973.71j63 
 B3HUliap 
 
 Hertz, Emanuel • 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, His 
 Political Vision 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Abraham ffitnraln 
 
 Bta f oltttral Itsian 
 
 By 
 
 EMANUEL HERTZ 
 
 IE 
 
 AN ADDRESS REPRINTED FROM 
 THE REPUBLICAN 
 
 FEBRUARY 6, 1926. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 V 
 
 1 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnhispOOhert 
 

 J 
 
 Abraham Htnroln 
 
 Hta ilolttfral Htsinn 
 
 By EMANUEL HERTZ 
 
 A careful study of Lincoln's political 
 activities from the day he emerged as a 
 candidate for the Assembly in Illinois to 
 the very end of his life discloses that he 
 regarded politics an honorable vocation. 
 Neither his ceaseless struggle for financial 
 independence nor the preparation of hii 
 cases ever interfered with his thinking ot 
 the political problems of the hour, and 
 in between the trials of his cases, on the 
 circuit, in the courtroom, in the court 
 yard, in the country store, in the village 
 inns, or in any place where citizens of any 
 community who knew him assembled, all 
 such places immediately became the forum 
 for the discussion of the political prob 
 Jems of the day with Lincoln as the 
 speaker and source of all information. 
 Was a convention called at which Re 
 publican principles were to be transmuted 
 into a Republican platform, Lincoln was 
 there and delivered his Burlington speech 
 which became a clarion call to the en' 
 tire Republican party then spring' 
 ing into being throughout the land, 
 and to all such as were unable to 
 make up their minds whether to go from 
 the disappearing Whig Party. It re' 
 quired a trained politician, indeed, to 
 keep these droves of voters from the ban' 
 ners of Douglas with his alluring prom' 
 ises of union and of peace, if they but 
 followed him. 
 
 To those who have studied the psr' 
 formances of the "little giant,"" as he was 
 known throughout the land, how in an 
 incredibly short time he forged to the 
 front in the United States Senate where 
 such men as Jefferson Davis, William 
 H. Seward, Charles Sumner and Salmon 
 P. Chase and other great leaders had 
 been in the habit of controlling the des' 
 tinies of the country; how he dominated 
 the politics of Illinois and of the Middle 
 West and how he almost persuaded the 
 
 new Republican Party, at the urging of 
 Greeley, to nominate him as its standard 
 bearer, it can be seen what a supreme 
 tactician Lincoln must have been when 
 he not only counteracted the sinister ten' 
 dencies of Douglas but organized a party 
 which, when the test came at the mem 
 orable Convention in Chicago, demon' 
 strated that no such exhibition of political 
 preparation, of political acumen, of pc 
 litical generalship, was ever witnessed i~i 
 any similar political gathering before or 
 since. 
 
 Lincoln ennobled the word "politics." 
 He saw in politics one of the essentials 
 of a nation's life. He saw that the na' 
 tion was governed by parties and could 
 be ruled by parties only, if political chaos 
 was to be averted, and he took possession 
 of the new Republican party in every cor' 
 ner of the land in such fashion as amazed 
 old leaders like Thurlow Weed, Bates, 
 David Davis, Blair and Cameron. They 
 were all like clay in the hands of the pot' 
 ter. And there was Lincoln in his home 
 in Springfield, with his plans in trusted 
 hands, primed and prepared for every 
 emergency and all but nominated on th? 
 first ballot. Lincoln never apologized for 
 being a politician and a political leader. 
 He considered it part of his duty to the 
 State and to the Nation. 
 
 It is amazing to see how he called to 
 his help men of eminence, if need be, and 
 how he found among the plain people of 
 his time, the very best helpers in his one ' 
 supreme task — the saving of the Union. 
 In one of the unpublished letters which 
 he wrote to Simon Cameron immediately 
 after the battle of Gettysburg, he told 
 Cameron that at the conference as to 
 whether Lee was to be pursued after 
 Gettysburg, Mead and his staff were prac 
 tically unanimous not to pursue the lion 
 of the South. One commander, however, 
 
 Three 
 
 ?m \ 
 
urged pursuit and destruction of Lee im- 
 mediately after Gettysburg. Lincoln wanted 
 to know the name of that commander be- 
 cause he was heart and soul in sympathy 
 with such a policy. 
 
