In 1846, Lincoln accepted the nomination for Congress. His Democratic opponent was Peter Cartwright, a celebrated pioneer Methodist preacher. It is a great proof of Lincoln’s popularity that he was elected by an unprecedented majority, though he was the only Whig Congressman from Illinois. At this session, his almost life-long adversary, Douglas, took a place in the Senate. Both houses shone with an array of great and brilliant names, and Lincoln, as the only representative of his party from his state, was in a critical and responsible situation. But he was no novice in legislation, and he acquitted himself bravely. He became a member of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and in that capacity made his first speech. He found it as easy a matter to address his new colleagues as his old clients. “I was about as badly scared,” he wrote to W. J. Herndon, “and no worse, as when I speak in court.” During this session, the United States were at war with Mexico, and Lincoln was, with his party, in a painful dilemma. They were opposed to the principle of the war, since they detested forcible acquisition of territory, and it was evident that Mexico was wanted by the South to extend the area of slavery. Yet they could not, in humanity, withhold supplies from the army in Mexico while fighting bravely. So Lincoln denounced the war, and yet voted the supplies—an inconsistency creditable to his heart, but which involved him in trouble with his constituents. But he struck the Administration a severe blow in what was really his first speech before the whole House. President Polk having declared, in a Message, that “the Mexicans had invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our citizens on our own soil,” Lincoln introduced what were called the famous “spot resolutions,” in which the President was invited in a series of satirical yet serious questions to indicate the spot where this outrage had been committed.
Lincoln was very busy this year. The Whig National Convention was to nominate a candidate for President on the 1st June, and he was to be one of its members. On July 27th, he delivered, in Congress, a speech as remarkable in some respects for solid sense and shrewdness as it was in others for eccentric drollery and scathing Western retorts. The second session, 1848-49, was quieter. At one time he proposed, as a substitute for a resolution that slavery be at once abolished by law in the district of Columbia, another, providing that the owners be paid for their slaves. If he did little in this session to attract attention, he made for himself a name, and was known as a powerful speaker and a rising man; but, after returning to Springfield, though a Whig President had been elected, and his own reputation greatly increased, he was thrown out of political employment until the year 1854. He made great efforts to secure the office of Commissioner of the General Land Office, but failed. President Fillmore, it is true, offered him the Governorship of Oregon, but Mrs. Lincoln induced him to decline it.
In 1850, his friends wished to nominate him for Congress, but he positively refused the honour. It is thought that he wished to establish himself in his profession for the sake of a support for his family, or that he had entered into a secret understanding with other candidates for Congress, who were to nominally oppose each other, but in reality secure election in turn by excluding rivals.[19] But it is most probable that he clearly foresaw at this time the tremendous struggle which was approaching between North and South, and wished to prepare himself for some great part in it. To engage in minor political battles and be defeated, as would probably be the case in his district, where his war-vote in Congress was still remembered to his disadvantage, would have seriously injured his future prospects of every kind. He said, in 1850, to his friend Stuart—“The time will come when we must all be Democrats or Abolitionists. When that time comes, my mind is made up. The slavery question can’t be compromised.”
Many interesting anecdotes of Lincoln’s legal experiences at this time have been preserved. In his first case, at Springfield, he simply admitted that all laws and precedents were in favour of his opponent, and, having stated them in detail, left the decision to the Court. He would never take an unjust, or mean, or a purely litigious case. When retained with a colleague, named Swett, to defend a man accused of murder, Lincoln became convinced of his client’s guilt, and said to his associate—“You must defend him—I cannot.” Mr. Swett obtained an acquittal, but Lincoln would take no part of the large fee which was paid. On one occasion, however, when one of his own friends of boyhood, John Armstrong, was indicted for a very atrocious murder, Lincoln, moved by the tears and entreaties of the aged mother of the prisoner, consented to plead his cause. It having been testified that, when the man was murdered, the full moon was shining high in the heavens, Lincoln, producing an almanac, proved that, on the night in question, there was in fact no moon at all. Those who were associated with him for years declare that they never knew a lawyer who was so moderate in his charges. Though he attained great reputation in his profession, the highest fee he ever received was 5,000 dollars. His strength lay entirely in shrewd common sense, in quickly mastering all the details of a case, and in ready eloquence or debate, for he had very little law-learning, and was averse to making researches. But his rare genius for promptly penetrating all the difficulties of a legal or political problem, which aided him so much as President, enabled him to deal with juries in a masterly manner. On one occasion, when thirty-four witnesses swore to a fact on one side, and exactly as many on the other, Mr. Lincoln proposed a very practical test to the jury—“If you were going to bet on this case,” he said, “on which side would you lay a picayune?”[20]
Any poor person in distress for want of legal aid could always find a zealous friend in Lincoln. On one occasion, a poor old negro woman came to him and Mr. Herndon, complaining that her son had been imprisoned at New Orleans for simply going, in his ignorance, ashore, thereby breaking a disgraceful law which then existed, forbidding free men of colour from other states to enter Louisiana. Having been condemned to pay a fine, and being without money, the poor man was about to be sold for a slave. Messrs. Lincoln and Herndon, finding law of no avail, ransomed the prisoner out of their own pockets. In those days, a free-born native of a Northern state could, if of African descent, be seized and sold simply for setting foot on Southern soil.
CHAPTER IV.
Rise of the Southern Party—Formation of the Abolition and the Free Soil Parties—Judge Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill—Douglas defeated by Lincoln—Lincoln resigns as Candidate for Congress—Lincoln’s Letter on Slavery—The Bloomington Speech—The Fremont Campaign—Election of Buchanan—The Dred-Scott Decision.
The great storm of civil war which now threatened the American Ship of State had been long brewing. Year by year the party of slave-owners—small in number but strong in union, and unanimously devoted to the acquisition of political power—had progressed, until they saw before them the possibility of ruling the entire continent. To please them, the nation, after purchasing, had admitted as slave territory the immense regions of Louisiana and Florida, and in their interests a war had been waged with Mexico. But, so early as 1820, the North, alarmed at the incredible progress of slave-power, and observing that wherever it was established white labour was paralysed, and that society resolved itself at once into a small aristocracy, with a large number of blacks and poor whites who were systematically degraded,[21] attempted to check its territorial extension. There was a contest, which was finally settled by what was known as the Missouri Compromise, by which it was agreed that Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, but that in future all territory North and West of Missouri, above latitude 36° 30´, should be for ever free.[22]
Abraham Lincoln.