LIFE OF 
 
 i ABRAHAM LINCOLN | i 
 
 W. tt. HOWELLS 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofabrahamlinOOhowe 
 
LIFE OF 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
H 
 
 OF 
 LINCOL 
 
 BY W. D. HOWELLS 
 
 This campaign biography corrected 
 
 by the hand of Abraham Lincoln 
 
 in the summer of 1860 is reproduced 
 
 here with careful attention to 
 
 the appearance of the 
 
 original volume. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 
 
 1938 
 
473. / 
 
 £H 83 je 
 
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 I WROTE the life of Lincoln which elected him," 
 remarked William Dean Howells to Mark Twain 
 in 1876. Howells had just contracted for a cam- 
 paign biography of Rutherford B. Hayes and was 
 humorously recalling the past to his friend. 
 
 In 1860 Howells, then a young man of twenty- 
 three, was working as an editorial writer on the 
 Ohio State Journal at Columbus. Except for a book 
 of poems, The Lives and Speeches of Abraham 
 Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin was the first of the 
 one hundred and three books that Howells wrote 
 during the years from 1860 to 1920. Though he 
 attended neither high school nor university, Howells 
 received degrees from six universities, including 
 Oxford, and rejected offers of professorship in 
 literature from Yale, Harvard and Johns Hopkins 
 universities. 
 
 Howells, for many years, was editor of the 
 Atlantic Monthly and was a contributing editor of 
 Harpers. He was the founder of the school of 
 American realists, presenting with truth and mi- 
 nuteness, the every day aspects of the life and char- 
 acter of the American people. He was the leader of 
 American letters during the quarter century which 
 ended in 1920. In recognition of his writing the 
 campaign biography Lincoln appointed him consul 
 at Venice. 
 
VI EDITOR S PREFACE 
 
 When the book appeared in the summer of 1860, 
 Lincoln, at the request of Samuel C. Parks of 
 Lincoln, Illinois, read the book and made correc- 
 tions with pencilled notations on the margins. 1 The 
 first ninety-four pages were devoted to the biog- 
 raphy of Lincoln and this part of the book is re- 
 printed here in facsimile. The remainder contained 
 some of Mr. Lincoln's speeches and a biographical 
 sketch of Hannibal Hamlin. 
 
 Prior to 1860 Lincoln had prepared two auto- 
 biographical sketches. The facts, as he gave them, 
 were accurate but limited in scope. The Howells 
 biography, as corrected by Lincoln, is, in effect, a 
 fourth autobiography, and it gives an approved 
 version of several incidents in Lincoln's life before 
 his nomination for the Presidency. 
 
 Samuel C. Parks, born in Vermont, moved with 
 his parents to Madison, Indiana, in 1821. Here he 
 attended his father's academy and later, Indiana 
 University, where his father was then a professor 
 of languages. In the spring of 1840, Samuel moved 
 to Springfield, Illinois, and read law in the office 
 of Stuart and Edwards. That fall his father moved 
 to Springfield and opened a private academy, and 
 later became the first superintendent of schools. 
 
 Young Parks became a friend of Lincoln and 
 after his own removal to the town of Lincoln, Illi- 
 nois, he was associated with Lincoln in the trial of 
 many cases in the Logan County Circuit Court. 
 Parks, like Lincoln, became a Republican and 
 
 1 "A Unique Biography of Lincoln," by Benjamin P. 
 Thomas, Abraham Lincoln Association Bulletin No. 35. 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE Vll 
 
 worked assiduously for the Republican cause. On 
 several occasions, he introduced Lincoln when the 
 latter made speeches in Logan County. He worked 
 for Lincoln's nomination at Chicago; and in 1863, 
 Lincoln appointed him an Associate Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of Idaho Territory. One of the 
 last official acts performed by President Lincoln, 
 on April 14, 1865, was the acceptance of the resig- 
 nation of Judge Parks. Parks 's copy of Howells 
 is now owned by his son, Samuel C. Parks, Jr., of 
 Cody, Wyoming, and he has kindly permitted the 
 Abraham Lincoln Association to reprint it. 
 
 When the publishing house of Follett, Foster and 
 Co. employed Howells to write a life of Lincoln, 
 they expected him to go to Springfield to secure 
 material. "This part of the project was distasteful 
 to me, ' ' wrote Howells long afterwards. ' ' I would 
 not go, and I missed the greatest chance of my life, 
 of its kind, though I am not sure that I was wholly 
 wrong, for I might not have been equal to the 
 chance ; I might not have seemed, to the man I 
 would not go to see, the person to report him to the 
 world in a campaign life. What we did was to 
 commission a young law student I knew, to go to 
 Springfield and get the material for me. When he 
 brought it back, I felt the charm of the material, 
 the wild charm and poetry of its reality was not 
 unknown to me ; I was at home with it, for I had 
 known the belated backwoods of a certain region in 
 Ohio ; I had almost lived the pioneer ; and I wrote 
 the little book with none of the reluctance I felt 
 from studying its sources." 
 
Vlll EDITOR S PREFACE 
 
 The young" law student Ho wells had sent to 
 Springfield to collect material for the book was 
 James Quay Howard. Born in Ohio in 1840, 
 Howard was not yet of age, though a graduate of 
 Marietta College. He spent some days in Spring- 
 field ; and Lincoln gave him a copy of the biographi- 
 cal material which he had prepared at the request 
 of John Locke Scripps, of the Chicago Press and 
 Tribune. Howard interviewed some of Lincoln's 
 friends in Springfield, George Close, Lincoln's rail- 
 splitting partner in Macon County and his old New 
 Salem friends. He also made some inspection of 
 the files of the Sangamo Journal and the Journal of 
 the General Assembly of Illinois, before returning 
 to Columbus on June 7, 1860. The extent of his 
 investigations are more clearly revealed in his own 
 campaign biography which Follett, Foster and Co. 
 issued a month after the Howells book. Both 
 authors leaned heavily on the Debates of Lincoln 
 and Douglas, which was issued by the same pub- 
 lisher and was in its fourth printing before Lin- 
 coln's nomination. 
 
 The pre-convention sale of the Debates overtaxed 
 the production facilities of the publishers. When 
 Lincoln was nominated, they doubled their capacity, 
 and announced a campaign life of Lincoln (Howells) 
 to be bound in cloth ; and also a cheap paper covered 
 edition. At the end of May, the publishers dropped 
 the idea of the edition in paper covers; but before 
 June was half over, their competitors were flooding 
 the market with cheap paper-backed campaign 
 " Lives/ y They then announced a forthcoming 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE IX 
 
 campaign life in paper covers, " entirely distinct" 
 from the Howells book. This was The Life of 
 Abraham Lincoln by Howard. Days passed, and it 
 did not appear. The publishers were bogged down 
 with the Debates and the Howells book. To ap- 
 pease disgruntled agents, a stop gap measure was 
 adopted. An abbreviated edition of Howells was 
 brought out in paper covers on June 25th. It was 
 a crude affair of 170 pages. Few copies were sold, 
 and today it is a major Lincolniana rarity ; but, no 
 doubt it served its purpose, for Howard's book did 
 not appear until July 26th, long after any demand 
 for a new campaign life had ceased to exist. 
 
 Though the complete Howells book was not yet 
 published, the publishers were busy stimulating 
 interest and seeking agents for its sale. They 
 announced that Lincoln had authorized the Howells 
 book. This announcement aroused the Ohio Repub- 
 lican leaders ; and one of them, Samuel Galloway, 
 queried Lincoln about the authorization. Lincoln 
 replied on June 19th in a letter marked ' ' Especially 
 Confidential," that "Messrs. Follett, Foster & Go's. 
 Life of me is not by my authority; and I have 
 scarcely been so much astounded by anything as 
 their public announcement that it is authorized by 
 me. ... I certainly knew they contemplated pub- 
 lishing a biography, and I certainly did not object 
 to their doing so, upon their own responsibility. I 
 even took pains to facilitate them. But, at the same 
 time, I made myself tiresome, if not hoarse, with 
 repeating to Mr. Howard . . . that I authorized 
 nothing, would be responsible for nothing ... I 
 
x editor's preface 
 
 would authorize no biography without time and op- 
 portunity to carefully examine and consider every 
 word of it ... I barely suggest that you, or any 
 of the friends there, on the party account, look it 
 over, and exclude what you may think would em- 
 barrass the party. . . . " 2 
 
 The following editorial in the Illinois State 
 Journal, June 15th, was doubtless inspired by 
 Lincoln: "We observe that various publishing 
 houses in different parts of the country are advertis- 
 ing the 'Life of Mr. Lincoln as nearly ready,' 'in 
 press,' etc., and prefacing their announcements 
 with the statement that theirs is the 'authorized' 
 or the 'only authorized,' 'or the only authentic and 
 authorized ' edition. Now there has been great com- 
 petition for the publication of Mr. Lincoln's bi- 
 ography, and various parties have been here 
 procuring the materials for such a work, but it is 
 unnecessary, we presume, for us to say that none of 
 them are 'authorized' by Mr. Lincoln. He is ig- 
 norant of their contents, and is not responsible for 
 anything they may contain." 
 
 The Howells biography was issued on July 5th, 
 I860. 3 On the 16th of July, the Illinois State 
 Journal, carried the following paragraph : "We are 
 indebted to the publishers, Messrs. Follett, Foster 
 and Co., of Columbus, Ohio, for an advanced copy 
 
 2 Lincoln to Samuel Galloway, Springfield, 111., June 19, 
 1860. The original letter is in the Illinois State Historical 
 Library. 
 
 3 Ernest J. Wessen, "Campaign Lives of Abraham Lincoln," 
 Papers in Illinois History and Transactions for the year of 
 1937. 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE XI 
 
 of The Lives of Lincoln and Hamlin, by Howells 
 and Hayes. It is a neatly printed book of 406 
 pages, bound in muslin, and altogether got up in 
 good style. The narrative, so far as we have ex- 
 amined, is written in an entertaining manner, and 
 is perhaps as authentic as any biographies of Mr. 
 Lincoln and Mr. Hamlin, which have yet been 
 published. We observe, however, one most egregious 
 and almost unpardonable blunder on page 74. It 
 consists in quoting as the platform of a Republican 
 State Convention purporting to have been held in 
 Springfield in 1854, the very identical bogus resolu- 
 tions which Mr. Douglas attempted to palm off on 
 his public at the first joint discussions at Ottawa, 
 and which he was compelled to take back. ' ' This 
 same error had appeared on page 33 of the Wide 
 Awake Edition, a campaign biography by an anony- 
 mous author, which had recently been issued by 
 Thayer and Eldridge of Boston. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was as much disturbed, no doubt, as 
 the newspaper. He had refuted this claim of 
 Douglas at Ottawa, Freeport and Galesburg. At 
 the latter place, he had gone into detail to forestall 
 Douglas's effort to fix upon him this charge of ex- 
 treme abolitionism. He carefully pointed out that 
 the resolutions were those of a meeting in Kane 
 County, Illinois, and not of the Republican State 
 Convention held in October, 1854, in Springfield. 
 Lincoln went on to assure the crowd that he had 
 not been associated with either meeting in any way. 
 It is probable that Lincoln carefully read and cor- 
 rected this volume with the object of having the 
 
Xll EDITOR S PREFACE 
 
 most glaring errors corrected in later editions. The 
 book was printed from plates and an examination 
 of later editions shows that, with the exception of 
 the footnote on page 33, this was the only error cor- 
 rected. An errata slip was inserted, facing page 
 74, in the volumes printed but remaining in the 
 publisher's hands. This eight line correction read 
 as follows: "The resolutions said to have been 
 passed at a convention at Springfield, and found on 
 page 74, were not passed. They were a political 
 trick, invented by the Democrats, to defeat Yates, 
 candidate for Congress. See Douglas and Lincoln 
 Debates, pages 90, 97, 98, 182, 189, 195, 196, 199, 
 200. This error, in the hurry of going to press, 
 crept in. On page 75, it will be seen, Mr. Lincoln 
 is shown to have had no connection with the resolu- 
 tions. " In one edition, the five lines on page 74, 
 to which Mr. Lincoln objected, were corrected and 
 the page references to the Debates placed in a foot- 
 note on page 75. 
 
 Lincoln read and corrected Parks 's copy with 
 characteristic care, many of his corrections are mi- 
 nute. These corrections, made in pencil, can be noted 
 on pages 18, 19, 23, 26, 27, 38, 40, 41, 47, 48, 57, 73, 
 74 and 93. He made two slight corrections in his 
 speeches, crossing out the word "with" and insert- 
 ing " in " on page 181, and inserting the word ' ' us ' ' 
 for "it "on page 201. 
 
 A few minor mistakes escaped Lincoln's atten- 
 tion. The statement on page 23 that the Lincolns 
 settled "about ten miles northwest of Decatur," 
 should have been "southwest of Decatur." In the 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE Xlll 
 
 footnote on page 24, "James Hawks" should read 
 "James Hanks." Lincoln's modesty did not com- 
 pel him to comment on two lavish statements on 
 page 31. Here he is set forth as "one of the best 
 informed, as he is certainly the ablest, man in Illi- 
 nois, ' ' and "it is said he has now by heart every line 
 of his favorite poet [Burns]." 
 
 The assertion on page 32 that Lincoln was the 
 only person in the New Salem community "equal 
 to the task of making out the mail returns," for 
 the Post Office Department, is obviously untrue, and 
 perhaps that is the reason why Lincoln made no 
 comment on it. 
 
 Lincoln did not remain at the head of the Clary 
 Grove Boys throughout the Black Hawk War, as 
 stated on page 35. He announced his candidacy for 
 the Illinois Legislature on March 9, 1832, almost 
 five months before election day, August 6th, al- 
 though Howolls says, on page 40 that he announced 
 it only ten days before the election. Lincoln did 
 not receive the largest vote of any candidate in the 
 1834 election as Howells indicated on page 41. John 
 Dawson received 1390 votes to 1376 for Lincoln. 
 This error was repeated on page 44. 
 
 In a footnote on page 42, Howells gives the middle 
 initial of William G. Greene as "T" after having it 
 correct in a footnote on page 39. Lincoln corrected 
 the middle initial in John T. Stuart's name on page 
 48, but failed to correct it on the preceding page. 
 
 The partnership of Stuart and Lincoln (page 49) 
 did not terminate on Stuart's election to Congress in 
 August, 1838, but continued to the spring of 1841. 
 
XIV 
 
 Howells suggested on page 78 that the Lincoln- 
 Douglas debates had been so significant in their re- 
 sults that United States Senators in Illinois would 
 thereafter be elected by the people instead of the 
 legislature. Illinois history subsequent to 1860 does 
 not bear out Howells 's prophecy. 
 
 One statement that Lincoln did not correct is in- 
 consistent with the third person autobiography that 
 Lincoln wrote for John L. Scripps in 1860. Howells 
 said that when Lincoln first began surveying, he used 
 a grapevine instead of a chain ; whereas Lincoln 
 stated in the autobiography: "The surveyor of 
 Sangamon County offered to depute to Abraham 
 that portion of his work which was within his part 
 of the County. He accepted, procured a compass 
 and chain, studied Flint and Gibson a little, and 
 went at it. ' ' These oversights are so few and of such 
 a minor character that we can conclude that most of 
 the statements that Lincoln did not contradict are 
 true. Thus the book becomes a valuable historical 
 source and enables us to speak with more assurance 
 on several hitherto uncertain points in the pre- 
 presiclential period of Lincoln's life. Howells de- 
 clared, for example, that "when practicing law, be- 
 fore his election to Congress, a copy of Burns was 
 his inseparable companion on the Circuit. . . . He 
 is also a diligent student of Shakespeare. . . . The 
 bent of his mind, however, is mathematical and 
 metaphysical, and he is . . . therefore pleased with 
 the absolute and logical method of Poe's tales and 
 sketches, in which the problem of mystery is given, 
 and wrought out into everyday facts by the processes 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE XV 
 
 of cunning analysis. It is said that he suffers no 
 year to pass without a perusal of this author. ' ' We 
 can conclude that he was an enthusiastic reader of 
 these three authors. His liking of Poe's detective 
 stories is especially noteworthy. Howells states that 
 Lincoln received fifteen dollars a month for clerking 
 in Offut's store and that the first publication for 
 which he subscribed was the Louisville Journal. 
 
 Howells described Lincoln's parents as "poor, 
 even for that rude time and country ; and, as a child, 
 Thomas made acquaintance only with hardship and 
 privation. He was a wandering, homeless boy, 
 working when he could find work, and enduring 
 when he could not. He grew up without education ; 
 his sole accomplishment in chirography being his 
 own clumsy signature. . . . From both his parents 
 young Lincoln inherited an iron constitution and 
 a decent poverty. From his father came the knack 
 of story telling, which has made him so delightful 
 among acquaintances, and so irresistible in his 
 stump and forensic drolleries. ' ' 
 
 Several stories previously based only on tradi- 
 tional evidence, are substantiated by this book. One 
 is the story that Lincoln, while living in Macon 
 County, discomfited two visiting political candi- 
 dates, W. L. D. Ewing and a man named Posey, 
 with an impromptu reply to their speeches ; another 
 is the story of Lincoln walking eight miles, while at 
 New Salem, to borrow a copy of Kirkham's Gram- 
 mar and of his getting a ' ' fair, practical knowledge ' ' 
 of it in three weeks. These appear without contra- 
 diction. Howells also tells of Lincoln's receiving 
 
XVI EDITOR S PREFACE 
 
 the news of his nomination for President in the 
 office of the Illinois State Journal, and of his de- 
 parting with the remark, ''There is a little woman 
 down the street who would like to know something 
 about this." 
 
