The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

by Abraham Lincoln

George Thompson, identified with emancipation in the British West Indies, had come and gone. For more than a year he addressed public meetings in New England, the Central States, and Ohio, and contributed not a little to the growing excitement by his fierce denunciations of the slave-holding class, in language with which his long agitation in England had made him familiar. He was denounced, insulted, and mobbed; and even in Boston he was once posted as an "infamous foreign scoundrel," and an offer was made of a hundred dollars to "snake him out" of a public meeting. In fact, Boston was not at all behind other cities and towns in its condemnation of the Abolitionists. A great meeting in Faneuil Hall, called by eighteen hundred leading citizens,—Whigs and Democrats,—condemned their proceedings in language as strong and significant as Richard Fletcher, Peleg Sprague, and Harrison Gray Otis could write it. But Garrison still continued to publish "The Liberator," filling it with all the uncompromising aggressiveness of his sect, and distributing it throughout the Southern States. It excited great alarm in the slaveholding communities where its secret circulation, in the minds of the slaveholders, tended to incite the slaves to insurrections, assassinations, and running away; but in the place where it was published it was looked upon with general contempt and disgust. When the Mayor of Baltimore wrote to the Mayor of Boston to have it suppressed, the latter (the eloquent Otis) replied, "that his officers had ferreted out the paper and its editor, whose office was an obscure hole; his only visible auxiliary a negro boy; his supporters a few insignificant persons of all colors."

At the close of the year 1835, President Jackson had called the attention of Congress to the doings of these people in language corresponding to the natural wrath with which he viewed the character of their proceedings. "I must also," said he, "invite your attention to the painful excitements in the South by attempts to circulate through the mails inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of slaves, in prints and various sorts of publications calculated to stimulate them to insurrection, and to produce all the horrors of civil war. It is fortunate for the country that the good sense, the generous feeling, and deep-rooted attachment of the people of the non-slaveholding States to the Union and their fellow-citizens of the same blood in the South have given so strong and impressive a tone to the sentiments entertained against the proceedings of the misguided persons who have engaged in these unconstitutional and wicked attempts, and especially against the emissaries from foreign parts, who have dared to interfere in this matter, as to authorize the hope that these attempts will no longer be persisted in.... I would therefore call the special attention of Congress to the subject, and respectfully suggest the propriety of passing such a law as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection."

Mr. Clay said the sole purpose of the Abolitionists was to array one portion of the Union against the other. "With that in view, in all their leading prints and publications, the alleged horrors of slavery are depicted in the most glowing and exaggerated colors, to excite the imaginations and stimulate the rage of the people of the Free States against the people of the slaveholding States.... Why are the Slave States wantonly and cruelly assailed? Why does the abolition press teem with publications tending to excite hatred and animosity on the part of the Free States against the Slave States?... Why is Congress petitioned? Is their purpose to appeal to our understanding, and actuate our humanity? And do they expect to accomplish that purpose by holding us up to the scorn and contempt and detestation of the people of the Free States and the whole civilized world?... Union on the one side will beget union on the other.... One section will stand in menacing, hostile array against another; the collision of opinion will be quickly followed by the clash of arms."

Mr. Everett, then (1836) Governor of Massachusetts, informed the Legislature, for the admonition of these unsparing agitators against the peace of the South, that "every thing that tends to disturb the relations created by this compact [the Constitution] is at war with its spirit; and whatever, by direct and necessary operation, is calculated to excite an insurrection among the slaves, has been held by highly respectable legal authority an offence against the peace of this Commonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law." It was proposed in the Legislature to pass an act defining the offence with more certainty, and attaching to it a severer penalty. The Abolitionists asked to be heard before the committee; and Rev. S. J. May, Ellis Gray Loring, Prof. Charles Follen, Samuel E. Sewell, and others of equal ability and character, spoke in their behalf. They objected to the passage of such an act in the strongest terms, and derided the value of a Union which could not protect its citizens in one of their most cherished rights. During the hearing, several bitter altercations took place between them and the chairman.

In New York, Gov. Marcy called upon the Legislature "to do what may be done consistently with the great principles of civil liberty, to put an end to the evils which the Abolitionists are bringing upon us and the whole country." The "character" and the "interests" of the State were equally at stake, and both would be sacrificed unless these furious and cruel fanatics were effectually suppressed.

In May, 1836, the Federal House of Representatives resolved, by overwhelming votes, that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the States, or in the District of Columbia, and that henceforth all abolition petitions should be laid on the table without being printed or referred. And, one day later than the date of Mr. Lincoln's protest, Mr. Van Buren declared in his inaugural, that no bill abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, or meddling with it in the States where it existed, should ever receive his signature. "There was no other form," says Benton, "at that time, in which slavery agitation could manifest itself, or place it could find a point to operate; the ordinance of 1787 and the compromise of 1820 having closed up the Territories against it. Danger to slave property in the States, either by direct action, or indirectly through the District of Columbia, were the only points of expressed apprehension."

Abolition agitations fared little better in the twenty-fifth Congress than in the twenty-fourth. At the extra session in September of 1837, Mr. Slade of Vermont introduced two petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; but, after a furious debate and a stormy scene, they were disposed of by the adoption of the following:—

"Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, and papers, touching the abolition of slavery, or the buying, selling, or transferring of slaves, in any State, District, or Territory, of the United States, be laid on the table, without being debated, printed, read, or referred; and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon."