 Another one of his unpublished letters 
 discloses a thoroughly worked out plan 
 of attacking the Confederacy by way of 
 Mexico — something that his generals had 
 never dreamed of. But far and above all 
 his keen foresight and his remarkable 
 understanding of the manner and of ths 
 method of taking hold of the govern- 
 ment at a time when failure to appreci- 
 ate the dangers involved would have 
 wrecked the Union beyond any hope of 
 its ever being saved or united again. The 
 Buchanan administration was dying oi 
 inertia, of cowardice and of downright 
 treason. The army was being sent to dis' 
 tant posts; the navy scattered to the fout 
 winds of heaven, and the one colossal 
 Southern blunder which has never been 
 explained and which Lincoln could not 
 understand was why Beaureguard did not 
 march upon Washington and take pos' 
 session of the capital. Lincoln said: "If 
 I were Beaureguard I would march upon 
 Washington and take possession of it." 
 
 In order to counterbalance the mind of 
 the Eastern voters bent on peace at any 
 price, and of the Southern voters bent 
 upon secession, Lincoln's mind travelled 
 to the Middle West and to the North' 
 west, populated by the great wave of 
 German immigrants who had left Ger- 
 many after the Revolution of 1848, and 
 whose vote became the decisive factor in 
 the elections of at least six states. Lin- 
 coin saw that without that vote he could 
 not hope to win, even if nominated," and 
 it was that vote that Lincoln, the pol'*' 
 tician, set out to convince and control 
 when the crucial moment should arrive. 
 
 Another unpublished document of Lin' 
 coin's shows us clearly that Lincoln him' 
 self financed the establishment of a Ger- 
 man paper in Springfield. Aside perhaps 
 from Dr. Lieber, Dr. Theodore Canisius 
 of Springfield was one of the ablest Jour' 
 nalists and publicists of his day, and just 
 as Lincoln picked Seward and Chase and 
 Wells and Fessenden and Grant and Sheri' 
 
 dan, when the time came to pick, he 
 chose Dr. Canisius to edit the paper which 
 was to educate and influence the entire 
 German'American vote of that genera- 
 tion. Lincoln paid for the type, the print' 
 ing presses and the paper, and arranged 
 with Dr. Canisius to publish weekly, if 
 not daily, a newspaper in which the Re' 
 publican platforms of 1858 and 1860 wer? 
 to be supported — to be published in the 
 German language. And as long as the 
 paper supported the Republican platforms 
 the plant and the profits were to belong 
 to Dr. Canisius; but should the paper de' 
 part from that policy he, Abraham Lin' 
 coin, was empowered by an instrument in 
 writing and under seal, prepared by Lin- 
 coln, the lawyer, to take possession of the 
 plant and eject an editor even of the 
 standing of Dr. Canisius, should he fail 
 or falter in his support of the Republican 
 platform. 
 
 In other words, Lincoln did not hesi' 
 tate to use every legitimate means of ac 
 complishing and bringing about his pur' 
 pose — the saving of the Union. He aJ/ 
 lowed a perfect storm of criticism about 
 his methods to blow over his head from 
 the Northern Copperhead press and from 
 the Southern prcslavery press, while he 
 serenely pursued his purposes and his poli' 
 cies undisturbed by any such, to him, un' 
 important criticism. And yet he regarded 
 the dissatisfaction and criticism of a man 
 like Henry Ward Beecher; for upon the 
 word of Dr. Hillis we have it that he called 
 on Beecher and walked the floor of the h' 
 brary all night until he convinced Beecher 
 that he, Lincoln, was right and tha: 
 Beecher was mistaken, and after that visit 
 Beecher performed such wonderful service 
 by keeping England out of the fray that 
 Lincoln finally said, when he requested 
 Beecher to raise the flag over a recap' 
 tured Fort Sumpter at the conclusion of 
 the great war, that but for Beecher there 
 would have been no flag to raise. 
 
 Nor did Lincoln ever fear or care for 
 any criticism in filling political positions. 
 He consulted the leaders of his party in 
 the different states as to appointments that 
 were to be made and he believed, and 
 believed to the full extent, in the prin* 
 
 Four 
 
ciplc that those who were able and willing 
 and requested by the party to preach the 
 party principles, were deserving of being 
 called into power to help carry out those 
 party principles. He did not believe in 
 having one class of men do the work of 
 organizing the party in the different parts 
 of the country, of conducting the cam- 
 paigns and winning the elections and then 
 dismissing that entire army of party work' 
 ers in order to put in office a few favor' 
 ites of fortune or a few social climbers 
 who came well recommended for such po' 
 sitions after the others had done the 
 fighting and achieving the victory at 
 the polls. While he did not carry the 
 principle quite as far as did that other 
 intrepid spirit, Andrew Jackson, who was 
 firm in the belief that if there were a po* 
 sition in the Federal service which could 
 not be filled by a member of his own party 
 that position, in his opinion, had better 
 be abolished, he did follow the Jacksonian 
 principle of rewarding the able party work' 
 ers of his day; and hence we find his 
 neighbor and his friend, David Davis, on 
 the Supreme Court bench by his appoint 
 ment, Speed in the Cabinet, Holt in the 
 Judge Advocate's office, as well as every 
 other leader who had anything to do witu 
 bringing about Lincoln's nomination and 
 Lincoln's election either the first or the 
 second time, rewarded in one form or an' 
 other by being called into the service oi 
 the government. 
 
