LINCOLN OPPOSES THE INCEPTION OF THE MEXICAN WAR IN CONGRESS
It is quite generally believed in Sangamon County that a bargain was entered into between Baker, Lincoln, Logan and Hardin whereby the "four should 'rotate' in Congress until each had had a term."[204] There is evidence in the writings of Lincoln that there was some kind of an understanding between Baker, Lincoln and Logan. There is a startling story as to the character of the arrangement. A delegate to the Pekin Convention of 1843 states, that he was asked by Lincoln immediately after the nomination of Hardin, if he would favor a resolution recommending Baker for the next term. On being answered in the affirmative Lincoln told the delegate to prepare the resolution, and he would support it. It created a profound sensation, especially among the friends of Hardin. After angry discussion, the resolution passed by a bare majority.[205] This incident illustrates the sagacious policy of Lincoln in furthering his restless political ambition. He publicly declined to contest the nomination of Baker in 1844. Pursuant to a widespread expectation, Baker did not stand in the way of Lincoln two years later.
Lincoln kept close to those who moulded public opinion,—the men of the press. Then the personality of an editor was a weighty factor in the decision of political contests. He wrote to an editor and supporter in 1846 that as the paper at Pekin had nominated Hardin for governor and the Alton paper indirectly nominated him for Congress, it would give Hardin a great start, and perhaps use him up, if the Whig papers of the district should nominate Hardin for Congress, and that he wished that the editor would let nothing appear in his paper which might operate against him.[206]
To this, he received a reply that this supporter had, in fact, nominated Hardin for governor. The tactful response deserves attention: "Let me assure you that if there is anything in my letter indicating an opinion that the nomination for governor, which I supposed to have been made in the Pekin paper, was operating or could operate against me, such was not my meaning. Now that I know that nomination was made by you, I say that it may do me good, while I do not see that it can do me harm. But, while the subject is in agitation, should any of the papers in the district nominate the same man for Congress, that would do me harm; and it was that which I wished to guard against. Let me assure you that I do not for a moment suppose that what you have done is ill-judged, or that anything that you shall do will be."[207]
"I should be pleased," he wrote another friend, "if I could concur with you in the hope that my name would be the only one presented to the convention; but I cannot. Hardin is a man of desperate energy and perseverance, and one that never backs out; and I fear, to think otherwise is to be deceived in the character of our adversary. I would rejoice to be spared the labor of a contest; but 'being in', I shall go it thoroughly, and to the bottom." He then admonished his friend not to relax any of his vigilance.[208]
He was sensitive to the shifting changes of the campaign. "Nathan Dresser is here," he wrote a friend, "and speaks as though the contest between Hardin and me is to be doubtful in Menard County.—I know he is candid and this alarms me some—I asked him to tell me the names of the men that were going strong for Hardin; he said Morris was about as strong as any—Now, tell me, is Morris going it openly? You remember you wrote me, that he would be neutral. Nathan also said that some man he could not remember had said lately that Menard County was going to decide the contest and that that made the contest very doubtful. Do you know who that was?
"Don't fail to write me instantly on receiving telling me all—particularly the names of those who are going strong against me."[209]
The splendid generalship of Lincoln, his telling blows gradually disposed of the gallant Hardin, who gracefully declined to be longer considered as a candidate. Through the inspiration of Lincoln, with equal gallantry, there promptly appeared in the leading Whig journal, a statement superbly designed to soothe the dignity of his late antagonist: "We have had, and now have, no doubt that he (Hardin) has been, and now is, a great favorite with the Whigs of the district. He states, in substance, that there was never any understanding on his part that his name was not to be presented in the canvasses of 1844 and 1846. This, we believe, is strictly true. Still, the doings of the Pekin Convention did seem to point that way; and the general's voluntary declination as to the canvass of 1844 was by many construed into an acquiescence on his part. These things had led many of his most devoted friends to not expect him to be a candidate at this time. Add to this the relation that Mr. Lincoln bears, and has borne, to the party, and it is not strange that many of those who are as strongly devoted to Gen. Hardin as they are to Mr. Lincoln should prefer the latter at this time. We do not entertain a doubt, that, if we could reverse the positions of the two men, that a very large portion of those who now have supported Mr. Lincoln most warmly would have supported Gen. Hardin quite as warmly."[210]
He was a thorough politician. He attended to details himself. Like a general on the battlefield, he kept his reserve forces well in hand. He would rather minimize his own strength than mistake the power of opposing forces. He never lost a victory through misplaced confidence. Though he looked darkly at a contest, this rather increased than abated his activity. From policy as well as inclination he did not engage in the crimination of his adversaries. He had a marvelous capacity of personally commanding the conduct of men.
