might be surrounded, never seemed far distant from him. At night, stopping at the country tavern or at some friend’s house, the evenings would be spent in discussion and story-telling, or perhaps in a humorous review of the 199events of the day; and after retiring, Lincoln would entertain his companion, often far into the night, discoursing on many varied subjects,—politics, literature, views of human life and character, or the prominent men and measures then before the country.

One day, according to Governor Shuman, Lincoln had been announced to speak in a town in the extreme southern part of Illinois, in the very heart of “Egypt,” where there was a strong pro-slavery sentiment; and it was feared there might be trouble, as Lincoln’s anti-slavery tendencies were well known. To make matters worse, a party of Kentuckians and Missourians had come over to attend the meeting, and it was noised about that they would not allow Lincoln to speak. He heard of it, and both he and his friends were somewhat apprehensive of trouble. The place of the meeting was a grove in the edge of the town, the speakers occupying an improvised stand. The gathering was a large one, and it had every appearance of a Southern crowd. It was customary in those times for the men in that section of the country to carry pistols and ugly-looking knives strapped to their persons, on public occasions. It was a semi-barbarous community, and their hatred of the Abolitionists, as they called all anti-slavery men, was as intense as was their love of bad whiskey. Lincoln privately told his friends, who in that locality were very few in number, that “if only they will give me a fair chance to say a few opening words, I’ll fix them all right.” Before mounting the speaker’s stand he was introduced to many of the crowd, and shook their hands in the usual Western way. Getting a small company of the rough-looking fellows around him, he opened on them. “Fellow-citizens of Southern Illinois—fellow-citizens of the State of Kentucky—fellow-citizens of Missouri,” he said, in a tone more of conversation than of oratory, looking them straight in the eye, “I am told that there are some of 200you here present who would like to make trouble for me. I don’t understand why they should. I am a plain, common man, like the rest of you; and why should not I have as good a right to speak my sentiments as the rest of you? Why, good friends, I am one of you; I am not an interloper here! I was born in Kentucky, raised in Illinois, just like the most of you, and worked my way right along by hard scratching. I know the people of Kentucky, and I know the people of Southern Illinois, and I think I know the Missourians. I am one of them, and therefore ought to know them, and they ought to know me better, and if they did know me better they would know that I am not disposed to make them trouble; then why should they, or any one of them, want to make trouble for me? Don’t do any such foolish thing, fellow-citizens. Let us be friends, and treat each other like friends. I am one of the humblest and most peaceable men in the world—would wrong no man, would interfere with no man’s rights; and all I ask is that, having something to say, you will give me a decent hearing. And, being Illinoisans, Kentuckians, and Missourians—brave and gallant people—I feel sure that you will do that. And now let us reason together, like the honest fellows we are.” Having uttered these words, his face the very picture of good-nature and his voice full of sympathetic earnestness, he mounted the speaker’s stand and proceeded to make one of the most impressive speeches against the further extension of slavery that he ever made in his life. He was listened to attentively; was applauded when he indulged in flashes of humor, and once or twice his eloquent passages were lustily cheered. His little opening remarks had calmed the threatening storm, had conquered his enemies, and he had smooth sailing. From that day to the time of his death, Abraham Lincoln held a warm place in the respect of very many of those rough and rude “Egyptians,” and he had no warmer 201supporters for the Presidency, or while he was President, than they were.

Mr. Leonard Volk, the sculptor who afterwards made an excellent bust of Lincoln, says: “My first meeting with Abraham Lincoln was in 1858, when the celebrated Senatorial contest opened between him and Stephen A. Douglas. I was invited by the latter to accompany him and his party by a special train to Springfield, to which train was attached a platform-car having on board a cannon, which made considerable noise on the journey. At Bloomington we all stopped over night, as Douglas had a speech to make there in the evening. The party went to the Landon House—the only hotel, I believe, in the place at that time. While we were sitting in the hotel office after supper, Mr. Lincoln entered, carrying an old carpet-bag in his hand, and wearing a weather-beaten silk hat—too large, apparently, for his head—a long, loosely-fitting frock-coat of black alpaca, and vest and trousers of the same material. He walked up to the counter, and, saluting the clerk pleasantly, passed the bag over to him, and inquired if he was too late for supper. The clerk replied that supper was over, but perhaps enough could be ‘scraped up’ for him. ‘All right,’ said Mr. Lincoln; ‘I don’t want much.’ Meanwhile, he said, he would wash the dust off. He was certainly very dusty; it was the month of June, and quite warm. While he was so engaged, several old friends, who had learned of his arrival, rushed in to see him, some of them shouting, ‘How are you, Old Abe?’ Mr. Lincoln grasped them by the hand in his cordial manner, with the broadest and pleasantest smile on his rugged face. This was the first good view I had of the ‘coming man.’ The next day we all stopped at the town of Lincoln, where short speeches were made by the contestants, and dinner was served at the hotel; after which, as Mr. Lincoln came out on the plank-walk in front, I was formally presented 202to him. He saluted me with his natural cordiality, grasping my hand in both his large hands with a vice-like grip, and looking down into my face with his beaming, dark, full eyes, said: ‘How do you do? I am glad to meet you. I have read of you in the papers. You are making a statue of Judge Douglas for Governor Matteson’s new house.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I answered; ‘and sometime when you are in Chicago, and can spare the time, I would like to have you sit to me for a bust.’ ‘Yes, I will, Mr. Volk; I shall be glad to, the first opportunity I have.’ All were soon on board the long train, crowded with people, going to hear the speeches at Springfield. The train stopped on the track, near Edward’s Grove, in the northern outskirts of the town, where staging was erected and a vast crowd waited under the shade of the trees. On leaving the train, most of the passengers climbed over the fences and crossed the stubble-field, taking a short-cut to the grove,—among them Mr. Lincoln, who stalked forward alone, taking immense strides, the before-mentioned carpet-bag and an umbrella in his hands, and his coat skirts flying in the breeze. I managed to keep pretty close in the rear of the tall, gaunt figure, with the head craned forward, apparently much over the balance, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, that was moving something like a hurricane across that rough stubble-field.”

The contest between Lincoln and Douglas seemed to be, as expressed by Dr. Newton Bateman, “one between sharpness and greatness.” Lincoln seemed to Dr. Bateman, “a man strongly possessed by a belief to which he was earnestly striving to win the people over; while the aim of Mr. Douglas seemed rather to be simply to defeat Mr. Lincoln.” Yet, although Lincoln was usually earnest and considerate of his opponent, he could, when occasion required, bring his powers of humor and sarcasm into play in a very effective manner. A few pointed illustrations may be given. In his speech at 203Galesburg, Douglas sneeringly informed the citizens that “Honest Abe” had been a liquor-seller. Lincoln met this with the candid admission that once in early life he had, under the pressure of poverty, accepted and for a few months held a position in a store where it was necessary for him to retail liquor. “But the difference between Judge Douglas and myself is just this,” he added, “that while I was behind the bar, he was in front of it.”

At the close of the joint discussion at Alton, Douglas led off with a speech an hour long, in which he showed no little irritability. The campaign was evidently wearing on him. Lincoln, on the contrary, was in capital spirits. “He sat taking in the speech of Douglas with seeming immobility,” says Mr. Jeriah Bonham, who was present, “and when it was ended, he rose to reply. As in the opening of all his speeches, he spoke slowly, did not rise to his full height, leaning forward in a stooping posture at first, his person showing all the angularities of limb and face. For the first five or ten minutes he was both awkward and diffident, as in almost monotonous tones he began to untangle the meshes of Douglas’s sophistry. Proceeding, he gained confidence gradually; his voice rang out strong and clear; his tall form towered to its full height; his face grew radiant with impassioned feeling, as he poured forth an outburst of crushing argument and inspiring eloquence. The people became wild with enthusiasm, but his voice rang loud above their cheers. Frequently in his speech he would turn toward Douglas, and say with emphasis, ‘You know these things are so, Mr. Douglas!’ or ‘You know these things are not so, Mr. Douglas!’ At one time he bent his long body over his adversary, pouring in his arguments so sharply, that Douglas, chafing under the attack, rose to explain; but Lincoln would not allow it. ‘Sit down, Mr. Douglas!’ said he peremptorily. ‘I did not interrupt you, and you shall not interrupt me. You will have oppor204tunity to reply to me—if you can—in your closing speech.’”

A good story is told of the occasion on which Lincoln and Douglas spoke in Chicago. A well-known citizen who on account of his age was known familiarly as “Father Brewster”—a man of standing, and a member of the Board of Education—was one of the listeners on the platform. Lincoln admired the old gentleman very much, and the admiration was mutual. They sat together while Douglas made the opening speech. He spoke for more than an hour, and never more brilliantly. When Lincoln’s turn came he could see that Father Brewster was exceedingly anxious as to the outcome. Lincoln arose, let out all the joints in his long body, slowly removed his overcoat and laid it across Mr. Brewster’s knees. “Father Brewster,” he said, “will you hold my overcoat while I stone Stephen?” Everybody shouted and cheered, and even Douglas joined in the laugh at his own expense.

Beneath the humors and excitements of the campaign, the prevailing tone of Lincoln’s thought was deeply serious and reflective. Toward the close, when indications pointed to his defeat for the Senate, he seemed somewhat depressed, and occasionally his old habitual melancholy would steal over him and impart to his words a touching pathos. On such an occasion, in one of the smaller cities of Illinois, Douglas, having the first speech, made an unusually brilliant effort. He carried the crowd with him; and when Lincoln rose to reply, it was evident that he felt his disadvantage—felt, too, that do what he would final defeat was probable. He made a good speech, but not one of his best. Concluding his argument, he stopped and stood silent for a moment, looking around upon the throng of half-indifferent, half-friendly faces before him, with those deep-sunken weary eyes that always seemed full of unshed tears. Folding his hands, as if they too were tired of the hopeless fight, he said, in his peculiar 205monotone: “My friends, it makes little difference, very little difference, whether Judge Douglas or myself is elected to the United States Senate; but the great issue which we have submitted to you to-day is far above and beyond any personal interests or the political fortunes of any man. And, my friends, that issue will live and breathe and burn when the poor, feeble, stammering tongues of Judge Douglas and myself are silent in the grave.” The crowd swayed as if smitten by a mighty wind. The simple words, and the manner in which they were spoken, touched every heart to the core.

Lincoln spoke in all about fifty times during the campaign. At its close, says Mr. Arnold, “both Douglas and Lincoln visited Chicago. Douglas was so hoarse that he could hardly articulate, and it was painful to hear him attempt to speak. Lincoln’s voice was clear and vigorous, and he really seemed in better tone than usual. His dark complexion was bronzed by the prairie sun and winds; his eye was clear, his step firm, and he looked like a trained athlete, ready to enter, rather than one who had closed, a conflict.”

Of the speeches in this campaign, Mr. Henry J. Raymond, the distinguished journalist, pronounced the following well-considered opinion: “While Douglas fully sustained his previous reputation, and justified the estimate his friends had placed upon his abilities, he labored under the comparative disadvantage of being much better known to the country at large than was his antagonist. During his long public career, people had become partially accustomed to his manner of presenting arguments and enforcing them. The novelty and freshness of Lincoln’s addresses, on the other hand, the homeliness and force of his illustrations, their wonderful pertinence, his exhaustless humor, his confidence in his own resources, engendered by his firm belief in the justice of the cause he so ably advocated, never once rising, however, to the 206point of arrogance or superciliousness, fastened upon him the eyes of the people everywhere, friends and opponents alike. It was not strange that more than once, during the course of the unparalleled excitement which marked this canvass, Douglas should have been thrown off his guard by the singular self-possession displayed by his antagonist, and by the imperturbable firmness with which he maintained and defended a position once taken. The unassuming confidence which marked Lincoln’s conduct was early imparted to his supporters, and each succeeding encounter added largely to the number of his friends, until they began to indulge the hope that a triumph might be secured in spite of the adverse circumstances under which the struggle was commenced.”

Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield (Mass.) “Republican,” said that Lincoln “handled Douglas as he would an eel—by main strength. Sometimes, perhaps, he handled him so strongly that he slipped through his fingers.”

“In this canvass,” says Mr. Lamon, “Mr. Lincoln earned a reputation as a popular debater second to that of no man in America—certainly not second to that of his famous antagonist. He kept his temper; he was not prone to personalities; he was fair, frank, and manly; and, if the contest had shown nothing else, it would have shown at least that ‘Old Abe’ could behave like a gentleman under very trying circumstances. His marked success in these discussions was probably no surprise to the people of the Springfield district, who knew him as well as they did Mr. Douglas, or even better. But in the greater part of the State, and throughout the Union, the series of brilliant victories successively won by an obscure man over an orator of such wide experience and renown was received with exclamations of astonishment alike by listeners and readers.”

Caleb Cushing, the distinguished Massachusetts lawyer, was one of those acute minds whose attention was at207tracted to Lincoln by his debates with Douglas. Mr. Cushing said that these debates showed Lincoln to be the superior of Douglas “in every vital element of power”; and added that “the world does not yet know how much of a man Lincoln really is.” It was soon to know him much more clearly. In less than two years after the great debate this lately obscure Illinois lawyer was elected President of the United States.

BIBLIOGRAFY:

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES
AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compiler of “Golden Poems,” “Bugle Echoes, Pose of
the Civil War,” “Laurel-Crowned Verse,” etc.

NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH
AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A
CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

CHAPTER X

The year 1856 saw the dissolution of the old Whig party. It had become too narrow and restricted to answer the needs of the hour. A new platform was demanded, one that would admit the great principles and issues growing out of the slavery agitation. A convention of the Whig leaders throughout the country met at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the 22d of February of that year, to consider the necessity of a new organization. A little later, Mr. Herndon, in the office of Lincoln, prepared a call for a convention at Bloomington, Illinois, “summoning together all those who wished to see the government conducted on the principles of Washington and Jefferson.” This call was signed by the most prominent Abolitionists of Illinois, with the name of A. LINCOLN at the head. The morning after its publication, Major Stuart entered Mr. Herndon’s office in a state of extreme excitement, and, as the latter relates, demanded: “‘Sir, did Mr. Lincoln sign that Abolition call which is published this morning?’ I answered, ‘Mr. Lincoln did not sign that call.’ ‘Did Lincoln authorize you to sign it?’ 166′No, he never authorized me to sign it.’ ‘Then do you know that you have ruined Mr. Lincoln?’ ‘I did not know that I had ruined Mr. Lincoln; did not intend to do so; thought he was a made man by it; that the time had come when conservatism was a crime and a blunder.’ ‘You, then, take the responsibility of your acts, do you?’ ‘I do, most emphatically.’ However, I instantly sat down and wrote to Mr. Lincoln, who was then in Pekin or Tremont—possibly at court. He received my letter, and instantly replied, either by letter or telegraph—most likely by letter—that he adopted in toto what I had done, and promised to meet the radicals—Lovejoy and such like men—among us.” Mr. Herndon adds: “Never did a man change as Lincoln did from that hour. No sooner had he planted himself right on the slavery question than his whole soul seemed burning. He blossomed right out. Then, too, other spiritual things grew more real to him.”

Mr. Herndon had been an Abolitionist from birth. It was an inheritance with him; but Lincoln’s conversion was a gradual process, stimulated and confirmed by the influence of his companion. “From 1854 to 1860,” says Mr. Herndon, “I kept putting into Lincoln’s hands the speeches and sermons of Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and Henry Ward Beecher. I took ‘The Anti-Slavery Standard’ for years before 1856, ‘The Chicago Tribune,’ and ‘The New York Tribune’; kept them in my office, kept them purposely on my table, and would read to Lincoln the good, sharp, solid things, well put. Lincoln was a natural anti-slavery man, as I think, and yet he needed watching,—needed hope, faith, energy; and I think I warmed him.”

It is stated that “when Herndon was very young—probably before Mr. Lincoln made his first protest in the Legislature of the State in behalf of liberty—Lincoln once said to him: ‘I cannot see what makes your con167victions so decided as regards the future of slavery. What tells you the thing must be rooted out?’ ‘I feel it in my bones,’ was Herndon’s emphatic answer. ‘This continent is not broad enough to endure the contest between freedom and slavery!’ It was almost in these very words that Lincoln afterwards opened the great contest with Douglas. From this time forward he submitted all public questions to what he called ‘the test of Bill Herndon’s bone philosophy‘; and their arguments were close and protracted.”

Lincoln’s attitude on slavery aroused formidable opposition among his friends, and even in his own family. Mrs. Lincoln was decidedly pro-slavery in her views. Once while riding with a friend she said: “If my husband dies, his spirit will never find me residing outside the limits of a slave State.” But opposition, whether from without or within, could never swerve him from a course to which conscience and reason clearly impelled him. Long before Mr. Herndon published the call for the Bloomington convention, he had said to a deputation of men from Chicago, in answer to the inquiry whether Lincoln could be trusted for freedom: “Can you trust yourselves? If you can, you can trust Lincoln forever.”

The convention met at Bloomington, May 29, 1856. One of its chief incidents was a speech by Lincoln. This speech was one of the great efforts of his life, and had a powerful influence on the convention. “Never,” says one of the delegates, “was an audience more completely electrified by human eloquence. Again and again his hearers sprang to their feet, and by long continued cheers expressed how deeply the speaker had aroused them.” “It was there,” says Mr. Herndon in one of his lectures, “that Lincoln was baptized and joined our church. He made a speech to us. I have heard or read all of Mr. Lincoln’s great speeches; and I give it as my opinion that the Bloomington speech was the grand effort of his life. 168Heretofore, and up to this moment, he had simply argued the slavery question on grounds of policy,—on what are called the statesman’s grounds,—never reaching the question of the radical and eternal right. Now he was newly baptized and freshly born; he had the fervor of a new convert; the smothered flame broke out; enthusiasm unusual to him blazed up; his eyes were aglow with inspiration; he felt a new and more vital justice; his heart was alive to the right; his sympathies burst forth; and he stood before the throne of the eternal Right, in presence of his God, and then and there unburdened his penitential and fired soul. This speech was fresh, new, genuine, odd, original; filled with fervor not unmixed with a divine enthusiasm; his head breathing out through his tender heart its truths, its sense of right, and its feeling of the good and for the good. This speech was full of fire and energy and force; it was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm; it was justice, equity, truth, right, and good, set ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by wrong; it was hard, heavy, knotty, gnarly, edged, and heated. I attempted for about fifteen minutes, as was usual with me then, to take notes; but at the end of that time I threw pen and paper to the dogs, and lived only in the inspiration of the hour. If Mr. Lincoln was six feet four inches high usually, at Bloomington he was seven feet, and inspired at that. From that day to the day of his death, he stood firm on the right. He felt his great cross, had his great idea, nursed it, kept it, taught it to others, and in his fidelity bore witness of it to his death, and finally sealed it with his precious blood.”

The committee on resolutions at the convention found themselves, after hours of discussion, unable to agree; and at last they sent for Lincoln. He suggested that all could unite on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and hostility to the extension of slavery. “Let us,” said he, “in building our new party make our corner169stone the Declaration of Independence; let us build on this rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against us.” The problem was mastered, and the convention adopted the following:

The Bloomington convention concluded its work by choosing delegates to the National Republican convention to be held at Philadelphia the following month, for the nomination of candidates for the Presidency and Vice-presidency of the United States. And thus was organized the Republican party in Illinois, which revolutionized the politics of the State and elected Lincoln to the Presidency.

The people of Bloomington seem to have had but little sympathy with this convention. A few days later, Herndon and Lincoln tried to hold a ratification meeting; but only three persons were present—Lincoln, Herndon, and John Pain. “When Lincoln came into the court-room where the meeting was to be held,” says Herndon, “there was an expression of sadness and amusement on his face. He walked to the stand, mounted it in a kind of mockery—mirth and sadness all combined—and said, ‘Gentlemen, this meeting is larger than I thought it would be. I knew that Herndon and myself would come, but I did not know that anyone else would be here; and yet another has come—you, John Pain. These are 170sad times, and seem out of joint. All seems dead; but the age is not yet dead; it liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn and appeal to the people.”

The National convention of the Republican party met at Philadelphia in June, 1856, and adopted a declaration of principles substantially based upon those of the Bloomington convention. John C. Fremont was nominated as candidate for President. Among the names presented for Vice-president was that of Abraham Lincoln, who received 110 votes. William L. Dayton received 259 votes and was unanimously declared the nominee. Fremont and Dayton thus became the standard-bearers of the new national party. When the news reached Lincoln, in Illinois, that he had received 110 votes as nominee for the Vice-presidency, he could not at first believe that he was the man voted for, and said, “No, it could not be; it must have been the great Lincoln of Massachusetts!” He was then in one of his melancholy moods, full of depression and despondency.

In the stirring presidential campaign of 1856, Lincoln was particularly active, and rendered most efficient service to the Republican party. He spoke constantly, discussing the great question of “slavery in the territories” in a manner at once original and masterly. A graphic picture of one of these campaign gatherings is furnished by Hon. William Bross, afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois. “I first met Mr. Lincoln, to know him,” says Governor Bross, “at Vandalia, the old capital of the State, in October, 1856. There was to be a political meeting in front of the old State House, in the center of the square, at 2 o’clock. Soon after that hour the sonorous voice of Dr. Curdy rang through the town: ‘O, yes! O, yes! All ye who want to hear public speaking, draw near!’ The crowd at once began to gather from all sides 171of the square. The Doctor then introduced the first speaker, and he proceeded to make the best presentation he could of the principles of the newly-formed Republican party, and the reasons why Fremont, ‘the gallant pathfinder of the West,’ should be elected President. About the time the first speaker closed his remarks, Hon. Ebenezer Peck and Abraham Lincoln arrived and took the stand; and both made able and effective speeches. After that, Lincoln and I frequently met during the canvass, and often afterwards I spoke with him from the same platform. The probable result of an election was often canvassed, and a noticeable fact was that in most cases he would mark the probable result below rather than above the actual majority.”

Some lively reminiscences of Lincoln’s appearance and efforts in this campaign are given by Mr. Noah Brooks, the well-known journalist and author, who at that time lived in Northern Illinois and attended many of the great Republican mass-meetings. “At one of these great assemblies in Ogle County,” says Mr. Brooks, “to which the country people came on horseback, in farm wagons, or afoot, from far and near, there were several speakers of local celebrity. Dr. Egan of Chicago, famous for his racy stories, was one; and Joe Knox of Bureau County, a stump speaker of renown, was another attraction. Several other orators were ‘on the bills’ for this long-advertised ‘Fremont and Dayton rally,’ among them being a Springfield lawyer who had won some reputation as a close reasoner, and a capital speaker on the stump. This was Abraham Lincoln, popularly known as ‘Honest Abe Lincoln.’ In those days he was not so famous in our part of the State as the two speakers whom I have named. Possibly he was not so popular among the masses of the people; but his ready wit, his unfailing good humor, and the candor which gave him his character for honesty, won for him the admiration and respect of 172all who heard him. I remember once meeting a choleric old Democrat striding away from an open-air meeting where Lincoln was speaking, striking the earth with his cane as he stumped along, and exclaiming, ‘He’s a dangerous man, sir! A d——d dangerous man! He makes you believe what he says, in spite of yourself!’ It was Lincoln’s manner. He admitted away his whole case apparently—and yet, as his political opponents complained, he usually carried conviction with him. As he reasoned with his audience, he bent his long form over the railing of the platform, stooping lower and lower as he pursued his argument, until, having reached his point, he clinched it, usually with a question, and then suddenly sprang upright, reminding one of the springing open of a jack-knife blade. At the Ogle County meeting to which I refer, Lincoln led off, the raciest speakers being reserved for the latter part of the political entertainment. I am bound to say that Lincoln did not awaken the boisterous applause which some of those who followed him did, but his speech made a more lasting impression. It was talked about for weeks afterward in the neighborhood, and it probably changed many votes; for that was the time when Free-soil votes were being made in Northern Illinois.”

Mr. Brooks had made Lincoln’s acquaintance early in the day referred to; and after Lincoln had spoken, and while some of the other orators were entertaining the audience, the two drew a little off from the crowd and fell into a discussion over the political situation and prospects. “We crawled under the pendulous branches of a tree,” says Mr. Brooks, “and Lincoln, lying flat on the ground, with his chin in his hands, talked on, rather gloomily as to the present but absolutely confident as to the future. I was dismayed to find that he did not believe it possible that Fremont could be elected. As if half pitying my youthful ignorance, but admiring my 173enthusiasm, he said, ‘Don’t be discouraged if we don’t carry the day this year. We can’t do it, that’s certain. We can’t carry Pennsylvania; those old Whigs down there are too strong for us. But we shall sooner or later elect our President. I feel confident of that.’ ‘Do you think we shall elect a Free-soil President in 1860?’ I asked. ‘Well, I don’t know. Everything depends on the course of the Democracy. There’s a big anti-slavery element in the Democratic party, and if we could get hold of that we might possibly elect our man in 1860. But it’s doubtful, very doubtful. Perhaps we shall be able to fetch it by 1864; perhaps not. As I said before, the Free-soil party is bound to win in the long run. It may not be in my day; but it will be in yours, I do really believe.’” The defeat of Fremont soon verified Lincoln’s prediction on that score.

A peculiarly interesting episode of Lincoln’s life belongs to this period, though unrelated to political events. This was the meeting, in a professional way, with Edwin M. Stanton, at that time a prominent lawyer of Pittsburgh, afterwards the great War Secretary of President Lincoln’s cabinet. The circumstances were briefly these: Among Lincoln’s law cases was one connected with the patent of the McCormick Reaper; and in the summer of 1857 he visited Cincinnati to argue the case before Judge McLean of the United States Circuit Court. It was a case of great importance, involving the foundation patent of the machine which was destined to revolutionize the harvesting of grain. Reverdy Johnson was on one side of the case, and E.M. Stanton and George Harding on the other. It became necessary, in addition, to have a lawyer who was a resident of Illinois; and inquiry was made of Hon. E.B. Washburne, then in Congress, as to whether he knew a suitable man. The latter replied that “there was a man named Lincoln at Springfield, who had considerable reputation in the State.” Lincoln was 174retained in the case, and came on to Cincinnati with a brief. Stanton and Harding saw in their associate counsel “a tall, dark, uncouth man, who did not strike them as of any account, and, indeed, they gave him hardly any chance.” An interesting account of this visit, and of various incidents connected with it, has been prepared by the Hon. W.M. Dickson of Cincinnati. “Mr. Lincoln came to the city,” says Mr. Dickson, “a few days before the argument took place, and remained during his stay at the house of a friend. The case was one of large importance pecuniarily, and in the law questions involved. Reverdy Johnson represented the plaintiff. Mr. Lincoln had prepared himself with the greatest care; his ambition was to speak in the case, and to measure swords with the renowned lawyer from Baltimore. It was understood between his client and himself, before his coming, that Mr. Harding of Philadelphia was to be associated with him in the case, and was to make the ‘mechanical argument.’ Mr. Lincoln was a little surprised and annoyed after reaching Cincinnati, to learn that his client had also associated with him Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, of Pittsburgh, and a lawyer of our own bar; the reason assigned being that the importance of the case required a man of the experience and power of Mr. Stanton to meet Mr. Johnson. The reasons given did not remove the slight conveyed in the employment, without consultation with Lincoln, of this additional counsel. He keenly felt it, but acquiesced. The trial of the case came on; the counsel for defense met each morning for consultation. On one of these occasions one of the counsel moved that only two of them should speak in the case. This motion was also acquiesced in. It had always been understood that Mr. Harding was to speak to explain the mechanism of the reapers. So this motion excluded either Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Stanton. By the custom of the bar, as between counsel of equal standing and in the absence of 175any action of the client, the original counsel speaks. By this rule Mr. Lincoln had precedence. Mr. Stanton suggested to Mr. Lincoln to make the speech. Mr. Lincoln answered, ‘No; you speak,’ Mr. Stanton replied, ‘I will,’ and taking up his hat, said he would go and make preparation. Mr. Lincoln acquiesced in this, but was deeply grieved and mortified; he took but little more interest in the case, though remaining until the conclusion of the trial. He seemed to be greatly depressed, and gave evidence of that tendency to melancholy which so marked his character. His parting on leaving the city cannot be forgotten. Cordially shaking the hand of his hostess, he said: ‘You have made my stay here most agreeable, and I am a thousand times obliged to you; but as for repeating my visit, I must say to you I never expect to be in Cincinnati again. I have nothing against the city, but things have so happened here as to make it undesirable for me ever to return.’ Thus untowardly met for the first time, Lincoln and Stanton. Little did either then suspect that they were to meet again on a larger theatre, to become the chief actors in a great historical epoch.”

If Lincoln was “surprised and annoyed” at the treatment he received from Stanton, the latter was no less surprised, and a good deal more disgusted, on seeing Lincoln and learning of his connection with the case. He made no secret of his contempt for the “long, lank creature from Illinois,” as he afterwards described him, “wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspiration had splotched wide stains that resembled a dirty map of the continent.” He blurted out his wrath and indignation to his associate counsel, declaring that if “that giraffe” was permitted to appear in the case he would throw up his brief and leave it. Lincoln keenly felt the affront, but his great nature forgave it so entirely that, recognizing the singular abilities 176of Stanton beneath his brusque exterior, he afterwards, for the public good, appointed him to a seat in his cabinet.

Lincoln, says Mr. Dickson, “remained in Cincinnati about a week, moving freely about. Yet not twenty men in the city knew him personally, or knew he was here; not a hundred would have known who he was had his name been given to them. He came with the fond hope of making fame in a forensic contest with Reverdy Johnson. He was pushed aside, humiliated and mortified. He attached to the innocent city the displeasure that filled his bosom, and shook its dust from his feet.”

In his Autobiography, Moncure D. Conway records a glimpse of Lincoln during his Cincinnati visit that seems worth transcribing. “One warm evening in 1859, passing through the market-place in Cincinnati, I found there a crowd listening to a political speech in the open air. The speaker stood on the balcony of a small brick house, some lamps assisting the moonlight. Something about the speaker, and some words that reached me, led me to press nearer. I asked the speaker’s name, and learned that it was Abraham Lincoln. Browning’s description of the German professor, ‘Three parts sublime to one grotesque,’ was applicable to this man. The face had a battered and bronzed look, without being hard. His nose was prominent, and buttressed a strong and high forehead. His eyes were high-vaulted, and had an expression of sadness; his mouth and chin were too close together, the cheeks hollow. On the whole, Lincoln’s appearance was not attractive until one heard his voice, which possessed variety of expression, earnestness, and shrewdness in every tone. The charm of his manner was that he had no manner; he was simple, direct, humorous. He pleasantly repeated a mannerism of his opponent,—’This is what Douglas calls his ‘gur-reat per-rinciple.’ But the next words I remember were these: ‘Slavery is wrong.’”

CHAPTER IX

At the death of Henry Clay, in June, 1852, Lincoln was invited to deliver a eulogy on Clay’s life and character before the citizens of Springfield. He complied with the request on the 16th of July. The same season he made a speech before the Scott Club of Springfield, in reply to the addresses with which Douglas had opened his extended campaign of that summer, at Richmond, Virginia. Except on these two occasions, Lincoln took but little part in politics until the passage of the Nebraska Bill by Congress in 1854. The enactment of this measure impelled him to take a firmer stand upon the question of slavery than he had yet assumed. He had been opposed to the institution on grounds of sentiment since his boyhood; now he determined to fight it from principle. Mr. Herndon states that Lincoln really became an anti-slavery man in 1831, during his visit to New Orleans, where he was deeply affected by the horrors of the traffic in human beings. On one occasion he saw a slave, a beautiful mulatto girl, sold at auction. She was felt over, pinched, and trotted around to show bidders she was sound. Lincoln walked away from the scene with a feeling of deep abhorrence. He said to John Hanks, “If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, John, I’ll hit it 148hard!” Again, in the summer of 1841, he was painfully impressed by a scene witnessed during his journey home from Kentucky, described in a letter written at the time to the sister of his friend Speed, in which he says: “A fine example was presented on board the boat for contemplating the effect of conditions upon human happiness. A man had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky, and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together; a small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this was fastened to the main chain by a shorter one, at a convenient distance from the others, so that the negroes were strung together like so many fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and many of them from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery.”

Judge Gillespie records a conversation which he had with Lincoln in 1850 on the slavery question, remarking by way of introduction that the subject of slavery was the only one on which he (Lincoln) was apt to become excited. “I recollect meeting him once at Shelbyville,” says Judge Gillespie, “when he remarked that something must be done or slavery would overrun the whole country. He said there were about six hundred thousand non-slaveholding whites in Kentucky to about thirty-three thousand slaveholders; that in the convention then recently held it was expected that the delegates would represent these classes about in proportion to their respective numbers; but when the convention assembled, there was not a single representative of the non-slaveholding class; everyone was in the interest of the slaveholders; ‘and,’ said he, ‘the thing is spreading like wildfire over the country. In a few years we will be ready to accept the institution in Illinois, and the whole country will adopt 149it.’ I asked him to what he attributed the change that was going on in public opinion. He said he had recently put that question to a Kentuckian, who answered by saying, ‘You might have any amount of land, money in your pocket, or bank-stock, and while travelling around nobody would be any wiser; but if you had a darkey trudging at your heels, everybody would see him and know that you owned a slave. It is the most ostentatious way of displaying property in the world; if a young man goes courting, the only inquiry is as to how many negroes he owns.’ The love for slave property was swallowing up every other mercenary possession. Its ownership not only betokened the possession of wealth, but indicated the gentleman of leisure who scorned labor. These things Mr. Lincoln regarded as highly pernicious to the thoughtless and giddy young men who were too much inclined to look upon work as vulgar and ungentlemanly. He was much excited, and said with great earnestness that this spirit ought to be met, and if possible checked; that slavery was a great and crying injustice, an enormous national crime, and we could not expect to escape punishment for it. I asked him how he would proceed in his efforts to check the spread of slavery. He confessed he did not see his way clearly; but I think he made up his mind that from that time he would oppose slavery actively. I know that Lincoln always contended that no man had any right, other than what mere brute force gave him, to hold a slave. He used to say it was singular that the courts would hold that a man never lost his right to property that had been stolen from him, but that he instantly lost his right to himself if he was stolen. Lincoln always contended that the cheapest way of getting rid of slavery was for the nation to buy the slaves and set them free.”

