Lincoln, the Politician

by T. Aaron Levy

Above all, this speech will live for its moral intensity, hatred of injustice and hunger for righteousness. Throughout this long appeal and uniting its links of logic is an overpowering and pervasive sentiment of the highest humanity. Now and then an outburst against oppression comes forth resistlessly, yet in the company of a sober expression, logical intensity and a broad outlook peculiar to him. These rival the most impassioned utterances of Phillips and Garrison. Like O'Connell, he sent his voice "careering like the thunderstorm against the breeze, to tell the slaveholders of the Carolinas that God's thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the bondman that the dawn of his redemption is already breaking."[293]

With elation he passed from the sordidness and the turmoil of the courtroom and daily pettiness of common political controversy to the championship of an all-mastering principle. He fed the "parched souls of men with celestial anodyne," with visions of a new and nobler era of humanity. He made the humblest voter a public participant in the high service of ridding the nation of the shame of slavery. He was educating American democracy to practice the principles of the Declaration of Independence, restoring to life seemingly dead doctrines of the fathers. Better than a course in ethics was the uplift of his utterances, the call to higher attitudes.

He declared his hate in ringing words, of the indifference to, if not covert zeal for, the spread of slavery, of depriving the Republic of its just influence in the world, of enabling the enemies of Democracy to engage in the taunt of hypocrisy, of forcing so many men into open war with the fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there was no right principle but self interest.[294]

In measured language befitting his solemn theme, Lincoln continued his prophetic condemnation of slavery, charging that, steadily as man's march to the grave, the people were giving up the old for the new faith; that they had run down from the declaration that all men were created equal to the declaration that the enslavement of some was a sacred right of self government. He dwelt upon the statement of Pettit that the Declaration of Independence was a "self evident lie" and said that Pettit did what candor required, and that of forty-odd Nebraska senators who listened, no one rebuked him; and asked if that had been said among Marion's men, Southerners though they were, what would have become of the man that said it? He added that if it had been said in old Independence Hall seventy-eight years before, the very doorkeeper would have throttled the man and thrust him into the street.[295]

The day after the Peoria speech, Douglas told Lincoln that he understood the Territorial question better than all the opposition in the Senate, and declared that Lincoln had given him more trouble than his combined antagonists in Congress. Then Douglas proposed that he would speak no more during the campaign if Lincoln would do the same, and to that proposition Lincoln acceded.[296] So though a speech by Douglas and Lincoln had been advertised for the following day, Mr. Douglas said that he was too hoarse to speak, and Lincoln declared that he would not take advantage of the judge's indisposition, by addressing the people. His friends could not see the affair in the same light, and they "pressed him for a speech," but Lincoln mysteriously and unaccountably refused.[297]

Wisely did shrewd Douglas, the imperial leader in debate, appeal to the generosity of his opponent to conclude further controversy. Douglas was an over-match for all of the radical Abolitionists, the men who spoke of the higher law, who made war on the charter of American liberties. His better nature rejoiced in such conflicts. But his genius was rebuked in the presence of the plain product of the West, the man who neither relinquished his confidence in the Constitution nor yet in the ultimate triumph of the freedom that first gave it its being. Douglas could wage triumphant war on a Lovejoy and Chase, but the common logic and simple honesty of Lincoln disconcerted him. The elaborate oratory of the Senate never confused the Senator of Illinois. For the first time in his career the national leader was worried and perplexed. He was neither used to nor prepared for the combination of talent that could not be diverted from its way, that met every movement with a baffling complacency. There was something unanswerable in Lincoln's manner and mode of discussion. Douglas could fight other men at a distance, but this opponent made it a hand-to-hand grapple. At length a man had arisen in the American arena as skillful in defense of freedom as other men were in that of slavery. An orator had come who combined the solidity of Webster, the moral fervor of Phillips, and the logic of Calhoun; who mingled justice, patriotism and argument so as to astonish the foremost figure in Washington. It was no idle sentiment that brought Douglas to tender his rival the high tribute of a truce.

The Peoria and State Fair speeches created a supreme place for Lincoln in the anti-slavery movement. He was looked to as likely to gather great strength in the transitional period of party dissolution. A dominating passion for place again took hold of him. He declared he prized a full term in the Senate more than the Presidency. To advance local political conditions Lincoln was unwisely made a candidate, in his absence, for the State Legislature that would soon elect a Senator. Mrs. Lincoln, however, had Lincoln's name taken off the list of candidates. When Mr. Lincoln returned, "I went to see him," says Jayne, "in order to get his consent to run. That was at his house. He was then the saddest man I ever saw,—the gloomiest. He walked up and down the floor, almost crying; and to all my persuasions to let his name stand in the paper, he said, 'No, I can't. You don't know all. I say you don't begin to know one-half, and that's enough!' I did, however, go and have his name reinstated." After election Lincoln resigned and by a "still hunt" a Democrat was elected in his stead. The interference of Mrs. Lincoln, the loss of a vote in the approaching close contest, according to Jayne, angered the people of Sangamon County so that for the time being they hated him.[H]

Lincoln managed his senatorial campaign with adroitness. Herndon shows that Lincoln did not calmly sit down and gather his robes around him, waiting for the people to call him. The vicissitudes of a political campaign brought into play his management, and developed to its fullest extent his latent industry. Like other politicians he never overlooked a newspaper man who had it in his power to say a good or bad thing of him. Writing to the editor of an obscure little country newspaper that he had been reading his paper for three or four years and had paid him nothing for it, he enclosed $10.00 and admonished the editor with complacency to put it into his pocket and say nothing further about it. Very soon thereafter Lincoln prepared a political article and sent it to the rural journalist, requesting its publication in the editorial columns of his valued paper. The latter, having followed Lincoln's directions, declined saying that he long ago made it a rule to publish nothing as editorial matter not written by himself. Lincoln read the editor's answer to Herndon, who remarks that although the laugh was on Lincoln the latter enjoyed the joke heartily, and said that that editor had a lofty but proper conception of true journalism.[298]

His correspondence shows that he was in constant contact with the ever shifting events of the campaign; that he was on the lookout for dangerous symptoms; that he was careful to nicety to measure his strength soberly, and displayed the same splendid generalship that distinguished him in his Congressional canvass. The history of his effort to gain a seat in the Senate may be well trailed in his own letters. A curt and crisp note advised his friends of his intention. The following is a sample of many: "You used to express a good deal of partiality for me, and if you are still so, now is the time. Some friends here are really for me, for the U. S. Senate, and I should be very grateful if you could make a mark for me among your members. Please write to me at all events giving me the name, postoffices and 'political position' of members around about you."[299]

Lovejoy had only some twenty-five adherents at the convention following the "State Fair speech" of Lincoln. Nothing daunted by the paltry attendance, they adopted a bold platform. "Ichabod raved," said the Democratic organ in derision, "and Lovejoy swelled, and all endorsed the sentiments of that speech." Not content with this, without consent or consultation, they placed Lincoln's name on the list of their State Central Committee.[300] Lincoln's reply shows that he was not unwilling to confer with the abolition leaders and that he deemed it well to keep the way open to an understanding. "I suppose my opposition to the principle of slavery is as strong as that of any member of the Republican party; but I have also supposed that the extent to which I feel authorized to carry that opposition, practically, was not at all satisfactory to that party. The leading men who organized that party were present on the fourth of October at the discussion between Douglas and myself at Springfield, and had full opportunity to not misunderstand my position. Do I misunderstand them? Please write and inform me."[301]