4-57 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 Read before The Royal Historical Society, 
 London, June i6th, i88i. 
 BY^ 
 
 Hon. ISAAC M.-^ARNOLD, F.R.H.S. 
 
 STEPHEN A DOUGLAS: 
 
 AN eulogy- 
 Delivered before The Chicago University, 
 July 3D, 1861. 
 
 BY 
 
 Hon. JAMES W. SHEAHAN. 
 
 E457 8 A7B*" ""'™™">' Library 
 Abraham Lincoln: 
 
 ,. 3 1924 032 764" 064 
 oiin 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 FERGUS PRINTING COMPANY. 
 
 1881. 
 
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 A73 
 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 By HON. ISAAC N. ARNOLD, ' 
 
 A Paper read before the Royal Historical Society, London, June 16, 1881. 
 
 The noblest inheritance we, Americans, derive from 
 our British ancestors is the memory and example of the 
 great and good men who adorn your history. They are 
 as much appreciated and honored on our side of the 
 Atlantic as on this. In giving to the English-speaking 
 world Washington and Lincoln we think we repay, in 
 large part, pur obligation. Their preeminence in Ameri- 
 can history is recognized, and the republic, which the one 
 founded and the other preserved, has, already, crowned 
 them as models for her children. 
 
 In the annals of almost every great nation some names 
 appear standing out clear and prominent, names of those 
 who have influenced, or controlled, the great events which 
 make up history. Such were Wallace and Bruce, in Scot- 
 -land, Alfred and the Edwards, William the Conqueror, 
 Cromwell, Pitt, Nelson, and Wellington, in England, and 
 such in a still greater degree were Washington and Lincoln. 
 
 I am here, from near his home, with the hope that I 
 may, to some extent, aid you in forming a just and true 
 estimate of Abraham Lincoln. I knew him, somewhat 
 intimately, in private and public life for more than twenty 
 years. We practised law at the same bar, and, during 
 his administration, I was a member of Congress, seeing 
 him and conferring with him often, and, therefore, I may 
 hope without vanity, I trust that I shall be able to con- 
 tribute something of value in enabling you to judge of 
 him. We in America, as well as you in the old world, 
 believe that "blood will tell;" that it is a great blessing 
 to have had an honorable and worthy ancestry. We 
 
1 66 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 believe that moral principle, physical and intellectual 
 vigor in the forefathers are qualities likely to be mani- 
 fested in the descendants. Fools are not the fathers or 
 mothers of great men. I claim for Lincoln, humble as 
 was the station to which he was born, and rude and 
 rough as were his early surroundings, that he had such 
 ancestors. I mean that his father and mother, his grand- 
 father and* grandmother, and still further back, however 
 humble and rugged their condition, were physically and 
 mentally strong, vigorous men and women; hardy and 
 successful pioneers on the frontier of American civilization. 
 They were among the early settlers in Virginia, Kentucky, 
 and Illinois, and knew how to take care of themselves in 
 the midst of difficulties and perils; how to live and suc- 
 ceed when the weak would perish. These ancestors of 
 Lincoln, for several generations, kept on the very crest 
 of the wave of Western settlements — on the frontier, 
 where the struggle for life was hard and the strong alone 
 survived. 
 
 / His grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, and his father, 
 Thomas, were born in Rockingham County, Virginia. 
 
 About 1 78 1, while his father was still a lad, his grand- 
 father's family emigrated to Kentucky, and was a contem- 
 porary with Daniel Boone, the celebrated Indian fighter 
 and early hero of that State. This, a then wild and 
 wooded territory, was the scene of those fierce and des- 
 perate conflicts between the settlers and the Indians 
 which gave it the name of "The dark and bloody ground." 
 
 When Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President, was 
 six years old, his father (Abraham, the grandfather of 
 the President) was shot and instantly killed by an Indian. 
 The boy and his father were at work in the corn-field, 
 near their log-cabin home. Mordecai, the elder brother of 
 the lad, at work not far away, witnessed the attack. He 
 saw his father fall, and ran to the cabin, seized his ready- 
 loaded rifle and springing to the loop-hole cut through 
 the logs, he saw the Indian, who had seized the boy, 
 carrying him away. Raising his rifle and aiming at a 
 silver medal, conspicuous on the breast of the Indian, he 
 instantly fired. The Indian fell, and the lad, springing 
 to his feet, ran to the open arms of his mother, at the 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 167 
 
 cabin door. Amidst such scenes, the Lincoln family natu- 
 rally produced rude, rough, hardy, and fearless men, 
 familiar with wood -craft; men who could meet the 
 extremes of exposure and fatigue, who knew how to find 
 food and shelter in the forest; men of great' powers of 
 endurance — brave and self-reliant, true and faithful to 
 their friends and dangerous to their enemies. Men with 
 minds to conceive and hands to execute bold enterprises. 
 
 It is a curious fact that the grandfather, Abraham 
 Lincoln, is noted on the surveys of Daniel Boone as hav- 
 ing purchased, of the Government, five hundred acres of 
 land. Thomas Lincoln, the father, was also the purchaser 
 of government land, and President Lincoln left, as a part 
 of his estate, a quarter- section (one hundred and sixty 
 acres), which he had received from the United States, for 
 services rendered in early life as a volunteer soldier, in the 
 Black-Hawk Indian war. Thus for three generations the 
 Lincoln family were land-owners directly from the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Such was the lineage and family from which President 
 Lincoln sprung. Such was the environment in which his 
 character was developed. 
 
 He was born in a log-cabin, in Kentucky, on the 12th 
 of February, 1809. 
 
 It will aid you in picturing to yourself this young man 
 and his surroundings, to ^now that, from boyhood to the 
 age of twenty-one, in winter his head was protected from 
 the cold by a cap made of the skin of the coon, fox, or 
 prairie-wolf, and that he often wore the buckskin breeches 
 and hunting-shirt of the pioneer. 
 
 He grew up to be a man of majestic stature and Her- 
 culean strength. Had he appeared in England or Nor- 
 mandy, some centuries ago, he would have been the 
 founder of some great Baronial family, possibly of a 
 Royal dynasty. He could have wielded, with ease, the 
 two-handed sword of Guy, the great Earl of Warwick, or 
 the battle-axe of Richard of the Lion-heart. 
 
 HIS EDUCATION AND TRAINING. 
 
 The world is naturally interested in knowing what was 
 the education and training which fitted Lincoln for the 
 
1 68 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 great work which he accompUshed. On the extreme 
 frontier, the means of book-learning was very Umited. 
 The common free schools, which now closely follow the 
 heels of the pioneer and organized civil government, and 
 prevail all over the United States, had not then reached 
 the Far-West. An itinerant school-teacher wandered 
 occasionally into a settlement, opened a private school 
 for a few months, and, at such, Lincoln attended at differ- 
 ent times in all about twelve months. His mother, who 
 was a woman of practical good sense, of strong physical 
 organization, of deep religious feeling, gentle and self- 
 reliant, taught, him to read and write. 
 
 Although she died when he was only nine years old, 
 she had already laid deep the foundations of his excel- 
 lence. Perfect truthfulness and integrity, love of justice, 
 self-control, reverence for God, these constituted the solid 
 basis of his character. These were all implanted and 
 carefully cultivated by his mother, and he always spoke 
 of her with the deepest respect and the most tender affec- 
 tion. "All that 1 am, or hope to be," said he, when 
 President, "I owe to my sainted mother." 
 
 He early manifested the most eager desire to learn, but 
 there were no libraries, and few books in the back settle- 
 ments in which he lived. Among the stray volumes, 
 which he found in the possession of the illiterate families 
 by which he was surrounded, were .(Esop's Fables, Bun- 
 yan's Pilgrim's Progress, a life of Washington, the poems 
 of Burns, and the Bible. To these his reading was con- 
 fined, and he read them over and over again, until they 
 became as familiar almost as the alphabet. His memory 
 was marvellous, and I never yet met the man more 
 familiar with the Bible than Abraham Lincoln. This 
 was apparent in after-life, both from his conversation and 
 writings, scarcely a speech or state paper of his in which 
 illustrations and allusions from the Bible can not be found. 
 
 While a young man, he made for himself, of coarse 
 paper, a scrap-book, into which he copied everything 
 which particularly pleased him. He found an old English 
 grammar, which he studied by himself; and he formed, 
 from his constant study of the Bible, that simple, plain| 
 clear Anglo-Saxon style, so effective with the people. He 
 
AiiRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 69 
 
 illustrated the maxim that it is. better to know thoroughly 
 a few good books than to skim over many. When fifteen 
 years old, he began (with a view of improving himself) to 
 write on various subjects and to practise in making -politi- 
 cal and other speeches. These he made so amusing and 
 attractive that his father had to forbid his making them 
 in working-hours, for, said he, "when Abe'begins to speak, 
 all the hands flock to hear him." His memory was so 
 retentive that he could repeat, verbatim, the sermons and 
 political speeches which he heard. 
 
 While his days were spent in hard manual labor, and 
 his evenings in study, he grew up strong in body, health- 
 ful, in mind, with no -bad habits; no stain of intemperance, 
 profanity, or vice of any kind. He used neither tobacco 
 nor intoxicating drinks, and, thus living, he grew to be 
 six feet four inches high, and a giant in strength. In all 
 athletic sports he had no equal. I have heard an old 
 comrade say, "he could strike the hardest blow with the 
 woodman's axe, and the maul of the rail-splitter, jump 
 higher, run faster than any of his fellows, and there were 
 none, far or near, who could lay him on his back." Kind 
 and cordial, he early developed so much wit and humor, 
 such a capacity for narrative and story-telling, that he was 
 everywhere a most welcome guest. 
 
 A LAND SURVEYOR. 
 
 Like Washington, he became, in early life, a good prac- 
 tical surveyor, and I have, in my library, the identical 
 book from which, at eighteen years of age, he studied the 
 art of surveying. By his skill and accuracy, and by the 
 neatness of his work, he was sought after by the settlers, 
 to survey and fix the boundaries of their farms, and in 
 this way, in part, he earned -a support while he studied 
 law. In 1837, self-taught, he was admitted and licensed, 
 by the Supreme Court of Illinois, to practise law. 
 
 A LAWYER. 
 
 It is difficult for m? to describe, and, perhaps, more 
 difficult for you to conceive the contrast when Lincaln 
 began to practise law, between the forms of the adminis- 
 tration of justice in Westminster Hall, and in the rude 
 
I/O EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 log court-houses of Illinois. I recall to-day what was said 
 a few years ago by an Illinois friend, when we visited, for 
 the first time, Westminster Abbey, and as we passed into 
 Westminster Hall. "This," he exclaimed, "this is the 
 grandest forum in the world. Here Fox, Burke, and 
 Sheridan hurled their denunciations against Warren Hast- 
 ings. Here Brougham defended Queen Caroline. And 
 this," he went on to repeat, in the words of Macauley, 
 (words as familiar in America as here), "This is the great 
 hall of William Rufus, the hall which has resounded with 
 acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, and 
 which has witnessed the trials of Bacon and Somers and 
 Strafford and Charles the First." "And yet," I replied, 
 "I have seen justice administered on the prairies of Illi- 
 nois without pomp or ceremony, everything simple to 
 rudeness, and yet, when Lincoln and Douglas led at that 
 bar, I have seen justice administered by judges as pure, 
 aided by advocates as eloquent, if not as learned, as any 
 who ever presided, or plead, in Westminster Hall." 
 
 The common-law of England (said to be the perfection 
 of human wisdom) was administered in both forums, and 
 the decisions of each tribunal were cited as authority in 
 the other; both illustrating that reverence for, and obedi- 
 ence to, law, which is the glory of the English-speaking 
 race. 
 
 Lincoln was a great lawyer. He sought to convince 
 rather by the application of principle than by the citation 
 of authorities. On the whole, he was stronger with the 
 jury than with the court. I do not know that there has 
 ever been, in America, a greater or more successful advo- 
 cate before a jury, on the right side, than Abraham 
 Lincoln. He had a marvellous power of conciliating and 
 impressing everyone in his favor. A stranger entering the 
 court, ignorant of the case, and listening a few moments 
 to Lincoln, would find himself involuntarily on his side 
 and wishing him success. He was a quick and accurate 
 reader of character, and seemed to comprehend, almost 
 intuitively, the peculiarities of those with whom he came 
 in contact-. His manner was so candid, his methods so 
 direct, so fair, he seemed so anxious that truth and 
 justice should prevail, that everyone wished him success. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 17 1 
 
 He excelled in the statement of his case. However com- 
 plicated, he would disentangle it, and present the import- 
 ant and turning-point in a way so clear that all could 
 understand. Indeed, his statement often alone won his 
 cause, rendering argument unnecessary. - The judges 
 would often stop him by saying, " If that is the case, 
 brother Lincoln, we will hear the other side." 
 
 His ability in examining a witness, in bringing out 
 clearly the important facts, was only surpassed by his 
 skilful cross-examinations. He could often compel a wit- 
 ness to tell the truth, where he meant to lie. He could 
 make a jury laugh, and generally weep, at his pleasure. 
 On the right side, and when fraud or injustice were to be 
 exposed, or innocence vindicated, he rose to the highest 
 range of eloquence, and was irresistable. But he must 
 have faith in his cause to bring out his full strength. His 
 wit and humor, his quaint and homely illustrations, his 
 inexhaustible stores of anecdote, always to the point, 
 added greatly to his power as a jury-advocate. 
 
 He never misstated evidence or misrepresented his 
 opponent's case, but met it fairly and squarely. 
 
 He remained in active practice until his nomination, 
 in May, i860, for the presidency. He was employed in 
 the leading cases in both the federal and state courts, and 
 had a large clientelage, not only in Illinois, but was fre- 
 quently called, on special retainers, to other States. 
 
 AN ILLINOLS POLITICIAN. 
 