While in Congress, Lincoln had declared himself plainly as opposed to slavery; and in public speeches not 150less than private conversations he had not hesitated to express his convictions on the subject. In 1850 he said to Major Stuart: “The time will soon come when we must all be Democrats or Abolitionists. When that time comes, my mind is made up. The slavery question cannot be compromised.” The hour had now struck in which Lincoln was to espouse with his whole heart and soul that cause for which finally he was to lay down his life. In the language of Mr. Arnold, “He had bided his time. He had waited until the harvest was ripe. With unerring sagacity he realized that the triumph of freedom was at hand. He entered upon the conflict with the deepest conviction that the perpetuity of the Republic required the extinction of slavery. So, adopting as his motto, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’ he girded himself for the contest. The years from 1854 to 1860 were on his part years of constant, active, and unwearied effort. His position in the State of Illinois was central and commanding. He was now to become the recognized leader of the anti-slavery party in the Northwest, and in all the Valley of the Mississippi. Lincoln was a practical statesman, never attempting the impossible, but seeking to do the best thing practicable under existing circumstances. He knew that prohibition in the territories would result in no more slave states and no slave territory. And now, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise shattered all parties into fragments, he came forward to build up the Free Soil party and threw into the conflict all his strength and vigor. The conviction of his duty was deep and sincere. Hence he pleaded the cause of liberty with an energy, ability, and power which rapidly gained for him a national reputation. Conscious of the greatness of his cause, inspired by a genuine love of liberty, animated and made strong by the moral sublimity of the conflict, he solemnly announced his determination to speak for freedom and against slavery until—in 151his own words—wherever the Federal Government has power, ‘the sun shall shine, the rain shall fall, and the wind shall blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited toil.’”

The absorbing political topic in 1855 was the contest in Kansas, which proved the battle-ground for the struggle over the introduction of slavery into the territories north of the line established by the “Missouri Compromise.” Lincoln’s views on the subject are defined in a notable letter to his friend Joshua Speed, a resident of Kentucky. The following passages show, in Lincoln’s own words, where he stood on the slavery question at this memorable epoch:

Lincoln was soon accorded an opportunity to cross swords again with his former political antagonist, Douglas, who had lately come from his place in the Senate Chamber at Washington, where he had carried the obnoxious Nebraska Bill against the utmost efforts of Chase, Seward, Sumner, and others, to defeat it. As Mr. Arnold narrates the incident,—”When, late in September, 1854, Douglas returned to Illinois he was received with a storm of indignation which would have crushed a man of less power and will. A bold and courageous leader, conscious of his personal power over his party, he bravely met the storm and sought to allay it. In October, 1854, the State Fair being then in session at Springfield, with a great crowd of people in attendance from all parts of the State, Douglas went there and made an elaborate and 154able speech in defense of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Lincoln was called upon by the opponents of this repeal to reply, and he did so with a power which he never surpassed and had never before equalled. All other issues which had divided the people were as chaff, and were scattered to the winds by the intense agitation which arose on the question of extending slavery, not merely into free territory, but into territory which had been declared free by solemn compact. Lincoln’s speech occupied more than three hours in delivery, and during all that time he held the vast crowd in the deepest attention.”

Mr. Herndon said of this event: “This anti-Nebraska speech of Mr. Lincoln was the profoundest that he made in his whole life. He felt burning upon his soul the truths which he uttered, and all present felt that he was true to his own soul. His feelings once or twice came near stifling utterance. He quivered with emotion. He attacked the Nebraska Bill with such warmth and energy that all felt that a man of strength was its enemy, and that he intended to blast it, if he could, by strong and manly efforts. He was most successful, and the house approved his triumph by loud and continued huzzas, while women waved their white handkerchiefs in token of heartfelt assent. Douglas felt the sting, and he frequently interrupted Mr. Lincoln; his friends felt that he was crushed by the powerful argument of his opponent. The Nebraska Bill was shivered, and, like a tree of the forest, was torn and rent asunder by hot bolts of truth. At the conclusion of this speech, every man, woman, and child felt that it was unanswerable.” In speaking of the same occasion, Mr. Lamon says: “Many fine speeches were made upon the one absorbing topic; but it is no shame to any one of these orators that their really impressive speeches were but slightly appreciated or long remembered beside Mr. Lincoln’s splendid and enduring 155performance,—enduring in the memory of his auditors, although preserved upon no written or printed page.”

A few days after this encounter, Douglas spoke in Peoria, and was followed by Lincoln with the same crushing arguments that had served him at the State Fair, and with the same triumphant effect. His Peoria speech was written out by him and published after its delivery. A few specimens will show its style and argumentative power.

It was in one of these speeches that Lincoln’s power of repartee was admirably illustrated by a most laughable retort made by him to Douglas. Mr. Ralph E. Hoyt, who was present, says: “In the course of his speech, Mr. Douglas had said, ‘The Whigs are all dead.’ For some time before speaking, Lincoln sat on the platform with only his homely face visible to the audience above the high desk before him. On being introduced, he arose from his chair and proceeded to straighten himself up. For a few seconds I wondered when and where his head would cease its ascent; but at last it did stop, and ‘Honest Old Abe’ stood before us. He commenced, ‘Fellow-citizens: My friend, Mr. Douglas, made the startling announcement to-day that the Whigs are all dead. If this be so, fellow-citizens, you will now experience the novelty of hearing a speech from a dead man; and I suppose you might properly say, in the language of the old hymn:

This set the audience fairly wild with delight, and at once brought them into full confidence with the speaker.”

Hating slavery though he did, Lincoln was steadily opposed to all forms of unlawful or violent opposition to it. At about the time of which we are speaking a party of Abolitionists in Illinois had become so excited over the Kansas struggle that they were determined to go to the aid of the Free-State men in that territory. As soon as Lincoln learned of this project, he opposed it strongly. When they spoke to him of “Liberty, Justice, and God’s 158higher law,” he replied in this temperate and judicious strain:

Friends, you are in the minority—in a sad minority; and you can’t hope to succeed, reasoning from all human experience. You would rebel against the Government, and redden your hands in the blood of your countrymen. If you have the majority, as some of you say you have, you can succeed with the ballot, throwing away the bullet. You can peaceably, then, redeem the Government and preserve the liberties of mankind, through your votes and voice and moral influence. Let there be peace. In a democracy, where the majority rule by the ballot through the forms of law, these physical rebellions and bloody resistances are radically wrong, unconstitutional, and are treason. Better bear the ills you have than fly to those you know not of. Our own Declaration of Independence says that governments long established should not be resisted for trivial causes. Revolutionize through the ballot-box, and restore the Government once more to the affection and hearts of men, by making it express, as it was intended to do, the highest spirit of justice and liberty. Your attempt, if there be such, to resist the laws of Kansas by force, will be criminal and wicked; and all your feeble attempts will be follies, and end in bringing sorrow on your heads, and ruin the cause you would freely die to preserve.

No doubt was felt of Lincoln’s sympathies; indeed, he is known to have contributed money to the Free-State cause. But it is noticeable that in this exciting episode he showed the same coolness, wisdom, moderation, love of law and order that so strongly characterized his conduct in the stormier period of the Civil War, and without which it is doubtful if he would have been able to save the nation.

Some interesting recollections of the events of this stirring period, and of Lincoln’s part in them, are given by Mr. Paul Selby, for a long time editor of the “State Journal” at Springfield, and one of Lincoln’s old-time friends and political associates. “While Abraham Lin159coln had the reputation of being inspired by an almost unbounded ambition,” says Mr. Selby, “it was of that generous quality which characterized his other attributes, and often led him voluntarily to restrain its gratification in deference to the conflicting aspirations of his friends. All remember his magnanimity towards Col. Edward D. Baker, when the latter was elected to Congress from the Springfield District in 1844, and the frankness with which he informed Baker of his own desire to be a candidate in 1846—when for the only time in his life, he was elected to that body. In 1852, Richard Yates of Jacksonville, then recognized as one of the rising young orators and statesmen of the West, was elected to Congress for the second time from the Springfield District. It was during the term following this election that the Kansas-Nebraska issue was precipitated upon the country by Senator Douglas, in the introduction of his bill for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Yates, in obedience to his impulses, which were always on the side of freedom, took strong ground against the measure—notwithstanding the fact that a majority of his constituents, though originally Whigs, were strongly conservative, as was generally the case with people who were largely of Kentucky and Tennessee origin. In 1854 the Whig party, which had been divided on the Kansas-Nebraska question, began to manifest symptoms of disintegration; while the Republican party, though not yet known by that name, began to take form. At this time I was publishing a paper at Jacksonville, Yates’s home; and although from the date of my connection with it, in 1852, it had not been a political paper, the introduction of a new issue soon led me to take decided ground on the side of free territory. Lincoln at once sprang into prominence as one of the boldest, most vigorous and eloquent opponents of Mr. Douglas’s measure, which was construed as a scheme to secure the admission of slavery into all the new 160territories of the United States. At that time Lincoln’s election to a seat in Congress would probably have been very grateful to his ambition, as well as acceptable in a pecuniary point of view; and his prominence and ability had already attracted the eyes of the whole State toward him in a special degree. Having occasion to visit Springfield one day while the subject of the selection of a candidate was under consideration among the opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, I encountered Mr. Lincoln on the street. As we walked along, the subject of the choice of a candidate for Congress to succeed Yates came up, when I stated that many of the old-line Whigs and anti-Nebraska men in the western part of the district were looking to him as an available leader. While he seemed gratified by the compliment, he said: ‘No; Yates has been a true and faithful Representative, and should be returned.’ Yates was renominated; and although he ran ahead of his ticket, yet so far had the disorganization of the Whig party then progressed, and so strong a foothold had the pro-slavery sentiment obtained in the district, that he was defeated by Major Thomas L. Harris, of Petersburg, whom he had defeated when he first entered the field as a candidate four years before. While it is scarcely probable that Lincoln, if he had been a candidate, could have changed the result, yet the prize was one which he would then have considered worth contending for; and if the nomination could have been tendered him without doing injustice to his friend, he would undoubtedly have accepted it gladly and thrown all the earnestness and ability which he possessed into the contest. This instance only illustrates a feature of his character which has so often been recognized and commented upon—his generosity toward those among his political friends who might be regarded as occupying the position of rivals.”

In 1854, during Lincoln’s absence from Springfield, he 161was nominated as a candidate for the State Legislature. It was in one of Lincoln’s periods of profound depression, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could be persuaded to accept the nomination. “I went to see him,” says one of his close political friends, Mr. William Jayne, “in order to get his consent to run. This was at his house. He was then the saddest man I ever saw—the gloomiest. He walked up and down the floor, almost crying; and to all my persuasions to let his name stand in the paper, he said, ‘No, I can’t. You don’t know all. I say you don’t begin to know one-half; and that’s enough.’” His name, however, was allowed to stand, and he was elected by about 600 majority. But Lincoln was then extremely desirous of succeeding General James Shields, whose term in the United States Senate was to expire the following March. The Senate Chamber had long been the goal of his ambition. He summed up his feelings in a letter to Hon. N.B. Judd, some years after, saying, “I would rather have a full term in the United States Senate than the Presidency.” He therefore resigned his seat in the Legislature—the fact that a majority in both houses was opposed to the Nebraska Bill allowing him to do so without injury to his party—and became a candidate for the Senate. But the act was futile. When the Legislature met, in February, 1855, to make choice of a Senator, a clique of anti-Nebraska Democrats held out so firmly against the nomination of Lincoln that there was danger of the Whigs leaving their candidate altogether. In this dilemma Lincoln was consulted. Mr. Lamon thus describes the incident: “Lincoln said, unhesitatingly, ‘You ought to drop me and go for Trumbull; that is the only way you can defeat Matteson.’ Judge Logan came up about that time, and insisted on running Lincoln still; but the latter said, ‘If you do, you will lose both Trumbull and myself; and I think the cause in this case is to be preferred to men.’ 162We adopted his suggestion, and took up Trumbull and elected him, although it grieved us to the heart to give up Lincoln.” Mr. Parks, a member of the Legislature at this time, and one of Lincoln’s intimate friends, said: “Mr. Lincoln was very much disappointed, for I think it was the height of his ambition to get into the United States Senate. Yet he manifested no bitterness toward Mr. Judd or the other anti-Nebraska Democrats by whom politically he was beaten, but evidently thought their motives were right. He told me several times afterwards that the election of Trumbull was the best thing that could have happened.”

Hon. Elijah M. Haines, ex-Speaker of the Illinois Legislature, a resident of the State for over half a century, and one of Lincoln’s early friends, was a member of the Legislature during the Senatorial struggle just referred to. His familiarity with all its incidents lends value to his distinct and vivid recollections. “Abraham Lincoln had been elected a member of the House on the Fusion ticket, with Judge Stephen T. Logan, for the district composed of Sangamon County,” writes Mr. Haines. “But it being settled that the Fusion party—which was an anti-Douglas combination, including Whigs, Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, etc.—would have a majority of the two houses on ballot, Mr. Lincoln was induced to become a candidate for United States Senator, for the support of that party. He therefore did not qualify as a member. Although Mr. Lincoln never acquired the reputation of being an office-seeker, yet it happened frequently that his name would be mentioned in connection with some important position. He became quite early in life one of the prominent leaders of the Whig party of the State, and for a long time, in connection with a few devoted associates, led the forlorn hope of that party. During a period of about twenty years there was seldom more than one Whig member in the Illinois delegation of 163Congressmen. The Sangamon district, in which Mr. Lincoln lived, was always sure to elect a Whig member when the party was united; but it contained quite a number of aspiring Whig orators, and there was a kind of understanding between them that no one who attained the position of Representative in Congress should hold it longer than one term; that he would then give way for the next favorite. Mr. Lincoln had held the position once, and its return to him was far in the future. The Fusion triumph in the Legislature was considered by the Whig element as a success, in which they acknowledged great obligation to Mr. Lincoln. That element in the Fusion party therefore urged his claims as the successor of General Shields. His old associate and tried friend in the Whig cause, Judge Logan, became the champion of his interests in the House of Representatives. I was present and saw something of Mr. Lincoln during the early part of the session, before the vote for Senator was taken. He was around among the members much of the time. His manner was agreeable and unassuming; he was not forward in pressing his case upon the attention of members, yet before the interview would come to a close some allusion to the Senatorship would generally occur, when he would respond in some such way as this: ‘Gentlemen, that is rather a delicate subject for me to talk upon; but I must confess that I would be glad of your support for the office, if you shall conclude that I am the proper person for it.’ When he had finished, he would generally take occasion to withdraw before any discussion on the subject arose. When the election of Senator occurred, in February, Lincoln received 45 votes—the highest number of any of the candidates, and within six votes of enough to secure his election. This was on the first ballot, after which Lincoln’s votes declined. After the ninth ballot, Mr. Lincoln stepped forward—or, as Mr. Richmond expresses it, leaned for164ward from his position in the lobby—and requested the committee to withdraw his name. On the tenth ballot Judge Trumbull received fifty-one votes and was declared elected.” Thus were Lincoln’s political ambitions again frustrated. But their realization was only delayed for the far grander triumph that was so soon to come, although no man then foresaw its coming.

BIBLIOGRAFY:

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES
AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compiler of “Golden Poems,” “Bugle Echoes, Pose of
the Civil War,” “Laurel-Crowned Verse,” etc.

NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH
AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A
CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

CHAPTER VIII

The ten years following the close of Lincoln’s Congressional service, in 1849, were given to the uninterrupted practice of the law, to which he devoted himself laboriously and successfully, though not with great pecuniary gains. His legal fees were regarded by his brethren at the bar as “ridiculously small.” His practice had extended to the Supreme Court of his State and to the United States District and Circuit Courts, and he was occasionally retained for cases in other States. With greater love of money and less sympathy for his fellows, he might have acquired a fortune in his profession.

Lincoln never speculated. Apparently he had no great desire to acquire wealth. He had many opportunities in the days of the State’s early growth to make good and safe investments, but he never took advantage of them. Many of his fellow lawyers were becoming wealthy, but Lincoln still rode the circuit wearing the familiar gray shawl about his shoulders, carrying a carpet-bag filled with papers and a change of underclothing, and a faded, green cotton umbrella with “A. Lincoln” in large white muslin letters on the inside. The knob was gone from the handle of the umbrella and a piece of twine kept it from falling open. A young lawyer who saw him for the first time thus—one who grew to love him and who after126wards gave his life for the Union—in relating the circumstance a long time afterward, exclaimed: “He was the ungodliest figure I ever saw.”

An interesting and vivid description of Lincoln’s personal appearance and manner in the trial of a case is furnished by one who was a witness of the scenes which he so admirably describes. The writer says: “While living in Danville, Illinois, in 1854, I saw Abraham Lincoln for the first time. The occasion of his visit was as prosecutor of a slander suit brought by Dr. Fithian against a wealthy farmer whose wife died under the doctor’s hands. The defense was represented by Edward A. Hannegan, of Indiana, ex-United States Senator and afterward Minister to Berlin, an able and eloquent man; and O.B. Ficklin, who, after Douglas and Lincoln, was considered the best lawyer in Illinois. Lincoln had all he could do to maintain himself against his two formidable adversaries, but he was equal to the occasion. The trial lasted three or four days, the examination of witnesses consuming most of the time. In this part of the work Lincoln displayed remarkable tact. He did not badger the witnesses, or attempt to confuse them. His questions were plain and practical, and elicited answers that had a direct bearing upon the case. He did nothing for effect, and made no attempt to dazzle the jury or captivate the audience. When he arose to speak he was confronted by an audience that was too numerous for all to find seats in the court-room. He was attired in a fine broadcloth suit, silk hat, and polished boots. His neck was encircled by an old-fashioned silk choker. He perspired freely, and used a red silk handkerchief to remove the perspiration. His clothes fitted him, and he was as genteel-looking as any man in the audience. The slouchy appearance which he is said to have presented on other occasions was conspicuously absent here. As he stood before the vast audience, towering above every person around him, he was the centre of attraction. I 127can never forget how he looked, as he cast his eyes over the crowd before beginning his argument. His face was long and sallow; high cheek bones; large, deep-set eyes, of a grayish-brown color, shaded by heavy eyebrows; high but not broad forehead; large, well-formed head, covered with an abundance of coarse black hair, worn rather long, through which he frequently passed his fingers; arms and legs of unusual length; head inclined slightly forward, which made him appear stoop-shouldered. His features betrayed neither excitement nor anxiety. They were calm and fixed. In short, his appearance was that of a man who felt the responsibility of his position and was determined to acquit himself to the best of his ability. I do not remember the points of his speech; but his manner was so peculiar, so different from that of other orators whom I have heard, that I can never forget it. He spoke for almost two hours, entirely without notes and with an eloquence that I have never heard surpassed. He was all life, all motion; every muscle and fibre of his body seemed brought into requisition. His voice was clear, distinct, and well modulated. Every word was clean-cut and exactly suited to its place. At times he would stoop over until his hands almost swept the floor. Then he would straighten himself up, fold his arms across his breast, and take a few steps forward or back. This movement completed, he would fling his arms above his head, or thrust them beneath his coat-tails, elevating or depressing his voice to suit the attitude assumed and the sentiment expressed. Arms and legs were continually in motion. It seemed impossible for him to stand still. In the midst of the most impassioned or pathetic portions of his speech, he would extend his long arms toward the judge or jury, and shake his bony fingers with an effect that is indescribable. He held his audience to the last; and when he sat down there was a murmur of applause which the judge with difficulty prevented from swelling 128to a roar. The argument must have been as able as the manner of the speaker was attractive, for the verdict was in favor of his client.

“When he had retired to his hotel after the trial, and while conversing with a number of gentlemen who had called to pay their respects to him, Lincoln was informed that an old colored woman, who had known him years before in Kentucky, wished to see him. She was too feeble to come to him, and desired him to go to her. Ascertaining where she lived, Lincoln started at once, accompanied by a boy who acted as pilot. He found the woman in a wretched hovel in the outskirts of the town, sick and destitute. He remembered her very well, as she had belonged to the owner of the farm upon which Lincoln was born. He gave her money to supply her immediate wants, promised her that he would see she did not suffer for the necessaries of life, and when he returned to town hunted up a physician and engaged him to give the old woman all the medical attention that her case demanded.”

Mr. G.W. Harris, whose first meeting with Lincoln in a log school-house has been previously described in these pages, subsequently became a clerk in Lincoln’s law-office at Springfield, and furnishes some excellent reminiscences of that interesting period. “A crack-brained attorney who lived in Springfield, supported mainly by the other lawyers of the place, became indebted, in the sum of two dollars and fifty cents, to a wealthy citizen of the county, a recent comer. The creditor, failing after repeated efforts to collect the amount due him, came to Mr. Lincoln and asked him to bring suit. Lincoln explained the man’s condition and circumstances, and advised his client to let the matter rest; but the creditor’s temper was up, and he insisted on having suit brought. Again Lincoln urged him to let the matter drop, adding, ‘You can make nothing out of him, and it will cost you a good deal more than the debt to 129bring suit.’ The creditor was still determined to have his way, and threatened to seek some other attorney who would be more willing to take charge of the matter than Lincoln appeared to be. Lincoln then said, ‘Well, if you are determined that suit shall be brought, I will bring it; but my charge will be ten dollars.’ The money was paid him, and peremptory orders were given that the suit be brought that day. After the client’s departure, Lincoln went out of the office, returning in about an hour with an amused look on his face. I asked what pleased him, and he replied, ‘I brought suit against ——, and then hunted him up, told him what I had done, handed him half of the ten dollars, and we went over to the squire’s office. He confessed judgment and paid the bill.’ Lincoln added that he didn’t see any other way to make things satisfactory for his client as well as the rest of the parties.

“Mr. Lincoln had a heart that was more a woman’s than a man’s—filled to overflowing with sympathy for those in trouble, and ever ready to relieve them by any means in his power. He was ever thoughtful of others’ comforts, even to the forgetting of himself. In those early days his face wore a sad look when at rest—a look that made you feel that you would like to take from him a part of his burden. One who knew him then and had known his career since would be inclined to think that he already felt premonitions of the heavy burdens that his broad shoulders were to bear, and the sorrows that his kind heart would have to endure.

“Mr. Lincoln was fond of playing chess and checkers, and usually acted cautiously upon the defensive until the game had reached a stage where aggressive movements were clearly justified. He was also somewhat fond of ten-pins, and occasionally indulged in a game. Whatever may have been his tastes in his younger days, at this period of his life he took no interest in fishing-rod or gun. 130He was indifferent to dress, careless almost to a fault of his personal appearance. The same indifference extended to money. So long as his wants were supplied—and they were few and simple—he seemed to have no further use for money, except in the giving or the lending of it, with no expectation or desire for its return, to those whom he thought needed it more than he. Debt he abhorred, and under no circumstances would he incur it. He was abstemious in every respect. I have heard him say that he did not know the taste of liquor. At the table he preferred plain food, and a very little satisfied him.

“Under no circumstances would he, as an attorney, take a case he knew to be wrong. Every possible means was used to get at the truth before he would undertake a case. More cases, by his advice, were settled without trial than he carried into the courts; and that, too, without charge. When on one occasion I suggested that he ought to make a charge in such cases, he laughingly answered, ‘They wouldn’t want to pay me; they don’t think I have earned a fee unless I take the case into court and make a speech or two.’ When trivial cases were brought to him, such as would most probably be carried no farther than a magistrate’s office, and he could not induce a settlement without trial, he would generally refer them to some young attorney, for whom he would speak a good word at the same time. He was ever kind and courteous to these young beginners when he was the opposing counsel. He had a happy knack of setting them at their ease and encouraging them. In consequence he was the favorite of all who came in contact with him. When his heart was in a case he was a powerful advocate. I have heard more than one attorney say that it was little use to expect a favorable verdict in any case where Lincoln was opposing counsel, as his simple statements of the facts had more weight with the jury than those of the witnesses.

“As a student (if such a term could be applied to Mr. 131Lincoln) one who did not know him might have called him indolent. He would pick up a book and run rapidly over the pages, pausing here and there. At the end of an hour—never, as I remember, more than two or three hours—he would close the book, stretch himself out on the office lounge, and with hands under his head and eyes shut he would digest the mental food he had just taken.

“In the spring of 1846, war between the United States and Mexico broke out. Mr. Lincoln was opposed to the war. He looked upon it as unnecessary and unjust. Volunteers were called for. John J. Hardin, who lost his life in that war, and Edward D. Baker, who was killed at Ball’s Bluff during our Civil War—both Whigs—were engaged in raising regiments. Meetings were held and speeches made. At one of them, after Baker and others had spoken, Lincoln, who was in the audience, was called for, and the call was repeated until at last he ascended the platform. He thanked the audience for the compliment paid him in the wish they had expressed to hear him talk, and said he would gladly make them a speech if he had anything to say. But he was not going into the war; and as he was not going himself, he did not feel like telling others to go. He would simply leave it to each individual to do as he thought his duty called for. After a few more remarks, and a story ‘with a nib to it,’ he bowed himself off the platform.

“About a year after this, Mr. Lincoln was seeking to be nominated as a candidate for Congress. Finding the writing of letters (at his dictation) to influential men in the different counties and even precincts of the district somewhat burdensome, I suggested printing circulars. He objected, on the ground that a printed letter would not have the same effect that a written one would; the latter had the appearance of personality, it was more flattering to the receiver, and would more certainly gain his assistance, or at least his good-will. In discussing the 132probabilities of his nomination, I remarked that there was so much unfairness, if not downright trickery, used that it appeared to me almost useless to seek a nomination without resort to similar means. His reply was: ‘I want to be nominated; I would like to go to Congress; but if I cannot do so by fair means, I prefer to stay at home.’ He was nominated, and in the following fall was elected by a majority over three times as large as the district had ever before given.

“Mr. Lincoln, like many others in their callow days, scribbled verses; and so far as I was capable of judging, their quality was above the average. It was accidentally that I learned this. In arranging the books and papers in the office, I found two or three quires of letter-paper stitched together in book form, nearly filled with poetical effusions in Mr. Lincoln’s handwriting, and evidently original. I looked through them somewhat hurriedly, and when Lincoln came in I showed him the manuscript, asking him if it was his. His response was, ‘Where did you find it?’ and rolling it up, he put it in his coat-tail pocket; and I saw it no more. Afterwards, in speaking of the matter to Mr. Lincoln’s partner, he said, ‘I believe he has at times scribbled some verses; but he is, I think, somewhat unwilling to have it known.’”

Lincoln’s love of poetry is further shown by the following incident, related by a gentleman who visited the old law-office of Lincoln & Herndon, at Springfield. He says: “I took up carelessly, as I stood thinking, a handsome octavo volume lying on the office table. It opened so persistently at one place, as I handled it, that I looked to see what it was, and found that somebody had thoroughly thumbed the pages of ‘Don Juan.’ I knew Mr. Herndon was not a man to dwell on it, and it darted through my mind that perhaps it had been a favorite with Lincoln. ‘Did Mr. Lincoln ever read this book?’ I said, hurriedly. ‘That book!’ said Herndon, looking up from his writing 133and taking it out of my hand. ‘Oh, yes; he read it often. It is the office copy.’” Lincoln was so fond of the book that he kept it ready to his hand.

Mr. John T. Stuart, Lincoln’s first law-partner, says of him that his accounts were correctly kept, but in a manner peculiar to himself. Soon after their law-partnership was formed, Mr. Stuart was elected to Congress, thereafter spending much of his time in Washington. Lincoln conducted the business of the firm in his absence. When Mr. Stuart reached home, at the close of the first session of Congress, Lincoln proceeded to give him an account of the earnings of the office during his absence. The charges for fees and entry of receipts of money were not in an account book, but stowed away in a drawer in Lincoln’s desk, among the papers in each case. He proceeded to lay the papers before Mr. Stuart, taking up each case by itself. The account would run in this way:

Fees charged in this case…………….$
Amount collected…………………….$
Stuart’s half……………………….$

The half that belonged to Mr. Stuart would invariably accompany the papers in the case. Lincoln had the reputation of being very moderate in his charges. He was never grasping, and seemed incapable of believing that his services could be worth much to anyone.

One of the most famous cases in which Lincoln engaged was that of William D. Armstrong, son of Jack and Hannah Armstrong of New Salem, the child whom Lincoln had rocked in the cradle while Mrs. Armstrong attended to other household duties. Jack Armstrong, it will be remembered, was an early friend of Lincoln’s, whom he had beaten in a wrestling-match on his first arrival in New Salem. He and his wife had from that time treated the youth with the utmost kindness, giving him a home when he was out of work, and showing him every kindness 134it was in their power to offer. Lincoln never forgot his debt of gratitude to them; and when Hannah, now a widow, wrote to him of the peril her boy was in, and besought him to help them in their extremity, he replied promptly that he would do what he could. The circumstances were these: “In the summer of 1857, at a camp-meeting in Mason County, one Metzgar was most brutally murdered. The affray took place about half a mile from the place of worship, near some wagons loaded with liquor and provisions. Two men, James H. Norris and William D. Armstrong, were indicted for the crime. Norris was tried in Mason County, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of eight years. The popular feeling being very high against Armstrong in Mason County, he took a change of venue to Cass County, and was there tried (at Beardstown) in the spring of 1858. Hitherto Armstrong had had the services of two able counsellors; but now their efforts were supplemented by those of a most determined and zealous volunteer. The case was so clear against the accused that defense seemed almost useless. The strongest evidence was that of a man who swore that at eleven o’clock at night he saw Armstrong strike the deceased on the head; that the moon was shining brightly, and was nearly full; and that its position in the sky was just about that of the sun at ten o’clock in the morning, and by it he saw Armstrong give the mortal blow.” This was fatal, unless the effect could be broken by contradiction or impeachment. Lincoln quietly looked up an almanac, and found that at the time this witness declared the moon to have been shining with full light there was no moon at all. Lincoln made the closing argument. “At first,” says Mr. Walker, one of the counsel associated with him, “he spoke very slowly and carefully, reviewing the testimony and pointing out its contradictions, discrepancies and impossibilities. When he had thus prepared the way, he called for an 135almanac, and showed that at the hour at which the principal witness swore he had seen, by the light of the full moon, the mortal blow given, there was no moon. The last fifteen minutes of his speech were as eloquent as I ever heard; and such were the power and earnestness with which he spoke to that jury, that all sat as if entranced, and, when he was through, found relief in a gush of tears.” Said one of the prosecutors: “He took the jury by storm. There were tears in Mr. Lincoln’s eyes while he spoke, but they were genuine. His sympathies were fully enlisted in favor of the young man, and his terrible sincerity could not help but arouse the same passion in the jury. I have said a hundred times that it was Lincoln’s speech that saved that man from the gallows.” “Armstrong was not cleared by any want of testimony against him, but by the irresistible appeal of Mr. Lincoln in his favor,” says Mr. Shaw, one of the associates in the prosecution. His mother, who sat near during Lincoln’s appeal, says: “He told the stories about our first acquaintance, and what I did for him and how I did it. Lincoln said to me, ‘Hannah, your son will be cleared before sundown.’ He and the other lawyers addressed the jury, and closed the case. I went down to Thompson’s pasture. Stator came to me and told me that my son was cleared and a free man. I went up to the court-house; the jury shook hands with me, so did the court, so did Lincoln. We were all affected, and tears were in Lincoln’s eyes. He then remarked to me, ‘Hannah, what did I tell you? I pray to God that William may be a good boy hereafter; that this lesson may prove in the end a good lesson to him and to all.’ After the trial was over, Lincoln came down to where I was in Beardstown. I asked him what he charged me; told him I was poor. He said, ‘Why, Hannah, I shan’t charge you a cent—never. Anything I can do for you I will do willingly and without charges.’ He wrote to me about some land which some men were 136trying to get from me, and said, ‘Hannah, they can’t get your land. Let them try it in the Circuit Court, and then you appeal it. Bring it to the Supreme Court, and Herndon and I will attend to it for nothing.’”

Lincoln regarded himself not only as the legal adviser of unfortunate people, but as their friend and protector; and he would never press them for pay for his services. A client named Cogdal was unfortunate in business, and gave Lincoln a note in payment of legal fees. Soon afterwards he met with an accident by which he lost a hand. Meeting Lincoln some time after, on the steps of the State House, the kind lawyer asked him how he was getting along. “Badly enough,” replied Mr. Cogdal. “I am both broken up in business and crippled.” Then he added, “I have been thinking about that note of yours.” Lincoln, who had probably known all about Mr. Cogdal’s troubles, and had prepared himself for the meeting, took out his pocket-book, and saying, with a laugh, “Well you needn’t think any more about it,” handed him the note. Mr. Cogdal protesting, Lincoln said, “Even if you had the money, I would not take it,” and hurried away.

Mr. G.L. Austin thus describes an incident of Lincoln’s career at the bar: “Mr. Lincoln was once associated with Mr. Leonard Swett in defending a man accused of murder. He listened to the testimony which witness after witness gave against his client, until his honest heart could stand it no longer; then, turning to his associate, he said: ‘Swett, the man is guilty; you defend him; I can’t.’ Swett did defend him, and the man was acquitted. When proffered his share of the large fee, Lincoln most emphatically declined it, on the ground that ‘all of it belonged to Mr. Swett, whose ardor and eloquence saved a guilty man from justice.’”

At a term of court in Logan County, a man named Hoblit had brought suit against a man named Farmer. The suit had been appealed from a justice of the peace, and 137Lincoln knew nothing of it until he was retained by Hoblit to try the case in the Circuit Court. G.A. Gridley, then of Bloomington, appeared for the defendant. Judge Treat, afterwards on the United States bench, was the presiding judge at the trial. Lincoln’s client went upon the witness stand and testified to the account he had against the defendant, gave the amount due after allowing all credits and set-offs, and swore positively that it had not been paid. The attorney for the defendant simply produced a receipt in full, signed by Hoblit prior to the beginning of the case. Hoblit had to admit the signing of the receipt, but told Lincoln he “supposed the cuss had lost it.” Lincoln at once arose and left the court-room. The Judge told the parties to proceed with the case; and Lincoln not appearing, Judge Treat directed a bailiff to go to the hotel and call him. The bailiff ran across the street to the hotel, and found Lincoln sitting in the office with his feet on the stove, apparently in a deep study, when he interrupted him with: “Mr. Lincoln, the Judge wants you.” “Oh, does he?” replied Lincoln. “Well, you go back and tell the Judge I cannot come. Tell him I have to wash my hands.” The bailiff returned with the message, and Lincoln’s client suffered a non-suit. It was Lincoln’s way of saying he wanted nothing more to do with such a case.

Lincoln would never advise clients into unwise or unjust lawsuits. He would always sacrifice his own interests, and refuse a retainer, rather than be a party to a case which did not command the approval of his sense of justice. He was once waited upon by a lady who held a real-estate claim which she desired to have him prosecute, putting into his hands, with the necessary papers, a check for two hundred and fifty dollars as a retaining fee. Lincoln said he would look the case over, and asked her to call again the next day. Upon presenting herself, he told her that he had gone through the papers 138very carefully, and was obliged to tell her frankly that there was “not a peg” to hang her claim upon, and he could not conscientiously advise her to bring an action. The lady was satisfied, and, thanking him, rose to go. “Wait,” said Lincoln, fumbling in his vest pocket; “here is the check you left with me.” “But, Mr. Lincoln,” returned the lady, “I think you have earned that.” “No, no,” he responded, handing it back to her; “that would not be right. I can’t take pay for doing my duty.” To a would-be client who had carefully stated his case, to which Lincoln had listened with the closest attention, he said: “Yes, there is no reasonable doubt that I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads; I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars, which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much to the woman and her children as it does to you. You must remember that some things that are legally right are not morally right. I shall not take your case, but will give you a little advice, for which I will charge you nothing. You seem to be a sprightly, energetic man. I would advise you to try your hand atmaking six hundred dollars some other way.”

