Produced by Ed Ferris

Transcriber's notes:

The dieresis is transcribed by a preceding hyphen. Caps and small caps have been set as upper and lower case. Names have been corrected

Chapter VIII: "La Fayette", Indiana, kept as a contemporary variant spelling. McPherson, "clerk of the house" changed to "Clerk of the House" (of Representatives).

LoC call number: E661.C9

FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE

[Frontispiece]
Photo, by Prince Tota, Washington, D. C.
[Facsimile signature]
SMCullom

FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF SHELBY M. CULLOM SENIOR UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS

WITH PORTRAITS

SECOND EDITION CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1911

Copyright A. C. McCLURG & Co. 1911

Published October, 1911
Second Edition, December, 1911

PRESS OF THE VAIL COMPANY COSHOCTON, U. S. A.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I Birth to Admission to the Bar, 1829 to 1855
II Service as City Attorney at Springfield, 1855 and 1856
III Election to the Illinois Legislature: Lincoln-Douglas
Debates, 1856 to 1858
IV Other Distinguished Characters of that Day, 1858 and 1859
V Nomination of Lincoln and Douglas for the Presidency, 1859
and 1860
VI Speaker of the Illinois Legislature, and a Member of
Congress, 1860 to 1865
VII Lincoln, 1860 to 1864
VIII Notables in the Thirty-ninth Congress, 1864 to 1870
IX The Impeachment of President Johnson
X Speaker of the Legislature, and Governor, 1871 to 1883
XI Grant
XII General John A. Logan
XIII General John M. Palmer
XIV Governor Richard J. Oglesby
XV Senatorial Career, 1883 to 1911
XVI Cleveland's First Term, 1884 to 1887
XVII Cleveland's Defeat and Harrison's First Term, 1888 to 1891
XVIII Cleveland's Second Term, 1892 to 1896
XIX McKinley's Presidency, 1896 to 1901
XX Roosevelt's Presidency, 1901 to 1909
XXI Interstate Commerce
XXII John Marshall Harlan
XXIII Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations
XXIV Work of the Committee on Foreign Relations
XXV The Interoceanic Canal
XXVI Santo Domingo's Fiscal Affairs
XXVII Diplomatic Agreements by Protocol
XXVIII Arbitration
XXIX Titles and Decorations from Foreign Powers
XXX Isle of Pines, Danish West Indies, and Algeciras
XXXI Congress under the Taft Administration
XXXII Lincoln Centennial: Lincoln Library
XXXIII Consecutive Elections to United States Senate
XXXIV Conclusion

Index

LIST OF PORTRAITS

S. M. Cullom
Shelby M. Cullom, while a Law Student
Richard Yates
Stephen A. Douglas
Abraham Lincoln
James G. Blaine
Andrew Johnson
Shelby M. Cullom, while Governor of Illinois
Ulysses S. Grant
John A. Logan
John M. Palmer
Richard J. Oglesby
Grover Cleveland
James A. Garfield
William McKinley
William Howard Taft
Cushman K. Davis
William P. Frye
John C. Spooner
Theodore Roosevelt
Elihu Root

FOREWORD

"Oh, that mine adversary had written a book!"

Such was the exclamation of one who, through the centuries, has been held up to the world as the symbol of patience and long suffering endurance, and who believed that he thus expressed the surest method of confounding an enemy.

I have come to that age in life where I feel somewhat indifferent as to consequences, and, yielding to the suggestions and insistence of friends, I determined that I would undertake to write some recollections, as they occurred to me, of the men and events of my time.

Naturally, to me the history of the period covered by my life since 1829 is particularly interesting. I do not think that I am prejudiced when I assert that while this period has not been great in Art and Letters, from a material, scientific, and industrial standpoint it has been the most wonderful epoch in all the world's history.

About the period of my birth General Andrew Jackson was first elected President of the United States. Jackson to me has always been an interesting character. Theodore Roosevelt has declared very little respect for him, and has written deprecatingly—I might say, even abusively—of him. But the truth is, there were never two Presidents in the White House who, in many respects, resembled each other more nearly than Jackson and Roosevelt.

Jackson was sixty-one years old when elected President—an unusually old man to be elected to that high office; and he had served his country during the War of the Revolution. When I consider this the thought occurs to me, How young as a Nation we are, after all. Why, I date almost back to the Revolution! President Taft jocularly remarked to me recently: "Here's my old friend, Uncle Shelby. He comes nearer connecting the present with the days of Washington than any one whom I know." And I suppose there are few men in public life whose careers extend farther into the past than mine.

During my early life the survivors of the Revolutionary War, to say nothing of the War of 1812, were very numerous and abundantly in evidence. Up to that time, no man who had not served his country in some capacity in the Revolutionary War had been elevated to the Presidency, and this was the case until the year 1843.

During the year 1829 the crown of Great Britain descended from King George IV to King William IV. That reign passed away, and I have lived to see the long reign of Victoria come and go, the reign of Edward VII come and go, and the accession of King George V. Charles X ruled in France, Francis I in Austria (the reign of Francis Joseph had not yet begun), Frederick William III in Prussia, Nicholas I in Russia; while Leo XII governed the Papal States, the Kingdom of Italy not yet having come into existence. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had not yet a population of 24,000,000, all told.

From the dawn of this epoch may well date the practical beginning of a long cycle of political and intellectual upheaval, and the readjustment of relations which go to make up world-history, arriving at a culmination in our great Civil War.

In the last half-century—nay, I might say, within the last two decades—there has been a mighty impulse in the direction of scientific investigation, of mechanical invention, of preventive medicine, of economic improvement, and the like. Germany, in some respects, has led, but our own country has not been far behind. Independent research has been wonderfully productive, and rivalry has been keen. Often the mere suggestion of one scientist has been taken up and elaborated (or discredited) by other scientists; the idea of one inventor has been seized upon and bettered, or possibly proved valueless, by other inventors. The paths to the remote and inaccessible have been toiled over by rival explorers; new records have been made by rival aviators; while competitive and co-operative activities in every line have known a phenomenal growth. New names have been placed in the Pantheon of the immortals, new planets discovered in the solar system, new stars added to the clear skies of our nightly vision. Out of all the striving has come a sweeping advance in lingual requirements. In most departments of Science, Art, and Manufacture, the processes and methods of to-day are not those of yesterday, and the doers of new things have freely coined new words or given new meaning to old ones. The most complete and exhaustive encyclopaedia of yesterday is to-day found not entirely adequate to the already increased wants. Upon all these momentous factors must these "Recollections," in one way or another, touch from time to time.

Shelby M. Cullom.

Washington, D. C. July, 1911.

FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE

CHAPTER I BIRTH TO ADMISSION TO THE BAR 1829 to 1855

Tides of migration set in about the close of the Revolutionary War, originating in the most populous of the late Colonies (now States), debouching from the western slopes of the mountain border-passes into the headwaters of Kentucky's rivers, and mingling at last in the fertile valley through which those rivers, in their lower reaches, find an outlet into the Ohio.

The westward flowing current brought with it two families—the Culloms of Maryland, and the Coffeys of North Carolina—who settled in a beautiful valley, not far from the banks of the Cumberland, which bore the euphonious name of Elk Spring Valley. Richard Northcraft Cullom, of the first-named family, married Elizabeth Coffey. They remained in Kentucky until seven children had been born to them, I being the seventh, the date of my birth occurring on the twenty-second day of November, 1829. We were a large family, but not extraordinarily numerous for those times, there being five brothers and seven sisters.

Kentucky was a Slave State, and my father did not believe in slavery. He was fairly well to do, and after considering the situation he determined to seek a home in a Free State and live there to the end of his days.

A treaty with the Indians in 1784, at Fort Stanwix, had secured from the Iroquois all claims to the lands which now make up the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. At the time of our removal the State of Illinois was only eleven years old, and but a small portion of it had any considerable settlements. These were mainly in the south half of the State. Chicago was then a small village, Fort Dearborn being at that time of more consequence than the village. Now Chicago is the second greatest city in the Union in population and business.

My father, together with Alfred Phillips and William Brown, his two brothers-in-law, entered land in the same portion of the County of Tazewell, and at once, on their arrival from Kentucky, pitched their tents and began the erection of log cabins, in preparation for winter. Phillips was a large, vigorous man, both in body and mind. He was a man of the highest integrity, and soon became one of the leading citizens of Tazewell County, continuing so until his death. William Brown was a Methodist preacher and was a worthy example of the consistent minister of the Gospel of Christ. He was called upon by the people for many miles around to perform ceremonies on wedding occasions and, in time of sorrow, to preach at the funerals of departed friends.

My father lived longer than either Phillips or Brown. They both raised large families, and to-day the youngest son of Phillips— the Hon. Isaac N. Phillips—is recognized as one of the able lawyers of the State, and is the reporter of the Supreme Court of Illinois. My father was a farmer, but he always took great interest in the affairs of the country, and especially of the State in which he lived. He was a Whig, and believed in Henry Clay. He took an active part in political campaigns, and was several times a member of the House of Representatives of the State Legislature, and once of the State Senate.

Tazewell County, in which he resided, became a very strong Whig county, the Whigs having their own way until the Free-soil party, which soon became the Republican party, took its place as against the Democratic party. When that time came, Tazewell, like Sangamon, became Democratic. Sangamon County, in which I live, and Tazewell County, in which I was raised, were both strong Whig counties while the Whig party survived; but when it died, the population being largely from Kentucky and other Southern States, naturally sympathized with the South on the question of slavery. They drifted into the Democratic party in large numbers, and gave the control to the Democracy for a time; and the two parties still struggle for control in both counties.

My father became well acquainted with Abraham Lincoln while the latter was a young man. The first time I ever heard of Lincoln, was when two men came to my father's house to consult with him on the question of employing an attorney to attend to a law case for them at the approaching term of the Circuit Court. I remember hearing my father say to them that if Judge Stephen T. Logan should be in attendance at court, they should employ him; but if he were not, a young man named Lincoln would be there, who would do just about as well. Readers will see by this that while Lincoln was yet a young man he was ranked among the foremost lawyers at the Bar. At that time Stephen A. Douglas was beginning to be heard from.

Judge Logan was one of the best lawyers of the Mississippi Valley. He was a Kentuckian by birth, and, as a lawyer, was a very great man. Douglas was a great statesman and a leader of men; a great debater, but, in my opinion, not a great lawyer. The law is a jealous mistress; there are no great lawyers who do not give undivided attention to its study, and Douglas devoted much time to public affairs.

On the arrival of my father at the grove where he had previously determined to locate his family, he pitched his tent near a little stream, then called Mud Creek, afterwards called Deer Creek, because it was a great resort for wild deer. He soon erected a log cabin and moved into it with his family. I was less than one year old when the family located in Illinois. We lived in the cabin for several years. It was not a single cabin, but there were two cabins connected together by a covered porch; which was a very pleasant arrangement in both summer and winter.

Finally, my father built a frame house. During all this time the wild deer were numerous, and often I have counted from the door from five to twenty deer feeding in a slough not a quarter of a mile away.

I never killed a deer. The beautiful animals always seemed to me so innocent that I had not the heart to shoot them.

The Winter of 1830-31 was long remembered by the early settlers of Illinois, and of all the now so-called Middle States, as the "winter of the deep snow." For months it was impossible to pass from one community to another in the country.

My education was obtained at the local schools and at the seminary at Mount Morris two hundred miles distant from my father's home.

In my boyhood years there were no common schools. There were only such schools in the country as the people by subscription saw proper to provide. The schoolhouse in the neighborhood in which I lived was built of logs, covered with thick boards, and supplied with rude benches on its puncheon floor for the scholars to sit upon. We sat bolt upright, there being nothing to lean against. There were no desks for our books; and had desks been obtainable there were but few books to use or care for. We boys whispered to the girls at our peril; but we took the risk occasionally.

It was my duty as a school-boy, after doing the chores and work inseparable from farm life, to walk every morning a long distance over rough country roads to school. After I had attained to a fair common-school education, I concluded that I could teach a country school, and was employed to teach in the neighborhood; first for three months at eighteen dollars per month, and then for a second term of three months at twenty. I think I have a right to assume that I did well as a teacher, since the patrons raised my wages for the second term two dollars per month.

My efforts in teaching school did not secure sufficient funds to enable me to remain at school away from home very long, and I determined to try another plan. My father had five yoke of oxen. I prevailed on him to lend them to me. I obtained a plough which cut a furrow eighteen to twenty inches wide, and with the oxen and plough I broke prairie for some months. I thereby secured sufficient money, with the additional sums which I made from the institution at Mount Morris at odd times, to enable me to remain at the Mount Morris Seminary for two years.

I never shall forget the journey from my home in Tazewell County to Mount Morris, when I first left home to enter the school. As it well illustrates the difficulties and hardships of travel in those early days in Illinois, I may be pardoned for giving it somewhat in detail.

It was in the Spring of the year. My father started with me on horseback from my home in Tazewell County to Peoria, a distance of fifteen miles. A sudden freeze had taken place after the frost had gone out of the ground, and this had caused an icy crust to form over the mud, but not of sufficient strength to bear the weight of a horse, whose hoofs would constantly break through. Whereupon I dismounted and told father that he had better take the horses back home, and that I would go to Peoria on foot, which I did.

The weather was cold, and I was certainly used up when I arrived in Peoria. I went to bed, departing early the following morning, by steamer, for Peru, a distance of twenty-five miles. From there I took the stage-coach to Dixon, a distance of twelve miles.

There came up another storm during the journey from Peru to Dixon, and the driver of the stage-coach lost his way and could not keep in the road. I ran along in front of the coach most of the way, in order to keep it in the road, the horses following me. From Dixon I crossed the river, proceeding to Mount Morris by private conveyance. I never had a more severe trip, and I felt its effects for very many years afterwards.

The days I spent in old Mount Morris Seminary were the pleasantest of my life. I was just at the age which might be termed the formative period of a young man's career. Had I been surrounded then by other companions, by other environment, my whole future might have been entirely different. Judged by the standard of the great Eastern institutions, Mount Morris was not even a third-class college; but it was a good school, attended by young men of an unusually high order. In those early days it was the leading institution of higher learning in Northern Illinois. I enjoyed Mount Morris, and the friendships formed there continued throughout my life.