 By his eloquence and popularity he became, early in 
 life, the leader of the old Whig party, in Illinois. He 
 served as member of the State Legislature, was the can- 
 date of his party for speaker, presidential elector, and 
 United States senator, and was a member of the lower 
 house of Congress. 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 When the independence of the American republic was 
 established, African slavery was tolerated as a local and 
 temporary institution. It was in conflict with the rhoral 
 sense, the religious convictions of the people, and the 
 political principles on which the government was founded. 
 
 But having been tolerated, it soon became an organized^ 
 
172 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 aggressive power, and, later, it became the master oi the 
 government. Conscious of its inherent weakness, it 
 demanded and obtained additional territory for its expan- 
 sion. First, the great Louisiana territory was- purchased, 
 then Florida, and then Texas. 
 
 By the repeal, in 1854, of the prohibition of slavery 
 north of the line of 36°, 30' of latitude (known in America 
 as the "Missouri Compromise"), the slavery question 
 became the leading one in American politics, and the 
 absorbing and exciting topic of discussion. It shattered 
 into fragments the old conservative Whig party, with 
 which Mr. Lincoln had, theretofore, acted. It divided 
 the Democratic party, and new parties were organized 
 upon issues growing directly out of the question of slavery. 
 
 The leader of that portion of the Democratic party 
 which continued, for a time, to act with the slavery party, 
 was Stephen Arnold Douglas, then representing Illinois 
 in the United States Senate. He was a bold, ambitious, 
 able man, and had, thus far, been uniformly successful. 
 He had introduced and carried through Congress, against 
 the most vehement opposition, the repeal of the law, pro- 
 hibiting slavery, called the Missouri Compromise. 
 
 THE CONTEST BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN 
 THE TERRITORIES. 
 
 The issue having been now distinctly made between 
 freedom and the extension of slavery into the territories, 
 Lincoln and Douglas, the leaders of the Free-soil and 
 Democratic parties, became more than ever antagonized. 
 The conflict between freedom and slavery now became 
 earnest, fierce, and violent, beyond all previous political 
 controversies, and from this time on, Lincoln plead the 
 cause of liberty with an energy, ability, and eloquence, 
 which rapidly gained for him a national reputation. 
 From this time on, through the tremendous struggle, it 
 was he who grasped the helm and led his party to victory. 
 Conscious of a great cause, inspired by a generous love of 
 liberty, and animated by the moral sublimity of his great 
 theme, he proclaimed his determination, ever thereafter, 
 "to speak for freedom, and against slavery, until every- 
 where the sun shall shine, the rain shall fall, and the wind 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 173 
 
 blow upon no man who goes forth to unrequited toil." 
 THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 
 
 The great debate between Lincoln and Douglas, in 
 1858, was, unquestionably, both with reference to the 
 ability of the speakers and its influence upon opinion and 
 events, the* most important in American history. I do 
 not think I do injustice to others, nor over-estimate their 
 importance, when I say that the speeches of Lincoln pub- 
 lished, circulated, and read, throughout the Free-States, 
 did more than any other agency in creating the public 
 opinion, which prepared the way for the overthrow of 
 slavery. The speeches of John Quincy Adams, and. those 
 of Senator Sumner, were more learned and scholarly, 
 and those of Lovejoy and Wendel Philips were more 
 vehement and impassioned; Senators Seward, Chase, and 
 Hale spoke from a more conspicuous forum, but Lincoln's 
 speeches were as philosophic, as able, as earnest as any, 
 and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clear- 
 ness of illustration, and his language a plainness, a vigor, 
 an Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted, than any other, 
 to reach and influence the understanding and sentiment 
 of the common people. 
 
 At the time of this memorable discussion, both Lincoln 
 and Douglas were in the full maturity of their powers. 
 Douglas being forty-five and Lincoln forty-nine years old. 
 Douglas had had a long training and experience as a 
 popular speaker. On the hustings (stump, as we say in 
 America) and in Congress, and especially in the United 
 States Senate, he had been accustomed to meet the ablest 
 debaters of his State and of the Nation. 
 
 His friends insisted that never, either in conflict with a 
 single opponent, or when repelling the assaults of a whole 
 party, had he been discomfited. His manner was bold, 
 vigorous, and aggressive. He was ready, fertile in 
 resources, familiar with political history, strong and severe 
 in denunciation, and he handled, with skill, all the 
 weapons of the dialectician. His iron will, tireless energy, 
 united with physical arid moral courage, and great per- 
 sonal magnetism, made him a natural leader, and gave 
 him personal popularity. 
 
1/4 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 Lincoln was also now a thoroughly trained speaker. 
 He had contended successfully at the bar, in the legisla- 
 ture, and before the people, with the ablest men of the 
 West, including Douglas, with whom he always rather 
 sought than avoided a discussion. But he was a courte- 
 ous and generous opponent, as is illustrated by the follow- 
 ing beautiful allusion to his rival, made in i8j6, in one of 
 their joint debates. "Twenty 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 am- 
 bitious, I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With me, the 
 race of ambition has been a flat failure. With him, it has 
 been a splendid success. His name fills the Nation, and 
 it is not unknown in foreign lands. I affect no con- 
 tempt 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 emi- 
 nence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a 
 monarch's brow." 
 
 We know, and the world knows, that Lincoln did reach 
 that high, nay, far higher eminence, and that he did reach 
 it in such a way that the "oppressed" did share with him 
 in the elevation. 
 
 Such were the champions who, in 1858, were to discuss, 
 before the voters of Illinois,, and with the whole Nation as 
 spectators, the political questions then pending, and espec- 
 ially the vital questions relating to slavery. It was not a 
 single combat, but extended through a whole campaign. 
 
 On the return of Douglas, from Washington, to Illinois, 
 in July, 1858, Lincoln and Douglas being candidates for 
 the senate, the former challenged his rival to a series of 
 joint debates, to be held at the principal towns in the 
 State. The challenge was accepted, and it was agreed 
 that each discussion should occupy three hours, that the 
 speakers should alternate in the opening and the close— 
 the opening speech to occupy one hour, the reply one 
 hour and a- half, and the close half an hour The meet- 
 ings were held in the open air, for no hall could hold the 
 vast crowds which attended. 
 
 In addition to the immense mass of hearers reporters 
 from all the pnncipal newspapers in the country, attended' 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 75 
 
 SO that the morning after each debate, the speeches were 
 pubHshed, and eagerly read by a large part, perhaps a 
 majority of all the voters of the United States. 
 
 The attention of the American people was thus arrested, 
 and they watched with intense interest, and devoured 
 every argument of the champions. 
 
 Each of these great men, I doubt not, at that time, 
 sincerely believed he was right. Douglas' ardor, while in 
 such a conflict, would make him think, for the time being, 
 he was right, and I know that Lincoln argued for freedom 
 against the extension of slavery with the most profound 
 conviction that on the result hung the fate of his country. 
 Lincoln had two advantages over Douglas; he had tl^e 
 best side of the question, and the best temper. He was 
 always good-humored, always had an apt story for illus- 
 tration, while Douglas sometimes, when hard pressed, was 
 irritable. 
 
 Douglas carried away the most popular applause, but 
 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 the 
 occasion was too serious, the issue too grave. "I do not 
 seek applause," said he, "nor to amuse the people, I want 
 to convince them." 
 
 It was often observed, during this canvass, that while 
 Douglas was sometimes greeted with the loudest cheers, 
 when Lincoln closed, the people seemed solemn and seri- 
 ous, and could be heard, all through the crowd, gravely 
 and anxiously discussing the topics on which he had been 
 speaking. 
 
 Douglas secured the immediate object of the struggle, 
 but the manly bearing, the vigorous logic, the honesty and 
 sincerity, the great intellectual powers, exhibited by Mr. 
 Lincoln, prepared the way, and, two years later, secured 
 his nomination and election to the presidency. It is a 
 touching incident, illustrating the patriotism of both these 
 statesmen, that, widely as they differed, and keen as had 
 been their rivalry, just as soon as the life of the Republic 
 
1/6 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 was menaced, by treason, they joined hands, to shield and 
 save the county they loved. 
 
 The echo and the prophecy of this great debate was 
 heard, and inspired hope in the far-off cotton and rice- 
 fields of the South The toiling blacks, to use the words 
 of Whittier, began hopefully to pray: 
 
 "We pray de Lord. He gib us signs 
 Dat some day we be free. 
 De Norf wind tell it to de pines, 
 De wild duck to de sea. 
 
 " We tink it when de church-bell ring, 
 
 We dream it in de dream, 
 
 De rice-bird mean it when he sing, 
 
 De eagle when he scream." 
 
 THE COOPER -INSTITUTE SPEECH. 
 
 In February, i860, Mr. Lincoln was called to address 
 the people of New York, and, speaking to a vast audience, 
 at the Cooper Institute (the Exeter Hall of the United 
 States), the poet Bryant presiding, he made, perhaps, the 
 most learned, logical, and exhaustive speech to be found 
 in American anti-slavery literature. The question was, 
 the power of the National Government to exclude slavery 
 from the territories. The orator from the prairies, the 
 morning after this speech, awoke to find himself famous. 
 
 He closed with these words, "Let us have faith that 
 right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, 
 do our duty as we understand it." 
 
 Thisaddress was the -carefully finished product of, not 
 an orator and statesman only, but also of an accurate 
 student of American history. It confirmed and elevated 
 the reputation he had already acquired in the Douglas 
 debates, and caused his nomination and election to the 
 presidency. 
 
 If time permitted, I would like to follow Mr. Lincoln, 
 step by step, to enumerate his measures one after another, 
 until, by prudence and courage, and matchless states- 
 manship, he led the loyal people of the republic to^the 
 final and complete overthrow of slavery and the restora- 
 tion of the Union. 
 
 From the time he left his humble home, in Illinois, to 
 assume the responsibilities of power, the political horizon 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 77 
 
 black with treason and rebellion, the terrific thunder 
 clouds,^ — the tempest which had been gathering and grow- 
 ing more black and threatening for years, now ready to 
 explode, — on and on, through long years of bloody war, 
 down to his final triumph and death — what a drama! 
 His eventful life terminated by his tragic death, has it not 
 the dramatic unities, and the awful ending, of the Old 
 Greek tragedy? 
 
 HIS FAREWELL TO HIS NEIGHBORS. 
 
 I know of nothing, in history, more pathetic than the 
 scene when he bade good-bye to his old friends and 
 neighbors. Conscious of the difficulties and dangers 
 before him, difficulties which seemed almost insurmount- 
 able, with a sadness as though a presentiment that he 
 should return no more was pressing upon him, but with 
 a deep religious trust which was characteristic, on the 
 platform of the rail-carriage, which was to bear him away 
 to the Capital, he paused and said, "No one can realize 
 the sadness I feel at this parting. Here I have lived more 
 than a quarter of a century. Here my children were born, 
 and here one of them Res buried. I know not how soon I 
 shall see you again. I go to assume a task more difficult 
 than that which has devolved upon any other man since 
 the days of Washington. He never would have suc- 
 ceeded but for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which, 
 at all times, he relied.. * *, * I hope you, my 
 dear friends, will all pray that I inay receive that Divine 
 assistance, without which I can not succeed, but with 
 which, success is certain." 
 
 A/id as he waved his hand in farewell to the old home, 
 to which he was never to return, he heard the response 
 from many old friends, "God bless and keep you." "God 
 protect you from all traitors." His neighbors "sorrowing 
 most of all," for the fear "that they should see his face no 
 more." 
 
 HIS INAUGURAL AND APPEAL FOR PEACE. 
 
 In his inaugural address, spoken in the open air, and 
 from the eastern portico of the capitol, and heard by 
 thrice ten thousand people, on the very verge of civil war. 
 
178 EARLY ILLINOIS 
 
 he made a most earnest appeal for peace. He gave the 
 most solemn assurance, that "the property, peace, ^nd 
 security of no portion of the Republic should be endan- 
 gered by his administration." But he'declared, with firm- 
 ness, that, the union of the States must be "perpetual," 
 and that he should "execute the laws faithfully in every 
 state." "In doing this," said he, "there need be no blood- 
 shed nor violence, nor shall there be, unless forced upon the 
 National Authority." In regard to the difficulties which 
 thus divided the people, he appealed to all to abstain 
 from precipitate action, assuring them that intelligence, 
 patriotism, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet 
 forsaken the Republic, "were competent to adjust, in the 
 best way, all existing troubles." 
 
 His closing appeal, against civil war, was most touch- 
 ing, "In your hands," said he, and his voice, for the first 
 time faltered, "In your hands, and not in mine, are the 
 momentous issues of civil war." * * "You can 
 have no conflict without being yourselves the aggjessors." 
 * * "I am," continued he, "loth to close, we are 
 not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies, 
 though passion may strain, — it must not break the bonds 
 of affection." 
 
 The answer to these appeals was the attack upon Fort 
 Sumpter, and immediately broke loose all the maddening 
 passions which riot in blood and carnage and civil war. 
 
 I know not how I can, better picture and illustrate the 
 condition of affairs, and of public feeling, at that time, 
 than by narrating two or three incidents. 
 
 DOUGLAS' PROPHECY, JANUARY I, 1861. 
 
 In January, 1861, Senator Douglas, then lately a candi- 
 date for the presidency, with Mrs. Douglas, one of the 
 most beautiful and fascinating women in America, a rela- 
 tive of Mrs. Madison, occupied, at Washington, one of the 
 most magnificent blocks of dwellings, called the "Minne- 
 sota Block." On New-Year's-day, 1861, General Charles 
 Stewart, of New York, from whose lips I write an account 
 of the incident, says, 
 
 "I was making a New- Year' s-call on Senator Douglas; 
 after some conversation, I asked him, '^ 
 
AERAHAM LINCOLN. 1 79 
 
 " 'What will be the result, Senator, of the efforts of 
 Jefferson Davis, and his associates, to divide the Union?' 
 We were," said Stewart, "sitting on the sofa together, 
 when I asked the question. Douglas rose, walked rapidly 
 up and down the room for a moment, and then pausing, 
 he exclaimed, with deep feeling and excitement: 
 
 " 'The Cotton States are making an effort to draw in 
 the Border States, to their schemes of Secession, and I 
 am but too fearful they will succeed. If they do, there 
 will be the most fearful civil war the world has ever seen, 
 lasting for years.' 
 