Senator McDonald states that he saw a jury trial in Illinois, at which Lincoln defended an old man charged with assault and battery. No blood had been spilled, but there was malice in the prosecution, and the chief witness was eager to make the most of it. On cross-examination, Lincoln “gave him rope” and drew him out; asked him how long the fight lasted and how much ground it covered. The witness thought the fight must have lasted half an hour and covered an acre of ground. Lincoln called his attention to the fact that nobody was hurt, and then with an inimitable air asked him if he didn’t think it was “a mighty small crop for an acre of ground.” The jury rejected the prosecution’s claim.

139Many of the stories told of Lincoln at the bar are extremely ridiculous, and represent him in anything but a dignified light. But they are a part of the character of the man, and should be given wherever there is reason to suppose they are genuine. Besides, they are usually full of a humor that is irresistible. Such an incident is given by the Hon. Lawrence Weldon, Lincoln’s old friend and legal associate in Illinois. “I can see him now,” says Judge Weldon, “through the decaying memories of thirty years, standing in the corner of the old court-room, and as I approached him with a paper I did not understand, he said: ‘Wait until I fix this plug for my gallus, and I will pitch into that like a dog at a root.’ While speaking, he was busily engaged in trying to connect his suspender with his trousers by making a ‘plug’ perform the function of a button. Lincoln liked old-fashioned words, and never failed to use them if they could be sustained as proper. He was probably accustomed to say ‘gallows,’ and he never adopted the modern word ‘suspender.’”

On a certain occasion Lincoln appeared at the trial of a case in which his friend Judge Logan was his opponent. It was a suit between two farmers who had had a disagreement over a horse-trade. On the day of the trial, Mr. Logan, having bought a new shirt, open in the back, with a huge standing collar, dressed himself in extreme haste, and put on the shirt with the bosom at the back, a linen coat concealing the blunder. He dazed the jury with his knowledge of “horse points”; and as the day was sultry, took off his coat and “summed” up in his shirt-sleeves. Lincoln, sitting behind him, took in the situation, and when his turn came he remarked to the jury: “Gentlemen, Mr. Logan has been trying for over an hour to make you believe he knows more about a horse than these honest old farmers who are witnesses. He has quoted largely from his ‘horse doctor,’ and now, gentlemen, I submit to you,” (here he lifted Logan out of his chair, and turned 140him with his back to the jury and the crowd, at the same time flapping up the enormous standing collar) “what dependence can you place in his horse knowledge, when he has not sense enough to put on his shirt?” Roars of laughter greeted this exposition, and the verdict was given to Lincoln.

The preceding incident leads to another, in which Lincoln himself figures as a horse-trader. The scene is a very humorous one; and, as usual in an encounter of wit, Lincoln came out ahead. He and a certain Judge once got to bantering each other about trading horses; and it was agreed that the next morning at nine o’clock they should make a trade, the horses to be unseen up to that hour,—and no backing out, under a forfeit of twenty-five dollars. At the hour appointed the Judge came up, leading the sorriest looking specimen of a nag ever seen in those parts. In a few minutes Lincoln was seen approaching with a wooden saw-horse upon his shoulders. Great were the shouts and the laughter of the crowd; and these increased, when Lincoln, surveying the Judge’s animal, set down his saw-horse, and exclaimed: “Well, Judge, this is the first time I ever got the worst of it in a horse-trade!”

There has been much discussion as to Lincoln’s rank and ability as a lawyer. Opinion among his contemporaries seems to have been somewhat divided. Mr. Herndon felt warranted in saying that he was at the same time a very great and a very insignificant lawyer. His mind was logical and direct. Generalities and platitudes had no charm for him. He had the ability to seize the strong points of a case and present them with clearness and compactness. His power of comparison was great. He rarely failed in a legal discussion to use this mode of reasoning. Yet he knew practically nothing of the rules of evidence, of pleading, of practice, as laid down in the text-books, and seemed to care little about them. Some141times he lost cases of the plainest justice which the most inexperienced lawyer could have won. He looked upon two things as essential to his success in a case. One was time; he was slow in reasoning and slow in speech. The other was confidence that the cause he represented was just. “If either of these were lacking,” said Mr. Herndon, “Lincoln was the weakest man at the bar. When it fell to him to address the jury he often relied absolutely on the inspiration of the moment,—but he seldom failed to carry his point.”

Among the great number of opinions of Lincoln’s rank as a lawyer, expressed by his professional brethren, a few may properly be given in closing this chapter, which is devoted chiefly to Mr. Lincoln’s professional career. First we may quote the brief but emphatic words of the distinguished jurist, Judge Sidney Breese, Chief Justice of Illinois, who said: “For my single self, I have for a quarter of a century regarded Mr. Lincoln as the finest lawyer I ever knew, and of a professional bearing so high-toned and honorable, as justly, and without derogating from the claims of others, entitling him to be presented to the profession as a model well worthy of the closest imitation.”

Another distinguished Chief Justice, Hon. John Dean Caton; says: “In 1840 or 1841, I met Mr. Lincoln, and was for the first time associated with him in a professional way. We attended the Circuit Court at Pontiac, Judge Treat presiding, where we were both engaged in the defense of a man by the name of Lavinia. That was the first and only time I was associated with him at the bar. He practiced in a circuit that was beyond the one in which I practiced, and consequently we were not brought together much in the practice of the law. He stood well at the bar from the beginning. I was a younger man, but an older lawyer. He was not admitted to the bar till after I was. I was not closely connected with him. Indeed, I did not meet him often, professionally, until I went on the bench 142in 1842; and he was then in full practice before the Supreme Court, and continued to practice there regularly at every term until he was elected President. Mr. Lincoln understood the relations of things, and hence his deductions were rarely wrong from any given state of facts. So he applied the principles of law to the transactions of men with great clearness and precision. He was a close reasoner. He reasoned by analogy, and enforced his views by apt illustration. His mode of speaking was generally of a plain and unimpassioned character, and yet he was the author of some of the most beautiful and eloquent passages in our language, which, if collected, would form a valuable contribution to American literature. The most punctilious honor ever marked his professional and private life.”

The Hon. Thomas Drummond, for many years Judge of the United States District Court at Chicago, said: “It is not necessary to claim for Mr. Lincoln attributes or qualities which he did not possess. He had enough to entitle him to the love and respect and esteem of all who knew him. He was not skilled in the learning of the schools, and his knowledge of the law was acquired almost entirely by his own unaided study and by the practice of his profession. Nature gave him great clearness and acuteness of intellect and a vast fund of common-sense; and as a consequence of these he had much sagacity in judging of the motives and springs of human conduct. With a voice by no means pleasing, and, indeed, when excited, in its shrill tones sometimes almost disagreeable; without any of the personal graces of the orator; without much in the outward man indicating superiority of intellect; without great quickness of perception,—still, his mind was so vigorous, his comprehension so exact and clear, and his judgments so sure, that he easily mastered the intricacies of his profession, and became one of the ablest reasoners and most impressive speakers at 143our bar. With a probity of character known to all, with an intuitive insight into the human heart, with a clearness of statement which was itself an argument, with an uncommon power and facility of illustration, often, it is true, of a plain and homely kind, and with that sincerity and earnestness of manner to carry conviction, he was perhaps one of the most successful jury lawyers we have ever had in the State. He always tried a case fairly and honestly. He never intentionally misrepresented the testimony of a witness or the arguments of an opponent. He met both squarely, and, if he could not explain the one or answer the other, substantially admitted it. He never misstated the law according to his own intelligent view of it. Such was the transparent candor and integrity of his nature that he could not well or strongly argue a side or a cause that he thought wrong. Of course, he felt it his duty to say what could be said, and to leave the decision to others; but there could be seen in such cases the inward struggle in his own mind. In trying a cause he might occasionally dwell too long or give too much importance to an inconsiderable point; but this was the exception, and generally he went straight to the citadel of a cause or a question, and struck home there, knowing if that were won the outwork would necessarily fall. He could hardly be called very learned in his profession, and yet he rarely tried a cause without fully understanding the law applicable to it. I have no hesitation in saying he was one of the ablest lawyers I have ever known. If he was forcible before the jury he was equally so with the court. He detected with unerring sagacity the marked points of his opponents’ arguments, and pressed his own views with overwhelming force. His efforts were quite unequal, and it may have been that he would not on some occasions strike one as at all remarkable; but let him be thoroughly aroused, let him feel that he was right and that some great principle was involved in his case, and he would come out 144with an earnestness of conviction, a power of argument, and a wealth of illustration, that I have never seen surpassed…. Simple in his habits, without pretensions of any kind, and distrustful of himself, he was willing to yield precedence and place to others, when he ought to have claimed them for himself. He rarely, if ever, sought office except at the urgent solicitations of his friends. In substantiation of this, I may be permitted to relate an incident which now occurs to me. Prior to his nomination for the Presidency, and, indeed, when his name was first mentioned in connection with that high office, I broached the subject upon the occasion of meeting him here. His response was, ‘I hope they will select some abler man than myself.’”

Mr. C.S. Parks, a lawyer associated with Lincoln for some years, furnishes the following testimony concerning his more prominent qualities: “I have often said that for a man who was for a quarter of a century both a lawyer and a politician he was the most honest man I ever knew. He was not only morally honest, but intellectually so. He could not reason falsely; if he attempted it, he failed. In politics he would never try to mislead. At the bar, when he thought he was wrong, he was the weakest lawyer I ever saw.”

Hon. David Davis, afterwards Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Senator, presided over the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois during the remaining years of Lincoln’s practice at the bar. He was united to Lincoln in close bonds of friendship, and year after year travelled with him over the circuit, put up with him at the same hotels, and often occupied the same room with him. “This simple life,” says Judge Davis, “Mr. Lincoln loved, preferring it to the practice of the law in the city. In all the elements that constitute the great lawyer, he had few equals. He seized the strong points of a cause, and presented them with clearness and great compactness. 145He read law-books but little, except when the cause in hand made it necessary; yet he was unusually self-reliant, depending on his own resources, and rarely consulting his brother lawyers either on the management of his case or the legal questions involved. He was the fairest and most accommodating of practitioners, granting all favors which he could do consistently with his duty to his client, and rarely availing himself of an unwary oversight of his adversary. He hated wrong and oppression everywhere, and many a man, whose fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justice, has withered under his terrific indignation and rebuke.”

Mr. Speed says: “As a lawyer, after his first year he was acknowledged to be among the best in the State. His analytical powers were marvellous. He always resolved every question into its primary elements, and gave up every point on his own side that did not seem to be invulnerable. One would think, to hear him present his case in the court, he was giving his case away. He would concede point after point to his adversary. But he always reserved a point upon which he claimed a decision in his favor, and his concessions magnified the strength of his claim. He rarely failed in gaining his cases in court.”

The special characteristics of Lincoln’s practice at the bar are thus ably summed up: “He did not make a specialty of criminal cases, but was engaged frequently in them. He could not be called a great lawyer, measured by the extent of his acquirement of legal knowledge; he was not an encyclopædia of cases; but in the clear perception of legal principles, with natural capacity to apply them, he had great ability. He was not a case lawyer, but a lawyer who dealt in the deep philosophy of the law. He always knew the cases which might be quoted as absolute authority, but beyond that he contented himself in the application and discussion of general principles. In the trial of a case he moved cautiously. He never 146examined or cross-examined a witness to the detriment of his side. If the witness told the truth, he was safe from his attacks; but woe betide the unlucky and dishonest individual who suppressed the truth or colored it against Mr. Lincoln’s side. His speeches to the jury were very effective specimens of forensic oratory. He talked the vocabulary of the people, and the jury understood every point he made and every thought he uttered. I never saw him when I thought he was trying to make an effort for the sake of mere display; but his imagination was simple and pure in the richest gems of true eloquence. He constructed short sentences of small words, and never wearied the minds of the jury by mazes of elaboration.”

BIBLIOGRAFY:

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES
AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compiler of “Golden Poems,” “Bugle Echoes, Pose of
the Civil War,” “Laurel-Crowned Verse,” etc.

NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH
AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A
CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

CHAPTER VII

Retiring, somewhat reluctantly, from Washington life, which he seems to have liked very much, Lincoln returned to Springfield in 1849 and resumed the practice of the law. He declined an advantageous offer of a law-partnership at Chicago, made him by Judge Goodrich, giving as a reason that if he went to Chicago he would have to sit down and study hard, and this would kill him; that he would rather go around the circuit in the country than to sit down and die in a big city. So he settled down once more in the rather uneventful and fairly prosperous life of a country lawyer.

A gentleman who knew Lincoln intimately in Springfield, in his maturity, has given the following capital description of him. “He stands six feet four inches high in his stockings. His frame is not muscular, but gaunt and wiry; his arms are long, but not disproportionately so for a person of his height; his lower limbs are not disproportioned to his body. In walking, his gait, though firm, is never brisk. He steps slowly and deliberately, almost always with his head inclined forward and his hands clasped behind his back. In matters of dress he is by no means precise. Always clean, he is never fashionable; he is careless, but not slovenly. In manner he is re110markably cordial and at the same time simple. His politeness is always sincere but never elaborate and oppressive. A warm shake of the hand and a warmer smile of recognition are his methods of greeting his friends. At rest, his features, though those of a man of mark, are not such as belong to a handsome man; but when his fine dark gray eyes are lighted up by any emotion, and his features begin their play, he would be chosen from among a crowd as one who had in him not only the kindly sentiments which women love but the heavier metal of which full-grown men and Presidents are made. His hair is black, and, though thin, is wiry. His head sits well on his shoulders, but beyond that it defies description. It nearer resembles that of Clay than that of Webster; but it is unlike either. It is very large, and phrenologically well proportioned, betokening power in all its developments. A slightly Roman nose, a wide-cut mouth, and a dark complexion, with the appearance of having been weather-beaten, complete the description.”

Of Lincoln’s life at this period, another writer says: “He lived simply, comfortably, and respectably, with neither expensive tastes nor habits. His wants were few and simple. He occupied a small unostentatious house in Springfield, and was in the habit of entertaining, in a very simple way, his friends and his brethren of the bar during the terms of the court and the sessions of the Legislature. Mrs. Lincoln often entertained small numbers of friends at dinner and somewhat larger numbers at evening parties. In his modest and simple home everything was orderly and refined, and there was always, on the part of both Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, a cordial and hearty Western welcome which put every guest at ease. Yet it was the wit and humor, anecdote, and unrivalled conversation of the host which formed the chief attraction and made a dinner at Lincoln’s cottage an event to be remembered. Lincoln’s income from his profession was now from $2,000 to $3,000 111per annum. His property consisted of his house and lot in Springfield, a lot in the town of Lincoln which had been given to him, and 160 acres of wild land in Iowa which he had received for his services in the Black Hawk War. He owned a few law and miscellaneous books. All his property may have been of the value of $10,000 or $12,000.”

Lincoln was at this time the father of two sons: Robert Todd, born on the 1st day of August, 1843; and Edward Baker, born on the 10th of March, 1846. In a letter to his friend Speed, dated October 22 of the latter year, Lincoln writes: “We have another boy, born the 10th of March. He is very much such a child as Bob was at his age, rather of a longerorder. Bob is ‘short and low,’ and I expect he always will be. He talks very plainly, almost as plainly as anybody. He is quite smart enough. I sometimes fear he is one of the littlerare-ripe sort that are smarter at about five than ever after. He has a great deal of that sort of mischief that is the offspring of much animal spirits. Since I began this letter a messenger came to tell me Bob was lost; but by the time I reached the house his mother had found him and had him whipped. By now, very likely, he is run away again.”

December 21, 1850, a third son, William Wallace, was born to him; and on April 4, 1853, a fourth and last child, named Thomas.

“A young man bred in Springfield,” says Dr. Holland, “speaks of a vision of Lincoln, as he appeared in those days, that has clung to his memory very vividly. The young man’s way to school led by the lawyer’s door. On almost any fair summer morning he would find Lincoln on the sidewalk in front of his house, drawing a child backward and forward in a little gig. Without hat or coat, wearing a pair of rough shoes, his hands behind him holding to the tongue of the gig, and his tall form bent forward to accommodate himself to the service, he paced 112up and down the walk forgetful of everything around him and intent only on some subject that absorbed his mind. The young man says he remembers wondering in his boyish way how so rough and plain a man should happen to live in so respectable a house. The habit of mental absorption, or ‘absent-mindedness’ as it is called, was common with him always, but particularly during the formative periods of his life. The New Salem people, it will be remembered, thought him crazy because he passed his best friends in the street without seeing them. At the table, in his own family, he often sat down without knowing or realizing where he was, and ate his food mechanically. When he ‘came to himself’ it was a trick with him to break the silence by the quotation of some verse of poetry from a favorite author. It relieved the awkwardness of the situation, served as a ‘blind’ to the thoughts which had possessed him, and started conversation in a channel that led as far as possible from the subject that he had set aside.”

Mr. Lamon has written with great freedom of the sorrow that brooded over Lincoln’s home. Some knowledge of the blight which this cast upon his life is necessary for a right interpretation of the gloomy moods that constantly oppressed him and left their indelible impress on his face and character. Mr. Lamon states unreservedly that Lincoln’s marriage was an unhappy one. The circumstances preceding his union with Miss Todd have been related. Mr. Lamon says: “He was conscientious and honorable and just. There was but one way of repairing the injury he had done Miss Todd, and he adopted it. They were married; but they understood each other, and suffered the inevitable consequences. Such troubles seldom fail to find a tongue; and it is not strange that in this case neighbors and friends, and ultimately the whole country, came to know the state of things in that house. Lincoln scarcely attempted to conceal it. He talked of it 113with little or no reserve to his wife’s relatives, as well as to his own friends. Yet the gentleness and patience with which he bore this affliction from day to day and from year to year was enough to move the shade of Socrates. It touched his acquaintances deeply, and they gave it the widest publicity.” Mrs. Colonel Chapman, daughter of Dennis Hanks and a relative of Lincoln, made him a long visit previous to her marriage. “You ask me,” says she, “how Mr. Lincoln acted at home. I can say, and that truly, he was all that a husband, father, and neighbor should be, kind and affectionate to his wife and child (‘Bob’ being the only one they had when I was with them), and very pleasant to all around him. Never did I hear him utter an unkind word.”

It seems impossible to arrive at all the causes of Lincoln’s melancholy disposition. He was, according to his most intimate friends, totally unlike other people,—was, in fact, “a mystery.” But whatever the history or the cause,—whether physical reasons, the absence of domestic concord, a series of painful recollections of his mother, of early sorrows and hardships, of Anne Rutledge and fruitless hopes, or all these combined,—Lincoln was a terribly sad and gloomy man. “I do not think that he knew what happiness was for twenty years,” says Mr. Herndon. “‘Terrible‘ is the word which all his friends used to describe him in the black mood. ‘It was terrible! It was terrible!’ said one to another.” Judge Davis believes that Lincoln’s hilarity was mainly simulated, and that “his stories and jokes were intended to whistle off sadness.” “The groundwork of his social nature was sad,” says Judge Scott. “But for the fact that he studiously cultivated the humorous, it would have been very sad indeed. His mirth always seemed to me to be put on; like a plant produced in a hot-bed, it had an unnatural and luxuriant growth.” Mr. Herndon, Lincoln’s law-partner and most intimate friend, describes him at this 114period as a “thin, tall, wiry, sinewy, grizzly, raw-boned man, looking ‘woe-struck.’ His countenance was haggard and careworn, exhibiting all the marks of deep and protracted suffering. Every feature of the man—the hollow eyes, with the dark rings beneath; the long, sallow, cadaverous face intersected by those peculiar deep lines; his whole air; his walk; his long silent reveries, broken at long intervals by sudden and startling exclamations, as if to confound an observer who might suspect the nature of his thoughts,—showed he was a man of sorrows, not sorrows of to-day or yesterday, but long-treasured and deep, bearing with him a continual sense of weariness and pain. He was a plain, homely, sad, weary-looking man, to whom one’s heart warmed involuntarily because he seemed at once miserable and kind.”

Mr. Page Eaton, an old resident of Springfield, says: “Lincoln always did his own marketing, even after he was elected President and before he went to Washington. I used to see him at the butcher’s or baker’s every morning, with his basket on his arm. He was kind and sociable, and would always speak to everyone. He was so kind, so childlike, that I don’t believe there was one in the city who didn’t love him as a father or brother.” “On a winter’s morning,” says Mr. Lamon, “he could be seen wending his way to the market, with a basket on his arm and at his side a little boy whose small feet rattled and pattered over the ice-bound pavement, attempting to make up by the number of his short steps for the long strides of his father. The little fellow jerked at the bony hand which held his, and prattled and questioned, begged and grew petulant, in a vain effort to make his father talk to him. But the latter was probably unconscious of the other’s existence, and stalked on, absorbed in his own reflections. He wore on such occasions an old gray shawl, rolled into a coil and wrapped like a rope around his neck. The rest of his clothes were in keeping. ‘He did 115not walk cunningly—Indian-like—but cautiously and firmly.’ His tread was even and strong. He was a little pigeon-toed; and this, with another peculiarity, made his walk very singular. He set his whole foot flat on the ground, and in turn lifted it all at once—not resting momentarily upon the toe as the foot rose nor upon the heel as it fell. He never wore his shoes out at the heel and the toe, as most men do, more than at the middle. Yet his gait was not altogether awkward, and there was manifest physical power in his step. As he moved along thus, silent and abstracted, his thoughts dimly reflected in his sharp face, men turned to look after him as an object of sympathy as well as curiosity. His melancholy, in the words of Mr. Herndon, ‘dripped from him as he walked.’ If, however, he met a friend in the street, and was roused by a hearty ‘Good-morning, Lincoln!’ he would grasp the friend’s hand with one or both of his own, and with his usual expression of ‘Howdy! howdy!’ would detain him to hear a story; something reminded him of it; it happened in Indiana, and it must be told, for it was wonderfully pertinent. It was not at home that he most enjoyed seeing company. He preferred to meet his friends abroad,—on a street-corner, in an office, at the court-house, or sitting on nail-kegs in a country store.” Mrs. Lincoln experienced great difficulty in securing the punctual attendance of her husband at the family meals. Dr. Bateman has repeatedly seen two of the boys pulling with all their might at his coat-tails, and a third pushing in front, while paterfamilias stood upon the street cordially shaking the hand of an old acquaintance.

After his breakfast-hour, says Mr. Lamon, he would appear at his office and go about the labors of the day with all his might, displaying prodigious industry and capacity for continuous application, although he never was a fast worker. Sometimes it happened that he came without his breakfast; and then he would have in his hands a piece 116of cheese or bologna sausage, and a few crackers, bought by the way. At such times he did not speak to his partner, or his friends if any happened to be present; the tears perhaps struggling into his eyes, while his pride was struggling to keep them back. Mr. Herndon knew the whole story at a glance. There was no speech between them, but neither wished the visitors at the office to witness the scene. So Lincoln retired to the back office while Mr. Herndon locked the front one and walked away with the key in his pocket. In an hour or more the latter would return and perhaps find Lincoln calm and collected. Otherwise he went out again and waited until he was so. Then the office was opened and everything went on as usual.

“His mind was filled with gloomy forebodings and strong apprehensions of impending evil, mingled with extravagant visions of personal grandeur and power. He never doubted for a moment that he was formed for some ‘great or miserable end.’ He talked about it frequently and sometimes calmly. Mr. Herndon remembers many of these conversations in their office at Springfield and in their rides around the circuit. Lincoln said the impression had grown in him all his life; but Mr. Herndon thinks it was about 1840 that it took the character of a ‘religious conviction.’ He had then suffered much, and considering his opportunities he had achieved great things. He was already a leader among men, and a most brilliant career had been promised him by the prophetic enthusiasm of many friends. Thus encouraged and stimulated, and feeling himself growing gradually stronger and stronger in the estimation of ‘the plain people’ whose voice was more potent than all the Warwicks, his ambition painted the rainbow of glory in the sky, while his morbid melancholy supplied the clouds that were to overcast and obliterate it with the wrath and ruin of the tempest. To him it was fate, and there was no escape or defense. The 117presentiment never deserted him. It was as clear, as perfect, as certain as any image conveyed by the senses. He had now entertained it so long that it was as much a part of his nature as the consciousness of identity. All doubts had faded away, and he submitted humbly to a power which he could neither comprehend nor resist. He was to fall,—fall from a lofty place and in the performance of a great work.”

On one occasion Lincoln visited Chicago as counsel in a case in the U.S. District Court. The Hon. N.B. Judd, an intimate friend, was also engaged upon the case, and took Mr. Lincoln home with him as a guest. The following account of this visit is given by Mrs. Judd in Oldroyd’s Memorial Album: “Mr. Judd had invited Mr. Lincoln to spend the evening at our pleasant home on the shore of Lake Michigan. After tea, and until quite late, we sat on the broad piazza, looking out upon as lovely a scene as that which has made the Bay of Naples so celebrated. A number of vessels were availing themselves of a fine breeze to leave the harbor, and the lake was studded with many a white sail. I remember that a flock of sea-gulls were flying along the beach, dipping their beaks and white-lined wings in the foam that capped the short waves as they fell upon the shore. Whilst we sat there the great white moon appeared on the rim of the eastern horizon and slowly crept above the water, throwing a perfect flood of silver light upon the dancing waves. The stars shone with the soft light of a midsummer night, and the breaking of the low waves upon the shore added the charm of pleasant sound to the beauty of the night. Mr. Lincoln, whose home was far inland from the great lakes, seemed greatly impressed with the wondrous beauty of the scene, and carried by its impressiveness away from all thought of jars and turmoil of earth. In that mild, pleasant voice, attuned to harmony with his surroundings, as was his wont when his soul was stirred by aught that was lovely or 118beautiful, Mr. Lincoln began to speak of the mystery which for ages enshrouded and shut out those distant worlds above us from our own; of the poetry and beauty which was seen and felt by seers of old when they contemplated Orion and Arcturus as they wheeled, seemingly around the earth, in their nightly course; of the discoveries since the invention of the telescope, which had thrown a flood of light and knowledge on what before was incomprehensible and mysterious; of the wonderful computations of scientists who had measured the miles of seemingly endless space which separated the planets in our solar system from our central sun, and our sun from other suns. He speculated on the possibilities of knowledge which an increased power of the lens would give in the years to come. When the night air became too chilling to remain longer on the piazza we went into the parlor. Seated on the sofa, his long limbs stretching across the carpet and his arms folded behind him, Mr. Lincoln went on to speak of other discoveries, of the inventions which had been made during the long cycles of time lying between the present and those early days when the sons of Adam began to make use of material things about them and invent instruments of various kinds in brass and gold and silver. He gave us a short but succinct account of all the inventions referred to in the Old Testament, from the time when Adam walked in the garden of Eden until the Bible record ended, 600 B.C. I said, ‘Mr. Lincoln, I did not know you were such a Bible student.’ He replied: ‘I must be honest, Mrs. Judd, and tell you just how I come to know so much about these early inventions.’ He then went on to say that in discussing with some friend the relative age of the discovery and use of the precious metals he went to the Bible to satisfy himself and became so interested in his researches that he made memoranda of the different discoveries and inventions. Soon after, he was invited to lecture before some literary society, I think in Bloom119ington. The interest he had felt in the study convinced him that the subject would interest others, and he therefore prepared and delivered his lecture on The Age of Different Inventions. ‘Of course,’ he added, ‘I could not after that forget the order or time of such discoveries and inventions.’”

In all the years that had passed since Lincoln left his father’s humble house, he had preserved an affectionate interest in the welfare of its various members. He paid them visits whenever he could find opportunity, and never failed to extend his aid and sympathy whenever needed. He had risen to success in his profession, was widely known throughout his section, and though still a poor man he had good prospects and considerable influence. Yet he ever retained a considerate regard and remembrance for the poor and obscure relatives he had left plodding in the humble ways of life. He never assumed the slightest superiority to them. Whenever, upon his circuit, he found time, he always visited them. Countless times he was known to leave his companions at the village hotel after a hard day’s work in the court-room and spend the evening with these old friends and companions of his humbler days. On one occasion, when urged not to go, he replied, “Why, Aunt’s heart would be broken if I should leave town without calling upon her,”—yet he was obliged to walk several miles to make the call. As his fortunes improved he often sent money and presents to his father and step-mother, bought land for them, and tried in every way to make them comfortable and happy. The father was gratified at these marks of affection, and felt great pride in the rising prosperity of his son. Mr. Herndon says that “for years Lincoln supported or helped to support his aged father and mother. It is to his honor that he dearly loved his step-mother, and it is equally true that she idolized her step-son. He purchased a piece of property in Coles County as a home for his father 120and mother, and had it deeded in trust for their use and benefit.”

In 1851 Lincoln’s father died, at the age of seventy-three. The following letter, written a few days before this event, reveals the affectionate solicitude of the son:

The step-brother, John Johnston, to whom the foregoing letter is addressed, was the cause of considerable anxiety to Lincoln. It was with him that their parents 121resided, and frequent were his appeals to Lincoln to extricate him from some pecuniary strait into which he had fallen through his confirmed thriftlessness and improvidence. “John Johnston,” Mr. Herndon says, “was an indolent and shiftless man, one who was ‘born tired.’ Yet he was clever, generous and hospitable.” The following document affords a hint of Lincoln’s kindly patience as well as of his capacity for sound practical advice when it was much needed:

In other letters he wrote even more sharply to his thriftless step-brother.

In still another letter he reveals his tender solicitude for his step-mother, as well as his care for his step-brother’s unfortunate children.

In speaking of Lincoln’s regard for his step-mother, it is interesting also to learn her opinion of him. A gentleman visiting the old lady after her son’s death says: “She is eighty-four years old, and quite feeble. She is a plain, 124unsophisticated old lady, with a frank, open countenance, a warm heart full of kindness toward others, and in many respects very much like the President. Abraham was evidently her idol; she speaks of him still as her ‘good boy,’ and with much feeling said, ‘He was always a good boy, and willing to do just what I wanted. He and his step-brother never quarrelled but once, and that, you know, is a great deal for step-brothers. I didn’t want him elected President. I knowed they would kill him.’” She died in April, 1869, and was buried by the side of her husband, Thomas Lincoln.

CHAPTER VI

In the spring of 1843 Lincoln was among the nominees proposed to represent the Sangamon district in Congress; but Col. Edward D. Baker carried the delegation, and was elected. In writing to his friend Speed, Lincoln treated the circumstance with his usual humor. “We had,” he says, “a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint delegates to a district convention. Baker beat me, and got the delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my attempt to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates; so that in getting Baker the nomination I shall be ‘fixed’ a good deal like a fellow who is made groomsman to the man who ‘cut him out’ and is marrying his own girl.”

On the 20th of September, 1843, the partnership between Lincoln and Judge Logan was dissolved; and the same day a new association was formed with William H. Herndon, a relative of one of Lincoln’s former friends of Clary Grove. It is said that in spite of their close friendship Mr. Herndon could not understand it when Lincoln one day plunged up the office stairs and said, “Herndon, should you like to be my partner?” “Don’t laugh at me, 98Mr. Lincoln,” was the response. Persistent repetition of the question could hardly gain a hearing; but at last Mr. Herndon said: “Mr. Lincoln, you know I am too young, and I have no standing and no money; but if you are in earnest, there is nothing in this world that would make me so happy.” Nothing more was said till the papers were brought to Herndon to sign. The partnership of “Lincoln & Herndon” was a happy one, and continued until Lincoln became President, a period of nearly eighteen years.

The life of Henry Clay, which Lincoln read in his boyhood, had filled him with enthusiasm for the great Whig leader; and when the latter was nominated for the Presidency, in 1844, there was no more earnest adherent of his cause than the “Sangamon Chief,” as Lincoln was now called. Lincoln canvassed Illinois and a part of Indiana during the campaign, meeting the chief Democratic speakers, and especially Douglas, in debate. Lincoln had not at this time heard the “silvery-tongued orator” of Kentucky; but two years later the opportunity was afforded and eagerly embraced. It is possible, as Dr. Holland remarks, that he “needed the influence of this visit to restore a healthy tone to his feelings, and to teach him that the person whom his imagination had transformed into a demigod was only a man, possessing the full measure of weaknesses common to men. In 1846 Lincoln learned that Clay was to deliver a speech at Lexington, Kentucky, in favor of gradual emancipation. This event seemed to give him an excuse for breaking away from his business and satisfying his desire to look his demigod in the face and hear the music of his eloquence. He accordingly went to Lexington, and arrived there in time to attend the meeting. On returning to his home from this visit he did not attempt to disguise his disappointment. Clay’s speech was written and read; it lacked entirely the fire and eloquence which Lincoln had99anticipated. At the close of the meeting Lincoln secured an introduction to the great orator and as Clay knew what a friend Lincoln had been to him, he invited his admirer and partisan to Ashland. No invitation could have delighted Lincoln more. But the result of his private intercourse with Clay was no more satisfactory than that which followed the speech. Those who have known both men will not wonder at this; for two men could hardly be more unlike in their motives and manners than the two thus brought together. One was a proud man; the other was a humble man. One was princely in his bearing; the other was lowly. One was distant and dignified; the other was as simple and approachable as a child. One received the deference of men as his due; the other received it with an uncomfortable sense of his unworthiness. A friend of Lincoln, who had a long conversation with him after his return from Ashland, found that his old enthusiasm was gone. Lincoln said that though Clay was polished in his manners, and very hospitable, he betrayed a consciousness of superiority that none could mistake.”

For two years after the Presidential contest between Clay and Polk, Lincoln devoted himself assiduously to his law practice. But in 1846 he was again active in politics, this time striving for a seat in the National Congress. His chief opponent among the Whig candidates was his old friend John J. Hardin, who soon withdrew from the contest, leaving Mr. Lincoln alone in the field. The candidate on the Democratic ticket was Peter Cartwright, the famous Methodist preacher. It was supposed from his great popularity as a pulpit orator that Mr. Cartwright would run far ahead of his ticket. Instead of this, Lincoln received a majority of 1,511 in his district, which in 1844 had given Clay a majority of only 914 and in 1848 had allowed the Whig candidate for Congress to be defeated by 106 votes.

100Lincoln took his seat in the Thirtieth Congress in December, 1847, the only Whig member from Illinois. Among the notable members of this Congress were ex-president John Quincy Adams; Andrew Johnson, elected Vice-President with Lincoln on his second election; A.H. Stephens, afterwards Vice-President of the Confederacy; Toombs, Rhett, Cobb, and others who afterwards became leaders of the Rebellion. In the Senate were Daniel Webster, Simon Cameron, Lewis Cass, Mason, Hunter, John C. Calhoun, and Jefferson Davis.