 A great deal of criticism was current at 
 the time that Lincoln spent so much time 
 with filling offices; we forget that with 
 Buchanan's exit the Democratic Party 
 practically became defunct, and with its 
 Southern leaning and Copperhead tenden' 
 cies, it was not to be entrusted with the 
 continued conduct of the government, and 
 Lincoln could not and should not have 
 permitted any of them to remain in office 
 in order to conspire with their Southern 
 friends and succeed in making Lincoln's 
 task insuperable, if not impossible of ac 
 complishment. If ever a President was 
 called upon to make a clean sweep and 
 to make an entirely new series of ap- 
 pointments in every position within his 
 gift, it was Lincoln who was compelled so 
 
 to do, and he filled almost every position 
 with a ,member of the new Republican 
 Party which had worked for him and 
 won the great victory of 1860. 
 
 Of course, the patriotic section of tht 
 Democratic Party which had moved into 
 the new Republican Party headed by men 
 like Chase, Wells and Blair, were appoint' 
 ed for the purpose of cementing the fusion 
 and union between what was left of the 
 Democratic Party and the new Republi- 
 can Party. 
 
 Lincoln cared nothing for the cavil and 
 for the hypocrisy of those who found fault 
 with him for spending his time about fill' 
 ing of offices while the fate of the Repub' 
 lie was hanging in the balance. Strange as 
 it may seem, and in spite of this thorough 
 housccleaning inaugurated and accom 
 plished by Lincoln, he had more than suf- 
 ficient time to build up an army and navy 
 and to formulate a plan of campaig i 
 which ultimately paralyzed and destroyed 
 the Confederacy, while in glaring contract 
 the Confederacy was manned by the aris' 
 tocracy of the land, the motley group of 
 statesmen, soldiers, sailors, teachers, legis- 
 lators and volunteers who followed their 
 uncouth and humble spokesman made a 
 much better showing from every coiv 
 ceivable standpoint than did the compact 
 organization of their opponents. Losses 
 there were, defeats there were, heartaches 
 and despair hovered above the banners of 
 the Union for well nigh three years, but 
 Lincoln's grip of steel upon his own party 
 and upon the entire North was the only 
 thing that saved us from the dismal pros 
 pect of disunion, dismemberment and de- 
 struction. 
 
 One by one this inspired politician from 
 the Middle West picked up the severed 
 threads of the Union, repaired something 
 here, healed something there, supplied the 
 missing organizer, restorei, reconstructor 
 and upbuilder in every part of the Union, 
 wrote thousands of letters to friends and 
 foes of the Union in every part of the 
 country, and how those letters killed ana 
 chilled conspiracy and treason and how 
 they thrilled and encouraged and helped 
 the friends of the Union! And in this 
 manner this politician who organized his 
 
 Five 
 
campaigns for the Assembly, his successful 
 campaign for a Congressional nomination, 
 this politician who debated up and down 
 Illinois with the leader of the United 
 States Senate, practiced his political prin- 
 ciples in the same manner, without any 
 change until he surrounded himself and 
 until he mobilized the most remarkable 
 aggregation of statesmen, of soldiers, of 
 financiers, and of journalists to his task — 
 of saving and reconstructing the Union, a 
 feat which has not been approximated by 
 any other of our twentyeight Presidents. 
 