Out of their ranks, the Democrats called the famed preacher—Peter Cartwright, as their standard bearer in this Congressional contest. Until he was sixteen years old, he was a slave to the common vices of his day. His dramatic conversion during the revival of 1801 preluded the marvelous career of a man who unflinchingly, for sixty years, "breasted the storm and suffered the hardships" of his calling in forest and prairie. His heroic treatment of Jackson shows the man. "Just then," Cartwright says, "I felt some one pull my coat in the stand, and turning my head, my fastidious preacher, whispering a little loud, said: 'General Jackson has come in: General Jackson has come in.' I felt a flash of indignation run all over me like an electric shock and facing about to my congregation, and purposely speaking out audibly, I said, 'Who is General Jackson? If he don't get his soul converted, God will damn him as quick as he would a Guinea negro!'"[211]
The reasons that prompted Cartwright to follow the trail from Kentucky to Illinois are of historical importance. "First, I would get entirely clear of the evil of slavery. Second, I could raise my children to work where work was not considered a degradation. Third, I believed I could better my temporal circumstances, and procure lands for my children as they grew up. And fourth, I could carry the gospel to destitute souls that had, by their removal into some new country, been deprived of the means of grace."[212] The South poorly reckoned the cost to her, of the institution that drove into exile such master spirits, who enriched the states of their adoption.
Hating human bondage, still he was no friend of abolitionism. He declared that it riveted the chains of slavery tighter; blocked the way to reasonable emancipation; threw fire brands into legislative halls; that millions were expended every year in angry debates and that laws for the good of the people were neglected; talents and money thrown away; that prejudice, strife, and wrath, and every evil passion stirred up until the integrity of the Union was in imminent danger, and that not one poor slave was set free; not one dollar expended to colonize them and send them home happy and free; that through unchristian, excited prejudices mobs were fast becoming the order of the day.
He maintained that after more than twenty years' experience as a traveling preacher in slave states, he was convinced that the most successful way to ameliorate the condition of the slaves and Christianize them, and finally secure their freedom was to treat their owners kindly and not to meddle politically with slavery!
Patriot and prophet alike, he contended that abolitionism awakened a bitter and wrathful spirit among the guardians of the black man that made discord a partner in the Federal Union; that despite the legion moral evils of slavery, he had never seen a rabid abolition or free soil society that he could join, because they resorted to unjustifiable agitation, confounding the innocent with the guilty, and that if force was resorted to the Union would be dissolved, a civil war would follow, death and carnage would ensue, and the only free nation on the earth would be destroyed.[213] In early manhood, Cartwright cherished sentiments that were brother to those Lincoln later avowed at the outset of his career.
In his autobiography, Cartwright states that he was twice elected as a representative from Sangamon County, and he found that almost every measure had to be carried by a corrupt bargain and sale.[214]
For nearly half a century he had traversed the western states. In nearly every Methodist Church and mission his voice had summoned many to a better life. His ministration to the sick, his rides at night over the lonely prairie to the death bed had endeared him to thousands of homes. He had a host of relations in the Congressional district. All this and his steady advocacy of Jacksonian Democracy constituted him no paltry antagonist.
An active campaign ensued. Lincoln was again subjected to the harsh charge of religious infidelity. The Whigs, taking up the challenge rallied to his support. Their activity soon turned the tide. Lincoln carried the district by 1511, exceeding the vote of Clay in 1844 by nearly 600. Sangamon County showed her loyalty by piling up a larger majority than ever before given to a political favorite.[215] The battle largely centered around the wisdom of a preacher participating in politics. The pioneer, who twenty years before, had voted for Cartwright had now become a citizen of a settled community. After this election, there was no question as to the deep seated distrust of the average voter permitting a church official to be the political representative of the people.
A Democrat who loathed the canvass of Cartwright still deemed it a hard thing to vote against his party. So Lincoln told him that he would give him a candid opinion as to whether the vote was needed or not. On the day of election, Lincoln told the Democrat that he had got the preacher,—and didn't want his vote.[216] With this power to foretell results, Lincoln was more richly dowered than any modern leader. It was this gift that enabled him to do and speak things that to other men seemed ruinous.