Lincoln entered Congress as the Illinois leader of the Whig party. He was reputed to be an able and effective speaker. In speaking of the impression he made upon his associates, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop says: “I recall vividly the impressions I then formed both of his ability and amiability. We were old Whigs together, and agreed entirely upon all questions of public interest. I could not always concur in the policy of the party which made him President, but I never lost my personal regard for him. For shrewdness, sagacity, and keen practical sense, he has had no superior in our day or generation.”

Alexander H. Stephens, writing seventeen years after Lincoln’s death, recalled their service together in Congress. “I knew Mr. Lincoln well and intimately,” said Mr. Stephens. “We both were ardent supporters of General Taylor for President in 1848. Lincoln, Toombs, Preston, myself, and others, formed the first Congressional Taylor Club, known as ‘The Young Indians,’ and organized the Taylor movement which resulted in his nomination. Mr. Lincoln was careless as to his manners and awkward in his speech, but possessed a strong, clear, vigorous mind. He always attracted and riveted the attention of the House when he spoke. His manner of speech as well as of thought was original. He had no model. He was a man of strong convictions, and what Carlyle would have called an earnest man. He abounded 101in anecdote. He illustrated everything he was talking about by an anecdote, always exceedingly apt and pointed; and socially he always kept his company in a roar of laughter.”

Alluding to his first speech in Congress—on some post-office question of no special interest—Lincoln wrote to his friend Herndon that his principal object was to “get the hang of the House”; adding that he “found speaking here and elsewhere about the same thing. I was about as badly scared as when I spoke in court, but no more so.”

Lincoln’s mental power, as well as his self-confidence, developed rapidly under the responsibilities of his new position. During his term of service in the House he was zealous in the performance of his duties, alert to seize every opportunity to strike a blow for his party and acquit himself to the satisfaction of his constituents. In January, 1848, he made a telling speech in support of the “Spot Resolutions,” in which his antagonism to the course of the Administration in regard to the war on Mexico was uncompromisingly announced. These resolutions were offered for the purpose of getting from President Polk a statement of facts regarding the beginning of the war. In this speech Lincoln warned the President not to try to “escape scrutiny by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory—that attractive rainbow that rises in showers of blood, that serpent’s eye that charms but to destroy.” In writing, a few days after the delivery of this speech, to Mr. Herndon, Lincoln said: “I will stake my life that if you had been in my place you would have voted just as I did. Would you have voted what you felt and knew to be a lie? I know you would not. Would you have gone out of the House—skulked the vote? I expect not. If you had skulked one vote you would have had to skulk many more before the end of the session. Richardson’s resolutions, introduced before I made any move or gave any vote upon 102the subject, make a direct question of the justice of the war; so no man can be silent if he would. You are compelled to speak; and your only alternative is to tell the truth or tell a lie. I cannot doubt which you would do.”

Lincoln’s position on the Mexican War has been generally approved by the moral sense of the country; but it gave his political enemies an opportunity, which they were not slow to improve, for trying to make political capital out of it and using it to create a prejudice against him. Douglas in particular never missed an opportunity of referring to it. In the great joint debate in 1858 he spoke of Lincoln’s having “distinguished himself in Congress by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country.” No better refutation of these oft-repeated charges could be made than that given by Lincoln himself on this occasion. “The Judge charges me,” he said, “with having, while in Congress, opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. I will tell you what he can prove by referring to the record. You remember I was an old Whig; and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had been righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. But whenever they asked for any money or land-warrants, or anything to pay the soldiers, I gave the same vote that Judge Douglas did. Such is the truth, and the Judge has a right to make all he can out of it.”

The most ambitious utterance of Lincoln during this term in Congress was that of July 27, 1848, when he took for his subject the very comprehensive one of “The Presidency and General Politics.” It was a piece of sound and forcible argumentation, relieved by strong and effective imagery and quiet humor. A considerable portion of it was occupied with an exposure of the weaknesses of General Cass, the Presidential candidate opposed to General Taylor. Lincoln ridiculed Cass with all the 103wit at his command. An extract from this speech has already been quoted in this work, in the account of Lincoln in the Black Hawk War. Another passage, equally telling, relates to the vacillating action of General Cass on the Wilmot Proviso. After citing a number of facts in reference to the case, Lincoln says: “These extracts show that in 1846 General Cass was for the Proviso at once; that in March, 1847, he was still for it, but not just then; and that in December, 1847, he was against it altogether. This is a true index to the whole man. When the question was raised, in 1846, he was in a blustering hurry to take ground for it. He sought to be in advance, and to avoid the uninteresting position of a mere follower. But soon he began to see glimpses of the great Democratic ox-gad waving in his face, and to hear indistinctly a voice saying, ‘Back! Back, sir! Back a little!’ He shakes his head and bats his eyes and blunders back to his position of March, 1847. But still the gad waves, and the voice grows more distinct and sharper still, ‘Back, sir! Back, I say! Further back!’ And back he goes to the position of December, 1847, at which the gad is still and the voice soothingly says, ‘So! Stand still at that!’”

Again, after extended comment on the extra charges of General Cass upon the Treasury for military services, he continued in a still more sarcastic vein: “But I have introduced General Cass’s accounts here chiefly to show the wonderful physical capacities of the man. They show that he not only did the labor of several men at the same time, but that he often did it at several places many hundred miles apart at the same time. And at eating, too, his capacities are shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 1821, to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten rations a day here in Washington, and near five dollars’ worth a day besides, partly on the road between the two places. And then there is an important discovery in his example—the art of being 104paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it. Hereafter if any nice young man shall owe a bill which he cannot pay in any other way he can just board it out. Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay and starving to death. The like of that would never happen to General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart, he would stand stock-still midway between them and eat them both at once; and the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some, too, at the same time. By all means make him President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously—if—if—there is any left after he shall have helped himself.”

Lincoln’s most important act in the Congress of 1848-9 was the introduction of a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. But the state of feeling on the subject of emancipation was so feverish at the time that the bill could not even be got before the House.

The Whig National Convention met at Philadelphia the first of June, to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. Lincoln attended the Convention as a delegate from Illinois. During the campaign of 1848 he labored earnestly for the election of General Taylor. This campaign made him known more generally throughout the country, as he spoke in New York and New England as well as in Illinois and the West.

While in Washington, Lincoln kept up a free correspondence with his friend and law-partner Herndon, which affords many interesting glimpses of his thoughts and views. In one of these letters, endeavoring to incite Herndon to political ambition, he wrote: “Nothing could afford me more satisfaction than to learn that you and others of my young friends at home were doing battle in the contest, endearing themselves to the people and taking a stand far above any I have ever been able to 105reach in their admiration. I cannot conceive that other old men feel differently. Of course, I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel, to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it. Now, in what I have said I am sure you will suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable object unless you allow your mind to be improperly directed. I have some the advantage of you in the world’s experience, merely by being older; and it is this that induces me to offer you this advice.”

It will be observed that, in this letter Lincoln speaks of himself as an “old man.” This had been a habit with him for years; and yet at this date he was under thirty-nine. He was already beginning to be known as “Old Abe.” Hon. E.B. Washburne states that he remembers hearing him thus called, in Chicago, in July, 1847. “One afternoon,” says Mr. Washburne, “several of us sat on the sidewalk under the balcony in front of the Sherman House, and among the number was the accomplished scholar and unrivalled orator, Lisle Smith, who suddenly interrupted the conversation by exclaiming, ‘There is Lincoln on the other side of the street! Just look at old Abe!‘ And from that time we all called him ‘Old Abe.’ No one who saw him can forget his personal appearance at that time. 106Tall, angular, and awkward, he had on a short-waisted, thin, swallow-tail coat, a short vest of the same material, thin pantaloons scarcely coming down to his ankles, a straw hat, and a pair of brogans, with woollen socks.”

During the summer following the expiration of Lincoln’s term in Congress (March 4, 1849) he made a strong effort to secure the position of Commissioner of the General Land Office, but without success. The place was given to Justin Butterfield of Chicago. It was a severe disappointment to Lincoln. Major Wilcox, who at the period referred to lived in McDonough County, Illinois, and in early days was a Whig politician, visited Washington to aid Lincoln in seeking this appointment, and has furnished a graphic account of the circumstances and of Lincoln’s appearance at the national capital in the novel capacity of an office-seeker. Major Wilcox says that in June, 1849, he went to Washington and had an interview with the newly-inaugurated President, General Taylor, regarding Lincoln’s appointment to the desired office. The interview was but partially satisfactory, the President remarking that he was favorable to Lincoln, but that Mr. Butterfield was very strongly urged for the place and the chances of appointment were in his favor. Lincoln had arranged to be in Washington at a time specified, after Major Wilcox should have had opportunity to look the ground over. Major Wilcox says that he went to the railroad depot to meet Lincoln at the train. It was in the afternoon, towards night. The day had been quite warm, and the road was dry and dusty. He found Lincoln just emerging from the depot. He had on a thin suit of summer clothes, his coat being a linen duster, much soiled. His whole appearance was decidedly shabby. He carried in his hand an old-fashioned carpet-sack, which added to the oddity of his appearance. Major Wilcox says if it had been anybody else he would have been rather shy of being seen in his 107company, because of the awkward and unseemly appearance he presented. Lincoln immediately began to talk about his chances for the appointment; whereupon Major Wilcox related to him everything that had transpired, and what President Taylor had said to him. They proceeded at once to Major Wilcox’s room, where they sat down to look over the situation. Lincoln took from his pocket a paper he had prepared in the case, which comprised eleven reasons why he should be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office. Amongst other things Lincoln presented the fact that he had been a member of Congress from Illinois two years; that his location was in the West, where the government lands were; that he was a native of the West, and had been reared under Western influences. He gave reasons why the appointment should be given to Illinois, and particularly to the southern part of the State. Major Wilcox says that he was forcibly struck by the clear, convincing, and methodical statement of Lincoln as contained in these eleven reasons why he should have the appointment. But it was given to Mr. Butterfield.

After Lincoln became President, a Member of Congress asked him for an appointment in the army in behalf of a son of the same Justin Butterfield. When the application was presented, the President paused, and after a moment’s silence, said: “Mr. Justin Butterfield once obtained an appointment I very much wanted, in which my friends believed I could have been useful, and to which they thought I was fairly entitled. I hardly ever felt so bad at any failure in my life. But I am glad of an opportunity of doing a service to his son.” And he made an order for his commission. In lieu of the desired office, General Taylor offered Lincoln the post of Governor, and afterwards of Secretary, of Oregon Territory; but these offers he declined. In after years a friend remarked to him, alluding to the event: “How fortunate that you declined! 108If you had gone to Oregon you might have come back as Senator, but you would never have been President.” “Yes, you are probably right,” said Lincoln; and then, with a musing, dreamy look, he added: “I have all my life been a fatalist. What is to be, will be; or, rather, I have found all my life, as Hamlet says,—

CHAPTER V

In 1838 Lincoln was for a third time a candidate for the State Legislature. Mr. Wilson, one of his colleagues from Sangamon County, states that a question of the division of the county was one of the local issues. “Mr. Lincoln and myself,” says Mr. Wilson, “among others residing in the portion of the county which sought to be organized into a new county, opposed the division; and it became necessary that I should make a special canvass through the northwest part of the county, then known as Sand Ridge. I made the canvass. Mr. Lincoln accompanied me, and being personally acquainted with everyone we called at nearly every house. At that time it was the universal custom to keep some whiskey in the house for private use and to treat friends. The subject was always mentioned as a matter of politeness, but with the usual remark to Mr. Lincoln, ‘We know you never drink, but maybe your friend would like to take a little.’ I never saw Mr. Lincoln drink. He often told me he never drank; had no desire for drink, nor for the companionship of drinking men.”

The result of this canvass was that Lincoln was elected to the Legislature for the session of 1838-39. The next 86year he was elected for the session of 1840-41. This ended his legislative service, which comprised eight consecutive years, from 1834 to 1841. In these later sessions he was as active and prominent in the House as he had been in the earlier times when a member from New Salem.

Lincoln’s faculty for getting the better of an adversary by an apt illustration or anecdote was seldom better shown than by an incident which occurred during his last term in the Legislature. Hon. James C. Conkling has given the following graphic description of the scene: “A gentleman who had formerly been Attorney-General of the State was also a member. Presuming upon his age, experience, and former official position, he thought it incumbent upon himself to oppose Lincoln, who was then one of the acknowledged leaders of his party. He at length attracted the attention of Lincoln, who replied to his remarks, telling one of his humorous anecdotes and making a personal application to his opponent which placed the latter in such a ridiculous attitude that it convulsed the whole House. All business was suspended. In vain the Speaker rapped with his gavel. Members of all parties, without distinction, were compelled to laugh. They not only laughed, they screamed and yelled; they thumped upon the floor with their canes; they clapped their hands and threw up their hats; they shouted and twisted themselves into all sorts of contortions, until their sides ached and the tears rolled down their cheeks. One paroxysm passed away, but was speedily succeeded by another, and again they laughed and screamed and yelled. Another lull occurred, and still another paroxysm, until they seemed to be perfectly exhausted. The ambition of Lincoln’s opponent was abundantly gratified, and for the remainder of the session he lapsed into profound obscurity.”

In June, 1842, ex-President Van Buren was journeying through Illinois with a company of friends. When near 87Springfield they were delayed by bad roads, and were compelled to spend the night at Rochester, some miles out. The accommodations at this place were very poor, and a few of the ex-President’s Springfield friends proposed to go out to meet him and try to aid in entertaining him. Knowing Lincoln’s ability as a talker and story-teller, they begged him to go with them and aid in making their guest at the country inn pass the evening as pleasantly as possible. Lincoln, with his usual good nature, went with them, and entertained the party for hours with graphic descriptions of Western life, anecdotes and witty stories. Judge Peck, who was of the party, and a warm friend of the ex-President, says that Lincoln was at his best. There was a constant succession of brilliant anecdotes and funny stories, accompanied by loud laughter in which Van Buren took his full share. “He also,” says the Judge, “gave us incidents and anecdotes of Elisha Williams, and other leading members of the New York bar, going back to the days of Hamilton and Burr. Altogether there was a right merry time. Mr. Van Buren said the only drawback upon his enjoyment was that his sides were sore from laughing at Lincoln’s stories for a week thereafter.”

Lincoln’s eight years of legislative service had given him considerable reputation in politics, and he had become the acknowledged leader of the Whig party in Illinois. In the exciting Presidential campaign of 1840, known as the “Log Cabin” campaign, he took a very active part. He had been nominated as Presidential Elector on the Harrison ticket, and stumped a large portion of the State. A peculiarly interesting reminiscence of Lincoln’s appearance on one occasion during the “Log Cabin” campaign is furnished by Mr. G.W. Harris, who says: “In the fall of the year 1840 there came into the log school-house in a village in Southern Illinois where I, a lad, was a pupil, a tall, awkward, plain-looking young man dressed in a full suit of ‘blue jean.’ Approaching the master, he gave his 88name, and, apologizing for the intrusion, said, ‘I am told you have a copy of Byron’s works. I would like to borrow it for a few hours.’ The book was produced and loaned to him. With his thanks and a ‘Good-day’ to the teacher, and a smile such as I have never seen on any other man’s face and a look that took in all of us lads and lassies, the stranger passed out of the room. This was during a Presidential canvass. Isaac Walker, candidate for Democratic Elector, and Abraham Lincoln, candidate for Whig Elector, were by appointment to discuss political matters in the afternoon of that day. I asked for and got a half-holiday. I had given no thought to the matter until the appearance of Lincoln (for he it was) in the school-room. But, something in the man had aroused, not only in me but in others of the scholars, a strong desire to see him again and to hear him speak. Isaac Walker in his younger days had been a resident of the village. Lincoln was aware of this, and shrewdly suspected that Walker in his remarks would allude to the circumstance; so, having the opening speech, he determined to ‘take the wind out of his sails.’ He did so—how effectually, it is hardly necessary for me to say. He had borrowed Byron’s works to read the opening lines of ‘Lara’:

During this period Lincoln continued to enjoy the hospitality of Mr. Speed at Springfield. “After he made his home with me,” says Mr. Speed, “on every winter’s night at my store, by a big wood fire, no matter how 89inclement the weather, eight or ten choice spirits assembled, without distinction of party. It was a sort of social club without organization. They came there because they were sure to find Lincoln. His habit was to engage in conversation upon any and all subjects except politics. But one evening a political argument sprang up between Lincoln and Douglas, which for a time ran high. Douglas sprang to his feet and said: ‘Gentlemen, this is no place to talk politics; we will discuss the questions publicly with you.’” A few days later the Whigs held a meeting and challenged the Democrats to a joint debate. The challenge was accepted. Douglas, Lamborn, Calhoun, and Jesse Thomas were deputed by the Democrats to meet Logan, Baker, Browning, and Lincoln on the part of the Whigs. The intellectual encounter between these noted champions is still described by those who witnessed it as “the great debate.” It took place in the Second Presbyterian church at Springfield, and lasted eight nights, each speaker occupying a night in turn. Mr. Speed speaks thus of Lincoln’s effort: “Lincoln delivered his speech without manuscript or notes. He had a wonderful faculty in that way. He might be writing an important document, be interrupted in the midst of a sentence, turn his attention to other matters entirely foreign to the subject on which he was engaged, and then take up his pen and begin where he left off without reading the previous part of the sentence. He could grasp, exhaust, and quit any subject with more facility than any man I have ever seen or heard of.” The subjoined paragraphs from the speech above referred to show the impassioned feeling which Lincoln poured forth that night. Those familiar with his admirable style in his later years would scarcely recognize him in these florid and rather over-weighted periods:

In this canvass Lincoln came again into collision with Douglas, the adversary whom he had met two years before and with whom he was to sustain an almost life-long political conflict. He also had occasion to show his courage and presence of mind in rescuing from a mob his distinguished friend, Col. E.D. Baker, afterwards a Senator of the United States. “Baker was speaking in a large room,” says Mr. Arnold, “rented and used for the court sessions, and Lincoln’s office was in an apartment 91over the court-room, communicating with it by a trap-door. Lincoln was in his office listening to Baker through the open trap-door, when Baker, becoming excited, abused the Democrats, many of whom were present. A cry was raised, ‘Pull him off the stand!’ The instant Lincoln heard the cry, knowing a general fight was imminent, his athletic form was seen descending from above through the opening of the trap-door, and, springing to the side of Baker, and waving his hand for silence, he said with dignity: ‘Gentlemen, let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live. This is a land where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Baker has a right to speak. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it.’ Quiet was restored, and Baker finished his speech without further interruption.”

A similar occurrence, happening about the same period, is detailed by General Linder: “On a later occasion, when Colonel Baker and myself were both battling together in the Whig cause, at a convention held in Springfield, I made a speech at the State House, which I think now, looking back at it from this point, was the very best I ever made in my life. While I was addressing the vast assembly some ruffian in the galleries flung at me a gross personal insult accompanied with a threat. Lincoln and Colonel Baker, who were both present and were warm personal and political friends of mine, anticipating that I might be attacked when I left the State House, came upon the stand a little while before I concluded my speech and took their station on each side of me. When I was through, and after my audience had greeted me with three hearty cheers, each took one of my arms, and Lincoln said to me: ‘Linder, Baker and I are apprehensive that you may be attacked by some of those ruffians who insulted you from the galleries, and we have come up to escort you to your hotel. We both think we can do a little fighting, so we want you to walk between us until we get 92you to your hotel. Your quarrel is our quarrel and that of the great Whig party of this nation. Your speech upon this occasion is the greatest that has been made by any of us, for which we wish to honor and defend you.’ This I consider no ordinary compliment, coming from Lincoln, for he was no flatterer nor disposed to bestow praise where it was undeserved. Colonel Baker heartily concurred in all he said, and between those two glorious men I left the stand and we marched out of the State House through our friends, who trooped after us evidently anticipating what Lincoln and Baker had suggested to me, accompanying us to my hotel.”

That Lincoln had an abundance of physical courage, and was well able to defend himself when necessity demanded, is clear from the incidents just given. Mr. Herndon, his intimate friend, adds his testimony on this point. As Lincoln was grand in his good nature, says Mr. Herndon, so he was grand in his rage. “Once I saw him incensed at a judge for giving an unfair decision. It was a terrible spectacle. At another time I saw two men come to blows in his presence. He picked them up separately and tossed them apart like a couple of kittens. He was the strongest man I ever knew, and has been known to lift a man of his own weight and throw him over a worm fence. Once in Springfield the Irish voters meditated taking possession of the polls. News came down the street that they would permit nobody to vote but those of their own party. Mr. Lincoln seized an axe-handle from a hardware store and went alone to open a way to the ballot-box. His appearance intimidated them, and we had neither threats nor collisions all that day.”

An unsuspected side of Lincoln’s character was shown, at this period of his life, in the affair with General Shields. With all his gentleness and his scrupulous regard for the rights of others, Lincoln was not one to submit to being bullied; while his physical courage had been proved in 93many a rough—and—tumble encounter, often against heavy odds, with the rude and boisterous spirits of his time. These encounters were usually with nature’s weapons; but in the Shields affair—duel, it was sometimes called—he showed that he would not shrink from the use of more deadly weapons if forced to do so. In judging this phase of his character, account must be taken of his Kentucky birth and origin, and of the customs and standards of his time. James Shields (afterwards a distinguished Union General and U.S. Senator) was at this time (1842) living at Springfield, holding the office of State Auditor. He is described as “a gallant, hot-headed bachelor, from Tyrone County, Ireland.” He was something of a beau in society, and was the subject of some satirical articles which, in a spirit of fun, Miss Mary Todd (afterwards Mrs. Lincoln) had written and published in a local journal. Shields was furious, and, demanding the name of the writer, Lincoln sent him word that he would assume full responsibility in the matter. A challenge to a duel followed, which Lincoln accepted and named broadswords as the weapons. General Linder states that Lincoln said to him that he did not want to kill Shields, and felt sure he could disarm him if they fought with broadswords, while he felt sure Shields would kill him if pistols were the weapons. It seems that Lincoln actually took lessons in broadsword exercise from a Major Duncan; and at the appointed time all parties proceeded to the chosen field, near Alton. But friends appeared on the scene while the preliminaries were being arranged, and succeeded in effecting a reconciliation. Major Lucas, of Springfield, who was on the field, stated that he “had no doubt Lincoln meant to fight. Lincoln was no coward, and he would unquestionably have held his own against his antagonist, for he was a powerful man and well skilled in the use of the broadsword. Lincoln said to me, after the affair was all over, ‘I could have split him in two.’” But there can be little 94doubt that he was well pleased that the affair proved a bloodless one.

The mention of Miss Mary Todd, in the preceding paragraph, brings us to Lincoln’s marriage with that lady, which occurred in 1842, he being then in his thirty—fourth year. Miss Todd was the daughter of the Hon. Robert T. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. She came to Springfield in 1839, to live with her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards. “She was young,” says Mr. Lamon, “just twenty-one,—her family was of the best and her connections in Illinois among the most refined and distinguished people. Her mother having died when she was a little girl, she had been educated under the care of a French lady. She was gifted with rare talents, had a keen sense of the ridiculous, a ready insight into the weaknesses of individual character, and a most fiery and ungovernable temper. Her tongue and her pen were equally sharp. Highbred, proud, brilliant, witty, and with a will that bent every one else to her purpose, she took Lincoln captive. He was a rising politician, fresh from the people, and possessed of great power among them. Miss Todd was of aristocratic and distinguished family, able to lead through the awful portals of ‘good society’ whomsoever they chose to countenance. It was thought that a union between them could not fail of numerous benefits to both parties. Mr. Edwards thought so; Mrs. Edwards thought so; and it was not long before Mary Todd herself thought so. She was very ambitious, and even before she left Kentucky announced her belief that she was destined to be the wife of some future President. For a while she was courted by Douglas as well as by Lincoln. Being asked which of them she intended to have, she answered, ‘The one that has the best chance of being President.’ She decided in favor of Lincoln; and in the opinion of some of her husband’s friends she aided to no small extent in the fulfilment of the prophecy which the bestowal of her 95hand implied.” Mrs. Edwards, Miss Todd’s sister, has related that “Lincoln was charmed with Mary’s wit and fascinated with her quick sagacity, her will, her nature and culture. I have happened in the room,” she says, “where they were sitting, often and often, and Mary led the conversation. Lincoln would listen, and gaze on her as if drawn by some superior power—irresistibly so. He listened, but seldom said a word.”

Preparations were made for the marriage between Lincoln and Miss Todd. But they were interrupted by a painful occurrence—a sudden breaking out of a fit of melancholy, or temporary insanity, such as had afflicted Lincoln on a former occasion. This event has been made the subject of no little gossip, into which it is not now necessary or desirable to go, further than to mention that at about this time Lincoln seems to have formed a strong attachment for Miss Matilda Edwards, a sister of Ninian W. Edwards; and that the engagement with Miss Todd was for a time broken off. In consequence of these complications, Lincoln’s health was seriously affected. He suffered from melancholy, which was so profound that “his friends were alarmed for his life.” His intimate companion, Mr. Speed, endeavored to rescue him from the terrible depression, urging that he would die unless he rallied. Lincoln replied, “I am not afraid to die, and would be more than willing. But I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having been in it.”

Mr. Herndon gives as his opinion that Lincoln’s insanity grew out of a most extraordinary complication of feelings—aversion to the marriage proposed, a counter—attachment to Miss Edwards, and a revival of his tenderness for the memory of Anne Rutledge. At all events, his derangement was nearly if not quite complete. “We had to remove razors from his room,” says Mr. Speed, “take away all knives, and other dangerous things. It was 96terrible.” Mr. Speed determined to do for him what Bowlin Greene had done on a similar occasion at New Salem. Having sold out his store on the first of January,

1841, he took Lincoln with him to his home in Kentucky and kept him there during most of the summer and fall, or until he seemed sufficiently restored to be given his liberty again, when he was brought back to Springfield. His health was soon regained, and on the 4th of November, 1842, the marriage between him and Miss Todd was celebrated according to the rites of the Episcopal Church. After the marriage Lincoln secured pleasant rooms for himself and wife at the Globe Tavern, at a cost of four dollars a week. In 1844 he purchased of the Rev. Nathan Dressar the plain dwelling which was his home for the ensuing seventeen years, and which he left in 1861 to enter the White House.

BIBLIOGRAFY:

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES
AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compiler of “Golden Poems,” “Bugle Echoes, Pose of
the Civil War,” “Laurel-Crowned Verse,” etc.

NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH
AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A
CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

PROJETO DE ORGANIZAÇAO DA
CORTE INTERNACIONAL DE JUSTIÇA[l]

O  debate iniciado na última Conferência da paz sobre a arganização da Corte Internacional de Justiça, colocou, em confronto, o princípio da igualdade jurídica dos estados, reclamado pelas pequenas potências, e a pretenção de supremacia na composição da corte, pleiteada pelas grandes potências, e consagrada no projeto das delegações da Alemanha, Inglaterra e Estados Unidos.
Este projeto classificava as potências em diversas categorias segundo o grau de sua força militar e distribuía, entre todas, duzentas unidades de tempo, por anos de representação na corte.
Às grandes potências pertenceriam noventa e seis; a três outras , imediatamente inferiores, trinta; e setenta e quatro eram distribuídas às trinta e seis que compunham a multidão das potências de terceira e quarta ordem.
As pequenas potências reclamavam a igualdade absoluta de representação, fundando¬se no princípio da igualdade jurídica dos estados, base do direito das gentes.

As duas idéias eram igualmente inaceitáveis.
Expressão confessa da supremacia da força, a primeira era a violação do princípio fundamental do Direito Internacional, de sua essência, de sua própria alma. Rigorosamente jurídica, indiscutível na aparência, a outra continha uma ofensa aos interesses da justiça, da ordem e da paz, em virtude da preponderância do número das pequenas potências, sobre uma minoria que representava, não unicamente a força material, mas ainda uma civilização e uma cultura mais elevada.
Nem uma nem outra das duas combinações era de natureza a garantir a imparcialidade que deve caracterizar a instituição sobre a qual repousam as esperanças da paz e da fraternidade humanas.
o problema que restava resolver, após o fechamento da conferência era, pois, conciliar os dois interesses em litígio, isto é, organizar a corte, segundo o princípio de igualdade jurídica dos estados, sem preponderância seja da força militar, seja do número.
A representação de todas as potências, em igualdade de direitos, impõe-se como base de todo o sistema; mas, já que não é possível fazer com que todos os delegados participem dos julgamentos, era preciso procurar a solução em
uma combinação de comitês de juizes que, fazendo intervir, em identidade de posições, todos os membros da corte, evitaria qualquer tipo de

.
supremacia,
Estudando a questão, enquanto funcionava a conferência, o autor deste trabalho fez publicar um projeto que parecia corresponder a todos os interesses em litígio. As potências seriam repartidas, segundo o projeto, em três categorias, de acordo com seus respectivos poderes militares, devendo os julgamentos serein feitos por comissões de juízes, tomados em número igual nas três categorias.
A divisão das potências repousava na idéia de que assim dispostas em três categorias das quais se tomaria os membros das comissões, realizava¬se o equilíbrio das diferentes ordens de interesses, impossível de se obter com o julgamento por toda a corte. Seria ilusório com a divisão em duas classes: sendo reduzido o número das grandes potências, estas seriam confundidas na primeira categoria com outras de poderes bastante inferiores.
O projeto, tal como foi formulado, nao atingiria, entretanto, seu objetivo senão se o poder militar das potências fosse dividido tão exatamente em três classes; mas, o poder militar das oito potências mais fortes – seguidas de
perto por três outras – sendo, ao contrário, muito superior ao da maioria, resultava daí que as comissões penderiam sempre para o lado das pequenas potências.

Era preciso corrigir este defeito, aproximando-se a composição dos comitês, tanto quanto fosse possível, do equilíbrio perfeito.
O  meio de se chegar aí era combinar a composição dos Comitês de maneira a responder à ordem das potências em litígio; e isto foi certamente obtido, fazendo julgar os litígios entre as potências da mesma categoria pelos juízes desta e, compondo as comissões de julgamento dos conflitos entre potências de categorias diversas, por grupos iguais de juízes de suas classes.
É esta a idéia que domina o projeto que se segue. A fim de dar uma forma mais rigorosa ao equilíbrio, as potências devem ser classificadas em categorias desiguais em número, segundo seus respectivos poderes militares.

fonte: O CAMINHO DA PAZ, ALBERTO TORRES, 1927

PROJETO
Art. 10. As potências aderentes à convenção para o estabelecimento da Corte Internacional de Justiça serão classificadas em três categorias segundo os respectivos poderes militares.
§ 1. Cada potência nomeará um delegado à Corte e seu suplente.
§ 2. A Corte Internacional de Justiça será administrada por um escritório, composto de um presidente, quatro secretários e um procurador da justiça internacional, escolhidos entre os delegados das potências que, por sua situação política, estiverem menos expostos a conflitos internacionais.
Art. 20. – Os julgamentos serao realizados da seguinte maneira:
I Quando as potências pleiteantes
pertencerem à mesma categoria, o litígio será decidido pelos delegados desta categoria, com exclusão dos representantes das potências em causa.

II – Se o litígio for entre duas potências de categorias diversas, a comissão encarregada do julgamento será composta por um número igual de juízes das duas categorias, sob a presidência de um membro da terceira.
111 – As causas entre três, ou mais de três potências , pertencentes às três categorias, serão julgadas por uma comissão de juízes togados em número igual nas três categorias, quando os direitos reclamados pelas partes pleiteantes forem distintos.
IV – No caso de duas ou mais de duas potências de uma mesma categoria reclamarem o mesmo direito, contra uma outra potência ou mais de uma potência com pretensões diferentes, a camissão de julgamento será composta por um único grupo de delegados da categoria das primeiras e por um grupo da categoria da parte adversa, se consiste em uma única potência, ou de dois grupos das duas outras categorias, se há duas ou mais de duas potências de categorias diferentes em oposição.
V – Quando as potências que pleitearem o mesmo direito pertencerem a categorias diferentes, haverá, para cada uma delas que reclamar direitos diferentes, um grupo de juízes de sua categoria, até o número de três, e compor¬se-á o grupo, correspondente às potências de interesses idênticos com um grupo de juízes igual ao das outras, tomados, em número igual, em suas categorias.

Parágrafo único – Do grupo ou dos grupos correspondentes a potências de interesses diversos serão diminuidos tantos membros quantos os de sua categoria entrantes na composição do grupo das potências de interesses idênticos.
Art. 30. – Cada potência aderente ao tratado geral de paz deve depositar no escritório da Corte Internacional de Justiça uma relação das potências suas amigas, por ordem de preferência.
§ I – Tendo sido declarado um conflito e sendo verificada a impossibilidade de chegar-se a um julgamento pela forma estabelecida no artigo precedente, formar-se-á a comissão de julgamento com um número igual de delegados das potências nomeadas com os primeiros números das listas depositadas.
§ 11 – Quando o número das potências pleiteantes for par, tomar-se-á para completar a comissão, o delegado da potência que, após as já incluídas, estiver colocada, nas relações depositadas, sob um mesmo número, ou que ocupar nas relações uma posição mais próxima.

FONTE: O CAMINHO DA PAZ, ALBERTO TORRES, 1927

CAPÍTULO IV

Remoção de Lincoln de Nova Salem para Springfield, onde seu mais vida ativa como advogado começou, ocorreu em abril de 1837, logo após a conclusão de seu trabalho de pesquisa em Petersburg. O evento foi estreitamente relacionado com a remoção da capital do Estado de Vandalia a Springfield, a lei que foi aprovada na sessão legislativa de 1836-7. Como já foi dito, Lincoln era um membro do Legislativo e que estava ativo na aquisição da passagem do projeto de lei. Os cidadãos de Springfield eram muito desejoso de a remoção do capital para sua cidade, e muitos deles estavam presentes na sessão, quando a medida foi à discussão. Tinham, portanto, familiarizar-se com Lincoln, que foram favoravelmente impressionado como as suas capacidades e caráter, e satisfeitos com seus esforços na questão em que eles estavam tão grande interesse. Através da sua influência e incentivo que ele escolheu Springfield como seu futuro lar.