I do not know whether I was a popular student or not, but I was president of the Amphictyon Society, and, according to the usual custom, was to deliver the address on retiring from the presidency. During the course of the address I fainted and was carried from the chapel, which was very hot and very crowded. I was rolled around in the snow a while and speedily revived. I was immediately asked to let one of the boys read the remainder of the address, but the heroic treatment to which I had been subjected stirred me to profane indifference respecting its fate. Later I was selected to deliver the valedictory. So I suppose I must have enjoyed a reasonable degree of popularity among my fellow students.

It was at Mount Morris that I first became intimate with the late Robert R. Hitt. He and his brother John, who recently died, were classmates of mine, their father being the resident Methodist preacher at Mount Morris. Robert R. Hitt remained my friend from our school days until his death. He was a candidate for the Senate against me at one time, but he was no politician, and I defeated him so easily that he could not harbor a bitter feeling against me. He was quite a character, and enjoyed a long and distinguished public career in Illinois. One of the early shorthand reporters of the State, the reporter of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, he became intimate with Lincoln, and Lincoln was very fond of him. He filled numerous important positions at home and abroad, and married a most beautiful lady, who still survives. He was later appointed Secretary of Legation at Paris.

Bob Hitt told me that he asked President Grant for the appointment, and the President at once said that he would give it to him. Washburne, who had been Secretary of State for a few days, and who was then minister at Paris, was much astonished when Hitt appeared and said that he had been appointed Secretary of Legation. Mr. Washburne denounced both President Grant and Secretary of State Fish for appointing anybody to fill such an intimate position without his consent.

Ambassadors and ministers, however, are not consulted as to who shall be appointed secretaries. These appointments are made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; but Mr. Washburne, as usual, though that he was a bigger man than any one else, and that an exception should have been made in his case. But, when officially informed of the appointment, he submitted gracefully, and they got along together quite amicably. Strange to say, Hitt represented Washburne's old district in Congress for a number of years—many more years than Washburne himself represented it.

It was as a member of Congress that Mr. Hitt distinguished himself. He did what every man should do who expects to make a reputation as a national legislator; and that is to specialize, to become an expert in some particular branch. He was peculiarly fitted for foreign affairs. He was a man of education and culture, a student always, had served abroad for years, had mingled in the highest society, and it is not strange than in a comparatively few years he was recognized as the leading authority on all matters coming before the House pertaining to our foreign relations.

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the House is not nearly so important a committee as the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, and I may be pardoned for saying that I am chairman of the latter committee myself.

The reason is this: the Constitution provides that treaties shall be made only with the advice and consent of the Senate; hence it is that all such treaties, and consequently the foreign policy of the general Government, must pass the scrutiny of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate while the House and its committees have nothing whatever to do with them.

But nevertheless of all the House committees, that of Foreign Affairs is at times the foremost, and it never had an abler chairman than Robert R. Hitt. He was certainly in the most remarkable degree what might be termed a specialist in legislation. He gave but scant attention to any other branch of legislation. He had little time or liking for the tariff, finance, appropriations, or for any branch of legislation that failed to come within his own especial province. He was, in fact, so indifferent to the general business of the House that he told me one day that he did not even take the trouble to select a regular seat; that when any question came up in which he was interested he would talk from the seat of some absent colleague. Hence it was that he was seldom seen on the floor of the House except when some question was raised concerning our foreign relations; at which time he was immediately sent for. And it is only justice to him to say that he was the only man in the House in his time, and no one has since appeared there, who could so successfully defend or attack the policy of an administration concerning its foreign affairs.

The late Senator Morgan of Alabama, a most extraordinary character, of whom I shall have something to say later, and Robert R. Hitt and myself were appointed members of a commission to frame a form of government for the Territory of Hawaii, which we had just acquired. We travelled to Hawaii together. No two more delightful, entertaining, or interesting men could be found. They are both dead, and it was my sad privilege to eulogize their public achievements in the Senate.

In what I am writing from time to time, now, as the months and years go by, when I have the leisure from my public duties to devote to it, and without knowing whether what I am writing will ever be published, I do not want to eulogize any one. If what I say about men and events shall offend their friends living, I can not help it. I want only to give my own estimate of the men whom I have known. Robert R. Hitt was a good man; his honesty and uprightness were never questioned; he never did a great deal for his district but he was one of the most useful legislators in his own line— foreign affairs—whom I have ever known during my service in Congress. I think this is a fair and just estimate of him.

But to return to Mount Morris, Professor D. J. Pinckney was president of the Seminary when I was a student there. He knew my father intimately, and naturally took more than ordinary interest in me. When I became ill at school, he took me into his own home and kept me there for a month or more, treating me with the greatest kindness and consideration.

Years after I left the institution he became interested in politics, and ran as an independent for Congress against Horatio C. Burchard, Republican (who was, by the way, a very excellent man and my friend). Burchard defeated him. When the campaign was on I was invited to go to Galena and make a speech for Mr. Burchard. It never occurred to me at the time that I was going into Pinckney's district; but when I discovered the truth, I could not very well back out. I made my speech, but was careful not to say a word against Professor Pinckney, simply advocating the election of Mr. Burchard as a good Republican. Professor Pinckney, however, took great offense, and was very cold toward me from that time until his death. I felt that he had been misled, that it would all come right, and that some day I would have a plain talk with him; but he died before we ever got together. He has a son now living in Chicago, a prominent circuit judge of Cook County.

Among other classmates of mine at Mount Morris, was the late General
John A. Rawlins, who became a distinguished officer and was General
Grant's chief of staff. No better, no truer, man ever lived than
General Rawlins. He was essentially a good man and never had a
bad habit.

Rawlins was a Democrat, and a strong one, during his school days, and I believe that he remained one until the Civil War. Robert Hitt and his brother John, together with Rawlins and myself, formed a sort of four-in-hand, and we were very intimate. We would take part in the discussions in our society, and Rawlins was especially strong when a political question was raised. I have heard him, during his school days, make speeches that would have done credit to a statesman. He would have done himself and country credit in any civil office. He served as Secretary of War a few months. Like so many others who entered the war without the slightest military training, he came out of it with a brilliant record as an officer and soldier.

Judge Moses Hallett, a United States judge, retired, of Colorado, was another classmate of mine. He was an exceptionally good man, and developed into a very able lawyer and judge. He is still living, and has become quite wealthy through fortunate real-estate investments in the vicinity of Denver.

But I fear I might tire the reader by dwelling longer on my school life at Mount Morris. To look back over those happy early days is interesting to me; but it is sad to think how few, how very few, of my schoolmates, then just beginning the journey of life, with all the enthusiasm and hope of youth, are living to-day. They soon scattered, some to one vocation, some to another; some to achieve distinction and fame, some failure; but certain it is that I know of very few who are now living.

My health was impaired when I left school, and I returned home to work on the farm. Soon I became strong again, but the labor was so arduous and uncongenial that I determined upon a change: if there was any other way of making a honest living, I would try to find it.

In the meantime I had leased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres from my father. When Spring came I told him that I wanted to be released from my contract; that I had deliberately come to the conclusion that I could make my living some other way—that I intended to study law. My father did not hesitate to relieve me of my obligations, and the succeeding October, 1853, I started for Springfield to enter upon the study of law. I consulted with Abraham Lincoln, and on his advice I entered the law offices of Stuart and Edwards, both of whom were Whigs and friends of my father. They were both very good men and distinguished lawyers.

At that time Abraham Lincoln and Stephen T. Logan and Stuart and Edwards were the four ablest lawyers of the capital city. I studied two years in the offices of Stuart and Edwards, pursuing the usual life of a law student in a country law office, and was admitted to the Bar in 1855, and elected City Attorney the same year.

Meanwhile, however, I had been ill of typhoid fever for several months. During the period of my convalescence, I was advised to return to my home in the country and spend much time riding horseback. I did so, but the time seemed to drag, and finally I went to the city of Peoria to learn whether I could direct my restorative exercise to an additional profitable end. The result was that for several ensuing weeks I rode about the countryside, buying hogs for Ting & Brotherson; at the expiration of which time I had regained my health, was richer by about five hundred dollars, and was thus enabled to return at once to Springfield and take up again my interrupted studies.

Having been inducted into the office of City Attorney, I was fairly launched upon a political career, exceeding in length of unbroken service that of any other public man in the country's history. In fact I never accepted but two executive appointments: the first was an unsought appointment by Abraham Lincoln, after he had become the central figure of his time, if not of all time; and, second, an appointment from President McKinley as chairman of the Hawaiian Commission.

CHAPTER II SERVICE AS CITY ATTORNEY AT SPRINGFIELD 1855 and 1856

My election as City Attorney of Springfield signalized at once my active interest in politics at the very moment when the war cloud was beginning to take shape in the political heavens—a portentous cloud, but recognized as such at that time by comparatively few of the thinking people. It had seemed certain for years that a struggle was sure to come. Being a very young man, I suppose I did not realize the horrors of a civil war, but I watched with keen interest the signs of dissolution in political parties, and realignments in party ties.

In 1854 the country seemed on the verge of a war with Spain over
Cuba which happily was averted. The Black Warrior had been seized
in Havana Harbor, and the excitement throughout the country when
Congress prepared to suspend the neutrality laws between the United
States and Spain was intense.

It was about this time also that the famous Ostend manifesto was issued without authority from any one. The American representatives at the Courts of England, France, and Spain met at Ostend to confer on the best method of settling the difficulties concerning Cuba and obtaining possession of the island. They issued a manifesto in which they recommended that Cuba should be purchased if possible, failing which that it should be taken by force:

"If Spain, actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power."

The Ostend manifesto was repudiated; but it is certain that we would have then intervened in favor of freeing Cuba, had it not been for the dark war clouds which were so quickly gathering over our own country.

Among the other vital conditions which helped to keep the country's interest and attention divided at this critical time was the Missouri Compromise repeal, May 30, 1855. This repealing act early began to bear political fruit. Already treaties had been made with half a score of the Indian Nations in Kansas, by which the greater part of the soil for two hundred miles west was opened. Settlers, principally from Missouri, immediately began to flock in, and with the first attempt to hold an election a bloody epoch set in for that region between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, fanned by attempts in Massachusetts and other Eastern States to make of Kansas a Free State.

By methods of intimidation, Whitfield, a slave-holder, was elected the first delegate to Congress. At a second election thirteen State Senators and twenty-six members of a Lower House were declared elected. For this purpose 6,320 votes were cast—more than twice the number of legal voters.

Foreign affairs other than Spain's unfriendly activities also had a share in distracting attention. The United States paid Mexico ten million dollars to be free of the Guadalupe Hidalgo obligation to defend the Mexican frontier against the Indians.

My first experience after I was elected City Attorney, was to prosecute persons charged with violating the ordinances prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors. One of my preceptors, the Hon. Benjamin S. Edwards, was a strong and earnest temperance man. He volunteered to assist me in the prosecution of what we called "liquor cases." The fact is that for a time he took charge of the cases, and I assisted him. Life was made a burden to violators of liquor ordinances that year in Springfield.

The following year, 1856, was a Presidential year. I was chosen as an elector on what was called the "Fillmore Ticket." I did not at that time believe very strongly in Fremont for President. During the same year, I was nominated as a candidate for the House of Representatives of the Illinois Legislature, and was supported by both the Fillmore party and the Free-soil party and thus elected.

The House of Representatives of the Legislature of 1856 was so close that if all the members who had not been elected as Democrats united, they had one majority. If any one of them went to the Democrats, the Democrats would have the control. One of the men elected on the Fillmore ticket went over, thus giving the Democracy the coveted one necessary. The Republicans, or as they were then called, Free-soilers, attempted to organize the House by recognizing the clerk of the previous House, who was a Free-soiler, it then being the custom to have the clerk call the House to order and preside until a temporary organization was perfected. The Democrats refused to recognize the clerk whom the opposition recognized. The Democrats declared by vote the election of a temporary chairman, nominated and elected a sergeant-at-arms and a deputy, and ordered the two latter officers to carry the clerk out of the hall; which was promptly done at the expense of a good suit of clothes to the clerk who departed reluctantly. This was my first experience in legislation.

A careful reading of the annals of the State of Illinois will show that this incident is by no means unique in its history.

To go back a few years, when Edward Coles, who had been private secretary to President Madison, was elected Governor, it was by a mere plurality vote over his highest competitor, and—to use the language of former Governor Ford—he was so unfortunate as to have a majority of the Legislature against him during his whole term of service. The election had taken place soon after the settlement of the Missouri question. The Illinois Senators had voted for the admission of Missouri as a Slave State, while her only Representative in the Lower House voted against it. This all helped to keep alive some questions for or against the introduction of slavery.

About this time, also, a tide of immigrants was pouring into Missouri through Illinois, from Virginia and Kentucky. In the Fall of the year, every great road was crowded with them, all bound for Missouri, with their money and long trains of teams and negroes. These were the most wealthy and best educated immigrants from the Slave States. Many people who had land and farms to sell, looked upon the good fortune of Missouri with envy; whilst the lordly immigrant, as he passed along with his money and droves of negroes, took a malicious pleasure in increasing it by pretending to regret the short-sighted policy of Illinois, which excluded him from settlement, and from purchasing and holding lands.

In this mode a desire to make Illinois a Slave State became quite prevalent. Many persons had voted for Brown or Phillips with this view, whilst the friends of a Free State had rallied almost in a body for Coles.

Notwithstanding the defeat of the Democrats at this election, they were not annihilated. They had been beaten for Governor only by a division in their own ranks, whilst they had elected a large majority of each House of the Assembly, and were determined to make a vigorous effort to carry their measure at the session of the Legislature to be held in 1822-23. Governor Coles, in his first message, recommended the emancipation of the French slaves. This served as the spark to kindle into activity all the elements in favor of slavery.

Slavery could not be introduced, nor was it believed that the French slaves could be emancipated, without an amendment to the Constitution; the Constitution could not be amended without a new convention, to obtain which two thirds of each branch of the Legislature had to concur in recommending it to the people; and the voters, at the next election, had to sanction it by a majority of all the votes given for members of the Legislature.

