His course throughout the affair can hardly be deemed creditable in every particular. The trading of votes between lawmakers may be defensible, perhaps, under certain rare, not to say peculiar, circumstances. Still, as such transactions are usually conducted, the practice calls for condemnation. And when a group of Representatives, like the “Long Nine,” go so far as to traffic through an entire session in one concerted effort to secure the passage of a bill for the special benefit of their constituents, the proceeding becomes grossly reprehensible. In this bargain and sale of legislation, the extravagant expenditure of public money is not by any means the most pernicious feature. Among men so engaged, votes speak louder than conscience,—yes, louder, on occasion, than all the Ten Commandments taken together. For your true “log-rollers” are prone—if we may paraphrase the words of a famous statesman—to consider themselves in politics, not in ethics. Their first few lapses from correct parliamentary principles open the way too often for further and still further deviations, until the standards of nearly a whole legislature seem warped out of their accustomed grooves; an indefinable laxness creeps into actions which have no concern whatever with these “log-rolling” measures, and the let-down in moral tone, brought about by repeated departures from the loftier plane of disinterested lawmaking, hardly stops short, at times, of general demoralization. To what extent this actually happened in the Tenth General Assembly of Illinois is not now definitely known. But prevailing conditions there were manifestly far from ideal; and as some of the fault, at least, was chargeable to the “Long Nine,” he who stood at their head must take his share of the blame.
In fairness to Lincoln, however, it should be said—for what such a plea is worth—that any idea of wrongdoing probably never entered the young man’s mind. He and his colleagues had merely pursued tactics tolerated, if indeed they were not sanctioned, by the customs of the period. During those raw pioneer days, not a few politicians looked upon votes as legitimate objects of barter; and to so flagrant an extreme, it will be remembered, were their views carried in the Illinois Legislature of 1836-37, that the Assembly became a veritable market-place. Amidst this whirl of chaffering the member from New Salem was seen to move with steady tread. True, he had shown himself to be a poor business man at home; yet here his faculty for one peculiar kind of commerce apparently fell little short of genius. So it turned out that when the last trade was made, when the deals had all been closed, and Speaker Semple’s gavel sounded for final settlements, the big winning was disclosed—as we have seen—in Lincoln’s grasp. Then it was that his defeated antagonists set up those cries of outraged virtue. Then only did they discover the depths of moral turpitude into which he had fallen. But their censure came with painfully diminished effect from men who had themselves employed, though unsuccessfully, the very methods for which they now condemned him; and one is curious to know by what system of ethical adjustments they thought to reconcile their own acts with these tardy expressions of principle. In any event, the accusers may be said to have come into court, as the phrase goes, with unclean hands—at least, with hands no cleaner than those of the associate whom they denounced. Indeed, when all is said, the head and front of his offending, as far as these angry politicians were concerned, will be found to lie in the fact that he had beaten the gentlemen at their own game.
Here again let the chronicle do justice to Lincoln. He had indeed played this game—if game it may be called—for all that was in him, but he certainly had not evinced the reckless disregard of public interests that the fault-finding losers tried to lay at his door. On the contrary, he believed himself to have been serving the whole State, no less than Springfield, with every trade whereby the “Long Nine,” in exchange for what they wanted, lent their votes and their influence, as has just been narrated, to establish a comprehensive, if lavish, system of “internal improvements.” Such undertakings had, in fact, engaged Lincoln’s imagination from the very beginning of his public life. Pledged to them, in a sense, and convinced of their value, he aimed at associating himself in the West, as other politicians had done elsewhere through the country, with some splendid scheme for public development. It was during this period that Lincoln, emulating the example of the man to whom the Empire State was chiefly indebted for its Erie Canal, confided to his friend Joshua F. Speed an ambition to make himself “the De Witt Clinton of Illinois.”[v-18] The aspiration looks futile enough now in the light of what ensued. Still, at that time all observers, with rare exceptions, confidently expected to see this single Legislature, by passing a series of Utopian enactments, swing the young prairie Commonwealth into a millennium of prosperity; while the politicians, regardless of party, outvied one another in doing the people’s bidding. Demands for these wonder-working measures were heard on every side. An influential lobby invaded the capital to urge their adoption. Petitions poured in upon the members. Their newspapers from home came full of buoyant—not to say flamboyant—articles advising liberal action. Mass meetings and conventions, voicing the general infatuation with sonorous resolutions, went so far as to issue parliamentary orders to their Representatives. In fact, the Sangamon delegation itself had been instructed by citizens of the county assembled at such a gathering to give the much-discussed “system” unqualified support. Obviously, therefore, when Lincoln exchanged improvement votes for Springfield votes, he put a price upon aid which would finally have been given, in any event. Circumstances merely enabled him, as he doubtless thought, to serve his constituents, indeed the whole State, by what he gave no less than by what he received. And if his tactics deftly took toll of legislation going, so to say, as well as coming, the process was, in its political aspect, at least, consistent enough. From all of which, those who cannot bear to contemplate a good man overstepping the narrow path ever so little will derive such comfort as they may; while others who seem inclined to insist upon a hero, immaculate no less than great, must bring themselves to realize that the best of men are sometimes—particularly during their formative years—seen to walk in the shadows.