Primeira entrevista de Lincoln, após a sua chegada em Springfield, foi com o Sr. F. Velocidade Joshua, com quem ele já tinha um conhecimento ligeiro, e que detalha as circunstâncias de sua reunião. “Ele tinha montado para a cidade”, diz Mr. Speed, “em um cavalo emprestado, com nenhuma propriedade terrena salvar um par de alforjes contendo algumas roupas. Eu era um comerciante em Springfield, e manteve uma loja de país grande, 70embracing produtos secos, mantimentos, hardware, livros, medicamentos, roupas de cama, colchões, em verdade, tudo que as pessoas país precisava. Lincoln entrou na loja com seus alforjes em seu braço, e disse que queria comprar as fixações para uma cama de solteiro. Os colchões, cobertores, lençóis, coverlid, e travesseiro, de acordo com as figuras feitas por mim, iria custar dezessete dólares. Ele disse que talvez fosse barato o suficiente, mas pequenos como a soma era ele era incapaz de pagá-la. Mas se eu lhe crédito até o Natal e sua experiência como advogado foi um sucesso, ele pagaria depois, acrescentando, no tom mais triste, “Se eu falhar nisso, eu não sei que posso sempre pagar-lhe.” Como eu olhei para ele, então eu pensei, e acho que agora, que eu nunca vi um mais triste face. Eu disse-lhe: ‘Você parece ser muito doloroso na contratação tão pequena dívida de um, eu acho que pode sugerir um plano pelo qual você pode evitar a dívida e, ao mesmo tempo atingir o seu fim. Eu tenho uma grande sala com uma cama de casal up-escadas que você é muito bem-vindos para compartilhar comigo. “ ‘Onde está o seu quarto? “disse ele. ‘Up-escadas “, disse eu, apontando para um par de escadas sinuosas que levou da loja para o meu quarto.Ele tomou o seu alforjes em seu braço, subia as escadas, colocá-las no chão, e desceu com o rosto mais mudou.Radiante de prazer, ele exclamou: ‘Bem, Speed, eu sou movida! “ Lincoln foi, então, 28 anos de idade. Ele era um advogado sem um cliente, sem dinheiro, toda a sua riqueza terrena consiste na roupa que ele usava eo conteúdo da sela-bags “.

Lincoln dividiu o mesmo quarto com velocidade Mr. durante a sua residência no início de Springfield, tomando as suas refeições com sua companheira na casa de Mr. William Butler, com quem embarcou para cinco anos. Sua ascensão profissional no início foi lento, e ele teve períodos de grande desânimo. Um colono velha de Illinois, chamado Página Eaton, diz: “Eu sabia que Lincoln quando ele veio pela primeira vez para Springfield. Ele era um estranho, mas hard-working 71young homem. Todo mundo disse que nunca faria um bom advogado, porque ele era muito honesto. Ele veio à minha loja, um dia, depois de ter estado aqui cinco ou seis meses, e disse que tinha uma noção de parar de estudar Direito e aprender carpentering. Ele achava que havia mais necessidade de carpinteiros aqui fora do que advogados. “Logo após a liquidação Lincoln em Springfield, ele formou uma parceria da lei com Major John T. Stuart, a quem ele havia conhecido há alguns anos e que já tinha uma boa posição no bar . Esta parceria começou, de acordo com a declaração de Stuart Major, em 27 de abril de 1837. Continuou apenas quatro anos, quando foi dissolvida, e Lincoln eo juiz Stephen T. Logan tornaram-se sócios. Esta parceria segundos continuaram cerca de dois anos, quando, em 20 de setembro de 1843, a empresa de Lincoln e Herndon foi formado, e continuou a hora da morte de Lincoln.

Quando Lincoln começou a praticar a lei, era costume em Illinois para “montar o circuito”, um processo de que as comunidades mais antigas do Oriente sabem nada. O Estado de Illinois, por exemplo, é dividido em um número de distritos, cada um composto por um número de municípios, dos quais um único juiz, nomeados ou eleitos conforme o caso pode ser, para o efeito, faz o circuito, mantendo tribunais em cada sede de concelho. Ferrovias serem escassos, os juízes do circuito anterior fez suas viagens do condado ao condado a cavalo ou em um show, e os advogados proeminentes que vivem dentro dos limites do circuito fez a turnê do circuito com o juiz. Diz-se que, quando Lincoln começou a “montar o circuito” ele era pobre demais para comprar um cavalo ou veículo, e foi obrigada a tomar emprestado de seus amigos. Mas no devido tempo ele se tornou proprietário de um cavalo, que ele alimentou e preparado si mesmo, e para o qual foi muito apegado. Sobre esse animal ele saiu de casa, para ficar fora por semanas juntos, sem bagagem, mas um par de alforjes contendo uma muda de roupa, e um guarda-chuva de algodão velho para protegê-lo do sol ou chuva. 72When ele ficou um pouco mais dos bens deste mundo, ele montou um carrinho de um cavalo, um caso muito triste e pobre de aparência que ele geralmente usado quando o tempo prometia ser ruim. Os outros advogados estavam sempre contentes de vê-lo, e senhorios saudou sua vinda com prazer, mas ele era um daqueles suaves, homens sem queixas quem iria colocar fora com acomodações indiferente.Foi uma observação significativa de um advogado que estava totalmente familiarizado com seus hábitos e disposição que “Lincoln nunca foi sentado ao lado do senhorio em uma mesa cheia, e nunca recebi um fígado de galinha ou o melhor corte do assado.” Lincoln disse certa vez ao Sr. Gillespie que ele nunca sentiu sua própria indignidade tanto como quando na presença de um funcionário de hotel ou garçom. Se as salas eram escassos, e um, dois, três ou quatro senhores eram obrigados a apresentar em conjunto a fim de acomodar um homem mal-humorado, que “estava sobre os seus direitos”, Lincoln foi a certeza de ser um dos infelizes. No entanto, ele amava a vida do circuito, e nunca foi para casa sem relutância.

Ao descrever as experiências muitos dos advogados que viajaram os circuitos, neste período, o Sr. Arnold diz: “O Estado foi resolvido com uma população resistente, destemido, honesto, mas muito litigioso. O tribunal casa era às vezes emolduradas e embarcou, mas mais freqüentemente ela foi construída de troncos. O juiz sentou-se sobre uma plataforma elevada por trás de uma placa áspera, às vezes cobertas de baeta verde, para uma tabela em que para escrever suas notas. Uma pequena mesa estava no chão em frente para o funcionário. No centro da sala era outra tabela maior em torno dos quais em cadeiras rudes os advogados foram agrupados, muitas vezes com os pés em cima dela. Bancos ásperos foram colocados lá para o júri, as partes no processo, testemunhas e espectadores. Os quartos tribunal eram quase sempre lotado por aqui foram ensaiadas e atuou os dramas, as tragédias e as comédias da vida real. O tribunal casa sempre foi um lugar muito atraente para o povo da 73frontier. É fornecido o lugar de salas de aula e salas de concerto, e outros locais de interesse e diversão nos assentamentos mais antigos e cidades.Principais advogados e juízes eram os atores estrela, e cada um tinha partidários dele. Daí multidão assistiu aos tribunais para ver os juízes, para ouvir os advogados afirmam, com o argumento, a lei ea sagacidade, para o sucesso, vitória e fama. O mérito ea capacidade dos principais defensores, o seu sucesso ou derrota em examinar ou cross-examinar uma testemunha, a capacidade de este ou aquele para obter um veredicto, foram interrogadas em cada cabine de sensibilização, abelha, ou corrida de cavalos, e a cada log-casa e na escola no município. Assim, os advogados foram estimulados ao esforço máximo de seus poderes, não só pela controvérsia e desejo de sucesso, mas pela consciência de que seus esforços foram vistos com avidez por amigos, clientes, partidários ou rivais. De um para outro desses rudes tribunal casas os senhores do bar passou, após o juiz em torno de seus circuitos de concelho para concelho, viajando, geralmente a cavalo, com alforjes, escovas, uma camisa extra ou dois, e talvez duas ou três livros de direito. Às vezes, dois ou três advogados se uniriam e viajar em um buggy, e os mais pobres e mais jovens, não raramente andou. Mas um cavalo não era uma taxa incomum, e naqueles dias em que ladrões de cavalos como clientes, mas eram muito comuns, não demorou muito para que um jovem de capacidade se viu bem montado.

“Havia liberdade muito grande em relação social. Modos eram rudes, mas genial, gentil e amigável. Cada um estava sempre pronto para ajudar seus companheiros, eo egoísmo não foi tolerado. As relações entre o banco e bar foram familiar, fácil e gratuito. Lampejos de inteligência e humor e réplicas eram constantemente trocados. Como era a vida sobre a qual Lincoln entrou agora, e ali se reuniram com ele em torno dessas mesas de pinho da fronteira tribunal-house uma combinação notável de homens, homens que 74would foram líderes do bar em Boston ou Nova York, Filadélfia ou Washington; homens que fizeram a sua marca no Westminster Hall, ou em qualquer circuito Inglês. Na capital foram John T. Stuart, Stephen T. Logan, Edward D. Baker, Ninian W. Edwards, Josias Lamborn, e muitos outros. Entre os principais advogados de outras partes do Estado que praticaram no Supremo e Justiça Federal na capital foram Stephen A. Douglas; Lyman Trumbull, por muitos anos presidente do Comitê Judiciário do Senado dos Estados Unidos; OH Browning, senador e membro do Gabinete em Washington; William H. Bissell, membro do Congresso, e Governador do Estado, David Davis, a justiça do Supremo Tribunal Federal, Senador e Vice-Presidente dos Estados Unidos; Justin Butterfield de Chicago, e muitos outros quase ou bastante igualmente ilustres. Este “circuito de equitação” envolvidos todos os tipos de aventuras. Fare duro em tabernas país miserável, dormindo no chão, e vadeando riachos, foram todos os dias ocorrências. Todas as ocorrências foram recebidas com bom humor e muitas vezes transformados em fontes de frolic e divertido. Em fording córregos inchado, Lincoln era freqüentemente enviados para a frente como um olheiro ou pioneiro. Suas pernas extremamente longas permitiu-lhe, por tirar as botas e as meias, e rolando para cima ou de outra forma dispor das calças, para testar a profundidade do fluxo, encontrar a água mais rasa e, portanto, para pilotar a festa através da corrente, sem molhar as suas vestes. “

Um cavalheiro que viveu em um dos circuitos judicial de Illinois em que Lincoln tinha uma extensa prática, embora não muito lucrativo dá algumas reminiscências gráfico e interessante. “Os termos do tribunal foram realizadas trimestralmente e, geralmente, durou cerca de duas semanas. Eles sempre foram épocas de grande importância e muito gayety na pequena cidade que teve a honra de ser sede de concelho. Ilustres membros da barra de vizinhas e até de municípios distantes, ex-juízes e ex-membros 75of Congresso, participaram e foram pessoalmente e muitos deles popularmente conhecida a quase todos os adultos, homens e mulheres, da população limitada. Eles vieram por etapas ea cavalo. Entre eles, aquele cuja chegada foi olhou para a frente com as antecipações mais prazerosa, e cuja ausência possível, embora ele quase nunca estava ausente-se temia, com a mais viva as emoções de ansiedade, era “Tio Abe,” como era carinhosamente chamado por nós todos. Às vezes, ele pode acontecer de ser um ou dois dias de atraso. Então, como o estágio veio em Bloomington ao pôr do sol, a juízes e advogados, os jurados e os cidadãos, se reuniam em multidões no hotel onde ele sempre colocar-se, dar-lhe uma bem-vinda se, felizmente, ele deveria chegar, e para experimentar a mais agudo sentimento de decepção se ele não deveria. Se ele chegou, como ele desceu e estendeu os dois braços seu tempo para agitar as mãos com aqueles próximos a ele e com aqueles que se aproximava, o rosto bonito caseira em seu largo sorriso e ensolarada, sua voz tocando em seus acentos gentis e alegres, todos em sua presença sentida no coração mais leve e mais alegre. Ele trouxe a luz com ele. Ele amava seus semelhantes com toda a força de sua natureza, e aqueles que entraram em contato com ele não poderia ajudar o amor recíproco. “

Outro velho amigo Lincoln descreve como sendo neste momento “muito claro em seu traje, bem como, em vez uncourtly em seu discurso e aparência geral. Sua roupa era do lar Kentucky jean, ea primeira impressão feita por sua figura alta e lisos sobre aqueles que o viram não foi especialmente agradável. Ele não tinha superado sua experiência duro sertão, e não mostrou nenhuma inclinação para disfarçar ou para lançar atrás de si as características honesto e viril embora unpolished de seus dias mais cedo. Nunca foi um homem mais distante de todos os afetação esnobe.Tão pouco estava lá, também, da arte demagogo de assumir uma grosseria ou rusticidade de forma e hábito para fora com a noção errônea de segurança, portanto, especial 76favor como “uma das massas.” Ele escolheu para aparecer, em seguida, como em toda a sua vida mais tarde, precisamente o que ele estava. Sua conduta foi modesto, embora sem qualquer constrangimento de reserva “.

O Sr. Crane, um velho colono de Tazewell County, diz que costumava ver quando Lincoln passando por Washington, naquele município, em sua maneira de ir a tribunal em Metamora, e ele se lembra dele como “vestido com um casaco homespun que veio abaixo do seu joelhos e foi para fora em ambos os cotovelos. “

Lincoln ternura de coração era exibido em seu tratamento de animais, para o qual ele foi muitas vezes realizando atos de bondade incomum. Em uma ocasião, como Speed ​​Sr. se refere, Lincoln e os outros membros da barra de Springfield estava freqüentando corte em Christiansburg e velocidade Mr. estava andando com eles em direção a Springfield. Houve uma festa e tanto desses advogados, montando dois a dois ao longo de uma pista do país.Lincoln e John J. Hardin fez subir a traseira da cavalgada. “Nós tínhamos passado por um emaranhado de ameixa selvagem e caranguejo maçã-árvores”, diz Mr. Speed, “água e parou para nossos cavalos. Hardin veio sozinho.‘Onde está o Lincoln? perguntamos. “Oh”, respondeu ele, ‘quando eu vi pela última vez, ele pegou dois pássaros jovens que o vento tinha soprado fora de seus ninhos, e ele foi a caça ao ninho para colocá-los de volta. “ Em pouco tempo Lincoln subiu, tendo encontrado o ninho e colocadas as aves jovens nele. O partido riram dele, mas ele disse, ‘Eu não poderia ter dormido se eu não tivesse restaurado os passarinhos a sua mãe’. “

Novamente, como narra o Dr. Holland, “Lincoln era um dia andando por um lamaçal profundo ou poço em que, para sua dor superior, ele viu um porco a lutar, e com tais esforços fraca que era evidente que ele não conseguia livrar-se. Lincoln olhou para o porco e da lama que envolvia ele, e então olhou com tristeza em algumas roupas novas em que tinha pouco tempo antes envolvido si mesmo. Decidir contra as reivindicações do porco ele montou, mas ele poderia 77not livrar-se da visão do bruto pobres, e, finalmente, depois de andar duas milhas, ele voltou atrás, determinado a resgatar o animal à custa de suas roupas novas. Chegaram ao local, ele amarrou seu cavalo, e friamente foi trabalhar para a construção de trilhos velhos uma passagem para o fundo do buraco. Descendo sobre esses trilhos, ele aproveitou o porco eo arrastaram para fora, mas não sem sérios danos para as roupas que ele usava. Lavar as mãos no próximo riacho e limpá-los na grama, ele montou seu show e passava. Ele então caiu para examinar o motivo que o mandou de volta para a liberação do porco. No primeiro pensamento que parecia ser pura benevolência, mas finalmente ele chegou à conclusão de que era egoísmo, pois ele certamente foi para o alívio do porco em ordem (como ele disse para o amigo a quem ele relatou o incidente) para ‘ dar uma dor de sua própria mente. “

Casos mostrando a integridade, honestidade, altruísmo e humanidade de conduta Lincoln em sua prática da lei poderiam ser multiplicados indefinidamente. A seguir são dadas pelo Dr. Holland: “Os advogados de Springfield, particularmente aqueles que tinham aspirações políticas, tinham medo de assumir a defesa de qualquer um que tivesse se empenhado em ajudar os escravos fugitivos fora. Era um negócio muito impopular naquela época e naquela localidade, e alguns sentiram que poderiam dar ao luxo de se envolver nela. Alguém que precisava de ajuda, tais foram para Edward D. Baker, e foi recusado, distintamente e francamente sobre o fundamento de que como um homem político não podia pagar. O homem aplicado a um amigo anti-escravidão ardente para o conselho. Ele falou do Sr. Lincoln, e disse: ‘Ele não tem medo de um caso impopular. Quando vou para um advogado para defender um escravo fugitivo preso, outros advogados se recusam mim. Mas se o Sr. Lincoln está em casa, ele sempre terá o meu caso. “

Uma velha de 75 anos, viúva de um pensionista revolucionária, veio cambaleando em seu escritório de advocacia, um dia, e disse a ele que um agente de pensão determinados tinha cobrado-lhe a taxa exorbitante de 200 dólares para 78collecting sua pensão. Lincoln ficou satisfeito por seu representações que ela tinha sido enganado, e descobrir que ela não era uma residente da cidade, e que ela era pobre, deu-lhe dinheiro, e definir sobre o trabalho de obter a restituição. Ele imediatamente entrou com uma ação contra o agente de recuperar uma parte do seu dinheiro ilícitos. Este fato foi um dos mais notáveis ​​que Lincoln já realizado. O dia antes que o caso veio até ele perguntou seu sócio, Sr. Herndon, para tirá-lo de “Life of Washington”, e ele passou a tarde inteira lendo. Seu discurso para o júri foi muito lembrado. Todo o tribunal quarto estava em lágrimas como ele fechou com estas palavras: “Senhores do júri. Tempo rola por. Os heróis de 76 já passaram. Eles estão acampados na outra margem. Este soldado foi para seu descanso, e agora, aleijados, cegos, e quebrado, sua viúva vem a você e para mim, senhores do júri, para a direita seus erros. Ela não foi sempre como você vê-la agora. Uma vez que o passo foi elástico. Seu rosto era justo.Sua voz era tão doce como qualquer outra que tocou nas montanhas da Virgínia de idade. Agora ela está velha. Ela é pobre e indefesa. Aqui nas pradarias de Illinois, centenas de quilômetros das cenas de sua infância, ela apela para você e para mim, que gozam dos privilégios obtidos por nós, os patriotas da Revolução de nossa ajuda simpática e proteção viril. Eu tenho apenas uma pergunta de lhe perguntar, senhores do júri. Havemos de fazer amizade com ela? “Durante o discurso do réu sab encolhido na sala de audiência, contorcendo-se sob o açoite da língua de Lincoln. O júri retornou um veredicto de cada centavo que Lincoln tinha perguntado. Ele tornou-se garantia a velha senhora para saber os custos, pagou a conta do hotel e mandaram para casa regozijando-se. Ele não fez acusações para seus próprios serviços ou de seu parceiro. Poucos dias depois Mr. Herndon pegou um pequeno pedaço de papel no escritório. Ele olhou para ela um momento, e explodiu em uma gargalhada. Foi notas de Lincoln para o argumento deste caso. Eles foram 79unique: – “No contrato de serviços profissionais não-Unreasonable Condomínios dinheiro retido pelo Deft não dada por Pl’ff .- Revolutionary War-Descreva Valley Forge-Ice-soldados sangramento pé-de-marido Pl’ff Soldados de sair de casa para o exército Pele Def’t -Close “.

Em sua autobiografia, Joseph Jefferson conta como visitou Springfield com uma companhia teatral nos primeiros dias (1839) e planeja abrir uma temporada teatral na cidade piedosa. Mas “um renascimento religioso estava em andamento, e os pais da igreja não só partiram contra nós em seus sermões, mas tem a cidade para passar uma nova lei que ordena uma licença pesada contra o nosso ‘profana’ chamada. Eu esqueço a quantidade, mas era grande o suficiente para ser proibitiva “A empresa tinha começado a construção de um novo teatro,. E, naturalmente, a situação era desconcertante. No meio da sua angústia, diz o Sr. Jefferson, “um jovem advogado chamado no Managers. Ele tinha ouvido falar da injustiça, e ofereceu, se colocaria a questão em suas mãos, para ter a licença tirada, declarando-que ele só queria ver o fair play, e ele iria aceitar nenhuma taxa se ele falhou ou teve sucesso. O caso foi trazido perante o conselho. O jovem advogado começou sua arenga. Ele tratou o assunto com tato, habilidade e humor, traçando a história do drama a partir do momento Thespis atuou em um carrinho, com o estágio de a-dia. Ele ilustrou seu discurso com uma série de anedotas, e manteve o conselho em uma gargalhada. Seu bom humor prevaleceu, eo imposto exorbitante foi retirado. Este jovem advogado era muito popular em Springfield, e foi honrado e amado por todos que o conheciam, e após o tempo de que eu escrevo que ocupou antes uma posição importante no Governo dos Estados Unidos. Ele agora está enterrado em Springfield, sob um monumento que comemora a sua grandeza e suas virtudes, e seu nome era Abraão Lincoln. “

80Judge Gillespie conta uma boa história, no sentido de que Lincoln e General UP Linder foram uma vez defender um homem que estava sendo julgado sob a acusação criminal perante o juiz David Davis, que disse na hora do jantar que o caso deve ser eliminado naquela noite. Lincoln sugeriu que a melhor coisa que poderia fazer seria executar Bento, o advogado de acusação, na medida para a noite quanto possível, na esperança de que ele poderia, em sua fúria, cometer algum indiscrição que iria ajudar o seu caso. Lincoln começou, mas para salvar sua vida, ele não podia falar uma hora, e trabalhando o remo caiu nas mãos de Linder. “Mas”, disse Lincoln, “ele era igual à ocasião.Ele falou mais interessante três horas mortal, sobre tudo no mundo. Ele discutiu Bento da cabeça aos pés, e colocou em cerca de três quartos de hora sobre o assunto de bigodes de Bento XVI. “Lincoln disse que nunca invejou um homem tanto como ele fez Linder naquela ocasião. Ele pensou que era inimitável na sua capacidade de falar interessante sobre tudo e nada, por hora.

Mas se Lincoln não tinha arte Geral Linder de “falar contra o tempo”, sua sagacidade, muitas vezes sugeriu algumas mais pronto método de obter vantagem em um caso. Em uma ocasião, um processo foi a julgamento no Tribunal de Circuito de Sangamon County, na qual Lincoln foi advogado do autor, e Mr. James C. Conkling, então um jovem que acaba de entrar prática, foi advogado do réu. Foi um julgamento com júri, e Lincoln dispensado o argumento de abertura para o júri, deixando o Sr. Conkling para resumir o seu caso para a defesa. Este último falou longamente considerável, em um estilo sophomoric, trabalhando sob a impressão de que, a menos que ele fez um esforço extraordinário para influenciar o júri, ele seria completamente eclipsado por Lincoln em seu discurso de encerramento. Mas ele estava completamente tomado de volta pelo inesperado forma de luz em que Lincoln tratado o caso em seu fechamento. Lincoln começou a responder, mas, ao fazê-lo, ele falou sobre sem fazer a 81slightest referência ao caso em audiência ou para o argumento do Sr. Conkling. Sua somando-up para o júri foi para o seguinte efeito: “Senhores do júri: Nos primeiros dias viveu nessa vizinhança, ao longo do rio Sangamon, um velho índio da tribo Kickapoo pelo nome de Johnnie Kongapod. Ele tinha sido levado responsável por alguns bons missionários, se converteu ao cristianismo, e educado a tal ponto que ele poderia ler e escrever. Ele tomou uma fantasia grande poesia e tornou-se um pouco de um poeta. Seu desejo era que depois de sua morte não deve ser colocado na cabeça do seu epitáfio uma sepultura, que ele se preparou, em rima, com as seguintes palavras:

“‘Aqui jaz pobres Johnnie Kongapod; 
tenha misericórdia dele, graciosa de Deus, 
como Ele o faria se ele fosse Deus 
E você estava Johnnie Kongapod “.

É claro que tudo isso não tinha nenhuma referência ao caso, nem Lincoln pretende que deve ter nenhum. Era apenas sua maneira de ridicularizar a eloqüência de seu oponente. O veredicto do júri foi para o requerente, como Lincoln esperava que seria, e esta era a razão de sua tratando o caso como ele fez.

Uma história um pouco semelhante ao acima foi dito pelo falecido juiz John Pearson pouco antes de sua morte. No prazo fevereiro de 1850, do Tribunal de Circuito do Condado de Vermilion, Illinois, um caso estava sendo julgado em que uma jovem havia trazido terno por US $ 10.000 contra um amante recreant que tinha casado com outra garota. A quantidade processada por se pensava ser uma soma enorme, naqueles dias, e os mais hábeis talento para ser encontrado foi trazido para requisição por ambos os lados. Richard Thompson e Daniel W. Voorhees foram associados com Davis OL para o requerente justo. HW Beckwith, Ward Lamon, e Abraham Lincoln foram para o réu. A pequena cidade de Danville estava lotado com pessoas de longe e de perto que tinha vindo 82to ouvir os grandes discursos. A prova trouxe no julgamento foi em todos os sentidos contra o réu, ea simpatia do público foi, naturalmente, com o autor jovem. Lincoln e seu assessor jurídico claramente viu o desespero de sua causa, e que sabiamente concluiu para deixar o seu lado do caso em pé sobre os seus méritos, mesmo sem fundamento de circunstâncias atenuantes. Voorhees era jovem, ambicioso e ansioso para mostrar sua oratória. Ele combinou com seus colegas no início que ele deveria fazer um discurso, e ele passou várias horas em seu quarto no hotel na preparação de uma avalanche de oratória. Tornou-se de conhecimento geral que Dan estava indo para fora do mesmo, ea expectativa da comunidade estava em sua máxima tensão. O pouco velho tribunal casa estava lotada. As senhoras estavam em pleno vigor. Voorhees veio um pouco tarde, brilhando com a empolgação da ocasião. Tinha sido arranjado para que Davis era abrir, Lincoln foi a seguir, e Voorhees deve vir em seguida. Mr. Davis fez uma declaração clara do caso, recitou o caráter da prova, e fechou com um argumento simples lógica. Lincoln, em seguida, se levantou, e ficou em silêncio por um momento, olhando para o júri. Ele deliberadamente re-arranjado alguns dos livros e papéis sobre a mesa diante dele, como se “fazer um bom pronto”, como ele costumava dizer, e começou de forma animada, mas deliberada: “Meritíssimo, a evidência, neste caso, é tudo, e todos os interessados, sem dúvida, compreender toda a sua importação sem o auxílio de argumento. Portanto, vai descansar o nosso caso aqui. “Este movimento, é claro, cortou toda a discussão futura. Voorhees, com sua carga de pirotecnia foi fechada para fora. Um silêncio sinistro observação seguido de Lincoln, em seguida, surgiu Voorhees, branco, com raiva, e entrou um protesto contra as táticas da defesa. Todos os outros ficaram desapontados, mas divertida, eo único consolo que Voorhees saiu deste caso foi um veredicto para o valor total reclamado por seu cliente. Mas ele 83never perdoou Lincoln para, assim, “beliscando” seu grande discurso “pela raiz.”

Mr. Wickizer dá uma história que ilustra a disposição off-mão da sagacidade de Lincoln. “No corte em Bloomington Mr. Lincoln estava envolvido em um caso não tem grande importância, mas o advogado do outro lado, o Sr. S., um jovem advogado de habilidades finas, sempre foi muito sensível sobre ser batido, e neste caso ele manifestou zelo incomum e interesse. O caso durou até tarde da noite, quando foi finalmente apresentado ao júri. Mr. S. passou uma noite sem dormir na ansiedade e na manhã seguinte aprendidas, para seu desgosto grande, que ele tinha perdido o caso. Mr. Lincoln conheceu na corte casa e lhe perguntou o que havia acontecido com o seu caso. Com semblante lúgubre e tom melancólico, o Sr. S. disse: ‘É ido para o inferno! “ ‘Oh, bem! “ respondeu Lincoln: “Não se preocupe, você pode tentar-lo novamente lá! ‘”

Lincoln estava sempre pronto para se juntar em um rir de suas próprias custas, e costumava contar a seguinte história com prazer intenso: “Nos dias em que eu costumava ser” no circuito “Eu fui abordado nos carros por um estranho que disse , ‘Desculpe-me, senhor, mas eu tenho um artigo em minha posse que pertence a você.’ “Como é isso? ‘ Eu perguntei, espantado consideravelmente. O estranho tirou um canivete do bolso. “Esta faca”, disse ele, ‘foi colocado em minhas mãos há alguns anos com a liminar que eu era mantê-lo até que encontrei um homem mais feio do que eu. Eu carrego isso desde aquele tempo até isso. Permitam-me dizer, senhor, que eu acho que você é bastante direito à propriedade. “

Mr. Gillespie diz Lincoln da paixão para contar histórias: “Como um companheiro boon, Lincoln, embora ele nunca bebeu bebidas alcoólicas ou tabaco usado em qualquer forma, foi sem rival. Ninguém jamais pensar em “colocar em ‘quando ele estava falando. Ele poderia ilustrar qualquer assunto, pareceu-me, com uma anedota apropriada e divertida. Ele não contar histórias apenas por uma questão de lhes dizer, mas 84rather a título de ilustração de algo que tinha acontecido ou sido dito. Não parecia haver um fim para seu fundo de histórias. “Mr. Lamon afirma:” Lincoln dito freqüentemente que ele viveu por seu humor e teria morrido sem ela. Sua maneira de contar uma história era irresistivelmente cômica, se divertir dançando em seus olhos e jogar mais de cada recurso. Seu rosto mudou em um instante; as linhas duras desbotada fora dele, ea alegria parecia difusa se em cima dele como um tickle espontânea. Você pode vê-lo chegando muito antes de ele abriu a boca, e ele começou a apreciar o “ponto” antes de sua auditores ávidos poderia pegar a menor idéia disso. Contar e ouvir histórias ridículas foi uma das paixões de sua sentença. “Uma boa ilustração deste gosto por contar histórias é dada pelo juiz Sibley, de Quincy, Illinois, que conhecia Lincoln quando se pratica a lei em Springfield. Um dia um grupo de advogados estavam sentados na biblioteca lei do tribunal-house em Springfield, aguardando a abertura do tribunal, e contando histórias para preencher o tempo. Breese juiz do Supremo banco, um dos mais ilustres juristas do americano, e um homem de grande dignidade pessoal, atravessou a sala onde estavam sentados os advogados, em seu caminho para abrir tribunal. Lincoln, vendo-o, chamou em seu caminho saudável, “Espere, Breese! Não abra tribunal ainda! Aqui está o Bob Blackwell só vai contar uma nova história! “O juiz repassado sem responder, evidentemente, considerando-o como abaixo da dignidade do Supremo Tribunal de atrasar processos por causa de uma história.

Bibliografia:

A VIDA TODOS OS DIAS DE ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A narrativos e descritivos 
biografia com PEN-FOTOS 
e recordações pessoais 
BY aqueles que o conheciam

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compilador de “Poemas de Ouro”, “Echoes Bugle, Postura da 
Guerra Civil “,” Laurel-Crowned Verso “, etc

NOVA EDIÇÃO REVISTA E BEM, DE PLACAS DE NOVO, COM 
UM RETRATO inteiramente novo de Lincoln, A PARTIR DE UM 
ESTUDO DE CARVÃO POR JK MARBLE 
CHICAGO 
BROWNE & COMPANY HOWELL 
1913

CHAPTER IV

Lincoln’s removal from New Salem to Springfield, where his more active life as a lawyer began, occurred in April, 1837, soon after the completion of his survey work at Petersburg. The event was closely connected with the removal of the State capital from Vandalia to Springfield, the law for which was passed at the legislative session of 1836-7. As has been stated, Lincoln was a member of that Legislature and was active in procuring the passage of the bill. The citizens of Springfield were very desirous of the removal of the capital to their town, and many of them were present at the session when the measure was up for discussion. They had thus become acquainted with Lincoln; they were favorably impressed as to his abilities and character, and pleased with his efforts in the matter in which they were so greatly interested. Through their influence and encouragement he chose Springfield as his future home.

Lincoln’s first interview, after his arrival in Springfield, was with Mr. Joshua F. Speed, with whom he already had a slight acquaintance, and who details the circumstances of their meeting. “He had ridden into town,” says Mr. Speed, “on a borrowed horse, with no earthly property save a pair of saddle-bags containing a few clothes. I was a merchant at Springfield, and kept a large country store, 70embracing dry goods, groceries, hardware, books, medicines, bed-clothes, mattresses,—in fact, everything that country people needed. Lincoln came into the store with his saddle-bags on his arm, and said he wanted to buy the fixings for a single bed. The mattresses, blankets, sheets, coverlid, and pillow, according to the figures made by me, would cost seventeen dollars. He said that was perhaps cheap enough, but small as the sum was he was unable to pay it. But if I would credit him till Christmas and his experiment as a lawyer was a success, he would pay then; adding, in the saddest tone, ‘If I fail in this, I do not know that I can ever pay you.’ As I looked up at him I thought then, and think now, that I never saw a sadder face. I said to him, ‘You seem to be so much pained at contracting so small a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debt and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a double bed up-stairs which you are very welcome to share with me.’ ‘Where is your room?’ said he. ‘Up-stairs,’ said I, pointing to a pair of winding stairs which led from the store to my room. He took his saddle-bags on his arm, went up-stairs, set them down on the floor, and came down with the most changed countenance. Beaming with pleasure, he exclaimed, ‘Well, Speed, I’m moved!’ Lincoln was then twenty-eight years old. He was a lawyer without a client, with no money, all his earthly wealth consisting of the clothes he wore and the contents of his saddle-bags.”

Lincoln shared the same room with Mr. Speed during his early residence in Springfield, taking his meals with his companion at the house of Mr. William Butler, with whom he boarded for five years. His professional advancement at first was slow, and he had periods of great discouragement. An old settler of Illinois, named Page Eaton, says: “I knew Lincoln when he first came to Springfield. He was an awkward but hard-working 71young man. Everybody said he would never make a good lawyer because he was too honest. He came to my shop one day, after he had been here five or six months, and said he had a notion to quit studying law and learn carpentering. He thought there was more need of carpenters out here than lawyers.” Soon after Lincoln’s settlement in Springfield, he formed a law partnership with Major John T. Stuart, whom he had known for some years and who already had a good position at the bar. This partnership began, according to the statement of Major Stuart, on April 27, 1837. It continued just four years, when it was dissolved, and Lincoln and Judge Stephen T. Logan became partners. This latter partnership continued about two years, when, on September 20, 1843, the firm of Lincoln & Herndon was formed, and it continued to the time of Lincoln’s death.