 "Pausing a moment, he looked like one inspired, while 
 he proceeded: 'Virginia, over yonder, across the Potomac,' 
 pointing toward Arlington, 'will become a charnel-house 
 — but in the end the Union will triumph. They will try,' 
 he continued, 'to get possession of this Capital, to give 
 them prestige abroad, but in that effort they will never 
 succeed; the North will rise en masse to defend it. But 
 Washington will become a city of hospitals, the churches 
 will be used for the sick and wounded. This house,' he 
 continued, 'the Minnesota Block will be devoted to that 
 purpose before the end of the war.' 
 
 " Every word he said was literally fulfilled — all the 
 churches nearly were used for the wounded, and the Min- 
 nesota Bloqk, and the very room in which this declaration 
 was made, became the 'Douglas Hospital.' 
 
 "'What justification for all this.?' said Stewart. 
 
 " 'There is no justification,' replied Douglas. 
 
 '"I will go as far as the constitution will permit to 
 maintain their just rights. But,' said he, rising upon his 
 feet and raising his arm, 'if the Southern States attempt 
 to secede, I am in favor of their having just so many 
 slaves, and just so much slave territory, as they can hold 
 at the point of the bayonet, and no more.' " 
 
 WILL THE NORTH FIGHT .? 
 
 Many Southern leaders believed there would be no seri- 
 ous war, and labored industriously to impress this idea on 
 the Southern people. 
 
 Benjamin F. Butler, who, as a delegate from Massachu- 
 setts, to the Charlestown Convention, had voted many 
 
l8o EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 times for Breckenridge, the extreme Southern candidate 
 for president, came to Washington, in the winter of i86o-i, 
 to inquire of' his old associates what they meant by their 
 threats. 
 
 "We mean," replied they, "we mean Separation — a 
 Southern Confederacy. We will have our independence, 
 a Southern government — with no discordant elements." 
 
 "Are- you prepared for war.?" said Butler, coolly. 
 
 "Oh, there will be no war; the North won't fight." 
 
 "The North will fight," said Butler, "the North will 
 send the last man and expend the last dollar to maintain 
 the Government." 
 
 "Bu1»," replied Butler's Southern friends, "the North 
 can't fight — we have too many allies there." 
 
 "You have friends," responded Butler, "in the North, 
 who will stand by you so long as you fight your battles 
 in the Union, but the moment you fire on the flag, the 
 North will be a unit against you." "And," Butler con- 
 tinued, "you may be assured if war comes, slavery ends!' 
 
 THE SPECIAL SESSION OF CONGRESS, JULY, 1861. 
 
 On the brink of this civil war, the President summoned 
 Congress to meet on the 4th of July, 1861, the anniver- 
 sary of our Independence. Seven States had already 
 seceded, were in open revolt, and the chairs of their repre- 
 sentatives, in both houses of Congress, were vacant. It 
 jaeeded but a glance at these so numerous vacant seats to 
 realize the extent of the defection, the gravity of the situ- 
 ation, and the magnitude of the impending struggle. 
 The old pro-slavery leaders were absent." Some in the 
 rebel government, set up at Richmond, and others mar- 
 shalling troops in the field. Hostile armies were gather- 
 ing, and from the dome of the Capitol, across the Poto- 
 mac, and on toward Fairfax, in Virginia, could be seen 
 the Confederate flag. 
 
 Breckenridge, late the Southern candidate for president, 
 now Senator from Kentucky, and soon to lead a rebel 
 army, still lingered in the Senate. Like Cataline among 
 the Roman Senators, he was regarded with aversion and 
 distrust. Gloomy and, perhaps, sorrowful, he said, "I can 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. l8l 
 
 only look with sadness on the melancholy drama that is 
 being enacted." 
 
 Pardon the digression, while I relate an incident which 
 occurred in the Senate, at this special session. 
 
 Senator Baker, of Oregon, was making a brilliant and 
 impassioned reply to a speech of Breckenridge, in which 
 he denounced the Kentucky senator, for giving aid and 
 encouragement to the enemy, by his speeches. At length 
 he paused, and, turning toward Breckenridge, and fixing his 
 eye upon him, he asked, "What would have been thought 
 if, after the battle of Cannae, a Roman senator had risen, 
 amidst the conscript Fathers, and denounced the war, and 
 opposed all measures for its success." 
 
 Baker paused, and every eye in the Senate, and in the 
 crowded galleries was fixed- upon the almost solitary sena- 
 tor from Kentucky. Fessenden broke the painful silence, 
 by exclaiming, in low deep tones, which gave expression 
 to the thrill of indignation, which ran through the hall, 
 ■"He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock." 
 
 Congress manifested its sense of the grg.vity of the 
 situation by authorizing a loan of -two hundred and fifty 
 millions of dollars, and empowering the President to call 
 into the field five hundred thousand men, and as many 
 more 'as he might deem necessary. 
 
 SURRENDER OF MASON AND SLIDELL. 
 
 No act of. the British Government, since the "stamp 
 act" of the Revolution, has ever excited such intense feel- 
 ing of hostility toward Great Britain,' as her haughty 
 demand for the surrender of Mason and Slidell. It 
 required nerve, in the President, to stem the storm of 
 popular feeling, and yield to that demand, and it was, for 
 a time, the most unpopular act of his administration. 
 But when the excitement of the day had passed, it was 
 approved by the sober judgment of the Nation. 
 
 Prince Albert is kindly and gratefully remembered in 
 America, where it is believed that his action, in modify- 
 ing the terms of that demand, probably saved the United 
 States and Great Britain from the horrors of war. 
 
 13 
 
1 82 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 LINCOLN AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 
 
 When in June, 1858, at his home, in Springfield, Mr. 
 Lincoln startled the people with the declaration, "This 
 government can not endure, permanently, half slave and 
 half free," and when, at the close of his speech, to those 
 who were laboring for the ultimate extinction of slavery, 
 he exclaimed, with the voice of a prophet, "We shall not 
 fail, if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise councils may 
 accelerate, or mistakes delay, but sooner or later the vic- 
 tory is sure to come;" he anticipated success, through 
 years of discussion, and final triumph through peaceful 
 and constitutional means by the "ballot. He did not for- 
 see, nor even dream (unless in those dim mysterious 
 shadows, which sometimes startle by half revealing the 
 future), his own elevation to the presidency. He did not 
 then suspect that he had been appointed by God, and 
 should be chosen by the people, to proclaim the emanci- 
 pation of a race, and to save his country. He did not for- 
 see that slavery was so soon to be destroyed, amidst the 
 flames of war which itself kindled. 
 
 HIS MODERATION. 
 
 He entered upon his administration with the single pur- 
 ■ pose of maintaining national unity, and many reproached 
 and denounced him for the slowness of his anti-slavery 
 measures. The first of the series was the abolition of slav- 
 ery at the National Capitol. This act gave freedom 'to 
 three thousand slaves, with compensation to their loyal 
 masters. Contemporanious with this was an act confer- 
 ring freedom upon all colored soldiers who should" serve 
 in the Union armies and upon their families. The next 
 was an act, which I had the honor to introduce, pro- 
 hibiting slavery in all the territories, and wherever the 
 National Government had jurisdiction. But the great, the 
 decisive act of his administration, was the "Emancipation 
 Proclamation." 
 
 EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 
 The President had urged, with the utmost earnestness, 
 on the loyal slave-holders, of the Border States, gradual 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 83 
 
 and compensated emancipation, but in vain. He clearly 
 .saw, all saw, that the slaves, as used by the confederates, 
 were a vast power, contributing immensely to their ability 
 to carry on the war, and, that by declaring their freedom, 
 he would convert millions of freedmen into active friends 
 and allies of the Union. The people knew that he was 
 deliberating upon the question of issuing this Emancipa- 
 tion Proclamation. At this crisis, the Union men of the 
 Border States made an appeal to him to withhold the 
 edict, and suffer slavery to survive. 
 
 They selected John J. Crittenden, a venerable and elo- 
 quent man, and their ablest statesman, to make, on the 
 floor of Congress, a public appeal to the President, to 
 withhold the proclamation. Mr. Crittenden had been 
 governor of Kentucky, her senator in Congress, attorney- 
 general of the United States, and now, in his old age, 
 covered with honors, he accepted, like John Quincy Adams, 
 a seat in Congres.s, that in this crisis he might help to 
 save his country. 
 
 He was a sincere Union man, but believed it unwise to 
 disturb slavery. In his speech, he made a most eloquent 
 and touching appeal, from a Kentuckian to a Kentuckian. 
 He said, among other things, "There is a niche, near to 
 that of Washington, to him who shall save his country. 
 If Mr. Lincoln will step into that niche, the founder and 
 the preserver of the Republic shall stand side by side." 
 * * Owen Lovejoy, the brother of Elijah P. Love- 
 joy, who had been mobbed and murdered, because he 
 would not surrender the liberty of the press, replied to 
 Crittenden. After his brother's murder, kneeling upon the 
 green sod which covered that brother's grave, he had taken 
 a solemn vow, of eternal war upon slavery. Ever after, 
 like Peter the Hermit, with a heart of fire and a tongue of 
 lightning, he had gone forth, preaching his crusade 
 against slavery. At length, in his reply, turning to Crit- 
 tenden, he said, "The gentleman, from Kentucky, says he 
 has a niche for Abraham Lincoln, where is it.'" 
 
 Crittenden pointed toward Heaven. 
 
 Lovejoy continuing said, "He. points upward, but, sir! 
 if the President follows the counsel of that gentleman, 
 and becomes the perpetuator of slavery,, he should point 
 
1 84 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 downward, to some dungeon in the temple of Moloch, 
 who feeds on human blood, and where are forged chains 
 for human limbs ; in the recesses of whose temple woman 
 is scourged and man tortured, and outside the walls are 
 lying dogs, gorged with human flesh, as Byron describes 
 them, lying around the walls of Stambool." "That," said 
 Lovejoy, "is a suitable place for the statue of him who 
 would perpetuate slavery." 
 
 "I, too," said he, "have a temple for Abraham Lincoln, 
 but it is in freedom's holy fane, * * not sur- 
 rounded by slave fetters and chains, but with the symbols 
 of freedom — not dark with bondage, but radiant with the 
 light of liberty. In that niche he shall stand proudly, 
 nobly, gloriously, with broken chains and slave's whips 
 beneath his feet. * * That is a fame worth liv- 
 ing for, aye, more, it is a fame worth dying for, though 
 that death led through Gethsemene and. the agony of the 
 accursed tree." * * * 
 
 "It is said," continued he, "that Wilberforce went up to 
 the judgment seat with the broken chains of eight hun- 
 dred thousand slaves! Let Lincoln make himself the 
 Liberator, and his name shall be enrolled, not only in this 
 earthly temple, but it shall be traced on the living stones 
 of that temple which is reared amid the thrones of 
 Heaven." 
 
 Lovejoy's prophecy has been fulfilled — in this world — 
 you see the statues to Lincoln, with broken chains at his 
 feet, rising all over the world, and — in that other world — 
 few will doubt that the prophecy has been realized. 
 
 In September, 1862, after the Confederates, by their 
 defeat at the great battle of Antietam, had been driven 
 back from Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lincoln issued the 
 Proclamation. It is a fact, illustrating his character, and 
 showing that there was in him what many would call a 
 tinge of superstition, that he declared, to Secretary Chase, 
 that he had made a solemn vow to God, saying, "if Gen- 
 eral Lee is driven back from Pennsylvania, I will crown 
 the result with the declaration of Freedom to THE 
 Slave." The final Proclamation was issued on the first 
 of January, 1863. In obedience to an American custom 
 he had been receivmg calls on that New-Year's-day and 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 185 
 
 for hours, shaking hands. As the paper was brought to 
 him by the Secretary of State, to be signed, he said, 
 "Mr. Seward, I have been shaking hands all day, and my 
 right hand is almost paralyzed. If my name ever gets 
 into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in 
 it. If my hand trembles when I sign the proclamation, 
 those who examine the document hereafter, will say, "he 
 hesitated." 
 
 Then, resting his arm a moment, he turned to the table, 
 took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote Abraham 
 Lincoln. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr, Seward, 
 he said, "that will do." 
 
 From this day, to its final triumph, the tide of victory 
 seemed to set more and more in favor of the Union cause. 
 The capture of Vicksburg, the victory of Gettysburg, 
 Chattanooga, Chicamauga, Lookout-Mountain, Missionary 
 Ridge, Sheridan's, brilliant campaign in the Valley of the 
 Shenandoah; Thomas' decisive victory at Nashville; Sher- 
 man's march, through the Confederacy, to the sea; the 
 capture of. Fort. McAllister; the sinking of the Alabama; 
 the taking of Mobile, by Farragut; the occupation of Col- 
 umbus, Charlestown, Savannah; the evacuation of Peters- 
 burg and Richmond; the surrender of Lee to Grant; the 
 taking of Jefferson Davis a prisoner; the triumph every- 
 where of the National Arms ; such were the events which 
 followed (though with delays and bloodshed) the "Procla- 
 mation of Emancipation." 
 