When the Legislature assembled, it was found that the Senate contained the requisite two-thirds majority; but in the House of Representatives, by deciding a contested election in favor of one of the candidates, the Slave party would have one more than two- thirds, while by deciding in favor of the other, they would lack one vote of having the majority. These two candidates were John Shaw and Nicholas Hanson, who claimed to represent the County of Pike, which then included all the military tract and all the country north of the Illinois River to the northern limits of the State.

The leaders of the Slave party were anxious to re-elect Jesse B. Thomas to the United States Senate. Hanson would vote for him, but Shaw would not; Shaw would vote for the convention, but Hanson would not. The party had use for both of them, and they determined to use them both, one after the other. For this purpose, they first decided in favor of Hanson, admitted him to a seat, and with his vote elected their United States Senator; and then, toward the close of the session, with mere brute force, and in the most barefaced manner, they reconsidered their former vote, turned Hanson out of his seat, and decided in favor of Shaw, and with his vote carried their resolution for a convention.

There immediately resulted a very fierce contest before the people, characterized by lavish detraction and personal abuse—one of the most bitter, prolonged, and memorable in the history of the State —and the question of making Illinois permanently a Slave State was put to rest by a majority of about two thousand votes. The census of 1850 was the first that enumerated no slaves in our State.

In this connection I cannot avoid giving a little account of Frederick Adolphus Hubbard, who was Lieutenant-Governor when Coles was Governor. Hubbard seemed to be a very ignorant man, but ambitious to become Governor of the State, or to attain some other position that would give him reputation.

"It is related of him that while engaged in the trial of a lawsuit, involving the title to a certain mill owned by Joseph Duncan [who afterwards became Governor], the opposing counsel, David J. Baker, then recently from New England, had quoted from Johnson's New York reports a case strongly against Hubbard's side. Reading reports of the decisions of courts before juries was a new thing in those days; and Hubbard, to evade the force of the authority as a precedent, coolly informed the jury that Johnson was a Yankee clock-peddler, who had been perambulating up and down the country gathering up rumors and floating stories against the people of the West, and had them published in a book under the name of 'Johnson's Reports.' He indignantly repudiated the book as authority in Illinois, and clinched the argument by adding: 'Gentlemen of the jury, I am sure you will not believe anything that comes from that source; and besides that, what did Johnson know about Duncan's mill anyhow?'"( 1)

Hubbard, in 1826, became a candidate for Governor of Illinois. He canvassed the State, and the following is a sample of his speeches, recorded by Ford:

"Fellow-citizens, I offer myself as a candidate before you for the office of Governor. I do not pretend to be a man of extraordinary talents, nor do I claim to be equal to Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bonaparte, nor yet to be as great a man as my opponent, Governor Edwards. Nevertheless I think I can govern you pretty well. I do not think it will require a very extraordinary smart man to govern you; for to tell you the truth, fellow-citizens, I do not believe you will be very hard to govern, nohow."( 2)

In 1825, Governor Coles notified Lieutenant-Governor Hubbard that he had occasion to leave the State for a time and required the latter to take charge of affairs. Hubbard did so, and when Governor Coles returned Hubbard declined to give up the office, asserting that the Governor had vacated it. He based his contention upon that clause of the Constitution that provided that the Lieutenant- Governor should exercise all the power and authority appertaining to the office of Governor, in case of the latter's absence from the State, until the time provided by the Constitution for the election of Governor should arrive. He claimed that the Governor had vacated the office until the time of the election of a new Governor, and declined to surrender. The result was, the Governor had to get a decision of the Supreme Court, which was to the effect that there was no ground on which to award the writ. Coles was obliged to submit, but not until he had appealed to the Legislature, where his contention was equally unsuccessful.

At one time, after repeated and annoying application, Hubbard obtained from Governor Edwards what he had reason to believe was a recommendation for a certain office. He became a little suspicious that the letter was not very strong in his behalf, and in speaking of it afterwards, in his lisping manner, said: "Contrary to the uthage amongst gentlemen, he thealed it up; and contrary to the uthage amongst gentlemen, I broke it open; and what do you think I found? Instead of recommending me, the old rathcal abuthed me like a pickpocket."

( 1) Moses, page 334.

( 2) Ford, page 61.

CHAPTER III ELECTION TO THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE: LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 1856 to 1858

In the year 1856 I had rather unusual experiences of both victory and defeat in one and the same political campaign. As candidate for the Legislature I won out, being elected; as the chosen elector on the Fillmore ticket, I went down in the party's defeat. The Whig party was in its expiring days, and what was called the "Know- Nothing" party was apparently a temporary substitute for it. Fillmore carried one solitary state—Maryland. Buchanan was elected by quite a large majority over both Fremont and Fillmore combined.

The administration of President Buchanan has been so frequently and fully described that there is little, if anything, new to say about it; but such were the fearful responsibilities incurred by it for the subsequent bloodshed, that its shortcomings cannot be entirely ignored in the intelligible presentation of the course of events which gave direction to my observations and activities.

The campaign of 1856 had been one of the most exiting and hotly contested ever fought in the State. The only hope the Democrats had of success was in the division of their opponents and in preventing their fusion. Their denunciations of abolitionists and "Black Republicans," as they termed their antagonists, were without bounds. But here and there some one would be called to account, as in the case of the late John M. Palmer, since distinguished in war and peace, and some years ago candidate of the Gold Democrats for the Presidency.

Between him and Major Harris, then running for Congress in his district, there had been considerable ill-feeling. The major had written a letter to be read at a Democratic meeting at which Palmer was present. It was very abusive of the Republicans, and Palmer rising, remarked the fact that the author would not dare make such charges to the face of any honest man. Harris, as related by the historian Moses, hearing of this, announced that he would resent it at the first opportunity. This Palmer soon gave him by attending one of his meetings. The major in the course of his remarks indulged in the most vituperative language against abolitionists, calling them disturbers of the peace, incendiaries, and falsifiers; and at length, turning to Palmer and pointing his finger at him, said, "I mean you, sir!" Palmer rising to his feet, instantly replied, "Well, sir, if you apply that language to me you are a dastardly liar!" And drawing a pistol, he started toward the speaker's stand. "Now, sir," he continued, "when you get through, I propose to reply to you." The major had not anticipated this turn of affairs, but prudently kept his temper and finished his speech. Then Palmer arose and, laying his weapon before him, cocked, proceeded to give the Democratic party such a castigation as none of those present had ever heard before.

It was in the campaign of 1856 that I first began to make political speeches. James H. Matheny, who was then our circuit clerk, accompanied me to several meetings where we both delivered addresses. He was an old Whig inclined toward Democracy, and I was a Whig inclined toward Republicanism. The result was I made Republican speeches, while Judge Matheny made Democratic speeches.

Our first meeting away from home was at Petersburg, Menard County. Being a candidate for elector on the Fillmore ticket, I made my first away-from-home speech, which I thought was a pretty good Republican speech. Matheny followed me with a hot Democratic speech, attacking especially Judge Trumbull, then our United States Senator. I remained pretty steadily in the campaign of that year, making about the same character of speech wherever I went.

Fillmore was very popular in Central Illinois, where the Whig party also had quite a large following during its palmy days, but he did not receive votes enough to come anywhere near carrying the State. Sangamon, my home county, and Tazewell County, where I was brought up, both gave their majority votes for Fillmore.

The Hon. John T. Stuart and his partner, the Hon. B. S. Edwards, with whom I studied law, besides being able lawyers and first-class men, were both Whigs; Mr. Stuart especially took an active part in the campaign. The latter was invited to attend what was called a Fillmore meeting at Shelbyville, several counties away from Sangamon. It so happened that he could not go, and the people of Shelbyville telegraphed for me. I went, and it turned out to be a combined Fremont, Buchanan, and Fillmore meeting—at least the three meetings there were held all on the same day.

The Fillmore camp gathered its forces out in the woods until about two o'clock in the afternoon. The Buchanan and Fremont crowds then marched in, informing the first-comers that they regarded their right to have the first meeting pre-eminent. An agreement was arrived at after some little wrangling, and old General Thornton was chosen to preside. He determined that, as I was not only a young man but the farthest from home, I should make the first speech —an arrangement that suited me very well.

I made my speech, as good a one as I could, and in closing, somewhat hurriedly announced that I was obliged to leave for home, much as I might wish to remain with them to the close of the meeting. The result was that most of the Fillmore people followed me away and came nearly breaking up the whole performance. I urged them to go back and listen to the other speakers; but they declined to do so until I had gotten off for home. It was my first venture at speech- making away from home on national issues.

I worked and voted for Fillmore because I had a very high opinion of him as a good man, and did not then think very much of Fremont as a proper candidate for the Presidency. Subsequently Fremont became better known, and occupied a high place in the estimation of the people of the United States, as a gallant soldier and a statesman, enjoying the unique honor of having been the first candidate of the Republican party for President.

I have taken an active part in every campaign since 1856, excepting when poor health prevented a regular speaking campaign.

The animosities of the campaign of 1856 were carried into the Legislature and kept alive in the House during the entire session. Governor Bissell's inaugural address was a dignified State paper in which he referred to the administration of his predecessor in highly complimentary terms. He concurred in all his recommendations, but suggested no measures of his own. Although he had commented briefly upon the Kansas-Nebraska controversy, and in mild terms, his remarks stirred the ire of the Democrats. Upon the motion to print the address, a virulent attack was made upon him, led, strange to say, by John A. Logan, afterwards the foremost volunteer general of the Union, and a Republican of Republicans. The rancor of the Democrats against Governor Bissell, who at that time was a physical wreck from a stroke of paralysis, though mentally sound, was largely due to their recollection of the fearless manner in which he had responded, some years before, to a challenge given him by Jefferson Davis to a duel. That episode has long since become historic, and I need not enlarge upon it here.

As was the political temper in the State of Illinois, so was it, to a greater or less degree, throughout the entire Nation.

Buchanan's first message repeated the assurance that the discussion of slavery had come to an end. The clergy were criticised for fomenting prevalent disturbances. The President declared in favor of the admission of Kansas, with a Constitution agreeable to a majority of the settlers. He also referred to an impending decision of the Supreme Court, with which he had been made acquainted, and asked acquiescence in it. This was Judge Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case, rendered two days after Buchanan's inauguration.

An action had been begun in the Circuit Court in Missouri by Scott, a negro, for the freedom of himself and children. He claimed that he had been removed by his master in 1834 to Illinois, a Free State, and afterwards taken into territory north of the compromise line. Sanford, his master, replied that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, and could not bring an action, and that he and his children were Sanford's slaves. The lower courts differed, and the case was twice argued. The decision nullified the Missouri restriction, or, indeed, any restriction by Congress on slavery in the Territories. Chief-Justice Taney said:

"The question is whether the class of persons (negroes) compose a portion of the people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty. We think they are not included under the word 'citizen' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges of that instrument."

Negroes, as a race, were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class who had been subjugated by the dominant whites, and had no rights or privileges except such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them. They had for more than a century been regarded as beings of an inferior grade— so far inferior that they possessed no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his (the white man's) benefit. The negro race by common consent had been excluded from civilized governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. The unhappy black race was separated from the whites by indelible marks long before established, and was never thought of or spoken of except as property.

The Chief-Justice further annulled the Missouri restriction, by asserting that "the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding property of this kind north of the line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void." Benton said that it was "no longer the exception, with freedom the rule; but slavery was the rule, with freedom the exception."

It was a year of financial distress in America, which recalled the hard times of twenty years before. The United States treasury was empty.

Early in this year (1856) a Legislature had met at Topeka, Kansas, and was immediately dissolved by the United States marshals. A Territorial Legislature also met at Lecompton and provided for a State Constitution. The people of Kansas utterly refused to recognize the latter body which had been chosen by the Missouri invaders, and both parties continued to hold their elections.

Thus it may be seen that these episodes were the culmination of a long series of events leading to a new alignment of the country's political forces. The Republican party was the child of this ferment of unrest. The formation of a new political party, or the regeneration of an old one, is always due to events, and not to the schemes and purposes of men except as events sometimes originate in such purposes and schemes. In this case the steps in the course of events which had rendered the formation of an anti-slavery party inevitable were: The pro-slavery provisions of the Constitution, the foreign slave trade, the acquisition of the Territory of Louisiana, the invention of the cotton-gin and its effects, the Missouri Compromise, the nullification schemes of South Carolina, the colonization and annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, the contest over the admission of California, the Compromise Measure of 1850, and finally the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854.

The name of the party was an incident only, and not an essential or very important incident; its principles and purposes were the vital facts. When events demand a new party, or the reorganization of an old one, all resistance is usually borne down speedily. On the other hand, it is a wasteful exhibition of human power to attempt the creation of a new party by the force of combined will and resolutions formulated in public meetings. Abraham Lincoln's great experience or keener penetration, or both, guided him at the outset of the realignments on political issues, and at the opening of the Congressional campaign of 1858, I followed him firmly and without mental reservation into the ranks of the Republican party.

Hence it was that I was present on that historic occasion when the Republican party of the State of Illinois held a convention at Springfield, June 17 of the year named, and nominated Lincoln for the seat in the United States Senate, then held by Stephen A. Douglas, who at that time was usually affectionately referred to by his partisan followers as "The Little Giant." This nomination was anticipated, and Mr. Lincoln had prepared a speech, which he then delivered, in which he set forth, in a manner now universally recognized as masterly, the doctrines of the Republican party. He arraigned the administration of Mr. Buchanan and denounced the repeal of the Missouri Compromise under the lead of Senator Douglas. In that speech he made the declaration, which I remember as clearly as though an event of yesterday, then characterized as extravagant but long since accepted as prophetic: "I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free."

That address inaugurated a discussion which has no exact parallel in history—certainly no equal in American political history. It introduced Mr. Lincoln to the country at large, and prepared the way for his nomination to the Presidency two years later. On the declaration above quoted Mr. Douglas based many arguments, in vain attempts to prove that Mr. Lincoln was a disunionist.

During this period Douglas addressed an enthusiastic assemblage at Chicago, and in the course of his speech adverted to the arraignment of himself by Mr. Lincoln. He took direct issue with that gentleman on his proposition that, as to Freedom and Slavery, "the Union will become all one thing or all the other," and maintained strenuously that "it is neither desirable nor possible that there should be uniformity in the local institutions and domestic regulations of the different States of this Union."