When Lincoln began to practice law, it was the custom in Illinois to “ride the circuit,” a proceeding of which the older communities of the East know nothing. The State of Illinois, for instance, is divided into a number of districts, each composed of a number of counties, of which a single judge, appointed or elected as the case may be, for that purpose, makes the circuit, holding courts at each county seat. Railroads being scarce, the earlier circuit judges made their trips from county to county on horseback or in a gig; and the prominent lawyers living within the limits of the circuit made the tour of the circuit with the judge. It is said that when Lincoln first began to “ride the circuit” he was too poor to own a horse or vehicle, and was compelled to borrow from his friends. But in due time he became the proprietor of a horse, which he fed and groomed himself, and to which he was very much attached. On this animal he would set out from home, to be gone for weeks together, with no baggage but a pair of saddle-bags containing a change of linen, and an old cotton umbrella to shelter him from sun or rain. 72When he got a little more of this world’s goods he set up a one-horse buggy, a very sorry and shabby-looking affair which he generally used when the weather promised to be bad. The other lawyers were always glad to see him, and landlords hailed his coming with pleasure; but he was one of those gentle, uncomplaining men whom they would put off with indifferent accommodations. It was a significant remark of a lawyer who was thoroughly acquainted with his habits and disposition that “Lincoln was never seated next the landlord at a crowded table, and never got a chicken-liver or the best cut from the roast.” Lincoln once remarked to Mr. Gillespie that he never felt his own unworthiness so much as when in the presence of a hotel clerk or waiter. If rooms were scarce, and one, two, three, or four gentlemen were required to lodge together in order to accommodate some surly man who “stood upon his rights,” Lincoln was sure to be one of the unfortunates. Yet he loved the life of the circuit, and never went home without reluctance.

In describing the many experiences of the lawyers who travelled the circuits at this period, Mr. Arnold says: “The State was settled with a hardy, fearless, honest, but very litigious population. The court-house was sometimes framed and boarded, but more frequently it was built of logs. The judge sat upon a raised platform behind a rough board, sometimes covered with green baize, for a table on which to write his notes. A small table stood on the floor in front for the clerk. In the center of the room was another larger table around which in rude chairs the lawyers were grouped, too often with their feet on top of it. Rough benches were placed there for the jury, the parties to the suit, witnesses and bystanders. The court-rooms were nearly always crowded for here were rehearsed and acted the dramas, the tragedies, and the comedies of real life. The court-house has always been a very attractive place to the people of the 73frontier. It supplied the place of theatres, lecture and concert rooms, and other places of interest and amusement in the older settlements and towns. The leading lawyers and judges were the star actors, and had each his partisans. Hence crowds attended the courts to see the judges, to hear the lawyers contend, with argument and law and wit, for success, victory, and fame. The merits and ability of the leading advocates, their success or discomfiture in examining or cross-examining a witness, the ability of this or that one to obtain a verdict, were canvassed at every cabin-raising, bee, or horse-race, and at every log-house and school in the county. Thus the lawyers were stimulated to the utmost exertion of their powers, not only by controversy and desire of success, but by the consciousness that their efforts were watched with eagerness by friends, clients, partisans, or rivals. From one to another of these rude court-houses the gentlemen of the bar passed, following the judge around his circuits from county to county, travelling generally on horseback, with saddle-bags, brushes, an extra shirt or two, and perhaps two or three law books. Sometimes two or three lawyers would unite and travel in a buggy, and the poorer and younger ones not seldom walked. But a horse was not an unusual fee, and in those days when horse thieves as clients were but too common, it was not long before a young man of ability found himself well mounted.

“There was very great freedom in social intercourse. Manners were rude, but genial, kind, and friendly. Each was always ready to assist his fellows, and selfishness was not tolerated. The relations between the bench and bar were familiar, free and easy. Flashes of wit and humor and repartee were constantly exchanged. Such was the life upon which Lincoln now entered; and there gathered with him around those pine tables of the frontier court-house a very remarkable combination of men, men who 74would have been leaders of the bar at Boston or New York, Philadelphia or Washington; men who would have made their mark in Westminster Hall, or upon any English circuit. At the capital were John T. Stuart, Stephen T. Logan, Edward D. Baker, Ninian W. Edwards, Josiah Lamborn, and many others. Among the leading lawyers from other parts of the State who practiced in the Supreme and Federal Courts at the capital were Stephen A. Douglas; Lyman Trumbull, for many years chairman of the judiciary committee of the United States Senate; O.H. Browning, Senator and member of the Cabinet at Washington; William H. Bissell, Member of Congress, and Governor of the State; David Davis, justice of the Supreme Court, Senator and Vice-President of the United States; Justin Butterfield of Chicago, and many others almost or quite equally distinguished. This ‘circuit riding’ involved all sorts of adventures. Hard fare at miserable country taverns, sleeping on the floor, and fording streams, were every-day occurrences. All such occurrences were met with good humor and often turned into sources of frolic and fun. In fording swollen streams, Lincoln was frequently sent forward as a scout or pioneer. His extremely long legs enabled him, by taking off his boots and stockings, and by rolling up or otherwise disposing of his trousers, to test the depth of the stream, find the most shallow water, and thus to pilot the party through the current without wetting his garments.”

A gentleman who lived in one of the judicial circuits of Illinois in which Lincoln had an extensive though not very lucrative practice gives some graphic and interesting reminiscences. “The terms of the court were held quarterly and usually lasted about two weeks. They were always seasons of great importance and much gayety in the little town that had the honor of being the county seat. Distinguished members of the bar from surrounding and even from distant counties, ex-judges and ex-Members 75of Congress, attended and were personally and many of them popularly known to almost every adult, male and female, of the limited population. They came in by stages and on horseback. Among them the one whose arrival was looked forward to with the most pleasurable anticipations, and whose possible absence—although he almost never was absent—was feared with the liveliest emotions of anxiety, was ‘Uncle Abe,’ as he was lovingly called by us all. Sometimes he might happen to be a day or two late. Then, as the Bloomington stage came in at sundown, the bench and bar, jurors and citizens, would gather in crowds at the hotel where he always put up, to give him a welcome if, happily, he should arrive, and to experience the keenest feelings of disappointment if he should not. If he arrived, as he alighted and stretched out both his long arms to shake hands with those nearest to him and with those who approached, his homely face handsome in its broad and sunshiny smile, his voice touching in its kindly and cheerful accents, everyone in his presence felt lighter in heart and more joyous. He brought light with him. He loved his fellow-men with all the strength of his great nature, and those who came in contact with him could not help reciprocating the love.”

Another old friend describes Lincoln as being at this time “very plain in his costume, as well as rather uncourtly in his address and general appearance. His clothing was of home Kentucky jean, and the first impression made by his tall, lank figure upon those who saw him was not specially prepossessing. He had not outgrown his hard backwoods experience, and showed no inclination to disguise or to cast behind him the honest and manly though unpolished characteristics of his earlier days. Never was a man further removed from all snobbish affectation. As little was there, also, of the demagogue art of assuming an uncouthness or rusticity of manner and outward habit with the mistaken notion of thus securing particular 76favor as ‘one of the masses.’ He chose to appear then, as in all his later life, precisely what he was. His deportment was unassuming, though without any awkwardness of reserve.”

Mr. Crane, an old settler of Tazewell County, says he used to see Lincoln when passing through Washington, in that county, on his way to attend court at Metamora; and he remembers him as “dressed in a homespun coat that came below his knees and was out at both elbows.”

Lincoln’s tenderness of heart was displayed in his treatment of animals, toward which he was often performing unusual acts of kindness. On one occasion, as Mr. Speed relates, Lincoln and the other members of the Springfield bar had been attending court at Christiansburg, and Mr. Speed was riding with them toward Springfield. There was quite a party of these lawyers, riding two by two along a country lane. Lincoln and John J. Hardin brought up the rear of the cavalcade. “We had passed through a thicket of wild plum and crab-apple trees,” says Mr. Speed, “and stopped to water our horses. Hardin came up alone. ‘Where is Lincoln?’ we inquired. ‘Oh,’ replied he, ‘when I saw him last he had caught two young birds which the wind had blown out of their nests, and he was hunting the nest to put them back.’ In a short time Lincoln came up, having found the nest and placed the young birds in it. The party laughed at him; but he said, ‘I could not have slept if I had not restored those little birds to their mother.’”

Again, as Dr. Holland narrates, “Lincoln was one day riding by a deep slough or pit in which, to his exceeding pain, he saw a pig struggling, and with such faint efforts that it was evident that he could not extricate himself. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud that enveloped him, and then looked ruefully at some new clothes in which he had but a short time before enveloped himself. Deciding against the claims of the pig he rode on; but he could 77not get rid of the vision of the poor brute, and at last, after riding two miles, he turned back, determined to rescue the animal at the expense of his new clothes. Arrived at the spot, he tied his horse, and coolly went to work to build of old rails a passage to the bottom of the hole. Descending on these rails, he seized the pig and dragged him out, but not without serious damage to the clothes he wore. Washing his hands in the nearest brook and wiping them on the grass, he mounted his gig and rode along. He then fell to examining the motive that sent him back to the release of the pig. At the first thought it seemed to be pure benevolence; but at length he came to the conclusion that it was selfishness, for he certainly went to the pig’s relief in order (as he said to the friend to whom he related the incident) to ‘take a pain out of his own mind.’”

Instances showing the integrity, candor, unselfishness, and humanity of Lincoln’s conduct in his law practice could be multiplied indefinitely. The following are given by Dr. Holland: “The lawyers of Springfield, particularly those who had political aspirations, were afraid to undertake the defense of anyone who had been engaged in helping off fugitives slaves. It was a very unpopular business in those days and in that locality; and few felt that they could afford to engage in it. One who needed such aid went to Edward D. Baker, and was refused, distinctly and frankly on the ground that as a political man he could not afford it. The man applied to an ardent anti-slavery friend for advice. He spoke of Mr. Lincoln, and said, ‘He’s not afraid of an unpopular case. When I go for a lawyer to defend an arrested fugitive slave, other lawyers will refuse me. But if Mr. Lincoln is at home he will always take my case.’”

An old woman of seventy-five years, the widow of a revolutionary pensioner, came tottering into his law office one day, and told him that a certain pension agent had charged her the exorbitant fee of two hundred dollars for 78collecting her pension. Lincoln was satisfied by her representations that she had been swindled, and finding that she was not a resident of the town, and that she was poor, gave her money, and set about the work of procuring restitution. He immediately entered suit against the agent to recover a portion of his ill-gotten money. This suit was one of the most remarkable that Lincoln ever conducted. The day before the case came up he asked his partner, Mr. Herndon, to get him a “Life of Washington,” and he spent the whole afternoon reading it. His speech to the jury was long remembered. The whole court-room was in tears as he closed with these words: “Gentlemen of the jury. Time rolls by. The heroes of ’76 have passed away. They are encamped on the other shore. This soldier has gone to his rest, and now, crippled, blinded, and broken, his widow comes to you and to me, gentlemen of the jury, to right her wrongs. She was not always as you see her now. Once her step was elastic. Her face was fair. Her voice was as sweet as any that rang in the mountains of old Virginia. Now she is old. She is poor and defenceless. Out here on the prairies of Illinois, hundreds of miles from the scenes of her childhood, she appeals to you and to me who enjoy the privileges achieved for us by the patriots of the Revolution for our sympathetic aid and manly protection. I have but one question to ask you, gentlemen of the jury. Shall we befriend her?” During the speech the defendant sat huddled up in the court-room, writhing under the lash of Lincoln’s tongue. The jury returned a verdict for every cent that Lincoln had asked. He became the old lady’s surety for costs, paid her hotel bill and sent her home rejoicing. He made no charges for his own or his partner’s services. A few days afterwards Mr. Herndon picked up a little scrap of paper in the office. He looked at it a moment, and burst into a roar of laughter. It was Lincoln’s notes for the argument of this case. They were 79unique:—”No contract—Not professional services—Unreasonable charges—Money retained by Deft not given by Pl’ff.—Revolutionary War—Describe Valley Forge—Ice—Soldiers’ bleeding feet—Pl’ff’s husband—Soldiers leaving home for the army—Skin Def’t—Close.”

In his Autobiography, Joseph Jefferson tells how he visited Springfield with a theatrical company in the early days (1839) and planned to open a theatrical season in that godly town. But “a religious revival was in progress, and the fathers of the church not only launched forth against us in their sermons, but got the city to pass a new law enjoining a heavy license against our ‘unholy’ calling. I forget the amount, but it was large enough to be prohibitory.” The company had begun the building of a new theatre; and naturally the situation was perplexing. In the midst of their trouble, says Mr. Jefferson, “a young lawyer called on the Managers. He had heard of the injustice, and offered, if they would place the matter in his hands, to have the license taken off,—declaring that he only wanted to see fair play, and he would accept no fee whether he failed or succeeded. The case was brought up before the council. The young lawyer began his harangue. He handled the subject with tact, skill, and humor, tracing the history of the drama from the time when Thespis acted in a cart, to the stage of to-day. He illustrated his speech with a number of anecdotes, and kept the council in a roar of laughter. His good humor prevailed, and the exorbitant tax was taken off. This young lawyer was very popular in Springfield, and was honored and beloved by all who knew him; and after the time of which I write he held rather an important position in the Government of the United States. He now lies buried in Springfield, under a monument commemorating his greatness and his virtues,—and his name was Abraham Lincoln.”

80Judge Gillespie tells a good story, to the effect that Lincoln and General U.P. Linder were once defending a man who was being tried on a criminal charge before Judge David Davis, who said at dinner-time that the case must be disposed of that night. Lincoln suggested that the best thing they could do would be to run Benedict, the prosecuting attorney, as far into the night as possible, in hopes that he might, in his rage, commit some indiscretion that would help their case. Lincoln began, but to save his life he could not speak one hour, and the laboring oar fell into Linder’s hands. “But,” said Lincoln, “he was equal to the occasion. He spoke most interestingly three mortal hours, about everything in the world. He discussed Benedict from head to foot, and put in about three-quarters of an hour on the subject of Benedict’s whiskers.” Lincoln said he never envied a man so much as he did Linder on that occasion. He thought he was inimitable in his capacity to talk interestingly about everything and nothing, by the hour.

But if Lincoln had not General Linder’s art of “talking against time,” his wit often suggested some readier method of gaining advantage in a case. On one occasion, a suit was on trial in the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, in which Lincoln was attorney for the plaintiff, and Mr. James C. Conkling, then a young man just entering practice, was attorney for the defendant. It was a jury trial, and Lincoln waived the opening argument to the jury, leaving Mr. Conkling to sum up his case for the defense. The latter spoke at considerable length, in a sophomoric style, laboring under the impression that unless he made an extraordinary exertion to influence the jury he would be quite eclipsed by Lincoln in his closing speech. But he was completely taken back by the unlooked-for light manner in which Lincoln treated the case in his closing. Lincoln proceeded to reply but, in doing so he talked on without making the 81slightest reference to the case on hearing or to the argument of Mr. Conkling. His summing-up to the jury was to the following effect: “Gentlemen of the jury: In early days there lived in this vicinity, over on the Sangamon river, an old Indian of the Kickapoo tribe by the name of Johnnie Kongapod. He had been taken in charge by some good missionaries, converted to Christianity, and educated to such extent that he could read and write. He took a great fancy to poetry and became somewhat of a poet himself. His desire was that after his death there should be placed at the head of his grave an epitaph, which he prepared himself, in rhyme, in the following words:

“‘Here lies poor Johnnie Kongapod;
Have mercy on him, gracious God,
As he would do if he were God
And you were Johnnie Kongapod.’”

Of course all this had no reference to the case, nor did Lincoln intend it should have any. It was merely his way of ridiculing the eloquence of his opponent. The verdict of the jury was for the plaintiff, as Lincoln expected it would be; and this was the reason of his treating the case as he did.

A story somewhat similar to the above was told by the late Judge John Pearson shortly before his death. In the February term, 1850, of the Circuit Court of Vermilion County, Illinois, a case was being tried in which a young lady had brought suit for $10,000 against a recreant lover who had married another girl. The amount sued for was thought to be an enormous sum in those days, and the ablest talent to be found was brought into requisition by both sides. Richard Thompson and Daniel W. Voorhees were associated with O.L. Davis for the fair plaintiff. H.W. Beckwith, Ward Lamon, and Abraham Lincoln were for the defendant. The little town of Danville was crowded with people from far and near who had come 82to hear the big speeches. The evidence brought out in the trial was in every way against the defendant, and the sympathy of the public was, naturally enough, with the young lady plaintiff. Lincoln and his associate counsel plainly saw the hopelessness of their cause; and they wisely concluded to let their side of the case stand upon its merits, without even a plea of extenuating circumstances. Voorhees was young, ambitious, and anxious to display his oratory. He arranged with his colleagues at the beginning that he should make a speech, and he spent several hours in his room at the hotel in the preparation of an oratorical avalanche. It became generally known that Dan was going to out-do himself, and the expectation of the community was at its highest tension. The little old court-house was crowded. The ladies were out in full force. Voorhees came in a little late, glowing with the excitement of the occasion. It had been arranged that Davis was to open, Lincoln was to follow, and Voorhees should come next. Mr. Davis made a clear statement of the case, recited the character of the evidence, and closed with a plain logical argument. Then Lincoln arose, and stood in silence for a moment, looking at the jury. He deliberately re-arranged some of the books and papers on the table before him, as though “making a good ready,” as he used to say, and began in a spirited but deliberate way: “Your Honor, the evidence in this case is all in, and doubtless all concerned comprehend its fullest import without the aid of further argument. Therefore we will rest our case here.” This move, of course, cut off all future discussion. Voorhees, with his load of pyrotechnics was shut out. An ominous silence followed Lincoln’s remark; then Voorhees arose, white with rage, and entered a protest against the tactics of the defense. All the others were disappointed, but amused, and the only consolation that Voorhees got out of this affair was a verdict for the full amount claimed by his client. But he 83never forgave Lincoln for thus “nipping” his great speech “in the bud.”

Mr. Wickizer gives a story which illustrates the off-hand readiness of Lincoln’s wit. “In the court at Bloomington Mr. Lincoln was engaged in a case of no great importance; but the attorney on the other side, Mr. S., a young lawyer of fine abilities, was always very sensitive about being beaten, and in this case he manifested unusual zeal and interest. The case lasted until late at night, when it was finally submitted to the jury. Mr. S. spent a sleepless night in anxiety, and early next morning learned, to his great chagrin, that he had lost the case. Mr. Lincoln met him at the court-house and asked him what had become of his case. With lugubrious countenance and melancholy tone, Mr. S. said, ‘It’s gone to hell!’ ‘Oh, well!’ replied Lincoln, ‘Never mind,—you can try it again there!’”

Lincoln was always ready to join in a laugh at his own expense, and used to tell the following story with intense enjoyment: “In the days when I used to be ‘on the circuit’ I was accosted in the cars by a stranger who said, ‘Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which belongs to you.’ ‘How is that?’ I asked, considerably astonished. The stranger took a jack-knife from his pocket. ‘This knife,’ said he, ‘was placed in my hands some years ago with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it from that time to this. Allow me to say, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the property.’”

Mr. Gillespie says of Lincoln’s passion for story-telling: “As a boon companion, Lincoln, although he never drank liquor or used tobacco in any form, was without a rival. No one would ever think of ‘putting in’ when he was talking. He could illustrate any subject, it seemed to me, with an appropriate and amusing anecdote. He did not tell stories merely for the sake of telling them, but 84rather by way of illustration of something that had happened or been said. There seemed to be no end to his fund of stories.” Mr. Lamon states: “Lincoln frequently said that he lived by his humor and would have died without it. His manner of telling a story was irresistibly comical, the fun of it dancing in his eyes and playing over every feature. His face changed in an instant; the hard lines faded out of it, and the mirth seemed to diffuse itself all over him like a spontaneous tickle. You could see it coming long before he opened his mouth, and he began to enjoy the ‘point’ before his eager auditors could catch the faintest glimpse of it. Telling and hearing ridiculous stories was one of his ruling passions.” A good illustration of this fondness for story-telling is given by Judge Sibley, of Quincy, Illinois, who knew Lincoln when practicing law at Springfield. One day a party of lawyers were sitting in the law library of the court-house at Springfield, awaiting the opening of court, and telling stories to fill the time. Judge Breese of the Supreme bench—one of the most distinguished of American jurists, and a man of great personal dignity—passed through the room where the lawyers were sitting, on his way to open court. Lincoln, seeing him, called out in his hearty way, “Hold on, Breese! Don’t open court yet! Here’s Bob Blackwell just going to tell a new story!” The judge passed on without replying, evidently regarding it as beneath the dignity of the Supreme Court to delay proceedings for the sake of a story.

BIBLIOGRAFY:

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES
AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compiler of “Golden Poems,” “Bugle Echoes, Pose of
the Civil War,” “Laurel-Crowned Verse,” etc.

NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH
AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A
CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

CHAPTER III

Abraham Lincoln’s career as a lawyer covered a period of a quarter of a century, beginning about 1834 or ’35, and ending with his election to the Presidency, in November, 1860. When he began his professional life he was an obscure and unpromising youth of twenty-five, with but little learning and fewer accomplishments, and without advantages of social influence or wealthy friends. Step by step, with patient industry and unflinching determination, he climbed the ladder of professional advancement until he stood among the foremost lawyers of the West. He had, indeed, won a national reputation; and when he laid aside his law books, a mature man of fifty, it was to enter upon the great honors and responsibilities of the Presidency of the American Republic.

Lincoln was devoted to his profession, and his success in it was earned by hard and constant application. But his natural taste for politics led him to take a full share in the activities of political life. He had already served a term in the Illinois Legislature (1834-35), and so well satisfied were his constituents that they renominated him for the succeeding term. In the canvass which followed he distinguished himself as a stump-speaker; showing, 56by his tact and ability, by the skill and ingenuity with which he met his opponents in debate, by his shrewdness in attack and readiness in retort, how much he had profited by the training of the previous years.

An incident illustrating his ready wit and his keen insight into human nature occurred early in this campaign, at Springfield, where a public discussion was held between the opposing candidates. An interesting version of this incident is given by Mr. Arnold: “There lived at this time in the most pretentious house in Springfield a prominent citizen named George Forquer. He had been long in public life, had been a leading Whig—the party to which Lincoln belonged—but had lately gone over to the Democrats, and had received from the Democratic administration an appointment to the lucrative post of Register of the Land Office at Springfield. Upon his handsome new house he had lately placed a lightning-rod, the first one ever put up in Sangamon County. As Lincoln was riding into town with his friends, they passed the fine house of Forquer, and observed the novelty of the lightning-rod, discussing the manner in which it protected the house from being struck by lightning. In this discussion there were seven Whig and seven Democratic candidates for the lower branch of the Legislature; and after several had spoken it fell to Lincoln to close the arguments. This he did with great ability. Forquer, though not a candidate, then asked to be heard for the Democrats in reply to Lincoln. He was a good speaker and well-known throughout the county. His special task that day was to attack and ridicule the young man from Salem. Turning to Lincoln, who stood within a few feet of him, he said: ‘This young man must be taken down, and I am truly sorry that the task devolves upon me.’ He then proceeded, in a very overbearing way, and with an assumption of great superiority, to attack Lincoln and his speech. Lincoln stood calm, but his flashing eye and pale cheek 57showed his indignation. As soon as Forquer had closed he took the stand and first answered his opponent’s arguments fully and triumphantly. So impressive were his words and manner that a hearer believes that he can remember to this day, and repeat, some of the expressions. Among other things, he said: ‘The gentleman commenced his speech by saying that this young man—alluding to me—must be taken down. I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and trades of a politician; but,’ said he, pointing to Forquer, ‘live long or die young, I would rather die now, than, like the gentleman, change my politics for a three thousand dollar office, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from the vengeance of an offended God!’”

“It is difficult to-day,” says Mr. Arnold, “to appreciate the effect on the old settlers, of this figure. This lightning-rod was the first which most of those present had ever seen. They had slept all their lives in their cabins in conscious security. Here was a man who seemed, to these simple-minded people, to be afraid to sleep in his own house without special and extraordinary protection from Almighty God. These old settlers thought nothing but the consciousness of guilt, the stings of a guilty conscience, could account for such timidity. Forquer and his lightning-rod were talked over in every settlement from Sangamon to the Illinois and the Wabash. Whenever he rose to speak thereafter, they said, ‘There is the man who dare not sleep in his own house without a lightning-rod to keep off the vengeance of the Almighty.’”

Another amusing incident of the same campaign, and one which illustrates Lincoln’s love of a practical joke, is given as follows: “Among the Democrats stumping the county at this time was one Dick Taylor, a most pompous person, who was always arrayed in the richest attire—ruffled shirts, seals, etc., besides a rich embroidered vest. 58Notwithstanding this array, he made great pretentions of being one of the ‘hard-handed yeomanry,’ and ridiculed with much sarcasm the ‘rag barons’ and ‘manufacturing lords’ of the Whig party. One day, when he was particularly aggravating in a speech of this kind, Lincoln decided on a little sport, and sidling up to Taylor suddenly threw open the latter’s coat, showing to the astonished spectators a glittering mass of ruffled shirt, gold watch, and glittering jewels. The crowd shouted uproariously. Lincoln said: ‘While he [Colonel Taylor] was making these charges against the Whigs over the country, riding in fine carriages, wearing ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive gold watch-chains with large gold seals, and flourishing a heavy gold-headed cane, I was a poor boy, hired on a flatboat at eight dollars a month, and had only one pair of breeches to my name, and they were buckskin,—and if you know the nature of buckskin, when wet and dried by the sun it will shrink,—and mine kept shrinking until they left several inches of my legs bare between the tops of my socks and the lower part of my breeches. Whilst I was growing taller, they were becoming shorter and so much tighter that they left a blue streak around my legs that can be seen to this day. If you call this aristocracy, I plead guilty to the charge.’”

“The Saturday evening preceding the election,” says Mr. Lamon, “the candidates were addressing the people in the Court House at Springfield. Dr. Early, one of the candidates on the Democratic side, made some charge which Mr. N.W. Edwards, one of the candidates on the Whig side, deemed untrue. Edwards climbed on a table, so as to be seen by Early and by everyone in the house, and at the top of his voice told Early that the charge was false. The excitement that followed was intense—so much so that fighting men thought a duel must settle the difficulty. Lincoln, by the programme, followed Early. He took up the subject in dispute and 59handled it fairly and with such ability that everyone was astonished and pleased. So that difficulty ended there. Then for the first time, aroused by the excitement of the occasion, he spoke in that tenor intonation of voice that ultimately settled down into that clear, shrill monotone style that afterwards characterized his public speaking, and enabled his audience, however large, to hear distinctly the lowest sound of his voice.” Mr. Arnold says that Lincoln’s reply to Dr. Early was “often spoken of as exhibiting wonderful ability, and a crushing power of sarcasm and ridicule. When he began he was embarrassed, spoke slowly and with some hesitation and difficulty. But becoming excited by his subject, he forgot himself entirely, and went on with argument and wit, anecdote and ridicule, until his opponent was completely crushed. Old settlers of Sangamon County who heard this reply speak of his personal transformation as wonderful. When Lincoln began, they say, he seemed awkward, homely, unprepossessing. As he went on, and became excited, his figure rose to its full height and became commanding and majestic. His plain face was illuminated and glowed with expression. His dreamy eye flashed with inspiration, and his whole person, his voice, his gestures, were full of the magnetism of powerful feeling, of conscious strength and true eloquence.”

The inflexible honesty and fine sense of honor which lay at the foundation of Lincoln’s character are nobly exhibited in the following letter to a former friend but now political opponent, Col. Robert Allen:

The campaign resulted in Lincoln’s election to the Legislature of 1836. The nine delegates from Sangamon County happened to be men of remarkable stature, each one measuring six feet or more in height; and very naturally they were nicknamed the “Long Nine.” Lincoln overtopped all the rest, and as a consequence was called “the Sangamon Chief.” The State capital was then at Vandalia; and Lincoln’s journey there from Springfield was made mainly on foot. As he was trudging along the muddy road, he fell in with Judge John Dean Caton, one of the early lawyers of Illinois, afterwards Chief Justice of the State, who became an intimate friend of Lincoln. Judge Caton gives an interesting account of their first meeting, which occurred at this time. “I first met Mr. Lincoln,” 61says Judge Caton, “about the last of November, 1835, when on my way to Vandalia to join the Supreme Court, which met there the first Monday in December, at the same time as the meeting of the Legislature. There were a great many people and all sorts of vehicles on the road from Springfield to Vandalia. The roads were very bad, and most of the passengers got out and walked a considerable portion of the distance. It seemed almost like the movement of a little army. While walking thus along the side of the road I met Mr. Lincoln for the first time, and in the course of a two days’ journey we became quite well acquainted. If he had been admitted to the bar at that time, he had not become known as a lawyer out of his own immediate circuit. He was going to Vandalia as a member of the Legislature. He was one of the ‘Long Nine,’ as it was called, from Sangamon County, who by their successful manoeuvring and united efforts succeeded in getting the seat of government moved from Vandalia to Springfield. During my stay of a few weeks in Vandalia I frequently met Mr. Lincoln. He was a very pleasant companion; but as we walked along the road on the occasion referred to, talking about indifferent subjects, nothing impressed me with any idea of his future greatness.”

When Lincoln took his seat in the first session of the new Legislature at Vandalia, his mind was full of new projects. His real public service was now about to begin, and having spent his time in the previous Legislature mainly as an observer and listener he was determined during this session to identify himself conspicuously with the “liberal” progressive legislation, dreaming of a fame far different from that he actually obtained as an anti-slavery leader. As he remarked to his friend Speed, he hoped to obtain the great distinction of being called “the De Witt Clinton of Illinois.”

It was at a special session of this Legislature that Lincoln first saw Stephen A. Douglas, his great political 62antagonist of the future, whom he describes as “the least man” he ever saw. Douglas had come into the State from Vermont only the previous year, and having studied law for several months considered himself eminently qualified to be State’s attorney for the district in which he lived. General Linder says of the two men at this time: “I here had an opportunity, better than any I had previously possessed, of measuring the intellectual stature of Abraham Lincoln. He was then about twenty-seven years old—my own age. Douglas was four years our junior; consequently he could not have been over twenty-three years old. Yet he was a very ready and expert debater, even at that early period of his life. He and Lincoln were very frequently pitted against each other, being of different politics. They both commanded marked attention and respect.”

A notable measure effected by the “Long Nine” during this session of the Legislature was the removal of the State Capital from Vandalia to Springfield. It was accomplished by dint of shrewd and persistent management, in which Lincoln was a leading spirit. Mr. Robert L. Wilson, one of his colleagues, says: “When our bill to all appearance was dead beyond resuscitation, and our friends could see no hope, Lincoln never for a moment despaired. Collecting his colleagues in his room for consultation, his practical common-sense, his thorough knowledge of human nature, made him an overmatch for his compeers, and for any man I have ever known.”

Lincoln’s reputation as an orator was gradually extending beyond the circle of his friends and constituents. He was gaining notice as a ready and forcible speaker, with shrewd and sensible ideas which he expressed with striking originality and independence. He was invited to address the Young Men’s Lyceum at Springfield, January 27, 1837, and read a carefully prepared paper on “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions,” which was after63wards published in the Springfield “Weekly Journal.” The address was crude and strained in style, but the feeling pervading it was fervent and honest, and its patriotic sentiment and sound reflection made it effective for the occasion. A few paragraphs culled from this paper, some of them containing remarkable prophetic passages, afford a clue to the stage of intellectual development which Lincoln had reached at the age of twenty-seven, and an interesting contrast with the terser style of his later years.

During the years of Lincoln’s service in the Illinois Legislature the Democratic party was strongly dominant throughout the State. The feeling on the subject of slavery was decidedly in sympathy with the South. A large percentage of the settlers in the southern and middle portions of Illinois were from States in which slave labor was maintained; and although the determination not to permit the institution to obtain a foothold in the new commonwealth was general, the people were opposed to any action which should affect its condition where it was already established. During the sessions of 1836-7 resolutions of an extreme pro-slavery character were carried through the Legislature by the Democratic party, aiming to prevent the Abolitionists from obtaining a foothold in the State. Lincoln could not conscientiously support the resolutions, nor hold his peace concerning them. He did not shrink from the issue, but at the hazard of losing his political popularity and the gratifying prospects that were opening before him he drew up a protest against the pro-slavery enactment and had it entered upon the Journal of the House. The state of public opinion in Illinois at that time may be judged by the fact that of the hundred Representatives in the House only one had the courage to sign the protest with him. Lincoln’s protest was as follows:

The great financial panic which swept over the country in 1837 rendered expedient an extra session of the Legislature, which was called together in July. General Lee D. Ewing had been elected to this session from Fayette County for the express purpose of repealing the law removing the capital from Vandalia to Springfield. “General Ewing was,” says Mr. Linder, “a man of considerable notoriety, popularity, and talents. He had been a member of Congress from Illinois, and had filled various State offices in his time. He was a man of elegant manners, great personal courage, and would grace either the salons of fashion or the Senate chamber at Washington. The Legislature opened its special session (I was there as a spectator), and General Ewing sounded the tocsin of war. He said that ‘the arrogance of Springfield, its presumption in claiming the seat of government, was not to be endured; that the law had been passed by chicanery and trickery; that the Springfield delegation had sold out to the internal improvement men, and had promised their support to every measure that would gain them a vote to the law removing the seat of government.’ He said many other things, cutting and sarcastic. Lincoln was chosen by 67his colleagues to reply to Ewing; and I want to say here that this was the first time that I began to conceive a very high opinion of the talents and personal courage of Abraham Lincoln. He retorted upon Ewing with great severity, denouncing his insinuations imputing corruption to him and his colleagues, and paying back with usury all that Ewing had said, when everybody thought and believed that he was digging his own grave; for it was known that Ewing would not quietly pocket any insinuations that would degrade him personally. I recollect his reply to Lincoln well. After addressing the Speaker, he turned to the Sangamon delegation, who all sat in the same portion of the house, and said: ‘Gentlemen, have you no other champion than this coarse and vulgar fellow to bring into the lists against me? Do you suppose that I will condescend to break a lance with your low and obscure colleague?’ We were all very much alarmed for fear there would be a personal conflict between Ewing and Lincoln. It was confidently believed that a challenge must pass between them; but friends on both sides took the matter in hand, and it was settled without anything serious growing out of it.”

When the legislative session ended, in February, 1837, Lincoln returned to a job of surveying which he had begun a year before at Petersburg, near his old home at Salem. He spent a month or two at Petersburg, completing the surveying and planning of the town. That his work was well and satisfactorily done is attested by many—among them by Mr. John Bennett, who lived in Petersburg at the time. “My earliest acquaintance with Lincoln,” says Mr. Bennett, “began on his return from Vandalia, where he had spent the winter as a member of the Legislature from Sangamon County. Lincoln spent most of the month of March in Petersburg, finishing up the survey and planning of the town he had commenced the year before. I was a great deal in his company, and 68formed a high estimate of his worth and social qualities, which was strengthened by many years of subsequent social intercourse and business transactions, finding him always strictly honest. In fact, he was now generally spoken of in this region as ‘Honest Abe.’ After Menard County was formed out of a portion of Sangamon County, and the county seat established at Petersburg, Mr. Lincoln was a regular attendant at the courts. I was then keeping a hotel, and he was one of my regular customers. Here he met many of his old cronies of his early days at Salem, and they spent the most of the nights in telling stories or spinning long yarns, of which Mr. Lincoln was particularly fond.”