 THE AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Meanwhile Lincoln had been triumphantly reelected. 
 Congress had, as before stated, abolished slavery at the 
 Capital, prohibited it in all the territories, declared all 
 negro soldiers in the Union armies, and their families free, 
 and had repealed all laws which sanctioned or recognized 
 slavery, and the President had crowned and consummated 
 all, by the proclamation of emancipation. One thing 
 alone remained to perfect, confirm, and make everlastingly 
 permanent these measures, and this was to embody in the 
 Constitution itself, the prohibition of slavery everywhere 
 within the Republic. 
 
 To change the organic law, required the adoption by a 
 
186 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 two-thirds' vote of a joint resolution, by Congress, and that 
 this should be submitted to, and ratified by two-thirds of 
 the States. 
 
 The President, in his annual message and in personal 
 interviews with members of Congress, urged the passage 
 of such resolution. To test the strength of the measure, 
 in the House of Representatives, I had the honor, in Feb- 
 ruary, 1864, to introduce the following resolution: 
 
 "Resolved, That the Constitution should be so amended 
 as to abolish slavery in the United States wherever it now 
 «xists, and to prohibit its existence in every part thereof 
 forever" (Cong. Globe, vol. 50, p. 659). This was adopted, 
 by a decided vote, and was the first resolution ever passed 
 by Congress in favor of the entire abolition of slavery. 
 But, although it received a majority, it did not receive a 
 majority of two-thirds. 
 
 The debates on the Constitutional Amendment (perhaps 
 the greatest in our Congressional history, certainly the 
 most important since the adoption of the Constitution) ran 
 through two sessions of Congress. Charles Sumner, the 
 learned senator from Massachusetts, brought to the dis- 
 cussion, in the Senate, his ample stores of historical illus- 
 tration, quoting largely in its favor from the historians, 
 poets, and statesmen of the past. 
 
 The resolution was adopted in the Senate by the large 
 vote of ayes, 38, noes, 6. 
 
 In the lower House, at the first session, it failed to 
 obtain a two-thirds' vote, and, on a motion to reconsider, 
 went over to the next session. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln again earnestly urged its adoption, and, in 
 a letter to Illinois friends, he said, "The signs look better. 
 * * Peace does not look so distant as it did. I 
 hope it will come soon, and come to stay, and so come as 
 to be worth keeping in all future time." 
 
 I recall, very vividly, my New -Year's -call upon the 
 President, January, 1864. I said: 
 
 "I hope, Mr. President, one year from to-day I may 
 have the pleasure of congratulating you on the occur- 
 rence of three events which now seem probable." 
 
 "What are they.'" inquired he. 
 
 "I. That the rebellion may be entirely crushed. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 8/ 
 
 "2. That the Constitutional Amendment, abolishing And 
 prohibiting slavery, may have been adopted. 
 
 "3. And that Abraham Lincoln may have been re- 
 elected President." 
 
 "I think," replied he, with a smile, "I would be glad to 
 accept the first two as a compromise." 
 
 General Grant, in a letter, remarkable for that clear 
 good-sense and practical judgment for which he is distin- 
 guished, condensed into a single sentence the political 
 argument in favor of the Constitutional Amendment, "The 
 North and South," said he, "can never live at peace with 
 each other except as o}te nation and that without slavery!' 
 
 GARFIELD'S SPEECH. 
 
 I would be glad to quote from this great debate, but 
 must confine myself to a brief extract from the speech 
 of the present President, then a member of the House. 
 He began by saying, "Mr. Speaker, we shall never know 
 why slavery dies so hard in this Republic, and in this 
 Hall, until we know why sin outlives disaster and Satan 
 is immortal." * * "How well do I remember," 
 he continued, "the history of that distinguished predeces- 
 sor of mine, Joshua R. Giddings, lately gone to his rest, 
 who, with his forlorn hope of faithful men, took his life 
 in his hands and, in the name of justice, protested against 
 the great crime, and who stood bravely in his place until 
 his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, 
 marked where the battle of freedom raged fiercest." * 
 * "In its mad arrogance, slavery lifted its hand against 
 the Union, and since that fatal day it has been a. fugi- 
 tive and a vagabond upon the earth." 
 
 Up to the last roll-call, on the question of the passage 
 of the resolution, we were uncertain and anxious about 
 the result. We needed Democratic votes. We knew we 
 should get some, but whether enough to carry the meas- 
 ure none could surely tell. 
 
 As the clerk called the names of members, so perfect 
 was the silence that the sound of a hundred pencils keep- 
 ing tally could be heard through the Hall. 
 
 Finally, when the call was completed, and the speaker 
 announced that the resolution was adopted, the result was 
 
1 88 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 received by an uncontrollable burst of enthusiasm. Mem- 
 bers and spectators (especially the galleries, which were 
 crowded with convalescent soldiers) shouted and cheered, 
 and, before the speaker could obtain quiet, the roar of 
 artillery on Capitol Hill proclaimed to the City of Wash- 
 ington, the passage of the resolution. Congress adjourned,, 
 and we hastened to the White House to congratulate the 
 President on the event. 
 
 He made one of his happiest speeches. In his own, 
 peculiar words, he s^a^," The great job is finished:' "I 
 can not but congratulate," said he, "all present, myself, 
 the country, and the whole world on this great moral 
 victor}.'." 
 
 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 And now, with an attempt to sketch very briefly some 
 of his peculiar personal characteristics, I must close. 
 
 This great Hercules of a man had a heart as kind and 
 tender as a woman. Sterner men thought it a weak- 
 ness. It saddened him to see others suffer, and he shrunk 
 from inflicting pain. Let me illustrate his kindness and 
 tenderness by one or two incidents. One summer's day, 
 walking along the shaded path leading from the Execu- 
 tive-mansion to the War-office, I saw the tall awkward 
 form of the President seated on the grass under a tree. 
 A wounded soldier, seeking back-pay and a pension, had 
 met the President, and, having recognized him", asked his 
 counsel. Lincoln sat down, examined the papers of the 
 soldier, and told him what to do, sent him to the proper 
 Bureau with a note, which secured prompt attention. 
 
 After the terribly destructive battles between Grant and 
 Lee, in the Wilderness of Virginia,' after days of dreadful 
 slaughter, the lines of ambulances, conveying the wounded 
 from the steamers on the Potomac to the great field 
 hospitals on the heights around Washington, would be 
 continuous, — one unbroken line from the wharf to the 
 hospital. At such a time, I have seen the President, in 
 his carriage, driving slowly along the line, and he looked 
 like one who had lost the dearest members of his own 
 family. On one such occasion, meeting me, he stopped 
 and said, "I can not bear this; this suffering, this loss of 
 life — is dreadful." 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 89 
 
 I recalled to him a line from a letter he had years 
 before written to a friend, whose great sorrow he had 
 sought to console. Reminding him of the incident, I 
 asked him, "Do you remember writing to your suffering 
 friend these words: 
 
 "And this too shall pass away. 
 Never fear. Victory zvill comer 
 
 In all his State papers and speeches during these years 
 of strife and passion, there can. be found no words of 
 bitterness, no denunciation. When others railed, he railed 
 not again. He was always dignified,, magnanimous, 
 patient, considerate, manly, and true. His duty was ever 
 performed "with malice toward none, with charity for 
 all," and with "firmness in the right as God gives us to 
 see the right." 
 
 NEVER A DEMAGOGUE. 
 
 Lincoln was never a demagogue. He respected and 
 loved the people, but never flattered them. No man ever 
 heard him allude to his humble life and manual labor, 
 in a way to obtain votes. None knew better than he, 
 that splitting rails did not qualify a man for public duties. 
 He realized painfully the defects of his education, and 
 labored diligently and successfully to supply his defi- 
 ciencies. 
 
 HIS CONVERSATION. 
 
 He had no equal as a talker in social life. His con- 
 versation was fascinating and attractive. He was full of 
 wit, humor, and anecdote, and, at the same time, original, 
 suggestive, and instructive. There was in his character a 
 singular mingling of nftthfulness and melancholy. While 
 his sense of the ludicrous was keen, and his fun and mirth 
 were exuberent, and sometimes almost irrepressible; his 
 conversation sparkling with jest, story, and anecdote and 
 in droll description, he would pass suddenly to another 
 mood, and become sad and pathetic — a melancholy ex- 
 pression of his homely face would show that he was " a 
 man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" 
 
igo EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 HIS STORIES. 
 
 The newspapers, in America, have always been full of 
 Lincoln's stories and anecdotes, some true and many fabu- 
 lous. 
 
 He always had a story ready, and, if not, he could 
 improvise one, just fitted -for the occasion. The follow- 
 ing may, I think, be said to have been adapted: 
 
 An Atlantic port, in one of the British provinces, was, 
 during the war, a great resort and refuge for blockade- 
 runners, and a large contraband trade was said to have 
 been carried on from that port with the Confederates. 
 Late in the summer of 1864, while the election of presi- 
 dent was pending, Lincoln being a candidate, the Gov- 
 ernor-General of that province, with some of the principal 
 officers, visited Washington, and called to pay their 
 respects to the executive. Mr. Lincoln had been very 
 much annoyed by the failure of these officials to enforce, 
 very strictly, the rules of neutrality, but he treated his 
 guests with great courtesy. After a pleasant interview, 
 the Governor, alluding to the approaching presidential 
 election, said, jokingly, but with a grain of sarcasm, "I 
 understand, Mr. President, everybody votes in this coun- 
 try. If we remain until November can we vote.'" 
 
 "You remind me," replied the President, "of a country- 
 man of yours, a green emigrant frorn Ireland. Pat arrived 
 in New York on election day, and was, perhaps, as eager 
 as Your Excellency, to vote, and to vote early and late 
 and often. So, upon his landing at Castle Garden, he 
 hastened to the nearest voting place, and, as he ap- 
 proached, the judge, who received the ballots, inquired, 
 'who do you want to vote for.? oil which side are you.'' 
 Poor Pat was embarrassed, he did not know who were the 
 candidates. He stopped, scratched his head, then, with 
 the readiness of his countrymen, he said: 
 
 "'I am foment the Government, anyhow. Tell me, if 
 your Honor plases, which is the rebellion side, and I'll tell 
 you how I want to vote. In Ould Ireland, I was always 
 on the rebellion side, and, by Saint Patrick, I'll stick to 
 that same in America.' 
 
 "Your Excellency," said Mr. Lincoln, "would, I should 
 think, not be at all at a loss on which side to vote.'"" 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19I 
 
 THE BOOKS HE READ. 
 
 The two books he read most were the Bible and Shake- 
 speare. With them he was familiar, reading and quoting 
 from them constantly. Next to Shakespeare, among the 
 poets, was Burns, with whom he had a hearty sympathy, 
 and upon whose poetry he -wrote a lecture. He was 
 extremely fond of ballads, and of simple, sad, and plain- 
 tive music. 
 
 I called one day at the White House, to introduce two 
 officers of the Union army, both Swedes. Immediately 
 he began and- repeated from memory, to the delight of 
 his visitors, a long ballad, descriptive of Norwegian sce- 
 nery, a Norse legend, and the adventures of an old Viking 
 among the fiords of the North. 
 
 He said he had read the poem in a newspaper, and the 
 visit of these Swedes recalled it to his memory. 
 
 On the last Sunday of his life, as he was sailing up the 
 Potomac, returning to Washington from his visit to Rich- 
 mond, he read aloud many extracts from Macbeth, and, 
 among others, the following, and with a tone and accent 
 so impressive that, after his death, it was vividly recalled 
 by those who heard him: 
 
 "Duncan is in his grave; 
 After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; 
 Treason has done his vyorst: nor steel, nor poison, 
 Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 
 Can touch him further!" 
 
 After his assassination, those friends could not fail to 
 recall this passage from the same play. 
 
 "This Duncan 
 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
 So clear in his gfeat office, that his virtues 
 Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against 
 The deep damnation of his taking-off." 
 
 HIS RELIGION. 
 
 It is strange that any reader of Lincoln's speeches and 
 writings, should have had the hardihood to charge him 
 with infidelity, but the charge, having been repeatedly 
 made, I reply, in the light of facts accessible to all, that 
 no more reverent christian (not excepting Washington) 
 
192 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 ever filled the chair of President. Declarations of his 
 trust in God, his faith in the efficacy of prayer, pervade 
 his speeches and writings. From the time he left Spring- 
 field, to his death, he not only himself continuedly prayed 
 for Divine assistance, but never failed to ask the prayers 
 of others for himself and his country. 
 
 His reply to the negroes of Baltimore, who, in 1864, 
 presented him with a beautiful Bible, as an expression of 
 their love and gratitude, ought to have silenced all who 
 have made such charges.- After thanking them, he said, 
 "This great book is the best gift God has given to man. 
 All the good from the Saviour of the world is communi- 
 cated through this book." 
 
 When a member of Congress, knowing his religious 
 character, asked him "why he did not join some church.'" 
 Mr. Lincoln replied, "Because I found difficulty, without 
 mental reservation, in giving my assent to their long and 
 complicated confessions of faith. When any church will 
 inscribe over its altar the Saviour's condensed statement 
 of law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
 and thy neighbor as thyself,' that church will I join with 
 all my heart." 
 
 WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED. 
 