An announcement that Mr. Lincoln would reply to Mr. Douglas on the following evening brought out another assemblage, July 10, which was awakened, before the speaker had concluded, to an enthusiasm at least equal to that which the eloquence of Douglas had aroused.

The issues involved in this famous series of debates are too familiar to all students of our Nation's political history to be considered at length in these pages. Mr. Lincoln analyzed and answered the various arguments advanced by Mr. Douglas the evening before; and the closing paragraphs of his reply to the insistent reminders "that this Government was made for white men," were memorable:

"Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their conditions will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of kingcraft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says: 'You work, and I eat; you toil, and I will enjoy the fruits of it.'"

Six days thereafter, July 16, Senator Douglas in a great speech again tried to break the force of his opponent's facts and logic. This was at Bloomington, and Mr. Lincoln was again a careful listener. On the evening following, July 17, at Springfield, before an enthusiastic audience, he proceeded to dissect the matters so plausibly presented.

At the same hour Douglas was addressing a Springfield audience of his own, ridiculing especially Mr. Lincoln's alleged attitude toward the Supreme Court.

Contrasting the disadvantages under which, by reason of an unfair apportionment of State Legislature representation and otherwise, the Republicans labored in that campaign, Mr. Lincoln on that occasion said in the course of his talk:

"Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargé-ships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out."

He affirmed that Popular Sovereignty, "the great staple" of the Douglas campaign, was "the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted before a community."

As a result of these preliminary speeches of the Congressional campaign it was generally conceded that, at last, the "Little Giant" had met his match, and the intellectual and political appetites of the public called for more. In recognition of this demand, Mr. Lincoln opened a correspondence which led to an agreement with Mr. Douglas for a series of joint discussions, seven in number, on fixed dates in August, September, and October. Alternately they were, in succession, to open the discussion and speak for an hour, with another half-hour at the close after the other had spoken for an hour and a half continuously. My friend and schoolmate, the late Mr. R. R. Hitt, an efficient stenographer, was employed to report the whole series, and thus we have a full record of the most remarkable debate, viewed from all points, that has ever occurred in American history—possibly without a parallel in the world's history. Vast assemblages gathered from far and near and listened with breathless attention to these absorbingly interesting discussions.

Notwithstanding the intense partisan feeling that was evoked, the discussion proceeded amidst surroundings characterized by the utmost decorum. The people evidently felt that the greatest of all political principles, that of human liberty itself, was hanging on the issue of this great political contest between intellectual giants, thus openly waged before the world. They accordingly rose to the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, as has been well said by one who was then a zealous follower of Douglas, vindicating by their very example the sacredness with which the right of free speech should be regarded at all times and everywhere.

I have elsewhere described the disappointment I personally felt at the result, when the election returns came in. Although the popular vote stood 125,698 for Lincoln to 121,130 for Douglas—showing a victory for Lincoln among the people—yet enough Douglas Democrats were elected to the Legislature, when added to those of his friends in the Illinois Senate elected two years before and held over, to give him fifty-four members of both branches of the Legislature on joint ballot, against forty-six for Mr. Lincoln.

CHAPTER IV OTHER DISTINGUISHED CHARACTERS OF THAT DAY 1858 and 1859

More than four months had elapsed since Lincoln's epoch-marking speech at Springfield had brought on his great discussion with Douglas, when on October 20, 1858, Governor Seward at Rochester, New York, intensified the political inflammation of the times by saying in a notable speech:

"These antagonistic systems (free labor and slave labor) are continually coming close in contact. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces; and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either an entirely slave-holding or entirely a free-labor nation."

A book written by a young Southerner, "The Impending Crisis in the South—How to Meet It," was recommended in a circular signed by a large number of the Republican Congressmen, and thus given a vogue and weight out of all proportion to the standing of the author, whose recent death under tragic circumstances at an advanced age has drawn the name of Hinton Rowan Helper for a brief hour from its long obscurity.

"Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp," by the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," served, if such service were at all needed, to keep fresh in all civilized lands the name of Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe. The British Museum has a long shelf filled with different translations, editions, and versions of her greatest literary work.

In the month of September Mr. Lincoln delivered a speech at Cincinnati, in reply to Mr. Douglas. In that speech he addressed himself to the citizens of Kentucky, and advocated the nomination of Mr. Douglas to the Presidency, upon the ground that he was more devoted to the South than were the Southern leaders themselves, and that he was wiser in methods for defending their rights.

This was a form of attack which Douglas had not anticipated, and which he could neither resent nor answer. As the event proved, the seed thus sown was to bear fruit abundantly in results at the ensuing National Democratic conventions, and at the Presidential election two years later. Until June, Mr. Lincoln was unknown outside of Illinois and Indiana. Judge Douglas had already taken a high place among the able men of his time of national and international reputation. In September, Lincoln's character was understood and his ability was recognized in all the non-slaveholding States of the Union. His mastery over Douglas had been complete. His logic was unanswerable, his ridicule fatal; every position taken by him was defended successfully. At the end Douglas had but one recourse. He misstated Lincoln's positions, and then assailed them.

But Lincoln was ever on the alert to expose his opponent's fallacies, and to hold up the author to the derision or condemnation of his hearers.

Mr. Lincoln's first fame rests, therefore, on that great debate. Judge Douglas had long been famous as an experienced politician and an exceptionally skilful debater. As lawyers both ranked high in their State at a time when the bar of Illinois could boast of exceptionally brilliant and able forensic talent.

As it is my purpose to treat of both these great men in some detail in subsequent pages of this work, devoting at least a full chapter to Mr. Lincoln, so long my admired and never failing friend, I shall now proceed to give some personal recollections concerning certain other of the distinguished characters of that day, chiefly those connected with the bar.

I knew Judge David Davis very well. He was Circuit Judge on our State circuit for a number of years, and until Mr. Lincoln became President, when he was made Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. When a young lawyer Davis was a Whig; and my father, being also a Whig, took a great interest in him, as he did in every young lawyer he knew who became affiliated with that party. My father thought himself justified in believing that Davis would become a power in the land. Hence he took up the young man soon after he had settled in the practice of the law at Bloomington; and I have heard him state that he gave Davis the first case he ever had in Tazewell County, by advising another to employ him. But he re-enacted, on the less conspicuous forum, the distressing experience of failure of Disraeli in his first attempt to address the English House of Commons. Davis broke down in the speech he had prepared to make, to the great mortification of my father, who had exhibited such unusual pride and confidence as to counsel his employment in the case. Subsequently Davis redeemed himself, as did Disraeli, and became a most prominent and successful lawyer.

Among other interesting circumstances of his career was that of a little claim he had for a client in Boston against a merchant in Chicago. He could not collect the debt, except by levying on a tract of land in Chicago—eighty acres, I think. Davis reported what he had done, and his client manifested dissatisfaction with the result. He so vigorously stated his disappointment to Davis, that the latter immediately redeemed the land by taking it himself and paying the amount of money due the client. This tract grew in value with the growth of Chicago until it became worth a million dollars or more.

Judge Davis was a remarkably popular man on his circuit. He was thoroughly honest, and could not endure a dishonest man on the witness-stand or anywhere else. I remember a man in Chicago who on one occasion filed a bill of discovery for the purpose of finding real estate that he seemed once to have had an interest in, and which also involved the insertion of Judge Davis's own name, since he had himself at one time owned the tract of land involved. The man had lost his voice to a considerable extent, so that he had come to be called "Whispering Smith." He became notorious as a successful collector of debts, where persons had failed and were unable to pay their debts. He had filed in this case a bill of discovery consisting of thirty or forty printed pages which included the names of many persons who had been found to have owned the real estate at one time or another, among them being Judge Davis. Discovering this, and being entirely innocent of any complicity with the party who had failed, the Judge denounced Smith in open court for the outrage of swearing to something he did not know anything about, and practically threw him out of court.

There was an incident characteristic of his fidelity to friendships which I think well worth relating. It occurred when I was Governor of Illinois. I was invited by the Agricultural Society of McLean County to deliver an address, and went to Bloomington on the day designated. I was called upon by Judge Davis, who resided there. He was a very polite man, and asked me if he could not take me out to the fair-ground. I told him I would be delighted if he would do so. He came for me with his carriage, and on our arrival at the grounds took me to the stand, disregarding the prearrangements of the officials of the fair, and introduced me to the audience. In doing so he made a speech, very complimentary to my father, but scarcely mentioning me at all—not more than to introduce me at the end of his eulogistic remarks. Many of the lawyers of the town were present. I knew them all, and they were much amused at this unusual style of introduction. And so was I. I knew, of course, that he was a great friend of my father, and a great friend of mine as well.

Judge Davis was elected to the Senate in 1877 to succeed General Logan, and resigned his seat on the bench to accept the position. He became quite fond of the Senate, and during his one term there he was elected president pro tempore of the body under somewhat unusual conditions. The Senate at that time was almost evenly divided between the two parties. The two senators from New York, however (both Republicans), and Mr. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, had been elected by their respective Legislatures, but had not taken their seats. This gave the Democrats a temporary majority, and the Senate proceeded to elect Senator Bayard, of Delaware, as its president pro tempore. Within the next day or two, however, the two New York senators and Senator Aldrich were admitted to their seats; this left a majority of two for the Republicans if Davis acted with them, and the two parties tied if Davis acted with the Democrats. Under these circumstances, General Logan, who after being out for two years had been re-elected to the Senate, moved in the caucus that David Davis be the Republican candidate for president pro tempore. Later he made the nomination in the Senate itself, and Senator Davis was elected, Senator Bayard descending, amid general laughter, from the chair which he had occupied for but a short time.

Senator Davis was very proud of the position of president pro tempore, which he retained to the end of his Senate term. He had been acting quite independently, but seemed to incline a little toward the Democrats. After he became president pro tempore, while he never announced himself a Republican, he generally acted with the Republicans.

I was in the Senate the day before Senator Davis's term expired. He was soliloquizing to himself in the intervals of putting motions and attending to the routine of his office. He was very fond of Senator Isham G. Harris of Tennessee, and when he had occasion to call a senator to the chair, generally it would be Harris. He called Harris to him while I was there, and I heard him say as his friend came up: "Harris, Harris! When I get out of here I won't have to listen to old Bayard any more!"

He was a very remarkable man and a friend of Lincoln, and Lincoln was a friend of his. I suppose that Davis did as much to secure Lincoln's nomination over Seward as any one man, although Judge Logan worked with equal zeal. But Davis knew more people than did Judge Logan, although the latter was, in my opinion, the better lawyer.

In the days of Davis's judicial life on the State bench, the judge and the lawyer had a pretty large circuit. Davis's circuit was composed of several large counties. It was the custom to travel the circuit, judge, lawyers, and all, together. At that period there were no railway facilities worth mentioning, and they had to go by private conveyance—wagon or carriage or on horseback as the case might be. Probably a dozen lawyers might go together, all putting up at the same hotel, and generally having a good time at night, spinning yarns. Lincoln was a good story-teller, and so was Davis; and the evenings were made exceedingly agreeable to all concerned.

In no small measure as a result of the influences thus put into operation, the lawyers of the period were better qualified to get along in life than those of later days; that is to say, for the rough-and-tumble life they were better able to take care of themselves than the lawyers of a more recent date have been, as a general rule.

Judge Stephen T. Logan was, I think, the best lawyer that I have ever known in Illinois. He went to Illinois at an early age and lived there until his death; he had attained the age of a little more than eighty years before he died. He was purely a lawyer. I think I never knew another lawyer who could so everlastingly ruin a man who undertook to misrepresent the truth. He seemed to understand intuitively whether a man was trying to tell the truth or was lying; if the latter, his words would so effectually be torn to pieces that they could be of no earthly value. But he was not an adept as a politician. He ran for Congress at one time against a man named Thomas L. Harris, and was beaten. He also ran later for Judge of the Supreme Court, and was beaten. This defeat was not his fault, however, as the community was a strongly Democratic one. I recall a story current in those days, to the effect that some man who had recently come from the east inquired, while talking with him, "By the way, Judge, didn't you run for the Supreme Court last year?" In his squeaky voice, the judge replied, "No; I hardly walked."

But the judge was a true man in every respect,—honest, faithful to his friends, and fearless in doing whatever he believed to be right. He felt, I think, a little bit disappointed that President Lincoln did not appoint him instead of Davis a Judge of the Supreme Court.

I came to Washington and saw Mr. Lincoln in Judge Logan's behalf without any suggestion that I do so from Logan or any one else, but simply because I believed that the President ought to appoint him on the Supreme Bench in preference to any other man in the State.

Logan was a better lawyer than Davis; but Davis was an abler politician than Logan. I have always felt that in view of the fact that Lincoln and Logan had been partners earlier, and also neighbors and close friends, he ought to have nominated Logan instead of Davis. Davis, Logan, and Browning were all well qualified for the Supreme Court, all of them friends of Lincoln, and all Whigs. Lincoln had to make the choice, and I think the selection was influenced by Davis's great assistance in securing his nomination.

Judge Logan was also a close Whig friend of my father, and earnest in his friendship for me on that account. When I was a candidate for the nomination for Governor I had a pretty stiff fight for the first term. There were rumors that men were going to attack my personal character. I did not know about the judge's action in the premises, but when the convention met, Judge Logan went to it as a private citizen and crowded himself into the hall, remaining here until I was nominated. Then he went home. I was told afterwards that he had gone there for the purpose of defending me in case of an attack against my personal character.

Of course, I could not but greatly appreciate a friendship so manifest.

He had a son, David Logan, who went to Oregon as a young lawyer, and became very eminent there. In later years the judge wrote to him, proposing that if he would come back home he would take him into partnership. To this the father received a reply from David, proposing that if he would come out there a partnership with the son was subject to his acceptance or refusal. The judge died after attaining full four-score years, and the son at an age less advanced.

I think Judge Logan also felt a bit sour toward Mr. Lincoln because the latter, he thought, ought to have been more helpful than he was to his son in his effort to be elected to the United States Senate from Oregon, at the time Baker was elected.

Speaking of Judges Logan and Davis, I am reminded of the exceptionally high character of the lawyers of Illinois of that day, and more especially of Springfield. I think there has never been a time when it had another such splendid bar. It must be that high personal character in leaders has a direct and marked influence in elevating the general characters of the followers. The young lawyers, especially, are impelled by a force implanted by nature to admire and to strive to imitate or attain to the great qualities manifested in life of those to whom leadership is conceded by common consent.