 There are several versions of Lincoln's famous 
 wrestling match with Jack Armstrong at New 
 Salem. Probably the one most widely accepted is 
 to the effect that after the two men had been strug- 
 gling for some time Armstrong, beginning to get 
 the worst of it, resorted to a foul, that so enraged 
 Lincoln that he lifted Armstrong in the air, shook 
 him as he would a dog, and threw him to the ground ; 
 that Armstrong 's friends rushed at Lincoln ; but 
 that Armstrong, admitting that Lincoln had fairly 
 beaten him, commanded them to stand back. How- 
 ells made no mention of a foul, but stated that when 
 Armstrong began to get the worst of it, the Clary 
 Grove Boys rushed in to help him ; that Lincoln 
 refused to continue against such odds, but offered to 
 wrestle, race or fight any of them individually, and 
 that finally Lincoln and Armstrong agreed to call 
 the match a draw. Lincoln, in reading Howells, 
 let this stand unchanged. If Armstrong did commit 
 a foul, Lincoln preferred not to claim it, and if he 
 defeated Armstrong he also made no mention of 
 that fact. 
 
 In telling of Lincoln's experiences in the Black 
 Hawk War, Howells related the story of the old 
 Indian who wandered into camp and was seized by 
 volunteer soldiers, who threatened to kill him. This 
 Indian had a letter from General Cass certifying 
 
EDITOR S PREFACE XV11 
 
 that he was friendly to the whites, but that meant 
 nothing- to the hard-headed pioneer soldiers, who 
 would have earried out their threat if Lincoln had 
 not intervened. Lincoln demanded that they let 
 the man go ; and when they accused him of cow- 
 ardice, offered to convince any of them to the con- 
 trary. This story was based on tradition, and 
 Albert J. Beveridge, among others, regarded it as 
 improbable, but Lincoln read it without contradict- 
 ing it. 
 
 By accepting Howells 's statement that while liv- 
 ing at New Salem ' ' he bought an old copy of Black- 
 stone, one day, at an auction in Springfield," 
 Lincoln inferentially refuted the story of his having 
 providentially discovered a copy of Blackstone at 
 the bottom of a barrel of junk that he bought from a 
 passing traveler to help him on his way. 
 
 Lincoln borrowed the Howells book from the Li- 
 brary of Congress on May 4, 1864, returning it on 
 May 31, and took it out again on March 22, 1865. 
 The book was at the White House at the time of 
 Lincoln's assassination, as it was not returned until 
 May 3, 1865. 
 
 Twenty years after writing the campaign bi- 
 ography, Howells penned this tribute to Lincoln : 
 
 "No admirer who speaks in his praise must 
 pause to conceal a stain upon his good name. 
 No true man falters in his affection at the re- 
 membrance of any mean action or littleness in 
 the life of Lincoln. The purity of his reputa- 
 tion ennobles every incident of his career and 
 gives significance to all events of his past." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln Association. 
 

 L&*^ ey/C ^*^ ^2Xi ^<c^4L^i^^<^ 
 
 l^M^L ~£~&< 7 J^^f-^: 
 
 
LIVES AND SPEECHES 
 
 of 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 HANNIBAL HAMLIN 
 
 COLUMBUS, 0.: 
 FOLLETT, FOSTER & CO 
 
 BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, LEE & CO. 
 1860. 
 
LIFE 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 W. D. HOWELLS 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When one has written a hurried book, one likes 
 to dwell upon the fact, that if the time had not 
 been wanting one could have made it a great deal 
 better. 
 
 This fact is of the greatest comfort to the author, 
 and not of the slightest consequence to anybody 
 else. 
 
 It is perfectly reasonable, therefore, that every 
 writer should urge it. 
 
 A work which seeks only to acquaint people with 
 the personal history of a man for whom they are 
 asked to cast their votes — and whose past ceases to 
 concern them in proportion as his present employs 
 them — will not be numbered with those immortal 
 books which survive the year of their publication. 
 It does not challenge criticism; it fulfills the end 
 of its being if it presents facts and incidents in a 
 manner not altogether barren of interest. 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 It is believed that the following biographical sketch 
 of Abraham Lincoln will be found reliable. The 
 information upon which the narrative is based, has 
 been derived chiefly from the remembrance of Mr. 
 Lincoln's old friends, and may, therefore, be con- 
 sidered authentic. It is hardly necessary to add, 
 that no one but the writer is responsible for his 
 manner of treating events and men. 
 
LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It is necessary that every American should have an 
 indisputable grandfather, in order to be represented in 
 the Revolutionary period by actual ancestral service, 
 or connected with it by ancestral reminiscence. Fur- 
 ther back than a grandfather few can go with satisfac- 
 tion. Everything lies wrapt in colonial obscurity and 
 confusion ; and you have either to claim that the Smiths 
 came over in the Mayflower, or that the Joneses were 
 originally a Huguenot family of vast wealth and the 
 gentlest blood ; or that the Browns are descended from 
 the race of Powhattan in the direct line ; or you are 
 left in an extremely embarrassing uncertainty as to the 
 fact of great-grandparents. 
 
 We do not find it profitable to travel far into the past 
 in search of Abraham Lincoln's ancestry. There is a 
 dim possibility that he is of the stock of the New Eng- 
 land Lincolns, of Plymouth colony ; but the noble sci- 
 ence of heraldry is almost obsolete in this country, and 
 
 (17) 
 
JdeuCK, 
 
 18 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 none of Mr. Lincoln's family seems to have been aware 
 of the preciousness of long pedigrees, so that the records 
 are meagre. The first that is known of his forefathers 
 is that they were Quakers, who may have assisted in 
 those shrewd bargains which honest William Penn 
 drove with the Indians, for we find them settled at an 
 early day in the old county of Berks, in Pennsylvania, 
 where doubtless some of their descendants yet remain. 
 Whether these have fallen away from the calm faith of 
 their ancestors is not a matter of history, but it is cer- 
 tain that the family from which the present Abraham 
 Lincoln derives his lineage, long ago ceased to be Qua- 
 ker in everything but its devout Scriptural names. His 
 grandfather, (anterior to whom is incertitude, and abso- 
 lute darkness of names and dates,) was born in Rock- 
 ingham county, Virginia, whither part of the family had 
 emigrated from Pennsylvania; and had four brothers, 
 patriarchially and apostolically named Isaac, Jacob, 
 John, and Thomas; himself heading the list as Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. 
 
 The descendants of Jacob and John, if any survive, 
 still reside in Virginia ; Thomas settled in the Cumber- 
 land region, near the adjunction of North Carolina, 
 Tennessee, and Virginia, and very probably his chil- 
 dren's children may there be found. Late in the last 
 century, Abraham, with his wife and five children, re- 
 moved from Rockingham to Kentucky, at a time when 
 the border was the scene of savage warfare between 
 the Indians and the whites, and when frontier life was 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 
 
 diversified by continual incursions, repulsions, and re- 
 prisals, on one side and on the other. In one of these 
 frequent invasions, Abraham Lincoln was killed by 
 the Indians, who stole upon him while he was at work 
 and shot him. There is historical mention made of an 
 Indian expedition to Hardin county, Kentucky, in 1781, 
 which resulted in the massacre of some of the settlers; 
 but the date of Lincoln's death is fixed some three years 
 later, and there is no other account of it than family 
 tradition. 
 
 His wife, his three sons and two daughters survived 
 him; but the dispersion of his family soon took place; 
 the daughters marrying, and the sons seeking their for- 
 tunes in different localities. Of the latter, Thomas Lin- 
 coln, the father of Abraham Lincoln of to-day, was the 
 youngest, and doubtless felt more severely than the rest 
 the loss which had befallen them. They were poor, 
 even for that rude time and country; and as a child, 
 Thomas made acquaintance only with hardship and pri- 
 vation. He was a wandering, homeless boy, working 
 when he could find work, and enduring when he could 
 not. He grew up without education ; his sole accom- 
 plishment in chirography being his own clumsy signa- 
 ture. At twenty-eight he married Lucy Hanks, and~/ ^^-C^f 
 settled in Hardin county, where, on the 12th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. 
 
 Lincoln's mother was, like his father, Virginian ; but 
 beyond this, little or nothing is known of her. From 
 both his parents young Lincoln inherited an iron con- 
 
20 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 stitution and a decent poverty. From his father came 
 that knack of story-telling, which has made him so de- 
 lightful among acquaintances, and so irresistible in his 
 stump and forensic drolleries. It is a matter of some 
 regret that the information with regard to Thomas Lin- 
 coln and his wife is so meager. The information is, 
 however, not altogether necessary to the present history, 
 and the conjecture to which one is tempted would be as 
 idle as impertinent. It is certain that Lincoln cherished, 
 with just pride, a family repute for native ability, and 
 alluded to it in after life, when he felt the first impulses 
 of ambition, and began in earnest his struggle with the 
 accidents of ignorance and poverty. 
 
 A younger brother of Abraham's died in infancy ; 
 and a sister, older than himself, married and died many 
 years ago. With her he attended school during his 
 early childhood in Kentucky, and acquired the alpha- 
 bet, and other rudiments of education. The schooling 
 which Abraham then received from the books and birch 
 of Zachariah Riney and Caleb Hazel, (of pedagogic 
 memory,) and afterward from Azel W. Dorsey,* and 
 one or two others in Indiana, amounted in time to 
 nearly a year, and can not be otherwise computed. It 
 is certain, however, that this brief period limits his scho- 
 lastic course. Outside of it, his education took place 
 through the rough and wholesome experiences of border 
 
 *This gentleman is still living in Schuyler county, Illinois. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 21 
 
 life, the promptings of a restless ambition, and a pro- 
 found love of knowledge for its own sake. Under these 
 influences, he has ripened into a hardy physical man- 
 hood, and acquired a wide and thorough intelligence, 
 without the aid of schools or preceptors. 
 
 In the autumn of 1816, when Abraham was ei^ht 
 years old, his father determined to quit Kentucky. Al- 
 ready the evil influences of slavery were beginning to 
 be felt by the poor and the non-slaveholders. But the 
 emigration of Thomas Lincoln is, we believe, to be chiefly 
 attributed to the insecurity of the right by which he held 
 his Kentucky land ; for, in those days, land-titles were 
 rather more uncertain than other human affairs. Aban- 
 doning his old home, and striking through the forests in 
 a northwesterly direction, he fixed his new dwelling- 
 place in the heart of the " forest primeval " of what is 
 now Spencer county, Indiana. The dumb solitude there 
 had never echoed to the ax, and the whole land was a 
 wilderness. 
 
 The rude cabin of the settler was hastily erectec 7 , and 
 then those struggles and hardships commenced which 
 are the common trials of frontier life, and of which the 
 story has been so often repeated. Abraham was a hardy 
 boy, large for his years, and with his ax did manful 
 service in clearing the land. Indeed, with that imple- 
 ment, he literally hewed out his path to manhood ; for, 
 until he was twenty-three, the ax was seldom out of his 
 hand, except in the intervals of labor, or when it was ex- 
 changed for the plow, the hoe, or the sickle. His youth- 
 
22 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 ful experiences in this forest life did not differ from those 
 familiar to many others. As an adventurous boy, no 
 doubt the wood was full of delight and excitement to him. 
 No doubt he hunted the coon, trapped the turkey, and 
 robbed the nest of the pheasant. As a hunter with the 
 rifle, however, he did not acquire great skill, for he has 
 never excelled an exploit of his eighth year, when he 
 shot the leader of a flock of turkeys which ventured 
 within sight of the cabin during his father's absence. 
 
 The family had hardly been two years in their new 
 home when it was desolated by the death of Abraham's 
 mother. This heavy loss was afterward partially re- 
 paired by the marriage of his father to Mrs. Sally John- 
 ston, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She was the parent 
 of three children by a former husband, and was always a 
 good and affectionate mother to Thomas, Lincoln's moth- 
 erless son* 
 
 The Lincolns continued to live in Spencer county, 
 until 1830, nothing interrupting the even tenor of Abra- 
 ham's life, except in his nineteeth year, a flat-boat trip 
 to New Orleans. He and a sob of the owner composed 
 the crew, and without other assistance, voyaged 
 
 " Down the beautiful river, 
 Past the Ohio shore, and past the mouth of the Wabash, 
 Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi," 
 
 Trafficking here and there, in their course, with the 
 
 * Mrs. Lincoln is still living, in Coles county, Illinois. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 23 
 
 inhabitants, and catching glimpses of the great world so 
 long shut out by the woods. One night, having tied up 
 their "cumbrous boat," near a solitary plantation on the 
 sugar coast, they were attacked and boarded by seven 
 stalwart negroes; but Lincoln and his comrade, after a 
 severe contest in which both were hurt, succeeded in 
 beating their assailants and driving them from the boat. 
 After which they weighed what anchor they had, as 
 speedily as possible, and gave themselves to the middle 
 current again. With this sole adventure, Lincoln re- 
 sumed his quiet backwoods life in Indiana. 
 
 Four years afterward, on the first of March, 1830, 
 his father determined to emigrate once more, and the 
 family abandoned the cabin which had been their home 
 so long, and set out for Illinois. The emigrant company 
 was made up of Thomas Lincoln's family, and the fami- 
 lies of Mrs. Lincoln's two sons-in-law. Their means of 
 progress and conveyance were ox-wagons, one of which 
 Abraham Lincoln drove. Before the month was elapsed 
 they had arrived at Macon county, Illinois, where they 
 remained a short time, and Lincoln's family "located" 
 on some new land, about ten miles northwest of Deca- 
 tur, on the north bank of the Sangamon river, at a 
 junction of forest and prairie land. Here the father 
 and son built a log-cabin, and split rails enough to fence 
 in their land. It is supposed that these are the rails 
 which have since become historic ; though they were by 
 no means the only ones which the robust young back- 
 woodsman made. Indeed, there are other particular 
 
24 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 rails* which dispute a celebrity somewhat indifferent 
 to the sincere admirer of Mr. Lincoln. The work done 
 was in the course of farm labor, and went to the devel- 
 opment of Mr. Lincoln's muscle. Otherwise it is diffi- 
 cult to perceive how it has affected his career. 
 
 *Mr. George Close, the partner of Lincoln in the rail-splitting business, says 
 that Lincoln was, at this time, a farm laborer, working from day to day, for 
 different people, chopping wood, mauling rails, or doiug whatever was to bo 
 done. The country was poor, and hard work was the common lot ; the heaviest 
 6hare falling to young unmarried men, with whom it was a continual struggle 
 to earn a livelihood. Lincoln and Mr. Close made about one thousand rails to- 
 gether, for James Hawks and William Miller, receiving their pay in homespun 
 clothing. Lincoln's bargain with Miller's wife, was, that he should have one 
 yard of brown jeans, (richly dyed with walnut bark,) for every four hundred 
 rails made, until he should'have enough for a pair of trowsers. As Lincoln was 
 already of great altitude, the number of rails that went to the acquirement of 
 his pantaloons was necessarily immense. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 In his time, Denton Offutt was a man of substance ; 
 an enterprising and adventurous merchant, trading be- 
 tween the up-river settlements and the city of New 
 Orleans, and fitting out frequent flat-boat expeditions to 
 that cosmopolitan port, where the French voyageur and 
 the rude hunter that trapped the beaver on the Osage and 
 Missouri, met the polished old-world exile, and the 
 tongues of France, Spain, and England made babel in 
 the streets. In view of his experience, it is not too ex- 
 travagant to picture Denton Offutt as a backwoods 
 Ulysses, wise beyond the home-keeping pioneers about 
 
 him — 
 
 " Forever roaming with a hungry heart," 
 
 bargaining with the Indians, and spoiling them, doubt- 
 less, as was the universal custom in those times; learn- 
 ing the life of the wild Mississippi towns, with their law- 
 less frolics, deep potations, and reckless gambling ; meet- 
 ing under his own roof-tree the many-negroed planter 
 of the sugar-coast, and the patriarchal Creole of Louis- 
 iana; ruling the boatman who managed his craft, and 
 defying the steamboat captain that swept by the slow 
 broad-horn with his stately palace of paint and gilding; 
 
 with his body inured to toil and privation, and with all 
 3 (25) 
 
26 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 his wits sharpened by traffic; such, no doubt, was Denton 
 Offutt, who had seen 
 
 :( Cities of men, 
 
 And manners, climates, councils, governments," 
 
 and such was one of Lincoln's earliest friends. He quick- 
 ly discovered the sterling qualities of honesty and fidelity, 
 and the higher qualities of intellect which lay hid under 
 the young Kentuckian's awkward exterior, and he at 
 once took Lincoln into his employment. He was now 
 about sending another flat-boat to New Orleans, and he 
 engaged Lincoln, and the husband of one of Lincoln's 
 step-sisters, together with their comrade, John Hanks,* 
 to take charge of his craft for the voyage from Beards- 
 town, in Illinois, to the Crescent City. 
 
 In this winter of 1830-31, a deep snow, long remem- 
 bered in Illinois, covered the whole land for many weeks, 
 and did not disappear until the first of March, when the 
 waters of the thaw inundated the country. Overland 
 travel from Macon county to Beardstown was rendered 
 impossible ; Lincoln, and his relative, therefore, took a 
 canoe and descended the Sangamon river to Springfield, 
 where they found Offutt. He had not succeeded in 
 getting a flat-boat at Beardstown, as he expected ; but 
 with innumerable flat-boats growing up in their primal 
 element of timber about him, he was not the man to be 
 baffled by the trifling consideration that he had no flat- 
 boat built. He offered to Lincoln and each of his 
 
 '\Now a well known railroad man in IllinoiB. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 27 
 
 friends, twelve dollars a month for the time they should 
 be occupied in getting out lumber, and making the 
 boat. The offer was accepted. The ax did its work ; the 
 planks were sawed with a whip-saw ; Denton's ark was &^C' 
 put together, and the trip to New Orleans triumphantly 
 and profitably made. 
 