 Let us try to sum up in part what he accomplished. 
 When he assumed the duties of the executive, he found 
 an empty treasury, the National credit gone, the little 
 nucleus of an army and navy scattered and disarmed, the 
 officers, who had not deserted to the rebels, strangers; the 
 party which elected him in a minority (he having been 
 elected only because his opponents were divided between 
 Douglas, Breckenridge, and Everett), the old Democratic 
 party, which had ruled most of the time for half a century, 
 hostile, and even that part of it in the North, from long 
 association, in sympathy with the insurgents ; his own party 
 made up of discordant elements, and neither he nor his par- 
 ty had acquired prestage and the confidence of the people; 
 It is the exact truth to say that when he entered the 
 White Hotise he was the object of personal prejudice to a 
 majority of the American people, and of contempt to a 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 193 
 
 powerful minority. He entered upon his task of restoring 
 the integrity of a broken Union, without sympathy from 
 any of the great powers of Western Europe. Those which 
 were not hostile, manifested a cold neutrality, exhibiting 
 toward him and his government no cordial good-will, nor 
 extending any moral aid. Yet, in spite of all, he crushed 
 the most stupendous rebellion, supported by armies more 
 vast, by resources greater, and an organization more per- 
 fect, than ever before undertook the dismemberment of a 
 nation. He united and held together, against contending 
 factions, his own party, and strengthened it by securing 
 the confidence and winning the support of the best part of 
 all parties. He composed the quarrels of rival generals; 
 and, at length, won the respect, and confidence, and sym- 
 pathy of all nations and peoples. He was reelected, 
 almost by acclamation, and, after a series of brilliant vic- 
 tories, he annihilated all armed opposition. He led the 
 people, step by step, to emancipation, and saw his work 
 crowned by an amendment of the Constitution, eradicat- 
 ing and prohibiting slavery forever, throughout the Re- 
 public. 
 
 Such is a brief and imperfect summary of his achieve- 
 ments during the last five years of his life. And this 
 good man, when the hour of victory came, made it not the 
 hour of vengeance, but of forgiveness and reconciliation. 
 
 These five years of incessant labor and fearful responsi- 
 bility told even upon his strength an^ vigor. He left 
 Illinois, for the Capital, with a frame of iron and nerves of 
 steel. His old friends who had known him as a man who 
 did not know what illness was; who had seen him on the 
 prairies before the Illinois courts, full of life, genial, and 
 sparkling with fun ; now saw the wrinkles on his forehead 
 deepened into furrows — the laugh of the old days lost its 
 heartiness; anxiety, responsibility, care, and hard work 
 wore upon him, and his nerves of steel, at times, became 
 irritable. He had had no respite, had taken no holidays. 
 When others fled away, from the dust and heat of the 
 Capital, he stayed. He would not leave the helm until 
 all danger was past, and the good ship of state had made 
 her port. 
 
 I will not dwell upon the unutterable sorrow, of the 
 
194 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 American people, at his shocking death. But I desire to 
 express here, in this great City of this grand Empire, the 
 sensibihty with which the people of the United States 
 received, at his death, the sympathy of the English-speak- 
 ing race. • 
 
 That sympathy was most eloquently expressed by all. 
 It came from Windsor Castle to the White House; from 
 England's widowed Queen to the stricken and distracted 
 widow at Washington. From Parliament to Congress, 
 from the people of all this magnificent Empire, as it 
 stretches round the world, from England to India, from 
 Canada to Australia, came words of deep feeling, and they 
 were received by the American people, in their sore 
 bereavement, as the expression of a kindred race. 
 
 I can not forbear referring in particular to the words 
 spoken in Parliament on that occasion, by Lords Russell 
 and Derby, and, especially, by that great and picturesque 
 leader, so lately passed away, Lord Beaconsfield. After a 
 discriminating eulogy upon the late President, and the 
 expression of profound sympathy, he said: 
 
 "Nor is it possible for the people of England, at such a 
 moment, to forget that he sprang from the same father- 
 land and spake the same mother-tongue." 
 
 God grant that, in all the unknown future, nothing may 
 ever disturb the friendly feeling and respect which each 
 nation entertains for the other. May there never be an- 
 other quarrel in the family. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 -Edwardsville, III., Sept. 6, 1881. 
 
 Hon. I. N. Arnold, 
 
 Dear Sir: — I thank you for that 'copy of your admir- 
 able address before the London Historical Society touching 
 our great and good friend Mr. Lincoln; and I doubly thank 
 you for the truthful and attractive manner in which you 
 presented his life and character in his lowly and higher 
 walks. 
 
 Sometimes I feel that my life has been a mere delusion; 
 that I could have personally known and been on terms of 
 intimacy with one who fills so large a measure of space in 
 the world's estimation appears impossible and unreal. 
 
 I became acquainted with the great commoner in 1832, 
 in the second Blackhawk campaign. He was wrestling at 
 the time with one Dow Thompson, the champion wrestler 
 of Southern Illinois. .Lincoln was Captain of ^a company 
 from Menard County, and was champion of the Northern 
 section. There was hardly any North at that time, in its 
 present acceptation. They were both men of huge pro- 
 portions and Herculean strength. Thompson was six feet 
 high, Lincoln six feet four, and the bystanders concluded 
 that Dow had the advantage in that respect, but Lincoln 
 came out triumphant owing to his greater mental resources. 
 He had more skill than his opponent. 
 
 I have talked with Mr. Lincoln about this incident after 
 he became President, and it amused him exceedingly to 
 
1 94*5 LETTER OF HON. JOSEPH GILLESPIE. 
 
 recall the scenes of his early life in the backwoods. He 
 alluded very kindly to Dow Thompson, and had kept trace 
 of him from St. Clair County, Illinois, to Arkansas. Dow 
 •was a true specimen of the genus Pione.er. His property 
 was all absorbed in paying fines for fighting with the Ger- 
 mans, who began soon after the Blackhawk war to move 
 into St. Clair County, and Dow had to emigrate, and, like 
 most of his class, went to Arkansas where game was more 
 abundant and he could fight in peace "without being 
 troubled with the minions of the law." Dow had no malice 
 in his composition. He seldom fought because he was 
 mad, but just to find out who was the best man; but his 
 curiosity on this head was intense and often gratified. He 
 held Lincoln in high estimation because he was a funny 
 fellow "and much of a man." 
 
 The next I saw of Lincoln was at Vandalia as a Repre- 
 sentative in the Legislature from Sangamon County. He 
 was one of the celebrated "long nine." By this time he 
 had studied law, and was the acknowledged leader of the 
 Whig party in the House, and was always put forth to 
 squelch out some poor wight of a Democrat (who had 
 made himself particularly obnoxious) by one of his inimi- 
 table stories. 
 
 Lincoln and I were born in the same year, of the same 
 political faith and calling, and raised in the same back- 
 woods fashion, and soon became intimate. I ever after- 
 ward followed his lead, and regarded him as a rough dia- 
 mond of the purest water. But, with all my admiration 
 for him, it never entered my head that he had those 
 supreme qualities that are essential to enable a man to 
 guide the ship of State safely through the storms, among 
 the rocks, and over the quicksands of direful war. 
 
 Events have proven, however, that he had transcendant 
 greatness stored away in the recesses of his nature, quali- 
 
LETTER OF HON. JOSEPH GILLESPIE. 194^ 
 
 ties that would make him equal to the greatest emergen- 
 cies. And now that his fame knows no bounds, that the 
 loftiest intellects and those occupying the highest positions 
 in the world bow in deference to his greatness and his vir- 
 tues, I can hardly realize that it was my lot to have been 
 on terms of personal intimacy with one of his almost super- 
 human endowments. I see him at one view the. rough, 
 awkward, good-natured backwoods boy, delighting his 
 companions with his apt and amusing stories and illustra- 
 tions. Next I see him in the forum convincing the court 
 and entrancing the juries; then I behold him in the halls 
 of legislation and on the busting the peer (I may say the 
 superior) of all his antagonists, but yet he was not beyond 
 rivalry; others were his equals thus far, but his time had 
 not yet come. Now without any adventitious aids he has 
 worked himself into the Presidential chair. He takes the 
 helm of the ship of State in the most turbulent and trying 
 period in the world's history. Will he be equal to this su- 
 preme .occasion .' We doubt, we almost despair. Day by 
 day, however, his powers unfold themselves, and he meets 
 and overcomes every difficulty with transcendant ability- 
 We are beginning to feel that in the ungainly Illinois law- 
 yer we have the right man in the right place. We soon 
 make up our minds that Providence has raised up Abra- 
 ham Lincoln for this special occasion, and we trust with 
 childHke confidence in his wisdom and patriotism. Now 
 he begins to attract the attention and command the admi- 
 ration of all mankind. A CoUosus has risen in the West. 
 Two millions of men have sprung to arms at his bidding. 
 Is he to be a disturber, or has he come for the repose of 
 the nations.? Let us see. He crushes out the Rebellion. 
 He strikes the shackles from the limbs of 4,000,000 slaves. 
 He preaches good-will to all men, even those who had been 
 striving to destroy this blest Government. He has demon- 
 
194^ LETTER OF HON. JOSEPH GILLESPIE. 
 
 strated that ours is not only the best, but the strongest 
 Government in the world. At this juncture he is stricken 
 by the hand of the assassin, while in the full blaze of his 
 glory, when the whole earth was filled with his praises and 
 deep regret at his death. 
 
 No impartial man has ever imputed to Abraham Lincoln 
 an error of judgment or an unworthy intent. I claim my 
 share of the credit of belonging to a -race and a nation that 
 is capable of producing so great and so good a man. I 
 was proud to see that Englishmen could appreciate his 
 abilities and his worth. None but the Anglo-Saxon blood 
 could unite such greatness with such moderation. I delight 
 in the admiration of England, and am vexed when she acts 
 in a spirit of hostility toward us. I was for war with her 
 on account of the Trent affair; but still I like her with all 
 her faults. She has so many of the noblest of God's crea- 
 tion in her midst. Her John Bright, and her Goldwin 
 Smith, and that sort of men prevented our swearing eternal 
 hostility to our old mother. 
 
 I again thank you for giving our cousins a just and truth- 
 ful view of our model man and President. Write at your 
 earliest convenience. It always affords me pleasure to 
 hear from you. I am your old friend, 
 
 J. GILLESPIE. 
 
STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS. 
 
 • By JAMES W. SHEAHAN, ESQ. 
 
 A Paper read before the Chicago University, Bryan Hall, July 3, i86i. 
 
 At a meeting of the Trustees and Regents of the Chicago University, 
 held June 5> i86i, with other proceedings, touching the death of the Hon. 
 S. A. Douglas, it was ordered that at the annual commencement exercises on 
 the 3d of July, there be an oration upon the illustrious Statesman, and Presi- 
 dent of the Board of Trustees. The Hon. Samuel H. Treat, Judge of the 
 United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, was ap- 
 poiuted'orator for the occasion. Subsequently, on the 30th June, Judge Treat 
 informed the committee of" his inability to be present. In the meantime, 
 committees of the Common Council, and of the Douglas Club having been 
 similarly disappointed in the persons chosen by them to deliver a like oration, 
 proposed to Mr. Sheahan to deliver the address, and for that purpose united 
 with the committee on the part of the University, and agreed to have but one 
 address, to be delivered at the commencement exercises. Extracts from this 
 address are given in this publication. 
 
 When the traveler hears, in his old age and retirement, 
 the name of some distant city, village, or land which had 
 been familiar to him in his journeys, how his eyes will 
 brighten, and the blood course more warmly through his 
 heart, as that name recalls scenes of love, of peril, of 
 pleasure, or of storm. And to you, gentlemen, who were 
 his political friends, and you who served with hum in the 
 establishment and conduct of this University, "Tnd to us 
 all of Chicago, and of Illinois, will not, until the latest 
 days of our lives, the name of Stephen Arnold Douglas 
 carry back memories to days when he stood a tower of 
 ■ strength in the national edifice, and we found happiness 
 and honor in resting at his feet.' 
 
 And now, what shall I say of him .? What shall I say 
 of him whose name and achievements are familiar to us 
 all.' Shall I say to you that he was intellectually great.' 
 That fact is recorded in enduring characters upon the his- 
 tory of his country — characters carved by himself mid the 
 
196 '■ EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 Storms of controversy, the heat of popular anger, the 
 tumult of popular passion, as well as in the hours of na- 
 tional peace. Stephen A. Douglas was a man not only_ 
 intellectually great, but gifted with a mind that was extra- 
 ordinarily active. Trace him from the day, when having 
 mastered his letters at his mother's knee, he was sent with 
 his sister to the village school, down to the last moment 
 before death stilled forever the massive, active brain, and 
 you find that the mind of Douglas not only took in the 
 present in its comprehensive grasp, but also and always, 
 sought to penetrate that future, in which for the honor and 
 glory of his country, he hoped and determined to bear an 
 active and honorable part. He was rarely, if ever, merely 
 quiescent. He rarely, if ever, gave a partial, cold or a 
 careless support to any measure of public policy; he was 
 either the firm and persevering and ardent advocate, or he 
 was the firm and persevering and ardent opponent. His 
 mind was so constituted, that even when surrounded by 
 counsellors and friends urging him to a policy that would 
 result in his own personal advancement, he could not 
 govern his acts, control his speech, or regulate his move- 
 ments by any thought of personal advantage; and hence 
 it was that there was forever coming up from the lips of 
 professional politicians the complaint that just as every- 
 thing had been fixed, and every plan and preparation made, 
 for his elevation, Douglas would, by some speech, letter, or 
 act blow their whole scheme to atoms, and dissipate all 
 their hopes of ever reaching power and place through his 
 statesmanship. If there be any present who ever partici- 
 pated in narty struggles with him, they will, I am sure, 
 verify the truth of what I have said. He was forever 
 knocking over the paper houses and pasteboard castles 
 which the professional politicians of his party were erect- 
 ing for his benefit; and he did so because his mind was of 
 that practical nature which rejected everything and all 
 things that would not survive the severe test and crushing 
 pressure of fixed and imperative principle. 
 
 He was remarkable for the almost instantaneous judg- 
 ments he formed and expressed upon all propositions; he 
 never wavered; he rarely doubted; and never changed his 
 conviction. This peculiarity has been the subject of com-- 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 197 
 
 plaint from friend, and has served to poison many a shaft 
 from an adversary's bow. PoHtical friends, whose notion 
 of poHtical navigation is to keep forever in smooth water, 
 and never go out of sight of land, always considered 
 Douglas an unsafe leader, because, instead of looking at 
 new questions, with the view of taking such course as 
 would avoid a storm, and keep the cargo of spoils safely 
 stowed, he would promptly decide the matter upoi^ ifs' 
 merits, and calling on all who dare defend the right, boldly 
 launch out to meet the gale, and battle with its conse- 
 quences. 
 