Colonel E. D. Baker was a very good lawyer. Also Orville H. Browning, of Quincy, who was in Springfield attending the various courts whose sittings were at the State capital much of the time. Then there was Archibald Williams; and Stephen A. Douglas, a great man in every way, was on the bench a part of the time. Abraham Lincoln was, of course, the equal of any man, on the bench or off of it. Such men prominently in the lead as lawyers, and as men among men, could not but stimulate the ambitions and loftier aspirations of other lawyers, especially the younger ones. In striving to pay the tributes—imitation, etc.,—that can be accorded to greatness, they become great themselves; and perhaps here may be found the real or chief cause of the very large numbers of conspicuously eminent men congregated at the capital of Illinois in those days.

Judge Lyman Trumbull I always regarded as one of the exceptional lawyers of the country. I came to know him well while I was a member of the House and he a United States Senator. During those days I saw very much of him. When Trumbull came to the Senate there was some prejudice against him, growing out of circumstances (related elsewhere in these pages) which prevented the election of Mr. Lincoln, and which seemed to be plainly within Mr. Trumbull's control. But the feeling soon vanished, and Trumbull's course in the Senate was so true to the principles of the party which Mr. Lincoln had championed, that the manner in which he had secured the election was soon forgotten, or at least condoned, and the judge remained there for a long period of service—three terms.

While he was there I came to the House of Representatives, and came to be, as our association grew more and more intimate, very fond of Senator Trumbull. I also admired his ability. He was one of the few in that body who could hold his own with Judge Douglas in debate, and when he came into the Senate he at once took issue with Douglas, they being in controversy with each other very frequently on slavery and other political questions, until Douglas's career ended, about the beginning of the Civil War.

I was, perhaps, as intimate personally with Judge Trumbull during my stay in the House as any other member. Barton C. Cook and Norman B. Judd also were as intimate with the judge, as any other members of the Illinois delegation. Nothing ever happened to change these conditions, until the vote which Trumbull cast against the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Mr. Cook and Mr. Judd, especially the latter, seemed to be almost bitterly angry against Judge Trumbull.

As a result of that vote opposition to him began to grow in the party. However, almost immediately after the impeachment he was re-elected, although at the time not a candidate. He was subsequently nominated by the Democratic party for Governor of Illinois. I ran against him as the candidate of the Republican party, and was elected over him by a majority of about thirty-eight thousand. He imagined, so I have heard, that he was going to beat me, and was considerably surprised at his failure to do so.

He died only a few years ago, at an advanced age. His first wife was a sister of Dr. Jayne, an excellent man, and, I am glad to add, he and I are warm personal friends. I am very sorry to say, though, that his children, I believe, are all gone, as are mine.

There were other men who had risen to prominence in Illinois, of whom I wish to write, and some who were then new upon the stage of public life, whom I knew and who subsequently achieved distinction. I have already postponed my reminiscences of Mr. Lincoln to a later chapter than I could wish, but in point of time we have now come to the year of his nomination and election to the Presidency of the United States, and the beginning of a career which was to be finished in the course of only a little over four years.

The reference to my old friend Doctor William Jayne reminds me that I should say something of my Springfield friends,—some living, but many dead. It is to these friends that I am indebted for my success in public life, and they have generally loyally supported me, although friends in other parts of the State have been quite as loyal and devoted to my interests when I have been a candidate for high public office.

In the days of Lincoln, I do not believe that there ever was a community that contained so many really splendid men, men who were so well fitted to fill any place in the State or Nation, as did Springfield. I can refer to only a few of those of State and National renown. If I have overlooked some whom I should have mentioned, I hope I shall be pardoned.

First of all comes Lincoln. From time to time, as I have written these recollections, I have spoken of him. I will later give my estimate of Douglas, who, while not a citizen of Springfield, spent a great deal of time there as a member of the Supreme Court, as a member of the Legislature, and on legal, political, and social affairs. In the last-mentioned connection he at one time was a rival for the hand of Mary Todd, afterwards Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. I have thought and written something of Stephen T. Logan, and to my own old law partner, Milton Hay, I refer in other parts of these recollections. There were no better lawyers in their day.

William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, was a capable lawyer also. He wrote an excellent life of his distinguished partner. Herndon was one of the earliest Republicans of his State. While Lincoln believed in the principles of the party from the very beginning, the truth is, he was a little slow in becoming a member of it; and Herndon always claimed that he had much to do with making Abraham Lincoln an active member of the Republican party. Herndon believed that he was qualified to fill almost any office, and I think he was a little dissatisfied that Lincoln did not give him some high position.

William Butler, belonging to this same period, was one of the leading citizens and a devoted friend of Lincoln and an excellent man. Nor can I forget Antram Campbell, one of my first law partners. We were always warm friends. I saw him on his death-bed when I returned home from Washington, where I was serving as a Member of Congress. He recognized me, but could not speak, and I can see now the tears falling from his eyes.

Of the State officers of that day, Richard Yates was Governor. The State, under the lead of its War Governor, did not waste time or spare money in putting the troops in readiness for the field, and perhaps there was no governor of any State more watchful of the State's interests, or more devoted to the interests of the Union, or more loved by the people of his own State, including the troops in the field, than was Governor Yates. He was loyalty itself, and for many years was an apostle of liberty. He retired from the office of governor, to take his place as a senator from Illinois in the United States Senate. His fame, however, rests on being the great War Governor of the State of Illinois, the compeer of Morton, Andrews, and Curtin.

His son, Richard Yates, many years later succeeded to the office of governor, and is one of the prominent men of Springfield to-day.

O. M. Hatch was Secretary of State. He was among my early influential friends in Springfield. Uncle Jesse K. Dubois, for whom I had high regard, and who was quite well known in and out of Illinois, was one of the State officers. O. H. Miner was Auditor of the State at one time. He was a very good man. His son, Louis Miner, and Harry Dorwin, a nephew of my deceased wife, are joint owners of the Springfield Journal, one of the oldest Republican organs of the State.

Colonel John Williams could not be said to be a National or State character, but he was a good business man, and one of the best friends I ever had, so I cannot refrain from a passing tribute to his memory.

When I was elected to Congress the first time, in 1864, my friends knew that I had spent a considerable sum of money for election expenses. It being Lincoln's district, and Lincoln being a candidate for re-election as President, the National Committee helped some; but I was naturally compelled to spend a great deal myself. I considered to whom I should apply for assistance, and thought of Colonel Williams. I went to him, candidly explaining that I should be unable to make the race without financial assistance; he told me to draw on him for whatever funds I might want, and at the end to let him know the total amount, and that he would take care of it. I did so. He gave me what I asked for, and I gave him my note, which I paid as soon as I could; but he never bothered me about it. I always had a warm spot for him in my heart.

Nicholas H. Ridgely, the grandfather of the Hon. William Barret Ridgely, who married one of my daughters, and who served as United States Comptroller of the Currency for a number of years, was one of the leading bankers of the State, and was reputed to be one of the first millionaires of Illinois. He was a very careful banker, and was probably too careful to be popular among the people generally; but every one knew that there was no sounder institution in the State than the Ridgely National Bank. His son, Charles Ridgely, whom I always regarded as one of the most interesting men in Springfield, has passed away just about the time that I am writing these lines. Mr. Charles Ridgely was a man of great reading and great cultivation, and a man whom any one would like to meet. His death was a loss to Springfield of one of its most interesting and enterprising characters.

S. H. Jones ("Sam" Jones, as he was known) was another well-known character in Springfield, as well as throughout Illinois. He was a warm friend and supporter of mine in the early days.

James C. Robinson was twice elected to Congress. He and Governor Oglesby were opponents for State Senator from the district. A little story in this connection occurs to me, which Oglesby used to tell.

When running for the Senate, before the Civil War, Oglesby and Robinson travelled together over the district. The settlements in those days were very scattering, and as the rivals were good friends personally they agreed to go together and hold joint discussions. They held one every day, the understanding being that if either desired to talk anywhere else aside from the joint debate he had a right to do so.

At one place Robinson announced that he would make a speech in the courthouse. A large crowd greeted him, which he captured with one of his characteristic speeches. Oglesby was sitting in front of the hotel across the way by himself, and listening to the cheering. He became very uneasy lest Robinson should get the best of it.

Now it chanced that Oglesby could play a violin splendidly. A man came along with one in his hands, and Oglesby asked if he might borrow it for the evening, to which the man consented. He commenced playing in order to attract the crowd from Robinson, and in order to break up his meeting. He succeeded; one by one they came out of the courthouse, and when Oglesby swung into a stirring dance measure the crowd at once responded with an impromptu hoe-down.

Robinson, seeing his audience dwindling, quit speaking and came out himself. Taking in the situation at a glance, he pulled off his shoes and became the most enthusiastic participant, dancing first with one and then with another of his late hearers, winning them all back again and completely turning the tables against his adroit opponent.

This is a good illustration of early campaigning in the country districts of Illinois. There was the utmost good feeling, and a disposition to let the best man win.

Among the early men and incidents connected with the practice of the law in Springfield, in the sixties, and before and during the time I was Speaker of the House, the Rev. Peter Cartwright must not be forgotten. He was one of the prominent figures in the pioneer educational and religious life of the Western country, more particularly of Illinois. He was a wonderful type of the times— a man of great courage, of considerable ability, and most remarkable in his capacity as a minister of the Gospel. He believed in camp- meetings; and when Peter Cartwright conducted a camp-meeting the loafers and rowdies inclined to interrupt the worship knew they would invite trouble if they ventured to interfere with or annoy the meeting. He was ready, not only to preach the Gospel but to fight, as sometimes he felt it his duty to do. No man dared in the presence of Cartwright to interrupt the meeting, as in those times irresponsible parties hanging about such gatherings frequently attempted to do in his absence.

Cartwright was not only an able pioneer preacher, but he was a loyal Democrat, too. He believed in Democracy, and was ready to run on the Democratic ticket, or to advance the party's cause in any other way. He was nominated for Congress as against Mr. Lincoln, the only time Lincoln ever ran for Congress.

Some persons disapproved of Cartwright's activity in politics, questioning the propriety of it on the part of a minister. Among these was Judge Treat, then our Federal Judge in the Springfield district. The story goes that the Judge signified to Mr. Lincoln his dislike of Cartwright, and his willingness to lend a helping hand in case Lincoln should need help and would let him know the fact. He thought he could get a good many votes for Lincoln, and the latter thanked him and told him if he found need of his help he would let him know. On one occasion during the campaign Lincoln was walking along one side of the street when he saw Treat on the farther side, proceeding in the opposite direction, toward his home. Lincoln called out to him: "Judge, I won't need your help. I have got the better of the old Methodist preacher, and I will beat him; so I will not have to call upon you for help." This so embarrassed the judge, lest some one should hear what was being said, that he almost ran, in his hurry to get into his house.

It so happened that some of Peter Cartwright's grandchildren were somewhat reckless boys, and one of them killed another young man. Mr. Peyton Harrison, the father of the slayer, was a friend of Mr. Lincoln and also of Judge Logan, and had grown to be a good friend of mine, I being a young lawyer. The two and I were employed in the defence of the young man. I did the running about, and other things necessary to be done until the time arrived for the trial. I had the accused man in my house part of the intervening time. When the Circuit Court convened he, having been previously indicted, was delivered up and the trial came on. It lasted some ten or twelve days. In the meantime, Peter Cartwright, and his daughter Mrs. Harrison, the mother of the young man on trial, were at my house most of the time. They drove into town from where they lived, some ten or twelve miles out, every day, and remained until nearly night, going back and forth as long as the trial lasted. Cartwright became somewhat attached to me on account of my efforts in the young man's behalf.

The trial resulted in the acquittal of young Harrison, in whose behalf Mr. Lincoln and Judge Logan exerted themselves very earnestly.

Springfield seems changed to me since my old friend, David T. Littler, passed away. If I visited Springfield during the heat of Summer, when every one else was gone, I was always sure that Dave Littler would be there to greet me. Littler was a unique character. His manners and speech were bluff and frank; he never was afraid of any one, and never was afraid to speak just exactly what he thought. Senator Littler, Colonel Bluford Wilson, a particularly devoted friend, and I travelled through Europe together, and we had a great time.

Littler was for many years a member of the State Senate of Illinois, and was a very useful member in securing favors for his district; and there is no district in the State more dependent upon the Legislature than the Springfield district. He was very ambitious, and when many of my friends in Illinois believed that President McKinley would honor me with an appointment to his cabinet, he thought he was pretty sure to succeed me in the United States Senate. My secret opinion was that the politicians who were running State affairs at that time were fooling him; but it never came to a test, as I did not enter the cabinet.

It is a pleasure to record that I was able to show a substantial token of friendship when, through my influence, Senator Littler was appointed by President Cleveland one of the Pacific Railroad Commissioners.

Speaking of Colonel Littler reminds me of our mutual friend, Mr. Rheuna Lawrence, an estimable citizen of Springfield in his day. When I was re-elected to the Senate in the Winter of 1901, Rheuna Lawrence and David Littler were both desperately ill. I visited them both before leaving for Washington. Lawrence died soon after, but Littler recovered and lived for a year or two.

Rheuna Lawrence was intensely interested in my campaign in 1900. He attended the Peoria convention as one of the Springfield delegates. There was a contesting delegation from Sangamon County, and my friends, among whom were Lawrence and Littler, were seated. My friends won out all along the line, and the excitement was too much for Rheuna, who was not a drinking man at all; but he and Dave got in their cups, and it was very amusing to those who knew Mr. Lawrence as one of the cleanest and most estimable of our citizens to hear Littler refer to him as "my drunken friend, Rheuna." All of which, of course, was only a little pleasantry which I repeat for the benefit of those who attended that convention, and knew Lawrence and Littler well.

James C. Conkling was a prominent lawyer at home, in the days of Lincoln. He was a zealous Republican and a stanch supporter of Lincoln; also a lawyer and a business man; but for some reason or other, I do not know why, he became involved and failed, and the people, especially the older citizens, insisted that he be appointed postmaster. I recommended him, and the appointment was made. He served a term and passed away. His son, Mr. Clinton Conkling, is now one of the leading attorneys of the city.