The victory of Polk in its immediate results hardly surprised friend or foe. His election was the signal gun of the Mexican war. Events were rapidly hurried forward under the fostering guidance of the Tyler administration and in its last gasp a messenger was dispatched to Texas to mature the annexation.[217] In weighty words Greeley uttered the protest of the aroused North, declaring that the annexation of Texas challenged the regard of mankind and defied the consciences of our own citizens; that for the first time our Union stood before the nations, not merely as an upholder, but as a zealous, unscrupulous propagandist of human slavery.[218] It required no special genius to provoke martial hostilities and anxiety soon found ammunition to drive even a reluctant opponent to the chance of battle. So Mexico was almost dared into the inevitable combat.
Until this time the nation was little stirred by political unrest and strife. The battles in Congress that form so vast an asset of the historian, hardly disturbed the daily life of the inventor, farmer, mechanic and student. Lincoln entered the national Legislature at a momentous period. For more than a third of a century, "grim visaged war had smoothed her wrinkled front." The nation was lost in industrial pursuits, the hero of the community was the business man. Patriotism slumbered, national impulses seemed dead. Then the wild passion for war awakened the people from apathy, they rejoiced that the spirit of the fathers was still strong in them, that they had not forgotten Bunker Hill and New Orleans. Commerce for the time forewent its eminence, the soldier stepped to the front. In a moment the standard of the nation shifted from the dollar to the deed. Men did not stop to debate the righteousness of the war or what the end would be. They did not reason as to its effect on the status of slavery. Emotion, not judgment, was their guide. They knew only the pulsation of a subtle and subduing patriotism. Many marched to the front, while others hurried on supplies and ammunition to the seat of trouble. The present alone absorbed their interest, busied every impulse.
Lincoln did not willingly come into conflict with this public sentiment. He, too, was moved by the heroism of the hour, he too saw with pride the flag unfurled and heard the throbbing drum. When Hardin and Baker and Shields hastened from Springfield for the field of glory and danger, he was one of the speakers at the parting public meeting. The Congressman-elect urged a sturdy, vigorous prosecution of hostilities, admonished all to permit no shame to the government and to stand by the flag till peace came with honor.[219] This was not a reluctant politic approbation, as Lamon intimates,[220] but a benediction upon the cause of his country that came deep from the heart.
The attitude of Lincoln toward the annexation of Texas is of importance, not alone for its own intrinsic interest but as illustrating the opinion of thousands of sober, patriotic citizens throughout the land. These had no kinship with the radicals who regarded the conduct of the war, as well as its inception, with bitter hostility; who feared the visitation of Divine Power upon a conflict conceived in aggression. They were not akin to the Democrats who looked neither to the right nor left but marched over cherished principles of the Republic for the sake of extending the territory and enlarging the activity of a sectional institution.
Lincoln entered Congress with no thought of opposition to any phase of the war. Like Grant, he doubtless knew that the man who criticized a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life or history, and that he might better advocate "war, pestilence and famine," than to act as an obstructionist to a war already begun.[221]
The President and his advisors would not allow the Whigs to vote alone for supplies. They sought to interpolate resolutions expressing the original justice of the war. Lincoln's interesting commentary on this uncalled for procedure is worth quoting. "Upon these resolutions when they shall be put on their passage I shall be compelled to vote; so that I cannot be silent if I would. Seeing this, I went about preparing myself to give the vote understandingly when it should come. I carefully examined the President's message, to ascertain what he himself had said and proved upon the point. The result of this examination was to make the impression that, taking for true all the President states as facts, he falls far short of proving his justification; and that the President would have gone farther with his proof if it had not been for the small matter that the truth would not permit him. Under the impression thus made I gave the vote before mentioned."[222]
The issue once made, Lincoln and other Whigs did not hesitate; he did not even hide in silence. He took up the challenge of the President that war existed by the act of Mexico. He followed with probing resolutions, with a series of penetrating questions that precluded quibbling. The first one well illustrates the series.
"RESOLVED, By the House of Representatives, that the President of the United States be respectfully requested to inform the House—
"First, whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was shed, as in his message declared, was or was not within the territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1819 until the Mexican revolution."[E]
The President never heeded them, nor does it appear that any friend of the administration soberly attempted the sore task of facing their keen, sabre-like stroke. They allowed little room for shifting, and demanded a logical response. Three weeks later, came the speech which was responsive to the desire of his Springfield friends to distinguish himself.[223] It was sober and restrained in expression; curbed in statement, concise in logic and comprehensive in treatment. He spoke more like a distinguished jurist than a partisan pleader.