BIBLIOGRAFY:

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES
AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compiler of “Golden Poems,” “Bugle Echoes, Pose of
the Civil War,” “Laurel-Crowned Verse,” etc.

NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH
AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A
CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

CAPÍTULO II

Na primavera de 1832 trouxe um novo rumo na carreira de Lincoln. O ano tinha sido um dos grande avanço em muitos aspectos. Ele tinha feito novas amizades e valioso, ler muitos livros, domina a gramática da sua própria língua, ganhou uma multidão de amigos. Aqueles que puderam apreciar a inteligência eo caráter respeitava-o, e aqueles cujas idéias mais elevadas de um homem relacionado com sua aptidão física foram dedicados a ele. Todos confiavam nele. Ele foi juiz, árbitro, árbitro autoridade, em todas as disputas, jogos e partidas se do homem de carne ou carne de cavalo.Ele foi o pacificador em todas as disputas. Ele era amigo de todo mundo-a melhor índole, mais sensata, mais informado, mais modesto, despretensioso kindest, mais suave, mais duro, mais forte do companheiro, o melhor jovem em todas as Salem Novo ou sobre a região. Mas as empresas do Sr. Offutt de negociação terminou desastrosamente no ano de 1832. A loja foi fechada, a fábrica foi fechada, e Lincoln estava fora do negócio.

No exato momento, no entanto, que ele se encontrou à deriva Illinois estava cheio de entusiasmo sobre a Guerra Black Hawk. O centro de alarme foi no Vale de Rock, na parte norte do Estado, que tinha sido anteriormente o lar da tribo de índios Sac.Descontente com sua vida no oeste de reserva do Mississippi, a 36which haviam sido removidos, o Sacs, com várias outras tribos, resolveu recuperar seus antigos campos de caça. O chefe guerreiro, Black Hawk, estava na cabeça da revolta, e sua marcha em direção ao rio Rock foi assinalada por uma série de massacres. Reynolds governador de Illinois emitiu uma proclamação convocando voluntários para ajudar as tropas regulares na emergência. Lincoln foi um dos primeiros a atender a chamada, o bravo “Boys Clary Grove”, também vindo de imediato para o resgate. “Os voluntários reunidos”, escreve o Sr. Arnold, “em Rushville, em Schuyler County, em que lugar estavam a ser organizadas, e eleitos oficiais. Lincoln era um candidato para o lugar de capitão, e em oposição a ele foi um William Kirkpatrick. O modo de eleição era novidade. Por acordo, cada candidato saiu a alguma distância e tomou posição por si mesmo. Os homens foram, então, para formar, e aqueles que votaram em Kirkpatrick foram a faixa em uma linha com seu candidato. Quando as linhas foram formadas, Lincoln foi três vezes mais longa que a de Kirkpatrick, e assim por Lincoln foi declarado eleito. Falando deste caso, quando o Presidente, ele disse que ele estava mais satisfeito com este sucesso sua primeira eleição do que com qualquer outra de sua vida.Nem Lincoln nem a sua empresa estava em qualquer compromisso durante a campanha, mas não havia abundância de dificuldades e fadiga, e alguns incidentes ocorreram para ilustrar sua coragem e poder sobre os homens. “

Muitos anos depois, de fato, enquanto Lincoln foi Presidente se referiu a essas cenas no início de uma forma que ilustra sua memória maravilhosa e seu poder de recordar os mínimos incidentes de sua vida passada. Encontro um amigo Illinois de idade, ele, naturalmente, caiu para falar de Illinois, e relacionados com várias histórias de sua infância naquela região. Particularmente se lembrou da sua participação na Guerra Black Hawk. Ele se referiu a sua parte da campanha de ânimo leve, e disse que viu, mas muito pouco combate. Mas lembrou-se chegando a um acampamento de escoteiros em branco uma manhã37ing assim como o sol estava nascendo. Os índios tinham surpreendido o acampamento e mataram e scalped cada homem. “Eu me lembro exatamente como os homens olhavam”, disse Lincoln, “como nós montamos a pequena colina, onde estava o acampamento. A luz vermelha do sol da manhã foi de streaming sobre eles como eles estavam, se dirige para nós, no chão, e cada um tinha uma mancha redonda vermelho na parte superior de sua cabeça, quase tão grande quanto um dólar, em que os peles-vermelhas haviam tomado seu couro cabeludo. Foi terrível, mas era grotesco, ea luz do sol vermelho parecia a pintar tudo de. “Lincoln fez uma pausa como se recordando a imagem nítida, e acrescentou, um tanto irrelevante,” Eu me lembro que um homem tinha calças de camurça por diante. “

Lincoln também contou uma boa história de sua primeira experiência em perfuração de tropas-prima durante a Guerra Black Hawk. Ele estava atravessando um campo com uma frente de vinte homens, quando ele chegou a uma porta através da qual era necessário para passar. Ao descrever o incidente, ele disse: “Eu não poderia, por a vida de mim, lembre-se a palavra adequada de comando para obter a minha empresa  longitudinalmente , de modo que pudesse passar pelo portão. Então, quando chegamos perto do portão, eu gritava: “Alto! esta empresa é demitido por dois minutos, quando ele vai cair de novo no outro lado do portão. ‘”A manobra foi executada com êxito.

Durante esta campanha ocorreu um incidente que também serve para mostrar senso de justiça Lincoln, seu grande senso comum, e sua firmeza quando está excitado. Um dia, veio para o campo de um velho índio, footsore e com fome. Ele foi fornecido com uma carta de salvo-conduto a partir Geral Cass, mas havia um sentimento de grande irritação contra os índios, e os homens opuseram fortemente a recebê-lo. Eles pronunciado ele um espião e seu passaporte falso, e foram correndo sobre o índio indefeso para matá-lo, quando a figura alta de seu capitão, Lincoln, apareceu de repente entre eles e sua vítima. Seus homens nunca o tinha visto tão excitada, e 38they intimidado diante dele. “Os homens”, disse ele, “isso não deve ser feito! Ele não deve ser morto por nós! “Sua voz e maneira produziu um efeito sobre a multidão. Eles fizeram uma pausa, ouviu, caiu para trás, e mal-humorado obedeceu, embora houvesse ainda alguns murmúrios de raiva desapontado. Ao homem um tempo, provavelmente pensando que ele falou para a multidão, gritou: “Isso é covardia de sua parte, Lincoln” Lincoln só olhou com desprezo para os homens que teriam assassinado um índio desarmados, mas que intimidava-se diante mão única. “Se alguém pensa que eu sou um covarde”, disse ele, “deixá-lo testá-lo.” “Lincoln”, foi a resposta, “você é maior e mais pesado do que qualquer um de nós.” “Que você pode se proteger contra”, respondeu o capitão. “Escolha suas armas!” A insubordinação terminou, ea palavra “covarde” nunca foi associado com o nome de Lincoln novamente. Ele depois disse que neste momento ele sentiu que sua vida e caráter foram tanto em jogo, e provavelmente teria sido perdido se não tivesse no momento supremo esquecido o oficial e afirmou que o homem. Seus homens dificilmente poderia ter sido chamado de soldados. Eles eram apenas cidadãos armados, com uma organização militar apenas no nome.Tinha ele ordenou-lhes sob prisão, ele teria criado um motim sério, e para tê-los julgado e punido teria sido impossível.

Foi enquanto Lincoln era um capitão de milícias que ele fez o conhecimento de um homem que estava destinado a ter uma influência importante na sua vida. Este foi o Major John T. Stuart, depois a sua lei-sócio. Stuart já era um advogado de profissão. Durante a Guerra Black Hawk ele comandou uma das empresas Sangamon County, e logo depois fosse eleito principais de um batalhão de espionagem formado a partir de algumas dessas empresas. Ele tinha a melhor das oportunidades neste momento para observar os méritos do capitão Lincoln, e atesta que este último era extremamente popular entre os soldados por causa de seu excelente atendimento dos homens sob seu comando, a sua infalível boa 39nature, e sua capacidade de contar histórias mais e melhores do que qualquer homem no serviço.Ele era popular também entre estes homens hardy por conta de sua grande força física. Por vários anos após o Black Hawk War Lincoln manteve o título militar e era geralmente chamado de “capitão Lincoln.” Mas, desta vez em foi interrompido. Título Stuart de “Major”, ao contrário, aderiram a ele pela vida. Ele era mais conhecido como “Stuart Major” até o momento de sua morte, que ocorreu no início do inverno de 1886.

O tempo para que a companhia do capitão Lincoln se alistou logo correndo, mas o problema com os índios não sendo terminou Governador Reynolds pediu um segundo corpo de voluntários. Lincoln respondeu novamente, e foi matriculado como privado na empresa independente comandada por Elias Iles de Springfield. A nota desta ocorrência, feito em 1868 pelo Capitão Iles, contém a seguinte declaração: “O termo de primeira chamada Governador Reynolds está sendo prestes a expirar, ele fez uma segunda chamada, e da imposição primeiro foi dissolvida. Fui eleito um capitão de uma das empresas. Fomos admitidos no serviço no 29 de maio de 1832, na foz do rio Fox, agora Ottawa, pelo tenente Robert Anderson, Inspector-Geral Adjunto no Exército dos Estados Unidos. “

Um dia, durante a Guerra Black Hawk, havia no acampamento no Rock rio quatro homens depois famoso na história do país. Foi enquanto Lincoln era um membro da empresa sob o comando do Capitão Iles. Estes homens eram o tenente-coronel Zachary Taylor, o tenente Jefferson Davis, o tenente Robert Anderson, e privados Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln e Anderson não encontrar novamente até 1861, após estas terem evacuado Fort Sumter. Grande Anderson, então, visitou Washington e pediu à Casa Branca para pagar seus respeitos ao presidente. Depois de ter expresso o seu agradecimento a Anderson por sua conduta na Carolina do Sul, Lincoln disse: “40Major, você se lembra de alguma vez me encontrar antes? “” Não, Sr. Presidente, eu não me lembro de ter tido o prazer antes “, disse Anderson. “Bem”, disse Lincoln, “a minha memória é melhor que o seu. Você me convocou para o serviço dos Estados Unidos em 1832 no Ferry Dixon, durante a Guerra Black Hawk “.

Lincoln exibido a mesma coragem e fidelidade no cumprimento das obrigações de um soldado que marcaram a sua conduta em todas as outras relações da vida. Pai Dixon, o guia que foi anexado a empresa Captain Iles de rangers montado, observa que em suas marchas quando olheiros foram enviados para a frente para examinar moitas e ravinas em que pensava-se que o inimigo pode estar escondido, muitas vezes, tornou-se necessária para muitos dos homens para desmontar e atender às suas artes de equitação. Sempre que Lincoln foi detalhado para tal serviço, no entanto, a sela estava sempre em ordem.

Durante a disputa entre Lewis Cass Geral e Zachary Taylor Geral da Presidência, no ano de 1848, Lincoln fez um discurso no Congresso em que ele se referiu a seus serviços na Guerra do Falcão Negro com o humor característico:

“By the way, Sr. Presidente,” ele disse, “você sabia que eu sou um herói militar? Sim, senhor. Nos dias da Guerra Black Hawk eu lutei, sangrou, e foi embora. Falando de carreira Geral Cass me faz lembrar da minha própria. Eu não estava na derrota Stillman, mas eu estava tão perto dele como Cass era a rendição de Hull, e, como ele, eu vi o lugar logo depois. É certo que eu não quebrar a minha espada, pois eu não tinha nada para quebrar. Mas eu dobrei meu mosquete muito mal em uma ocasião. Se Cass quebrou a sua espada a idéia é que ele partiu em desespero.Dobrei meu mosquete por acidente. Se Gerais Cass foi antes de mim em whortleberries escolher, acho que superou ele em acusações sobre as cebolas silvestres. Se ele viu alguma luta ao vivo índios, é mais do que eu, mas eu tinha uma boa 41bloody lutas com os mosquitos, e embora eu nunca desmaiou devido à perda de sangue que eu posso realmente dizer que eu estava com muita fome muitas vezes. Sr. Presidente, se eu já deveria concluir a tirar o que quer que os nossos amigos democratas pode-se supor que há em mim de cocar preto federalismo, e por isso eles devem tomar-me como seu candidato para a Presidência, eu protesto, não devem tirar sarro de mim como eles têm de General Cass tentando me escrever em um herói militar “.

Popularidade de Lincoln entre os seus camaradas no campo foi tão grande que no final de seu serviço militar, que durou três meses, ele foi indicado como candidato à Assembléia Legislativa do Estado. “Sua primeira aparição no toco no curso da propaganda eleitoral estava em Pappsville, cerca de 11 milhas a oeste de Springfield, na ocasião de uma venda pública. A venda mais, o discurso de tomada de estava prestes a começar, quando Lincoln observados alguns sintomas fortes de desatenção em sua audiência que tinha tomado esse momento especial para se envolver em aa luta geral. Lincoln viu que um de seus amigos estava sofrendo mais do que ele gostava, e pisar no meio da multidão, ele ombros los severamente longe do seu homem até que ele conheceu um rapaz que se recusou a cair para trás. Que ele tomou pela nuca eo assento de sua calça, e jogou-lhe “dez ou 12 pés facilmente.” Depois desse episódio, como característica dele como das vezes, ele montou a plataforma e entregue com modéstia estranho o seguinte discurso: Meus senhores e concidadãos, eu presumo que todos vocês sabem quem eu sou. Eu sou humilde Abraham Lincoln. Tenho sido solicitado pelos meus amigos para se tornar um candidato para o Legislativo. Minha política é curta e doce, como a dança da velha. Sou a favor de um banco nacional. Sou a favor do sistema de melhoria interna e uma tarifa alta proteção. Estes são os meus sentimentos e princípios políticos. Se for eleito serei grato. Se não, será tudo a mesma coisa. “

42Lincoln amigo, o Sr. AY Ellis, que estava com ele durante uma parte desta campanha, diz: “Ele usava uma calça jeans mixed-coat, garra-martelo estilo, curta nas mangas e bobtail, em verdade, foi tão curta na cauda que não podia sentar-se sobre ele, o linho eo tow-pantalonas de linho e um chapéu de palha. Eu acho que ele usava um colete, mas eu não me lembro como ficava. Ele usava pot metal-botas. Fui com ele em uma de suas viagens de campanha eleitoral para a Ilha Grove, e ele fez um discurso que agradou seus amigos de partido muito bem, embora alguns dos homens Jackson tentou fazer esporte dele. Ele contou várias anedotas bom no discurso, e aplicou-as muito bem, pensei. “

A eleição ocorreu em agosto, e embora Lincoln foi derrotado, ele recebeu 277 fora de 284 votos em seu recinto. Ele era tão pouco conhecido fora de Nova Salem que as chances de eleição foram irremediavelmente contra ele, mas a evidência extraordinária de favor demonstrado pelo voto de seus concidadãos foi um sucesso lisonjeiro no meio da derrota. Sua incapacidade de ser eleito, no entanto, deixou-o mais uma vez sem ocupação. Ele estava sem meios, e sentiu a necessidade de realizar algum negócio que iria fornecer-lhe uma renda, mesmo que pequenas. Parece que neste momento ele considerou seriamente a aprendizagem de ferreiro, mas ao mesmo tempo divertido a idéia ocorreu um evento que abriu o caminho em outra direção. As informações relativas a este evento são dadas pelo Sr. WG Greene. “Um homem chamado Reuben Radford”, diz Greene, “foi o guardião de uma pequena loja na aldeia de New Salem. Um amigo disse-lhe para olhar para os ‘meninos Clary Grove’ ou eles iriam esmagá-lo. Ele disse que não estava com medo. Era um sujeito bem grande. Mas seu amigo disse: ‘Eles não vêm sozinhos. Se não se pode chicoteá-lo, dois ou três podem, e vão fazê-lo. “ Um dia ele saiu de sua loja no comando de seu irmão, com liminares que, se os ‘meninos Clary Grove’ chegou, ele não deve deixar que eles tenham 43more do que dois drinques cada. Todas as lojas nesses dias manteve a vender bebidas alcoólicas e tinha um canto para beber. A loja estava muito bem equipado para cima, e tinha muitas coisas em frascos de vidro muito bem marcado. Os ‘meninos Clary Grove’ veio, e tomou duas doses cada. O funcionário recusou-los mais como educadamente que pôde. Então eles foram atrás do balcão e ajudou a si mesmos. Eles ficaram bêbados que ruge e passou a trabalhar quebrando tudo na loja. Os fragmentos no chão foram uma polegada de profundidade. Eles saíram e saiu gritando em seus cavalos e gritando. Vir através de alguns rebanhos de gado, levaram os sinos no pescoço, prendeu-os nas caudas dos líderes, e perseguiu-os todo o país a gritar como uma louca. Radford ouvi-los e, montando seu cavalo, montou às pressas quentes para a loja. Eu tinha sido enviado pela manhã com água ao moinho, e teve que passar na loja. Eu vi Radford subir, seu cavalo uma espuma de espuma. Ele desmontou, e olhou-se sobre os destroços através da porta aberta Ele ficou horrorizado com a visão, e disse: “Vou vender essa coisa ao primeiro homem que vem junto.” Eu andava para cima e disse: ‘Vou te dar 400 dólares por ele. “ ‘Done!’ disse ele. “Mas”, eu disse, ‘Eu não tenho dinheiro. Eu devo ter tempo. “ ‘Quanto?’ “Seis meses”. “Concordo.” Ele elaborou uma nota para 400 dólares em seis meses, e eu assinei. Comecei a pensar que eu estava preso. Então os meninos entraram, e entre eles foi Lincoln.“Cheer up, Billy”, disse ele. “É uma coisa boa. Vamos fazer um inventário. “ ‘Não inventários mais para mim’, disse eu, sem saber o que ele queria dizer. Ele explicou que devemos ter uma conta de estoque para ver o quanto foi deixado. Descobrimos que ascendeu a cerca de 1.200 dólares. Lincoln e Berry consultado sobre ela, e me ofereceu 250 dólares para o meu negócio. Eu aceitei, estipulando que eles devem assumir as minhas notas. Berry era um companheiro, um jogador selvagem. Ele tinha um belo cavalo, com uma sela esplêndido e freio. Ele virou o cavalo como pagar parte. Lincoln 44let Berry executar a loja, e logo correu para fora. Eu tive que pagar a nota. Lincoln disse que iria pagá-lo algum dia e fez, com juros. “Isto terminou breve carreira de Lincoln como um comerciante país.

Muitas das histórias nas páginas anteriores tocam ambição de Lincoln para caber a si mesmo por um orador público.Mesmo neste dia cedo os colonos em Nova Salem foram infectadas com o desejo geral para participar da marcha em direção à melhoria intelectual. Para ajudar nesse objeto, que havia estabelecido um clube com direito a Sociedade Literária New Salem. Antes desta associação, o Lincoln estudiosa foi convidado a falar. Sr. RB Rutledge, o irmão de Anne Rutledge, diz do evento: “Sobre o ano de 1832 ou 1833, o Sr. Lincoln fez sua primeira tentativa de falar em público. Um clube de debates, dos quais James Rutledge era presidente, foi organizado e realizado reuniões regulares. Como Lincoln levantou para falar, sua forma de altura erguia acima do conjunto pouco. Ambas as mãos foram lançados no fundo nos bolsos de suas calças. Um sorriso perceptível de uma vez iluminou os rostos da platéia, para todos a relação antecipado de alguma história engraçada. Mas ele abriu a discussão no estilo esplêndido, para o espanto infinito de seus amigos. Como ele aqueceu com seu tema, com as mãos abandonariam seus bolsos e impor suas idéias por meio de gestos desajeitados, mas que muito em breve procuram a sua fácil de descanso lugares. Perseguiu a questão de razão e argumentos de forma concisa e convincente de que todos se admiraram. O presidente, após a reunião, comentou com sua esposa que havia mais na cabeça de Abe do que inteligência e divertido, que ele já era um alto-falante fino; que tudo o que faltava era a cultura que lhe permita chegar ao alto destino que ele sabia que estava em reservado para ele. “

Sobre o 07 de maio de 1833, Lincoln foi apontado postmaster em Nova Salem pelo presidente Jackson. Os deveres do cargo eram leves, não sendo apenas um e-mail semanal, ea remuneração era correspondentemente pequeno.“45The escritório era demasiado insignificante para ser considerada politicamente, e que foi dado ao jovem, porque todo mundo gostava dele, e porque ele era o único homem disposto a levá-la que poderia fazer o retorno. Ele estava extremamente satisfeito com a nomeação, porque ela lhe deu a oportunidade de ler todos os jornais que foi tomada na vizinhança. Ele nunca tinha sido capaz de obter a metade dos jornais que ele queria, e do escritório deu-lhe a perspectiva de uma festa constante. Não querendo ser ligados ao escritório, já que lhe rendeu nenhuma receita que iria recompensá-lo para o confinamento, ele fez um post-office do seu chapéu. Sempre que ele saiu, as cartas foram colocadas em seu chapéu. Quando um espectador ansioso por uma carta conheceu o postmaster ele encontrou também o correio, eo funcionário público, tirando o chapéu, olhou e entregues pelo correio onde quer que o público possa encontrá-lo. Ele manteve o cargo até que foi interrompido, ou foi removido para São Petersburgo. “

Um pequeno saldo devido do governo permaneceu nas mãos de Lincoln na interrupção do escritório. O tempo passou, e ele tinha removido para Springfield e foi praticando lei, ter seu local de trabalho no escritório do Dr. Henry. Enquanto isso, sua luta com a pobreza era inabalável, e ele tinha sido muitas vezes obrigado a pedir dinheiro emprestado a amigos para comprar as necessidades básicas. Foi neste momento que o agente dos Estados Unidos apelou a uma liquidação de seus correios contas. A entrevista foi realizada na presença do Dr. Henry, que assim descreve: “Eu não acreditava que ele tinha o dinheiro na mão para cumprir o projecto, e eu estava prestes a chamá-lo de lado e lhe emprestar o dinheiro, quando ele perguntou ao agente para estar sentado um momento. Ele foi até a tromba em sua pensão e voltou com uma meia velha azul com uma quantidade de moeda de prata e cobre amarrado nele. Desvinculação do meia, ele derramou o conteúdo sobre a mesa e começou a contar as moedas, que consistia em prata e peças de cobre, tais como as pessoas foram, então, no país o hábito de usar 46in pagar portes.Contando-lo, não foi encontrado o valor exacto do projecto de um centavo, e na moeda idêntica que tinha sido recebido. Nunca, sob quaisquer circunstâncias, usado fundos fiduciários “.

Quando Lincoln foi de cerca de 23 anos de idade, em algum momento em 1832, ele começou a estudar Direito, usando uma cópia antiga do Blackstone Commentaries, que ele havia comprado em um leilão em Springfield. Este trabalho foi logo dominado, e em seguida o jovem olhou ao seu redor para mais. Seu amigo do Black Hawk War, Major John T. Stuart, tinha uma biblioteca jurídica considerável para aqueles dias, e para ele Lincoln aplicada em sua extremidade. A biblioteca foi colocado à sua disposição, e desde então ele estava absorto na aquisição de seu conteúdo. Mas os livros estavam em Springfield, onde seu proprietário residia, e New Salem era algum 14 milhas distante. Isto provou nenhum obstáculo no caminho de Lincoln, que fez nada de andar para trás e para frente na busca de seu propósito. O sócio do Sr. Stuart, Sr. HC Dummer, que tomou conhecimento da juventude em suas freqüentes visitas ao escritório, o descreve como “um rapaz rude olhar, que não falou muito, mas o que ele disse, ele disse retos e afiados. “” Ele costumava ler a lei “, diz Henry McHenry”, descalço, sentado à sombra de uma árvore em frente de supermercado Berry, e seria moer ao redor com a sombra, ocasionalmente, variando a sua atitude, deitando de costas no chão e colocando seus pés a árvore “, uma situação que poderia ter sido desfavorável à aplicação mental no caso de um homem com as extremidades mais curtas. “A primeira vez que eu já vi Abe com uma lei-livro na mão”, diz Squire Godbey “, ele estava sentado montado woodpile Jake Bates em New Salem. Diz que eu “, Abe, o que você está estudando?” ‘Lei’, diz Abe. “Deus Todo-Poderoso Bom! ‘ responderam I. “Foi demais para Godbey, ele não pôde reprimir a exclamação de surpresa ao ver uma figura tão aquisição de aprendizagem em uma situação tão estranha. Sr. Arnold afirma que Lincoln fez uma prática 47of leitura em suas caminhadas entre Springfield e New Salem, e tão intensa era a sua aplicação e tão absorto estava em seu estudo que ele passaria seus melhores amigos sem observá-los, e algumas pessoas disseram que Lincoln estava enlouquecendo com o estudo rígido.

Ele logo começou a fazer uma aplicação prática de seus conhecimentos jurídicos. Ele comprou uma velha forma de livro e começou a elaborar contratos, escrituras, arrendamentos, hipotecas, e todos os tipos de instrumentos legais para seus vizinhos. Ele também começou a exercitar sua capacidade forense na tentativa casos pequenos antes de juízes de paz e júris, e logo adquiriu uma reputação local como um alto-falante, o que lhe deu prática considerável.Mas ele foi capaz dessa forma de ganhar pouco dinheiro suficiente para sua manutenção. Para adicionar ao seu meio, ele tomou o estudo da topografia, e logo se tornou, como Washington, um inspector hábeis e precisos. John Calhoun, um cavalheiro inteligente e cortês, era naquele momento agrimensor do condado de Sangamon. Ele ficou interessado em Lincoln eo nomeou seu vice. Seu trabalho foi tão preciso e os colonos tinham tanta confiança em que ele era muito procurado para o levantamento, corrigir e marcar os limites das fazendas, e para traçar e demitir a cidade de Petersburgo. Sua precisão deve ter sido atingido com alguma dificuldade, pois quando ele começou a sua cadeia de pesquisa foi uma videira. Ele não especulou na terra ele pesquisados. Se ele tivesse feito o rápido avanço no valor dos imóveis teria feito mais fácil para ele fazer bons investimentos. Mas ele não era, no mínimo como um de seus indicados própria quando o presidente, um inspector-geral de um território ocidental, que comprou grande parte das melhores terras, e para quem o presidente disse: “Disseram-me, senhor, são  monarca de todas as pesquisa que você . “

A nomeação de Lincoln para a Assembléia Legislativa do Estado em seu retorno da Guerra Black Hawk foi prematura. O povo de New Salem votaram nele quase um homem, mas seu conhecimento não tinha então estendido para a 48surrounding bairro distante o suficiente para garantir sua eleição. Na campanha de 1834 a escolha de um candidato novamente caiu sobre ele, e desta vez havia uma perspectiva de sucesso. Lincoln entrou na competição com seriedade, e usou todos os meios legítimos para garantir uma vitória. Mr. Herndon relata o seguinte incidente desta campanha: “Lincoln veio à minha casa, perto de Island Grove, durante a colheita. Havia cerca de trinta homens em campo. Ele tinha o seu jantar, e depois fui para o campo onde os homens estavam no trabalho. Eu introduzi-lo, e os rapazes disseram que não votariam em um homem a menos que ele poderia “fazer uma mão.” “Bem, os meninos”, disse ele, ‘se isso é tudo o que é necessário que eu tenho certeza do seu voto. “ Ele pegou o berço e liderou o caminho todo com perfeita facilidade. Os meninos ficaram satisfeitos. Eu não acho que ele perdeu uma votação em que a multidão. No dia seguinte, estava falando em Berlim. Ele foi da minha casa com o Dr. Barnett, que me perguntou quem era este homem Lincoln. Eu disse que ele era um candidato para o Legislativo. Ele riu e disse: ‘Não pode o partido levantar material melhor do que isso?’ Eu disse: ‘Vá para amanhã e ouvi-lo antes de julgar. “ Quando ele voltou eu disse: ‘Doutor, o que tem a dizer agora? “ ‘Por que, senhor, “ele disse,’ ele é um perfeito  leva-nos . Ele sabe mais do que todo o resto deles juntos. “

O resultado da eleição foi que Lincoln foi escolhido para representar o distrito Sangamon. Quando a Assembléia Legislativa convocou na sessão de abertura, ele estava em seu lugar na Câmara, mas ele portou-se silenciosamente em sua nova posição. Ele tinha muito a aprender em sua nova situação como um dos legisladores do Estado, e como um colega de trabalho com um conjunto que compreende os homens mais talentosos e proeminentes recolhidas a partir de todas as partes do Illinois. Ele estava profundamente atento do processo da Casa, pesando todas as medidas com scrutinizing sagacidade, mas, exceto no anúncio do seu voto sua voz raramente era ouvida. Na sessão anterior, o Sr. GS Hub49bard, depois um cidadão bem conhecido de Chicago, tinha esforçou-se para adquirir a passagem de um ato para a construção do Canal de Illinois e Michigan. Seu esforço foi derrotado, mas ele continuou, como lobista, para empurrar a medida durante vários invernos, até que foi definitivamente aprovado.Lincoln emprestou-lhe uma ajuda eficaz no cumprimento de seu objeto. “De fato”, comenta o Sr. Hubbard, “Eu duvido muito que o projeto de lei poderia ter passado tão facilmente como o fez sem a sua valiosa ajuda.” “Nós estávamos jogado muito juntos”, continua o Sr. Hubbard, “nossa intimidade crescente. Eu nunca tive um amigo a quem eu era mais calorosamente em anexo. Seu caráter era quase perfeita; possuir um coração caloroso e generoso, cordial, afável, honesto, cortês com seus oponentes, perseverante, trabalhador em pesquisa, nunca perdendo de vista o principal ponto em discussão, ilustrando adequadamente por suas histórias, que sempre foram trazidos para bom efeito. Ele estava livre de artifícios políticos ou denúncia do caráter pessoal de seus oponentes. Em debate estava firme e coletados. “Sem malícia contra ninguém, com caridade para todos”, ele conquistou a confiança do público, até mesmo seus adversários políticos. “

De todas as histórias da infância de Lincoln e jovens, o mais profundamente comovente é a do seu amor por Anne Rutledge. A existência deste romance foi breve, mas acredita-se por muitos de que era a memória dela, que jogou mais de Lincoln que a melancolia indescritível que parecia sombra toda a sua vida. O Rutledges de quem Anne era descendente de uma família foram eminentes do Carolinas. Ela tinha cerca de 19 anos de idade, quando Lincoln sabia que o primeiro. Foi logo após a Guerra Black Hawk. Ela era uma garota encantadora, de cabelos claros e olhos azuis, e no coração de Lincoln foi cativado pelo seu rosto doce e maneiras gentis. Tão atraente uma menina não era, claro, sem pretendentes, e Anne havia sido cortejado por um James McNeill, um jovem que tinha chegado a 50New Salem logo após a fundação da cidade. Ele tinha sido mais do que ordinariamente sucesso, e tinha comprado uma grande fazenda a poucos quilômetros ao norte da aldeia. Ele era solteiro, pelo menos ele assim se apresentava e atenção dedicada à Anne. Eles foram contratados, embora ambos tinham concordado com os desejos dos pais de Anne que eles não devem se casar até que ela era mais velha.

Sobre este tempo Lincoln apareceu em New Salem e foi a bordo na taverna Rutledge. Aqui ele viu Anne, e foi muito em sua companhia. Durante o próximo ano McNeill ficaram inquietos e descontentes. Ele disse que era porque ele queria ver o seu povo. Então ele decidiu ir Médio em uma visita. Ele vendeu a sua participação em New Salem, um acto não de todo necessário se fosse apenas uma visita, e que à luz dos eventos depois teve um significado muito mais a dizer-Anne que era a sua esperança de trazer seu pai e sua mãe de volta com ele e estabelecê-los em sua fazenda. “Este feito”, disse ele, “iremos nos casar.” Ele, então, partiu em sua jornada.

Foi no final do verão antes de Anne ouviu falar dele. Ele explicou que ele tinha sido levado mal com calafrios e febre no caminho, e tinha sido muito atrasado em voltar para casa. Mas a longa espera tinha sido uma grande pressão sobre Anne. Lincoln, por sua vez, tornou-se o postmaster em New Salem, e foi a ele que Anne chegou a perguntar para as cartas. Ele viu sua ansiedade com simpatia, e de uma forma tornou-se seu confidente. Seu coração terno, que jamais poderia resistir ao sofrimento, foi profundamente tocado ao ver seu sofrimento. Finalmente letras McNeill cessaram por completo, e então Anne confidenciou a Lincoln algo que McNeill tinha dito a ela antes de sair, e que até agora tinha mantido em segredo, ou seja, que seu nome não foi McNeill, mas McNamar. Ele havia explicado a ela que ele tinha feito essa mudança, porque seu pai havia falhado nos negócios e que, como seu filho mais velho foi o seu 51duty para recuperar a fortuna da família. Então, ele tinha mudado seu nome, e vêm West, esperando para voltar em alguns anos a sua família de um homem rico. Tudo isso Anne tinha acreditado, e não tinha repetido até agora.

Todos Salem New juntou ao declarar McNamar um impostor e sua história uma invenção. “Quem sabia quantas esposas ele tinha?”, Disseram. Com um acordo de amigos de Anne denunciou ele, e apesar de sua história acabou depois por não ser totalmente falsa, é uma pequena maravilha que Anne-se, finalmente, chegou a acreditar que ou ele estava morto ou tinha deixado de amá-la.

Enquanto as coisas estavam nesse estado, Lincoln arriscou-se a mostrar o seu amor por Anne. Foi um longo tempo antes que ela quisesse ouvir, mas, convencido de que, finalmente, seu ex-amante a abandonara, ela prometeu, na primavera de 1835, para se tornar sua esposa. Mas Lincoln não tinha nada em que para sustentar uma família, em verdade, mal podia se sustentar. Além disso, Anne estava ansioso para ir à escola mais um ano. Então foi decidido que ela deveria passar o inverno em uma academia em Jacksonville, enquanto Lincoln se dedicou ao estudo da lei.Então, quando ela deve retornar da escola, ele seria um membro da barra e eles poderiam se casar.