Henry Green was noted as a great lawyer. He came to Illinois from Canada and studied law in Clinton County with the Hon. Lawrence Weldon, who was a prominent lawyer himself, and for years served as a member of the Court of Claims at Washington. Weldon was a lovable character. Green was for some years the partner of Milton Hay, the firm being Hay, Green, and Littler; it changed later to Green and Humphrey. While I always believed that Hay was the best lawyer in the State, many lawyers believed that Green was the ablest in connection with railroad litigation.

The Hon. O. H. Browning was one of the most prominent men of Illinois in the early times, and was about Springfield, the capital, a great deal, attending the Federal Court, and also the Supreme Court of the State. Browning, Archibald Williams, and Jack Grimshaw were all three very excellent lawyers, quite prominent in their profession, as well as associates in the Whig party. Browning was probably the most prominent of the three. He was appointed by Governor Yates to succeed Douglas, after the death of the latter, in the United States Senate. Of course he did not remain there long, being succeeded, I think, by William A. Richardson, a strong Democrat of Quincy, and a man of considerable ability. After he went out of the Senate, Browning was appointed by Andrew Johnson as Secretary of the Interior. He became a follower of Mr. Johnson, who had broken with the Republican party, and when he got out of office, I think he ceased to take any part in politics. He had been talked about a good deal at one time as the proper man for the Supreme bench, but as between him and Logan and Davis, Mr. Lincoln decided in favor of Davis.

It is impossible to mention all the many friends and supporters loyal and devoted to me who are now living, but I shall be pardoned, I am sure, for saying a few words in reference to some of them at present in Springfield, who are especially esteemed.

I have been away from Springfield most of the time for nearly thirty years, and as I go back there during the vacations for brief periods, I feel lonely, because so many of the familiar faces of earlier days have passed away. As I walk the streets now it seems that I know comparatively few people; but I have the best of reasons for knowing that among them are many splendid men.

I like to feel, on the eve of visiting Springfield, that I shall see my friend, Judge J. Otis Humphrey, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Illinois. I have all the affection and interest in Judge Humphrey that one could entertain for a brother, and I know that he has the same feeling for me. He is an able man, and is regarded by the Bar as the ablest judge who has ever occupied the United States District Bench at Springfield. I have known him from his boyhood, and knew his father before him. It was one of the great pleasures of my public career to have been able to secure from the late President McKinley his appointment as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, and later to have secured his promotion to the position of United States District Judge. He is now the senior United States District Judge of the seventh circuit, and I regard him as the ablest judge of them all. I sincerely hope that higher honors, which he so well deserves in his chosen career, are still in store for him.

In connection with Judge Humphrey I am reminded of the late Judge Solomon H. Bethea, who was appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and who was later promoted to the Federal Bench. Humphrey and Bethea I have always regarded as my two judges, as they were both appointed on my recommendation. Bethea was a man of very strong and positive character. These traits were so conspicuous that his manners were, by some, regarded as extremely dictatorial. He was highly educated, a student all his life, and a very cultivated man. At the same time he was a first-rate politician. I do not know of two more useful men to lead a floor fight in a convention than Bethea and Humphrey. Judge Bethea was my friend and supporter from the time I was elected to the United States Senate, in 1883, until his death. He made a splendid record as United States Attorney, and am informed that during his incumbency of that office, he never lost a case before a jury. Very unfortunately, just when he reached the goal of his highest ambition, a Federal judgeship, his health failed. I have never for a moment doubted that had he lived and retained his health he would have made an enviable record on the bench.

There is no better man in Springfield than John W. Bunn. He has been my friend ever since I first went to Springfield. He was a friend of Lincoln, and there was no one in Springfield in whom Lincoln placed more confidence. I believe that one of the first appointments he made, after entering the office of President, was that of John W. Bunn as Pension Agent at Springfield. He was the trusted friend of the War Governor, Yates, and performed many important duties for him during the Civil War. From those early days down to the present, every one has had confidence in John W. Bunn and in his integrity and honesty. I am glad to say that he is still living as one of the foremost citizens of his city.

The Hon. James A. Connelly, who for two terms represented the district in Congress, was a very influential and popular member of Congress; and being a good lawyer he was a prominent member of the Judiciary Committee of the House. He is a forcible speaker, and has always taken an active part in behalf of the party in campaigns in the State.

Mr. E. F. Leonard—Frank Leonard, as he was familiarly known among his friends—was my secretary when I was Governor of Illinois. He was later president of the Toledo, Peoria and Western Railroad, stationed at Peoria, and I have always believed him to be one of the best railroad presidents in the State. He was particularly noted for his sound common sense and as a scholarly, well posted man in public affairs. I do not think he ever said or did a foolish thing in his life. He has retired from business, and lives quietly and elegantly, being a man of wealth, at the beautiful little college town of Amherst, Massachusetts, in the vicinity of which he was born.

One of the oldest men in Springfield is Edward Thayer. He has been a merchant in that town ever since I first went there, and was engaged in business some years before that, I believe. His father was living when I first went to Springfield, and was a very refined, cultivated, elegant Eastern gentleman. Mr. Thayer, although over ninety-five, still seems to enjoy the best of health, and attends his store every day.

The present Governor of Illinois, the Hon. Charles S. Deneen, although a citizen of Chicago, has lived in Springfield for nearly six years, during his incumbency of office. Governor Deneen has had a very successful public career. He has creditably filled every public office which he has held. I have been interested in him, not only on his own account, but on account of his father, whom I knew well and whom I respected highly. Years ago I obtained his appointment in the consular service, in which he served during the Harrison administration. Governor Deneen has taken a prominent part in public affairs in Cook County and has held several responsible positions there. He made a splendid State's Attorney of Cook County. His honor and integrity were above suspicion. His record as State's Attorney paved the way to the higher office of Governor of Illinois. He is a conservative man, and has given the State a conservative administration. Unfortunately he has had difficulties with the Legislature, but on the whole I regard his administration as a successful and creditable one. Governor Deneen and I are the only two men in the history of the State who have been honored by its people by being re-elected to succeed themselves as Governor.

CHAPTER V NOMINATION OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS FOR THE PRESIDENCY 1859 and 1860

Returning to the period preceding the Civil War, we observe that the whole nation was stirred by the conduct of a man whom most people believed to be crazy, but who in my judgment was not. He was an enthusiast, fired by an abnormal zeal, perhaps; but he filled a most important place in the development leading to the Civil War. I refer to old John Brown.

With a score of followers he seized the arsenal at Harpers Ferry in October, 1859. The nation was then on the very verge of civil war. There was tremendous excitement even in far-off Springfield when the news came over the wires that John Brown had opened war almost single-handed and alone. Under orders from General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, Colonel Robert E. Lee with a battalion of soldiers marched on Harpers Ferry, and, after a series of siege operations, summoned John Brown to surrender, the demand being borne to the besieged by J. E. B. Stuart, a young lieutenant, afterwards distinguished as the foremost cavalry leader of the Confederacy.

The story of John Brown is too familiar to be repeated here; but how strange that in so short a time his captor, Robert E. Lee, should become famous as one of the greatest leaders of force in rebellion against the government he then served.

John Brown was captured and hanged. He had but few sympathizers in the North, but his attempt to incite the slaves to rebellion greatly stirred up the entire South, and hastened secession.

Very soon the second National Republican Convention was held at Chicago. At this convention, which nominated Lincoln for the Presidency, the resolutions declared for "the maintenance inviolate of the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively," and condemned the attempt to enforce the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest (meaning the slave interest), through the intervention of Congress and the courts, by the Democratic administration. They derided the new dogma that the Constitution of its own force carried slavery into the Territories, and denied the authority of Congress, or of a Territorial Legislature, or of any individual to give leave of existence to slavery in any Territory of the United States.

After the failure of the efforts to make of Kansas a Slave State, it had become plain that the South could not hope to keep its equality of representation in the Senate without reversing what appeared to be settled popular opinion concerning the status of the Northern Territories. Resolutions to this general effect were moved by Jefferson Davis early in February, 1860, and passed by the Senate. It was in effect the ultimatum presented to the Democratic party at its National Convention when it assembled, April 23, at Charleston, S. C. The warring factions failed to come to an agreement, and the convention adjourned to meet at Baltimore on the eighteenth of June. There Douglas was at last nominated. The delegates who had seceded at Charleston were joined by other seceders at Baltimore, and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for President. A month later, May 19, a third faction, calling itself the "Constitutional Union Party," assembled in convention at the same city, Baltimore, and nominated John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts, on a platform whose distinguishing battle-cry was "The Constitution, the Union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws." Three days before this, May sixteenth, the Republican Convention had met at Chicago, and had nominated Lincoln and Hamlin on a platform which rang true on great principles and with high resolve.

In many particulars this platform was a contrast to, rather than a growth from, that of 1856. It asserted that the normal condition of all the territory of the United States was that of freedom; it denounced the outrages in Kansas, and demanded her immediate admission into the Union, with her Constitution, as a Free State; it branded the re-opening of the African slave-trade as a crime; and in expressing the abhorrence of the Republican party to all schemes of disunion, the Democratic party was arraigned for its silence in the presence of threats of secession made by its own members. The doctrine of encouragement to domestic industry was announced; the sale of the public lands was condemned; the coming measure of securing homesteads for the landless was approved; and a pledge of protection was given to all citizens, whether native or naturalized, and whether at home or abroad. The party was again pledged to the construction of a railway to the Pacific Ocean, and to the improvement of the rivers and harbors of the country.

During the four years preceding, the home State of Lincoln and Douglas had decreased its public debt $3,104,374. She had become the fourth State of the Union in population and wealth, having during the decade then closing outstripped Virginia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Indiana. In production of wheat and corn she now surpassed all other States and occupied the foremost position. She had in successful operation two thousand, nine hundred miles of railways, being surpassed in this respect by Ohio only. Chicago, her marvellous lake mart, had grown from a population of 29,963 to 109,206, an increase of nearly three hundred per cent. From nine Congressmen in 1850, she was entitled in 1860 to thirteen; and so, on every hand, might the recital of her growth be continued indefinitely.

For the first time in twenty years, during the progress of a political campaign in Illinois, the voice of Lincoln was not heard. But the record of his former speeches, printed by an enterprising Ohio publishing firm, in a volume which sold in enormous numbers, afforded the text from which the Republican stump-orators in every Free State gathered at once their logic and their inspiration. Though the orator himself remained silent, the potent echo of his eloquence resounded in countless voices from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The political contest that followed the various nominations was a memorable one. Douglas made his last effort for the Presidency with wonderful vigor and spirit. He canvassed the whole country, and great throngs were greatly moved by his eloquent and energetic oratory. Jefferson Davis and other Southern orators canvassed portions of the Northern States in support of the nominee of the Southern wing of the Democratic party. In some parts of the North fusions were attempted among the opponents of the Republican candidate. In the South the interest in the contest was even more intense than in the North. Douglas had a good following in many portions of the South, but a majority of the ruling class there, whether they had formerly been Democrats or Whigs, were now disposed to bring the long sectional controversy to an issue. Therefore, besides the debate over the Presidential issue, there was a serious discussion also of what course the South should take in the event of Mr. Lincoln's election. In all the Cotton States the sentiment for secession was now very strong. The Alabama Legislature, early in 1860, had instructed her Governor to call a convention in case a "Black Republican" should be elected President in November. South Carolina had long been ready to join in such a movement, or to lead in it.

At last, election day came, and the results, immediate as well as ulterior, are deserving of some remark. The aggregate popular vote exceeded four million, six hundred and eighty thousand; and of the total, one million, eight hundred and sixty-six thousand votes were given for Mr. Lincoln; and of the three hundred and three electoral votes, he received one hundred and eighty. Mr. Breckinridge, the candidate of the South, received eight hundred and forty-seven thousand votes, and seventy-two votes in the Electoral College; while Mr. Douglas received only twelve electoral votes, although his popular vote reached a million, three hundred and seventy-five thousand. Bell received thirty-nine electoral votes on a popular vote of less than six hundred thousand. Thus the popular vote for Mr. Lincoln was nearly a half-million less than a majority; but his predecessor, Mr. Buchanan, was also a minority President, so that this fact as a pretext for secession was wholly without point.

Eleven States voted for Mr. Breckinridge, including Delaware and Maryland; and eleven States became members of the Confederacy, including Virginia and Tennessee, which had voted for Mr. Bell. It all went to show that the Democratic party as represented by Breckinridge was in fact a secession party first of all. The division of the Democratic party decided the election in favor of Mr. Lincoln.

Had that party supported Mr. Douglas in good faith, his election would probably have been secured; but the South would have been left without excuse had it persisted in the scheme of secession.

Therefore it came to pass that the Democratic party was disorganized by its own leaders of the South as a step preliminary to the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the making of that election a pretext for disunion. This part of the conspiracy was managed with consummate skill and eminent success; but the conspirators were perfectly well aware that ultimate success depended largely on prompt, effective, and decisive steps which must be taken while their efficient friend in the Executive Mansion still remained in office.

This allowed them four months of precious time between the election of Mr. Lincoln and his inauguration as President. The vigilance and effectiveness of their work is an interesting and familiar story, but I shall not attempt here a narration of it. This work eventuated in war, and with the opening of war, Mr. Douglas was quickly found in the attitude of a leader in the cause of the Union —the closing and the noblest episode of his whole remarkable career.

I knew Senator Douglas quite well. Of course, he was considerably older than I, and was one of the great men of the Nation, when I was just starting in public life. I knew him before the Civil War. He was a wonderful man with the people. I do not think there was ever a man in public life who was more thoroughly loved by the party to which he belonged than Senator Douglas. His adherents were devoted to him at all times and under all circumstances. When he came through the State, the whole Democratic party was alive and ready to rally to his support. I heard him deliver addresses on two occasions before the War. I heard one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates at Ottawa. I heard Lincoln deliver the famous Springfield address, in which he uttered the immortal sentiment, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." To this address Douglas afterwards replied. When Lincoln was inaugurated, Douglas was present on the platform and held Lincoln's hat while he delivered his inaugural address; the tremendous significance of which trivial act can be appreciated only in the light of later years.