 On his return to Illinois, Lincoln found that his father 
 had (in pursuance of a previous intention) removed 
 from Macon, and was now living in Coles county. His 
 relative rejoined his family there; but New Salem, on 
 the Sangamon river, became the home of Lincoln, whose 
 (t location " there was accidental rather than otherwise. 
 He was descending the river with another flat-boat for 
 Offutt, and near New Salem grounded on a dam. An 
 old friend and ardent admirer, who made his acquaint- 
 ance on this occasion, says that Lincoln was standing in 
 the water on the dam, when he first caught sight of 
 him, devoting all his energies to the release of the boat. 
 His dress at this time consisted of a pair of blue jeans 
 trowsers indefinitely rolled up, a cotton shirt, striped 
 white and blue, (of the sort known in song and tradition 
 as hickory,) and a buckeye-chip hat for which a demand 
 of twelve and a half cents would have been exorbitant. 
 
 The future president failed to dislodge his boat ; 
 though he did adopt the ingenious expedient of lighten- 
 ing it by boring a hole in the end that hung over the 
 dam and letting out the water — an incident which Mr. 
 Douglas humorously turned to account in one of his 
 speeches. The boat stuck there stubborn, inimovablo. 
 
28 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Offutt, as has been seen, was a man of resource and 
 decision. He came ashore from his flat-boat and reso- 
 lutely rented the very mill of which the dam had caused 
 his disaster, together with an old store-room, which he 
 filled with a stock of goods, and gave in the clerkly 
 charge of Abraham Lincoln, with the munificent salary 
 of fifteen dollars a month. 
 
 Lincoln had already made his first speech. General 
 W. L. D. Ewing, and a politician named Posey, who after- 
 ward achieved notoriety in the Black Hawk war, had 
 addressed the freemen of Macon the year previous, " on 
 the issues of the day." Mr. Posey had, however, in 
 violation of venerable precedent and sacred etiquette, 
 failed to invite the sovereigns to drink something. They 
 were justly indignant, and persuaded Lincoln to reply, 
 in the expectation that he would possibly make himself 
 offensive to Posey. Lincoln, however, took the stump 
 with characteristic modesty, and begging his friends not 
 to laugh if he broke down, treated very courteously the 
 two speakers who had preceded him, discussed questions 
 of politics, and in his peroration eloquently pictured the 
 future of Illinois. There was sense and reason in his 
 arguments, and his imaginative flight tickled the State 
 pride of the Illinoians. It was declared that Lincoln 
 had made the best speech of the day; and he, to his great 
 astonishment, found himself a prophet among those of his 
 own household, while his titled fellow-orator cordially 
 complimented his performance. 
 
 At New Salem, he now found the leisure and the 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 29 
 
 opportunity to initiate a system of self-education. At 
 last, he had struggled to a point, where he could not 
 only take breath, but could stoop and drink from those 
 springs of knowledge, which a hopeless poverty, inces- 
 sant toil, and his roving, uncertain life, had, till then, 
 forbidden to his lips. 
 
 There seems never to have been any doubt of his abil- 
 ity among Lincoln's acquaintances, any more than there 
 was a doubt of his honesty, his generosity, and gentle- 
 heartedness. When, therefore, he began to make rapid 
 progress in his intellectual pursuits, it surprised none 
 of them — least of all, Lincoln's shrewd patron, Offutt, 
 who had been known to declare, with pardonable enthu- 
 siasm, that Lincoln was the smartest man in the United 
 States. 
 
 The first branch of learning which he took up, was 
 English grammar, acquiring that science from the dry 
 and meager treatise of Kirkham. The book was not to 
 be had in the immediate vicinity, and Lincoln walked 
 seven or eight miles to borrow a copy. He then devoted 
 himself to the study with the whole strength of his reso- 
 lute nature ; and in three weeks he had gained a fair 
 practical knowledge of the grammar. No doubt the 
 thing was hard to the uncultivated mind, though that 
 mind was of great depth and fertility. One of his 
 friends* relates that Lincoln used to take him aside, and 
 require explanations of the sententious Kirkham, when- 
 ever he visited New Salem. 
 
 *L. M. Green, Esq., of Petersburg!], Illinois. 
 
30 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 This young backwoodsman had the stubborn notion that 
 because the Lincolns had always been people of excel- 
 lent sense, he, a Lincoln, might become a person of dis- 
 tinction. He had talked, he said, with men who were 
 regarded as great, and he did not see where they differed 
 so much from others. He reasoned, probably, that 
 the secret of their success lay in the fact of original 
 capacity, and untiring industry. He was conscious of 
 his own powers ; he was a logician, and could not resist 
 logical conclusions. If he studied, why might not he 
 achieve ? 
 
 And Kirkham fell before him. One incident of his 
 study, was a dispute with the learned man of the place, 
 — a very savant among the unlettered pioneers — in re- 
 gard to a grammatical nicety, and the question being 
 referred to competent authority, it was decided in Lin- 
 coln's favor, to his pride and exultation. 
 
 Concluding his grammatical studies with Kirkham, he 
 next turned his attention to mathematics, and took up a 
 work on surveying, with which he made himself thor- 
 oughly acquainted. 
 
 So great was his ardor in study, at this time, that 
 shrewd suspicions with regard to Offutt's clerk got 
 abroad ; the honest neighbors began to question whether 
 one who would voluntarily spend all his leisure in 
 
 "poring over miserable books," 
 
 could be altogether right in his mind. 
 
 The peculiar manner in which he afterward pursued 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 31 
 
 his law studies, was not calculated to allay popular feol- 
 ing. He bought an old copy of Blackstone, one day, at 
 auction, in Springfield, and on his return to New Salem, 
 attacked the work with characteristic energy. 
 
 His favorite place of study was a wooded knoll near 
 New Salem, where he threw himself under a wide-spread- 
 ing oak, and expansively made a reading desk of the 
 hillside. Here he would pore over Blackstone day after 
 day, shifting his position as the sun rose and sank, 
 so as to keep in the shade, and utterly unconscious of 
 everything but the principles of common law. People 
 went by, and he took no account of them ; the saluta- 
 tions of acquaintances were returned with silence, or a 
 vacant stare; and altogether the manner of the absorbed 
 student was not unlike that of one distraught. 
 
 Since that day, his habits of study have changed some- 
 what, but his ardor remains unabated, and he is now re- 
 garded as one of the best informed, as he is certainly the 
 ablest, man in Illinois. 
 
 When practicing law, before his election to Congress, 
 a copy of Burns was his inseparable companion on the 
 circuit ; and this he perused so constantly, that it is said 
 he has now by heart every line of his favorite poet. He 
 is also a diligent student of Shakspeare, "to know whom 
 is a liberal education/' 
 
 The bent of his mind, however, is mathematical and 
 metaphysical, and he is therefore pleased with the abso- 
 lute and logical method of Poe's tales and sketches, in 
 which the problem of mystery is given, and wrought out 
 
32 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 into every-day facts by processes of cunning analysis. It 
 is said that he suffers no year to pass without the perusal 
 of this author. 
 
 Books, of all sorts, the eager student devoured -with an 
 insatiable appetite; and newspapers were no less precious 
 to him. The first publication for which he ever sub- 
 scribed, was the Louisville Journal, which he paid for 
 when he could secure the intellectual luxury only at 
 the expense of physical comfort. 
 
 It was a day of great rejoicing with Lincoln, when 
 President Jackson appointed him postmaster at New 
 Salem. He was a Whig, but the office was of so little 
 pecuniary significance, that it was bestowed irrespective 
 of politics. Lincoln, indeed, was the only person in 
 the community whose accomplishments were equal to 
 the task of making out the mail returns for the Depart- 
 ment. 
 
 An acquaintance says that the Presidency can never 
 make our candidate happier than the post-office did 
 then. He foresaw unlimited opportunities for reading 
 newspapers, and of satisfying his appetite for knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 But it was not through reading alone that Lincoln 
 cultivated his intellect. The grave and practical Ameri- 
 can mind has always found entertainment and profit 
 in disputation, and the debating clubs are what every 
 American youth is subject to. They are useful in many 
 ways. They safely vent the mental exuberance of 
 youth ; those whom destiny intended for the bar and 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33 
 
 the Senate, they assist; those who have a mistaken voca- 
 tion to oratory, they mercifully extinguish. 
 
 Even in that day, and that rude country, where learn- 
 ing was a marvelous and fearful exception, the debating 
 school flourished, in part as a literary institution, and in 
 part as a rustic frolic. 
 
 Lincoln delighted in practicing polemics, as it was 
 called, and used to walk six and seven miles through 
 the woods to attend the disputations in his neighbor- 
 hood. Of course, many of the debates were infinitely 
 funny, for the disputants were, frequently, men without 
 education. Here, no doubt, Lincoln stored his mind 
 with anecdote and comic illustration, while he delight- 
 ed his auditors with his own wit and reason, and added 
 to his growing popularity. 
 
 This popularity had been early founded by a stroke of 
 firmness and bravery on Lincoln's part, when he first 
 came into Sangamon county. 
 
 He had returned from that famous voyage made with 
 Offutt's impromptu flat-boat to New Orleans, and de- 
 scending the Sangamon river, had, as has been already 
 related, fixed upon the little village of New Salem,* by 
 fortuity rather than intention, as his future home. 
 Nevertheless, he had first to undergo an ordeal to 
 which every new comer was subjected, before his resi- 
 dence could be generally acknowledged. Then, when it 
 was much more necessary to be equal parts of horse and 
 
 * Now Tetersburgh. 
 
M LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 alligator, and to be able to vanquish one's weight in 
 wild cats, than now, there nourished, in the region of 
 New Salem, a band of jolly, roystering blades, calling 
 themselves " Clary's Grove Boys," who not only gave 
 the law to the neighborhood, as Regulators, but united 
 judicial to legislative functions, by establishing them- 
 selves a tribunal to try the stuff of every one who came 
 into that region. They were, at once, the protectors and 
 the scourge of the whole country-side, and must have 
 been some such company as that of Brom Bones, in 
 Sleepy Hollow, upon whom the " neighbors all looked 
 with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will." 
 Their mode of receiving a stranger was to appoint some 
 one of their number to wrestle with him, fight with him, 
 or run a foot-race with him, according to their pleasure, 
 and his appearance. 
 
 As soon as young Lincoln appeared, the " Clary's 
 Grove Boys" determined to signalize their prowess anew 
 by a triumph over a stalwart fellow, who stood six feet 
 three inches without stockings. The leader and cham- 
 pion of their band, (one Jack Armstrong, who seems 
 himself to have been another Brom Bones,) challenged 
 Lincoln to a wrestling-match. When the encounter took 
 place, the "Clary's Grove Boy" found that he had de- 
 cidedly the worst half of the affair, and the bout would 
 have ended in his ignominious defeat, had not all his 
 fellow-boys come to his assistance. Lincoln then refused 
 to continue the unequal struggle. He would wrestle 
 with them fairly, or he would run a foot-race, or if any 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 35 
 
 of them desired to fight, he generously offered to thrash 
 that particular individual. He looked every word he 
 said, and none of the Boys saw fit to accept his offer. 
 Jack Armstrong was willing to call the match drawn ; 
 and Lincoln's fearless conduct had already won the 
 hearts of his enemies. He was invited to become one 
 of their company. His popularity was assured. The 
 Boys idolized him, and when the Black Hawk war broke 
 out, he was chosen their captain, and remained at their 
 head throughout the campaign. Their favor still pur- 
 sued him, and, at the close of the war, he was elected to 
 the Legislature, through the influence created by his 
 famous wrestling-match. 
 
 Many of the Boys are now distinguished citizens of 
 Illinois, and are among Lincoln's warmest friends ; 
 though they acknowledge that if he had shown signs 
 of cowardice when they came to the rescue of their 
 champion, it would have fared grievously with him. 
 
 Indeed, this seems to have been one of the most sig- 
 nificant incidents of his early life. It gave him reputa- 
 tion for courage necessary in a new country, and opened 
 a career to him which his great qualities have enabled 
 him to pursue with brilliance and success.* 
 
 * Jack Armstrong, in particular, became a fast friend of Lincoln. It is rela* 
 ted that he bestowed a terrible pummeling on a person who once ventured to 
 speak slightingly of Lincoln in his presence. Afterward, Lincoln had an 
 opportunity to make a full return to Armstrong for his friendship. A man had 
 been killed in a riot at camp-meeting, in Menard county, and suspicion fell upon 
 a son of Jack Armstrong — a wild young scapegrace, who was known to have 
 taken part in the affair. He was arrested, and brought to trial for murder. Lin- 
 coln, who seems to have believed firmly in the young man's innocence, volun- 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 In 1832, Black Hawk's war broke out. In the light of 
 history, this war seems to have been a struggle involun- 
 tarily commenced by the Indians against the white set- 
 tlers. A treaty had been made by the Sacs and Foxes, 
 ceding to the United States all the land east of the Mis- 
 sissippi — a treaty which the Sac chief, Black Hawk, de- 
 clared to be illegal A war with the Sacs ensued, which 
 was terminated by treaty in 1825. Meanwhile Illinois had 
 been admitted to the Union, and the country had filled up 
 with whites, who extended the lines of their settlements 
 around the country of the Indians, and pressed closer 
 and closer upon them. Outrages, on one part and on 
 the other, were of constant occurrence ; and in revenge 
 for some wrong, a party of Chippeway Indians fired upon 
 a keel-boat conveying stores to Fort Snelling. Through 
 mistake or injustice, Black Hawk was arrested for this, 
 and lay imprisoned a whole year before he could be 
 brought to trial and acquitted. After his release, it 
 
 teered in his defense, and throwing aside the well-connected links of circum- 
 stantial evidence against him, made a most touching and eloquent appeal to the 
 sympathies of tho jury. There was that confidence in Lincoln, that absolute 
 faith, that he would never say anything but the truth, to achieve any eud, that 
 the jury listened and were convinced. Young Armstrong was acquitted ; and 
 Lincoln refused to accept any reward for his defense. 
 (36) 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 37 
 
 was believed that he engaged in negotiations to unite 
 all the Indians, from Rock River to the Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, in a general war upon the whites. The alarm, of 
 course, was very great, and active preparations for hos- 
 tilities were made. Regular forces were marched against 
 the Indians at Rock Island, and large bodies of militia 
 were called into the field. It appears that Black Hawk 
 never succeeded in rallying about him more than two 
 or three hundred warriors of his tribe ; the Indians being 
 desirous of peace, and willing to abide by the treaty 
 of the chief Keokuk, who favored the cession of land. 
 Indeed, Black Hawk himself attempted to treat with 
 the whites several times when he met them, and only 
 fought after his flags of truce had been fired upon. The 
 war was brought to a close by the battle of Bad-Ax, 
 in which glorious action a great number of squaws and 
 papooses, not to mention several warriors, were killed. 
 The Indians then retreated beyond the Mississippi, and 
 Black Hawk was brought a prisoner into the camp of 
 the whites. He made the grand tour of the Atlantic 
 cities, where he received the usual attentions bestowed 
 upon lions of every tribe, and returning to the West a 
 sadder and a wiser Indian, passed into oblivion. 
 
 There can not be any doubt that the war was a very 
 serious matter to the people who were engaged in it; 
 and there is as little doubt that their panic exaggerated 
 their danger, and rendered them merciless in their de- 
 termination to expel the Indians. 
 
 Offutt's business had long been failing, and at the 
 
38 LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 time the war broke out, Lincoln had the leisure, as well 
 as the patriotism, to join one oY the volunteer companies 
 which was formed in the neighborhood of New Salem. 
 To his unbounded surprise and satisfaction, he was 
 chosen captain by his fellow-soldiers. The place of 
 rendezvous was at Richland, and as soon as the mem- 
 bers of the company met, the election took place. It 
 was expected that the captaincy would be conferred on 
 a man of much wealth and consequence among the 
 people, for whom Lincoln had once worked. Pie was 
 a harsh and exacting employer, and had treated the 
 young man, whom everybody else loved and esteemed, 
 with the greatest rigor; a course which had not increased 
 his popularity. The method of election was for the 
 candidates to step out of the ranks, when the electors 
 advanced and joined the man whom they chose to lead 
 them. Three-fourths of the company at once went to 
 Lincoln ; and when it was seen how strongly the tide 
 was set in his favor, the friends of the rival candi- 
 date deserted him, one after another, until he was left 
 standing almost alone. He was unspeakably mortified 
 and disappointed, while Lincoln's joy was proportionably 
 great. 
 
 The latter served three months in the Black Hawk 
 war, and made acquaintance with the usual campaign- 
 ing experiences, but was in no battle. He still owns 
 the lands in Iowa that he located with warrants for ser- 
 vice performed in the war. 
 
 An incident of the campaign, in which Lincoln is 
 
 * 
 
 u^yJh^" far /£~/_ P 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 39 
 
 concerned,* illustrates a trait of his character no less 
 prominent than his qualities of integrity and truth. 
 One day an old Indian wandered into Lincoln's camp, 
 and was instantly seized hy his men. The general 
 opinion was that he ought to be put to death. They 
 were in the field for the purpose of killing Indians, and 
 to spare the slaughter of one that Providence had de- 
 livered into their hands was something of which these 
 honest pioneers could not abide the thought. It was 
 to little purpose that the wretched aborigine showed a 
 letter signed by General Cass, and certifying him to be 
 not only a model of all the savage virtues, but a sincere 
 friend of the whites. He was about to be sacrificed, 
 when Lincoln boldly declared that the sacrifice should 
 not take place. He was at once accused of cowardice, 
 and of a desire to conciliate the Indians. Nevertheless, 
 he stood firm, proclaiming that even barbarians would not 
 kill a helpless prisoner. If any one thought him a cow- 
 ard, let him step out and be satisfied of his mistake, in 
 any way he chose. As to this poor old Indian, he had 
 no doubt he was all that the letter of General Cass 
 affirmed; he declared that they should kill him before 
 they touched the prisoner. His argument, in fine, was 
 so convincing, and his manner so determined, that the 
 copper-colored ally of the whites was suffered to go 
 his ways, and departed out of the hostile camp of his 
 friends unhurt. 
 