In Illinois, at the time we speak of (March, 1837), an Abolitionist was rarely seen, and scarcely ever heard of. In many parts of the State such a person would have been treated as a criminal. It is true, there were a few Covenanters, with whom hatred of slavery in any form and wherever found was an essential part of their religion. Up to 1824 they had steadily refused to vote, or in any other way to acknowledge the State government, regarding it as "an heathen and unbaptized institution," because the Constitution failed to recognize "Jesus Christ as the head of the government, and the Holy Scriptures as the only rule of faith and practice." It was only when it was proposed to introduce slavery into Illinois by an alteration of that "heathen" Constitution, that the Covenanters consented to take part in public affairs. The movement which drew them out proved to be a long and unusually bitter campaign, lasting full eighteen months, and ending in the fall of 1824, with a popular majority of several thousand against calling a convention for the purpose of making Illinois a Slave State. Many of the antislavery leaders in this contest—conspicuous among whom was Gov. Coles—were gentlemen from Slave States, who had emancipated their slaves before removal, and were opposed to slavery, not upon religious or moral grounds, but because they believed it would be a material injury to the new country. Practically no other view of the question was discussed; and a person who should have undertaken to discuss it from the "man and brother" stand-point of more modern times would have been set down as a lunatic. A clear majority of the people were against the introduction of slavery into their own State; but that majority were fully agreed with their brethren of the minority, that those who went about to interfere with slavery in the most distant manner in the places where it already existed were deserving of the severest punishment, as the common enemies of society. It was in those days a mortal offence to call a man an Abolitionist, for Abolitionist was synonymous with thief. Between a band of men who stole horses and a band of men who stole negroes, the popular mind made small distinctions in the degrees of guilt. They were regarded as robbers, disturbers of the peace, the instigators of arson, murder, poisoning, rape; and, in addition to all this, traitors to the government under which they lived, and enemies to the Union which gave us as a people liberty and strength. In testimony of these sentiments, Illinois enacted a "black code" of most preposterous and cruel severity,—a code that would have been a disgrace to a Slave State, and was simply an infamy in a free one. It borrowed the provisions of the most revolting laws known among men, for exiling, selling, beating, bedevilling, and torturing negroes, whether bond or free. Under this law Gov. Coles, the leader of the antislavery party, who had emancipated his slaves, and settled them around him in his new home, but had neglected to file a bond with the condition that his freedmen should behave well and never become a charge upon the public, was fined two hundred dollars in each case; and, so late as 1852, the writer of these pages very narrowly escaped the same penalty for the same offence.

In 1835-36 Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy had been publishing a moderately antislavery paper at St. Louis. But the people of that city did not look with favor upon his enterprise; and, after meeting with considerable opposition, in the summer of 1836 he moved his types and press across the river to Alton, Ill. Here he found an opposition more violent than that from which he had fled. His press was thrown into the river the night after its arrival; and he was informed that no abolition paper would be allowed in the town. The better class of citizens, however, deprecated the outrage, and pledged themselves to reimburse Mr. Lovejoy, in case he would agree not to make his paper an abolition journal. Mr. Lovejoy assured them it was not his purpose to establish such a paper in Alton, but one of a religious character: at the same time he would not give up his right as an American citizen to publish whatever he pleased on any subject, holding himself answerable to the laws of his country in so doing. With this general understanding, he was permitted to go forward. He continued about a year, discussing in his paper the slavery question occasionally; not, however, in a violent manner, but with a tone of moderation. This policy, however, was not satisfactory: it was regarded as a violation of his pledge; and the contents of his office were again destroyed. Mr. Lovejoy issued an appeal for aid to re-establish his paper, which met with a prompt and generous response. He proposed to bring up another press, and announced that armed men would protect it: meantime, a committee presented him with some resolutions adopted at a large meeting of the citizens of Alton, reminding him that he had previously given a pledge that in his paper he would refrain from advocating abolitionism) and also censuring him for not having kept his promise, and desiring to know if he intended to continue the publication of such doctrines in the future. His response consisted of a denial of the right of any portion of the people of Acton to prescribe what questions he should or should not discuss in his paper. Great excitement followed: another press was brought up on the 21st of September, which shortly after followed the fate of its predecessors. Another arrived Nov. 7, 1837, and was conveyed to a stone warehouse by the riverside, where Mr. Lovejoy and a few friends (some of them not Abolitionists) resolved to defend it to the last. That night they were attacked. First there was a brief parley, then a volley of stones, then an attempt to carry the building by assault. At this juncture a shot was fired out of a second-story window, which killed a young man in the crowd. It was said to have been fired by Lovejoy; and, as the corpse was borne away, the wrath of the populace knew no bounds. It was proposed to get powder from the magazine, and blow the warehouse up. Others thought the torch would be a better agent; and, finally, a man ran up a ladder to fire the roof. Lovejoy came out of the door, and, firing one shot, retreated within, where he rallied the garrison for a sortie. In the mean time many shots were fired both by the assailants and the assailed. The house was once actually set on fire by one person from the mob, and saved by another. But the courage of Mr. Lovejoy's friends was gradually sinking, and they responded but faintly to his strong appeals for action. As a last resource, he rushed to the door with a single companion, gun in hand, and was shot dead on the threshold. The other man was wounded in the leg, the warehouse was in flames, the mob grew more ferocious over the blood that had been shed, and riddled the doors and windows with volleys from all sorts of fire-arms. The Abolitionists had fought a good fight; but seeing now nothing but death before them, in that dismal, bloody, and burning house, they escaped down the river-bank, by twos and threes, as best they could, and their press was tumbled after them, into the river. And thus ended the first attempt to establish an abolition paper in Illinois. The result was certainly any thing but encouraging, and indicated pretty clearly what must have been the general state of public feeling throughout the State in regard to slavery agitation.