This one cloud, moreover, on Lincoln’s early political record was not without the proverbial silver lining. “Honest Abe’s” better self still held sway. Indeed, ideals of public service as he then conceived them were never quite lost sight of, even amidst the temptations incident to a fiercely waged parliamentary campaign. His fault began and ended with the trading of votes. Beyond that, neither the low-leveled practices which prevailed on every hand, nor the pressure of colleagues, eager to triumph at any cost, could carry him. The Machiavellian doctrine that victory brings glory, whatever the method of achieving it, evidently formed no part of the creed which directed his “log-rolling” ambitions. And, ardently as he longed to win the day for Springfield, no questionable proposals, however alluring, were allowed to blunt in any further degree his fine sense of moral values.
A notable instance, aptly illustrating this, occurred when the struggle over the seat of government was at its height. An effort had been made to combine the friends of removal with those who were laboring for a certain measure of dubious character. What that measure entailed is not now definitely known, but Lincoln regarded it with strong disapproval. He had so expressed himself and the negotiations languished. At last, a number of Representatives, who were severally interested on both sides of the projected deal, met to discuss it in a private caucus. Their deliberations lasted, we are told, nearly all night; yet as the Sangamon leader refused to forego his objections, they finally adjourned without having reached the desired agreement. It takes more than one such repulse, however, to discourage politicians. Another conference was presently arranged, and, as if to make sure that sufficient pressure would be exerted upon the recalcitrant member, a number of prominent citizens, not in the Legislature but anxious for Springfield’s success, were craftily invited to attend. An earnest discussion ensued. Those who favored the compact employed every argument that they could frame in its behalf. Some of the speakers, deploring Lincoln’s inconvenient scruples, begged him to lay them aside, join his friends, and make sure of the capital for Sangamon County, but without avail. Finally, after midnight, when the candles were burning low and the talk had well-nigh run its course, he arose to close the debate. What Lincoln said has not been preserved entire, but an admirer, who described the speech as “one of the most eloquent and powerful” to which he had ever listened, has handed down these concluding words: “You may burn my body to ashes and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.”[v-19]
How much provocation the speaker had for this burst of perfervid oratory cannot now be determined, yet whatever one may say about his rhetoric, there can be no doubt concerning his good faith. That meeting adjourned, as its predecessor had done, without taking the questionable step so warmly advocated by most of the persons present; and one of the participants, at least, must be credited with having made clear that even a “log-roller” may set conscientious bounds to the scope of his operations.
Nor was this the only occasion on which Lincoln vetoed the unseemly devices to which some of his too eager partisans would have resorted. They had accepted willingly enough, while the contest for the capital lasted, such conditions as were imposed by the general act upon whatever place might become the seat of government. But after the victory went to Sangamon, these conditions did not appear quite so attractive. One of them, in fact, gave the Springfield people some uneasiness. This was a clause which required the successful community to raise fifty thousand dollars, by private subscriptions, in order that a corresponding amount, appropriated under the act for the erection of needful public buildings, might be refunded to the State. What looks like a small sum now, must have loomed large in those days on the financial horizon of a struggling little frontier town. And its task of collecting the required donations, difficult under normal conditions, became doubly so during the hard times which were ushered in this same year by the historic panic of 1837.
The situation seemed to call for relief of some kind. So a way out suggested itself to an ambitious young politician who had recently taken up his residence in Springfield. This was Stephen A. Douglas, the newly elected Register of the Land Office. His scheme, prefiguring many adroit political shifts to come, had the characteristic merit of being at once simple and efficacious. It proposed, in a word, repudiation. By means of an innocent little legislative amendment, deftly applied, Springfield was to step out from under this burden and let the cost slip back to its original place, on the shoulders of the State. But Lincoln again barred the way.
“We have the benefit,” said he. “Let us stand to our obligation like men.”[v-20]