 * The authority for this anecdote is Mr. William G. Green, a tried and inti- 
 mate friend of Lincoln during early manhood. 
 
40 LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 After his return from the wars, Lincoln determined to 
 test the strength of his popularitj r , by offering himself 
 as a candidate for the Legislature. Added to the good* 
 will which had carried him into the captaincy, he had 
 achieved a warmer place in the hearts of those who had 
 followed his fortunes during the war, by his bravery, so- 
 cial qualities, and uprightness. He was warm-hearted and 
 good-natured, and told his stories, of which he had num- 
 bers, in better style than any other man in the camp. No 
 one was so fleet of foot ; and in those wrestlings which 
 daily enlivened the tedium of camp life, he was never 
 thrown but once, and then by a man of superior science 
 who was not his equal in strength. These were qualities 
 which commended him to the people, and made him the 
 favorite officer of the battalion. 
 
 Parties, at this time, were distinguished as Adams 
 parties and Jackson parties, and in Lincoln's county the 
 Jackson men were vastly in the ascendant. He was a 
 stanch Adams man, and, being comparatively unknown 
 in the remoter parts of the county, was defeated. In his 
 own neighborhood the vote was almost unanimous in his 
 favor; though he had only arrived from the war and 
 announced himself as a candidate ten days before the 
 election. Indeed, he received, at this election, one 
 more vote in his precinct than both of the rival candi- 
 dates for Congress together.* 
 
 * The following is the vote taken from the poll-book in Springfield : For 
 Congress— Jonathan H. Pugh, 179, and Joseph Duncan, 97. For Legislature — 
 Lincoln, 277. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 41 
 
 Defeated, but far from dismayed, Lincoln once more 
 turned his attention to business. He was still poor, for 
 though thrifty enough, he never could withstand the 
 appeals of distress, nor sometimes refuse to become 
 security for those who asked the use of his name. His 
 first surveying had been done with a grape-vine instead 
 of a chain, and having indorsed a note which was not 
 paid, his compass was seized and sold. One James Short 
 bought it and returned it to Lincoln. The surveyor of 
 Sangamon county, John Calhoun, (since notorious for 
 his candle-box concealment of the election returns in 
 Kansas,) deputed to Lincoln that part of the county in 
 which he resided, and he now assumed the .active prac- 
 tice of surveying, and continued to live upon the .slen- 
 der fees of his office until 1834, when he was elected to the 
 Legislature by the largest vote cast for any candidate. 
 
 Before this election Lincoln had engaged and failed in 
 merchandising on his own account. 
 
 It is supposed that it was at New Salem that Lincoln, 
 while a " clerk " in Offutt's store, first saw Stephen A. 
 Douglas, and, probably, the acquaintance was renewed 
 during Lincoln's proprietorship of the store which he 
 afterward bought in the same place.* 
 
 J 
 
 * Lincoln expressly stated, in reply to some badinage of Douglas, during tVl 
 debates of 1858, that ho never kept a grocery anywhere. 0;it West, a grocer* 
 i3 understood to be a place where the chief article of commerce is whisky. 
 Lincoln's establishment was, in the Western sense, a store; that is, he sold tea, 
 coffee, sugar, powder, lead, and other luxuries and necessaries of pioneer exist- 
 ence. Very possibly his store was not without the "elixir of life," with which 
 nearly everybody renewed the flower of youth in those days ; though this is not 
 a matter of a'mhito history, nor perhaps of vital consequence. 
 
 I 
 
42 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 One Reuben Radford was Lincoln's predecessor. He 
 had fallen, by some means, into disfavor with Clary's 
 Grove Boys, who, one evening, took occasion to break in 
 the windows of his establishment. Reuben was discour- 
 aged. Perhaps it would not be going too far to allude 
 to his situation as discouraging. At any rate, he told a 
 young farmer,* who came to trade with him the next 
 day, that he was going to close out his business. What 
 would Mr. Green give him for his stock? Mr. Green 
 looked about him and replied, only half in earnest, Four 
 hundred dollars. The offer was instantly accepted, and 
 the business transferred to Mr. Green. On the follow- 
 ing day Lincoln chanced to come in, and being informed 
 of the transaction, proposed that he and Green should 
 invoice the stock, and see how much he had made. They 
 found that it was worth about six hundred dollars, and 
 Lincoln gave Mr. Green a hundred and twenty-five dol- 
 lars for his bargain, while Green indorsed the notes of 
 Lincoln and one Berry, to Radford for the remaining 
 four hundred. Berry was a thriftless soul, it seems, and 
 after a while the store fell into a chronic decay, and, in 
 the idiom of the region, finally winked out. 
 
 Lincoln was moneyless, having previously invested 
 his whole fortune in a surveyor's compass and books, 
 and Berry was uncertain. Young Green was compelled 
 to pay the notes given to Radford. He afterward re- 
 moved to Tennessee, where he married, and was living 
 
 * Mr. W. T. Green, now one of the most influential and wealthy men of his 
 part of Illinois. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 43 
 
 in forgetfulness of his transaction with Lincoln, when 
 he one day received a letter from that person, stating 
 he was now able to pay back to Green the amount for 
 which he had indorsed. Lincoln was by this time in the 
 practice of the law, and it was with the first earnings of 
 his profession, that he discharged this debt, principal 
 and interest. 
 
 The moral need not be insisted on, and this instance 
 is not out of the order of Abraham Lincoln's whole life. 
 That the old neighbors and friends of such a man should 
 regard him with an affection and faith little short of 
 man-worship, is the logical result of a life singularly 
 pure, and an integrity without flaw. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It is seen that Abraham Lincoln was first elected to a 
 seat in the Legislature, in 1834, in the face of the un- 
 popularity of his political principles, by a larger vote 
 than that given to any other candidate. As a legislator 
 he served his constituents so well that he was three times 
 afterward returned to his place; in 1836, in 1838, and 
 in 1840. He then terminated his legislative career by a 
 positive refusal to be again a candidate. 
 
 The period embraced by the eight years in which 
 Lincoln represented Sangamon county, was one of the 
 greatest material activity in Illinois. So early as 1820, 
 the young State was seized with the " generous rage " 
 for public internal improvements, then prevalent in New 
 York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and in its sessions for a 
 score of succeeding years, the Legislature was occupied 
 by the discussion of various schemes for enhancing the 
 prosperity of the State. The large canal uniting the 
 waters of Lake Michigan and the Illinois river was com- 
 pleted at a cost of more than eight millions. By a 
 Board of Commissioners of Public Works, specially cre- 
 ated, provisions were made for expensive improvements 
 of the rivers Wabash, Illinois, Rock, Kaskaskia, and 
 Little Wabash, and the great Western mail route from 
 
 (44) 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 45 
 
 Vincennes to St. Louis. Under the charge of the same 
 Board, six railroads connecting principal points were 
 projected, and appropriations made for their completion 
 at an immense outlay. 
 
 One effect of a policy so wild and extravagant was to 
 sink the State in debt. Another was to attract vast 
 immigration, and fill up her broad prairies with settlers. 
 Individuals were ruined; the corporate State became 
 embarrassed; but benefits have resulted in a far greater 
 degree than could have been hoped when the crash first 
 came. It is not yet time to estimate the ultimate good 
 to be derived from these improvements, though the im- 
 mediate evil has been tangible enough. 
 
 The name of Abraham Lincoln is not found recorded 
 in favor of the more visionary of these schemes ; but he 
 has always favored public improvements, and his voice 
 was for whatever project seemed feasible and practical. 
 During his first term of service, he was a member of the 
 Committee on Public Accounts and "Expenditures. He 
 voted for a bill to incorporate agricultural societies ; for 
 the improvement of public roads ; for the incorporation 
 of various institutions of learning; for the construction 
 of the Illinois and Michigan Canal ; he always fostered 
 the interests of public education, and favored low salaries 
 for public officials. In whatever pertained to the local 
 benefit of his own county, he was active and careful ; 
 but his record on this subject is of little interest to the 
 general reader. 
 
 Lincoln's voice was ever for measures that relieved 
 
46 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 the struggling poor man from pecuniary or political 
 difficulties; he had himself experienced these difficul- 
 ties. He therefore supported resolutions for the re- 
 moval of the property qualification in franchise, and for 
 the granting of pre-emption rights to settlers on the 
 public lands. He was the author of a measure permit- 
 ting Revolutionary pensioners to loan their pension 
 money without taxati-on. He advocated a bill exempting 
 from execution Bibles, school-books, and mechanics' 
 tools. 
 
 His first recorded vote against Stephen A. Douglas, 
 was on the election of that politician to the Attorney- 
 Generalship by the Legislature. 
 
 He twice voted for the Whig candidates for the United 
 States Senate. Otherwise than in the election of Sena- 
 tors, State Legislatures were not then occupied with 
 national affairs, and it is difficult to find anything in Mr. 
 Lincoln's legislative history which is of great national 
 interest. There were no exciting questions, and Mr. 
 Lincoln's speeches were few and brief.* He was twice 
 the candidate (in 1838 and 1840) of the Whig minority 
 for Speaker of the House. 
 
 In 1836, when Lincoln was first re-elected to the Leg- 
 islature, Sangamon county, then of greater geographical 
 mportance than now, was represented by nine members, 
 
 * A protest from Mr. Lincoln appears on the journal of the House, in regard 
 to some resolutions which had passed. In this protest he pronounces distinctly 
 against slavery, and takes the first public step toward what is now Republican 
 doctrine. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 47 
 
 no one of whom was less than six feet in height — several 
 of them considerably exceeding that altitude. This im- 
 mensity of stature attracted attention, and the Sanga- 
 mon members were at once nicknamed The Long-Nine* 
 They were genial, hearty-humored fellows, famous whit- 
 tlers, and distinguished spinners of yarns. They all 
 boarded at the same place, and being of gregarious 
 habits, spent their evenings together. Lincoln was the 
 favorite of the circle; admired for his gift of story- 
 telling, and highly esteemed for his excellent qualities 
 of head and heart, his intellectual shrewdness, his re- 
 liability, his good-nature, and generosity. The Illinois 
 Legislature then held its sessions at Vandalia, and Lin- 
 coln used to perform his journeys between New Salem 
 and the seat of government on foot, though the remain- 
 ing eight of the Long-Nine traveled on horseback. 
 
 A pleasant story connected with this part of his polit- 
 ical career is related by Hon. John D. Stuart. Lincoln 
 and Stuart were both candidates for the Legislature in 
 183-4. Stuart's election was conceded, while that of Lin- 
 coln was thought to be comparatively uncertain. The 
 two candidates happened to be present together at a back- 
 woods frolic, when some disaffected of Stuart's party took 
 Lincoln aside, and offered to withdraw votes enough 
 from Stuart to elect him. He rejected the proposal, and 
 at once disclosed the scheme to Stuart, declaring that he 
 would not make such a bargain for any office. 
 
 It is by such manly and generous acts that Lincoln 
 has endeared himself to all his old neighbors. It, may 
 
48 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 be said of him without extravagance that he is beloved 
 of all — even by those against whose interests he has 
 conscientiously .acted. When in the practice of the law 
 he was never known to undertake a cause which he be- 
 lieved founded in wrong and injustice. " You are not 
 strictly in the right," he said to a person who once 
 wished him to bring a certain suit, and who now tells 
 the story with profound admiration. "I might give 
 the other parties considerable trouble, and perhaps beat 
 them at law, but there would be no justice in it. I am 
 sorry — I can not undertake your case." " I never knew 
 Lincoln to do a mean act in his life," said Stuart, the 
 veteran lawyer, who first encouraged Lincoln to adopt 
 his profession. "God never made a finer man," ex- 
 claimed the old backwoods-man, Close, when applied to 
 for reminiscences of Lincoln. So by the testimony of 
 all, and in the memory of every one who has known him, 
 Lincoln is a pure, candid, and upright man, unblem- 
 ished by those vices which so often disfigure greatness, 
 utterly incapable of falsehood, and without one base or 
 sordid trait. 
 
 During the Legislative canvass of 1834, John Ifc 
 Stuart advised Lincoln to study law, and after the 
 election he borrowed some of Stuart's books, and began 
 to read. Other warm and influential friends, (Wm. But- 
 ler, the present Treasurer of State in Illinois, was one 
 of these,) came to Lincoln's material aid and encour- 
 agement, and assisted him to retrieve his early errors 
 of generosity. With the support of these friends — for 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 49 
 
 Lincoln is a man who could receive benefits as nobly 
 as he conferred them — and the slender revenues of his 
 surveyorship, he struggled through the term of his law 
 studies, and was admitted to the bar in 1836. Business 
 flowed in upon him, and quitting New Salem, he took 
 up his residence at Springfield, where he united his pro- 
 fessional fortunes with those of Major Stuart. The two 
 old friends remained in partnership until Stuart's elec- 
 tion to Congress, by which time Lincoln had elevated 
 himself to a position among the first lawyers of the place. 
 In the midst of affairs, however, he never relaxed his 
 habits of study; taking up, one by one, the natural 
 sciences, and thoroughly acquainting himself with the 
 abstrusest metaphysics. He remains to this day a severe 
 and indefatigable student — never suffering any subject 
 to which he directs his attention, to pass without pro- 
 found investigation. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 We now find Abraham Lincoln beginning to assume 
 an active part in the political affairs of Illinois. 
 
 He is known to the Whigs throughout the State, and 
 his general popularity is as great as the esteem and re- 
 gard in which he is held by those personally acquainted 
 with him. 
 
 The talented young Whig has founded his reputation 
 upon qualities that make every man proud to say he is 
 the friend of Lincoln. 
 
 No admirer, who speaks in his praise, must pause to 
 conceal a stain upon his good name. No true man 
 falters in his affection at the remembrance of any mean 
 action or littleness in the life of Lincoln. 
 
 The purity of his reputation, the greatness and dignity 
 of his ambition, ennoble every incident of his career, and 
 give significance to all the events of his past. 
 
 It is true that simply to have mauled rails, and com- 
 manded a flat-boat, is not to have performed splendid 
 actions. But the fact that Lincoln has done these things, 
 and has risen above them by his own force, confers a 
 dignity upon them ; and the rustic boy, who is to be 
 President in 1900, may well be consoled and encour- 
 aged in his labors when he recalls these incidents in the 
 
 (50) 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 51 
 
 history of one whose future once wore no brighter aspect 
 than his own wears now. 
 
 The emigrant, at the head of the slow oxen that drag 
 his household gods toward the setting sun — toward some 
 Illinois yet further west — will take heart and hope when 
 he remembers that Lincoln made no prouder entrance 
 into the State of which he is now the first citizen. 
 
 The young student, climbing unaided up the steep 
 ascent — he who has begun the journey after the best 
 hours of the morning are lost forever — shall not be 
 without encouragement when he finds the footprints of 
 another in the most toilsome windings of his path. 
 
 Lincoln's future success or unsuccess can affect noth- 
 ing in the past. The grandeur of his triumph over all 
 the obstacles of fortune, will remain the same. Office 
 can not confer honors brighter than those he has already 
 achieved ; it is the Presidency, not a great man, that is 
 elevated, if such be chosen chief magistrate. 
 
 We have seen that, in 1842, he declines re-election to 
 the State Legislature, after eight years' service in that 
 body. He has already been on the Harrison electoral 
 ticket, and has distinguished himself in the famous can- 
 vass of 1840. 
 
 But it is not as a politician alone, that Lincoln is 
 heard of at this time. After Stuart's election to Con- 
 gress has dissolved their connection, Lincoln forms a 
 partnership with Judge Logan, one of the first in his 
 profession at Springfield, and continues the practice of 
 the law, with rising repute. 
 
 >RARY ". 
 
 i?vF.Rsmr of mmM 
 
52 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 His characteristics as an advocate, are an earnestness 
 and sincerity of manner, and a directness, conciseness, 
 and strength of style; he appeals, at other times, to 
 the weapons of good-humored ridicule as ably as to 
 the heavier arms of forensic combat. He is strongest 
 in civil cases, but in a criminal cause that enlists his 
 sympathy he is also great. It is then that the advocate's 
 convictions, presented to the jury in terse and forcible, 
 yet eloquent language, sometimes outweigh the charge 
 of the judge. Juries listen to him, and concur in his 
 arguments ; for his known truth has preceded his argu- 
 ments, and he triumphs. There may be law and evi- 
 dence against him, but the belief that Lincoln is right, 
 nothing can shake in the minds of those who know the 
 man. 
 
 He prepares his cases with infinite care, when he has 
 nothing but technical work before him. The smallest 
 detail of the affair does not escape him. All the parts 
 are perfectly fitted together, and the peculiar powers of 
 his keen, analytic mind are brought into full play. He 
 has not the quickness which characterizes Douglas, and 
 which is so useful to the man who adventures in law 
 or politics. But he is sufficiently alert, and recovers 
 himself in time to achieve success. 
 
