Lectures and Essays

by Goldwin Smith

Lincoln's style, both as a speaker and a writer, ultimately became plain, terse, and with occasional faults of taste, caused by imperfect education, pure as well as effective. His Gettysburg address and some of his State Papers are admirable in their way. Saving one very flat expression, the address has no superior in literature. But it was impossible that the oratory of a rising politician, especially in the West, should be free from spread-eagleism. Scattered through these pages we find such gems as the following:—

"All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years!" … "Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the every-day news of the times. They have pervaded the country from New England to Louisiana; they are neither peculiar to the eternal (?) snows of the former, nor to the burning sun of the latter." … "That we improve to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that during his long sleep we permitted no hostile foot to pass or desecrate his resting-place, shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington." Washington's mind, when he rises from his grave at the Last Day, will be immediately relieved by the information that no Britisher has ever trodden on his bones.

In debate he was neither bitter nor personal in the bad sense, though he had a good deal of caustic humour and knew how to make an effective use of it.

Passing from State politics to those of the Union, and elected to Congress as a Whig, a party to which he had gradually found his way from his original position as a "nominal Jackson man," Mr. Lincoln stood forth in vigorous though discreet and temperate opposition to the Mexican War.

Some extra charges made by General Cass upon the Treasury for expenses in a public mission, afforded an opportunity for a hit at the great Democratic "war-horse." "I have introduced," said Lincoln, "General Cass's name here chiefly to show the wonderful physical capacity of the man. They show that he not only did the labour of several men at the same time, but that he often did it at several places, many hundred miles apart at the same time. And in eating, too, his capacities are shown to be quite as wonderful. From October, 1821, to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten rations a day here in Washington, and nearly five dollars' worth a day besides, partly on the road between the two places. And then there is an important discovery in his example, the art of being paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it. Hereafter if any nice young man should owe a bill which he cannot pay in any other way, he can just board it out. Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay, and starving to death. The like of that could never happen to General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart, he would stand stock still midway between them, and eat them both at once; and the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some at the same time. By all means make him President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously, if—if there is any left after he has helped himself."

Great events were by this time beginning to loom on the political horizon. The Missouri Compromise was broken. Parties commenced slowly but surely to divide themselves into Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery. The "irrepressible conflict" was coming on, though none of the American politicians—not even the author of that famous phrase—distinctly recognised its advent. Lincoln seems to have been sincerely opposed to slavery, though he was not an Abolitionist. But he was evidently led more and more to take anti-slavery ground by his antagonism to Douglas, who occupied a middle position, and tried to gain at once the support of the South and that of the waverers at the North, by theoretically supporting the extension of slavery, yet practically excluding it from the territories by the doctrine of squatters' sovereignty. Lincoln had to be very wary in angling for the vote of the Abolitionists, who had recently been the objects of universal obloquy, and were still offensive to a large section of the Republican party. On one occasion, the opinions which he propounded by no means suited the Abolitionists, and "they required him to change them forthwith. He thought it would be wise to do so considering the peculiar circumstances of his case; but, before committing himself finally, he sought an understanding with Judge Logan. He told the judge what he was disposed to do, and said he would act upon the inclination if the judge would not regard it as treading on his toes. The judge said he was opposed to the doctrine proposed, but for the sake of the cause on hand he would cheerfully risk his toes. And so the Abolitionists were accommodated. Mr. Lincoln quietly made the pledge, and they voted for him." He came out, however, square enough, and in the very nick of time with his "house divided against itself" speech, which took the wind out of the sails of Seward with his "irrepressible conflict." Douglas, whom Lincoln regarded with intense personal rivalry, was tripped up by a string of astute interrogations, the answers to which hopelessly embroiled him with the South. Lincoln's campaign against Douglas for the Senatorship greatly and deservedly enhanced his reputation as a debater, and he became marked out as the Western candidate for the Republican nomination to the Presidency. A committee favourable to his claims sent to him to make a speech at New York. He arrived "in a sleek and shining suit of new black, covered with very apparent creases and wrinkles acquired by being packed too closely and too long in his little valise." Some of his supporters must have moralized on the strange apparition which their summons had raised. His speech, however, made before an immense audience at the Cooper Institute, was most successful. And as a display of constitutional logic it is a very good speech. It fails, as the speeches of these practical men one and all did fail, their "common sense" and "shrewdness" notwithstanding, in clear perception of the great facts that two totally different systems of society had been formed, one in the Slave States and the other in the Free, and that political institutions necessarily conform themselves to the social character of the people. Whether the Civil War could, by any men or means, have been arrested, it would be hard to say; but assuredly stump orators, even the very best of them, were not the men to avert it. At that great crisis no saviour appeared. On May 10th, in the eventful year 1860, the Republican State Convention of Illinois, by acclamation, and amidst great enthusiasm, nominated Lincoln for the Presidency. One who saw him receive the nomination says, "I then thought him one of the most diffident and most plagued of men I ever saw." We may depend upon it, however, that his diffidence of manner was accompanied by no reluctance of heart. The splendid prize which he had won had been the object of his passionate desire. In the midst of the proceedings the door of the wigwam opened, and Lincoln's kinsman, John Hanks, entered, with "two small triangular 'heart-rails,' surmounted by a banner with the inscription, 'Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon bottom, in the year 1830'." The bearer of the rails, we are told, was met "with wild and tumultuous cheers," and "the whole scene was simply tempestuous and bewildering."