 Every now and then one of our Lincoln 
 Day orators, one of our statesmen in re' 
 sponsible positions, asks: "What would 
 Lincoln do if he were here today?" An 
 answer to that question has been attempted 
 a great many times, but very few an' 
 swers have been given in the light of 
 Lincoln's performances. The sad and dis- 
 tressing phase about the whole thing 
 seems to be that all those who ask the 
 question studiously refrain from reading 
 Lincoln's speeches and letters — those in- 
 tensely human documents. They refrain 
 from studying his political acts and per- 
 formances. If they but knew his letters, 
 his addresses, if they but studied his per 
 formances, the answer would be evident. 
 Lincoln certainly would not divide his 
 followers into patricians and plsbians. 
 Lincoln certainly would not divide the 
 voters of this country or the political or 
 ganizations of this country into a fighting 
 organization and into an office-holding or- 
 ganization. The man who would fight the 
 battles of the Republic; the man who 
 would preach Lincoln's doctrine would n.tt 
 be disqualified by his preachment from car' 
 rying out Lincoln's policies in office. Put 
 more concretely, men like Governors An 
 drew, Curtin, Buckingham, Todd and 
 Morten, Senators Fessenden, Chase and 
 Trumbull, who were the ablest preachers 
 of Lincoln's doctrines, were not disquali 
 fied from holding office but were urged to 
 remain in office and continue their preach- 
 ing of Lincoln doctrines from the vantage 
 point of politcal office. 
 
 A political leader with Abraham Lin- 
 coln was a man to be considered and 
 consulted. Read the letters to Thurlow 
 
 Weed, to Senator Cameron, to Lymari 
 Trumbull, to Hannibal Hamlin and to a 
 host of others. And it goes without say- 
 ing that the political party today which 
 practices that sane and practical political 
 principle of Abraham Lincoln's, of having 
 the preachers of political policy become 
 the performers in office, that party suc- 
 ceeds and continues to succeed; but the 
 party which has one portion do the work 
 of electing and then is made to make 
 way for people unheard of until after 
 election, and who by some necromancy 
 convince or bedevil the appointing power 
 that they, and not the workers, should 
 fill the offices; the party which practices 
 this false political principle fails at suc- 
 ceeding elections and continues to go 
 down to defeat until it ceases to be a fac- 
 tor; for it does not deserve to live. 
 
 And when the political leader nowa- 
 days asks: "What would Lincoln do if 
 he were here today?" we can tell him, 
 without any fear of contradiction, that 
 Lincoln would do just that — reward the 
 deserving political worker with political 
 preferment after he had participated and 
 made possible the victory of the party. 
 
 Different panaceas for eliminating cor- 
 ruption in high places received but scant 
 consideration from that direct political de 
 scendant of old Samuel Adams, who said: 
 "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.*' 
 And if Lincoln could busy himself with 
 politics every day of the year he could 
 see no reason why others should not do 
 the same thing. Lincoln believed in a 
 trained political party — lieutenants who 
 would not only appreciate the principles 
 the party stood for but who were trained 
 and prepared to carry out those partv 
 principles in such a manner as would 
 result in strengthening the Union. Po- 
 litical volunteers to him were as good 
 and as bad as volunteers in the army who 
 came for thirty or sixty days and whose 
 one thought during their period of volur" 
 teering was the anxiety to return home. 
 It was only after the army was drilled 
 and trained and made permanent that 
 victories were made possible. 
 
 And if Lincoln were here today he 
 would preach and practice that only 
 
 Six 
 
trained political leaders are worth any 
 thing in our body politic and that the 
 volunteers of a week or ten days before 
 election for the purpose of filling the o f ' 
 fices, if successful, would make no im' 
 pression upon that master politician today 
 any more than they would have in his 
 own time. 
 
 The questioner as to what Lincoln 
 would do on different occasions might 
 well be answered by referring him tc 
 what Lincoln said and did. His tariff 
 policy was clear and made clear by the 
 tersest and cleanest statement. What would 
 Lincoln have done about National Dc 
 fense and National participation in in' 
 ternational affairs? The answer to the 
 first question can be found in the fact 
 that he organized the greatest army an... 
 navy any country ever had up to his 
 day. And the other question, which so 
 many have attempted to answer for him 
 can easily be answered by anyone who 
 knows what a firm believer Lincoln was 
 in the Declaration of Independence, in 
 the policies of Washington and Jefferson 
 and Marshall as to the duties and as to 
 the functions of our country among the 
 nations of the world; and it is little less 
 than sacrilege for anyene to say that Lin' 
 coin would have advocated entry of our 
 country into the League of Nations and 
 thus become subordinated and lost in the 
 babel of voices and vortex of selfish pas- 
 sions which dominate and rule that incon' 
 gruous institution. Lincoln knew well 
 what the Christian statesmen of England 
 were attempting to do with the help of 
 the diplomats of France and the other 
 countries on the Continent. Gladstone 
 and Palmerston and Russell and the vast 
 majority of the English and French in* 
 telligencia were ready to gloat over th* 
 destruction of the Union, and came within 
 a hair's breadth of realizing their ardent 
 hopes and ambitions. For anyone to say 
 that Father Abraham would have con' 
 sented to have his country, his United 
 States, have one voice among fiftytwo 
 others, one voice against fiftytwo others 
 in a league which is represented by an 
 overwhelming majority of peoples — priroi' 
 tive, selfishj under'educated and unprin' 
 