 Lincoln does not grow rich at the law, and has not 
 grown rich to this day, though possessing a decent com- 
 petence, and owing no man anything. Poor men, who 
 have the misfortune to do with courts, come to Lincoln, 
 who has never been known to exact an exorbitant fee, 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 53 
 
 and whose demands are always proportioned to their 
 poverty. There is record of a case which he gained for 
 a young mechanic, after carrying it through three courts, 
 and of his refusal to receive more than a comparative 
 trifle in return. 
 
 Meantime, in the year 1842, Lincoln married a wo- 
 man worthy to be the companion of his progress toward 
 honor and distinction. Miss Mary Todd, who became 
 his wife, is the daughter of Robert Todd, of Lexington, 
 Kentucky, a man well known in that State, and- for- 
 merly the clerk of the lower House of Congress. At the 
 time of her marriage, Miss Todd was the belle of Spring- 
 field society — accomplished and intellectual, and possess- 
 ing all the social graces native in the women of Ken- 
 tuck} 7 .* 
 
 If, at this point of his career, Lincoln looked back 
 over his past life with proud satisfaction, his feeling was 
 one in which every reader, who has traced his history, 
 must sympathize. 
 
 It was hardly more than a half-score of years since 
 he had entered Illinois, driving an ox-wagon, laden with 
 the "plunder" of a backwoods emigrant. He was ut- 
 terly unknown, and without friends who could advance 
 him in any way. He was uneducated, and almost un- 
 lettered. 
 
 In ten years he had reversed all the relations of his 
 
 * Three living sons are the children of this marriage ; the first of whom was 
 born in 1843, the second in 1850, and the third in 1853. Another son, who was 
 born in 184.6, is now dead. 
 
54 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 life. No man had now more friends among all classes 
 of people. No man among Lis neighbors had a wider 
 intelligence, or more eager and comprehensive mind. 
 No man of his age stood better in his profession, or in 
 politics. No one was in a fairer road to happiness and 
 success. And all this had been accomplished through 
 his own exertion, and the favor which his many noble 
 traits awakened in those around him. 
 
 He might well exult in view of all that had been, and 
 all that was. 
 
 But, however this may have been, Lincoln did not 
 pause to exult. He exulted in full career; for already 
 the great battle of 1844 was approaching, and he was to 
 take a prominent part in the contest. Many of the peo- 
 ple of Illinois have distinct recollection of the brilliant 
 debates which he conducted with Calhoun and Thomas, 
 and these are loth to concede that they have ever been 
 surpassed. The debaters met in all the principal cities 
 and towns of that State, and afterward carried the war 
 into Indiana. 
 
 It may bo supposed that the fortunes of the war varied, 
 but there are popular stories related of these encounters 
 that give rather amusing results of one of Lincoln's fre- 
 quent successes. 
 
 The contest turned upon the annexation of Texas, to 
 which measure Lincoln was opposed, in proportion as 
 he loved and honored Henry Clay. It has been said 
 that no man ever had such friends as Clay possessed. 
 It may be said that he never possessed a friend more 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 55 
 
 ardent, attached, and faithful than Abraham Lincoln. 
 Throughout that disastrous campaign of 1844, Lincoln 
 was a zealous and indefatigable soldier in the Whig 
 cause. His name was on the electoral ticket of Illinois, 
 and he shared the defeat of his gallant leader — a defeat 
 which precipitated the Mexican war, with its attendant 
 evils, and the long train of dissensions, discords, and 
 pro-slavery aggressions which have followed. 
 
 In the lull which comes after a Presidential battle, 
 Lincoln, while mingling in State politics, devoted him- 
 self more particularly to professional affairs, though he 
 continued an enemy to the Mexican war, and his election 
 to Congress in 1846, took place in full view of this en- 
 mity. It is worthy of note, in this connection, that he 
 was the only Whig elected in Illinois at that time. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The period over which Lincoln's Congressional career 
 extends, is one of the most interesting of our history. 
 
 Mr. Polk's favorite scheme of a war of glory and 
 aggrandizement, had been in full course of unsatisfactory 
 experiment. Our little army in Mexico had conquered a 
 peace as rapidly as possible. The battles of Palo Alto, 
 Beseca de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, 
 and the rest, had been fought to the triumph and honor 
 of the American arms. Everywhere, the people had re- 
 garded these successes with patriotic pride. They had 
 felt a yet deeper interest in them because the volunteer 
 system had taken the war out of the hands of mercena- 
 ries, and made it, in some sort, the crusade of Anglo- 
 Saxon civilization and vigor against the semi-barbarism 
 and effeteness of the Mexican and Spanish races. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the popular character thus given 
 to the army, the war itself had not increased in popu- 
 larity. People, in their sober second thought, rejected 
 the specious creed, " Our country, right or wrong," and 
 many looked forward earnestly and anxiously to a con- 
 clusion of hostilities. 
 
 The elections of Congressmen had taken place ; and in 
 (56) 
 

 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 57 
 
 the Thirtieth Congress, which assembled on the 6th of 
 December, 1847, the people, by a majority of seven 
 Whigs in the House, pronounced against the war, 
 though hardly more than a year had elapsed since their 
 Representatives, by a vote of one hundred and twenty- 
 two to fourteen, had declared war to exist through the 
 act of Mexico. 
 
 In those days, great men shaped the destinies of the 
 nation. In the Senate sat Clay, Calhoun, Benton, Web- 
 ster, Corwin. In the House were Palfrey, Winthrop, 
 Wilmot, Giddings, Adams. 
 
 The new member from Illinois, who had distinguished 
 himself in 1844 as the friend of Clay and the enemy 
 of Texan annexation, took his seat among these great 
 men as a representative of the purest Whig principles ; 
 he was opposed to the war, as Corwin was; he was anti- 
 slavery, as Clay was ; he favored internal improvements, 
 as all the great Whigs did. 
 
 And as Abraham Lincoln never sat astride of any 
 fence, unless in his rail-splitting days ; as water was 
 never carried on both of his square shoulders; as his 
 prayers to Heaven have never been made with reference 
 to a compromise with other powers; so, throughout his 
 Congressional career, you find him the bold advocate of 
 the principles which he believed to be right. He never 
 dodged a vote. He never minced matters with his oppo- 
 nents. He had not been fifteen days in the House when 
 he made known what manner of man he was. 
 
 On the 22d of December he offered a series of reso- 
 
 ^ 
 
58 LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 lutions,* making the most damaging inquiries of the 
 President, as to the verity of certain statements in his 
 messages of May and December. Mr. Polk had repre- 
 sented that the Mexicans were the first aggressors in the 
 
 *Tho following are the resolutions, which It is judged best to print here in 
 full: 
 
 " Whereas, the President of the United States, in his Message of May 11, 
 1846, has declared that ' the Mexican government refused to receivo him, [the 
 envoy of the United States,] or listen to his propositions, but, after a long-con- 
 tinued series of menaces, have at last invaded our territory, and shed the blood of 
 our fellow-citizens on our own soil.'' 
 
 " And again, in his Message of December 8, 184G, that 'we had ample cause of 
 war against Mexico long before the breaking out of hostilities ; but even then 
 we forbore to take redress into our own hands, until Mexico basely became the 
 aggressor, by invading our soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of our 
 citizens.' 
 
 "And yet again, in his Message of December 7, 1847, 'The Mexican govern- 
 ment refused even to hear the terms of adjustment which he (our minister of 
 peace) was authorized to propose, and finally, under wholly unjustifiable pre- 
 texts, involved the two countries in war, by invading the territory of the State 
 of Texas, striking the first blow, and shedding the blood of our citizens on our 
 own soil. 1 
 
 "And whereas this House is desirous to obtain a full knowledge of all the 
 facts which go to establish whether the particular spot on which the blood of 
 our citizens was so shed, was, or was not, at that time, our own soil. Therefore, 
 
 "Resolved, by the House of Representatives, That the President of the United 
 States be respectfully requested to inform this House — 
 
 " 1st. Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his 
 memorial declared, was, or was not within the territory of Spain, at least, after 
 the treaty of 1819, until the Mexican revolution. 
 
 " 2d. Whether that spot is, or is not v/ithin the territory which was wrested 
 from Spain by the revolutionary government of Mexico. 
 
 "3d. Whether that spot is, or is not within a settlement of people, which set- 
 tlement has existed ever since long before the Texas Re-volution, and until its 
 inhabitants fled before the approach of the United States army. 
 
 " 4th. Whether that settlement is, or is not isolated from any and all other 
 settlements of the Gulf and the Bio Grande on the south and west, and of wide 
 uninhabited regions on the north and east. 
 
 "5th. Whether the people of that settlement, or a majority of them, have 
 ever submitted themselves to the government or laws of Texas, or of the United 
 States, of consent or of compulsion, either of accepting office or voting at elec- 
 tions, or paying taxes, or serving on juries, or having process served on thorn 
 or in any other way. 
 
 «« 6th. Whether the people of that settlement did or did not flee at the ap- 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 59 
 
 existing hostilities, by an invasion of American soil, and 
 an effusion of American blood, after rejecting the friend- 
 ly overtures made by this country. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's resolutions demanded to know whether 
 the spot on which American blood had been shed, was 
 not Mexican, or at least, disputed territory; whether the 
 Mexicans who shed this blood had not been driven from 
 their homes by the approach of our arms; whether the 
 Americans killed were not armed soldiers sent into 
 Mexican territory, by order of the President of the 
 United States. 
 
 Parliamentary strategy defeated the proposed inquiry, 
 the resolutions going over under the rules. 
 
 On the 12th of January, Mr. Lincoln made a speech* 
 on the reference of different parts of the President's 
 message. In this speech he justified a previous vote of 
 sentiment, declaring that the war had been "unnecessa- 
 rily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President 
 of the United States." That vote had been pressed 
 upon the opposition of the House, by the President's 
 
 proaching of the United States army, leaving unprotected their homes and their 
 growing crops before the blood was shed, as in the message stated; and whother 
 the first blood so shed was, or was not shed within the inclosure of one of tho 
 people who had thus fled from it. 
 
 "7th. Whether our citizens wbose blood was shed, as in his message declared, 
 were, or were not, at that time, armed officers and soldiers sent into that settle- 
 ment by the military order of the President, through tho Secretary of War. 
 
 " 8th. Whether the military force of the United States was, or was not so sent 
 into that settlement after General Taylor had more than once intimated to the 
 War Department that, in his opinion, no such movement was necessary to the 
 defense or protection of Texas." — Congressional Globe, vol. xviii, 1st session, 30tt 
 Congress, page G4. 
 
 * Globe Appendix, vol, xix, page 93. 
 
60 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 friends, in order to force an expression of opinion which 
 should seem unjust to that functionary. Discussing 
 this point, Mr. Lincoln coolly argued to conclusions 
 the most injurious to the administration ; showing that 
 even though the President had attempted to construe a 
 vote of supplies for the army into a vote applauding his 
 official course, the opposition had remained silent, until 
 Mr. Polk's friends forced this matter upon them. Mr. 
 Lincoln then took up the arguments of the President's 
 message, one by one, and exposed their fallacy ; and fol- 
 lowing the line of inquiry marked out by his resolutions 
 of December, proved that the first American blood shed 
 by Mexicans, was in retaliation for injuries received from 
 us, and that hostilities had commenced on Mexican soil. 
 The speech was characterized by all the excellences of 
 Lincoln's later style — ^boldness, trenchant logic, and dry 
 humor. 
 
 He next appears in the debates,* as briefly advocating 
 a measure to give bounty lands to the surviving volun- 
 teer soldiers of the war of 1812, and arguing the pro- 
 priety of permitting all soldiers holding land warrants, 
 to locate their lands in different parcels, instead of re- 
 quiring the location to be made in one body. 
 
 As Lincoln is a man who never talks unless he has 
 something particular to say, (rare and inestimable vir- 
 tue !) a period of some three months elapsed before he 
 made another speech in Congress. On the 20th of June, 
 
 Globe, vol. xviii, page 550. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 61 
 
 1848, the Civil and Diplomatic Appropriation bill being 
 under consideration, he addressed to the House and 
 the country, a clear and solid argument in favor of the 
 improvement of rivers and harbors.* As a Western 
 man, and as a man whom his own boating experiences 
 had furnished with actual knowledge of the perils of 
 snags and sawyers, he had always been in favor of a 
 measure which commended itself at once to the heart 
 and the pocket of the West. As the representative of a 
 State with many hundred miles of Mississippi river, and 
 vast river interests, he argued to show that an enlight- 
 ened system of internal improvements, must be of na- 
 tional as well as local benefit.f The prevailing Demo- 
 cratic eirors on this subject, as Mr. Lincoln succinctly 
 stated them, were as follows : 
 
 " That internal improvements ought not to be made 
 by the General Government: 
 
 " 1. Because they would overwhelm the Treasury. 
 
 11 2. Because, while their burdens would be general, 
 their benefits would be local and partial, involving an 
 obnoxious inequality ; and, 
 
 " 3. Because they would be unconstitutional. 
 
 "4. Because the States may do enough by the levy 
 and collection of tonnage duties; or, if not, 
 
 " 5. That the Constitution may be amended. 
 
 Globe Appendix, vol. xix, page 709. 
 f This speech will be found printed at length in the appendix to the present 
 biography. 
 
62 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 'The sura," said Lincoln, "of these positions is, Do 
 nothing at all, lest you do something wrong." 
 
 He then proceeded to assail each of the positions, 
 demolishing them one after another. That admirable 
 simplicity of diction which dashes straight at the heart 
 of a subject, and that singular good sense which teaches 
 a man to stop when he is done, are no less the charac- 
 teristics of this effort than of all the other speeches of 
 Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 Of a different manner, but illustrating a phase of his 
 mind equally marked, is the speech he made in the 
 House on the 27th of July,* when he discussed the 
 political questions of the day with reference to the Pres- 
 idential contest between General Taylor and Mr. Cass. 
 It abounds in broad ridicule and broad drollery — the 
 most effective and the most good-natured. Severe and 
 sarcastic enough, when treating a false principle, it 
 seems never to have been one of Lincoln's traits to 
 indulge in bitter personalities. His only enemies, there- 
 fore, are those who hate his principles. 
 
 On the 21st of December, 1848, Mr. Gott, of New 
 York, offered a resolution in the House, instructing 
 the Committee on the District of Columbia to report a 
 bill for the abolition of the slave-trade in that District. 
 There were men in Congress then who had not forgot- 
 ten the traditions of the Republican fathers, and who 
 were indignant that slaves should be bought and sold 
 
 * Globe Appendix, vol. six, page 1041. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 63 
 
 in the shadow of the capital — that the slave-trader should 
 make the political metropolis of the Republic a depot 
 on the line of his abominable traffic. 
 
 As soon as the resolution of Mr. Gott was read, a mo- 
 tion was made to lay it on the table, which was lost by 
 a vote of eighty-one to eighty-five. A hot struggle en- 
 sued ; but the resolution was adopted. An immediate 
 attempt to reconsider proved ineffectual. The action 
 upon reconsideration was postponed from day to day, 
 until the 10th of January following, when Mr. Lincoln 
 proposed that the committee should be instructed to re- 
 port a bill forbidding the sale, beyond the District of 
 Columbia, of any slave born within its limits, or the 
 removal of slaves from the District, except such servants 
 as were in attendance upon their masters temporarily 
 residing at Washington; establishing an apprenticeship 
 of twenty-one years for all slaves born within the District 
 subsequent to the year 1850; providing for their emanci- 
 pation at the expiration of the apprenticeship; authoriz- 
 ing the United States to buy and emancipate all slaves 
 within the District, whose owners should desire to set 
 them free in that manner ; finally submitting the bill 
 to a vote of the citizens of the District for approval. 
 
 It is well known that the efforts to abolish the slave- 
 trade in the District of Columbia have resulted in noth- 
 ing.* The wise, humane, and temperate measure of Mr. 
 Lincoln shared the fate of all the rest. 
 
 *Mr. Lincoln's proposition had received the approval of Mayor Seaton, of 
 Washington, who informed him that it would meet the approbatioa of the 
 
64 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Another great measure of the Congress in which Mr. 
 Lincoln figured, was the Wilmot Proviso — now a favor- 
 ite Kepublican measure — and so pervading, with its dis- 
 tinctive principle (opposition to slavery extension) the 
 whole Republican soul, that, whether in or out of plat- 
 forms, it remains the life and strength of the party. To 
 this measure Mr. Lincoln was fully committed. Indeed, 
 it is a peculiarity of this man, that he has always acted 
 decidedly one way or the other. He thought the Mex- 
 ican war wrong. He opposed it with his whole heart 
 and strength. He thought the Wilmot Proviso right, 
 and he says he " had the pleasure of voting for it, in one 
 way or another, about forty times." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was one of those who advocated the 
 nomination of General Taylor, in the National Whig 
 Convention of 1848. Returning to Illinois after the 
 adjournment of Congress, he took the stump for his 
 favorite candidate, and was active throughout that fa- 
 mous canvass. In 1849, he retired from Congress, firmly 
 declining re-nomination, and resumed the practice of 1 
 his profession. 
 
 The position which he maintained in the House of 
 Representatives was eminently respectable. His name 
 appears oftener in the ayes and noes, than in the de- 
 bates; he spoke therefore with the more force and effect 
 when he felt called upon to express his opinion. 
 
 leading citizens. Afterward, Southern Congressmen visited the Mayor and 
 persuaded him to withdraw the moral support given to the measure. When 
 this had been done, the chief hope of success was destroyed, and the bill, of 
 •which Mr. Lincoln gave notice, was nover introduced. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 65 
 
 The impression that his Congressional speeches give 
 you, is the same left by all others that he has made. 
 You feel that he has not argued to gain a point, but to 
 show the truth ; that it is not Lincoln he wishes to sus- 
 tain, but Lincoln's principles. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Peace to the old Whig party, which is dead ! When 
 a man has ceased to live, we are cheaply magnanimous 
 in the exaltation of his virtues, and we repair whatever 
 wrong we did him when alive by remorselessly abusing 
 every one who hints that he may have been an imper- 
 ceptible trifle lower than the angels. 
 