The Democrats, of course, did not share the delight. An old man, out of Egypt, (the southern end of Illinois) came up to Mr. Lincoln, and said. "So you're Abe Lincoln?" "That's my name, sir." "They say you're a self- made man." "Well, yes what there is of me is self-made." "Well, all I have got to say," observed the old Egyptian, after a careful survey of the statesman, "is, that it was a d—n bad job." This seems to be the germ of the smart reply to the remark that Andrew Johnson was a self- made man, "that relieves the Almighty of a very heavy responsibility."

The nomination of the State Convention of Illinois was accepted after a very close and exciting contest between Lincoln and Seward by the convention of the Republican party assembled at Chicago. The proceedings seem to have been disgraceful. A large delegation of roughs, we are told, headed by Tom Shyer, the pugilist, attended for Seward. The Lincoln party, on the other side, spent the whole night in mustering their "loose fellows," and at daylight the next morning packed the wigwam, so that the Seward men were unable to get in.

Another politician was there nominally as a candidate, but really only to sell himself for a seat in the Cabinet. When he claimed the fulfilment of the bond, Lincoln's conscience, or at least his regard for his own reputation, struggled hard. "All that I am in the world—the Presidency and all else—I owe to that opinion of me which the people express when they call me 'honest old Abe.' Now, what will they think of their honest Abe when he appoints this man to be his familiar adviser?" What they might have said with truth was that Abe was still honest but politics were not.

Widely different was the training undergone for the leadership of the people by the Pericles of the American Republic from that undergone by the Pericles of Athens, or by any group of statesmen before him, Greek, Roman, or European. In this point of view, Mr. Lamon's book is a most valuable addition to the library of political science. The advantages and the disadvantages of Lincoln's political education are manifest at a glance. He was sure to produce something strong, genuine, practical, and entirely in unison with the thoughts and feelings of a people which, like the Athenians in the days of Pericles, was to be led, not governed. On the other hand, it necessarily left the statesman without the special knowledge necessary for certain portions of his work, such as finance, which was detestably managed during Lincoln's Presidency, without the wisdom which flows from a knowledge of the political world and of the past, without elevation, and comprehensiveness of view. It was fortunate for Lincoln that the questions with which he had to deal, and with which his country and the world proclaim him to have dealt, on the whole, admirably well, though not in their magnitude and importance, were completely within his ken, and had been always present to his mind. Reconstruction would have made a heavier demand on the political science of Clary's Grove. But that task was reserved for other hands.