 And why, fellow-citizens, did Mr. Douglas act thus.'' I 
 say that it was because he had the most unbounded confi- 
 dence in the people. He believed, and the conviction had 
 become part of his nature, that the popular heart was 
 honest, that the popular, mind was intelligent, and that 
 time and reason would inevitably bring an honest and 
 intelligent people to an appreciation of the right; and that 
 a people thus led to appreciate and approve, would in the 
 end prove far more reliable citizens, and a surer bulwark 
 for the Union than a people cajoled by sophistry into a 
 hasty endorsement of a policy, which, not having been 
 examined and adopted by reason, might, at any moment 
 of popular excitement be as hastily abandoned. 
 
 The great secret, or, the great means which enabled him 
 to decide with such apparent rapidity and accuracy, upon 
 all points of national politics, consisted in nothing more 
 nor less than that he tried all such questions by certain 
 principles. As parallel lines must be equally distant from 
 each other at all points, and can not be parallel if other- 
 wise, so if any measure, or policy, or doctrine deviated even 
 to a hair's-breadth from the iron rule by which he marked 
 the line of duty and of patriotism, then, to the extent of 
 that deviation, be it great or small, that measure, or policy, 
 or doctrine, in his judgment, was wrong. But do not let 
 . me be understood as saying that his judgments were after 
 the Procrustean style. He did not say a thing should be 
 so short or so long, so broad and so narrow; but he said the 
 north star indicated the true pole, and that that compass 
 that turned to the right or to the left, and pointed else- 
 where than to the starry beacon, fixed from all time by 
 14 
 
1 98 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 God's own unerring hand, was a false compass, and, to- 
 gether with the pilot who persisted in its use, ought to be 
 thrown overboard, and sunk into the sea. 
 
 It has been popular at times, with the enemies of Mr. 
 Douglas, to charge him with truckling to the slave interest. 
 Never, never, was there greater injustice. I speak of this 
 not to vindicate his party fidelity, nor his patriotism, but 
 to vindicate from an ungenerous aspersion, his powerful 
 intellect. He truckle to any one! He stoop, and be 
 mean and sordid! It was impossible for him to do so. 
 He despised and held in utter abhorrence that system of 
 political bondage which held free-born men of intelligence 
 as servitors at the stirrup of those who claim by prescrip- 
 tion the privilege of riding rough -shod over all who 
 thronged the high-road of life. He was a FREEMAN in 
 the fullest sense of the term. He resisted the aggressive 
 claims of slavery, and with equal power the aggressive 
 aims of the abolitionists. He could not unite with either 
 wholly, because he held both to be wrong. He stood man- 
 fully beside slavery when slavery claimed what the Con- 
 stitution granted it; he stood as manfully with the abo- 
 litionists in resisting slavery when it demanded more than 
 the Constitution granted. But he would stand by neither 
 slavery nor abolitionism when they sought to go beyond 
 the Constitution. Had slavery been content with what 
 the Constitution granted it, it would have been an easy 
 task to crush out abolitionism. Had abolitionism sought 
 only to confine slavery by the limits of the Constitution, 
 it would have been as easy to crush out the wild advocates 
 of extra Constitutional privileges. . Mr. Douglas labored to 
 bring either of these adverse factions to a Constitutional 
 theory and practice, and would have succeeded, had he not 
 been betrayed, even in the hour of success, by men who 
 were ready to sacrifice themselves and country for the 
 wretched satisfaction of ruining him. 
 
 Mr. Douglas never, I say it confidently, yielded one iota 
 of principle to slavery. His intellect forbade it. His 
 whole political system was like a delicately constructed 
 apparatus, in which the motive power, as well as mechani- 
 cal agents, were principles so intimately connected and 
 harmoniously arranged, that were he to withdraw a single 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 199 
 
 Spring, or pivot, or wheel, or other part, no matter how 
 minute, the whole fabric would fall to pieces, a total wreck 
 and ruin. He took pride in being the architect of his own 
 fame — a fame gained in spite of opposition, and those who 
 knew him intimately know that there was always a greater 
 probability of his seeking and provoking hostility than 
 truckling or yielding to avoid it. He was brave'; he was 
 confident; he knew the power of his own great intellect; 
 and it is unnatural to suppose that he would stoop when 
 he might command. 
 
 Mr. Douglas was a Patriot, and his patriotism, his devo- 
 tion to the flag, and honor and integrity of the Union, did 
 not date their birth with the commencement of the pres- 
 ent war. There have been other wars,- and other occasions, 
 when there was need of strong arms in the field, and stout 
 hearts and eloquent words in council. Mr. Douglas, the 
 moment this war commenced, promptly visited the Presi- 
 dent, tendering him all the aid he could render, — not 
 seeking, like others, to be made a brigadier in a service of 
 which he knew nothing — but tendering him for the sup- 
 port of the Constitution and the laws, a power in the 
 nation which no one save himself could successfully wield. 
 In this we have another -instance of Mr. Douglas' prompt- 
 ness in decision. We all know how hostile a large body 
 of our own people were to the war; we all- know that had 
 Stephen A. Douglas hesitated; had he played false to 
 himself and his country; had he called on the disloyal and 
 disaffected to resist the war, the campaign would have 
 commenced not on the banks of the Potomac, but on the 
 shores of Lake Michigan. In this case, as in all others, 
 "his conduct was governed by principle ; that principle he 
 had expressed in these bold and emphatic words: "Pa- 
 triotism emanates from the heart; it fills the soul; inspires 
 the whole man with a devotion to his country's cause; and _ 
 speaks and acts in the same language. The Union wants 
 no friends, acknowledges the fidelity of no citizen who, 
 after war is declared, condemns the justice of her cause 
 and sympathizes with her enemies. All such are traitors 
 in their hearts, and it only remains for them to commit 
 some overt act, for which they may be dealt with accord- 
 ing to their deserts." 
 
200 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 When were these memorable words uttered? Were they 
 spoken when Sumter was sustaining the fiery cannonade? 
 Were they uttered when hostile legions were investing 
 Pickens? When traitorous Twiggs was giving up the 
 country's arms and munitions to the traitors in Texas? 
 Was it when preparations were maturing for the capture 
 of the federal city? Not so, fellow-citizens! Stephen A. 
 Douglas had not lived to the mature age of forty-eight to 
 have his tongue touched for the first time with thefire of 
 patriotism. He was a patriot in 1861, but he had been as 
 patriotic before that period. The words I have quoted 
 were uttered when the brave and gallant old veteran Tay- 
 lor occupied the east bank of the Rio Grande, and a 
 miserable faction in Congress were disputing, as another 
 miserable faction is now disputing in Congress,* over the 
 point whether the President of the United States had not 
 exceeded his constitutional authority in defending the soil 
 and government from invasion. If the words I have read 
 are just and patriotic to-day, and who will say they are 
 not? they were as just and patriotic fifteen years ago; and 
 being just and patriotic then, he did not hesitate to utter 
 them then, but left to craven time-servers and sycophantic 
 demagogues the privilege of waiting until 1861 to say it 
 was treason to give aid or comfort, material or moral, to 
 the enemies of their country's flag. 
 
 I have spoken of his confidence in the honesty and in- 
 telligence of the people. This was the grand foundation 
 of all his plans and policies. He proposed nothing, sug- 
 gested nothing, planned nothing that did not have as the 
 foundation the honest will of the people. Take up all the 
 schemes that he may have framed, examine them closely, 
 notice the varied styles and purposes of the superstruct- 
 ures, and then you will find that each and all of them rest, 
 or were intended to rest, upon the virtuous intelligence of 
 his countrymen. He never, even in the darkest hours of 
 popular hostility, never despaired of the people. He never 
 complained of them, but the records of the country con- 
 tain many an expression of his estimate of the demagogues 
 who ride upon every storm, not caring into what folly or 
 
 * This Oration was, by invitation, repeated July i8th, in Ctiicago, for the 
 benefit of llie "Douglas Fund." 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 20I 
 
 confusion it may carry tiie country. His devotion to pop- 
 ular interests was tinged with no demagogism. He was 
 oftener in conflict with the leaders and fomenters of 
 popular violence and passion than at peace with them. 
 He claimed to be one of the people; he laid no claim to 
 distinction from ancestry; he preferred to be an honor to 
 his name than to receive honor from it. He had known 
 poverty and humiliation; he had known what it was to 
 want for bread, and not to have the means to procure it. 
 He had known and seen, when struggling in obscurity, the 
 artifices and wickedness of those who abuse the confidence 
 of the unsuspecting populace. His sympathies eind feel- 
 ings were all with the mass of his countrymen, and to 
 their service did he devote his life. He never feared a 
 political result, if the popular decision was postponed to 
 a time which admitted of reaching them by argument and 
 reason. He never was defeated by popular will. The 
 election of last year was no criterion of Mr. Douglas' 
 popular strength. Had there been any hope of his elec- 
 tion; had the country not been divided by sectional strife 
 and wicked purposes, there would have been a popular 
 manifestation in his favor such as had never been made in 
 the case of any other American statesman. 
 
 You have heard that in the conduct of military matters 
 the fortunes of a disastrous conflict or campaign are some- 
 times reversed by the indomitable energy and bravery of 
 a forlorn hope — that body of men who are sent out on a 
 desperate enterprise, as a last resort, to overcome, by a 
 bold adventure, the advantages of the enemy. You can 
 well understand the feelings of the brave hearts engaged 
 in this enterprise, as they march upon a mission that is to 
 end in their death and in the defeat of their cause, or in 
 rolling back the tide of defeat that has pursued them. 
 Yet they have hope. The chances may be fearful, but 
 nevertheless, there is hope, and history is filled with in- 
 stances of the successful achievements of a forlorn hope. 
 But in November last, what a spectacle was presented! 
 One million five hundred thousand freemen, with an un- 
 failing constancy, a devotion and a heroic fidelity to their 
 cause, marched up to the polls and voted for Stephen A. 
 Douglas! Their cause was in as desperate a strait as ever 
 
202 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 was that of a defeated army; they knew they were marked 
 men; they were conspicuously adorned for the shots of 
 the enemy, yet they hesitated not, they faltered not, nor 
 were they dismayed. They were forlorn, but they could 
 not call themselves a forlorn hope, for they had no hope; 
 all was lost, all was gone. An active enemy in front, a 
 base and treacherous foe in the rear; nevertheless, with 
 bayonets fixed, shoulder to shoulder, and with locked step, 
 in solid column, and with rapid stride, they marched boldly 
 to the last encounter! That was devotion to be proud of, 
 and the noble leader, whose courage had led him personally 
 into the very recesses of the enemy's camp, felt prouder 
 of these million and half of unbought votes, given for him 
 by men who knew he had not and would not have offices 
 or rewards to bestow, than if he had been elected by the 
 exertions of those who were confident of favors from him. 
 Since Clay, no American ever had such hosts of devoted 
 personal friends, ever had such multitudes follow him be- 
 cause they loved him personally. In the consciousness of 
 this popular affection, Mr. Douglas found ample compen- 
 sation for his public labors. And it was his boast and his 
 pride, that he had never, by precept or example, taught 
 any of his countrymen to refuse to honor' and to follow the 
 flag of his country, or to resist, oppose, and defy the laws 
 ' and Constitution of the Union. So strong was this honor- 
 able pride, so ever-present was the gratifying thought, that 
 even in his dying hours, rousing temporarily from the 
 delirium of fever, he gave that memorable message to his 
 children: "Tell THEM TO LovE AND Obey the Con- 
 stitution OF THE United States." 
 
 I have said Mr. Douglas was an American. His Ameri- 
 canism was of a peculiar nature. Long before he entered 
 Congress, during the political controversies of i84i-'42, 
 he laid down as a fact which he hoped to see demonstrated 
 in recorded history, that North America was not too large 
 for this American republic, that the American flag could 
 cover but one nation, and that nation should extend from 
 the extreme north to the lowest waters of the Gulf of 
 Mexico. Twenty years ago, he declared in Congress that 
 there was not room enough on this continent for another 
 government— either republican or monarchical, and at the 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 203 
 
 hour of his death, this nation, with the government in 
 the hands of men who had sneered at his doctrine, and 
 styled his policy as demagogism, was about to try, by the 
 ■ordeal of battle, whether the national ensign could be kept 
 extended over our present existing limits, or a banner with 
 a strange device, planted over half the republic. I can not 
 do bim greater justice than to quote his own clear and 
 forcible language: "It therefore, becomes us to put this 
 nation in a state of defence; and when we are told that 
 this will lead to war, all I have to say is this: violate no 
 treaty stipulations, nor any principle of the law of nations; 
 preserve the national honor and integrity of the country; 
 but, at the same time, assert our right to the last inch, and 
 then, if war comes, let it come. We may regret the neces- 
 sity which produced it, but when it does come, I would 
 administer to our citizens Hannibal's oath of eternal en- 
 mity, and not terminate it until the question was settled 
 forever." That was his language twenty years ago, and 
 yet there are those who affect to believe that Stephen A. 
 Douglas did not become a patriot until after he had lost 
 all hope of Southern support. It is true that this was said 
 respecting anticipated trouble with a foreign foe, but the 
 language is perfectly applicable to a domestic enemy. He. 
 had more respect for, and could recognize and admit a 
 degree of honor on the part of a foreign enemy, that he 
 could not concede to a domestic one. His memorable 
 words — that in civil war there can be no neutrals — we 
 must be patriots or traitors — will serve to show his esti- 
 mate of those who dare to violate the Constitution of the 
 United States. 
 