But Douglas did not hesitate for a moment after Fort Sumter was fired upon, April 12, 1861. He voluntarily called upon President Lincoln and tendered his support to the cause of the Union, and immediately gave out to the Associated Press a statement, calling upon the people of the North, regardless of party, to rally to its defence.

I believe it was Mr. Lincoln who asked him to visit Illinois, where, especially in the southern part of the State, there was considerable disunion sentiment. There was a great effort to induce the region where the Democracy predominated, the people being loyal followers of Douglas, to go with the South instead of the North. Douglas alone could save it. He came to Illinois, as he told me, partly on that account; to rally the State to the support of the Union, earnestly desiring that the country should understand where he stood.

He visited Springfield while the Legislature was in session. Senator Douglas was invited to address a joint session of that body, which he did on the evening of April 25, 1861. Being Speaker of the House, I presided. In addition to the members of the Legislature, there was a great crowd present.

I have a vivid recollection of the evening. Prior to that time I had not believed in Senator Douglas; which was only natural, I having been a Whig and an enthusiastic adherent of Lincoln. The duty of introducing Senator Douglas to the joint Assembly devolved upon myself; I cannot at this late day recall the words I used, but I am sure that I presented him in as complimentary a manner as my prejudices allowed.

As he continued speaking, however, I, as thousands—nay, millions —of others had done, succumbed to the magic of his eloquence and the irresistible logic of his brilliant mind; and I must here confess that never before or since have I heard a more masterful, a more inspired, plea for the integrity of the Union and the indivisibility of the Nation than Senator Douglas delivered upon that occasion.

It seemed to me, as he hurled the thunders of his eloquence broadcast, that the very rafters rang in harmony, that the air vibrated in accord with his denunciations of rebellion.

The address was not a long one. As it was printed by order of the
General Assembly, I shall take the liberty of presenting it in full:

"Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives: I am not insensible to the patriotic motives which have prompted you to do me the honor to invite me to address you on the momentous issues now presented in the condition of our country. With a heart filled with sadness and grief, I proceed to comply with your request.

"For the first time since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, a widespread conspiracy exists to destroy the best government the sun of heaven ever shed its rays upon. Hostile armies are now marching upon the Federal Capitol, with a view of planting a revolutionary flag upon its dome; seizing the National archives; taking captive the President elected by the votes of the people, and holding him in the hands of secessionists and disunionists. A war of aggression and of extermination is being waged against the Government established by our fathers. The boast has gone forth by the authorities of this revolutionary Government that on the first day of May the revolutionary flag shall float from the walls of the Capitol at Washington, and that on the fourth day of July the Rebel army shall hold possession of the Hall of Independence in Philadelphia.

"The simple question presented to us is, whether we will wait for the enemy to carry out his boast of making war upon our soil; or whether we will rush as one man to the defence of the Government and its capital, and defend it from the hands of all assailants who have threatened to destroy it. Already the piratical flag has been unfurled against the commerce of the United States. Letters of marque have been issued, appealing to the pirates of the world to assemble under that revolutionary flag and commit depredations on the commerce carried on under the Stars and Stripes. The navigation of our great river into the Gulf of Mexico is obstructed. Hostile batteries have been planted upon its banks; custom houses have already been established; and we are now required to pay tribute and taxes, without having a voice in making the laws imposing them, or having a share in the proceeds after they have been collected. The question is, whether this war of aggression shall proceed, and we remain with folded arms, inattentive spectators; or whether we shall meet the aggressors at the threshold and turn back the tide of revolution and usurpation.

"So long as there was a hope of peaceful solution, I prayed and implored for compromise. I can appeal to my countrymen with confidence that I have spared no effort, omitted no opportunity, to secure a peaceful solution of all these troubles, and thus restore peace, happiness, and fraternity to the country. When all propositions of peace fail, and a war of aggression is proclaimed, there is but one course left for the patriot, and that is to rally under that flag which has waved over the capitol from the days of Washington, and around the Government established by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and their compeers.

"What is the alleged cause for this invasion of the rights and authority of the Government of the United States? The cause alleged is that the institutions of the Southern States are not safe under the Federal Government. What evidence has been presented that they are insecure? I appeal to every man within the sound of my voice to tell me at what period from the time that Washington was inaugurated down to this hour, have the rights of the Southern States—the rights of the slave-holders—been more secure than they are at this moment? When in the whole history of this Government have they stood on so firm a basis? For the first time in the history of this republic, there is no restriction by act of Congress upon the institution of slavery, anywhere within the limits of the United States. Then it cannot be the Territorial question that has given them cause for rebellion. When was the Fugitive Slave Law executed with more fidelity than since the inauguration of the present incumbent of the Presidential office? Let the people of Chicago speak and tell us when were the laws of the land executed with as much firmness and fidelity, so far as the fugitive slaves are concerned, as they are now. Can any man tell me of any one act of aggression that has been committed or attempted since the last Presidential election, that justifies this violent disruption of the Federal Union?

"I ask you to reflect, and then point out any one act that has been done—any one duty that has been omitted to be done—of which any one of these disunionists can justly complain. Yet we are told, simply because a certain political party has succeed in a Presidential election, they choose to consider that their liberties are not safe, and therefore they are justified in breaking up the Government.

"I had supposed that it was a cardinal and fundamental principle of our system of government that the decision of the people at the ballot box, without fraud, according to the forms of the Constitution, was to command the implicit obedience of every good citizen. If defeat at a Presidential election is to justify the minority, or any portion of the minority, in raising the traitorous hand of rebellion against the constituted authorities, you will find the future history of the United States written in the history of Mexico. According to my reading of Mexican history, there has never been one presidential term, from the time of the Revolution of 1820 down to this day, when the candidate elected by the people ever served his four years. In every instance, either the defeated candidate has seized upon the Presidential chair by use of the bayonet, or he has turned out the duly elected President before his term expired. Are we to inaugurate this Mexican system in the United States of America? Suppose the case to be reversed. Suppose the disunion candidate had been elected by any means—I care not what, if by any means in accordance with the forms of the Constitution —at the last Presidential election; then, suppose the Republicans had raised a rebellion against his authority—in that case you would have found me tendering my best efforts and energies to John C. Breckinridge to put down the Republican rebels. And if you had attempted such a rebellion I would have justified him in calling forth all the power and energies of this country to have crushed you out.

"The first duty of an American citizen, or of a citizen of any constitutional Government, is obedience to the Constitution and laws of his country. I have no apprehension that any man in Illinois, or beyond the limits of our own beloved State, will misconstrue or misunderstand my motive. So far as any of the partisan questions are concerned, I stand in equal, irreconcilable, and undying opposition both to the Republicans and the secessionists. You all know that I am a very good partisan fighter in partisan times, and I trust you will find me equally as good a patriot when the country is in danger.

"Now permit me to say to the assembled Representatives and Senators of our beloved States, composed of men of both political parties, in my opinion it is your duty to lay aside, for the time being, your party creeds and party platforms; to dispense with your party organizations and partisan appeals; to forget that you were ever divided, until you have rescued the Government and the country from their assailants. When this paramount duty shall have been performed, it will be proper for each of us to resume our respective political positions according to our convictions of public duty. Give me a country first, that my children may live in peace; then we will have a theatre for our party organizations to operate upon.

"Are we to be called upon to fold our arms, allow the national capital to be seized by a military force under a foreign revolutionary flag; to see the archives of the Government in the hands of a people who affect to despise the flag and Government of the United States? I am not willing to be expelled by military force, nor to fly from the Federal capitol. It has been my daily avocation six months in the year, for eighteen years, to walk into that marble building, and from its portico to survey a prosperous, happy, and united country on both sides of the Potomac. I believe I may with confidence appeal to the people of every section of the country to bear testimony that I have been as thoroughly national in my political opinions and actions as any man that has lived in my day. And I believe if I should make an appeal to the people of the State of Illinois, or of the Northern States, for their impartial verdict, they would say that whatever errors I have committed have been in leaning too far to the Southern section of the Union against my own. I think I can appeal to friend and foe—I use the term in a political sense, and I trust I use the word foe in a past sense —I can appeal to them with confidence, that I have never pandered to the prejudice or passion of my section against the minority section of this Union; and I will say to you now, with all frankness and in all sincerity, that I will never sanction nor acquiesce in any warfare whatever upon the constitutional rights or domestic institutions of the people of the Southern States. On the contrary, if there was an attempt to invade these rights—to stir up servile insurrection among their people—I would rush to their rescue, and interpose with whatever of strength I might possess to defend them from such a calamity. While I will never invade them—while I will never fail to defend and protect their rights to the full extent that a fair and liberal construction of the Constitution can give them—they must distinctly understand that I will never acquiesce in their invasion of our constitutional rights.

"It is a crime against the inalienable and indefeasible rights of every American citizen to attempt to destroy the Government under which we were born. It is a crime against constitutional freedom and the hopes of the friends of freedom throughout the wide world to attempt to blot out the United States from the map of Christendom. Yet this attempt is now being made. The Government of our fathers is to be overthrown and destroyed. The capital that bears the name of the Father of his Country is to be bombarded and levelled with the earth among the rubbish and the dust of things that are past. The records of your Government are to be scattered to the four winds of heaven. The constituted authorities, placed there by the same high authority that placed Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Jackson in the chair, are to be captured and carried off, to become a byword and a scorn to the nations of the world.

"You may think that I am drawing a picture that is overwrought. No man who has spent the last week in the city of Washington will believe that I have done justice to it. You have all the elements of the French Revolution surrounding the capital now, and threatening it with its terrors. Not only is our constitutional Government to be stricken down; not only is our flag to be blotted out; but the very foundations of social order are to be undermined and destroyed; the demon of destruction is to be let loose over the face of the land, a reign of terror and mob law is to prevail in each section of the Union, and the man who dares to plead for the cause of justice and moderation in either section is to be marked down as a traitor to his section. If this state of things is allowed to go on, how long before you will have the guillotine in active operation?

"I appeal to you, my countrymen—men of all parties—not to allow your passions to get the better of your judgment. Do not allow your vengeance upon the authors of this great iniquity to lead you into rash, and cruel, and desperate acts upon loyal citizens who may differ with you in opinion. Let the spirit of moderation and of justice prevail. You cannot expect, within so few weeks after an excited political canvass, that every man can rise to the high and patriotic level of forgetting his partisan prejudices and sacrifice everything upon the altar of his country; but allow me to say to you, whom I have opposed and warred against with an energy you will respect—allow me to say to you, you will not be true to your country if you ever attempt to manufacture partisan capital out of the misfortunes of your country. When calling upon Democrats to rally to the tented field, leaving wife, child, father, and mother behind them to rush to the rescue of the President that you elected, do not make war upon them and try to manufacture partisan capital at their expense out of a struggle in which they are engaged from the holiest and purest of motives.

"Then I appeal to you, my own Democratic friends—those men that have never failed to rally under the glorious banner of the country whenever an enemy at home or abroad has dared to assail it—to you with whom it has always been my pride to act—do not allow the mortification, growing out of a defeat in a partisan struggle, and the elevation of a party to power that we firmly believe to be dangerous to the country—do not let that convert you from patriots into traitors to your native land. Whenever our Government is assailed, when hostile armies are marching under new and odious banners against the Government of our country, the shortest way to peace is the most stupendous and unanimous preparations for war. The greater unanimity, the less blood will be shed. The more prompt and energetic the movement, and the more imposing in numbers, the shorter will be the struggle.

"Every friend of freedom—every champion and advocate of constitutional liberty throughout the land—must feel that this cause is his own. There is and should be nothing disagreeable or humiliating to men who have differed in times of peace on every question that could divide fellow men, to rally in concert in defence of the country and against all assailants. While all the States of this Union, and every citizen of every State has a priceless legacy dependent upon the success of our efforts to maintain this Government, we in the great valley of the Mississippi have peculiar interests and inducements to the struggle. What is the attempt now being made? Seven States of the Union chose to declare that they will no longer obey the Constitution of the United States; that they will withdraw from the Government established by our fathers; that they will dissolve without our consent the bonds that have united us together. But, not content with that, they proceed to invade and obstruct our dearest and most inalienable rights, secured by the Constitution. One of their first acts is to establish a battery of cannon upon the banks of the Mississippi, on the dividing line between the States of Mississippi and Tennessee, and require every steamer that passes down the river to come to under their guns to receive a custom-house officer on board, to prescribe where the boat may land and upon what terms it may put out a barrel of flour or a cask of bacon.

"We are called upon to sanction this policy. Before consenting to their right to commit such acts, I implore you to consider that the same principle which will allow the cotton States to exclude us from the ports of the gulf, would authorize the New England States and New York and Pennsylvania to exclude us from the Atlantic, and the Pacific States to exclude us from the ports of that ocean. Whenever you sanction this doctrine of secession, you authorize the States bordering upon the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to withdraw from us, form alliance among themselves, and exclude us from the markets of the world and from communication with all the rest of Christendom. Not only this, but there follows a tariff on imports, levying taxes upon every pound of tea and coffee and sugar and every yard of cloth that we may import for our consumption; the levying too of an export duty upon every bushel of corn and every pound of meat we may choose to send to the markets of the world to pay for our imports.

"Bear in mind that these very cotton States, who in former times have been so boisterous in their demands for free trade, have, among their first acts, established an export duty on cotton for the first time in American history.

"It is an historical fact, well known to every man who has read the debates of the convention which framed the Constitution, that the Southern States refused to become parties to the Constitution unless there was an express provision in the Constitution prohibiting Congress to levy an export duty on any product of the country. No sooner have these cotton States seceded than an export duty is levied, and if they will levy it on their own cotton do you not think they will levy it on our pork and our beef and our corn and our wheat and our manufactured articles, and all we have to sell? Then what is the proposition? It is to enable the tier of States bordering on the Atlantic and the Pacific and on the Gulf, surrounding us on all sides, to withdraw from our Union, form alliances among themselves, and then levy taxes on us without our consent, and collect revenues without giving us any just proportion or any portion of the amount collected. Can we submit to taxation without representation? Can we permit nations foreign to us to collect revenues off our products, the fruits of our industry? I ask the citizens of Illinois—I ask every citizen in the great basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghenies, in the valley of the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri to tell me whether he is willing to sanction a line of policy that may isolate us from the markets of the world and make us dependent provinces upon powers that thus choose to surround and hem us in?