 It is with such post-mortem greatness of soul that 
 the leaders of the Democracy have cherished the memory 
 of the Whig party, and gone about the stump, clad in 
 moral sackcloth and craped hats. 
 
 If you will believe these stricken mourners, virtue 
 went out with that lamented organization ; and there is 
 but one true man unhanged in America, and he is a 
 stoutish giant, somewhat under the middle size. 
 
 In speaking, therefore, of the Whig party, you have 
 first to avoid offense to the gentlemen who reviled its 
 great men in their lifetime, and who have a fondness 
 for throwing the honored dust of the past into the eyes 
 of the present. Then, respect is due to the feelings of 
 those Republicans who abandoned the Whig party only 
 after the last consolations of religion had been admin- 
 istered, and who still remember it with sincere regret. 
 
 The prejudices of another class of our friends must 
 (66) 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 67 
 
 be treated with decent regard. Very many old Demo- 
 crats in the Republican ranks are earnestly persuaded 
 that in former times they were right in their opposition 
 to the Whigs. 
 
 Yet one more variety of opinion must be consulted — 
 the opinion that the Whig party had survived its useful- 
 ness, and that all which was good in it has now entered 
 upon a higher and purer state of existence in the He- 
 publican organization. 
 
 Doubtless it would be better not to mention the Whig 
 party at all. Unfortunately for the ends of strict pru- 
 dence, the story of Abraham Lincoln's life involves 
 allusion to it, since he was once a Whig, and became a 
 Republican, and not a Democrat. But as every Repub- 
 lican is a code of by-laws unto himself — subject only to 
 the Chicago platform — perhaps we may venture to rever- 
 ently speak of the shade which still, it is said, revisits 
 the glimpses of Boston ; and to recount the events which 
 preceded its becoming a shade. 
 
 So early as 1848 the dismemberment of the Whig 
 party commenced. It had been distinguished by many 
 of the characteristics of the Republican party, among 
 which is the reserved right of each member of the or- 
 ganization to think and act for himself, on his own 
 responsibility, as already intimated. Whenever its lead- 
 ers deflected from the straight line of principle, their 
 followers called them to account; and a persistence in 
 the advocacy of measures repugnant to the individual 
 sense of right, caused disaffection. 
 
68 LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Many sincere and earnest men, who supported Henry 
 Clay with ardor, ceased to be Whigs when General Tay- 
 lor was nominated, because they conceived that his nom- 
 ination was a departure from the Clay Whig principles 
 of opposition to the Mexican war and the acquisition of 
 slave territory. 
 
 This is not the place to pronounce upon the wisdom 
 or justice of their course. Others, as sincere and earnest 
 as they, supported General Taylor, and continued to act 
 with the Whig party throughout the Fillmore adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 The assimilation of the two great parties on the slav- 
 ery question in 1852, widened the distance between the 
 Whigs and the Free Soilers, and the former were, in the 
 opinion of the latter, demoralized before the election in 
 which they suffered so total an overthrow, though they 
 continued steadfast in their devotion to the Whig name 
 until 1854, when the first organization of the Republi- 
 cans took place, under the name of the Anti-Nebraska 
 party. 
 
 The Whig Free Soilers were eager and glad to frater- 
 nize with their old friends ; and all greeted with enthu- 
 siasm the vast accessions which the new party received 
 from the men who had given spiritual vitality to the 
 Democracy. 
 
 Those members of both the old parties, who were 
 particularly sensible to the attractions of office, those 
 whom no pro-slavery aggression could render supe- 
 rior to the luxury of a feeble or selfish acquiescence, 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 69 
 
 also coalesce-d, and now constitute, with a few sincere 
 political reminiscences, the Democracy of the North. 
 
 Up to the time of the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise, Abraham Lincoln remained a Whig, both from 
 conviction and affection. 
 
 In 1848, he had made speeches in favor of the election 
 of General Taylor, in Maryland, in Massachusetts, and 
 in Illinois. In his own Congressional district, where 
 his word has always been platform enough, the success 
 of his canvass was declared by a majority of fifteen hun- 
 dred for Taylor. 
 
 After his retirement from Congress, he devoted him- 
 self, with greater earnestness than ever before, to the 
 duties of his profession, and extended his business and 
 repute. He did not reappear in the political arena until 
 1852, when his name was placed on the Scott electoral 
 ticket. 
 
 In the canvass of that year, so disastrous to the Whig 
 party throughout the country, Lincoln appeared several 
 times before the people of his State as the advocate of 
 Scott's claims for the Presidency. But the prospect was 
 everywhere so disheartening, and in Illinois the cause 
 was so utterly desperate, that the energies of the Whigs 
 were paralyzed, and Lincoln did less in this Presidential 
 struggle than any in which he had ever engaged. 
 
 During that lethargy which preceded the dissolution 
 of his party, he had almost relinquished political aspir- 
 ations. Successful in his profession, happy in his home, 
 secure in the affection of his neighbors, with books, com- 
 
70 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 petence, and leisure — ambition could not tempt him. It 
 required the more thrilling voice of danger to freedom, 
 to call the veteran of so many good fights into the field. 
 The call was made. 
 
 It would be useless to recount here the history of the 
 Missouri Compromise, and the circumstances attending 
 the violation of that compact, though that history is 
 properly a part of the biography of every public man in 
 the country. Throughout the fierce contest which pre- 
 ceded the repeal of the Compromise, and the storm of 
 indignation which followed that repeal, the whole story 
 was brought vividly before the people, and can not now 
 have faded from their recollection. Those to whom it 
 is yet strange, will find it briefly and faithfully related 
 in the speech of Abraham Lincoln, made in reply to 
 Douglas, at Peoria, in October, 1854.* 
 
 * Printed in full in this volume. Douglas and Lincoln had previously met at 
 Springfield, where the latter played David to the abbreviated Goliah of the for- 
 mer. The following spirited sketch of the scene is by the editor of the Chicago 
 Press and Tribune, who was present : 
 
 " The affair came off on the fourth day of October, 1854. The State Fair 
 had been in progress two days, and the capital was full of all manner of men. 
 The Nebraska bill had been passed on the previous twenty-second of May. Mr. 
 Douglas had returned to Illinois to meet an outraged constituency. He had 
 made a fragmentary speech in Chicago, the people filling up each hiatus in a 
 peculiar and good-humored way. He called the people a mob — they called him 
 a rowdy. The 'mob' had the best of it, both then and at the election which 
 succeeded. The notoriety of all these events had stirred up the politics of the 
 State from bottom to top. Hundreds of politicians had met at Springfield, ex- 
 pecting a tournament of an unusual character — Douglas, Breese, Koerner, Lin- 
 coln, Trumbull, Matteson, Yates, Codding, John Calhoun, (of the order of the 
 candle-box,) John M. Palmer, the whole house of the McConnells, Singleton, 
 (known to fame in the Mormon war,) Thomas L. Harris, and a host of others. 
 Several speeches were made before, and several after, the passage between Lin- 
 coln and Douglas, but that was justly held to be the event of the season. 
 
 "We do not remember whether a challenge to debate passed between the 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 71 
 
 The people were glad to hear the voice of their 
 favorite once more, and Lincoln's canvass of Illinois was 
 most triumphant. The legislative elections were held, 
 and those who denounced the repeal of the Missouri 
 Compromise, were found to be in the majority. 
 
 friends of the speakers or not, but there was a perfectly amicable understanding 
 between Lincoln and Douglas, that the former should speak two or three hours, 
 and the latter reply in just as little or as much time as he chose. Mr. Lincoln 
 took the stand at two o'clock— a large crowd in attendance, and Mr. Douglas 
 seated on a small platform in front of the desk. The first half hour of Mr. 
 Lincoln's speech was taken up with compliments to his distinguished friend 
 Judge Douglas, and dry allusions to the political events of the past few years. 
 His distinguished friend, Judge Douglas, had taken his seat, as solemn as the 
 Cock-Lane ghost, evidently with the design of not moving a muscle till it came 
 his turn to speak. The laughter provoked by Lincoln's exordium, however, soon 
 began to make him uneasy ; and when Mr. L. arrived at bis (Douglas's) speech, 
 pronouncing the Missouri Compromise « a sacred thing, which no ruthless hand 
 would ever be reckless enough to disturb,' he opened his lips far enough to 
 remark, 'A first-rate speech !' This was the beginning of an amusing colloquy. 
 
 " 'Yes,' continued Mr. Lincoln, 'so affectionate was my friend's regard for 
 this Compromise line, that when Texas was admitted into the Union, and it was 
 found that a strip extended north of 36° 3(y, he actually introduced a bill extend- 
 ing the line and prohibiting slavery in the northern edge of the new State.' 
 
 " 'And you voted against the bill,' said Douglas. 
 
 " 'Precisely so,' replied Lincoln ; ' I was in favor of running the line a great 
 deal deal further south.' 
 
 "'About this time,' the speaker continued, • my distinguished friend intro- 
 duced me to a particular friend of his, one David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania.' 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 " 'I thought,' said Douglas, 'you would find him congenial company.' 
 
 " • So I did,' replied Lincoln. 'I had the pleasure of voting for his proviso, 
 iu one way and another, about forty times. It was a Democratic measure then, 
 I believe. At any rate, Geueral Cass scolded honest John Davis, of Massachu- 
 setts, soundly, for talking away the last hours of the session, so that he (Cass) 
 could n't crowd it through. A propos of General Cass : if I am not greatly mis- 
 taken, he lias a prior claim to my distinguished friend, to the authorship of 
 Popular Sovereignty. The old general has an infirmity for writing letters. 
 Shortly after the scolding he gave John Davis, he wrote his Nicholson letter' — 
 
 '• Douglas (solemnly) — ' God Almighty placed man on the earth, and told him 
 to choose between good and evil. That was the origin of the Nebraska bill !' 
 
 "Lincoln — 'Well, the priority of invention being settled, let us award all 
 credit to Judge Douglas for being the first to discover it.' 
 
 " It would be impossible, in these limits, to give an idea of the Btrength of 
 
72 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 The election of a United States Senator took place the 
 following winter, and General Shields was superseded. 
 This gentleman, who, listening to the seductive persua- 
 sions of his voiceful colleague, was said to have voted for 
 the repeal of the Compromise against his own convictions, 
 was a candidate for re-election. On the part of the op- 
 position majority there were two candidates, Lincoln and 
 Trumbull. The great body of the opposition voted 
 steadily for the former on several ballots ; but some 
 Democrats who had been elected on the anti-Nebraska 
 issue, continued to cast their votes for Trumbull. 
 
 Lincoln feared that this dissension might result in the 
 election of a less positive man than Trumbull, and with 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's argument. We deemed it by far the ablest effort of the campaign, 
 from whatever source. The occasion was a great one, and the speaker was every 
 way equal to it. The effect produced on the listeners was magnetic. No one 
 who was present will ever forget the power and vehemence of the following 
 passage : 
 
 " My distinguished friend says it is an insult to the emigrants to Kansas and 
 Nebraska to suppose they are not able to govern themselves. We must not slur 
 over an argument of this kind because it happens to tickle the ear. It must be 
 met and answered. I admit that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is com- 
 petent to govern himself, but,' the speaker rising to his fullhight, 'I deny his right 
 to govern any other person without that person's consent.' The applause which 
 followed this triumphant refutation of a cunning falsehood, was but an earnest 
 of the victory at the polls which followed just one month from that day. 
 
 "When Mr. Lincoln had concluded, Mr. Douglas strode hastily to the stand. 
 As usual, he employed ten minutes in telling how grossly he had been abused. 
 Recollecting himself, he added, 'though in a perfectly courteous manner' — 
 abused in a perfectly courteous manner! He then devoted half an hour to show- 
 ing that it was indispensably necessary to California emigrants, Santa Fe traders 
 and others, to have organic acts provided for the Territories of Kansas and 
 Nebraska — that being precisely the point which nobody disputed. Having 
 established this premise to his satisfaction, Mr. Douglas launched forth into an 
 argument wholly apart from the positions taken by Mr. Lincoln. He had about 
 half finished at six o'clock, when an adjournment to tea was effected. The 
 speaker insisted strenuously upon his right to resume in the evening, but we 
 believe the second part of that speech has not been delivered to this day. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN 73 
 
 his usual unselfishness, appealed to his friends to vote 
 for Trumbull^ adjuring them by their friendship to him 
 to make this concession of individual preference. His 
 appeal was not in vain, and Trumbull was elected 
 Senator. 
 
 This, however, was not the first sacrifice which he made 
 to conciliation and union. The anti-Nebraska party of 
 the same year offered him the nomination for Governor; &X 
 but in the existing state of organizations, he declined a****-**, 
 for the sake of the cause which all had espoused. It 
 occurs in politics that a force which suddenly rallies 
 about a principle, may be disheartened by the choice of 
 a leader whom recent animosities have rendered obnox- 
 ious. Lincoln, as a Whig, had been o^ie of the most 
 decided and powerful opponents of Democracy in Illi- 
 nois. The period since his opposition to many Demo- 
 cratic members of the anti-Nebraska party had ceased 
 was very brief, and old feelings of antagonism had not 
 died away. He perceived that the advancement of him- 
 self might impede the advancement of his principles. 
 Doubtless, he could be elected Governor of Illinois, but 
 the victory which bore him into office might be less 
 brilliant and useful than that which could be achieved 
 under another. He therefore withdrew his name, 
 and threw his influence in favor of Governor Bissell, 
 who had been a Democrat, and who was triumphantly 
 elected. 
 
 It must be remembered that the Republican party had) ur 
 as yet, no definite existence in Illinois. The anti-Ne- /^*-~ 
 
74 
 
 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 braska party was the temporary name of the Whigs, 
 Democrats, and Free Soilers, who opposed the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise. It is true that a Mass State 
 Convention, with a view to forming a permanent organi- 
 zation, had been held at Springfield, in October ; but 
 many anti-Nebraska men, who still adhered to old names, 
 had not taken part in it. The following resolutions 
 were adopted at this Convention : 
 
 "1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, that 
 when parties become subversive of the ends for which they are 
 established, or incapable of restoring the Government to the true 
 principles of the Constitution, it is the right and duty of the peo- 
 ple to dissolve the political bands by which they may have been 
 connected therewith, and to organize new parties upon such prin- 
 ciples and with such views as the circumstances and exigencies 
 of the nation may demand. 
 
 " 2. Resolved, That the times imperatively demand the reorgan- 
 ization of parties, and, repudiating all previous party attach- 
 ments, names, and predilections, we unite ourselves together in 
 defense of the liberty and Constitution of the country, and will 
 hereafter co-operate as the Republican party, pledged to the ac- 
 complishment of the following purposes: To bring the adminis- 
 tration of the Government back to the control of first principles; 
 to restore Nebraska and Kansas to the position of free territories ; 
 that, as the Constitution of the United Stales vests in the States, 
 and not in Congress, the power to legislate for the extradition of 
 fugitives from labor, to repeal and entirely abrogate the Fugitive 
 Slave law; to restrict slavery to those states in which it exists; 
 to prohibit the admission of any more slave states into the Union; 
 to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; to exclude slavery 
 from all the territories over whieh the General Government has 
 exclusive jurisdiction ; and to resist the acquirement of any 
 more territories unless the practice of slavery therein forever 
 shall have been prohibited. 
 
 " 3. Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use 
 such Constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 75 
 
 to their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for 
 office, under the General or State Government, who is not positive- 
 ly and fully committed to the support of these principles, and 
 whose personal character and conduct is not a guarantee that he 
 is reliable, and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance 
 and ties." 
 
 In the course of the first debate between Douglas and 
 Lincoln, which was held at Ottawa, in August, 1858, 
 Douglas read these resolutions, declaring that Lincoln 
 had participated in the Convention, and assisted in their 
 adoption. Lincoln met this earliest of a series of mis- 
 representations with prompt denial, and proved that 
 he was not a member of the Convention. 
 
 The actual Republican party of Illinois, dates its form- 
 ation from a period somewhat later; and Lincoln was 
 one of the first members of the present organization. 
 Not so ultra, probably, as the indignant men who framed 
 the resolutions quoted, he was quite as firmly opposed to 
 slavery. In the speech from which he read, in reply to 
 the charge of Douglas, he gives with.Wesleyan point, 
 the reason why indifference to slavery should be ab- 
 horred : 
 
 " This declared indifference, but, as I must think, 
 covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but 
 hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of 
 slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our repub- 
 lican example of its just influence in the world — enables 
 the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to 
 taunt us as hypocrites — causes the real friends of free- 
 dom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it 
 
76 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 forces so many really good men among ourselves into an 
 open war with the very fundamental principles of civil 
 liberty — criticising the Declaration of Independence, 
 and insisting that there is no right principle of action 
 but self -inter est." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 In the Republican National Convention of 1856, Abra- 
 ham Lincoln received one hundred and two votes for 
 the Vice-Presidential nomination. When the standard- 
 bearers of the party had been selected, he took his rank 
 in the army of freedom, and engaged in the great con- 
 flict which followed. The Republicans showed their 
 appreciation of his strength and ability by placing him 
 at the head of their electoral ticket in Illinois ; and 
 when in 1858 it was determined to give the Senatorial 
 question the form of a popular contest, by the election 
 of a Legislature pledged to the people, for or against 
 Douglas, Abraham Lincoln was chosen without dissent 
 as the champion of his party. 
 