 But that was not all he said. In almost prophetic lan- 
 guage, he then described- a case which is now before the 
 country for decision. He declared that he would never 
 consent that rival petty republics should grow up on our 
 border, engendering jealousy of each other, and interfer- 
 ing with each other's domestic affairs, and continually en- 
 dangering the peace of all. And the reason given for this 
 was, that the establishment of a new republic on this con- 
 tinent would at once excite a jealousy toward our own, 
 and as that new republic must naturally be the weaker, it 
 would seek European alliances, and these alliances would, 
 
204 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 of course, make this rival an instrument in the hands of 
 British power, through which to assail our interests. An 
 ocean-bound republic, with the whole continent under one 
 flag, was the favorite project of his early statesmanship, 
 and he lived just long enough to see the commencement 
 of an attempt, by the very men who repudiated his policy, 
 which, if successful, will see the Union split into as ipany 
 governments as there are States, and each of them a prey 
 to the avarice or intrigues of despotism abroad. 
 
 Time will not permit, nor is this altogether an appro- 
 priate occasion to dwell upon the many and varied national 
 matters in which Mr. Douglas took an active part. For 
 twenty years he was a leading man in the politics of the 
 country. During that time he has borne a conspicuous 
 part. His name has been blended with the legislative his- 
 tory of his country, and in all the branches of its progress. 
 The debates of Congress are an imperishable monument 
 to his industry, his sagacity, and his love of country. The 
 great act of legislation upon which his opponents have 
 assailed him most fiercely, and which, even after death, has 
 been quoted as "the great mistake, not to say crime" of 
 his life, was the one in which he took the most pride, and 
 which he felt to be the wisest and the best. It was the 
 Nebraska Act. A defence of that act is not needed here, 
 but as it served for years as a battery from which he was 
 assailed, it is but proper that in a few sentences it be stated 
 why he proposed it, why he pressed it, and why it failed. 
 
 Mr. Douglas was one of those who saw that the agita- 
 tion of the slavery question in Congress could accomplish 
 nothing, save to widen the social and political breach that 
 has always existed between the slaveholding and non- 
 slaveholding States. Seven years experience in Congress 
 confirmed him in the opinion that it was necessary to 
 remove that question from the halls of the national legis- 
 lature. In 1850, the compromise bills of that year, of 
 which he wrote every word, were passed. California had 
 been acquired, and a road to the Pacific was indispensable. 
 In 1854, the immense tract of territory, now known as 
 Nebraska and Kansas, was closed, by law, to emigration 
 and to travel. Like a huge block, it barred the natural 
 pathway to the Pacific. The South was pressing a railroad 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 205 
 
 from Memphis, and south-westerly across the continent. 
 Mr. Douglas wanted a fair chance to have that railroad 
 lead from the north, where it could find communication 
 through Chicago to the Atlantic. Our railroads had al- 
 ready reached the Mississippi, and others were projected, 
 extending to the Missouri. He wanted Nebraska and 
 Kansas opened, and the country made free to the enter- 
 prise of the north. In case of a dissolution of the Union, 
 it was essential to have the Pacific connected by some 
 other route than one through a hostile section. That was 
 the motive for organizing these territories — a motive hav- 
 ing its origin in the desire to benefit the whole nation, and 
 especially to give to the northwest a fair opportunity to 
 compete for the commerce of the great east. 
 
 But that curse of all things, the question of African 
 slavery, lay at the threshold. He could not open Kansas 
 and Nebraska without waking the sleeping Demon. He 
 therefore determined to make one grand struggle, to seize 
 the monster, to invite both North and South to unite in 
 chaining it; and, having it in chains, to remove it forever 
 beyond the limits of national legislation. For that pur- 
 pose he framed the Nebraska Act, by which he asked the 
 North and the South forever to bind themselves to leave 
 the question of the existence or non-existence of slavery 
 to the exclusive adjudication and determination of the 
 people of the respective territories. The bill passed, and 
 became a law. Its design and intent plainly stamped upon 
 its face, and its friends all committed to abide its results. 
 He had accomplished all his purposes, so far as they could 
 be done by legislation. The rest he left to time and to 
 the intelligence of the people ; and throughout the event- 
 ful years that followed he was not an indifferent but a 
 confident spectator, waiting for results which every day 
 seemed more inevitably certain. For two years he fought 
 rebellion in Kansas, and to Pierce he offered just what he 
 offered to Lincoln— his aid in suppressing rebellion, and 
 resistance to the laws and Constitution. In 1856, the Cin- 
 cinnati convention met. He was but little troubled as to 
 who should be the nominee, but he was greatly agitated 
 lest some portion of the South would not ratify and 
 approve the great act of 1854. But that convention, with- 
 
206 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 out a dissenting voice, did ratify that act, and then from 
 the very bottom of his heart he rejoiced. The chain which 
 bound fanaticism forever had been riveted, and the terri- 
 tories were no longer to be divided by a black line, but 
 freedom was as free to go to the lowest confines of the 
 continent as it was to tread the ocean-washed shores of 
 Oregon. Never, except by something approaching a 
 miracle, would there be another slave-State formed by the 
 free will of the people, and no State, except formed by the 
 free will of the people, could ever be admitted without a 
 violation of the contract. In the fullness of his joy, and 
 in the tumult of his gratitude, he sent that dispatch which, 
 while it withdrew his name, unfortunately made Mr. Bu- 
 chanan President. 
 
 Despite the civil war and rebellion which had reigned in 
 Kansas, the great measure worked its own way successfully 
 toward the contemplated result; when lo, there came a 
 blow so sudden and unexpected, that no human sagacity 
 could have been prepared to meet it. The Lecompton 
 fraud was taken to the executive bosom, nursed into life ; 
 a message was sent to Congress, requesting that, after the 
 manner of royal infants in other lands, this only child of 
 the bachelor President, should be portioned, pensioned, and 
 provided for at the national charge. Had Mr. Buchanan 
 been true to his trust, true to his plighted honor, and true 
 to the solemn oath of office, the issue of disunion would 
 have been tried on the Lecompton question, and rebellion 
 would have been compelled to take up arms in defence of 
 that horrid fraud — a fraud covered with blood, and reeking 
 with the stenches of the most shocking corruptions. Had 
 he been true, Mr. Douglas' original design and expecta- 
 tions would have been verified, and the ultraists of the 
 South, and not of the North, would have heaped contumely 
 upon the Nebraska bill and its author. 
 
 As the corner-stone of this University was laid under an 
 malediction upon the Nebraska bill and its living author, I 
 have thought it not inappropriate, that in burying the 
 illustrious dead beneath its monumental towers, a record 
 of the motive should be placed where posterity may find 
 that and the malediction together. 
 
 Mr. Douglas was an independent statesman. Looking 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 20/ 
 
 at all questions from an immovable stand-point of princi- 
 ple, he could neither be coaxed nor driven into an approval 
 of what he deemed to be wrong. To you, fellow-citizens, 
 in whose memory the eventful struggle of 1857-58 is still 
 fresh, it is unnecessary to enter into a detail of the wicked 
 and desperate ■ efforts to destroy him, put forth by the 
 relentless old tyrant that fancied he was President, but 
 who was a mere puppet in the hands of that junta that 
 since then have openly avowed themselves traitors, even 
 while in office, to the government of which they were 
 sworn members. His offence was that he would not 
 truckle to the South, would not support a fraud, would not 
 overturn popular liberty, and would not falsify every act 
 and speech of his life. Party rule and party lash were 
 threatened; party rule and party lash were applied, but 
 strong and powerful as were his fealty and obligations 
 to his party, he acknowledged a higher fealty to the peo- 
 ple, and a stronger obligation to his own conscience. He 
 spurned executive smiles when those smiles were invita- 
 tions to crime, and with giant arm, he struck to the dust 
 the slaves who sought to bind him with chains of execu- 
 tive despotism. Standing almost alone in the Senate 
 House, he met the storm, and sustained the shock un- 
 moved, and never laid down his arms until the foul mon- 
 ster — Lecompton — lay dead and prostrate beneath his 
 feet. That contest afforded a fairer exhibition of Mr. 
 Douglas' varied talents than any that had preceded it. 
 But it also conveyed to the heart of every honest man, the 
 conviction that he was sincere. No man had ever been 
 subjected to such an ordeal. Denounced and proscribed 
 by the Democratic administration; excluded, as far as a 
 mean and vengeful cabinet could do so, politically and 
 socially; surrounded by thousands of politicians, from 
 every part of the country, beseeching him not to sacrifice 
 his party, by dividing it, and not to sacrifice his friends, 
 by having them thrust from office ; deserted by the entire 
 Democratic press outside of his own State, and abandoned 
 by all those public men upon whose support he had reason 
 to rely; with a watchful enemy in front, anxious for him 
 to trip, or overstep the line of principle, that they might 
 precipitate his ruin, and elect one of their own men in his 
 
208 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 place; with his house watched by detectives, to report who 
 visited him, and with visitors coming under the guise of 
 confidence and friendship, to hold conversations, which 
 they purposed revealing to his injury; stricken even in the 
 midst of these fearful circumstances, by a painful and 
 disabling illness, it is not too much to say that the mental 
 faculties must have been strong indeed to have passed 
 through that protracted contest without once giving way 
 to doubt or hesitancy. And when, so far as the Senate 
 was concerned, the last vote was to be taken, how that 
 mind, operating sympathetically upon his physical nature, 
 enabled him to rise from a bed, where, for days, he had 
 been racked with pain, and in that chamber deliver a speech 
 which has never been surpassed. 
 
 His power of endurance, both physical and mental, were 
 truly surprising, commencing as long ago as 1838, when 
 he traversed in his campaign with Mr. Stuart, a region that 
 now has nine congressional districts, down to 1840, and 
 annually to 1852; and then the stormy campaigns of 1854, 
 where opposite every hustings hung his own effigies; and 
 again in 1856, when he traveled, up to the very hour of the 
 election, pledging himself that Buchanan was a patriot and 
 a man of truth. Hardly had he placed that individual in 
 power, before he was called upon to vindicate himself from 
 his agency in the fraud. And then followed the campaign 
 (I use the term by which these affairs are popularly known) 
 of 1858, with its excitements, its personalities, and you 
 will pardon a soldier in that memorable contest, for saying 
 — its brilliant results. That election Mr. Douglas never 
 claimed as a personal victory; he did not regard it as a 
 defeat of Mr. Lincoln, but he claimed it as a triumph of 
 the People, in a direct conflict with executive tyranny. 
 In i860, his physical and mental endurance was again 
 fearfully tested. Commencing on the Potomac, I may say, 
 he spoke day and night along the Atlantic coast, until he 
 reached the shores of New England; his voice then 
 sounded on his own native hills of Vermont, and the valley 
 of the Connecticut echoed to its clarion notes. Passing 
 westward through New York, he reached Lake Erie, and 
 then by another route returned to the sea-coast. We hear 
 of him awaking the yeomanry of Pennsylvania, and then 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 
 
 209 
 
 he is electrifying the Van Winkles of North Carolina and 
 Virginia. He then turned to the west, and through Ohio, 
 Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and his- own loved 
 Illinois, he spoke to the gallant hosts that everywhere 
 greeted him, not in the despairing mood of one who knew 
 that all was lost, but in the language of a patriot and bro- 
 ther, finding more consolation in a virtuous defeat than a 
 victory bought with personal shame and national ruin. 
 His words may be said to have been these: "We have 
 stood thus long defending the altars of our country; if we 
 must be overcome by numbers, let us fall side by side, and 
 be buried with a constitution we can no longer successfully 
 defend." 
 
 He was an Orator such as America has never known. 
 His oratory was not exclusively adapted to any one, or 
 any number of circumstances. Wherever he was, at the 
 festive table, at the college exhibition, at a public recep- 
 tion, at a meeting of savans, at the village school, before 
 the court, before a town meeting, in .the Senate — every- 
 where, under all circumstances, he was equal to the occa- 
 sion, and claimed and won the proud title of an Orator. 
 His oratory was peculiar to himself He was always 
 natural. He never attempted the pedantic; he never 
 sought to dazzle by fanciful imagery; he never employed 
 any but the simplest language. The consequence was that 
 gifted with a strong mind, a complete vocabulary of purest 
 Saxon, and speaking always from an earnest conviction,^he 
 addressed himself to the minds of his hearers, and rarely 
 ever failed to reach their hearts and enlist their sympathies. 
 
 No man owed- more to his powers of oratory than Mr. 
 Douglas, and no man every accomplished more by oratory 
 than he did. In 1834, when he had not been in the State 
 six months, he met, in debate, one of the ablest lawyers 
 and distinguished speakers of that day. He was a beard- 
 less youth, unknown, small and delicately made. |" His 
 opponent the political leader of his country, at home and 
 among friends and neighbors who took pride in his success. 
 That event is familiarly known. It was but a re-enact- 
 ment of the story of David and Goliath, with this addition 
 that the populace in their enthusiasm bestowed upon the 
 victor the title of the vanquished, a term which followed 
 him ever after. 
 
2IO EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 But it was in the Senate that this great power was shown 
 in all its force. That was the great' arena of his glory. 
 There he stood without a successful rival. In that theatre 
 he bid defiance to all opponents, and in that theatre he 
 gained his most unfading laurels. 
 