"I warn you, my countrymen, whenever you permit this to be done in the Southern States, New York will very soon follow their example. New York—that great port where two-thirds of all our revenue is collected, and whence two-thirds of our products are exported, will not long be able to resist the temptation of taxing fifteen millions of people in the great West, when she can monopolize the resources and release her own people thereby from any taxation whatsoever. Hence I say to you, my countrymen, from the best consideration I have been able to give to this subject, after the most mature reflection and thorough investigation, I have arrived at the conclusion that, come what may,—war if it must be, although I deplore it as a great calamity,—yet, come what may, the people of the Mississippi Valley can never consent to be excluded from free access to the ports of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico.

"Hence, I repeat, that while I am not prepared to take up arms or to sanction war upon the rights of the Southern States, upon their domestic institutions, upon their rights of person or property, but, on the contrary, would rush to their defence and protect them from assault, I will never cease to urge my countrymen to take up arms and to fight to the death in defence of our indefeasible rights.

"Hence, if a war does come, it will be a war of self-defence on our part. It will be a war in defence of our own just rights; in defence of the Government which we have inherited as a priceless legacy from our patriotic fathers; in defence of those great rights of the freedom of trade, commerce, transit, and intercourse from the centre to the circumference of our great continent. These are rights we can never surrender.

"I have struggled almost against hope to avert the calamities of war and to effect a reunion and reconciliation with our brethren of the South. I yet hope it may be done, but I am not able to point out to you how it may be effected. Nothing short of Providence can reveal to us the issue of this great struggle. Bloody—calamitous —I fear it will be. May we so conduct it if a collision must come, that we will stand justified in the eyes of Him who knows our hearts and who will judge our every act. We must not yield to resentments, nor to the spirit of vengeance, much less to the desire for conquest or ambition.

"I see no path of ambition open in a bloody struggle for triumph over my own countrymen. There is no path for ambition open for me in a divided country, after having so long served a united and glorious country. Hence, whatever we may do must be the result of conviction, of patriotic duty—the duty that we owe to ourselves, to our posterity, and to the friends of constitutional liberty and self-government throughout the world.

"My friends, I can say no more. To discuss these topics is the most painful duty of my life. It is with a sad heart—with a grief that I have never before experienced, that I have to contemplate this fearful struggle; but I believe in my conscience that it is a duty we owe ourselves and our children and our God, to protect this Government and that flag from every assailant, be he who he may."

Of all the members of that joint assembly who listened to the eloquence of Senator Douglas that evening, forty-nine years ago, aside from Dr. William Jayne of Springfield, and myself, I do not know of a single one now living.

After he concluded his address, the joint session of the Legislature dissolved. He and I remained together in conversation, and I accompanied him to his hotel. During that talk he expressed to me the great anxiety which he felt for the safety of the country and the preservation of the Union. I am satisfied that it was his ambition to enter the army and possibly lead it in suppressing the Rebellion. What would have been the result in that case, no one can tell; but I am inclined to think that he would have made a very great general.

Senator Douglas's Springfield speech had a tremendous effect on public opinion. It brought his followers, and they were legion in all parts of the country, to the support of the Government and the North.

Senator Douglas went from Springfield to Chicago, where he delivered another eloquent address, along the same lines as the one delivered at Springfield, to tens of thousands of people. Very soon thereafter he was taken ill with pneumonia and passed away.

He was a man of extraordinary intellect. He did his full part, at one of the most critical periods of our history, in saving the Nation. His speeches in and out of Congress are among the most able and eloquent delivered by any American statesman.

CHAPTER VI SPEAKER OF THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE AND A MEMBER OF CONGRESS 1860 to 1865

The election of Mr. Lincoln was made the pretext for secession. It has always seemed to me that the South was determined to secede no matter at what cost; and it has also seemed to me that this determination was not due to the great body of the people of the South, than whom there were no better, but to the jealous politicians of that section, who saw the gradual growth in wealth and power of the Northern States threaten their domination of the National Government, which they had firmly held since the days of Washington. They saw that domination slipping away, and they determined to form a nation of their own—in which slavery, indeed, would be paramount; but it was not so much slavery as it was their own desire for control that influenced them.

As soon, therefore, as Mr. Lincoln was elected President they began the organization of a Government of their own. President Buchanan declared in his message that the Southern States had no right to secede—"unless they wanted to," as some one aptly expressed it; in other words, that he had no right under the Constitution to keep them forcibly in the Union, and thus the constitutional opinions of the President harmonized effectively with the purposes of the secessionists. Fortunate it was that Mr. Buchanan had so short a term remaining after the election of Mr. Lincoln. Had a year or two elapsed, the Confederacy would have been firmly and irrevocably established.

It has never been quite clear to my mind whether Mr. Buchanan cared to preserve the Union or not. In the heat and passion of that day, we all thought he was a traitor. As I look back now and think of it, remembering his long and distinguished service to the country in almost every capacity—as a legislator, as a diplomat, as Secretary of State, as President, I think now he was only weak. His term was about expiring, and he saw and feared the awful consequences of a civil war.

One State after another seceded; the United States' arms and arsenals were seized; on January 9, the Star of the West, carrying supplies to Fort Sumter, was fired upon and driven off. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas went out. The Confederate States of America were organized in the capital of Alabama on the fourth of February, and Jefferson Davis was elected President.

We watched with great interest the famous Peace Conference which met in Washington and over which John Tyler, ex-President of the United States, presided. It sat during the month of February, preceding Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, and recommended the adoption of seven additional articles to the Constitution, which were afterwards rejected by the Senate of the United States.

But the fourth of March finally came, and new life was infused into the national councils.

Mr. Lincoln's speeches on his way East were a disappointment, in that they failed in the least to abate the rising Southern storm; the calmly firm tone of his inaugural address impressed the North, but his appeals to the South were in vain. Said he:

"I declare that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. . . . The Union of these States is perpetual. It is safe to assert that no Government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts."

It was a notable appeal that he made, in closing, to the
Southerners:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.'

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

At the same time that Mr. Lincoln was first elected President of the United States, I was for the second time elected to the Legislature of Illinois. I received the vote of what they called the Republicans, or Free-soil men, and of those who were previously known as Fillmore men. I was always in thorough accord with Mr. Lincoln in political sentiment, though I had supported Fillmore rather than Fremont in 1856. I most heartily supported Lincoln's candidacy, and as candidate for the Legislature received more votes than Mr. Lincoln received in Sangamon County. Douglas carried the county as against Lincoln, and I carried it as against my opponent. There was great enthusiasm for Mr. Lincoln in the county, but he was so positive and outspoken in his convictions on the slavery question that he failed to get a considerable number of votes; many went to other Republicans who did not express their views so vigorously as he did. Of course, what he lost at home because of zeal and earnestness in his cause, was more than made up to him on the wider field covered by his candidacy.

Stephen A. Hurlbut was a member of that Legislature, and afterward became a prominent general in the army. I might say that General Hurlbut and Lawrence Church were two very strong men, both from the northern part of the State, and both became prominent in the public service. I might say also that but for these two men, who put me forward as a candidate for the Speakership, I probably would not have become a candidate. On the Saturday night before the Monday on which the Legislature was to convene, they pressed me so strongly that I consented, and became the nominee of my party associates. J. W. Singleton was the Democratic nominee. Before the Legislature convened, and during the intervening Sunday, a feeling got abroad among the older members of the Legislature that I was too young to be trusted in such a responsible position as that of Speaker. When I came down-town on Sunday I found that feeling prevailing.

I at once took notice of it, and stated that if there was any feeling that I had done wrong in becoming a candidate, I would submit the question to another test of the sense of the Republicans in the Legislature, and if they thought I ought not to have the position I would cheerfully yield to their judgment. The caucus was called together Monday morning, and I stated that I had heard that there was some dissatisfaction, and I desired to have another vote. A vote was accordingly taken, and I was again nominated, and by a larger vote then in the first instance; whereupon the older men gave in, and I was duly elected, receiving thirty-nine votes to twenty-nine cast for the Democratic candidate.

I think I made more friends, in the conduct of the office of Speaker during that term, than I ever did afterwards; and in subsequent campaigns I was frequently gratified to find men, some of them Democrats, who had been in the Legislature with me at that time, working for me with a stronger zeal and earnestness because of the associations and intimate relations there formed and cemented. All classes, Republicans and Democrats alike, took occasion to manifest their satisfaction, and some who became my friends then continued so as long as they lived. I think, of all that Legislature, I am the only one left.

A little incident occurred at a reception given by Mr. Lincoln after he was elected President, but before he left his home to come to Washington, that vitally affected my life. In speaking to the President, I expressed a desire to visit Washington while he was President of the United States. He replied heartily: "Mr. Speaker, come on." And that was about the origin of my thinking seriously that I would like to come to Washington as a member of Congress.

The more I thought of the idea, the more interested I became, and I so shaped matters during that session of the Legislature as to secure a district in which some Republican could hope to be elected. In the apportionment under the census of 1860, I had our Congressional district elongated to the north and south rather than to the east and west, and let it be known that I would be a candidate.

But when the time came for a nomination the Hon. Leonard Swett, who was then a prominent lawyer and politician, also took the field to secure the Republican nomination. He visited Springfield, and persuaded some of his friends there that he ought to be the nominee, and they determined to try their hands toward securing my withdrawal, if possible by persuasion. They sent for me to come to the library, where they were proposing to hold a meeting. I went over, and found that their project was to get me to withdraw in favor of Swett, and I declined. But I said I would "draw straws," or assent to any other fair means that could be found by which it was to be settled who was to be the nominee of the party. Then, after some further parleying, I finally left the conference.

That evening after dusk I met Swett on the street. We sat down upon the curbstone, as it was growing a little dark, and talked the matter over. Swett said to me that he was an older man than I was; that he had been knocked about a good deal, and, though he had done much work for the party, he had never got anything; and if the present opportunity for reward for services were allowed to pass him by another opportunity was not likely, at his age, to come to him. Finally, I said: "Mr. Swett, if you had come to me and made this suggestion at first, I would have been very glad indeed to make the concession to you, and I am ready to do so now. Here is my hand on it, and I will help you at the convention." He became the party candidate by general consent, as I remember it. At all events he was the candidate, and unfortunately he was beaten at the polls. That was in 1862. So that while the Congressional district was made by me, and for myself, I gave way to Mr. Swett, and the opposition carried it. Two years afterwards I was the candidate and was elected.

The majority in the counties composing the district was ordinarily Republican. As a result of Mr. Swett's defeat, he left the district, though a very prominent lawyer, and went to Chicago, never to return to the Congressional district in which he had lived so many years, really quitting politics entirely.

I suppose I ought to state the fact that, having made the district for myself and then given it up to Mr. Swett, I determined to be a candidate at the next election; whereupon I found that Mr. James C. Conkling, a friend of mine, and a special friend of Mr. Lincoln also, some of whose family are still living, was disposed to try for the same office. I made up my mind that in order to keep myself in trim for the future it was well to keep in touch with the voters; and I determined to run for the State Senate, though the four counties composing the Senatorial district were all Democratic and all in the Congressional district in which Swett was the defeated candidate, yet I desired to run for the Senate, in order to keep Conkling from getting such a hold on the district as to strengthen him for the contest two years afterwards.

So I made the run, and was beaten, of course, every county in the district being Democratic; and the rest of my plans also worked out as I had calculated they would.

Soon after I was elected to Congress, and soon after Mr. Lincoln was elected the second time, I came on to Washington. Having been intimate with Mr. Nicolay and Mr. Hay who were his secretaries, I was in the habit of frequenting their rooms without ceremony. One evening, just after dusk, I went to the White House and quietly, as usual, entered Mr. Nicolay's room. It so happened that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, with some other cabinet officers, were in the room, holding a consultation. I had opened the door before I observed who were there. President Lincoln saw me quite as soon as I saw him, and I was very much embarrassed. He sang out cheerily, "Come in!" and turning to his Secretary of State, he added, "Seward, you remember my old friend Stuart? Here is the boy that beat him." I stayed for only a moment, and then went out. That is the nearest I ever came to participating in a cabinet meeting.

That incident in my life, as I now look back, punctuates, in my individual way of thinking at this moment, the substantial close of what was mortal in that great man's earthly career. The close of the four years of civil war was clearly in sight. It was in many respects a record-making and a record-breaking war. The navies of the world, rendered helpless by the incidental effects of its thundering guns, had to be rebuilt. For the first time in the world's history the railroad and the electric telegraph played a very considerable part. The grip of insatiate despotism on Democratic institutions was effectually loosened far and wide. For the first time in war the lessons taught in the art of warfare by Alexander and Caesar were utterly ignored, and the "Maxims of Napoleon" were relegated to the shelf, there to gather dust. In short, in inaugurated a new era in the history not only of our own country but of the entire world.

CHAPTER VII LINCOLN 1860 to 1864

As days and years pass by and an enlightened humanity studies and comprehends the real greatness and simplicity of Abraham Lincoln, he comes nearer and becomes dearer to all. No weak compliment of words can add to his renown, nor will any petty criticism detract from the glory which has crowned his memory. The passing of time has only added brightness to his character; the antagonisms of bitter war have left no shade upon his name; and the hatred which, for a brief time, spent itself in harmless words has turned to reverence and love.

Had he lived until February 12, 1911, he would have been one hundred and two years old. Less than forty-five years ago, in the very prime of life, he was the Chief Magistrate of the Nation, guiding and controlling it in its great struggle for national existence. Such a vast accumulation of history has been compressed into those years, and such a wonderful panorama of events has passed before us in that comparatively brief time, that we are apt to think of Lincoln as of the long ago, as almost a contemporary of Washington and of the Revolutionary fathers. The immensity of the history which has been crowded into those forty-five years has distorted our mental vision, as ordinary objects are sometimes distorted by refraction. Yet when we reflect, the distortion disappears. But the wonder still remains. The years during which the deeds of Lincoln have been a memory to us do not carry us back to the early days of our own country. They do not carry us back even to the time of Jackson, Webster, Clay, or Calhoun; yet the sacred halo of patriotic veneration invests as completely the name of Lincoln as of Washington.