A primavera eo verão feliz seguidas. Todos os seus amigos teve um interesse na amantes, e as suas perspectivas parecia brilhante. Mas a saúde Anne começou a falhar. Ela não conseguia se livrar de suas memórias assombrando.Havia uma possibilidade que ela tinha prejudicado McNamar. E se ele deve amá-la ainda, e deve retornar e encontrá-la casada com outro? Se ela tivesse prejudicado tanto os homens? Em seus pensamentos era perpétuo conflito. O velho amor ainda persistia. Sua consciência a incomodava. Ela duvidou, e foi morbidamente melancólica. Tudo isso usava em cima dela, ela ficou doente. Enfim sua condição se tornou grave, em seguida, sem esperança. Lincoln foi enviada para. A última hora de Anne foi passado a sós com ele. Ela morreu ao pôr do sol, 25 de agosto 521835. Um velho vizinho que viu Lincoln logo após sua separação com a menina morrer diz: “Havia sinais da angústia mais terrível em sua face. Sua tristeza tornou-se frenético. Ele perdeu todas as auto-controle, mesmo a consciência de sua própria identidade, e os seus amigos mais íntimos em Nova Salem pronunciou-lo louco, louco, louco. Eles o viram com especial vigilância por dia escura e tempestuosa. Em tais momentos ele raved piteously, muitas vezes dizendo: ‘Eu nunca pode ser reconciliado com a queda de neve ter ea batida de chuva sobre a sua sepultura. “Seu velho amigo, Bowlin Greene, sozinho parecia possuído do poder de acalmá-lo. Levou-o para sua própria casa e manteve-o por várias semanas, um objeto de solicitude indisfarçável. Finalmente parecia seguro para permitir que ele retorne para seus velhos. Greene pediu-lhe para voltar para a lei, e assim o fez, mas ele nunca era o mesmo homem novamente. Ele era magro, abatido e atormentado. Ele estava como alguém que tinha sido à beira da sepultura. Muito tempo depois, quando a grama tinha quase 30 anos cresceu sobre a sepultura de Anne Rutledge, Lincoln foi um dia introduzida a um homem chamado Rutledge na Casa Branca. Ele olhou para ele um momento, então agarrou sua mão e disse com profundo sentimento: “Eu amo o nome do Rutledge para este dia. Anne era uma menina adorável.Ela era natural, bem-educado. Ela teria feito uma esposa boa e amorosa. Eu fiz de forma honesta e verdadeiramente ama, e eu acho que, muitas vezes, muitas vezes de ela agora. “Mr. Herndon disse que o amor ea morte deste jovem quebrou fins de Lincoln e tendências. “Ele jogou fora sua tristeza infinita, apenas, saltando freneticamente na arena política. Ele precisava de chicote e estímulo para salvá-lo do desespero. “

O período da infância de Abraham Lincoln e os jovens tinham fechado quando ele estava junto ao túmulo de Anne Rutledge. Ele tinha sido um homem de estatura. Ele era agora um homem em anos; ainda o caminho áspero que ele tinha sido forçado a viajar tinha feito o seu progresso em direção à maturidade dolorosamente lento. Apesar 53In de seu nascimento baixa, de sua extrema pobreza, da rudeza e do analfabetismo de seus associados, da ausência de requinte em seu entorno, de seus meios escassos de educação, de sua figura familiar e estranha as maneiras, de sua alimentação grosseira e vestido pobre, ele se atreveu a acreditar que havia uma carreira exaltado na loja para ele. Ele escavou as bases para isso com o espírito indomável. Era para ser fundamentada em virtudes masculinas. Parece que o menino sentiu a consagração de um alto destino desde os primórdios de sua inteligência, e isso o diferenciava, seguro em meio às tentações e seguro contra os vícios que corrompem muitos homens. Na vestimenta grosseira do sertanejo ele preservou os instintos de um cavalheiro. Ele foi o companheiro de bullies e boors. Ele compartilhou o seu trabalho e seus esportes, mas ele nunca abaixou a sua vulgaridade. Ele raramente bebia com eles, e eles nunca ouviram falar de um juramento. Ele poderia jogar mais vigoroso o em uma luta, e estava pronto, quando trouxe a ele, para chicotear qualquer fanfarrão insolente que fez uso cruel de sua força. Ele nunca se encolheu de dificuldade ou perigo, mas seu coração era tão suave e terna como uma mulher. O grande gigante gentil tinha um sentimento de simpatia para com todos os seres vivos. Ele não tinha vergonha de balançar um berço, ou para transportar um balde de água ou uma braçada de madeira para poupar os braços de uma mulher cansada de. Embora desprovidos de bens materiais, ele era rico em amigos. Todas as pessoas de seu conhecimento sabiam que podiam contar com a sua fazendo a coisa certa sempre, tanto quanto ele era capaz. Daí eles confiança e amavam, e o título de “Honest Abe”, que ele deu a vida, foi um selo de cavalaria mais raras e mais orgulhoso do que qualquer rei ou rainha poderia conferir com a espada. Abraham Lincoln foi um dos nobres da natureza. Ele mostrou-se um herói em todas as circunstâncias de sua infância e juventude. Os elementos de grandeza eram visíveis, mesmo assim. O menino que foi fiel ao dever, paciente em privação, modesto em espécie mérito, a toda forma de sofrimento, determinado a aumentar wresting 54opportunities da mão relutante do destino, foi a certeza de fazer um homem distinto entre os seus companheiros,-um homem famoso entre os grandes homens do mundo, como o menino havia sido entre os seus vizinhos nos ermos de Spencer County e Nova Salem.

O site da cidade onde Lincoln passou os últimos três anos do período abrangido por este parte de sua biografia é agora um desperdício desolado. Um cavalheiro que visitou o local durante o verão de 1885, assim descreve a cena triste: “A partir da colina onde eu me sento, sob a sombra de três árvores cujos ramos fazer um, eu olho para fora sobre o rio Sangamon e suas margens cobertas aparentemente com primeval florestas. Ao redor são campos coberta de ervas daninhas e carvalhos atrofiado. Era uma cidade de dez ou 12 anos apenas. Tudo começou em 1824 e terminou em 1836. No entanto, naquela época ele tinha uma história que o mundo não vai deixar morrer desde que venera a memória do libertador nobre e presidente mártir, Abraham Lincoln. “

Traduzido automaticamente do inglês –

Bibliografia:

A VIDA TODOS OS DIAS DE ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A narrativos e descritivos 
biografia com PEN-FOTOS 
e recordações pessoais 
BY aqueles que o conheciam

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compilador de “Poemas de Ouro”, “Echoes Bugle, Postura da 
Guerra Civil “,” Laurel-Crowned Verso “, etc

NOVA EDIÇÃO REVISTA E BEM, DE PLACAS DE NOVO, COM 
UM RETRATO inteiramente novo de Lincoln, A PARTIR DE UM 
ESTUDO DE CARVÃO POR JK MARBLE 
CHICAGO 
BROWNE & COMPANY HOWELL 
1913

CHAPTER II

The spring of 1832 brought a new turn in Lincoln’s career. The year had been one of great advancement in many respects. He had made new and valuable acquaintances, read many books, mastered the grammar of his own tongue, won a multitude of friends. Those who could appreciate intelligence and character respected him, and those whose highest ideas of a man related to his physical prowess were devoted to him. Everyone trusted him. He was judge, arbitrator, referee, authority in all disputes, games, and matches whether of man-flesh or horse-flesh. He was the peacemaker in all quarrels. He was everybody’s friend—the best-natured, most sensible, best-informed, most modest, unassuming, kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best young fellow in all New Salem or the region about. But Mr. Offutt’s trading enterprises ended disastrously in the year 1832. The store was closed, the mill was shut down, and Lincoln was out of business.

At the very moment, however, that he found himself adrift Illinois was filled with excitement over the Black Hawk War. The centre of alarm was in the Rock Valley, in the northern part of the State, which had been formerly the home of the Sac tribe of Indians. Discontented with their life on the reservation west of the Mississippi, to 36which they had been removed, the Sacs, with several other tribes, resolved to recover their old hunting-grounds. The warlike chief, Black Hawk, was at the head of the revolt, and his march toward the Rock river was signalized by a number of massacres. Governor Reynolds of Illinois issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to aid the regular troops in the emergency. Lincoln was one of the first to answer the call, the brave “Clary Grove Boys” also coming promptly to the rescue. “The volunteers gathered,” writes Mr. Arnold, “at Rushville, in Schuyler County, at which place they were to be organized, and elected officers. Lincoln was a candidate for the place of captain, and in opposition to him was one William Kirkpatrick. The mode of election was novel. By agreement, each candidate walked off to some distance and took position by himself. The men were then to form, and those who voted for Kirkpatrick were to range on a line with their candidate. When the lines were formed, Lincoln’s was three times as long as that of Kirkpatrick, and so Lincoln was declared elected. Speaking of this affair when President, he said that he was more gratified with this his first success than with any other election of his life. Neither Lincoln nor his company was in any engagement during the campaign, but there was plenty of hardships and fatigue, and some incidents occurred to illustrate his courage and power over men.”

Many years afterward—in fact, while Lincoln was President—he referred to those early scenes in a way that illustrates his wonderful memory and his power of recalling the minutest incidents of his past life. Meeting an old Illinois friend, he naturally fell to talking of Illinois, and related several stories of his early life in that region. Particularly he remembered his share in the Black Hawk War. He referred to his part of the campaign lightly, and said that he saw but very little fighting. But he remembered coming on a camp of white scouts one morn37ing just as the sun was rising. The Indians had surprised the camp and killed and scalped every man. “I remember just how those men looked,” said Lincoln, “as we rode up the little hill where their camp was. The red light of the morning sun was streaming upon them as they lay, heads toward us, on the ground, and every man had a round red spot on the top of his head, about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had taken his scalp. It was frightful, but it was grotesque, and the red sunlight seemed to paint everything all over.” Lincoln paused as if recalling the vivid picture, and added, somewhat irrelevantly, “I remember that one man had buckskin breeches on.”

Lincoln also told a good story of his first experience in drilling raw troops during the Black Hawk War. He was crossing a field with a front of twenty men when he came to a gate through which it was necessary to pass. In describing the incident he said: “I could not, for the life of me, remember the proper word of command for getting my company endwise, so that it could pass through the gate. So, as we came near the gate, I shouted, ‘Halt! this company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate.’” The manoeuvre was successfully executed.

During this campaign an incident occurred which well serves to show Lincoln’s keen sense of justice, his great common sense, and his resoluteness when aroused. One day there came to the camp an old Indian, footsore and hungry. He was provided with a letter of safe-conduct from General Cass; but there was a feeling of great irritation against the Indians, and the men objected strongly to receiving him. They pronounced him a spy and his passport a forgery, and were rushing upon the defenseless Indian to kill him, when the tall figure of their captain, Lincoln, suddenly appeared between them and their victim. His men had never seen him so aroused, and 38they cowed before him. “Men,” said he, “this must not be done! He must not be killed by us!” His voice and manner produced an effect on the mob. They paused, listened, fell back, and sullenly obeyed him, although there were still some murmurs of disappointed rage. At length one man, probably thinking he spoke for the crowd, cried out: “This is cowardly on your part, Lincoln!” Lincoln only gazed with contempt on the men who would have murdered one unarmed Indian but who quailed before his single hand. “If any man thinks I am a coward,” said he, “let him test it.” “Lincoln,” was the reply, “you are larger and heavier than any of us.” “That you can guard against,” responded the captain. “Choose your weapons!” The insubordination ended, and the word “coward” was never associated with Lincoln’s name again. He afterward said that at this time he felt that his life and character were both at stake, and would probably have been lost had he not at the supreme moment forgotten the officer and asserted the man. His men could hardly have been called soldiers. They were merely armed citizens, with a military organization in name only. Had he ordered them under arrest he would have created a serious mutiny; and to have them tried and punished would have been impossible.

It was while Lincoln was a militia captain that he made the acquaintance of a man who was destined to have an important influence on his life. This was Major John T. Stuart, afterwards his law-partner. Stuart was already a lawyer by profession. During the Black Hawk War he commanded one of the Sangamon County companies, and was soon afterward elected major of a spy battalion formed from some of these companies. He had the best of opportunities at this time to observe the merits of Captain Lincoln, and testifies that the latter was exceedingly popular among the soldiers on account of his excellent care of the men in his command, his never-failing good 39nature, and his ability to tell more stories and better ones than any man in the service. He was popular also among these hardy men on account of his great physical strength. For several years after the Black Hawk War Lincoln retained his military title and was usually addressed as “Captain Lincoln.” But this in time was discontinued. Stuart’s title of “Major,” on the contrary, adhered to him through life. He was best known as “Major Stuart” down to the time of his death, which occurred early in the winter of 1886.

The time for which Captain Lincoln’s company enlisted soon ran by, but the trouble with the Indians not being ended Governor Reynolds called for a second body of volunteers. Lincoln again responded, and was enrolled as a private in the independent company commanded by Elijah Iles of Springfield. A note of this occurrence, made in 1868 by Captain Iles, contains the following statement: “The term of Governor Reynolds’s first call being about to expire, he made a second call, and the first levy was disbanded. I was elected a captain of one of the companies. We were mustered into service on the 29th of May, 1832, at the mouth of Fox river, now Ottawa, by Lieutenant Robert Anderson, Assistant Inspector General in the United States Army.”

One day during the Black Hawk War there were in the camp on Rock river four men afterward famed in the history of the country. It was while Lincoln was a member of the company under command of Captain Iles. These men were Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Taylor, Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, Lieutenant Robert Anderson, and Private Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln and Anderson did not meet again until 1861, after the latter had evacuated Fort Sumter. Major Anderson then visited Washington and called at the White House to pay his respects to the President. After having expressed his thanks to Anderson for his conduct in South Carolina, Lincoln said, “40Major, do you remember ever meeting me before?” “No, Mr. President, I do not remember having had the pleasure before,” said Anderson. “Well,” said Lincoln, “my memory is better than yours. You mustered me into the service of the United States in 1832 at Dixon’s Ferry, during the Black Hawk War.”

Lincoln displayed the same courage and fidelity in performing the duties of a soldier that had marked his conduct in all other relations of life. Father Dixon, the guide who was attached to Captain Iles’s company of mounted rangers, remarks that in their marches when scouts were sent forward to examine thickets and ravines in which it was thought the enemy might be lurking it often became necessary for many of the men to dismount and attend to their riding gear. Whenever Lincoln was detailed for such service, however, his saddle was always in order.

During the contest between General Lewis Cass and General Zachary Taylor for the Presidency, in the year 1848, Lincoln made a speech in Congress in which he referred to his services in the Black Hawk War with characteristic humor:

“By the way, Mr. Speaker,” he said, “did you know that I am a military hero? Yes, sir. In the days of the Black Hawk War I fought, bled, and came away. Speaking of General Cass’s career reminds me of my own. I was not at Stillman’s defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass was to Hull’s surrender, and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterwards. It is quite certain that I did not break my sword, for I had none to break. But I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword the idea is that he broke it in desperation. I bent my musket by accident. If General Cass went ahead of me in picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians, it is more than I did, but I had a good many 41bloody struggles with the mosquitos, and although I never fainted from loss of blood I can truly say that I was often very hungry. Mr. Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our Democratic friends may suppose there is in me of black-cockade Federalism, and thereupon they shall take me up as their candidate for the Presidency, I protest they shall not make fun of me as they have of General Cass by attempting to write me into a military hero.”

Lincoln’s popularity among his comrades in the field was so great that at the close of his military service, which had lasted three months, he was nominated as a candidate for the State Legislature. “His first appearance on the stump in the course of the canvass was at Pappsville, about eleven miles west of Springfield, upon the occasion of a public sale. The sale over, speech-making was about to begin, when Lincoln observed some strong symptoms of inattention in his audience which had taken that particular moment to engage in a a general fight. Lincoln saw that one of his friends was suffering more than he liked, and stepping into the crowd he shouldered them sternly away from his man until he met a fellow who refused to fall back. Him he seized by the nape of the neck and the seat of his breeches, and tossed him ‘ten or twelve feet easily.’ After this episode—as characteristic of him as of the times—he mounted the platform and delivered with awkward modesty the following speech: ‘Gentlemen and Fellow-Citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal-improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful. If not, it will be all the same.’”

42Lincoln’s friend, Mr. A.Y. Ellis, who was with him during a part of this campaign, says: “He wore a mixed-jeans coat, claw-hammer style, short in the sleeves and bobtail,—in fact, it was so short in the tail that he could not sit down on it,—flax and tow linen pantaloons, and a straw hat. I think he wore a vest, but I do not remember how it looked. He wore pot-metal boots. I went with him on one of his electioneering trips to Island Grove, and he made a speech which pleased his party friends very well, although some of the Jackson men tried to make sport of it. He told several good anecdotes in the speech, and applied them very well, I thought.”

The election took place in August, and although Lincoln was defeated he received two hundred and seventy-seven out of the two hundred and eighty-four votes cast in his precincts. He was so little known outside of New Salem that the chances of election were hopelessly against him, yet the extraordinary evidence of favor shown by the vote of his fellow-townsmen was a flattering success in the midst of defeat. His failure to be elected, however, left him once more without occupation. He was without means, and felt the necessity of undertaking some business that would provide him an income, however small. It seems that at this time he considered seriously learning the blacksmith’s trade, but while entertaining the idea an event occurred which opened the way in another direction. The particulars of this event are given by Mr. W.G. Greene. “A man named Reuben Radford,” says Mr. Greene, “was the keeper of a small store in the village of New Salem. A friend told him to look out for the ‘Clary Grove boys’ or they would smash him up. He said he was not afraid. He was a great big fellow. But his friend said, ‘They don’t come alone. If one can’t whip you, two or three can, and they’ll do it.’ One day he left his store in charge of his brother, with injunctions that if the ‘Clary Grove boys’ came he must not let them have 43more than two drinks apiece. All the stores in those days kept liquor to sell and had a corner for drinking. The store was nicely fitted up, and had many things in glass jars nicely labelled. The ‘Clary Grove boys’ came, and took two drinks each. The clerk refused them any more as politely as he could. Then they went behind the counter and helped themselves. They got roaring drunk and went to work smashing everything in the store. The fragments on the floor were an inch deep. They left and went off on their horses whooping and yelling. Coming across some herds of cattle, they took the bells from their necks, fastened them to the tails of the leaders, and chased them over the country yelling like mad. Radford heard them, and, mounting his horse, rode in hot haste to the store. I had been sent that morning with grist to the mill, and had to pass the store. I saw Radford ride up, his horse a lather of foam. He dismounted, and looked in upon the wreck through the open door He was aghast at the sight, and said, ‘I’ll sell out this thing to the first man that comes along.’ I rode up and said, ‘I’ll give you four hundred dollars for it.’ ‘Done!’ said he. ‘But,’ I said, ‘I have no money. I must have time.’ ‘How much?’ ‘Six months.’ ‘Agreed.’ He drew up a note for four hundred dollars at six months, and I signed it. I began to think I was stuck. Then the boys came in, and among them was Lincoln. ‘Cheer up, Billy,’ he said. ‘It’s a good thing. We’ll take an inventory.’ ‘No more inventories for me,’ said I, not knowing what he meant. He explained that we should take an account of stock to see how much was left. We found that it amounted to about twelve hundred dollars. Lincoln and Berry consulted over it, and offered me two hundred and fifty dollars for my bargain. I accepted, stipulating that they should assume my notes. Berry was a wild fellow—a gambler. He had a fine horse, with a splendid saddle and bridle. He turned over the horse as part pay. Lincoln 44let Berry run the store, and it soon ran out. I had to pay the note. Lincoln said he would pay it some day and did, with interest.” This ended Lincoln’s brief career as a country merchant.

Many of the anecdotes in the foregoing pages touch upon Lincoln’s ambition to fit himself for a public speaker. Even at this early day the settlers in New Salem were infected with the general desire to join in the march toward intellectual improvement. To aid in this object, they had established a club entitled the New Salem Literary Society. Before this association, the studious Lincoln was invited to speak. Mr. R.B. Rutledge, the brother of Anne Rutledge, says of the event: “About the year 1832 or 1833, Mr. Lincoln made his first effort at public speaking. A debating club, of which James Rutledge was president, was organized and held regular meetings. As Lincoln arose to speak, his tall form towered above the little assembly. Both hands were thrust down deep in the pockets of his pantaloons. A perceptible smile at once lit up the faces of the audience, for all anticipated the relation of some humorous story. But he opened up the discussion in splendid style, to the infinite astonishment of his friends. As he warmed with his subject, his hands would forsake his pockets and enforce his ideas by awkward gestures, but would very soon seek their easy resting-places. He pursued the question with reason and argument so pithy and forcible that all were amazed. The president, after the meeting, remarked to his wife that there was more in Abe’s head than wit and fun; that he was already a fine speaker; that all he lacked was culture to enable him to reach the high destiny which he knew was in store for him.”

On the 7th of May, 1833, Lincoln was appointed postmaster at New Salem by President Jackson. The duties of the position were light, there being only a weekly mail, and the remuneration was correspondingly small. “45The office was too insignificant to be considered politically, and it was given to the young man because everybody liked him, and because he was the only man willing to take it who could make out the returns. He was exceedingly pleased with the appointment, because it gave him a chance to read every newspaper that was taken in the vicinity. He had never been able to get half the newspapers he wanted, and the office gave him the prospect of a constant feast. Not wishing to be tied to the office, as it yielded him no revenue that would reward him for the confinement, he made a post-office of his hat. Whenever he went out, the letters were placed in his hat. When an anxious looker for a letter met the postmaster he found also the post-office, and the public official, taking off his hat, looked over and delivered the mail wherever the public might find him. He kept the office until it was discontinued, or was removed to Petersburg.”

A small balance due the government remained in the hands of Lincoln at the discontinuance of the office. Time passed on, and he had removed to Springfield and was practicing law, having his place of business in Dr. Henry’s office. Meanwhile his struggle with poverty was unabated, and he had often been obliged to borrow money from his friends to purchase the barest necessities. It was at this juncture that the agent of the United States called for a settlement of his post-office accounts. The interview took place in the presence of Dr. Henry who thus describes it: “I did not believe he had the money on hand to meet the draft, and I was about to call him aside and loan him the money, when he asked the agent to be seated a moment. He went over to his trunk at his boarding-house and returned with an old blue sock with a quantity of silver and copper coin tied up in it. Untying the sock, he poured the contents on the table and proceeded to count the coin, which consisted of such silver and copper pieces as the country people were then in the habit of using 46in paying postage. On counting it up, there was found the exact amount of the draft to a cent, and in the identical coin which had been received. He never, under any circumstances, used trust funds.”

When Lincoln was about twenty-three years of age, some time in 1832, he began studying law, using an old copy of Blackstone’s Commentaries which he had bought at auction in Springfield. This work was soon mastered, and then the young man looked about him for more. His friend of the Black Hawk War, Major John T. Stuart, had a considerable law library for those days, and to him Lincoln applied in his extremity. The library was placed at his disposal, and thenceforth he was engrossed in the acquisition of its contents. But the books were in Springfield, where their owner resided; and New Salem was some fourteen miles distant. This proved no obstacle in the way of Lincoln, who made nothing of the walk back and forth in the pursuit of his purpose. Mr. Stuart’s partner, Mr. H.C. Dummer, who took note of the youth in his frequent visits to the office, describes him as “an uncouth looking lad, who did not say much, but what he did say he said straight and sharp.” “He used to read law,” says Henry McHenry, “barefooted, seated in the shade of a tree just opposite Berry’s grocery, and would grind around with the shade, occasionally varying his attitude by lying flat on his back and putting his feet up the tree,” a situation which might have been unfavorable to mental application in the case of a man with shorter extremities. “The first time I ever saw Abe with a law-book in his hand,” says Squire Godbey, “he was sitting astride Jake Bates’s woodpile in New Salem. Says I, ‘Abe, what are you studying?’ ‘Law,’ says Abe. ‘Good God Almighty!’ responded I.” It was too much for Godbey; he could not suppress the exclamation of surprise at seeing such a figure acquiring learning in such an odd situation. Mr. Arnold states that Lincoln made a practice 47of reading in his walks between Springfield and New Salem; and so intense was his application and so absorbed was he in his study that he would pass his best friends without observing them, and some people said that Lincoln was going crazy with hard study.

He soon began to make a practical application of his legal knowledge. He bought an old form-book and began to draw up contracts, deeds, leases, mortgages, and all sorts of legal instruments for his neighbors. He also began to exercise his forensic ability in trying small cases before justices of the peace and juries, and soon acquired a local reputation as a speaker, which gave him considerable practice. But he was able in this way to earn scarcely money enough for his maintenance. To add to his means, he took up the study of surveying, and soon became, like Washington, a skilful and accurate surveyor. John Calhoun, an intelligent and courteous gentleman, was at that time surveyor of the county of Sangamon. He became interested in Lincoln and appointed him his deputy. His work was so accurate and the settlers had such confidence in him that he was much sought after to survey, fix, and mark the boundaries of farms, and to plot and lay off the town of Petersburg. His accuracy must have been attained with some difficulty, for when he began to survey his chain was a grape-vine. He did not speculate in the land he surveyed. Had he done so the rapid advance in the value of real estate would have made it easy for him to make good investments. But he was not in the least like one of his own appointees when President,—a surveyor-general of a Western territory, who bought up much of the best land, and to whom the President said, “I am told, sir, you are monarch of all you survey.”

The nomination of Lincoln for the State Legislature on his return from the Black Hawk War was premature. The people of New Salem voted for him almost to a man, but his acquaintance had not then extended into the 48surrounding district far enough to insure his election. In the campaign of 1834 the choice of a candidate again fell upon him, and this time there was a prospect of success. Lincoln entered into the contest with earnestness, and used every legitimate means to secure a victory. Mr. Herndon relates the following incident of this campaign: “Lincoln came to my house, near Island Grove, during harvest. There were some thirty men in the field. He had his dinner, and then went out into the field where the men were at work. I introduced him, and the boys said they would not vote for a man unless he could ‘make a hand.’ ‘Well, boys,’ he said, ‘if that is all that is needed I am sure of your votes.’ He took hold of the cradle and led the way all around with perfect ease. The boys were satisfied. I don’t think he lost a vote in that crowd. The next day there was speaking at Berlin. He went from my house with Dr. Barnett, who had asked me who this man Lincoln was. I told him he was a candidate for the Legislature. He laughed and said, ‘Can’t the party raise better material than that?’ I said, ‘Go to-morrow and hear him before you pass judgment.’ When he came back I said, ‘Doctor, what have you to say now?’ ‘Why, sir,’ he said, ‘he is a perfect take-in. He knows more than all the rest of them put together.’”

The result of the election was that Lincoln was chosen to represent the Sangamon district. When the Legislature convened at the opening session, he was in his place in the lower house; but he bore himself quietly in his new position. He had much to learn in his novel situation as one of the lawmakers of the State, and as a co-worker with an assembly comprising the most talented and prominent men gathered from all parts of Illinois. He was keenly watchful of the proceedings of the House, weighing every measure with scrutinizing sagacity, but except in the announcement of his vote his voice was seldom heard. At the previous session, Mr. G.S. Hub49bard, afterwards a well-known citizen of Chicago, had exerted himself to procure the passage of an act for the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. His effort was defeated; but he continued, as a lobbyist, to push the measure during several winters, until it was finally adopted. Lincoln lent him efficient aid in the accomplishment of his object. “Indeed,” remarks Mr. Hubbard, “I very much doubt if the bill could have passed as easily as it did without his valuable help.” “We were thrown much together,” continues Mr. Hubbard, “our intimacy increasing. I never had a friend to whom I was more warmly attached. His character was almost faultless; possessing a warm and generous heart, genial, affable, honest, courteous to his opponents, persevering, industrious in research, never losing sight of the principal point under discussion, aptly illustrating by his stories which were always brought into good effect. He was free from political trickery or denunciation of the personal character of his opponents. In debate he was firm and collected. ‘With malice toward none, with charity for all,’ he won the confidence of the public, even his political opponents.”

Of all the stories of Lincoln’s boyhood and youth, the most profoundly touching is that of his love for Anne Rutledge. The existence of this romance was brief, but it is believed by many that it was the memory of it which threw over Lincoln that indescribable melancholy which seemed to shadow his whole life. The Rutledges from whom Anne was descended were an eminent family of the Carolinas. She was about nineteen years old when Lincoln knew her first. It was shortly after the Black Hawk War. She was a winsome girl, with fair hair and blue eyes, and Lincoln’s heart was captivated by her sweet face and gentle manners. So attractive a girl was not, of course, without suitors, and Anne had been wooed by one James McNeill, a young man who had come to 50New Salem soon after the founding of the town. He had been more than ordinarily successful, and had bought a large farm a few miles north of the village. He was unmarried—at least he so represented himself—and paid devoted attention to Anne. They were engaged, although both had acquiesced in the wishes of Anne’s parents that they should not be married until she was older.

About this time Lincoln appeared in New Salem and went to board at the Rutledge tavern. Here he saw Anne, and was much in her company. During the next year McNeill became restless and discontented. He said it was because he wanted to see his people. So he decided to go East on a visit. He sold out his interests in New Salem—an act not at all necessary if he were going only on a visit, and which in the light of after events had much significance—telling Anne that it was his hope to bring his father and mother back with him and establish them upon his farm. “This done,” he said, “we will be married.” He then set out on his journey.

It was late in the summer before Anne heard from him. He explained that he had been taken ill with chills and fever on the way, and had been long delayed in getting home. But the long wait had been a great strain upon Anne. Lincoln, meanwhile, had become the postmaster in New Salem, and it was to him that Anne came to inquire for letters. He watched her anxiety with sympathy, and in a way became her confidant. His tender heart, which never could resist suffering, was deeply touched at sight of her distress. Finally McNeill’s letters ceased altogether; and then Anne confided to Lincoln something which McNeill had told her before he left, and which until now she had kept secret,—namely, that his name was not McNeill but McNamar. He had explained to her that he had made this change because his father had failed in business and that as his oldest son it was his 51duty to retrieve the family fortunes. So he had changed his name, and come West, hoping to return in a few years to his family a rich man. All this Anne had believed, and had not repeated until now.

All New Salem joined in declaring McNamar an impostor and his story a fabrication. “Who knew how many wives he had?” they said. With one accord Anne’s friends denounced him; and although his story turned out afterward to be not altogether false, it is small wonder that Anne herself at last came to believe that either he was dead or had ceased to love her.

While matters were in this state, Lincoln ventured to show his love for Anne. It was a long time before she would listen; but, convinced at last that her former lover had deserted her, she promised, in the spring of 1835, to become his wife. But Lincoln had nothing on which to support a family,—in fact, could hardly support himself. Besides, Anne was anxious to go to school another year. So it was decided that she should spend the winter in an academy in Jacksonville, while Lincoln devoted himself to the study of the law. Then, when she should return from school, he would be a member of the bar and they could be married.

A happy spring and summer followed. All their friends took an interest in the lovers, and their prospects seemed bright. But Anne’s health began to fail. She could not rid herself of her haunting memories. There was a possibility that she had wronged McNamar. What if he should love her still, and should return and find her wedded to another? Had she wronged both men? In her thoughts was perpetual conflict. The old love still persisted. Her conscience troubled her. She doubted, and was morbidly melancholy. All this wore upon her; she fell ill. At last her condition became grave, then hopeless. Lincoln was sent for. Anne’s last hour was passed alone with him. She died at sunset, August 25, 521835. An old neighbor who saw Lincoln just after his parting with the dying girl says: “There were signs of the most terrible distress in his face. His grief became frantic. He lost all self-control, even the consciousness of his own identity; and his closest friends in New Salem pronounced him insane, crazy, mad. They watched him with especial vigilance on dark and stormy days. At such times he raved piteously, often saying, ‘I can never be reconciled to having the snow fall and the rain beat upon her grave.’” His old friend, Bowlin Greene, alone seemed possessed of the power to quiet him. He took him to his own home and kept him for several weeks, an object of undisguised solicitude. At last it seemed safe to permit him to return to his old haunts. Greene urged him to go back to the law; and he did so, but he was never the same man again. He was thin, haggard, and careworn. He was as one who had been at the brink of the grave. A long time afterward, when the grass had for nearly thirty years grown over the grave of Anne Rutledge, Lincoln was one day introduced to a man named Rutledge in the White House. He looked at him a moment, then grasped his hand and said with deep feeling: “I love the name of Rutledge to this day. Anne was a lovely girl. She was natural, well-educated. She would have made a good, loving wife. I did honestly and truly love her, and I think often, often of her now.” Mr. Herndon has said that the love and the death of this young girl shattered Lincoln’s purposes and tendencies. “He threw off his infinite sorrow only by leaping wildly into the political arena. He needed whip and spur to save him from despair.”

The period of Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood and youth had closed when he stood by the grave of Anne Rutledge. He had long been a man in stature. He was now a man in years; yet the rough path he had been forced to travel had made his progress toward maturity painfully slow. 53In spite of his low birth, of his dire poverty, of the rudeness and illiteracy of his associates, of the absence of refinement in his surroundings, of his scanty means of education, of his homely figure and awkward manners, of his coarse fare and shabby dress, he dared to believe there was an exalted career in store for him. He hewed out the foundations for it with indomitable spirit. It was to be grounded on manly virtues. It seems as though the boy felt the consecration of a high destiny from the very dawn of his intelligence, and it set him apart, secure amid the temptations and safe from the vices that corrupt many men. In the rough garb of the backwoodsman he preserved the instincts of a gentleman. He was the companion of bullies and boors. He shared their work and their sports, but he never stooped to their vulgarity. He very seldom drank with them, and they never heard him speak an oath. He could throw the stoutest in a wrestling match, and was ready, when brought to it, to whip any insolent braggart who made cruel use of his strength. He never flinched from hardship or danger, yet his heart was as soft and tender as a woman’s. The great gentle giant had a feeling of sympathy for every living creature. He was not ashamed to rock a cradle, or to carry a pail of water or an armful of wood to spare a tired woman’s arms. Though destitute of worldly goods, he was rich in friends. All the people of his acquaintance knew they could count on his doing the right thing always, so far as he was able. Hence they trusted and loved him; and the title of “Honest Abe,” which he bore through life, was a seal of knighthood rarer and prouder than any king or queen could confer with the sword. Abraham Lincoln was one of nature’s noblemen. He showed himself a hero in every circumstance of his boyhood and youth. The elements of greatness were visible even then. The boy who was true to duty, patient in privation, modest in merit, kind to every form of distress, determined to rise by wresting 54opportunities from the grudging hand of fate, was sure to make a man distinguished among his fellows,—a man noted among the great men of the world, as the boy had been among his neighbors in the wilds of Spencer County and New Salem.

The site of the town where Lincoln spent the last three years of the period covered in this portion of his biography is now a desolate waste. A gentleman who visited the spot during the summer of 1885 thus describes the mournful scene: “From the hill where I sit, under the shade of three trees whose branches make one, I look out over the Sangamon river and its banks covered apparently with primeval forests. Around are fields overgrown with weeds and stunted oaks. It was a town of ten or twelve years only. It began in 1824 and ended in 1836. Yet in that time it had a history which the world will not let die as long as it venerates the memory of the noble liberator and martyr President, Abraham Lincoln.”

BIBLIOGRAFY:

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE
BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES
AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS
BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

Compiler of “Golden Poems,” “Bugle Echoes, Pose of
the Civil War,” “Laurel-Crowned Verse,” etc.

NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH
AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A
CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE
CHICAGO
BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY
1913

Canto de pássaros.

[Pg 16]

Meninos no jogo.

Tartaruga	Colméia	Cordeiro
Motor	Sino	Navio a vapor

[Pg 7]

	Menino e cavalo.
	Barking Dog.
	Um boi.