 cipled in their diplomacy — for any man 
 to imagine that Abraham Lincoln would 
 have ever exposed the country for which 
 he fought and died to the ipse dixit of 
 an institution of this kind, sprung into 
 being in the last moments of the expiring 
 Versailles Conference which met in a spirt*, 
 of revenge, which acted in the spirit of 
 a conqueror over the vanquished, which 
 tried to extract from a conquered foe the 
 penalties of wars and of differences of 
 centuries, has not read and has not un' 
 derstood the words of Abraham Lincoln 
 Abraham Lincoln never believed in the 
 principle of voi victis — woe to the con' 
 quered — and it was from that atmosphere 
 that the League of Nations sprang. That 
 alone would have made it impossible for 
 a man of the mighty toleration, of th*r 
 great love, of the great heart of Abraham 
 Lincoln, to participate in any such con- 
 ference or become a member of the off- 
 spring of such a conference. 
 
 To anyone who has read his letters 
 and his addresses on reconstruction of the 
 conquered South, to anyone who knows 
 that he had nothing but the hand of fcl* 
 lowship for Lee, for Davis, for Benjamin 
 and for Johnson, if they but subscribed 
 to the oath of fealty, it is unthinkable to 
 believe that Lincoln would have becorre 
 a partner in the bloody military cabals of 
 the Balkan States and their European 
 co'conspirators among the greater power* 
 who control them. 
 
 If Lincoln were alive today and in a 
 position of power he would prevent the 
 contamination of the United States by 
 union with people who thrive on war, 
 who believe in war, who prepare for war, 
 who pray for war and whose business is 
 war. He would not have permitted th ■• 
 union of his country with people who do 
 not believe in religious tolerance and in 
 the equality of man. Lincoln had a pc 
 culiar method of minding his own affairs 
 and of having the United States mind its 
 own affairs, and he would have actually 
 advocated the principle of educating 
 America first and enligh'.enirg America 
 first, of saving America first, and of mak- 
 ing the people of America respected by 
 being tolerant to the stranger in their 
 
midst, before he would move to partici' 
 pate in the business of any other country 
 or any other nation. He would have been 
 adamant on the question of the Monroe 
 Doctrine and would not have thrown it 
 into the ever-boiling cauldion of European 
 politics. He would have been a mighty 
 helper in the struggle between capital and 
 labor; he would have been a tower of 
 strength for the oppressed of every na* 
 tionality. He would have laughed out of 
 existence secret organizations as inimical 
 to our form of Government, and would 
 have led them all into the temple of the 
 Union where all are equal, where all have 
 equal opportunity, and he would have 
 pointed to himself as he often did when 
 he told that every soldier's boy had the 
 same chance that his father's boy if onl/ 
 given an opportunity; and it might have 
 been his life's work had he been spared 
 from the bullet of the assassin to give 
 every child of this broad land that oppor 
 tunity. He would not have made a mock' 
 ery of the majesty of the law by enforcing 
 one law and neglecting others. He would 
 have continued to act with malice towards 
 none and charity to all. 
 
 And to those who are discontented with 
 limiting the sphere of action of our great 
 Emancipator and are bound to make him 
 
 a citizen of the world, I have but to say 
 that his resplendent example alone will 
 suffice for those other nations of the 
 world who would have some of his glory 
 and who would have a share in his great 
 heritage which he left to all the children 
 of men, and like the great Jewish law 
 giver of old, we can say of him, with the 
 poet of the Centenary: 
 ". . . . he is more than ours as we are 
 
 more 
 Than yet the world dares dream. Kn 
 
 stature grows 
 With that illimitable state 
 Whose sovereignty ordains no tribute 
 
 shore, 
 And borderland of hate, 
 But grounds its justice in the joy it sows, 
 His spirit is still a power to emancipate 
 Bondage — more base, being more insidious 
 Than serfdom- -that cries out in the midst 
 
 of us 
 For virtue, born of opportun'ty, 
 And manhood, weighed in honest human 
 
 worth, 
 And freedom, best in labor. He stands 
 
 forth 
 'Mongst nations old — a newworld Abra- 
 ham, 
 The patriarch of peoples still to be . . ." 
 
 W 
 
 CHARLES STBWRER PRESS, 420 BAST 149TH STREET 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 973 7L63B3H44AP C001 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, HIS POLITICAL VISION NY 
 
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