 Much might here be said with regard to his eminent 
 fitness for the conduct of such a canvass ; but the result 
 of the election, and his published debates with Douglas, 
 are the best commentary upon his qualifications. 
 
 The Republican State ticket of that year was carried 
 by a decisive majority, and the Legislature was lost only 
 through the unfair manner in which the State was dis- 
 tricted, and which threw that body into the hands of 
 the Democrats in spite of the popular will. 
 
 It may not be improper to allude particularly to cir- 
 
 (77) 
 
78 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 curastances connected with the debates between Lincoln 
 and Douglas, which have been so significant in their 
 result, and which have practically made United States 
 Senators in Illinois elective by the people instead of 
 the Legislature. 
 
 Lincoln's first great speech of that year was made at 
 Springfield, on the 17th of June, before the State Con- 
 vention which named him as the Republican candidate 
 for Senator. In this speech he preached the moral con- 
 flict, which has always existed and always must exist 
 between the principle of freedom and the principle of 
 slavery; noticed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
 the Dred Scott decision, and the revival of the slave- 
 trade; and with masterly effect exhibited the secret con- 
 cert with which all the enemies of freedom had acted in 
 their assaults upon our liberties. The speaker concluded 
 with these memorable words, which every Republican 
 should keep in mind, for they have gathered significance 
 in the two years elapsed since their utterance : 
 
 "Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted 
 by, its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are 
 free, whose hearts are in the work — who do care for the 
 result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation 
 mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We 
 did this under the single impulse of resistance to a com- 
 mon danger, with every external circumstance against 
 us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, 
 we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought 
 the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a dis- 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 79 
 
 ciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all 
 then, to falter now? — now, when that same enemy is 
 wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is 
 not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we 
 shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mis- 
 takes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to 
 come." 
 
 The reply made by Douglas to this speech was on the 
 occasion of his reception at Chicago in the July follow- 
 ing. Lincoln was present, and spoke in the same city 
 on the next day. Two more great speeches by Doug- 
 las, and one more speech by Lincoln were made before 
 they entered the lists in debate. 
 
 In one of those speeches, Douglas found occasion — 
 for he was then addressing Lincoln's old friends at 
 Springfield — to pay his tribute to the worth and great- 
 ness of his opponent: 
 
 "You all know that I am an amiable, good-natured 
 man, and I take great pleasure in bearing testimony to 
 the fact that Mr. Lincoln is a kind-hearted, amiable, 
 good-natured gentleman, with whom no man has a right 
 to pick a quarrel, even if he wanted one. He is a wor- 
 thy gentleman. I have known him for twenty-five years, 
 and there is no better citizen, and no kinder-hearted 
 man. He is a fine lawyer, possesses high ability, and 
 there is no objection to him, except the monstrous rev- 
 olutionary doctrines with which he is identified." 
 
 On the 24th of July, Lincoln wrote to Douglas pro- 
 posing the debates which have since become so famous. 
 
80 LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Douglas made answer that " recent events had interposed 
 difficulties in the way of such an arrangement," that the 
 Democratic Central Committee had already made appoint- 
 ments for him. at different places; but in order to accom- 
 modate Mr. Lincoln, he would meet him in seven of the 
 nine Congressional Districts where they had not yet 
 spoken. He expressed surprise, that if it was Lincoln's 
 original intention to propose these debates, he should 
 have waited until after the plan of the campaign had 
 been arranged by the Democratic Central Committee, 
 before he made known his proposition. 
 
 This letter was also written on the 24th of July. On 
 the 29th Lincoln replied, from Springfield: 
 
 " Protesting that your insinuations of attempted un- 
 fairness on my part are unjust, and with the hope that 
 you did not very considerately make them, I proceed to 
 reply. To your statement that ' It has been suggested, 
 recently, that an arrangement had been made to bring 
 out a third candidate for the United States Senate, who, 
 with yourself, should canvass the State in opposition to 
 me,' etc.,* I can only say, that such suggestion must 
 
 * The following is the statement, in Douglas's letter, alluded to by Lincoln : 
 " Besides, there is another consideration which should be kept in mind. It 
 has been suggested, recently, that au arrangement had been made to bring out a 
 third candidate for the United States Senate, who, with yourself, should canvass 
 the State in opposition to me, with no other purpose than to insure my defeat, by 
 dividing the Democratic party for your benefit. If I should make this arrange- 
 ment with you, it is more than probable that this other candidate, who has a 
 common object with you, would desire to become a party to it, and claim the 
 i ight to speak from the same staud ; so that he and you, ia concert, might be 
 able to take the opening and closing speech ia every case." 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 81 
 
 have been made by yourself, for certainly none such has 
 been made by or to me, or otherwise, to my knowledge. 
 Surely, you did not deliberately conclude, as you insinu- 
 ate, that I was expecting to draw you into an arrange- 
 ment of terms, to be agreed on by yourself, by which 
 a third candidate and myself, ' in concert, might be 
 able to take the opening and closing speech in every 
 case/ 
 
 "As to your surprise that I did not sooner make the 
 proposal to divide time with you, I can only say, I made 
 it as soon as I resolved to make it. I did not know but 
 that such proposal would come from you ; I waited, re- 
 spectfully, to see. It may have been well known to you 
 that you went to Springfield for the purpose of agreeing 
 on the plan of campaign ; but it was not so known to 
 me. When your appointments were announced in the 
 papers, extending only to the 21st of August, I, for the 
 first time, considered it certain that you would make no 
 proposal to me, and then resolved that, if my friends 
 concurred, I would make one to you. As soon there- 
 after as I could see and consult with friends satisfacto- 
 rily, I did make the proposal. It did not occur to me 
 that the proposed arrangement could derange your plans 
 after the latest of your appointments already made. 
 After that, there was, before the election, largely over 
 two months of clear time. 
 
 " For you to say that we have already spoken at Chi- 
 cago and Springfield, and that on both occasions I had 
 the concluding speech, is hardly a fair statement. The 
 
82 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 truth rather is this : At Chicago, July 9th, you made 
 a carefully-prepared conclusion on my speech of June 
 16th. Twenty four hours after, I made a hasty conclu- 
 sion on yours of the 9th. You had six days to prepare, 
 and concluded on me again at Bloomington on the 16th. 
 Twenty-four hours after, I concluded again on you at 
 Springfield. In the mean time, you had made another 
 conclusion on me at Springfield, which I did not hear, 
 and of the contents of which I knew nothing when I 
 spoke.; so that your speech made in daylight, and mine 
 at night, of the 17th, at Springfield, were both made in 
 perfect independence of each other. The dates of mak- 
 ing all these speeches will show, I think, that in the 
 matter of time for preparation, the advantage has all 
 been on your side ; and that none of the external cir- 
 cumstances have stood to my advantage." 
 
 Lincoln having left all the arrangements of time, 
 place, and manner of debate to Douglas, the latter made 
 the following proposition, which, (although it allowed 
 Douglas four openings and closes to Lincoln's three, and 
 so gave considerable advantage to him,) Lincoln prompt- 
 ly accepted : 
 
 "Bement, Piatt Co., III., July 30, 1858. 
 " Dear Sir : 
 
 " Your letter, dated yesterday, accepting my proposi- 
 tion for a joint discussion *at one prominent point in 
 each Congressional District, as stated in my previous 
 letter, was received this morning. 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 83 
 
 "The times and places designated are ls follows : 
 
 Ottawa, La Salle county August 21st, 1858. 
 
 Freeport, Stephenson county " 27th, " 
 
 Jonesboro, Union county September 15th, " 
 
 Charleston, Coles county « 18th, " 
 
 Galesburgh, Knox county October 7th, " 
 
 Quiucy, Adams county « 13th, " 
 
 Alton, Madison county " 15th, " 
 
 "I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately 
 open and close the discussion. I will speak at Ottawa 
 one hour, you can reply, occupying an hour and a half, 
 and I will then follow for half an hour. At Freeport, 
 you shall open the discussion and speak one hour; I will 
 follow for an hour and a half, and you can then reply 
 for half an hour. We will alternate in like manner in 
 each successive place. 
 
 " Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 "S. A. Douglas. 
 
 " Hon. A. Lincoln, Springfield, 111." 
 
 In the intervals between the debates, which took place 
 as arranged, both speakers addressed audiences sepa- 
 rately, and the work on both sides was carried on with 
 unflagging energy. 
 
 No one, it seems to me, can read these debates with- 
 out admiration of Lincoln's ability, courage, and truth, 
 while the impression left by Douglas is that of a great 
 mind bending all its energies to a purpose beneath it ; 
 of an acute logician resorting to sophistry when meeting 
 his opponent's arguments, and to adroit misrepresenta- 
 
84 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 tion of language and position; when assailing his opin- 
 ions. 
 
 The questions discussed were substantially the same 
 that are at issue now. The spirit of pro-slavery aggres- 
 sion takes many forms, but in nature remains unchanged. 
 Lincoln pursued it through all its disguises, and ex- 
 posed it at every turn. The subtlest and most audacious 
 champion of slavery that had ever proved false to free- 
 dom, was not equal to the conflict. As the pretended 
 advocate of the right of every man to govern himself 
 and regulate his own affairs, Douglas was full of words. 
 When a flash of truth showed him the real advocate of 
 one man's right to enslave another, he was dumb. The 
 banner of popular sovereignty smote pleasantly upon the 
 sight. When Lincoln reversed it, and men read the 
 true inscription, they saw that it was the signal of dis- 
 cord, oppression, and violence. There were old stains 
 upon that gay piece of bunting ; stains of blood from 
 the cabin hearths of Kansas, and from the marble floor 
 of the Senate hall; and a marvelous ill-odor of cruelty 
 hung about it, as if it were, in fact, no better than the 
 flag of a slave-ship. Where its shadow fell across the 
 future of a State, civilization and humanity seemed to 
 shrink back, and a race of bondmen and their masters 
 thinly peopled a barren land that would have " laughed 
 in harvests " in the light of freedom. 
 
 The Douglas dogma never has been so thoroughly 
 refuted, as by Lincoln's speeches in those debates; and 
 Douglas himself never suffered such entire defeat, in the 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 85 
 
 eyes of the country. The truth gave the victory to 
 Lincoln ; a trick bestowed the Senatorship upon Doug- 
 las. 
 
 In May, 1859, when the amendment to the Constitu- 
 tion of Massachusetts, extending the term of naturaliza- 
 tion, aroused the apprehensions of many German Re- 
 publicans, Dr. Theodor Canisius, a German citizen of 
 Illinois, addressed a letter to Lincoln, asking his opinion 
 of the amendment, and inquiring whether he favored a 
 fusion of the Republicans with the other elements of 
 opposition in 1860. Writing from Springfield, Lincoln 
 replies : 
 
 "Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State, 
 and I have no right to advise her in her policy. Yet, 
 if any one is desirous to draw a conclusion as to what I 
 would do from what she has done, I may speak without 
 impropriety. I say, then, that so far as I understand 
 the Massachusetts provision, I am against its adoption, 
 not only in Illinois, but in every other place in which 
 I have the right to oppose it. As I understand the 
 spirit of our institutions, it is designed to promote the 
 elevation of men. I am, therefore, hostile to anything 
 that tends to their debasement. It is well known that 
 I deplore the oppressed condition of the blacks, and it 
 would, therefore, be very inconsistent for me to look 
 with approval upon any measure that infringes upon the 
 inalienable rights of white men, whether or not they are 
 born in another land or speak a different language from 
 our own. 
 
86 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 " In respect to a fusion, V am in favor of it whenever 
 it can be effected on Republican principles, but upon 
 no other condition. A fusion upon any other platform 
 would be as insane as unprincipled. It would thereby 
 lose the whole North, while the common enemy would 
 still have the support of the entire South. The ques- 
 tion i:a relation to men is different. There are good 
 and patriotic men and able statesmen in the South whom 
 I would willingly support if they would place them- 
 selves on Republican ground ; but I shall oppose the 
 lowering of the Republican standard even by a hair's- 
 breadth." 
 
 During the gubernatorial canvass of 1859, in Ohio, 
 Lincoln was invited to address the people of that State, 
 and appeared before them, at Columbus and Cincinnati, 
 in September. The impression made was one of univer- 
 sal favor ; and it was through the interest awakened by 
 these speeches, that the Republican Central Committee 
 and State officers of Ohio, were led to request copies of 
 his debates with Douglas, for publication in book-form. 
 The Ohioans went to hear him with full allowances for the 
 exaggerations of Illinois enthusiasm ; when they had 
 heard him, their own admiration equaled that of the 
 Illinoians. 
 
 It was, doubtless, with still greater surprise that New 
 England and New York listened to him. His speech at 
 the Cooper Institute, in the commercial and intellectual 
 metropolis, was the most brilliant success in everything 
 that makes such an effort successful. His audience was 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 87 
 
 vast in numbers, and profoundly attentive. They found 
 him, indeed, lank and angular in form, but of fine 
 oratorial presence; lucid and simple in his style, vigor- 
 ous in argument, speaking with a full, clear voice. He 
 addressed appeals of reason to the sense and conscience 
 of his hearers, and skillfully hit the humor of a critical 
 and unfamiliar people. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Republican National Convention, which assem- 
 bled at Chicago on the 16th of May, was no less marked 
 by a diversity of preferences than a unity of interests. 
 In three days it accomplished its work — the conciliation 
 of men and the assimilation of sections on minor points 
 of difference. In three days Abraham Lincoln was nom- 
 inated, and the armies of the irrepressible conflict were 
 united under the banner of the man who was the first 
 to utter that great truth, which all men felt.* 
 
 I need hardly recount the incidents of that Conven- 
 tion, of which the great event has proven so satisfac- 
 tory. They are all fresh in the minds of the people, 
 who watched, hour by hour, and day by day, the pro- 
 ceedings of one of the most distinguished bodies which 
 ever assembled in this country. 
 
 The Convention met in Chicago without factitious 
 advantages. The failure of the Democracy to nominate 
 at Charleston left the Republicans in the dark as to the 
 champion whom they were to combat, and there was 
 nothing to be gained by the choice of a man with refer- 
 ence to a Democratic probability. 
 
 * See Lincoln's speech at Springfield, June 17, 1858. 
 
 (88) 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 89 
 
 "What lay before the Convention, then, was the task 
 of choosing a positive man embodying decided Repub- 
 lican principles, whose strength and decision of opinions 
 should attract one side of the party, while nothing in 
 his history should repel the other. 
 
 Up to the time of the third ballot, which resulted in 
 the nomination of Abraham Lincoln, all the indications 
 were favorable to the success of William H. Seward. 
 That great man, whom no fortuity can lessen in the 
 proud regard of the party, had rallied to his cause a 
 host of friends — attached, powerful, vigilant. These 
 came to Chicago, and into the Convention, with a solid 
 strength that swept everything before it. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was the only candidate upon whom a 
 considerable number of those who opposed Mr. Seward 
 from policy, were united ; but it was not until after two 
 votes of sentiment that a sufficient force was diverted 
 from other favorites to swell Mr. Lincoln's vote into a 
 majority. 
 
 The leader of the New York delegation, who had 
 worked so faithfully for Mr. Seward, was the first t6 
 move the unanimous nomination of Lincoln, which was 
 done amid demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm, in 
 the wigwam of the Convention and throughout the city 
 of Chicago. At the same instant the lightning flashed 
 the tidings throughout the land, and in a thousand 
 towns and cities the cannon thundered back the jubi- 
 lant responses of the people. 
 
 The fact of his nomination was at once telegraphed 
 8 
 
90 LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 to Lincoln, at Springfield. He received it with charac- 
 teristic quiet. Seated in the Illinois State- Journal office, 
 talking over the Convention with a number of friends, he 
 was approached by the telegraphic operator. " Mr. Lin- 
 coln, you are nominated for the Presidency." Lincoln 
 took the proffered dispatch in silence, and read it. At 
 length he folded it carefully, and saying to the exuber- 
 ant bystanders, " There is a little woman down street 
 who would like to know something about this," went 
 home to communicate the news to his wife. 
 
 The little city of Springfield was in a phrensy of ex- 
 citement; and that night all the streets were ablaze 
 with bonfires, and thronged by the rejoicing Republi- 
 cans. The fact of the nomination of the man whom 
 every one of his fellow-townsmen regarded with pride, 
 was excuse enough for all sorts of vocal and pyrotechnio 
 extravagances. 
 
 The next day, the excursion train arrived from Chi- 
 cago with a large number of delegates, and the Com- 
 mittee appointed by the Convention to make Lincoln 
 officially acquainted with his nomination. 
 
 The deputation was received at Mr. Lincoln's house, 
 and when the guests had assembled in the parlor, Mr. 
 Ashmun, the President of the Convention, said : 
 
 " I have, sir, the honor, in behalf of the gentlemen 
 who are present, a Committee appointed by the Republi- 
 can Convention, recently assembled at Chicago, to dis- 
 charge a most pleasant duty. We have come, sir, under 
 
LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 91 
 
 a vote of instructions to that Committee, to notify you 
 that you have been selected by the Convention of the 
 [Republicans at Chicago, for President of the United 
 States. They instruct us, sir, to notify you of that 
 selection, and that Committee deem it not only respect- 
 ful to yourself, but appropriate to the important matter 
 which they have in hand, that they should come in per- 
 son, and present to you the authentic evidence of the 
 action of that Convention ; and, sir, without any phrase 
 which shall either be considered personally plauditory to 
 yourself, or which shall have any reference to the prin- 
 ciples involved in the questions which are connected with 
 your nomination, I desire to present to you the letter 
 which has been prepared, and which informs you of the 
 nomination, and with it the platform, resolutions, and 
 sentiments which the Convention adopted. Sir, at your 
 convenience we shall be glad to receive from you such a 
 response as it may be your pleasure to give us." 
 