 It was my good fortune, while engaged in another busi- 
 ness than that I now follow, to have been a witness of, and 
 to have heard all, the debates in the Senate on the com- 
 promises of 1850, and on the celebrated Kansas and Ne- 
 braska Act. And what debates they were! As I recall 
 them at this time, when the literature and conversation of 
 the day is altogether of a military and warlike character, 
 that Senate seems to me as one general battle-field, in 
 which every possible engine of war is playing its noisy and 
 destructive part. » * * * 
 
 But I leave the public servant, and ask your patience 
 while I speak of the man. And after all, there can be no 
 true greatness that has not an honorable heart to support 
 and maintain it. His integrity was unquestionable and 
 unquestioned. Never, even in the fiercest and most pitiless 
 of all the many storms that broke upon him, was there 
 ever a stain or an imputation upon his personal honor. 
 Clay, with all his greatness, did not escape the calumny of 
 corruption; Webster had enemies mean enough to charge 
 him with bribery; but high as party and personal malice 
 may reach after their victim, they spared the personal 
 honor of Douglas. He went through nearly thirty years 
 of public life, and no word of suspicion against his integ- 
 rity was uttered. Until within. a few years he had been 
 poor; for twenty-five years he held office continually, and 
 as legislator, judge, and senator, he had remained not only 
 pure, but unsuspected. He never received from office 
 more than enough to yield him an ordinary support for 
 himself and family. Some years ago he invested a few 
 hundred dollars in real estate. That investment grew in 
 wealth, and extended until it became magnificent. His 
 purchases were in and near Chicago, and if he became 
 rich, it was because Chicago became rich. His wealth 
 increased with the wealth of the City, and as that receded 
 so did the value of his possessions, He could never- amass 
 wealth by the regular rules of trade. What he had was 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 211 
 
 held by him only as trustee for the multitude who called 
 him friend. With hand ever open, with purse-strings never 
 drawn, he dealt out with liberal hand to all who sought 
 his aid. He prized riches only as a means of aiding others, 
 and he gave freely and cordially while a dollar was left. 
 His was no ostentatious liberality. Instead of crediting his 
 own sagacity with the fortune that resulted from his in- 
 vestments, he recognized the disbursement of that fortune 
 for noble purposes, as an additional obligation imposed 
 upon him by Providence. Hence it was that the establish- 
 ment of the Chicago University, when proposed to him, 
 met, as you (President Burroughs) well know, a prompt 
 and ready response. He saw in it a means by which he 
 could serve the State, this City, and his fellow-men, for all 
 time to come, and with him Action always followed con- 
 viction. The establishment of the University at once 
 became an object, and with the endowment came the prac- 
 tical and the only condition, that the building should at 
 once be commenced. He did not fancy that spirit which 
 hoards through life great masses of wealth, to be admin- 
 istered for good purposes after the owner is gone. He 
 preferred to do good at once, and in seeing others enjoy 
 the benefits of his liberality, found infinitely more happi- 
 ness than if it had been retained by himself He took the 
 utmost pride in this University, and those who have sup- 
 posed his life to have been devoted to the attainment of 
 the Presidency, should know, as his friends do know, that 
 personally, he found as much pleasure in the anticipation 
 of presiding as President of the Regents of this Univer- 
 sity, and in the active business of all public enterprises, as 
 in presiding at the cabinet councils of the nation. I do 
 not say that he did not aspire to the Presidency of the 
 Republic; but I do say, and say it from personal knowl- 
 edge, that were it not for the sake of friends, and to gratify 
 their devotion of unlimited zeal, his political ambition 
 would have sought no higher title than the Leader of the 
 American Senate. He often contrasted the two positions 
 of President and Senator, and took great personal pride m 
 the fact that it had been demonstrated in his own case, 
 that a President, through, backed by all the powers of the 
 nation, was not equal to a contest with a single Senator 
 who did his duty to the people. 
 
212 EARLY ILLINOIS. 
 
 He is buried within sight of the halls of this University. 
 At evening hour its shadows reach his tomb, covering it 
 with the mellow light so appropriate to its solemn silence. 
 As the pilgrim to his tomb shall stand at its side, musing 
 on the memory of the dead, he will turn involuntarily to 
 the west, and gazing upon the noble edifice, will exclaim 
 — there stands the monument to the Man which shall live 
 forever; and which each year shall send forth to the 
 country its graduates, all bearing upon their hearts the 
 lesson of Douglas' great example. 
 
 Yet, this man with the free and bountiful hand, whose 
 whole life was devoted to the service of the people, and 
 upon whose private purse there was a never-ending de- 
 mand, died poor. From the magnificent domain, which a 
 few years ago he called his own, his family is debarred by 
 the legal claims of others. In the broad State of Illinois, 
 enriched by his labors, developed by his genius, and peo- 
 pled through his enterprise, there was not ground enough 
 that his children could call their own, in which to deposit 
 his coffin. 
 
 The faithful widow, faithful even to the memory of the 
 love which her husband bore to Illinois, at the solicitation 
 of the people, gave up all that was left of him, and gave 
 too her own little tract of land for his grave. 
 
 Let us hope that his life, devoted to the benefit of his 
 race, may not have been spent in vain. His great heart 
 throbbed and pulsated only for the public good, and let us 
 hope that his countrymen now and hereafter may find in 
 his patriotism, integrity, and life an example worthy of 
 imitation. 
 
 He has gone from among us, but he lives in his fame. 
 No more will this City resound with the fierce clamor of 
 popular rage, or be filled with the pageantry of his tri- 
 umphal processions. No more will his voice be heard on 
 the stump, in the forum, or in the Senate, but the student 
 of history, during all coming time, will search in vain for 
 the record of brighter deeds, of a purer life, of a nobler 
 heart, of an eq.ual eloquence, or for evidences of those 
 indomitable attributes of intellect and manhood, that be- 
 long to, and must forever attach to the name of Douglas! 
 
From the Chicago Tribune. 
 
 THE DOUGLAS MONUMENT. 
 
 The monument erected by the State of Illinois over the 
 remains of Stephen A. Douglas, at Douglas place, was 
 completed Thursday, August i8, 1881, when the fourth and 
 last entablature was put in position on the south side of 
 the base. The erection of this memorial has been the work 
 of twenty years, the first meeting in the interest of it hav- 
 ing been held in the parlors of the Tremont House, Oct. 
 22, 1861. The call for this meeting was signed by the fol- 
 lowing-named gentlemen: J. W. Sheahan, S. W. Fuller, S. 
 H. Kerfoot, W. C. Goudy, Thomas Drummond, David A. 
 Gage, J. P. Clarkson, and Leonard W. Volk. A monument 
 association was organized, committees were appointed, and 
 the work of erecting an .enduring monument over the grave 
 of the deceased Senator was proceeded with. 
 
 The ground upon which the monument is erected was 
 intended as the site of the Douglas homestead, and was 
 purchased by the State from the widow for the sum of 
 $25,090. It is now neatly laid out with walks and flower 
 beds, and is surrounded by stone copings and hedges. 
 The corner-stone of the monument was laid Sept. 6, 1866, 
 with appropriate ceremony, and many prominent public 
 men participated, including Pres. Johnson and his Cabi- 
 net. " In 1877, the late Joseph E. Smith, of this city, who 
 was. a member of the Legislature at the time, introduced a 
 bill appropriating $50,000 for the completion of the monu- 
 ment, and finally succeeded in getting it through. Two 
 years later, after he had retired from the Legislature, it 
 was found that $9000 more was needed to complete the 
 monument, and Mr. Smith went to Springfield of his own 
 accord and secured another appropriation, making an elo- 
 quent speech in favor of the measure. 
 
 The monument, as completed, together with the grounds, 
 cost about $97,000. The State Commission for the coni- 
 pletion of the monument have had a great deal of gratui- 
 tous work to do, as their predecessors of the original Asso- 
 ciation, especially the gentlemen of the Executive Commit- 
 tee, Judge J. D. Caton, Potter Palmer, Lyman Trum- 
 
50 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 
 
 bull, Robert T. Lincoln, and Melville W. Fuller. Judge 
 Caton is Chairman and Melville W. Fuller is Secretary, and 
 the burden of thfe work attaching to the completion of the 
 monument has fallen upon the latter gentlemen. They all 
 worked without remuneration, and deserve credit for get- 
 ting the work done so cheaply and so well. 
 
 Following is a description of the monument as com- 
 pleted : 
 
 The octagonal base coping, of Lemont, 111., limestone, is 
 70 feet in diameter. The first of the three circular bases 
 of the substructure is 42 feet 2 inches in diameter, and the 
 height of the three together is 4 feet 3 inches. The tomb 
 is octagonally formed, 20 feet 3 inches in diameter, and 10 
 feet high, to the plinth-base of superstructure. Its chamber 
 is 8- feet 9 inches square by 7 feet 2 inches high. The 
 pedestal at each of the four corners of the tomb is 6 feet 
 high, with base 4 feef 2 inches square. The octagonally- 
 formed pedestal of the superstructure above the tomb is 18 
 feet 10 inches high, to the circular base of the column.. Its 
 plinth-base is 15 feet in diameter. The length of the col- 
 umn, including its base, which is 2 feet thick, is 46 feet 5 ' 
 inches, and is 5 feet 2 inches in diameter at the base, with 
 a diameter of 3 feet 6 inches at the top. The cap, includ- 
 ing the ornamental frieze, is 4 feet 6 inches high, and the 
 statue-base above is 2 feet high, making the entire height 
 of the monument, including the statue, 95 feet 9 inches. 
 The ornamentation cut in the granite consists of a wreath 
 and the letter "D." on the lintel of the tomb-door. There 
 are raised shields on the corners of the main base of the 
 superstructure, the pedestal of which is ornamented with 
 festoons and wreaths of laurel, and flambeaux on the octa- 
 gonal corners, all in high bas-relief 
 
 The two main sections of the column are marked by 
 belts of raised stars, indicating the number of States; and 
 the frieze of the cap is encircled with oak leaves in high 
 relief Within the tomb-chamber repose the remains of 
 Senator Douglas in an iron casket, which is placed in a 
 white marble sarcophagus, lined with lead. Surmounting 
 its top is a life-size bust of Douglas in marble, made by 
 Volk in 1857. 
 
 The following inscription is lettered on the front side : 
 
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 5 I 
 
 "STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, 
 
 "Born April 23, 1813; died June 3, 1861. 
 
 " Tell my children to obey the laws and uphold the Constitution. " 
 
 The marble of the sarcophagus is from his native State 
 and county — Rutland, Vt. The tomb has a heavy, wrought- 
 iron, grated door, with padlock, and an inner iron safe door 
 with combination lock. The entire superstructure of the 
 monument is made of solid blocks of granite except the 
 die of the pedestal, which is in four parts, and has a small 
 hollow space within containing the copper box of records, 
 coins, etc., which was deposited in the corner-stone of the 
 original limestone tomb. The faces of the raised shields, 
 stars, and panels are polished or glossed.. 
 
 The last of the statues of the monument, representing 
 Eloquence, was safely placed May. 13, 1880. All these 
 statues, including the Douglas, were first modeled in clay 
 by Leonard W. Volk, in Chicago, and approved by the 
 Commissioners; then cast in plaster of paris, and in that 
 material forwarded to the bronze foundry of M. J. Power, 
 New York, who has cast them in the best bronze metal, — 
 2. e., ninety parts copper, eight parts tin, and two parts zinc. 
 
 The statue of Douglas, which is 9 feet 9 inches high, 
 weighs about 2200 pounds. The four symbolical statues, 
 if standing in upright posture, would be about 7 feet 6 
 inches high, and the average weight of each is about 1150 
 pounds. 
 
 The colossal statue of Douglas surmounting the top of 
 the column, looking eastward over the lake, represents him 
 standing in repose, with scroll in left hand pressed against 
 the hip, and the right hand thrust under the lapel of his 
 tightly-buttoned undercoat. 
 
 The four pedestals at the base are occupied by heroic- 
 sized statues representing Illinois, History, Justice, and 
 Eloquence, in sitting attitudes; the former has her right 
 hand placed on the State coat-of-arms, with. ears of corn in 
 her left hand, and crowned with a chaplet of wheat, and is 
 supposed to be in the act of relating the sfory of the State 
 to History, on the opposite corner, who, with stylus in 
 hand, is about to record it upon the scroll lying across her 
 lap ; her left foot rests upon a pile of tablets. 
 
52 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 
 
 ■ Justice rests her right hand upon a sheathed sword, and 
 holds the balances in her left. Eloquence points with her 
 right hand toward the statue of Douglas, while the left rests 
 upon a lyrical instrument. 
 
 All these statues are differently composed and robed in 
 harmonious and classical garments. 
 
 The four bas-reliefs in the panels of the main base of 
 superstructure represent the advance of civilization in 
 America, first by an aboriginal Indian scene; on the east 
 side, in which appears the sun rising above the horizon of 
 a lake, upon which two Indians are about to embark in a 
 canoe; wigwams, with sqaws and papoose, and an elder 
 and two younger Indians, and a dog, the elder in the act 
 of shooting a deer with bow and arrow. 
 
 The second, on the north side, represents pioneer settlers 
 building log- cabin, plowing, sowing grain, and a group of 
 mother, children, and dog resting before the unfinished 
 cabin and the "prairie schooner" wagon. 
 
 In the third scene, on the west side. Commerce and En- 
 terprise are represented by trackmen working on the rail- 
 road, a locomotive, vessels discharging and receiving mer- 
 chandise, an elevator warehouse and telegraph line. 
 
 The fourth and last of the scenes, which was put in place 
 yesterday, represents Legislation, by a group of statesmen, 
 contemporaries of Douglas, in the interior of a public hall 
 of Doric architecture. John C. Calhoun occupies the chair 
 and Henry Clay is addressing the house. Grouped about 
 listening to him are Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglas, 
 John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas H. Ben- 
 ton, William H. Seward, Gov. Cullom, and others to make 
 up the group, among them the late Joseph E. Smith. Mr. 
 Volk said he had not noticed until just before this relief 
 was put in place that of the nine central figures three had 
 been Whigs, three Republicans, and three Democrats. 
 
 The ground upon which the monument stands is bounded 
 on the north Ipy Woodland Park, with a frontage of 260 
 feet; on the east by the Illinois Central Railroad and Lake 
 Michigan, with a frontage of 300 feet; on the south by 
 Douglas avenue or Thirty-fifth street, with a frontage of 
 412 feet; and on the west by an alley, and the width of the 
 ot along the alley is 266 feet.