"Now, sir, for the purpose of obtaining the very best evidence as to whether Texas had actually carried her revolution to the place where the hostilities of the present war commenced, let the President answer the interrogatories I proposed, as before mentioned, or some other similar ones. Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments. Let him remember he sits where Washington sat and so remembering, let him answer as Washington would answer. As a nation should not, and the Almighty will not, be evaded, so let him attempt no evasion—no equivocation. And if, so answering, he can show that the soil was ours where the first blood of the war was shed,—then I am with him for his justification."[224] Then a sentence follows, painful and remorseless in its treatment of the vacillating policy of the President stating that his mind, taxed beyond its power, was running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it could settle down and be at ease.[225]
This speech should have won him a high place in the national arena of controversy and debate, were it not that the shifting standard of public judgment often exalts the thing of the hour for intrinsic value, ostentation for merit, popularity for worth. This speech may in itself command the interest of those who would know the motives that led the Whigs to their course of conduct. They did not seek hard duties, but still they would not shirk or retreat when they showed their front.
Lincoln soon learned that his resolutions and speech, however unanswerable, did not save him from the damaging charge of opposition to the war of his country. Dissatisfaction ran through the Whig ranks in Illinois. General discontent with the course of his partner even turned Herndon into one of the malcontents. A letter soon advised Lincoln of the condition, who sent a sturdy reply to the complaint on his vote on Ashmun's amendment,—"That vote affirms that the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President; and I will stake my life that if you had been in my place you would have voted just as I did. Would you have voted what you felt and knew to be a lie? I know you would not. Would you have gone out of the House—skulked the vote? I expect not.—You are compelled to speak, and your only alternative is to tell the truth or a lie. I cannot doubt which you would do."[226]
Later Herndon forwarded a constitutional argument in favor of the policy of Polk ingeniously saying that it was the duty of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, in the absence of Congress, if the country was about to be invaded, to go, if necessary, into the very heart of Mexico and prevent the invasion; that it would be a crime in the executive to let the country be invaded in the least degree; that the action of the President was a necessity.[227]
The reply that hurried to Springfield was a supreme answer. No judge of a high tribunal, no statesman of mature experience could have more thoroughly disposed of a specious contention.[228] In this letter of Lincoln there appears a might and an ability to grapple with a great issue, a sincerity of purpose, a soberness of thought that well betokens a student and patriot, whose heart was in unison with the inherent purposes of the Republic. He insisted that the imperial function of the Constitution in leaving the declaration of war with Congress was that no one man should hold the power of bringing the oppression of war upon the people.[229] Through this letter there looms up the man, who above all men hated kingly power and domination, and the consequent impoverishment of the people. Herndon, the Abolitionist, would, for the sake of policy, sanction the inception of an unjust aggression, while the conservative Lincoln stood resolutely when the hour summoned uncompromising conduct; then his knees were as "unwedgeable as the gnarled oak." When principle was at stake he sent policy to the rear. At such times he was more aggressive than the radical.
A letter to the Editor of the Tribune shows the deep hold that this subject had on Lincoln, his restlessness to be rightly understood on the theme. And the fact that he undertook to correct Horace Greeley in a familiar tone is an indication that he was coming to the front as a champion in the Whig ranks. He wrote the editor that he discovered a paragraph in the Tribune in which it was said that all Whigs and many Democrats contended that the boundary of Texas stopped at the Nueces. He contended that such a statement was a mistake which he disliked to see go uncorrected in a leading Whig paper; that the large majority of Whigs in the House of Representatives had not taken that position and that as the position could not be maintained it gave the Democrats advantage of them. In conclusion Lincoln asked the editor to examine what he said in a printed speech that he was sending him.[230]
He earnestly wrote to a minister that he would be obliged for a reference to any law, human or divine, in which an authority could be found for saying that the action of the Government constituted "no aggression." He then asked, "Is the precept 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them' obsolete? of no force? of no application?"[231]
He was not so elated with patriotism that he lost his standard of righteousness. As he was an honest judge of his own conduct, so he was of that of his country. This rare ability became a force of moment in later years.
During the tumult of the debate on the Mexican war Lincoln wrote in his own rare way that Stephens, of Georgia, a little slim, pale-faced, consumptive man, with a voice like Logan's, had just concluded the very best speech of an hour's length he ever heard; that his old withered dry eyes were full of tears yet.[232]
His appreciation knew no sectional limits. His range of vision was not bounded by the Mason and Dixon line. He was as much at home with the sons of the South as of the North; he took the same interest in the speech of Stephens of Georgia as he would in that of Webster.