 To this address Mr. Lincoln listened with grave atten- 
 tion, and replied : 
 
 "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: 
 
 " I tender to you and through you to the Republican 
 National Convention, and all the people represented in 
 it, my profoundest thanks for the high honor done me, 
 which you now formally announce. Deeply, and even 
 painfully sensible of the great responsibility which is 
 inseparable from this high honor — a responsibility which 
 
92 LIEE AND SPEECHES OE ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 I could almost wish had fallen upon some one of the far 
 more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose dis- 
 tinguished names were before the Convention, I shall, 
 by your leave, consider more fully the resolutions of the 
 Convention denominated the platform, and without un- 
 necessary or unreasonable delay, respond to you, Mr. 
 Chairman, in writing, not doubting that the platform 
 will be found satisfactory, and the nomination gratefully 
 accepted. 
 
 " And now I will not longer defer the pleasure of 
 taking you, and each of you, by the hand." 
 
 After this response, it is proper to immediately add the 
 letter in which Mr. Lincoln has since formally accepted 
 the nomination : 
 
 " Springfield, Illinois, May 23, 1860. 
 " Hon. George Ashmun, 
 
 1 President of the Republican National Convention: 
 
 " Sir : I accept the nomination tendered me by the 
 Convention over which you presided, of which I am 
 formally apprised in the letter of yourself and others 
 acting as a Committee of the Convention for that purpose. 
 The declaration of principles and sentiments which ac- 
 companies your letter meets my approval, and it shall 
 be my care not to violate it, or disregard it in any part. 
 
 " Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and 
 with due regard to the views and feelings of all who 
 were represented in the Convention, to the rights of all 
 
%^ 
 
 LIFE AND SPEECHES OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 93 
 
 the states and territories and people of the nation, to 
 the inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual 
 union, harmony, and prosperity of all, I am most happy 
 to co-operate for the practical success of the principles 
 declared by the Convention. 
 
 "Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen, 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln." 
 
 People who visit Mr. Lincoln are pleased no less at 
 the simple and quiet style in which he lives, than at the 
 perfect ease and cordiality with which they are received. 
 The host puts off half his angularity at home, or hides 
 it beneath the mantle of hospitality; and the hostess 
 is found "a pattern of lady-like courtesy and polish," 
 who "converses with freedom and grace, and is thor- 
 oughly aufait in all the little amenities of society," and 
 who will "do the honors of the White House with 
 appropriate grace." Intellectually, she is said to be 
 little her husband's inferior. 
 
 Lincoln's residence is a comfortable two-story frame 
 house, not now new in appearance, and situated in the 
 northeast part of Springfield. The grounds about it ; 
 which are not spacious, are neatly and tastefully kept. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's political room is an apartment in the 
 State House, at the door of which you knock uncere- 
 moniously. A sturdy voice calls out, "Come in!" and 
 you find yourself in the presence of a man who rises 
 to the hight of six feet three inches, as you enter. 
 He shakes you with earnest cordiality by the hand — 
 
94 LIFE AND SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 receiving you as in the old days he would have received 
 a friend who called upon him at his farm-work ; for those 
 who have always known him, say that, though Lincoln 
 is now more distinguished, he has always been a great 
 man, and his simple and hearty manners have undergone 
 no change. You find him, in physique, thin and wiry, 
 and he has an appearance of standing infirmly upon 
 his feet, which often deceived those who contended with 
 him in the wrestle, in his younger days. 
 
 The great feature of the man's face is his brilliant and 
 piercing eye, which has never been dimmed by any vice, 
 great or small. His rude and vigorous early life contrib- 
 uted to strengthen the robust constitution which he in- 
 herited, and he is now, at fifty, in the prime of life, with 
 rugged health, though bearing, in the lines of his face, 
 the trace of severe and earnest thought. 
 
 The biographer's task ends here, and he does not feel 
 that any speculations with regard to the future would be 
 of great worth or pertinence, though conjecture is easy 
 and a prophetic reputation possible. He prefers to leave 
 the future of Lincoln to Providence and to the people, 
 who often make history without the slightest respect to 
 the arrangements of sagacious writers. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 57 
 Adams County, 111., 83 
 Alton, 111., 83 
 
 Armstrong, Jack, xvi, 34, 35 
 A slim mi, George, 90 
 Atlantic Monthly, v 
 
 Bad-Ax [Bad Axe], Battle 
 
 of, 37 
 Beardstown, 111., 26 
 Bement, 111., 82 
 Benton, Thomas Hart, 57 
 Berks County, Pa., 18 
 Berry, William F., 42 
 Beveridge, Albert J., xvii 
 Bissell, William H., 73 
 Black Hawk, 36, 37 
 Black Hawk War, xiii, xvi, 35, 
 
 36, 38 
 Blaekstone, William, xvii, 31 
 Bloomington, 111., 82 
 Breese, Sidney, 70 
 Brom Bones, 34 
 Buena Vista, Battle of, 56 
 Burns, Robert, xiii, xiv, 31 
 Butler, William, 48 
 
 Calhoun, John, 41, 54, 70 
 Calhoun, John C, 57 
 Cass, Lewis, xvi, 39, 71 
 Cerro Gordo, Battle of, 56 
 Charleston, 111., 83 
 Charleston, S. C, 88 
 Chicago, 111., 70, 79, 81, 88, 90 
 
 Chicago Tress and Tribune, 70 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, 86 
 
 Clary Grove Buys, xiii, xvi, 33, 
 
 42 
 Clay, Henry, 54, 57, 68 
 Clemens, Samuel L., v 
 Close, George, viii, 24 
 Codding, Ichabod, 70 
 Cody, Wyo., vii 
 Coles County, 111., 22, 83 
 Columbus, Ohio, v, viii, 86 
 Commentaries on the Laws of 
 
 England, xvii, 31 
 Corwin, Thomas, 57 
 
 Davis, John, 71 
 
 Dawson, John, xiii 
 
 Debates of Lincoln and Doug- 
 las, viii, xii 
 
 Decatur, 111., xii, 23 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 76 
 
 Democratic Party, 61, 88 
 
 Dorsey, Azel W., 20 
 
 Douglas, Stephen Arnold, abil- 
 ity as lawyer, 52 ; 
 
 Lincoln : xi, xii, arranges 
 debates with, 80-83 ; debates 
 with published, 77; first 
 meeting with, 41 ; Ottawa 
 debate with, 75; tells flat- 
 boat story on, 27 ; 
 
 sjM-aks at: Bloomington, 
 82; Peoria, 70 j Springfield, 
 81 
 
INDEX 
 
 Dred Scott Decision, 78 
 Duncan, Joseph, 40 
 
 JtLdwards, Benjamin S., vi 
 Eldridge, Thayer &, xi 
 Elizabethtown, Ky., 22 
 English Grammar in Familiar 
 
 Lectures, xv, 29-30 
 Ewing, W. L. D., xv, 28 
 
 Fillmore, Millard, 68 
 
 Flint, Timothy, xiv 
 
 Follett, Foster & Co., vii, viii, 
 
 ix, x 
 Fort Spelling, Minn., 36 
 Free Soil Party, 68 
 Freeport Debate, xi, 83 
 
 VJalesburg Debate, xi, 83 
 
 Galloway, Samuel, ix 
 
 General Assembly of 111., 
 
 Journal of, viii 
 Gibson, Robert, xiv 
 Giddings, Joshua R., 57 
 Gott, Daniel, 62 
 Green, William G. [William 
 
 T.], xiii, 39, 42 
 
 Hamlin, Hannibal, v, vi, xi 
 Hanks [Hawks], James, xiii, 
 
 24 
 Hanks, John, 26 
 Hanks, Nancy [Lucy], 19 
 Hardin County, Ky., 19 
 Harpers Magazine, v 
 Harris, Thomas L., 70 
 Harrison, William Henry, 51 
 Harvard University, v 
 Hawks, see Hanks 
 Hayes, John L., xi 
 Hayes, Rutherford B., v 
 Hazel, Caleb, 20 
 Howard, John Quay, viii, ix 
 Howells, William Dean, The 
 
 Lives and Speeches of Abra- 
 
 ham, Lincoln and Hannibal 
 Hamlin, v, vii, xi, xvi; trib- 
 ute to Lincoln, xvii 
 
 Illinois, "deep snow," 26; in- 
 ternal improvement plans, 
 44 ; removal of Lincolns to, 
 23 ; treaties with Sacs and 
 Foxes, 36 
 
 Illinois and Michigan Canal, 
 45 
 
 Illinois State Journal, x, xvi, 
 90 see Sangamo Journal, 
 
 Indians, Black Hawk War, 37; 
 kill Abraham Lincoln, 19; 
 Sac and Fox treaties, 36 ; 
 William Penn trades with, 
 18 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 32, 40 
 Johns Hopkins University, v 
 Johnston, John D., 22, 26, 27 
 Johnston, Sarah [Sally] Bush, 
 
 22 ; see also Mrs. Thomas 
 
 Lincoln 
 Jonesboro, 111., 83 
 
 JVane County, 111., xi 
 Keokuk [Indian Chief], 37 
 Kirkham, Samuel, English 
 Grammar in Familiar Lec- 
 tures, xv, 29-30 
 Knox County, 111., 83 
 Koerner, Gustave, 70 
 
 La Salle County, 111., 83 
 
 Lexington, Ky., 53 
 
 Life of Abraham, Lincoln, by 
 John Quay Howard, ix 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham [grand- 
 father of President], 18, 19 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, appoints 
 Howells consul, v; letter to 
 Samuel Galloway, ix; ances- 
 try, 17 ; Quaker ancestors, 
 18 ; birth, 19 ; attends school, 
 20; moves to Indiana, 21; 
 
INDEX 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham — continued 
 flatboat trips to New 
 Orleans, 22, 26; removal to 
 Illinois, 23 ; splits rails in 
 Macon County, 24; appear- 
 ance, 27; first political 
 speech, 28: studies Kirk- 
 ham's Gram mar. xv, 29-30; 
 ambition aroused, 30; buys 
 copy of Blackstone, .'51 ; ap- 
 pointed postmaster of New 
 Salem, 32 ; practices polem- 
 ics, 33 : wrestles Armstrong, 
 34; captain in Black Hawk 
 War, 35, 38; Armstrong 
 trial, 35n. ; saves Indian's 
 life, 39 ; defeated for legis- 
 lature, 40 ; appointed sur- 
 veyor, 41 ; elected to legisla- 
 ture, 44 ; activities in 
 legislature, 45-47 ; fairness 
 as lawyer, 48 ; moves to 
 Springfield, 49 : reputation 
 of, 50; partnership with 
 Logan, 51 ; ability as 
 lawyer, 52 ; marries Mary 
 Todd, 53 ; debates with Cal- 
 houn and Thomas, 54; 
 elected to Congress, 55 ; 
 "spot resolutions,-' 58 ; 
 speech on Mexico and Texas, 
 59; bounty land speech, 
 60 ; internal improvement 
 speech, 61 ; speech on Taylor, 
 62; opposes slave trade, 
 Bist. of Col., 63; votes for 
 Wilmot Proviso, 64 ; cam- 
 paigns for Tavlor (1848) 
 and Scott (1852), 69; 
 speech at Peoria, 70 ; Ottawa 
 debate, 75, 83; vice- 
 presidential vote, 77 ; reply 
 to Douglas, Chicago, 79; 
 arranges debates with Doug- 
 las, 80-83 ; refutes Douglas' 
 views, 84; letter to Theodor 
 Canisius, 85 ; speaks in 
 Ohio, 86; Cooper Institute 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham — continued 
 Address, 87 ; nominated for 
 president, 88, 89 ; notified, 
 presidential nomination, 90; 
 reply to nominating com- 
 mittee, 91 : letter to George 
 Ashmun, 92 
 
 Lincoln, Mrs. Abraham, 93; 
 see also Mary Todd 
 
 Lincoln, Edward Baker, 53 
 
 Lincoln, Isaac, 18 
 
 Lincoln, Jacob, 18 
 
 Lincoln, John, 18 
 
 Lincoln, Robert T., 53 
 
 Lincoln, Sarah [sister of Abra- 
 ham], 20 
 
 Lincoln, Thomas [great uncle 
 of Abraham], 18 
 
 Lincoln, Thomas [father of 
 Abraham], boyhood of, xv; 
 marriage to Nancy [Lucy] 
 Hanks, 19 ; moves to Indi- 
 ana, 21 ; marriage to Sarah 
 Bush Johnston, 22 ; removal 
 to Illinois, 23 ; removal to 
 Coles County, 27 
 
 Lincoln, Thomas [brother of 
 Abraham], 20 
 
 Lincoln, Thomas ["Tad"], 53 
 
 Lincoln, Mrs. Thomas, 23 ; 
 see also Mrs. Sarah Bush 
 Johnston 
 
 Lincoln, William Wallace, 53 
 
 Lincoln, 111., vi 
 
 Lives and Speeches of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln and Hannibal 
 Hamlin, The, v, vii, xi, xvi 
 
 Logan, Stephen Trigg, 51 
 
 Logan County [111.] Circuit 
 Court, vi 
 
 "Long Nine," 47 
 
 Louisville Journal, xv, 32 
 
 McConnell, Murray, 70 
 Macon County, 111., xii, xv, 
 23, 26, 27 
 
INDEX 
 
 Madison, Ind., vi 
 Madison County, 111., 83 
 Marietta College, viii 
 Mark Twain, v 
 Matteson, Joel, 70 
 Mayflower [ship], 17 
 Menard County, 111., 35 
 Mexican War, 55, 56 
 Miller, William, 24 
 Mississippi River, 22, 25 
 Missouri Compromise, 69, 70, 
 
 78 
 Missouri Kiver, 25 
 Monterey, Battle of, 56 
 
 New Orleans, La., 22, 25, 33 
 New Salem, 111., 47; Lincoln: 
 appointed postmaster of, 
 32 ; borrows books at, xv, 
 xvii ; friends interviewed, 
 viii; moves to, 27; wrestles 
 Armstrong, xvi; 
 
 Offut: opens store in, 28; 
 settles in, 33 
 Nicholson, O. P., 71 
 
 Offut [Offutt], Denton, 30; 
 
 New Orleans venture, 25, 26, 
 
 27, 33; praises Lincoln, 29; 
 
 store in New Salem, xv, 28, 
 
 37 
 Ohio Eiver, 22 
 Ohio State Journal, v 
 Osage River, 25 
 Ottawa Debate, xi, 75 
 Oxford University, England, v 
 
 Palfrey, John Gorham, 57 
 Palmer, John M., 70 
 Palo Alto, Battle of, 56 
 Parks, Beaumont, vi 
 Parks, Samuel C, vi, vii 
 Parks, Samuel C, Jr., vii 
 Peoria, 111., 70 
 
 Pel crsburg [Petersburgh], 
 
 111., 33 
 Piatt County, 111., 82 
 Plymouth Colony, 17 
 Poe, Edgar Allen, xiv, xv, 31 
 Polk, James K., 56, 58, 60 
 Posey, Thomas, xv, 28 
 Powhattan, 17 
 Pugh, Jonathan H., 40 
 
 Quincy, 111., 83 
 
 Radford, Reuben, 42 
 Republican Party, 75, 77, 88 
 Resaca de la Palma, Battle of, 
 
 56 
 Richland, 111., 38 
 Riney, Zachariah, 20 
 Rock River, 37 
 Rockingham County, Va., 18 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., 45 
 Sangamo Journal, viii 
 Sangamon County, 111., xiv 
 Sangamon River, 23, 26, 27, 33 
 Santa Fe, N. M., 72n. 
 Schuyler County, 111., 20 
 Scott, Winfield, 69 
 Scripps, John L., xiv 
 Seaton, William W., 63n. 
 Seward, William H., 89 
 Shakespeare, William, xiv 
 Shields, James, 72 
 Short, James, 41 
 Singleton, James, 70 
 Spencer County, Ind., 22 
 Springfield, 111., 80; Douglas 
 speaks in, 81 ; Howard in, 
 vii; Republican convention 
 in, xi, 74 ; State Fair in, 70 ; 
 State House in, 73; 
 
 Lincoln : buys copy of 
 Blackstone in, 31; election 
 (1832), 40; first visit to, 26 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 Springfield, 111., — continued 
 Bouse Divided speech in, 
 78 j marriage in, 53; notified 
 of nominal ion in, 90 
 Stephenson County, 111., 83 
 Stuart, John Todd, xiii, elec- 
 tion to Congress, 51 ; Parks 
 in office of, vi; partnership 
 with Lincoln, 49; recollec- 
 tions of Lincoln, 47, 48 
 
 1 aylor, Zachary, 68, 69 
 Thayer & Eldridge, xi 
 
 Thomas, Jesse B., 54 
 
 Todd, Mary, marries Abraham 
 
 Lincoln, 53 ; see also Mrs. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Todd, Robert Smith, 53 
 Trumbull, Lyman, 70, 72-73 
 
 Union County, 111., 83 
 
 Vandalia, 111., 47 
 Venice, Italy, v 
 Vincennes, Ind., 45 
 
 Wabash River, 22 
 Webster, Daniel, 57 
 Whig Party, 32, 57, 64, 66 
 Wilmot, David, 57, 71 
 Winthrop, Robert C, 57 
 
 X ale University, v 
 Yates, Richard, xii, 70 
 
THIS EDITION 
 
 printed by R. R. Donnelley § Sons Company, 
 Crawfordsville, Indiana, by Photofact, consists 
 of twelve hundred and fifty copies, of which seven 
 hundred and fifty copies are reserved for the 
 members of the Abraham Lincoln Association 
 and five hundred copies are for sale